Free Republic

Speaking before a friendly crowd of “middle-class families” at the Old Executive Office building in Washington, D.C., this afternoon, President Obama addressed the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations, claiming that the deal was not achieved in his preferred “balanced approach” because of Republicans unwilling to negotiate higher taxes on the wealthy. While noting that the current plan includes no new spending cuts, he also added that any future debt deals will have to include more tax increases. “The potential agreement that’s being talked about would not only make sure the taxes don’t go up on middle class families, it also would...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama hits the road on Monday for a Midwestern bus tour that he hopes will leave doubts over his leadership behind in Washington. But the three-day trip through Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois -- three states seen as vital to his 2012 re-election campaign -- could put him in front of voters who, polls show, are furious about political gridlock in the U.S. capital. Iowa, which launched Obama's historic journey to the White House in 2008, has recently been playing host to Republican presidential hopefuls who have aggressively slammed his record as they criss-cross the state....

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama this week takes his 2012 reelection bid cross-country, to the airwaves and to Facebook, pushing a prescription for long-term US fiscal health that includes tax hikes on the richest Americans. Obama, whose audacious 2008 White House bid leaned heavily on social networking sites, will hype his "Shared Responsibility and Shared Prosperity" plan at Facebook's Palo Alto, California headquarters on Wednesday. "I hope you'll take a break from either friending or defriending each other to RSVP at facebook.com/whitehouse," he joked in a video posted online Monday. The US president's campaign-style blitz came as Republicans redoubled...

Sarah Palin released a video Thursday that has the feel of an early campaign spot. The video, titled "Mama Grizzlies," is produced by her political action committee and splices shots of Palin speaking and appearing with supporters and at tea party rallies. Palin’s remarks in the video, which borrow heavily from her speech to the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, touts this year as the year of conservative women.