Free Republic

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) To the average American, ObamaCare is part web site disaster, part shattered campaign promise writ very, very large. Millions of Americans have already been forced out of their existing health care policies, a number that may skyrocket in the new year. Russell Simmons sees it differently. The hip-hop mogul says ObamaCare is already so successful it's saved thousands, if not millions of lives. "Yes, we initially wanted single payer, and we had to compromise back in 2009 for the Affordable Care Act. But, it is a damn good piece of legislation that has already saved hundreds of thousands, if...

As President Obama stumbles and fumbles his way through his second term, his mistakes are impossible to overlook. From his handling of the turmoil in the Middle East to his failed economic policies to the disastrous rollout of Obamacare, it has been a year of train wrecks for the President. Opponents of President Obama have plenty of ammunition to use as they criticize his second term agenda. Almost all of these critics have focused their attention on Obama’s policies, not his race. Despite the facts, the President’s defenders continually use the race card to invalidate criticism from his opponents. The...

Poor Carl Bernstein: he's suffering a bad bout of MSM nostalgia. He longs for the good old media days when the news was dominated by the likes of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the then three broadcast networks. They could slam Republicans with impunity, without any conservative media counterweight. In covering the shutdown, today's media culture, kvetches Carl, is just too darn fair and balanced in its treatment of those lying, McCarthyite Republicans. That's why President Obama and the congressional Dems' poll numbers are surprisingly bad. Such was Carl's complaint on today's Morning Joe. View the video...

WASHINGTON) -- In a roundtable discussion on This Week, ABC's Cokie Roberts reflected on the progress in the United States 50 years after the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I have a Dream’ speech. Roberts said, “Growing up in the Deep South in the era of Jim Crow, the difference is dramatic… It’s a great testament to the fact that when you do something like pass a voting rights bill. That makes a difference.” .... “What’s going on about voting rights is downright evil because it is something that really needs to keep going forward not backward.”

“This growing inequality,” President Obama said during his recent Knox College speech, “is not just morally wrong, it’s bad economics.”A strong statement — but one not supported by data, suggests a blockbuster new study by economists Steven Kaplan (University of Chicago) and Joshua Rauh (Stanford University). They examine two possible explanations for the rise in top-end inequality in their paper “It’s the Market: The Broad-Based Rise in the Return to Top Talent”:1. The Superstar Syndrome. Technology and globalization has enabled highly talented and educated individuals to manage or perform on a larger scale, “applying their talent to greater pools...

Four days after slamming the doors of the White House closed, Barack "It's-not-my-fault" Obama says he's going to ask the Secret Service if to reconsider. Contradicting previous statements, Obama told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News this morning that neither he nor his staff had anything to do with closing the public out of the White House. This time, he threw the Secret Service under the bus. “I have to say this was not a decision that went up to the White House,” Obama said in the interview with Stephanopoulos. “But what the Secret Service explained to us was that they’re...

Drone Wars: A government memo concludes the U.S. can order the killing of American citizens believed to be tied to al-Qaida, with the White House acting as judge, jury and executioner. Gee, what about due process? Those of us who remember the condemnation and scorn heaped on President George W. Bush by liberals and civil libertarians for his post-9/11 security measures are bemused by the Obama administration's official declaration of the right to kill Americans abroad through the use of drone strikes. And it's based on the idea that a single White House official can decide whether the individual in...

The White House has released a picture purporting to show President Obama "skeet shooting" at Camp David. An activity he claims he does "all the time." The White House also warns all you mischievous internet types to not mess around with the picture: "This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement...

Even as President Obama travels to Las Vegas Tuesday to call for legalizing illegal immigrants, the latest numbers from the U.S. Border Patrol suggest that the flow across the nation’s southwest border jumped by 9 percent up last year. The Border Patrol made 356,873 arrests along the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2012, up from 327,577 in 2011, according to figures obtained by the Associated Press and confirmed by The Washington Times. Border Patrol officials estimate that apprehensions are a good proxy for illegal crossings, so when the numbers go up, it means that the flow of illegal immigrants is...

America's downfall doesn't begin with the "low-information voter." It starts with the no-knowledge student. For decades, collectivist agitators in our schools have chipped away at academic excellence in the name of fairness, diversity and social justice. "Progressive" reformers denounced Western civilization requirements, the Founding Fathers and the Great Books as racist. They attacked traditional grammar classes as irrelevant in modern life. They deemed ability grouping of students (tracking) bad for self-esteem. They replaced time-tested rote techniques and standard algorithms with fuzzy math, inventive spelling and multicultural claptrap. Under President Obama, these top-down mal-formers -- empowered by Washington education bureaucrats...

Street vendors and souvenir stores across Washington, D.C. are selling posters depicting President Obama as Jesus Christ — and one national news publication called him the “Second Coming.” The poster, which does not have the official endorsement of the White House, features an image of the president in prayer with the headline, “Prophecy Fulfilled.” “Barak is of Hebrew origin and its meaning is ‘flash of lightning,” the poster notes, referencing a passage in in the Old Testament book of Judges. Hussein, they allege, is a Biblical word meaning “good and handsome.” “So you see, Barak was destined to be a...

A male juvenile is in custody this morning following a shooting in the South Valley that left five people dead. In an email from Bernalillo County officials, a shooting took place on Long Lane SW Saturday evening. Deputies were dispatched and found an adult male, an adult female and three children dead. All victims appeared to have suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Multiple weapons appeared to have been used including an assault-type rifle

President Barack Obama offered on Saturday to provide any assistance the Algerian government needs after a deadly hostage siege at a desert gas plant and said the United States was seeking a "fuller understanding" from Algerian authorities of what took place there. "The thoughts and prayers of the American people are with the families of all those who were killed and injured in the terrorist attack in Algeria," Obama said in his first comments on the hostage crisis. Obama's written statement was issued by the White House after the Algerian army carried out a dramatic final assault to end a...

In remarks with Afghan president Hamid Karzai at the White House this afternoon, President Barack Obama said the U.S. has fallen "short of the ideal" in Afghanistan:

Another weapon from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agency's controversial Operation Fast and Furious was recently recovered at a Mexican crime scene, CBS News has learned. Congressional investigators say the crime scene was likely where a recent shootout took place between reported Sinaloa drug cartel members and the Mexican military, in which Sinaloa beauty queen Maria Susana Flores Gamez and four others were killed. According to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the Justice Department did not notify Congress of the Fast and Furious firearm recovery in November, even though Grassley has requested an accounting of weapons that...

On Saturday, a rich 25-year-old man, Jovan Belcher, murdered his 22-year-old girlfriend, the mother of his child. First, columnist Jason Whitlock of Fox Sports suggested that this “25-year-old kid” wasn’t responsible for his actions – it was the “gun culture” that was to blame. Then, Bob Costas of NBC repeats this idiotic notion, even though the 6’2”, 228 lb. linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs could easily have murdered his girlfriend with a knife. Now CNN is getting in on the act. Leading their website this afternoon is an op-ed from Kevin Powell, former Democratic Congressional candidate in New York,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — For nearly six years, a senior Secret Service agent kept his extramarital affair with a Mexican woman a secret from the agency responsible for protecting the president. But in the wake of an embarrassing prostitution scandal involving 13 agents and officers, Rafael Prieto’s secret was revealed by a fellow employee amid concerns the Secret Service wasn’t enforcing its rules consistently. With an internal investigation ongoing, Prieto apparently committed suicide last week, people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. Prieto, a married father assigned to the security detail for President Barack Obama, admitted the years-long relationship...

...if your friends are cokeheads, cool means being a cokehead. If your friends are leftist radicals, cool means being a leftist radical. Obama is nothing if not cool.

Is Race Behind Teen Mob Attacks? Fox 29 is taking a look at a very touchy and controversial issue: race and the recent teen mob attacks in Philadelphia. It's being talked about because of incidents the video shown only on fox 29, of a group of kids that attacked a man walking in Philadelphia’s old city neighborhood just blocks from the liberty bell. It's one of several attacks in Philadelphia in recent weeks. Three teenagers one in this video -- who we are not identifying -- turned themselves into police. Cops say they were walking home from Mastery Charter School...

Ever want to reach through your TV screen and grab somebody and scream at him? When Michele Bachmann admitted that the document George Stephanopoulos was showing her was the President’s birth certificate, and then said that the President should just release it, I wanted to throttle George. The proper response was “He did, three years ago.” Donald Trump’s grandstanding about the birther issue has forced mainstream Republicans to face the conspiracy theory or be branded idiots like Trump. With two-thirds of their base believing that the President was not born in Hawaii, and even fewer understanding that it really doesn’t...