Free Republic

Some in anguish, some in fear, Venezuelans raced for home on Tuesday after the government announced the death of President Hugo Chavez, the firebrand socialist who led the nation for 14 years. Vice President Nicolas Maduro's voice broke and tears ran down his face as he appeared on national television to announce that Chavez died at 4:25 p.m. local time (3:55 p.m EST; 1755 GMT) "after battling hard against an illness over nearly two years."

The sight of First Daughter Malia Obama at a dinner this weekend with her friends prompted one spy to describe the meal as a “young girl’s social power club gathering.” On Saturday night, President Obama’s elder daughter, 14, was spotted at giant Chelsea restaurant Buddakan with eight of her friends, including a daughter of New York Giants chairman Steve Tisch. According to witnesses, the girls were chaperoned by four parents and five security guards who dined at the table directly next to them. “This place is so hip” while they dined on rock shrimp, edamame dumplings, short ribs, lobster fried...

A 22-carat dictator: Robert Mugabe has gold coins minted to celebrate his 89th birthday in poverty-stricken Zimbabwe • Four-tier cake made in his honour at Zimbabwe's state house party • Opposition accuses his party supporters of killing 12-year-old boy Zimbabwe is one of the poorest country's on Earth, but clearly despot Robert Mugabe doesn't seem to care on his 89th birthday. The president celebrated it by immortalising himself in freshly minted gold coins and held a lavish party with a giant cake. Guests, including his wife, first lady Grace, tucked into the four-tier treat made in his honour at the...

Beam me up, Yoda: Obama flubs 'Star Trek' term By DARLENE SUPERVILLE WASHINGTON (AP) — He's not a dictator and won't entertain the idea of a "Jedi mind-meld" with opponents. There's no "secret formula or special sauce" he can slip foes to make them see things his way. And not to worry, he says, the situation may look dire but won't be an "apocalypse." So who was the guy in a suit and tie who showed up Friday in the White House briefing room, mixing metaphors and references to "Star Wars" and "Star Trek"? "I am not a dictator. I'm...

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-ive-become-more-humble_704715.html Obama: I've 'Become More Humble' 2:08 PM, Feb 26, 2013 • By DANIEL HALPER President Barack Obama admitted today in a Virginia speech that he's "become more humble": "But in order for us to make that happen I'm going to need you. You know, the one thing about being president is, after four years, you get pretty humble. You'd think maybe you wouldn't but actually you become more humble--you realize what you don't know," said Obama.

He continued, "So, ultimately, if Mitch McConnell or John Boehner say that we need to go to catch a plane, I can't have Secret Service block the door way, right?" The comment was in response to a reporter's question.

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Per Fox, Obama knows he will not get gun control through Congress so he is preparing to order federal agencies to require private citizens to obey his gun control measures as a prerequisite for the public to do business with the government.

Ted Nugent, the 64 year old rock star and NRA board member, unloaded his opinion on current gun control measures, our elected leaders and gun free zones to the team at Guns.com while at the SHOT show. The SHOT show, being held this year in Las Vegas, is the nation’s largest shooting industry trade show with 60,000 attendees. Nugent is a gun rights quote machine. “If you want another Concord Bridge, I’ve got some buddies” “Anyone who questions the most basic fundamental right of self-defense is a dangerous, freedom threatening, scary person that we must beat down” On gun free...

1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system. 2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system. 3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system. 4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks. 5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full...

Group with enormous influence on White House issues specific plans A progressive group with enormous influence on White House policy has issued specific recommendations to the Obama administration on how to push sweeping gun control, including suggestions for executive orders. The Center for American Progress released an 11-page proposal, reviewed by WND, calling for a full ban on the sale of assault weapons and magazines with a capacity for more than 10 bullets. CAP suggests legislation to require licensing and transfer restrictions on new and existing assault rifles. The CAP paper, delivered to the White House last week, recommends that...

Perhaps the only truth to come out of the White House Commie's mouth today was when he appeared proud of the label put around his neck by conservatives that he is "A Big-Spending Socialist"

Hollywood leftist Sean Penn’s support of the belligerent socialist leader of Venezuela is well-known. Around this time last December a Venezuelan-raised actress called him out as a “communist a**hole” at an airport for his stance, but Penn has steadfastly supported the man who called President Bush “the devil” at the United Nations headquarters in 2006 and accused the United States of giving him cancer. Saying journalists who refer to Chavez as a “dictator” should be jailed (which should tell you a little something about how he understands freedom), Penn claimed in 2010: “Who do you know here who’s gone through...

For months, federal agencies and the White House have sidetracked dozens of major regulations that cover everything from power plant pollution to workplace safety to a crackdown on Wall Street. The rules had been largely put on hold during the presidential campaign as the White House sought to quiet Republican charges that President Barack Obama was an overzealous regulator who is killing U.S. jobs. But since the election, the Obama administration has quietly reopened the regulations pipeline. In recent weeks, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed rules to update water quality guidelines for beaches and other recreational waters and deal...

An Egyptian panel rushed through a draft constitution seen as undermining basic freedoms on Friday, resulting in mass protests in Cairo. AFP reported that tens of thousands of protesters rallied as the opposition piled pressure on President Mohammed Morsi. "Down with the constitutional assembly," vast crowds armed with megaphones chanted as they filed into Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the uprising that overthrew Hosni Mubarak in early 2011. Banners condemned "dictatorial Morsi" while protesters shouted "down with the rule of the Guide," a reference to the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, through whose ranks Morsi rose before becoming president....

"Joe Biden was in Costco and he wanted to buy some of this stuff, but I told him he had too much work to do. I wasn't going to have him building roller coasters all day long. Now, of course, Santa delivers everywhere. I've been keeping my own naughty and nice list for Washington, so you should keep your eye on who gets some K'NEX this year. There are going to be some members of Congress who get them, and some who don't," President Obama said Friday at a rally where he pushed Congress to avoid the fiscal cliff.

President Obama's fleeting mention of the need for stronger gun controls at a presidential debate last month was hardly the kind of forceful political statement needed to address the scourge of gun violence in this country. Even his tepid remark was considered by the nation's gun owners as a threat to take away their firearms. In what amounts to a buyers' panic, they are again ramping up gun and ammunition sales as they did four years ago, convinced that Mr. Obama intends a gun-control crackdown. Yet in his first term, Mr. Obama did nothing to cross the gun lobby, and...

Karl Marx was asked once how he could justify advocating a political system of slavery for the individual, which is what socialism is. He replied that, socialism is not slavery; it is a "new kind of freedom." As all perceptive students of history know, the intellectuals of Europe bought into such Alice in Wonderland sophistry and plunged into the twentieth century nightmare of collectivist tyranny. But unfortunately so did American intellectuals about 30 years later when the Progressives of Woodrow Wilson's era established the Creature from Jekyl Island to usher in centralized government banking and the progressive income tax to...

Comments about TCM movie "Gabriel Over the White House" missed the real core issue: totalitarian dictatorship. William Randolph] Hearst believed that the country needed a dictator, but he wasn't sure FDR knew how to fill the role.