Free Republic

A moment of fun here for Senator James Inhofe, who declared victory over the global-warming hysterics this week in a speech covered by the Tulsa World. Inhofe got a few laughs from a nearly-empty room by telling Barbara Boxer that the failure of the dire predictions of disaster from last decade to come to pass showed that he had been right all along, and that they could now “stick a fork” in the effort to hobble American productivity through the restriction of carbon emissions: You Tube video U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, perhaps Congress’ most vocal skeptic of man-made global warming,...

Rudy Giulani has told associates he's not going to make a play for governor in 2010, avoiding a potentially bruising election fight in a race where Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is seen as the Democratic frontrunner, several sources told The Post. Several sources said the US Senate is seen as a strong possibility for Giuliani, as a challenge to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. The sources said it was seen as an office in which he could do well, and which could be a stepping stone should he run for president again. Giuliani started signaling to advisers and friends in the past...

Gay newspapers in several U.S. cities, including the Washington Blade, shut down on Monday, as the company that owned them, Window Media, abruptly went out of business. Window Media had been in serious financial trouble, but employees said they had expected a reorganization or sale, not a liquidation. “We found out when two of the corporate officers were waiting for us when we got to work this morning,” said Kevin Naff, editor of the Blade, a 40-year-old paper that was one of the most important publications written for a gay audience. “It’s not a complete surprise. The abruptness of it...

Copenhagen climate change agreement is impossible World leaders have finally accepted that it will be impossible to come to a deal on climate change this year and have moved their attention to setting new deadlines for a global agreement. By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent Published: 2:10PM GMT 15 Nov 2009 The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December has been billed as the world's last chance to stop global warming. But negotiations to forge a binding agreement have been hampered by a US refusal to sign up to targets on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The deadlock forced world...

Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE - News; NYSE:FRE - News), the second largest provider of U.S. residential mortgage funding, on Friday posted a loss of $5 billion in the third quarter and predicted it would need more government support amid a "prolonged deterioration" in housing. Increases in the value of securities Freddie Mac held over the period helped buoy its net worth, however, erasing its need to tap government funds for a second straight quarter to stay solvent while continuing to buy and guarantee home loans. Including a $1.3 billion dividend payment on senior preferred stock bought by the Treasury in previous...

White House spokesman Bill Burton told Fox News that President Obama's visit to the Army's top medical facility was planned before Thursday's shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 people dead and 30 wounded. In the wake of the deadliest mass shooting at a U.S. base, President Obama plans to visit Walter Reed Army Medical Center Friday. White House spokesman Bill Burton told Fox News that Obama's visit to the Army's top medical facility was planned before Thursday's shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 people dead and 30 wounded. Although it didn't appear on the White Houses'...

It is no coincidence that Barack Obama held a key campaign rally last year in front of hundreds of thousands of adoring Germans, as though he were running for Mayor of Berlin. Obama remains in many ways a quintessentially European politician, a firm believer in big government, large-scale state intervention, social liberalism, supranational institutions, and the projection of soft power abroad. His political philosophy is frequently more attuned to Brussels or Strasbourg than it is to Washington. For a host of reasons however, President Obama is increasingly viewed by his natural allies in Europe- the left-wing intelligentsia in particular –...

Washington (CNN) -- Victories in New Jersey and Virginia Tuesday provided a major shot in the arm for the Republican Party heading into the 2010 elections, but the Democratic losses of these two governorships should not be interpreted as a significant blow to President Obama. While the economy and jobs were the chief concern for voters in both states, 26 percent of New Jersey residents said property taxes was also a major issue, while another 20 percent mentioned corruption, according to CNN exit polling. In a similar CNN survey taken in Virginia, health care was the most important issue for...

We’re seeing a measure of disenchantment with Barack Obama, even among Democrats. Today the Times has a piece about that sentiment in Iowa, the New York Review of Books has a Gary Wills piece that is admiring but suggests that he become a one-term president, and environmentalists have a full-page ad in the NYT today decrying his interior department’s decision to allow a wolf kill. You see the same thing in the poll numbers and hear it in water cooler conversations.

President Barack Obama has been in office just nine months and already he is defending his legacy, pushing back more aggressively against criticism of his record on health care, climate change, closing Guantanamo, reforming immigration laws and financial regulations and managing the war in Afghanistan. For the past two weeks, as he’s jetted across the country to fill Democrats’ 2010 coffers, Obama has been test driving a new speech that sounds a lot like one he’d be giving if he were on the ballot next year: A line-item defense of his record so far, and a sober reminder to supporters...

Reporting from Kennett Square, Pa. - As he is quick to point out, President Obama is presiding over two wars, a sour economy and an epic fight to rework the nation's healthcare system. Now tack on a trio of state and local political races. With an off-year election fast approaching, Obama is stepping up his commitment to Democratic candidates in hopes that an infusion of campaign charisma might pump up turnout. What the party is finding, though, is that the electricity of 2008 is tough to recapture.

(CNN) -- Nearly a year after the presidential election, the excitement of Barack Obama's campaign has faded into the reality of an Obama White House. As observers try to determine what time it is in American politics, they arrive at opposite conclusions. To some, said Tulane University political scientist Thomas Langston, Obama is like Jimmy Carter, and the nation will soon hammer the nails into the coffin of a dying Democratic coalition just as voters, tired of the Carter "malaise" era, handed the White House to Republicans in 1980. To others, Obama has come to usher in a new understanding...

Pres. Obama has described Fox News as "operating basically as a talk-radio format" rather than as a "news outlet." When NBC's Savannah Guthrie raised [in a segment of her extended interview of the president aired on Today this morning] the issue of White House attacks on Fox News, PBO first tried to play the statesman, resorting to the old dodge about "the American people" being more interested in jobs and the situation in Afghanistan. But when politely pressed on the issue, PBO didn't hesitate to fustigate Fox. View video here.

Not much Hope but a whole lot of Change. ObamaCare plus stagnant unemployment plus dithering on Afghanistan makes for a magical brew indeed, my friends. In fact, the 9-point drop in the most recent quarter is the largest Gallup has ever measured for an elected president between the second and third quarters of his term, dating back to 1953. One president who was not elected to his first term — Harry Truman — had a 13-point drop between his second and third quarters in office in 1945 and 1946… More generally, Obama’s 9-point slide between quarters ranks as one of...

Attending a DNC fundraiser at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York City Tuesday evening, President Obama criticized the “collective amnesia” of the nation about the economic circumstances it faced a year ago, pitched a variety of policy proposals and called for Republicans to support his health care reform push, pointedly saying: “What I don’t have a lot of sympathy for are folks who are just sitting on the sidelines and rooting for failure.” “I don’t mind cleaning up the mess that some other folks made, that’s what I signed up to do, but while I’m mopping the floor, I...

Three years ago, Massachusetts passed the most sweeping healthcare bill in the country, adopting a plan that closely resembles the proposals being considered by Congress. It is a plan that now offers powerful lessons for the whole nation. The state's system, like the proposals moving toward votes in the House and Senate, focused on three goals: making medical insurance almost universal, fostering competition through a regulated insurance exchange, and helping low-income workers pay for coverage. Today, Massachusetts leads the nation with 96% of its residents covered by insurance -- an even larger share than some of the plans before Congress...

HAMMOND, La. (AP) - A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long. Neither Bardwell nor the couple immediately returned phone calls from The Associated Press. But Bardwell told the Daily Star of Hammond that he was not a racist.

Pakistan's powerful military rejected U.S. attempts to link billions of dollars in foreign aid to increased monitoring of its anti-terror efforts, complicating American attempts to strike al-Qaida and Taliban fighters on the Afghan border. Although the U.S.-backed government of President Asif Ali Zardari has the final say on whether to accept the money, the unusual public criticism threatens to force its hand and undermine military cooperation with the Americans just as the Pakistani army prepares for what could be its most important offensive against extremists since the U.S.-led anti-terror campaign began exactly eight years ago. Any breakdown in intelligence sharing...

Rio de Janeiro will host the 2016 Olympics after the Brazilian city won a landslide victory over Madrid in the final round of voting on Friday. -snip- Chicago went out after polling just 18 votes in the first round, despite the eloquent speeches on their behalf made by Obama, the first sitting U.S. president to address an IOC session, and first lady Michelle Obama.

WASHINGTON — There was no trip to New York and no fancy outing as the Obamas celebrated their first wedding anniversary since they moved to the White House. Instead they kept it simple, with a dinner out Thursday at an elegant, American-fare restaurant near Georgetown. The evening was balmy and the moon almost full. President Barack Obama stayed in all day before taking a motorcade with Michelle Obama to the Blue Duck Tavern to mark their 17th wedding anniversary. Mrs. Obama stepped into the restaurant wearing a backless knee-length dress while the president wore a dark suit.

President Obama, I come from Chicago. I was born in Chicago. Chicago was where I grew up. Mr. President, you are not a Chicagoan. Yes, it's true. I, Charles Henrickson, was born and raised in Chicago, in the city. I was that rarest of creatures there--a registered Republican. And I love my hometown. Even as I detest the corrupt Democratic machine that runs it. The Chicago I grew up in, the Chicago of Hizzoner da Mare, was corrupt, yes. But the Chicago of today, under da Mare's kid, Richie, is both corrupt and radically leftist, fostering the likes of...

(CNN) -- Whenever President Obama has traveled overseas and offered pointed and direct assessments of the United States, some of them critical, Republicans have ripped him for criticizing America, saying a president should always defend the United States. So I want to hear the explanation by these so-called patriots of their giddy behavior over the United States losing the 2016 Olympic Games. Yes, the United States. The bid that was rejected Friday by the International Olympic Committee was not a Chicago, Illinois, bid. It was the official bid submitted by the United States Olympic Committee and was representative of the...

US newspapers offered various takes Saturday on Chicago's spectacular Olympic flameout, but when it came to President Barack Obama's last-minute lobbying bid, the message was loud and clear: What was he thinking? Obama joined his wife Michelle in Copenhagen Thursday just hours before the International Olympic Committee voted out Chicago in the first round, eventually awarding the Games to Rio de Janeiro in a landslide. The White House was quick to downplay suggestions that the snub was a repudiation of Obama himself, and insisted the presidential dash to the Danish capital was "absolutely" the right decision, despite a host of...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama was left with the rare taste of failure when votes were counted on Friday, after his hometown Chicago's hopes of hosting the 2016 Olympics died in Denmark. Chicago's rejection by the International Olympic Committee in Copenhagen, dealt a personal blow to Obama, who had put his glowing global prestige on the line, as a favor to the city where he nurtured his own American dream. Obama, who polls show is hugely popular outside the United States, was seen as the trump card in Chicago's pack on decision day at the IOC meeting. But...

One can understand an American president’s lobbying for an American city to obtain the Olympics, but the blitz by the Obamas proved a PR nightmare. Let us count the ways: 1) Obama’s brand is trans-nationalism and an “America is not exceptional” multiculturalism. According to his worldview, it makes sense that a South American country — especially a powerful, ascendant country such as Brazil — should at last have its turn at hosting the Olympics. It did not seem consistent that a politician who had reached out to the Castros, Chávez, Morales, and Ortega, in parochial fashion, would lobby for his...

For Obama, An Unsuccessful Campaign By PETER BAKER October 2, 2009 COPENHAGEN — President Obama not only failed to bring home the gold, he could not even muster the silver or bronze. A dramatic 20-hour mission across the ocean to persuade the International Olympic Committee to give the 2016 Summer Games to Chicago proved such a miscalculation that his adopted hometown finished fourth of four candidate cities. Rarely has a president put his credibility on the line on the world stage in such a personal way and been slapped down so sharply in real time. While Chicago may have lost...

With the stunning news that Olympic officials had swiftly rejected Chicago as host the 2016 Olympics, despite a personal, last-minute appeal from President Obama, the White House was left Friday with the immediate and difficult challenge of explaining what happened. Did the president falter by making remarks that were emotional and personal, rather than giving specifics about his adopted home town? Is the defeat a sign that Obama's global popularity has begun to wane? White House advisers -- many of them Chicago natives, with a personal stake in the bid -- rushed into the back recesses of the West Wing...

That's it Folks wow Chicago tossed out in the FIRST round!

There has been a growing narrative taking hold about Barack Obama’s presidency in recent weeks: that he is loved by many, but feared by none; that he is full of lofty vision, but is actually achieving nothing with his grandiloquence. Chicago’s dismal showing today, after Mr Obama’s personal, impassioned last-minute pitch, is a stunning humiliation for this President. It cannot be emphasised enough how this will feed the perception that on the world stage he looks good — but carries no heft.

With the stunning news that Olympic officials had swiftly rejected Chicago as host the 2016 Olympics, despite a personal, last-minute appeal from President Obama, the White House was left Friday with the immediate and difficult challenge of explaining what happened. Did the president falter by making remarks that were emotional and personal, rather than giving specifics about his adopted home town? Is the defeat a sign that Obama's global popularity has begun to wane? White House advisers -- many of them Chicago natives, with a personal stake in the bid -- rushed into the back recesses of the West Wing...

October 2, 2009 Olympic Snub For Obama As Chicago Eliminated From 2016 Bid (John Gichigi/Getty Images) Both the Obamas had thrown their diplomatic skills behind Chicago's bid President Barack Obama learnt a harsh lesson about the politics of sport today after Chicago made a shock early exit in the race to become the host of the 2016 Olympics. The members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) delivered a clear message to the American President and his wife that their 8,000-mile journey to court their vote in person had been a waste of time. In the first round of voting in...

Reporting from Washington - Chicago has been eliminated from the contest to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, a surprise development in the decision-making process by international Olympic officials. The city was a heavy favorite at least to make it through the first round of voting, and to be a serious contender in the final round of voting for the coveted Games. The decision dashes the hopes of U.S. boosters -- President Obama chief among them -- who had put their reputations on the line to help win the games for Chicago. The announcement came as the president and first lady...

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Chicago's rivals to stage the 2016 Summer Olympics showed no sign on Tuesday of being fazed by the announcement that President Barack Obama would fly to Copenhagen on Friday to support the U.S. city's bid. The Obama factor has been looming large over the 2016 bid process in which Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo are competing for Friday's decisive vote by the International Olympic Committee. The IOC has been swayed in the recent past by such leading political figures as Britain's Tony Blair and Russia strongman Vladimir Putin. Obama will be the first sitting U.S. president...

WASHINGTON – Big job losses and a spike in early retirement claims from laid-off seniors will force Social Security to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes the next two years, the first time that's happened since the 1980s. The deficits — $10 billion in 2010 and $9 billion in 2011 — won't affect payments to retirees because Social Security has accumulated surpluses from previous years totaling $2.5 trillion. But they will add to the overall federal deficit.

(The Nation) Robert Scheer, a contributing editor to The Nation, is editor of Truthdig.com and author of The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America and Playing President. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These are not happy sentences to write for one who is still on the e-mail list of campaign supporters urged to back the president in the face of attacks that are stupidly small-minded. But to remain silent about his errors, just because most of his critics are so vile, is hardly an example of constructive concern for him or the country. Yes, Obama was presented with a...

Barack Obama’s initial approach to the office of the presidency has been as grandiose as Bush’s was restrained. It’s not hard to recall that he ran as a transformative candidate, promising sweeping, though somewhat fuzzy, “change” during the campaign. For the first several months of his presidency, Obama has labored to deliver on that pledge. He pushed a controversial stimulus bill through Congress to help rev up the economy, turned Bush’s reluctant bailout of Chrysler and General Motors into a giant government auto buyout and appointed a record number of “czars” to help regulate bureaucracies in both public and formerly...

Democrats beat Republicans soundly in 2008. But they're losing the fight with their current opponent - conservatives on the Internet, radio, and television. It was the wrong battle for President Obama and his party to pick in the first place, but the policy decisions and mistakes made since the Democratic takeover have shifted the battle to even less favorable terrain. Worse still, the fight is only just beginning. The strategy early on in the administration was to mock talkers like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Remember the weeks of discussion over whether Limbaugh was the head of the GOP? That...

PARIS, France (CNN) -- Former first lady Laura Bush praised the performance of her husband's successor Monday, breaking with many Republicans in telling CNN that she thinks President Obama is doing a good job under tough circumstances.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama's leadership is being tested as his poll numbers dip and his supporters question his commitment to fight for them, analysts say. Dozens of interviews this summer in six states conducted by The Washington Post and published Sunday revealed a growing sense of gloom and disappointment by the president's supporters over his administration's present course, especially coming after an August congressional recess dominated by angry attacks from opponents of his healthcare reform agenda.

Trippi: GOP trying to turn Obama into another Jimmy Carter Posted: September 6th, 2009 12:21 PM ET From CNN Associate Producer Martina Stewart WASHINGTON (CNN) – A prominent Democratic strategist said Sunday that Republicans are trying to turn President Barack Obama’s administration into another “failed presidency” like that of former Democratic president Jimmy Carter. “They’re going to keep gunning,” Democratic strategist Joe Trippi said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, referring to conservatives’ recent — and ultimately successful efforts — to target Obama’s green jobs adviser Van Jones over controversial comments he made before becoming a part of Obama’s...

Usually the leftist media can be counted upon to unite, seize upon an anti_Palin meme and run with it. That liberal solidarity, however, has all but vaporized in the wake of Levi Johnston's latest round of charges against Sarah Palin and her family, as promoted by Vanity Fair magazine. The first cracks in liberal media wall appeared when only CBS of the big three alphabet television networks bought into the myth Vanity Fair's editor Graydon Carter had hoped to spread to take down Palin, as NewsBusters' Kyle Drennen reported: "Teasing an upcoming segment on Thursday’s CBS Early Show about new...

Labor Department: Non-Farm Payrolls Drop 216,000 in August; Unemployment Rate Jumps to 9.7%, Highest Since June 1983

What a fascinating research and what a find!!! PLEASE LISTEN!

<p>"At what point do we run out of money?" President Obama was asked in May. "Well, we are out of money now," he replied. That was when he projected the deficit to be $7 trillion over the next 10 years. Now his administration admits the number likely will reach $9 trillion. We sure are out of money -- and the true deficit number probably is at least another $1 trillion bigger.</p>

"Evolution, a religion? You must be nuts! I shall scoff at thee, mine theist!" I probably would get this type of remark from any evolutionist to whom I might suggest such a thing. Yes, evolution (or, at least, belief in it and Darwinist defense of it) is a religion and its believers are just as religious as their theistic counterparts. This fact can be a stumbling block to most atheists, but it is quite true. I should begin this essay by explaining what it is that constitutes a religion. I have expounded on this point elsewhere and I will do...

Latest News From Zogby! Developing—Obama hits record low in Zogby Interactive—45% approve…... [ read on ] (8/20/09)

A new CNN poll shows that more Americans consider the first six months of President Barack Obama’s administration worse than the same time period of his predecessor, former President George Bush. When asked whether they thought the first six months of Obama’s tenure in office has been a success or a failure, 37 percent responding to the poll released Friday said they believe it was a failure. After Bush’s first six months in office, a similar CNN poll from August of 2001 showed only 32 percent considered it to be a failure. Those who said the first half year of...

After 6 Months, More View Obama's Presidency as a 'Failure' Than Bush's Posted by Tom Bevan A rather surprising finding from the newly released CNN poll. Question three on the national survey of 1,136 adults (which includes an oversample of African-Americans) asks, "Do you consider the first six months of the Obama administration to be a success or a failure?" Thirty-seven percent (37%) said they believe the Obama administration is a "failure," while 51% consider it a "success" and 11% say it's still "too soon to tell." An identical question was asked of the Bush administration in an August 2001...

Among scientists at the university of New Mexico that spring, rape was in the air. One of the professors, biologist Randy Thornhill, had just coauthored A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion, which argued that rape is (in the vernacular of evolutionary biology) an adaptation, a trait encoded by genes that confers an advantage on anyone who possesses them. Back in the late Pleistocene epoch 100,000 years ago, the 2000 book contended, men who carried rape genes had a reproductive and evolutionary edge over men who did not: they sired children not only with willing mates, but...