Free Republic

(CNSNews.com) - "I don't need a teleprompter," Vice President Joe Biden said as he rose to speak at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day Breakfast in Washington on Monday. He then launched into a speech full of political anecdotes, memories of his early activism in the civil rights movement, and indignation about alleged attempts to curb voting rights. Biden said he got involved in the civil rights movement "when I was just a kid." "The issue that really got me involved in the first place -- I was the only white kid working in the East Side (of Scranton, Pa.)...I...

It’s not too difficult to understand that we are well on our way to a paradigm shift in America; in fact we’re in the midst of it right now. The writing is on the wall and can no longer be ignored. The US government has run up trillions of dollars in debt, and given the recent debates over the country’s debt ceiling, we can rest assured that neither Congress nor the President will act to curtail spending and balance the budget. We will continue adding trillions of dollars to the national debt clock until such time that our creditors no...

It’s less than comforting to hear the President make light of terrorist threats. In a recent interview with The New Yorker, President Obama referred to today’s al-Qaeda fighters as the “jayvee” team. “The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” he said. This shows that the Administration’s wishful thinking about al-Qaeda isn’t over. Obama and his fellow officials seem to think if you say something enough times, it will become true. Before Benghazi, they claimed al-Qaeda was defeated and on the...

<p>WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama said he doesn't think marijuana is more dangerous than alcohol, "in terms of its impact on the individual consumer."</p> <p>"As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. I don't think it is more dangerous than alcohol," the president said an interview with "The New Yorker" magazine.</p>

House Oversight Committee chairman Representative Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said that a recent news report outlines how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) is using tactics that amount to “Fast and Furious revisited” in a bid to increase support for the Obama Administration’s gun control crusade. During a Sunday program on Fox News, Issa discussed a recent report by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel which details how ATF agents operating stings in six different cities “took advantage of the mentally ill, set up stings near churches and schools and made decisions which some claim actually increased crime in their neighborhoods.” “This...

Iran's "moderate" president, Hassan Rouhani, tweeted this morning that "world powers," including the U.S., had "surrendered" to the "Iranian nation's will" in confirming a six-month interim nuclear deal that will allow the Iranian regime to continue its advanced centrifuge program and develop a new nuclear facility at Arak. President Barack Obama, meanwhile, implored Americans to "give peace a chance" with the Iran deal. Though the Obama administration claims that the interim deal--which includes a secret side deal--will lead Iran to give up any ambitions of becoming a nuclear power, the regime has publicly declared that the agreement reached in Geneva...

(CNSNews.com) - Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says unless Congress acts, the Highway Trust Fund will run out of money at the end of fiscal 2014 -- "because people are driving less, driving more fuel-efficient cars, and the gas tax hasn't been raised in many years." Monies in the Trust Fund fund -- derived mostly from excise taxes on gasoline and other fuels -- fund the federal government's highway and mass transit projects. "And if Congress doesn't step up and either increase the gas tax, they will have to take the money out of the general fund. And the...

Well folks he’s gone and done it again…Barack HUSSEIN Obama…the man who does NOT stand by our troops or their mission…the man who swept Fast & Furious and Benghazi under the rug…the man who shoved ObamaCare down our throats…the man who thinks spying on Americans is the new norm…the man who bows down to those out to kill us as he lets the enemy (in the guise of the Muslim Brotherhood) into our halls of government…that very man who is well-known for appointing the absolute worst people possible to fill government positions, has now nominated Debo Adegbile…a man with a...

Passing bills to find out what’s in them… that was so 2010, right? Sadly, no. Any day now, Congress is likely to release the trillion-dollar Trojan horse that is the spending bill for 2014. It’s going to be big, and it’s going to be rushed. And few members of Congress (if any) are going to read it all. Government budgeting isn’t supposed to be done this way. It takes 12 spending bills to fund the entire government. But in an omnibus—the type of bill experts are expecting—Congress throws all of those together and just votes once on the whole thing....

Can you guess which project was funded with your tax dollars? A) $98,000 outhouse on an Alaskan trail B) $1 million bus stop with heated pavement C) Caribbean vacation for bureaucrats staying at a swanky resort D) All of the above If you answered “all of the above,” you’ve either read Senator Tom Coburn’s Wastebook or you’ve grown accustomed to reading headlines about the weird and wacky ways members of Congress spend your money. The video below chronicles 10 projects that received federal funding in 2013: With an $1.012 trillion spending bill likely to make its debut any day in...

European UnionIf you are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the "economic collapse", just open up your eyes and look at what is happening in Europe. The entire continent is a giant economic mess right now. Unemployment and poverty levels are setting record highs, car sales are setting record lows, and there is an ocean of bad loans and red ink everywhere you look. Over the past several years, most of the attention has been on the economic struggles of Greece, Spain and Portugal and without a doubt things continue to get even worse in those nations. But in 2014 and...

Yes, Obamacare has raised premiums, caused people to lose their health coverage, raised taxes, and more. But on January 1, Obamacare started digging in for the long haul: putting down the deep roots of entitlement programs. Entitlements—like the big three of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—are the biggest causes of America’s spending and debt crisis. And Obamacare creates a new entitlement program while expanding another. The creation of a new entitlement: Taxpayer-funded subsidies for millions of Americans Obamacare created insurance exchanges to sell and subsidize government-approved health care plans. Most of those who attain coverage through the exchanges will have...

Oh how I wish I was president right now because if I was I would pick up a pen and immediately sign an Executive Order to round up all muslims and ship them the hell back to the cesspools of countries they came from. There, I said what many are thinking, and after last Monday when jihad once again reared its ugly head on American soil, more and more folks are starting to see the reality that muslims have NO place in the fabric of our American society. Now do I literally mean every single muslim...of course NOT because to...

Congress is beginning its new year with a budget deal that busts right through “caps” it was supposed to have on spending. At Heritage, we want to hold Congress accountable for its tax-and-spend ways, even as Members claim there’s no room to cut. A good place to start is understanding the mountain of debt Americans are already under. Check out and share our infographic below that puts it in perspective.

Actually, just like Barack Obama’s promise regarding health insurance, this one’s not true either. As of Jan. 1 (Happy New Year, by the way!), the import or manufacture of 40-watt or 60-watt light bulbs is now forbidden in the United States. This follows the ban on 75-watt and 100-watt bulbs, which had already been implemented. I wish we could blame this on the current Administration, but actually this assault on our freedom of choice goes back to 2007, when Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act and it was signed into law by President George W. Bush. Yep, the...

Do a Google News search for “income inequality” and it will remove any doubt that this is already the political issue of 2014. The left has been gearing up for months. The liberal Center for American Progress launched a new center devoted to the subject, and President Obama has been making it a centerpiece of his speeches. Get ready to hear about “fairness”—because some people make more money than others, and this isn’t fair. How can you sit by and watch this happen? What is the government going to do about it? It’s a popular argument because everyone—even Warren Buffett—wants...

...Obama had pledged publicly at least 36 times that his health care plan, known as Obamacare, would not force people who liked their current coverage to lose it before "tweaking" that promise Nov. 4.

According to a court order obtained by Townhall, the Department of Homeland Security is enabling cartel trafficking of minors, delivering those minors to illegals living inside the United States and completing criminal transactions for illegal immigrants. The order, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas on December 13, details a guilty plea from Mirtha Veronica Nava-Martinez for attempting to smuggle a 10-year-old El Salvadorean female into the United States. Nava-Martinez was being paid to smuggle the child from Matamoros to Virgina, but was caught at a Brownsville checkpoint. The order describes Nava-Martinez as a resident...

As the National Defense Authorization Act 2014 heads to Obama’s desk as an even more draconian piece of legislation than it was previously, states have taken notice and are beginning to intensify their efforts to nullify it. Michigan was the latest to opt for full nullification after Governor Rick Snyder (R) signed bill SB0094 into law. New Hampshire has now taken a critical step toward nullification with the introduction of their bill HB1279, scheduled to be formally presented on January 8th, 2014. New Hampshire’s bill has bipartisan support among its five sponsors, and is based on the model legislation...

(via The Hill) — Nearly a year ago, on January 2, 2012, eight Democrats in the House introduced a curious piece of legislation – H.R. 3741: Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act of 2013, which seeks to abolish the death penalty under federal law. But the bill has only just been discovered by the media, notably The Hill on Dec. 16, 2013: Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) and seven other Democrats have proposed legislation that would eliminate the possibility of imposing the death penalty for a range of federal offenses, including several categories of murder and crimes against the government like treason...