Free Republic

A new book about President Obama alleges he once used the vulgar term "tea-bagger" to refer to the Tea Party movement. Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter, in his book "The Promise: President Obama, Year One," to be released May 18, quotes the president as saying that Republican opposition to the economic stimulus package "helped create the tea-baggers and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party where it now controls the agenda for the Republicans," according to a Washington Post report on the book. White House spokesman Bill Burton responded Wednesday evening by saying he had no reason to dispute the...

The 149 air traffic control towers that were slated to close this summer because of the federal sequestration will remain open until at least September, federal officials said Friday. The Federal Aviation Administration said legislation approved by Congress last month lets it transfer funds from other accounts to keep the towers open until the end of the fiscal year.

Louisiana’s highest court ruled Tuesday that Gov. Bobby Jindal’s hallmark school voucher plan violates the state’s constitution. The state Supreme Court found that the school voucher plan is illegal because it diverts tax dollars to private schools from Louisiana’s “minimum foundation program,” which was created under the state constitution to pay for public schools.

Earlier today the President heard from key national security principals on our preparedness and security posture on the eve of the eleventh anniversary of September 11th. Over the past month, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan has convened numerous meetings to review security measures in place. During the briefing today, the President and the Principals discussed specific measures we are taking in the Homeland to prevent 9/11 related attacks as well as the steps taken to protect U.S. persons and facilities abroad, as well as force protection. The President reiterated that Departments and agencies must...

NEW DELHI: Sartorial inequality between the genders is a cause for climate change. When it comes to formal dressing, women tend to cover themselves lightly, if not minimally, while men feel obliged to wear a jacket and a tie, even in the summer warmth of tropical India. When they share the same air-conditioned room, another sort of gender inequality ensures the temperature is kept at a level that makes suited men comfortable, even if it leaves the fairer sex covered with goosebumps. If the men were to shed a few layers of clothing, the room temperature could be raised by...

Their identities have been a well-guarded secret, known only to their high-powered lawyers and a handful of House lawmakers and staff. But now Fox News has learned the names of the self-described Benghazi “whistleblowers” who are set to testify before a widely anticipated congressional hearing on Wednesday. Appearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will be three career State Department officials: Gregory N. Hicks, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya at the time of the Benghazi terrorist attacks; Mark I. Thompson, a former Marine and now the deputy coordinator for Operations in the...

LISBON - Portugal's prime minister laid out a three-year plan Friday to reduce the country's budget deficit that would shrink the number of public employees, add more working hours and raise the retirement age by a year, to 66. The plan, which aims to save €4.8 billion ($6.1 billion) through 2015, is certain to face resistance from the Socialist-led opposition and trade unions. They accuse the conservative government of trying harder to satisfy Portugal's international creditors than to spare the country - the poorest in Western Europe - from further hardship. Portugal, entering the third year of a recession with...

Starting production of the all-electric Leaf in Tennessee helped Nissan sell more Leafs in the US in March 2013 than in any other month. April wasn't quite as sunny, but the 1,937 Leafs sold last month were still good enough for second place. Ever. April also marked the second month in a row that the Leaf beat the Chevrolet Volt. It's not that General Motors had a bad month. The 1,306 Volts sold last month were roughly in line with March and February (but it's a downward trending line, with 1,626 sold in February and 1,478 in March).

The Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) was established to assist the nation’s underwater borrowers get out from under their massive mortgage debt. In a Congressional Budget Office report, both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have been found to be responsible for nearly 13 percent of underwater borrowers. The report, “Modifying Mortgages Involving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Options for Principal Forgiveness,” finds that, in order for the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) to use principal forgiveness for borrowers in an effort to provide assistance for those to benefit from HAMP: + Result in small savings to the government, + Slightly reduce mortgage...

The last large-scale legalization of undocumented immigrants, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), is often called "the 1986 amnesty." The law created a relatively straightforward pathway to citizenship, and 2.7 million undocumented immigrants eventually got green cards through the program. But amnesty in the context of immigration is more than a way to describe legalization. It's become a dirty word in the debate -- immigration's equivalent of Obamacare. That's no accident. Since 1986, restrictionist groups have hammered home the message that the last legalization program didn't stop illegal immigration, and that the "amnesty" failed. Buzzwords have their limits, however,...

The Congressional Budget Office said Thursday it will use a type of “dynamic scoring” to evaluate the new Senate immigration bill, dealing a major victory to the legislation’s backers. While wrapped in the dry world of economics, the decision helps the eight bipartisan authors of the Senate immigration bill because it will likely show economic growth and higher tax revenues offsetting any new spending included in the bill. CBO generally shies away from dynamic scoring, which includes knock-on effects of economic growth when calculating costs and benefits.

The nation's largest health insurers are far from leaping at the chance to join new state health insurance exchanges under President Barack Obama's reform law, making it likely that some markets will have little or no competition next year. A key principle of Obama's health reform is that individuals will have a robust offering of insurance plans to choose from, and that competition for new customers in each state will help keep prices down for consumers. But health insurers, some of whom fought the law before it was passed and continue to lobby to reverse parts of it, are wary....

NEW YORK — Small business owners may be experiencing sticker shock now that insurers are revealing the rates they want to charge under the new health care law.

Unemployment rates fell in nearly 90 percent of large U.S. cities in March, though most of the declines likely occurred because more Americans stopped looking for work, rather than found jobs.

The lawyers defending Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are dealing with federal budget cuts that will force them to take three unpaid weeks off even as they prepare to defend one of the most complicated criminal cases in the nation.

Setting the stage for a constitutional showdown, the Obama administration on Thursday urged the Supreme Court to rule that presidents have broad authority to make certain appointments without Senate approval. In January the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that three appointments to the panel, which normally has five members, were invalid. In the brief filed on Thursday, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli defended the recess appointment powers of the president, disputing the court's conclusion that it can only be used in the period between formal sessions of the Senate. If the appeals court ruling was...

Allergy sufferers know it's spring when they start sneezing, getting itchy eyes and other symptoms. Now experts say that climate change is only making things worse. The changing climate has brought early spring, late-ending fall and large amounts of rain and snow, which are some of the contributing factors that prolong pollen seasons, according to allergists. “The planet is getting warmer,” said Melrose Park allergist and immunologist Dr. Rachna Shah. “Allergy season has been longer than usual, as plants are stronger and are able to produce more pollen. It’s a trend that we can’t deny.” “Due to tree season starting...

Our democracy has been hacked. The operating system has been taken over." That was the message former Vice President Al Gore brought to Stanford Tuesday night. The 65-year-old paced the stage as he rattled off a litany of dark news from climate change-related superstorms and droughts to the U.S. Senate's failure to pass meaningful gun safety legislation. He offered blunt assessments of the Iraq War, saying it was about "a country that just happens to have a lot of oil." He spoke of the interest in energy-intensive Canadian tar sands oil extraction, the driving force behind plans for the controversial...

President Barack Obama is resisting a congressional subpoena for documents related to how the administration responded to the revelation of the failed operation known as "Fast and Furious" on the U.S.- Mexican border. Justice Department lawyer Ian Gershengorn told a hearing the matter was best left to the give-and-take of the U.S. government's two elected branches, the president and Congress, and should not be a matter for the courts. "That is how it has worked for 225 years," said Gershengorn, referring to the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson was skeptical and told...

Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the brothers and suspects in last week's Boston Marathon bombing attack, may have financed their plot through drug sales, investigators believe.

The White House on Wednesday backed a proposal to temporarily eliminate spending cuts disrupting U.S. air travel, while politicians in Washington scrambled to avoid blame as the effects of the cuts started to be felt around the country. White House spokesman Carney on Wednesday blamed Republicans for underestimating the negative impact of the spending reductions. "Republicans in Congress made a political tactical decision to embrace the sequester," he said. Cuts proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan would bite even more deeply than those under the sequester, he added. "We share the frustration and we warned about these very...

President Obama today said that while the information was there to disrupt the attempted Christmas Day attack, the intelligence community failed to connect the dots in a “potentially disastrous way.” The president used a version of the word “fail” 9 times in as many minutes — and he was talking about his government failing to adequately protect the American people. “I will not tolerate it,” he added, “when a suspected terrorist is able to board a plane with explosives on Christmas Day, the system has failed in a potentially disastrous way. And it’s my responsibility to find out why and...

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Tuesday unveiled a report on last's year attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that blames then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for lapses in security. The 46-page report by the five committees of jurisdiction concludes that reductions in security levels prior to the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were approved at the highest levels of the State Department, including by Clinton herself.

President Barack Obama’s second term has so far been a story of high liberal hopes and scant liberal achievements. The president has been re-elected, demographic trends favor the growth of his coalition, his party has a technological edge, and his opposition is confused and divided. One might therefore expect Obama to be enacting the legislative agenda of that rising coalition. Yet the White House has to be disappointed, whatever it says, by the way the second term has been going. The president’s poll numbers have been falling since December, for one thing. His average job-approval rating, compiled on Pollster.com, has...

HELSINKI – Big bank depositors could take a hit under planned European Union law if a bank fails, the EU's economic affairs chief Olli Rehn said on Saturday, but noted that Cyprus's bailout model was exceptional. "Cyprus was a special case ... but the upcoming directive assumes that investor and depositor liability will be carried out in case of a bank restructuring or a wind-down," Rehn, the European Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner, said in a TV interview with Finland's national broadcaster YLE. "But there is a very clear hierarchy, at first the shareholders, then possibly the unprotected investments and...

Detroit for the fourth year in a row, is ranked as the "most dangerous city" in America according to Forbes online. The statistics indicate that Detroit suffered about 2,137 acts of violent crime per 100,000 residents. However, when we rank the extraordinary crime levels for each of these 'dangerous' cities, we noticed a startling trend in our quick research, and we weren't the only ones who noticed it, apparently. You see, each of these cities has one commonality being that each is also led by a Democrat Mayor, and these days you know what Democrat actually means.... "Liberal." Indeed, if...

A Colorado elementary school has restricted its after-school tutoring program to exclude whites from participating. Andre Pearson, principal of Mission Viejo Elementary in Aurora, Colorado explained that “only students of color are eligible for the program. Too few white students are failing for us to justify including them in the program.” Pearson said he rejected race-neutral criteria based on performance because “that wouldn’t provide the maximum leverage for equalizing outcomes between whites and minorities. By focusing our efforts on bringing up the performance of our minority students through tutoring while allowing that of whites to continue to drift downward we...

Our failure in chief gave us his annual blurred vision of America again Tuesday night. Based on his State of the Union message, Barack Obama’s eyesight is as ideologically impaired as ever. Despite four years of failure, he still sees only one road America can go down to regain its economic health. Not down the capitalist road of free enterprise and liberty that made us the richest country in history. He wants to continue down the socialist road to more federal government -- which means more Obama taxes, more Obama spending, more Obama debt and more Obama government programs to...

Judge Napolitano on Fox: Watch for Obama in his SOTU message tonight to indicate he "can't wait" for Congress to act and thus will use EOs to circumvent the law. He will likely order the EPA to tax ammunition to pay for "the environmental damage and clean-up." In general, he believes Obama will bury Congress in a siege of EOs, knowing that Congress will not stop him. Only Congress can levy taxes, so this sets-up a fight between Obama and the so far eunich House, a fight he wants.

The Bundesbank said the purpose of the move was to "build trust and confidence domestically, and the ability to exchange gold for foreign currencies at gold-trading centers abroad within a short space of time." It's just satisfying the worries of the commoners, in the mainstream view, as well as giving themselves the ability to complete transactions faster. As evidence that it's nothing more than this, Bundesbank points out that half of Germany's gold will remain in New York and London (the US portion of reserves will only be reduced from 45% to 37%). Sounds reasonable. But these economists remind me...

During the third debate of the 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney talked about Mali and the danger al-Qaeda represented there. The Obamamedia laughed and derided Romney, carrying Barack Obama’s water and continued advancing the fraud that Obama had decimated al-Qaeda, even though al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists had taken over an American consulate and killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya just weeks prior. Surprise!!!! Al-Qaeda in Mali is a serious enough threat that the French, THE FRENCH!, have invaded Mali to fight them there. It looks like Romney was indeed correctly focused on foreign threats, al-Qaeda is not decimated but in fact...

With journalism entrepreneurs launching local news startups at a rapid pace, the local news landscape is evolving ­– and so are the rules of the road guiding ethical decisions. Where a bright ethical line once separated a newsroom from its business operations, one person now often wears multiple hats, as editor, business manager and grants writer. Site publishers navigate new kinds of critical decisions daily. This guide examines a number of them. You can click to any topic in any order. Or, you can cruise through the Table of Contents. On every page you'll find a box that says, "Share...

I know there are questions on my beat larger and more pressing than who’s worse as a TV journalist, Chelsea Clinton or Jenna Bush Hager, the presidentially-connected, pretend correspondents at NBC News. But I continue to be fascinated by a network news division putting someone as outrageously unqualified as Clinton on a prime-time newsmagazine. I watched her again last week in a softer-than-soft piece on a weight loss program started by Pastor Rick Warren at his Saddleback Church, and I can say with absolute certainty that she has not improved one lick in the last year. In fact, I think...

... Obama is cutting short his vacation in the Pacific state of Hawaii and will return to Washington to resume talks with congressional leaders aimed at reaching agreement on a deficit reduction package before the year ends. The White House says Obama will leave Wednesday and is expected to arrive back in Washington early Thursday. Early last week,the president said he and Republican House Speaker John Boehner were relatively close to an agreement on a compromise to avert what is being called a "fiscal cliff" -- $500 billion in mandated spending cuts and tax increases that would affect almost all...

This column was co-authored by Bob MorrisonSen. John Kerry has a long and dubious record in foreign policy. In the 1970's, he testified against his fellow Vietnam War veterans before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He charged that they were violating the Geneva Conventions every day in Vietnam. Some POWs were outraged at Kerry's disloyal statements. They said they had been tortured by their Communist captors trying to force them to make such untrue statements. Worse, Kerry went to Paris in 1971. There, he met with North Vietnamese Communists. We need to see all his notes from those meetings....

In March, Stephen Harper’s government reversed decades of increasing restrictions on civilian firearms, scrapping the controversial long-gun registry on grounds that it was wasteful and ineffective. Gun laws, the prime minister correctly said, should focus on criminals rather than law-abiding citizens such as farmers and hunters. Some claim that this Conservative policy flies in the face of a mountain of evidence, and even represents an assault against reason. Canadian voters seem divided on this issue, as well as some basic related questions: Are firearms in the hands of ordinary citizens a serious threat to public safety? Is registration an effective...

The key 'R' word is Republican, not Romney With all the efforts to understand the recent election defeat, a lot of the focus has been on former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and his campaign. That is exactly the wrong way to begin analyzing the outcome of the 2012 campaign. The focus on Romney as a candidate is profoundly misleading for those who want to prepare for future Republican victories. Any analysis of recent Republican presidential results will reveal a systemic failure which can’t be ascribed to Romney. The last clear Republican presidential victory was in 1988 when Vice President George...

The GOP establishment and some conservative pundits, such as Ann Coulter, are in full defense mode, claiming that Romney is not responsible for losing to an incumbent responsible for perhaps the most damaging fiscal crises in our nation’s history. Don’t believe it. Romney IS responsible for wasting a billion dollars to carry out an issue-free campaign full of simple-minded platitudes. Indeed, Coulter is leading the charge with her recent column titled, Don’t Blame Romney. It’s sweet to watch Coulter defend her darling Romney, but let’s get real. The reality is that Romney was one of the worst GOP presidential candidates...

Every person who talks and writes about politics gets stuff wrong. I’ve gotten my fair share wrong. But what I think I got most wrong in Campaign 2012 was the damage Mitt Romney’s “47%” remark would do to him. It may seem obvious, but bear with me. Mitt Romney was talking off the cuff to a supposedly off the record group of donors and muddled several data points together, ultimately telling the tale of the 47% who won’t vote for him for any reason. He was referencing the 47% who don’t pay taxes and interwove it with a 47% of...

When British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was asked what might knock his administration off course, he famously responded, "Events, dear boy, events." There's a lot of truth to that. At any point in time, an unexpected event can throw the political world into turmoil. However, more often than not, it's not the blindside hit that gets you so much as the freight train you've seen coming for miles. When Barack Obama came into office, he had a number of serious challenges to deal with and not only has he effectively addressed very few of them, many of them have worsened...

Oddly enough, perhaps the biggest loser in last week’s Republican debacle wasn’t even on the ballot. He didn’t shake a single hand, nuzzle the napes of any newborn babes or promise eager voters pie in the sky or peace on Earth. His name was Karl Rove. And all he actually did was squander a staggering $300 million by backing candidates who turned winnable races into laughable routs, producing tepid ads transforming would-be zealots into couch potatoes and firmly establishing himself as the political world’s pre-eminent empty-suit analyst. Perhaps even worse, he set himself up as the clearinghouse for wealthy conservative...

Former CIA Director David Petraeus gave closed door briefings to Congress today. After the hearing, Democrats and Republicans disputed whether Petraeus has been consistent in his testimony, and whether the CIA talking points on the attack were altered. "The original talking points prepared by the CIA were different than the final ones put out," Reb. King [said]. Originally, he said, they were "much more specific on al Qaeda involvement." Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., didn't agree with King's recollection of the Sept. 14 briefing. Ruppersberger told reporters after the hearing, "My recollection was ... [Petraeus said] it was the result of...

Egyptian president sharpens his tone against Israel, threatening: 'If I see the homeland in danger, I won't hesitate to take unusual steps.' He vows that his country will 'stop this brutal aggression' After concluding the Friday prayer at a mosque in Cairo, Morsi warned Israel of the consequences of its strikes in Gaza. According to the al- Shorouk newspaper, Morsi tweeted on his Twitter page: "We have the power to uproot the aggressiveness just like it uprooted exploitation. "I don't want to take unusual steps," Morsi added, "but if I see that the homeland is in danger, I won't hesitate."...

The California High-Speed Rail Authority said Thursday that it was adding 12 months to the construction schedule for 130 miles of track in the Central Valley, easing what some outside experts have contended was an overly aggressive and risky timeline. Construction industry experts have said that the job of building the $6 billion of track through the Central Valley would require spending $3.5 million per day, one of the fastest rates of transportation project spending in history.

The Dutch economy shrank by 1.1pc in the third quarter amid a deep housing slump, and even Austria has begun to succumb. Finland’s economy has shrunk by 1pc over the last year. “Recession comes as no surprise and it is going to get worse next year,” said Desmond Supple from Nomura. “Europe has imposed dusted-off policies from the 1930s and they are driving peripheral countries towards depression,” he said. “We are seeing a mix of pro-cyclical fiscal austerity, overly-tight monetary policy, and regulatory overkill under the Basel III bank rules that are forcing lenders to tighten credit. Europe is stuck...

The death of a journalist’s 11-month-old son in Gaza on Wednesday has prompted a flood of poignant messages online -- and a media backlash -- when pictures of Jihad Misharawi, a BBC Arabic video editor, showed him carrying the body of his dead son. Mishrawi’s son, Omar, was killed after Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip fell on his Gaza home, according to the BBC. Omar is among 16 people killed in Gaza since Wednesday afternoon, including four children, according to Al Arabiya correspondents. Fighting began when Israel’s targeted killing of Hamas military chief Ahmed Jaabari on Wednesday. Since then,...

Hostess Brands said Wednesday that it will go into liquidation unless bakers striking in protest against a new contract imposed in bankruptcy court return to work by the end of the day Thursday. "We simply do not have the financial resources to survive an ongoing national strike," Hostess CEO Greg Rayburn said in a statement. The liquidation would result in Hostess' nearly 18,000 workers losing their jobs. The bakers' union represents around 5,000. The union did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday, but has called the concessions demanded in the new contract "outrageous." "Our members are on...

In an article published in 2001, Jude Wanniski, the author of The Way the World Works, noted that since 1896, only Republican presidential candidates running on “pro-growth” platforms have won. Republicans advocating “austerity” have invariably lost. With the defeat of Mitt Romney, the election of 2012 continued this pattern, with one addition. Republican presidential candidates offering clueless confusion also lose. Democracies tend to evolve two political parties, a party of economic growth and a party of income redistribution. If a credible plan for economic growth is offered, the people will vote for it, provided that it does not involve crushing...

The sex scandal engulfing two of our top military and intelligence officers could not be coming at a worse time: The Middle East has never been more unstable and closer to multiple, interconnected explosions. Virtually every American president since Dwight Eisenhower has had a Middle Eastern country that brought him grief. For Ike, it was Lebanon's civil war and Israel's Sinai invasion. For Lyndon Johnson, it was the 1967 Six-Day War. For Nixon, it was the 1973 war. For Carter, it was the Iranian Revolution. For Ronald Reagan, it was Lebanon. For George H.W. Bush, it was Iraq. For Bill...

Former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Mitt Romney's top Hispanic surrogate, is calling for the Republican Party to "modernize" and embrace comprehensive immigration reform in order to survive as a national party. "We need to modernize. Modernization includes diversity. Obviously, immigration reform is part of that process of diversity," he told The Hill on Tuesday. "We are the party of growth, of business, of entrepreneurship, of innovation. We cannot continue to be that without an effective immigration policy." Gutierrez, who chaired Romney's Hispanic Steering Committee during the GOP nominee's presidential campaign, blames Romney's rightward primary shift on immigration for his loss....