Free Republic

Health Care: As Democrats grow increasingly worried that ObamaCare will explode on the launch pad just as midterm elections get going, the Obama administration seeks to pin blame on Republicans. Good luck with that. Earlier this week, Health and Human Services head Kathleen Sebelius admitted that she didn't realize how complicated getting ObamaCare off the ground would be. Sebelius complained that "no one fully anticipated" the difficulties involved in implementing ObamaCare, or how confusing it would be with the public. She wasn't talking about the massive and impossible task of imposing central planning on one-sixth of the nation's economy. Instead,...

President Obama's foreign policy has provided many examples of leading from behind. The expression "leading from behind," as used in this article, means: 1. Waiting while allies decide what to do and then following along. Doing that assumes substantial congruity of interest with our allies. To the extent that such congruity may exist at all, it is neither uniform nor perpetual nor consistent. 2. "Leading from behind" also, and of more significance here, means reactive leadership -- waiting for a bad and perhaps irreversible situation to develop and then scrambling to find politically convenient explanations to offer and actions to...

Allen West weighs in on the new 2007 video, mostly saying that he doesn’t believe it is of as much consequence as Benghazi-gate, ballots not getting to our troops overseas, the debt, etc. Those are the things he’s concerned about. When asked why Obama is doing so well in the polls, he says simply that everyone keeps saying Obama’s policies have failed, but they aren’t articulating why. Which is what he says Romney needs to do. Watch:

Sometimes when you peruse the headlines online, you have to wonder what Barack Obama is really thinking. Is he really that obtuse about green energy and it’s impact on America?

Hard sales numbers will not be available for a week but the rankings on Amazon and Barnes & Noble provide a good indication of consumer interest. The Rogue is ranked in the fifties on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Deer in the Headlights is hovering in the seven hundreds on Amazon and in the two hundreds on Barnes & Noble.

A noted psychologist told a gathering of teachers, school officials and parents that the reason why black males are struggling to graduate high school has very little to do with the failures of teachers. It has much more to do with the failures of modern society, he said. "I'm unwilling to stand up here and pretend that you are somehow responsible for their failures," Na'im Akbar told teachers Tuesday at a symposium on graduation rates at Atlantic Community High School. The symposium was the second meeting of a task force started by the school district to generate ideas to improve...

Regulators on Friday closed banks in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Colorado, bringing to seven the number of closures in 2011 following last year's toll of 157 bank failures amid the limping economy and mounting bad loans. The growing number of bank failures has sapped billions of dollars out of the deposit insurance fund. It fell into the red in 2009, and its deficit stood at $8 billion as of Sept. 30. The number of banks on the FDIC's confidential "problem" list rose to 860 in the third quarter of last year from 829 three months earlier. The 860...

On Fox "What's Happening" 10/01/2010 (9:45 am Pst) There was a report about the White House Rating hundreds of government programs that are failures by any measure. The programs are rated from 0% to 100% effectiveness. One of them increased from $660,000 to $147,000,000 in ten years! and it has a rating of 8% (!) Most rational taxpayers would rate anything under 50% as a failure, a waste of money and the reason why the country is bankrupt and our children and grandchildren will inherit a debt which is literally impossible to pay down. These are all from what is...

So yesterday, the governor's office said Charlie Crist was not planning on going to Pensacola to be with Vice President Joe Biden, despite appearing on an official White House announcement. But this morning, Crist's spokesman Sterling Ivey says he has changed his schedule and will head to Pensacola after all. Not exactly sure what's going on here but Crist had planned on being in Miami this afternoon for a campaign event, likely a fundraiser.

WASHINGTON - Regulators on Friday shut down banks in Florida, Georgia and New Mexico, lifting to 86 the number of U.S. bank failures this year. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over Peninsula Bank, based in Englewood, Fla., with $644.3 million in assets and $580.1 million in deposits. The agency also seized First National Bank in Savannah, Ga., with $252.5 million in assets and $231.9 million in deposits, and High Desert State Bank, based in Albuquerque, N.M., with $80.3 million in assets and $81 million in deposits. Miami-based Premier American Bank agreed to assume the assets and deposits of Peninsula...

Jeannie DeAngelis Residents of New Haven Connecticut should be ecstatic knowing tax dollars are moving mountains and inspiring achievement in an army of "Obama scholars." Lincoln Bassett Middle School in New Haven, Connecticut has received a "great school rating" of two on a scale of 1 to 10. Therefore, it was no surprise that a classroom full of impressionable boys were led in a chant by a cheerleading gentleman in a black kufi. We're talking "involved parents and successful kids." Standing on the sidelines at the event, was a group of suit jacket school administrators who attended the chant to...

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- Three affiliated banks in Florida were closed Friday, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., raising the tally of bank failures in 2010 to 76. The Bank of Florida - Southeast in Fort Lauderdale; the Bank of Florida - Southwest in Naples; and the Bank of Florida - Tampa Bay in Tampa were shut down. EverBank in Jacksonville, Fla., has acquired their banking operations. Bank of Florida Corp.

WASHINGTON – Despite a top-to-bottom overhaul of the intelligence community after the 2001 terrorist attacks, the security system showed some of the same failures nearly a decade later and allowed a would-be bomber to slip aboard an airliner, congressional investigators said Tuesday. The Senate intelligence Committee report at times contradicted the Obama administration's assertion that the nearly catastrophic Christmas Day bombing attempt was unlike 9/11 because it represented a failure to understand intelligence, not a failure to collect and understand it. The congressional review is more stark than the Obama administration's report. It lays much of the blame at the...

There are only 190 days until the 2010 election. Many of you have been at work long before now. You've held strategy sessions all across the country to discuss how to most effectively help candidates in your community who are fighting to bring about change. At OFA headquarters, we've been poring over your ideas, your input, and the best data we can get our hands on to determine the most helpful role we can play. Together, based on that feedback, we've crafted a comprehensive electoral plan that can make a big difference in the upcoming elections. President Obama recorded a...

WASHINGTON, March 19 (Reuters) - Regulators seized seven more U.S. banks on Friday, as high unemployment and troubled loan portfolios continue to weigh on the sector. The seven failures, which are estimated to cost the government's deposit insurance fund more than $1 billion, bring the 2010 tally to 37 failed institutions. Last year, 140 banks failed. At this week's frantic pace, 365 banks would be shut down by the end of the year. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said Advanta Bank Corp of Draper, Utah; Appalachian Community Bank of Ellijay, Georgia; Bank of Hiawassee, Hiawasee, Georgia; First Lowndes Bank of...

NEW YORK – Regulators shut down banks in Nevada and Washington on Friday, marking the 21st and 22nd failures this year of federally insured banks. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of Carson River Community Bank, based in Carson City, Nev. and Rainier Pacific Bank in Tacoma, Wash. Carson River Community Bank had $51.1 million in assets and $50 million in deposits as of Dec. 31. Rainier Pacific Bank had $717.8 million in assets and $446.2 million in deposits as of Dec. 31. The FDIC said that Carson River's deposits will be assumed by Reno, Nev.-based Heritage Bank...

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is bracing for a new wave of bank failures that could cost the agency many billions of dollars and further strain its finances. With bank failures running at their highest level in nearly two decades, the F.D.I.C. is racing to keep up with rising losses to its insurance fund, which safeguards savers’ deposits. On Tuesday, the agency announced that it had placed 702 lenders on its list of “problem” banks, the highest number since 1993. Not all of those banks are destined to founder, and F.D.I.C. officials said Tuesday that they expected failures to peak...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Regulators shut four banks from California to Florida on Friday, boosting to 20 the number of U.S. bank failures this year following the 140 closures last year in the worst financial climate in decades. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over La Jolla Bank, FSB, in La Jolla, Calif. The bank had 10 branches and about $3.6 billion in assets and $2.8 billion in deposits. Also seized was George Washington Savings Bank in Orland Park, Ill. It had four branches and about $412.8 million in assets and $397 million in deposits. The FDIC said OneWest Bank in...

WASHINGTON – The White House is not expected to announce the firing of any officials over intelligence failures — for now anyway — as President Barack Obama prepares to tell the nation more about a botched terrorist attack over Detroit and what else he will do to beef up security. Eager to fix a glaring breakdown in intelligence sharing and get the incident behind him, Obama will speak Thursday about a declassified account of the near catastrophe on Christmas Day. The White House also plans to release a copy of the report with some detail stripped away for security reasons....

Happy New Year to all my readers, and what better, oh, what better way to celebrate the start of a new year than by looking backwards. That's right...looking backwards at all the greatest failures of the Obama Administration from 2009, its first year in power! Here for your reading pleasure is a Top Ten compilation of what I deem to be the ten most failing moments of Barack Hussein Obama relating to his policies; this list is by no means complete, and he seems to add to it every day, but you get the picture. So, here's to a happy...

Their profits have rebounded, but shaky home-equity and credit-card debt—for starters—could change that. At first glance, banks seem to be recovering nicely from the financial crisis. But investors cheered by optimistic earnings reports could soon face a painful surprise. Many banks appear to be postponing inevitable losses on home-equity loans and commercial mortgages. Others face new trouble in consumer banking, especially credit cards. "Banks know they've got big holes on their balance sheets," says Paul Miller, an analyst for FBR Capital Markets. The hopeful news is that overall bank industry earnings tripled, to $2.8 billion in the third quarter, compared...

Running through the litany of Obama’s most recent failures, the sycophant in chief at MSNBC has declared that the Obama administration is “not connected” (NK in Chris’s language) with the American people. Matthews stunned his audience of twelve (the janitorial staff leaves early on Fridays) by chiding the once deified Obama for his asinine over bow to the Japanese emperor. Revisiting one of his daffier theories, Matthews opined that Obama’ s real problem is an unnatural over abundance of IQ point which make it impossible for him to understand normal people. Et tu, Chrissy?

Bank On More Failures If the economy is rallying, why are hundreds of banks in danger of closing in the coming months? By Nancy Cook | Newsweek Web Exclusive Aug 28, 2009 While big institutions such as Citi, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley have grabbed headlines and billions in bailout money, 81 small banks have shuttered their doors so far this year. Despite a rebound in the markets, hundreds of additional banks are expected to close in the coming months as consumers and small businesses default on loans and as local real-estate investments drop. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.warned...

Excerpt ... Assets for failures for [the current] crisis total $7.1 trillion to date. This is nearly eight times the assets compared with the inflation-adjusted total for the S&L crisis. The data for bank failures in the Great Depression is shown in the following table. The total deposits involved were about $7.6 billion over a span of 13 years. Adjusted for inflation, that is $100 billion in 2009 dollars. The size of the crisis today, adjusted for inflation, is more than 70 times larger than the entire Great Depression. It's unlikely that bank failures can peak until we are close...

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- New bank failures last week included two in Arizona and one each in Pennsylvania, Alabama and Nevada, bringing the total number of banks and savings and loans shut down by regulators this year to 77. All 102 bank failures since the beginning of 2008 are detailed on TheStreet.com's interactive bank failure map:

A bipartisan coalition of 36 members of the House of Representatives--including 30 Republicans and 6 Democrats--has sent a letter to President Obama asking him to return to Congress its constitutional legislative authority to oversee the bailout of the auto industry. In December, Congress failed to pass a bill authorizing a bailout of Chrysler and General Motors. President Bush and now President Obama, however, proceeded with a bailout process even without legislative autority. That process has cost the taxpayers billions of dollars and given the Executive Branch unilitaral and unprecedented authority to control what happens to the two major auto companies....

WASHINGTON (Feb. 5) - Labor Secretary nominee Hilda Solis became the latest Cabinet nominee to face questions about unpaid taxes Thursday as a Senate panel abruptly postponed a scheduled vote on her confirmation. The postponement came after revelations that Solis' husband settled tax liens on his California auto repair business this week that had been outstanding for as long as 16 years.

DETROIT — The rapidly deteriorating finances of General Motors are forcing the federal government to decide whether to bail out the largest American automaker or face the prospect that it might go bankrupt. G.M. said Friday that its cash cushion had been dwindling by more than $2 billion a month recently and that it could run short of money by mid-2009 unless it got emergency federal assistance. It also said it had suspended merger talks with Chrysler to focus on its own increasingly urgent problems, brought on by higher gas prices, a weakening economy and tight credit — a combination...

Here is the Bret Baer video with Barney Frank lying about the already failing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac banks. This was aired recently on FOX but I haven't seen a link at FR yet, so here it is.

The insane leader of the House of Representatives said today: "We Cannot Afford to Continue Failed Republican Economic Policies" referring to current problems in our financial markets; like the pending bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers - a leading Wall Street investment house. And yet, Pelosi, by the facts, is nothing but a liar, as to whose "policies" have "failed". Both the "sub-prime" crisis and many of its aftermaths are completely related to total lack of due diligence by Congress in their oversight role of Freddie and Fannie. Since 2000, when Republican House leaders attempted major reforms of Freddie and Fannie it...

Sarah Palin's interview with Charlie Gibson was an appalling attempt at smearing her, even to the point that some in the mainstream media even took Gibson and ABC News to task on it. From the outset, it was clear that Gibson planned to paint her as completely inept and unqualified. The very first question, asking Palin if she hesitated when McCain offered her a spot on the ticket, dripped with condescension. Here was Gibson, looking professorial with his glasses down at the end of his nose, eyebrow cocked, as if to portray her as a liar, or so self-assured as...

Link only.

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday called President George W. Bush "a total failure" who "has no ideas," in an interview with CNN. Responding to stinging criticism from Bush on the Democratic leadership in both houses of Congress and the slow pace of the legislative agenda, as Congress prepares for its one-month summer recess in August, Pelosi let loose: "You know, God bless him, bless his heart, the president of the United States, a total failure, losing all credibility with the American people on the economy, on the war, on energy, you name the subject." Pelosi, 68,...

Future U.S. bank failures linked to the downturn in the real estate market may include "institutions of greater size" than in the recent past, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp Chairman Sheila Bair said on Thursday. An increasing number of banks face high exposure to deteriorating conditions in commercial real estate and construction lending, Bair told a Senate Banking Committee hearing on the state of the banking industry. "There is also the possibility that future failures could include institutions of greater size than we have seen in the recent past," Bair said. "Uncertainties in today's economic environment continue to pose significant challenges...

The Democrats have ended their first year controlling Congress since 1994, and they now return home with much less self-congratulation than when they arrived triumphantly in January. The taste of success turned bitter when their leadership found they could not get their agenda past a suprisingly resilient opposition, and discovered the hard way that presidents are never irrelevant. Still, they have not learned that they created most of the problems themselves: Congressional Democrats ended their first year in control of Congress in more than a decade Wednesday, approving a $555-billion government spending measure that gave President Bush $70 billion for...

A Failure to Lead The Democratic Congress is more interested in acting out than in taking positive action. BY KARL ROVE Friday, November 9, 2007 This week is the one-year anniversary of Democrats winning Congress. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid probably aren't in a celebrating mood. The goodwill they enjoyed after their victory is gone. Their bright campaign promises are unfulfilled. Democratic leadership is in disarray. And Congress's approval rating has fallen to its lowest point in history. The problems the Democrats are now experiencing begin with the federal budget. Or rather, the lack...

The Democratic Party hasn't just taken over the title of The Stupid Party, as Professor James W. Ceaser characterizes it in his much-admired article of the same name in The Weekly Standard. Professor Ceaser insightfully argues that today's Democratic Party is what it is because of philosophical diffidence readily exploited by the bullying of a "network of techno-thugs," all Leftists. But his erudite argument confines itself to the realm of ideas. In the world of facts on the ground, the Democratic Party is also The Failed Party. The larger truth is that liberalism, as a governing philosophy, is a spent...

Newsweek on Monday will unveil a sweeping redesign of the magazine and its Web site while at the same time formally ending its seven-year distribution agreement with MSNBC.com. While some recent redesigns have been introduced with fanfare, such as BusinessWeek, whose new look hit newsstands yesterday, or Time, which was overhauled in March, Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham has consciously avoided publicizing Newsweek's revamping. "It was stealth redesign," Meacham said yesterday as he was getting ready to ship the first of the new-look pages to the printer.

Read the story that prompted this column Mike Flaherty, San Carlos An F, for failure to de-fund the war. Instead of playing commander-in-chief with timetables, benchmarks, etc, they should have used their constitutional power of the purse if they were at all serious. F for leadership, F for integrity and F for execution. Harry Reid does receive a C+ for most disheartening comment made by a U.S. senator in time of war and for furnishing aid and comfort to the enemy. Julie Bennett, San Francisco C-. It's their turn, and I feel like they are wimping out. They are asking...

Democrats' great shark hunt for Alberto Gonzales seems to be running into some snags. Michael Ramirez's cartoon commentary is here.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US generals came under fire Friday in a stinging critique by a mid-level officer and combat veteran who charged that as a whole they repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq. Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling said the generals failed to prepare the military for counter-insurgency warfare, kept silent when the country went to war with too few troops, and botched the post-invasion occupation. "In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war," Yingling wrote in an essay published in the...

Democrat Failures By Tank It seems that Democrats are more and more nomadic–wandering from presidential epithets to anguished groans about Bush’s judicial nominees, searching desparately for a identity (apart from liberal insanity, that is). Victor Davis Hanson authored a tremendous piece on the failings of the modern Democratic party and why the Democrats will continue to fail. Hanson highlights some of the Democrats hypocrisy: [T]here is the widening gulf between word and deed — and Americans hate hypocrites most of all. When you meet a guy from the Chamber of Commerce or insurance association, you pretty much know that what...

In September 1971, John Lennon released what was to become his greatest hit after the breakup of the Beatles. It was the “poetic” expression of the 1960s, the utopian vision that the Beatles and others of their generation came to embrace. “Imagine” envisioned a world free not only of war but also of religion, which Lennon believed to be the root cause of all war. Lennon’s world was a stateless one, where communal man lived without poverty, possessions or conflict. “Imagine all the people, Living life in peace...” But why imagine? Why not work for the real thing? Indeed, that’s...

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright criticized President George W. Bush's handling of the war on terror in a speech at Georgetown University Monday night. Albright was the guest of honor at the fourth annual Snowdon Lecture, a speech by a public figure addressing the intersection of faith and social justice in the world. In the speech sponsored by the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, Albright attacked Bush's policies in Iraq and in third world countries. "I hope I'm wrong, but I'm afraid that Iraq is going to go down in history as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy,"...

It's time to watch the Today Show. The best news the annoying perky one could get is that her old show is doing better without her. Then, after a week or two, stop watching again. FreeRepMates Unite!

ON WEDNESDAY, June 7, U.S. military forces, in President Bush's words, "delivered justice to the most wanted terrorist in Iraq," Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Before considering the possible implications for the war in Iraq and the global struggle against terror, we should pause to celebrate so striking an instance of injustice avenged, and justice vindicated. The unjust--even the barbarically unjust--prevail all too often in this world. It is good for civilized people to see, as Marshall Wittmann put it, that "evil has suffered a setback." In the blunt words of Paul Bigley of the United Kingdom, whose brother Ken was...

At PC World, we spend most of our time talking about products that make your life easier or your work more productive. But it's the lousy ones that linger in our memory long after their shrinkwrap has shriveled, and that make tech editors cry out, "What have I done to deserve this?" Still, even the worst products deserve recognition (or deprecation). So as we put together our list of World Class winners for 2006, we decided also to spotlight the 25 worst tech products that have been released since PC World began publishing nearly a quarter-century ago. Picking our list...

America Online (1989-2006)RealNetworks RealPlayer (1999)Syncronys SoftRAM (1995)Microsoft Windows Millennium (2000)Sony BMG Music CDs (2005)Disney The Lion King CD-ROM (1994)Microsoft Bob (1995)Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (2001)Pressplay and Musicnet (2002)dBASE IV (1988)Priceline Groceries and Gas (2000)PointCast (1996)IBM PCjr. (1984)Gateway 2000 10th Anniversary PC (1995)Iomega Zip Drive (1998)Comet Cursor (1997)Apple Macintosh Portable (1989)IBM Deskstar 75GXP (2000)OQO Model 1 (2004)CueCat (2000)Eyetop Wearable DVD Player (2004)Apple Pippin @World (1996)Free PCs (1999)DigiScents iSmell (2001)Sharp RD3D Notebook (2004)

Disappointing airplay for the first two singles from the new album by the Dixie Chicks exposes a deep -- and seemingly growing -- rift between the trio and the country radio market that helped turn the group into superstars. "Taking the Long Way," due out May 23, is the band's first album since singer Natalie Maines sparked a major controversy in 2003 by declaring that she was ashamed to hail from the same state as fellow Texan President George W. Bush. Radio boycotts ensued, and many fans abandoned the band. The first single, "Not Ready to Make Nice," peaked at...

China admits 'green' failures By Richard Spencer in Beijing (Filed: 20/04/2006) The Chinese government admitted yesterday that it had failed to meet almost half of the environmental targets it set itself six years ago. Wen Jiabao, the prime minister, owned up after a fortnight in which Beijing has experienced some of its worst pollution for years. He told a national conference on environmental protection that "lack of awareness, insufficient planning, illogical industrial structure and a weak legal framework" were all reasons why the country was falling behind on eight of 20 measures set out in 2000. These included the release...