Free Republic

I thought this was interesting and Freepers might get a kick/laugh out of it. Look at number 1 major requiring the least amount of study and number 5.

President Obama’s instincts about Iraq and Syria have been sound from the beginning: Greater U.S. engagement probably cannot make things better but certainly can make them worse, both for the people of the region and for our national interests. Obama’s only mistake was to buy, for a time, the notion that Bush’s troop surge had miraculously healed ancient divisions and made the dream of a pluralist democracy still possible. There are aspects of Obama’s foreign policy that I question. His heavy reliance on drone strikes may create as many terrorists as it eliminates. He should have realized that the National...

The new national poll from NBC and the Wall Street Journal is stuffed with bad news for President Obama. His job approval rating — 41 percent — is as low as it has ever been. And yet, all of those bad numbers pale in comparison to how people responded to this question: "Thinking about the rest of Barack Obama's term as president, do you think he can lead the country and get the job done or do you no longer feel that he is able to lead the country and get the job done?" Fifty-four percent — let me repeat,...

Several times in recent weeks I’ve found myself in conversations with liberals who shake their heads sadly and express their disappointment with President Obama. Why? I suspect that they’re being influenced, often without realizing it, by the prevailing media narrative. The truth is that these days much of the commentary you see on the Obama administration — and a lot of the reporting too — emphasizes the negative: the contrast between the extravagant hopes of 2008 and the prosaic realities of political trench warfare, the troubles at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the mess in Iraq, and so on. The...

Discussing a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that shows President Barack Obama hitting his lowest foreign policy number in the history of the poll, NBC News White House correspondent Chuck Todd said on Morning Joe Wednesday morning that the poll reflected the public making a damning verdict about Obama’s presidency. “This poll is a disaster for the president,” Todd said. “You look at the presidency here: lowest job rating, tied for the lowest; lowest on foreign policy. His administration is seen as less competent than the Bush administration, post-Katrina.” “Then on the issue of do you believe you can still...

R BK is a Russian business news agency not known for the sort of over-the-top, pro-Kremlin coverage of state television channels. It is owned by a group led by Russian billionaire and Brooklyn Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov. Still, over the course of a five-minute interview with the chairman of the Independent Association of Ukrainian Miners, the host of an RBK television program seemed to morph from reserved to agitated to angry. The video below is in Russian, but even if you don't speak the language, the change of tone is obvious. WATCH: Mykhaylo Volinets interviewed by RBK The guest, Mykhaylo...

Well, gee, $1 trillion or so just doesn’t buy what it used to. Take Iraq, for example. Or, should I say: Take Iraq, please, someone — and fix it. Fend off the nasty Islamic fighters of ISIS and keep that miserable sinkhole for American lives and money from coming back to bite us — again. Do you understand now, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Bolton and all you neocon nutjobs, why the invasion of Iraq in 2003 wasn’t a very good idea? President Obama sure does. Because now he’s neck deep in another crisis in this place, a country...

Former New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson is joining Harvard University as a visiting lecturer this coming school year, the university announced Thursday. Abramson will teach undergraduate courses on narrative nonfiction in the fall and spring semesters, the school said. Abramson, a 1976 Harvard graduate, said in a statement that she is excited to be returning to her alma mater. "Narrative non-fiction journalism is more important than ever," she said. "Its traditions and how it is changing in the digital transition are fascinating areas of study."

Yesterday, a man and a woman shot two police officers in a Las Vegas restaurant after saying, “this is a revolution.” Then they draped their bodies in a Gadsden flag. According to reports now coming in, the couple (who later killed themselves) appear to have been white supremacists and told neighbors they had gone to join the protests in support of anti-government rancher Cliven Bundy. It was one more incident of right-wing terrorism that, while not exactly an epidemic, has become enough of a trend to raise some troubling questions. What I’m about to say will raise some hackles, but...

The mother and father sit at the kitchen table in their Idaho farmhouse, watching their son on YouTube plead for his life. The Taliban captured 26-year-old Bowe Bergdahl almost three years ago, on June 30th, 2009, and since that day, his parents, Jani and Bob, have had no contact with him. Like the rest of the world, their lone glimpses of Bowe – the only American prisoner of war left in either Iraq or Afghanistan – have come through a series of propaganda videos, filmed while he's been in captivity. Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/americas-last-prisoner-of-war-20120607#ixzz34APXclT2 Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone...

WHEN it comes to dealing with the world’s climate and energy challenges I have a simple rule: change America, change the world. If America raises its clean energy standards, not only will others follow — others who have hid behind our inaction — we’ll also stimulate our industry to invent more of the clean air, clean power and energy efficiency systems, and move them down the cost curve faster, so U.S. companies will be leaders in this next great global industry and American consumers will be the first to benefit. That is why the new Environmental Protection Agency rules President...

Martin Luther’s emphasis on literacy helped make modern day journalism possible. Rise of the Corruption Story Unnatural Acts In America, we expect journalists to have some independence from government and other leading power centers. We are not surprised to glance at the morning newspaper or television news show and see exposure of wrongdoing. We assume that the press has a responsibility to print bad news as well as good. And yet, that which seems ordinary to us is unusual in the history of the world, and even in much of the world today. How did the unnatural act of independent...

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was physically abused during his five years in Taliban captivity and is suffering from psychological trauma, a senior U.S. official told CNN on Friday. The information bolstered the White House argument that President Barack Obama needed to move quickly to secure Bergdahl's release in a May 31 exchange for five Taliban figures held at Guantanamo Bay.

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose last week, but the underlying trend continued to point to a firming labor market. While jobless claims have been choppy in recent weeks because of problems seasonally adjusting the data around moving holidays such as Easter and Passover, they have continued to suggest the jobs market was strengthening.

U.S. companies hired far fewer workers than expected in May, but an acceleration in services sector growth supported views the economy was regaining strength after sagging early this year. While other data on Wednesday suggested a widening trade gap could weigh on growth in the second quarter, a jump in imports pointed to a welcome pick-up in domestic demand.

Block Communications Inc. said it will lay off 136 people at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and 131 at the Blade of Toledo, a decision that will help cut costs at the two money-losing dailies where the company has been wrangling with unions for more than a year over concessions. [snip] Negotiations with the unions over a new contract have been ongoing for a year, with Block asking for wage and benefit concessions after years of losses. In March, members of the Newspaper Guild “celebrated” their 3,000th day without a raise with a pie party in the newsroom. Block told employees in...

The Wall Street Journal had a noteworthy piece on the VA scandal yesterday, one that helps turn the story into a life-and-death issue. Until now, the spotlight has been on veterans who grew sicker or died because of long waiting times that were, in some instances, covered up by government officials. But what about the care they receive in overtaxed hospitals? The Journal reported: “The Phoenix facility at the heart of the crisis at the Department of Veterans Affairs is among a number of VA hospitals that show significantly higher rates of mortality and dangerous infections than the agency's top-tier...

Ann B. Davis, aka Alice from “The Brady Bunch,” passed away this past weekend. This morning, MSNBC took a moment to remember her — by showing a picture of someone else:

One great big GOP/Fox News rebuke. That’s the early word on Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi explanation in her new book, “Hard Choices,” out on June 10. She’s “defiant,” not “defensive.” She blames her Ben-ghazi critics for exploiting the “tragedy over and over as a political tool” against her that has nothing to do with justice for the four Americans who died there. Since that’s an accurate summation of Republicans’ cynical agenda on Benghazi — and since an awful lot of Americans can see that clearly — I’d say those who think Ben-ghazi will sink Clinton in 2016, well, they better think...

When Barack Obama was a newbie president, there was no shortage of ambition or lack of confidence in the government he was about to lead. Government should be seen as a force for good, not evil. Sure, he told us, it needed to be "smarter and better," but that could—and would—happen under his watch. Instead, the President is living his own version of "Alice Through the Looking Glass": staring down a rabbit hole of government bureaucracy and inefficiency. The government he has studiously tried to grow, manage and change has become his own personal nemesis. All of which makes you...