Free Republic

For all the gnashing of teeth over the lack of comity and civility in Washington, the real problem is not etiquette but the breakdown of political norms, legislative and constitutional. Such as the one just spectacularly blown up in the Senate... The violence to political norms here consisted in how that change was executed. By brute force — a near party-line vote of 52 to 48 . This was a disgraceful violation of more than two centuries of precedent. If a bare majority can change the fundamental rules that govern an institution, then there are no rules. Senate rules today...

Charles Krauthammer says he believes President Barack Obama’s deal with Iran is “the worst deal since Munich.” “This is a sham from beginning to end. It’s the worst deal since Munich,” Krauthammer said on Fox News “Special Report” on Monday. “It’s really hard to watch the president and the secretary of state and not think how they cannot be embarrassed by this deal.” The Munich Agreement of 1938 between Hitler and major European powers expanded Germany’s borders. Today, the failed negotiation is widely considered an act of appeasement.

A president desperate to change the subject and a secretary of state desperate to make a name for himself are reportedly on the verge of an “interim” nuclear agreement with Iran. France called it a “sucker’s deal.” France was being charitable. The only reason Iran has come to the table after a decade of contemptuous stonewalling is that economic sanctions have cut so deeply — Iran’s currency has collapsed, inflation is rampant — that the regime fears a threat to its very survival. Nothing else could move it to negotiate. Regime survival is the only thing the mullahs value above...

In response to the controversy surrounding MSNBC host Martin Bashir‘s suggestion that someone defecate in Sarah Palin to show her the horrors of human slavery, Rush Limbaugh asked Wednesday afternoon what would happen if a Fox News personality had said the same thing about President Obama. After revisiting Bashir’s controversial Friday comments, Limbaugh lamented how “it sat there all weekend long, and there was not one peep from anybody at MSNBC suggesting that it was, in any way, inappropriate.” Eventually, the radio host noted, Bashir “made a big apology,” but the whole debacle asks a larger question: “Why is he...

"...........Respectfully, I disagree. So perhaps it’s best to discuss in letter form to the good doctor, who in fact is highly respected not just here but in many solidly conservative quarters. (And for the record, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Charles Krauthammer has also been honored by many conservative organizations including both The American Spectator and, just this fall, the conservative Media Research Center. It should also, of course, be mentioned that Dr. K. has a bestseller now on his hands, Things That Matter: Three Decades of Pastimes, Passions and Politics) and he was the subject of this recent Fox special hosted...

“Even if it takes a change to the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got.— Bill Clinton, Nov. 12 So the former president asserts that the current president continues to dishonor his “you like your plan, you can keep your plan” pledge. And calls for the Affordable Care Act to be changed, despite furious White House resistance to the very idea. Coming from the dean of the Democratic Party, this one line marked the breaching of the dam. It legitimized the brewing rebellion of panicked Democrats...

Charles Krauthammer joined Megyn Kelly Thursday night to react to President Obama‘s big Obamacare announcement/press conference, and as far as Krauthammer was concerned, Obama got out front and center on this in order to prevent “open rebellion” from within the panicked Democratic party, especially with the threat of abandonment a day away. Krauthammer described this as the “usual lawlessness” one has come to expect from the Obama administration on big issues, but said the real reason for the press conference was not to fix the law, but to save Obama’s immediate political future. Video at link

The thing is called Obamacare. There's no running away from it. It's got his name on it (NOTE: in a 2012 debate, he told Romney he loves the name). You see him--you think about the policy---you know it's a disaster......the problem for Democrats is, they are being held hostage to a bunch of geeks--fixing not just glitches. The architecture, the underlying structure is wrong. If it isn't up and running smoothly and perfectly Dec 1, as promised, the postponements start, and then the whole thing starts to unravel.

“Obama to campaign to ensure health law’s success” — The New York Times, Nov. 4 The Obamacare Web site doesn’t work. Hundreds of thousands of insured Americans are seeing their plans summarily terminated. Millions more face the same prospect next year. Confronted with a crisis of governance, how does President Obama respond? He campaigns.

“OK, I’ve got a solution,” Krauthammer said. “You make [$80,000 a year] and you don’t have any subsidies. You’ve got a high premium and you lose a lot of money and you end up poor. Well then, you go back and reapply. Now you get a subsidy because you’re poor. So that’s how it would work in practice. Look that wasn’t a joke. That was serious. This is a way of transferring wealth from the upper middle class where you get no subsidies to the lower middle class who aren’t poor enough to end up in Medicaid.” Krauthammer and Napolitano...

He will discuss his new book, Things That Matter, which is a collection of his writings. (click link above for webcast)

Every disaster has its moment of clarity. Physicist Richard Feynman dunks an O-ring into ice water and everyone understands instantly why the shuttle Challenger exploded. This week, the Obamacare O-ring froze for all the world to see: Hundreds of thousands of cancellation letters went out to people who had been assured a dozen times by the president that “If you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health-care plan. Period.” The cancellations lay bare three pillars of Obamacare: (a) mendacity, (b) paternalism and (c) subterfuge.

On Wednesday’s edition of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer faced off against left-leaning show anchor Jon Stewart on conservative ideology and the way it is presented. In this rare appearance on Stewart’s program, Krauthammer was promoting his new book, “Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes, and Politics,” and explained how in working on the book he realized when he had made the transformation from liberal to conservative. STEWART: Thirty years — do you ever look back on some of these writings and think, ‘What was I thinking?’ KRAUTHAMMER: It’s worse than that. The...

Republican disarray and infighting ate up most conservative commentary in the first few weeks of October. What was Ted Cruz thinking? Will John Boehner show some backbone? Can anyone lead this party? But the Right's most prominent commentator kept his eye trained on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. “For all the hyped indignation over GOP ‘anarchism,'” Charles Krauthammer's Oct. 10 Washington Post column began, “there has been remarkable media reticence about the president's intransigence.” Krauthammer isn't a Ted Cruz cheerleader — he's knocked Cruz and his allies as the “Kamikaze Brigade.” Krauthammer also isn't above intra-Republican fighting — he spearheaded the 2002...

“So, the President offered an off ramp, in which he said ‘I will accept any length of extension’... “So, Boehner has his offer, he goes in to see the president, you would expect that he would then have a six-week extension and discuss all of these issues. What seems to have happened is there are now demands from the president...

In a clear attempt to woo largely establishment conservative commentators who have loudly opposed the GOP’s current government shutdown strategy, President Obama held an off-the-record meeting with the Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer, the Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul Gigot, National Review’s Washington editor Robert Costa, syndicated columnist and former CNN co-host Kathleen Parker, and Byron York of the Washington Examiner.

Iran is continuinh to make slow but steady progress on its nuclear program according to the August 2013 quarterly repory [URL at link] by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Tehran continues to install more centrifuges including its second generation model. Iran's accumulated its stockpiles of uranium to 3.5 percent hashas increased modestly while the quantity of uranium hexaflouride enrichef to 20 percent remains roughly the same as teported in May. Iran is also moving forward on construction of its heavy water reactor at Stak, which could potentially provide it with a second path to producing material for nuclear weapons,...

Tonight on Special Report with Bret Baier both Tucker Carlson and Charles Krauthammer were excoriating Cruz over the issue of Obamacare defunding.  That's fine.If you think he's wrong or foolish or whatever, make the case.But as part of their arguments each brought up that Cruz was born in Canada.  Carlson mentioning that there were questions as to whether Cruz could be president and Krauthammer joking that Cruz could be Prime Minister of Canada.What did that have to do with anything?  The topic was defunding Obamacare and Senate strategy. .@TuckerCarlson @krauthammer What does Cruz being born in Canada have 2 do w...

A young Christian girl beheaded in Syria. The sign of extremism and fanatics, the long beards, is present in each and everyone of these subhuman Muslims who killed this small child, in their jihad to Allah – inspired by the Quran. This is Obama, Britain, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey funded and supported handiwork. Don’t put your support behind any of these people, whether for military action in Syria, asylum, immigration, another hate preaching mosque. This is what is moving into your town, your country, your society, your neighborhood: video... This video is written with false propaganda claiming...

Take a good hard look at the photo. Looking away from it will not change the fact that it happened. This girl’s family had different religious views from the Syrian Rebel Army. When the “Free Syrian Army” marched into her town, they chained her to a fence and forced her to watch as her parents were tortured and killed for their religion. These are the same “Free Syrian Army” soldiers that Obama just violated international law to provide weapons to. I will not gross people out with the graphic video or the violence that happens over there daily under the...