Free Republic

I once wrote an article about former President George W. Bush saying that he was a perfect Manchurian candidate. That is, if his missing year when he was supposed to have been flying fighter jets with the Texas Air National Guard was actually spent in the former Soviet Union being reprogrammed as a covert KGB agent whose job it was to go back to America, win election to the White House, and proceed to destroy the US, he couldn’t have done a better job than he actually did. Now I wonder whether President Obama might not make a Manchurian Candidate...

Recently on ABC television news, one of their videos showed a U.S. Marine hunkered down in Afghanistan complaining on camera that he was not allowed to shoot back when under fire. This situation resulted from Obama’s new rules of engagement from his new Afghanistan commander. General McChrystal explained it to BBC news that they are now advising troops to break off from firefights with the Taliban, "If you are in a situation where you are under fire from the enemy... if there is any chance of creating civilian casualties or if you don't know whether you will create civilian casualties,...

Obama declares swine flu emergency 9 mins ago WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama has declared swine flu a "national emergency," the White House said Saturday, as the United States reels from millions of cases of infection and over 1,000 deaths.

All the diplomatic pillow talk about “cooperation” and “encouragement” is cover for Obama’s Russia gambit’s having gone down in flames. Smiling through failure is becoming the default occupation of the Obama State Department, and no one seems more enthused to be at the center of the wreckage than Hillary Clinton. She is pure spin, no success...

This morning, in an interview with CNN's State of the Union, Sen. John McCain (RINO-Ariz.) apparently used some rather choice language to describe the fairly evident future political aspirations of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Ak.): "Will Sarah and I - did we always agree on everything in the past? Will we in the future? No. But let's let a thousand flowers bloom. Let's come up with a winning combination next time."—http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2360310/posts With only a cursory glance, it appears from McCain's language that he is merely asking for a second chance -- in 2012? -- with Palin. [And, at first...

Although terrorist emeritus Bill Ayers claims not to have met Barack Obama until the mid-1990s, there is reason to believe that he not only knew Obama much earlier, but that he helped get him into Harvard Law School. The evidence, substantial if speculative, can be found in an unlikely source, Barack Obama's 2006 bestseller, Audacity of Hope, and it may have been provided by Ayers himself. In the way of background, I have made the argument on these pages that Bill Ayers wrote the better part of Obama's acclaimed 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father.

President Barack Obama essentially handed Russia a gift on Thursday with his decision to roll back a planned U.S. missile defense in eastern Europe. The Russian government had loudly protested U.S. plans begun by Obama's predecessor, Republican George W. Bush, to deploy an anti-missile system in eastern Europe that the United States insisted had been aimed at defending against a potential missile attack from Iran. Obama's...move drew praise from fellow Democrats and some arms control advocates who saw the Bush plan as aimed at a Iranian missile threat that did not yet exist... But Republicans and missile-defense advocates called the...

(snip) SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Well, I thought the president is eloquent. I thought he had a lot of passion. (snip) MCCAIN: I hope he gets a bill. I hope we can sit down together and do the things that all of us agree on. And there are a number of things that are -- that we can agree on. And I think the American people, obviously, want that. I don't know what the administration and the Democrats will insist on. Facts are stubborn things. The bills so far have had no bipartisanship associated with it. They were drawn...

Back in October of 2008, when the subject of Obama's Constitutional eligibility to be president of the United States was just a blip on the radar screen of public awareness, I wrote an article about how easy it was to find my then -92-year-old mother's birth certificate. Frankly, I didn't think finding my mother's birth certificate was possible, given the fact that she had been born in a farmhouse in Storrs, CT, along with nine of her 10 siblings, to parents who didn't speak English. Despairing that she would never be "qualified" to receive the care [in a nursing home}...

America reneges on missile defense for New Europe The United States is poised to dump a critical missile-defense agreement with two of its most dependable NATO allies. The Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza reported yesterday that the Obama administration is going to scrap the "third site" anti-missile system scheduled to be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic. Missile interceptors in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic were scheduled to be deployed by 2013. Now the plan appears to have been shot down. This move sends the wrong signal to our allies in Eastern Europe. The former Soviet...

There's a joke about a man who tells a psychiatrist, "Everybody hates me," to which the psychiatrist responds, "That's ridiculous - everyone doesn't know you, yet." Which brings me to Barack Obama: one of the best-informed people in the American security establishment told me the other day that the president is a "Manchurian Candidate". That can't be true - Manchuria isn't in the business of brainwashing prospective presidential candidates any more. There's no one left to betray America to. Obama is creating a strategic void in which no major power will dominate, and every minor power must fend for itself....

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Republican Senator John McCain on Wednesday joined his former rival President Barack Obama in calling for a nuclear-free world, a goal previously formulated by former president Ronald Reagan. During a lengthy speech on the Senate floor marking the unveiling of a statue of Reagan in the Capitol, the veteran Arizona lawmaker recalled how his "personal hero" had dreamed of a world free of nuclear weapons. "That is my dream too," McCain said. "This is a distant and difficult goal. And we must proceed toward it prudently and pragmatically, and with a focused concern for our security and...

Here’s a curious development for you: Brian Rogers, spokesperson for John McCain’s presidential campaign last year, is now working for Al Gore. Rogers sent an email dispatch on Friday announcing his new job as research director for Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection. In the email, Rogers said he will be “working on the Repower America campaign to pass comprehensive energy and climate change legislation.” On the campaign trail last year, Rogers’ shining moments included attacking Barack Obama for opposing increased domestic oil and gas production, arguing that Obama lived in “a frickin’ mansion” that was “bought in a shady deal...

Paul's Guests For Monday April 27th. IS BARACK OBAMA A COMMUNIST (MARXIST)? Konstantin Preobrazhensky. Former KGB officer, an intelligence expert and author of several books and numerous articles about Russian secret police organizations. He is known for his publications about KGB operations in Japan, recruitment of Russian emigrants by Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, and infiltration of Russian Orthodox Church by the KGB/FSB. Tom Fife Mr. Fife has a degree in Physics and has worked extensively in advanced design in aerospace for the DoD. He also has a solid grounding in financial systems and has developed sophisticated software for banks. He...

(CNN) — John McCain’s general election campaign began as “the strategic equivalent of throwing a football through a tire at 50 yards” – and was doomed weeks before Election Day, his former chief strategist said Thursday. “We were running a campaign under extra difficult circumstances — the state of the Republican Party, the president’s unpopularity, the economy — a lot of issues that were not John McCain’s fault, but were John McCain’s problem in this race,” Schmidt told an audience at the University of Delaware, according to Politico. “When Lehman Brothers collapsed in the fall I knew pretty much right...

I cannot figure out how to find an old post relating to an purported email from a man who said he was having dinner in Russia and the gist of it was that the wife of one of the attendees said Obama was selected by the communist party to run our country long before we ever heard of him. It ran on here about a month or so ago, and I cannot find it. My mother would like me to send it to her, so if anyone with more knowledge/access to previous posts, or the original poster could repost or...

Via TheObamaFile, Al Jazeera originally reported the actual phrase when the President was speaking to the Turkish parliament. The original story, now scrubbed, can be seen here (as stored on TheObamaFile’s site) with the following original verbiage: Al Jazeera’s Anita McNaught, reporting from Istanbul, said: “This was the address we had all been waiting for, it hit all the right notes. “He talked about the contribution of the Islamic faith in the life of American Muslims and then he personalised that message by saying ‘I know because I am one of them‘. It was a message that reached out to...

What if an American President campaigned as a pragmatic centrist, promised tax cuts to 95% of the American people and pledged himself to a new era of government honesty, openness and bipartisanship, but never had any of those intentions? The result might be a cabinet full of tax cheats, political cronies and lobbyists, and a president peddling an overstuffed budget of liberal dream-schemes at a time when the American economy can least afford an extra nickel for folderol or fiddling. Meanwhile Rome is burning. President Obama rolls the dice and grabs a can of kerosene. This president's budget, plus the...

The liberal media isn’t going to spell out exactly how it goes about smearing conservatives, so Bill O’Reilly helpfully explained it last night on “The O’Reilly Factor.” Boiled down it goes like this: George Soros (and others) fund one of the left’s most prominent noise machines, Media Matters for America, which distorts statements made by conservatives and then urges reporters to provide saturation coverage of such statements as proof conservatives are hypocritical and sinister. In his “talking points” segment, O’Reilly references the Obama administration’s strategy of attempting to marginalize its most vocal opponent, radio talk show giant Rush Limbaugh:

O n 29 December 2008 the Wall Street Journal ran a piece about Igor Panarin, dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s diplomatic academy. A former KGB officer, Panarin made a splash by predicting that America will probably come under martial law by the end of 2009, and may fracture into several states by 2011. When this happens, says Panarin, Russia and China will become the mainstays of a new global order.

Blackstone Group LP CEO Stephen Schwarzman said up to 45% of the world's wealth has been destroyed by the global credit crisis in little less than a year and a half," he told the Japan Society. "This is absolutely unprecedented in our lifetime." ......He put part of the blame on credit rating agencies. Rating companies have been the focus of intense criticism for granting top "AAA" ratings for complex bonds that later plummeted in value, resulting in subsequent rating cuts, in many cases to junk status. "Once you bought into ... the Triple A paper and it turned out was...

Chuck Todd at First Read flags up some fascinating comments from Vice-President Biden on his visit to Nato: “5 percent of the Taliban is incorrigible, not susceptible to anything other than being defeated. Another 25 percent or so are not quite sure, in my view, the intensity of their commitment to the insurgency. And roughly 70 percent are involved because of the money, because of them being -- getting paid.” Biden goes onto say that the “idea of what concessions would be made is well beyond the scope of my being able to answer, except to say that whatever is...

Amongst the several revenue-raising proposals in President Obama’s $3.9-trillion budget proposal is a carbon tax that will impact all American families. His budget aims to raise $646 billion through a cap-and-trade tax on energy. Last year, Peter Orszag, who was then Director of the Congressional Budget Office and is now President Obama’s Director for the Office of Management and Budget, testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on a similar proposal. Speaking about a cap-and-trade proposal to cut carbon emissions by 15%, he said it would cost the average household about $1,300 a year through higher energy costs. He...

President Obama on Saturday struck back aggressively at critics of his $3.6 trillion budget proposal, casting himself as a populist crusader whose "sweeping change" has angered Washington's entrenched special interests, and promised to fight them. "I realize that passing this budget won't be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington," Mr. Obama said in his weekly video and radio address. Mr. Obama's language was combative and confrontational, as he promised to fight for "American families." "I know these steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists...

President Barack Obama's first budget includes $15 billion a year for renewable energy programs and an ambitious plan to raise $646 billion from a carbon reduction proposal. "Because our future depends on our ability to break free from oil that's controlled by foreign dictators, we need to make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy," Mr. Obama said Thursday morning. "That's why we'll be working with Congress on legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy." The plan uses money from a cap-and-trade program — which would allow companies to...

President Obama will pledge Tuesday night that the nation "will rebuild, we will recover," as he delivers an address to a joint session of Congress and with a nervous nation watching at home. "While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken; though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before," Mr. Obama will say, according to excerpts of his remarks. In lofty language, Mr. Obama is expected to promise a new path forward...

Barack Hussein Obama will propose a massive business tax on greenhouse gases in his FY 2010 federal budget to be presented this week.The massive tax increase and power grab was buried at the end on article on Obama's forthcoming budget proposal in The New York Times:On energy policy, Mr. Obama’s budget will show new revenues by 2012 from his proposal to require companies to buy permits from the government for greenhouse gas emissions above a certain cap. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the permits would raise up to $300 billion a year by 2020. Since companies would pass their...

In classical Athens, hubris was a crime and considered the greatest sin in Greek society. In American society it is simply defined as an arrogant self-confidence, an overweening excessive pride. As most Americans know by now, you’re most likely to see it displayed on Wall Street, in Hollywood, or in the nation’s capitol where Wall Street and Hollywood collided with a vengeance during the most recent election. As we’ve now seen with “the stimuli,” including the current bill in Washington, there are a great many people in D.C. who want all our money and that of future generations to use...

(CBS/ AP) Iran reacted coolly Wednesday to the inauguration of Barack Obama, while some Arab leaders immediately called on the new American president to dive into Mideast peace efforts. On the streets of the Muslim world, from Arab capitals to Palestinian refugee camps, some greeted Mr. Obama's first hours as president with pessimism, others with hope. Newspaper editorials and political commentators laid out the challenges facing the new U.S. administration, from the wreckage in Gaza to how to end the war in Iraq and confront a strengthening Taliban in Afghanistan.

Vice President Biden, Madame Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, President Clinton, President Carter, reverend clergy, fellow citizens, we observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom—symbolizing an end, as well as a beginning—signifying renewal, as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago. The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the...

What do we really know about our new POTUS Elect? He says that he is a natural born citizen but he can't or won't prove it. He claims to be a christian, but in order to attend that school in Indonesia, he would have had to be muslim. We know next to nothing about his college years, a time when none of his classmates or teachers remember him. What was he doing in Pakistan during the Soviet war in neighboring Afghanistan? Many questions, but very few answers.

Joe Biden, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, has told Americans to expect a “major international crisis” that will present an early test of a Barack Obama administration. His comments were seized upon by the Republican campaign yesterday to raise fresh doubts about the prepared-ness of Mr Obama to be commander-in-chief. Speaking at a fundraiser in Seattle on Sunday night, Mr Biden said: “Mark my words, it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America....

In October 1962 the film The Manchurian Candidate was released to rave reviews. Directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Frank Sinatra and Lawrence Harvey, the film was about a nefarious plot that involved brainwashing, an assassin with a post-hypnotic trigger and a conspiracy to deliver the US presidency into the hands of foreign enemies whose plan it was to destroy the country from within. Eventually cracks began to appear in the plot and in the end the evildoers met their just rewards. Fast-forward 46 years into this year’s presidential contest between Barack Obama and John McCain. Out of nowhere Barack...

The Georgia conflict has reduced hopes that a Barack Obama presidency could help mend U.S.-Russian ties, but the Democratic candidate would still be a better partner for Moscow than his Republican rival, John McCain, a senior lawmaker said. Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the State Duma's International Affairs Committee, said the fact that Obama's stance on Russia has moved closer to that of McCain's since the war with Georgia would complicate relations with the next U.S. administration. "Both Obama and McCain took a very hard stance … and this will certainly be an abiding factor for developing ties with Russia for...

(IsraelNN.com) Syria is banking on an Obama victory and is trying to reach out to his advisors, according to a Forbes article by the editor-in-chief of the Damascus-based All4Syria website. Ayman Abdel Nour also revealed in the widely respected financial publication that Syria covered up a terrorist attack on its intelligence agency last week. He said that Syria wants Senator Obama to win the presidential election to help Syrian President Bashar Assad bring back prosperity to Syria, which is under American sanctions. "The government wants desperately for things to look under control" in the wake of growing dissent, according to...

I really thought you would all enjoy this cartoon about the "objectivity" of tonight's debate moderator, Gwen Ifill:

Muslims and the US Election Campaign: “A Time for Change” by Mounir Azzaoui While America’s Muslim leaders are calling on Muslims to vote for Barack Obama, the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate is trying to quash the belief held by many that he is a Muslim. Nevertheless, Obama is considered by many to be a real alternative. Mounir Azzaoui reports from Washington. In view of the fact that the race for the White House is now in full swing, it is unlikely that the Islamic Society of North America’s (ISNA) choice of motto for its annual conference in Columbus (Ohio) was...

The long list of evil Obama associates seems to grow daily and although Obama has spent the last few years dodging questions, ignoring demands for full open disclosure of his past and making excuses about a plethora of bad associations, one fact seems glaringly obvious... Obama has far more to hide than to share! Christian or secret Muslim? For months, despite his Arab Muslim name and background, Obama told the public via his surrogates in the press, that he was not a Muslim but a devoted Christian and he offered as proof, his twenty year membership in the Rev. Wright’s...

JERUSALEM – "Senator Barack Obama is hiding mediocre grades." "He's covering up his acceptance into Harvard Law School utilizing a boost from an affirmative action program." "The presidential candidate is disguising his involvement in radical black organizations or that he first met Weathermen terrorist Bill Ayers much earlier than he's publicly admitted." These are just a few of the explanations from newspaper editorials, pundits and bloggers as to why Obama refuses to release his undergraduate records and has disclosed almost nothing about his days at Columbia University. Obama attended Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years before transferring to...

According to Jack Cashill (see this link), there is mounting evidence to indicate that Barack Obama was not the author of his now famous memoir, Dreams From My Father. His research into Obama's literary background shows that, prior to 1990, Obama had written nothing of note. Then like a bolt from the blue, Obama produces a work described by Time Magazine as "the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician."Cashill observes, "I had questioned whether the influential Muslim crackpot who paved Obama’s way into Harvard, Khalid al Mansour, might have greased his way into the world of publishing as...

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe predicted voters' uncertainty over whether Barack Obama really loves his country will help Republicans win the White House again in November. A spokeswoman for the Democratic nominee said Obama will not let anyone question his love of his country, adding that Americans have grown tired of cynical partisan politics such as challenging an opponent's patriotism. Inhofe made his comments at a breakfast for the state party's delegation earlier this week at the Republican National Convention. "I have no doubt in my mind that we are going to win this election, the presidency and vice presidency," the...

Iran’s leadership has expressed “great pleasure” at the prospect of a Barack Obama victory in November, according to Menashe Amir, the Iranian-born head of Radio Israel’s Persian language service. But Iranian President Ahmadinejad has said he doubts that the American establishment “will allow” Obama to win. “One of the Iranian religious leaders said if Obama will enter the White House, then Islam will conquer the heart of the American nation,” Amir told Isracast.com. The Iranian leadership likes Obama “mainly because he is a Muslim,” according to Amir. His first name, Barack, comes from “al-baraq,” which is the name of the...

A few weeks back, I wrote a column titled, "Who Wrote 'Dreams From My Father'?" My research led me to the conclusion that a literary neophyte like Obama could not have written the memoir on his own. It was simply too well crafted. I was also suspicious about his claim that publishers had sought him out, while still unknown, contract in hand. I doubted, too, that the publisher would have paid him a hefty advance. And I refused to believe that his publisher would have invested the hefty ghostwriting fee needed to rescue the project after four years of amateurish...

There's a candidate in this presidential race who remains a mystery — hazy, undefined, so full of contradictions that voters may see electing him as an enormous risk. I'm referring to the cipher known as John McCain. In fact, there are some basic things about McCain that apparently even McCain doesn't know. Asked Wednesday by reporters from Politico how many houses he and his wealthy wife Cindy own, McCain responded, "I think — I'll have my staff get to you." The correct answer seems to be somewhere between four and seven, but who's counting? I don't begrudge McCain his multiple...

The Obama campaign's Arab- and Muslim-American liaison has resigned after revelations of a brief association with a radical imam. Mazen Asbahi quit Monday because he did not want to be a "distraction" to the presidential campaign of US Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), The Wall Street Journal reported. Asbahi, a prominent Chicago lawyer, for a few weeks in 2000 had served on the board of the Allied Assets Advisors Fund affiliated with the North American Islamic Trust. Also serving on the board at that time was Jamal Said, an imam at a Chicago-area mosque known for his radical views. Said raised...

Barack Obama is one crafty fellow, reaping political success out of career that got precious little done. He has accomplished very little legislatively in his entire career; his vaunted accomplishments in the Illinois Senate were more the result of the handicraft of his political ally and mentor State Democratic head Emil Jones (who tacked Obama's name on legislation to bolster his career) than his own work on the issues . Obama has done virtually nothing at the Senate level -- he has not even seen fit to call a meeting of the Committee he heads, the Senate Subcommittee on European Affairs....

How long did it take Islam and their oil money to find a candidate for President of the United States? As long as it took them to place a Senator from Illinois and Minnesota? The same amount of time to create a large Muslim enclave in Detroit? The time it took them to build over 2,000 mosques in America? The same amount of time required to place radical Wahabbist clerics in our military and prisons as 'chaplains'? Find a candidate who can get away with lying about their father being a 'freedom fighter' when he was actually part of the...

FINDLAY, Ohio - On his corner of College Street, Jim Peterman stares at the four American flags planted in his front lawn and rubs his forehead. Peterman, 74, is a retired worker at Cooper Tire, a father of two, an Air Force veteran and a self-described patriot. He took one trip to Washington in 1989 -- best vacation of his life -- and bought a statue of the Washington Monument that he still displays in a glass case in his living room. He believes a smart vote is an American's greatest responsibility. Which is why his confusion about Barack Obama...

Obama's Defense Policy By Ed Lasky Barack Obama's defense policy plans threaten foreign policy consequences inimical to American interests, and would pose perilous problems for some of our key allies around the world, should he assume the Presidency. Senator Obama has made quite clear that he intends to eviscerate our most advanced defense programs. In a message to Caucus 4 Priorities, a liberal pacifist organization, (available on YouTube), the Senator called for major cuts in defense spending, for slowing or suspending the development of future combat systems, for the abolition of spending on the "weaponizing of space" ("Star Wars") and...

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. Barack Obama directly addressed accusations that have been circulating by e-mail when he addressed a pro-Israel conference Wednesday. "I want to say that I know some provocative e-mails have been circulating throughout Jewish communities across the country," the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said at AIPAC's annual conference. "They're filled with tall tales and dire warnings about a certain candidate for president. And all I want to say is — let me know if you see this guy named Barack Obama, because he sounds pretty scary." Rumors have been circulating at least since last year that Obama...