Free Republic

Given American policymakers' ignorance of Islam, "I am just worried about people like me running around with big theories trying to set foreign policy," stated famed intellectual historian Francis Fukuyama in Washington, D.C. His confession occurred at "Democracy in the Arab World: The Obama Legacy and Beyond," a recent conference that did little to alleviate the knowledge deficit among hackneyed Islamism apologists. Fukuyama's luncheon address at the downtown JW Marriot luxury hotel focused on the cultural factors that aided the development of modern societies. While China benefited from the appearance 2,300 years ago of the "first modern, relatively impersonal state,"...

Clinton’s campaign strategy, especially when it came to appealing to white women, indicates that she and her staffers didn’t quite grasp these dynamics. Her campaign employed a candy-colored brand of female empowerment seemingly based on the assumption that white women’s political priorities are influenced by the pop culture they consume. White working-class women weren’t going to vote for Clinton just because Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Lena Dunham, and Sheryl Sandberg were. These celebrity overtures were out of step with the priorities and concerns of white working-class women. How can you “lean in,” as Sandberg implores working women to do, when...

The Gray Lady feels the agony of political defeat — in her reputation and in her wallet. After taking a beating almost as brutal as Hillary Clinton’s, the New York Times on Friday made an extraordinary appeal to its readers to stand by her...

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) lost badly to Indiana Gov. Mike Pence in Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate — despite having home field advantage in Farmville, Virginia — raising new doubts about Hillary Clinton. Those doubts are twofold: first, about her decision to choose so weak a candidate, who seemed unable to answer basic policy questions; and second, about Clinton’s health, since if her medical troubles are as bad as feared, Kaine may be taking over at some point if she is elected. Kaine could not stop interrupting Pence, at times sounding high-pitched and shrill, at times whining and defensive. Pence...

If you can’t even win when the rules are changed in your favor, things must be REALLY bad. That’s how it looks for Hillary Clinton’s new 2016 campaign book, “Stronger Together,” co-authored with running mate Tim Kaine. WND reported just days ago when the book was being savaged on Amazon.com with negative reviews, with 81 percent one-star ratings and an average of only 1.7. Clinton supporters lashed out at “trolls” they said were criticizing the book only because they oppose the Democrat’s presidential candidacy. WND previously reported there were more than 1,200 reviews, and the number grew to than 2,000....

According to energy magnate T. Boone Pickens, Obama has been a loser for the energy industry. And not just a loser, but “a complete loser”. That he is not a fan of President Obama’s policies—including his energy policies--comes as no surprise. Pickens said in 2014 that Obama was “the worst president we’ve ever had”.

Sunday at the Men’s Day program hosted at Union Temple Baptist Church in Washington, DC, Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan said to President Barack Obama, “Your people are suffering and dying in the streets,” of Chicago, so “you failed to do what should have been done.” Farrakhan continued by saying it is time to let Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump do “what he wants to because he is not destroying your legacy.”

Obamacare was designed to fail. It’s a gigantic con job. It was drawn up in such a way that it would eventually collapse thus theoretically clearing the way for single-payer Well, DUH! Of course Obamacare was designed to fail. The system is built on lies. It is a Trojan horse for a total government takeover of health care in the United States. In an op-ed in The Hill, Jeffrey I. Barke, M.D., who practices family medicine in Newport Beach, Calif., examines the issue. He writes: As ObamaCare’s troubles mount, I’ve heard my patients and my peers in healthcare ask: How...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government has mistakenly granted citizenship to at least 858 immigrants from countries of concern to national security or with high rates of immigration fraud who had pending deportation orders, according to an internal Homeland Security audit released Monday.

NBC News knows the "Commander-in-Chief Forum" was not Matt Lauer's finest hour. One executive, speaking anonymously, was blunt about it: "Disaster." The morning after Lauer's back-to-back interviews of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, several high ranking sources at the network said they hear the criticism and agree with at least some of it. Lauer was widely criticized for failing to fact-check or follow up when Trump falsely claimed that he was opposed to the Iraq war when it started. Some viewers thought Lauer held Clinton to a higher standard than Trump. Several people who were sitting in the audience told...

This week the conservative media is noticing that even the president’s cheering section at the New York Times is wising up to Obama’s mistakes in Syria, Libya, Iran, and more. But I think that the disaster of the president’s foreign policy is the least of his problems. I think the real mistake is the president’s ruthless attempt to push the liberal agenda to the max during the last eight years. I see why the president returned the bust of Churchill to the Brits. He just doesn’t believe: In victory or magnanimity. And now I have the founder of the Democratic...

Gigantic losses put exchanges on the brink, send program careening into chaos Remember when everyone watching ObamaCare was focused on how many people had signed up? First they needed 7 million, then 11 million, and on it went as new targets replaced the old. These weren’t meaningless - at least it didn’t appear that way. The targets represented the critical mass the Obama Administration itself said the program needed to be economically sustainable. Insurance, they told us, is about risk pools. If you’ve got enough people in the risk pool, you’d have enough premiums being paid in to cover those...

As contenders scramble for the White House this fall, thoughts have naturally turned to President Obama’s legacy, and particularly his environmental legacy. As taxpayers consider the lessons of that legacy they would do well to consider past support and use of taxpayer dollars for favored industries and companies. One of those once favored companies is the now defunct renewable energy company Solyndra. During the late 2000s, the Obama administration deployed its political capital to cultivate an environmentally friendly image for the president. In a quest for renewable energy as part of the stimulus package and at the urging of the...

Leftists promised rage at the 2016 Republican National Convention and failed to deliver. The anarchists and Black Lives Matter radicals tried their hardest and simply couldn’t get anyone to show up to participate in their efforts to attack Republicans and treat police officers badly. The attempt to turn the 2016 convention into a warzone–as their movement had done at the 2008 convention–simply failed. The Cleveland anarchists and radical leftists failed and simply sucked at organizing. This year’s fireworks from the “revolutionaries” proved their movement to be even more impotent than did their failures in 2012 at the Tampa convention. .......

Humana, one of the largest health care providers in the country, has made the decision to eventually leave the vast majority of the Obamacare markets. Out of the 23 Obamacare co-ops that were established only seven remain, virtually all of them under threat of folding by the end of this year.

When President Obama entered office, he dreamed that his hope-and-change messaging and his references to his familial Islamic roots would win over the Muslim world. The soon-to-be Nobel Peace Prize laureate would make the U.S. liked in the Middle East. Then, terrorism would decrease. But, as with his approach to racial relations, Obama's remedies proved worse than the original illness. Obama gave his first presidential interview to Al Arabiya, noting that he has Muslims in his family. He implicitly blamed America's strained relations with many Middle Eastern countries on his supposedly insensitive predecessor, George W. Bush. The new message of...

It's not just United Health, Blue Cross/Blue Shield and boutique commercial insurers initially praised by the president as a model for his massive healthcare experiment. The trend of health insurance providers losing money on Obamacare's disproportionately older and sicker (and therefore more expensive to cover) enrollees is a nationwide problem that's driving companies out of the individual market and forcing rates upward. Fewer choices, higher costs, and disappointing enrollment statistics. Via John Sexton, here's a Politico report on the 'Affordable' Care Act's unstable, unsustainable status quo: For the insurance companies doing business in the state–the ones issuing policies to those 600,000 people–Obamacare has turned into a financial sinkhole....

Leading from behind is a business concept where leaders steer their organizations much as shepherds guiding their flocks, from behind. It is contingent on a basic reality, “One can lead from behind only if one knows what lies ahead and what it will take to get there.” President Obama’s foreign policy style has been described as “leading from behind” particularly in the Middle East. Another view of Obama’s style: “A foreign policy of hesitation, delay and indecision.” One look at the current Middle East shows how that is working out. Shifting from foreign to domestic affairs, how has the President’s...

That awkward moment when your Back Lives Matter “Day of Rage” turns out to be “30 white goobs in khakis and Birkenstocks.” Friday, July 15, was supposed to be the Black Lives Matter “Day of Rage” in cities across the US. I’ve seen dying fish “flop” less than this. If by “rage” they meant a bunch of white goobs aimlessly meandering around, then mission accomplished! Black Lives Matter held “RAGES” in Texas, Portland, Oakland, and a few other cities. I couldn’t tell if this was a protest or a group of people impatiently waiting for the Denver Whole Foods to...

Senior Obama administration officials took a series of decisions beginning in late 2013 that ranged from the reckless to the illegal in an effort to keep insurers participating in health insurance exchanges. A report issued last week jointly by the House Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce committees explores how the administration came to unlawfully funnel $7 billion in unappropriated money to insurers through a single ObamaCare program.