Free Republic

Twas the night before healthcare and all through the night Pelosi and Reid met to unite Their lies and their bribes made with careful design Bought off many people to meet a deadline The voters at home were not sure of this ploy And the media distractions were but a decoy Obama, with teleprompter close by Was campaigning for this the odds to defy But out on the internet there arose lots of chatter We were on to these two on the health care matter Away to the chat rooms they typed up a storm Poll numbers indicate they were...

Dear Governor Palin, My name is Patricia Melton, and I am the President-for-Life of the Mineral City Coffee Club here in Mineral City, Ohio. I don’t know if you have Coffee Clubs up in Alaska, but you should. I imagine it gets really cold up there, and there’s nothing like a hot cup of coffee and spirited conversation with good friends (and even people you can’t stand) to take the chill out of the air and get a little fire in your belly. This morning, the Mineral City Coffee Club is getting our little care packages ready to take out...

(Dec. 22, 2009) — By now it is 5:00 pm in Honolulu, Hawaii. And the offices of the Department of Health are closed. So The Post & Email can go public with the fact that the Department is in open violation of Hawaii Law regarding the request made by its editor, Mr. John Charlton, on Sept. 27, 2009, and which on Dec. 8, 2009, the Office of Information Practices warned them of the violation and demanded they respond to the request by Dec. 21st. The request I made did not regard Barack Hussein Obama’s vital records. And that is what...

What's happening with ObamaCare this week in the Senate is raw, rank politics at its worst. PASSING LAWS has been compared to making sausage. But in the case of the mammoth health care bill expected to pass the Senate on Christmas Eve, that's an insult to employees at the Jimmy Dean plant. It's also a slap at Americans who want Congress to take its time to make thoughtful changes that will affect one seventh of the U.S. economy. President Obama campaigned on "change we can believe in." Most voters believed him. Yet many polls show that only a minority of...

It is perfectly clear that Palin is talking about rationing in general. She specifically made an argument about the government's refusing to pay the cost of health care will lead to rationing care, and she also wrote that her "baby with Down Syndrome" could be affected by such rationing. How would "end-of-life counseling" for the elderly cause the death of a disabled baby? As Ben Smith notes, Palin's spokesperson did cite the end-of-life counseling provision as a specific example of rationing in the bill. But that was just one example, which, Palin argued could put pressure on the elderly. Obama...

The final Senate vote on the "Health Care Bill" is tomorrow (Christmas Eve). It is imperative that you contact your Senators and tell them to vote against it, particularly if your senator is a Democrat up for re-election in 2010! Let them know you will campaign tirelessly against them during the 2010 election cycle if they vote for the bill, even let them know you have (or will) sign the Liberty Petition and boycott their campaign donors. It is a last ditch effort, but still worthwhile.

The Left, since the release of Sarah Palin’s book, Going Rogue, and its million plus sales in a matter of weeks, have been wandering the streets in a benighted stupor, tugging at their unkempt hair, and shrieking at whomever will listen with their question of “why”? “Why is she popular, why is she on television, why is she on magazine covers, why, why, why?” “This is Sarah Palin, not Barack Obama, why?” Despite the equitably challenged mainstream media’s shilling Barack Obama like snake-oil out the back of a mountebank’s wagon, and the very same media’s non-stop offensive on Sarah Palin,...

Obama says disappointment at Copenhagen justifiedAlister Bull and Tabassum Zakaria Wed Dec 23, 2009 6:38pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Wednesday that disappointment over the outcome of the Copenhagen climate change summit was justified, hardening a widespread verdict that the conference had been a failure. COP15 "I think that people are justified in being disappointed about the outcome in Copenhagen," he said in an interview with PBS Newshour. "What I said was essentially that rather than see a complete collapse in Copenhagen, in which nothing at all got done and would have been a huge backward...

Barack Obama will be spending ten days over Christmas and New Year's at a $8.9 million estate in Hawaii at a rate of at least $4000 per night, according to ABC News. Obama spent last Christmas there as well when he was president-elect.As the American people are still caught in the grips of the recession with unemployment running from 10% to 16% and the federal budget blown out with Obama's massive deficit spending, Obama is living like a king with no criticism from the mainstream media.ABC describes the estate with no mention of the incongruence of Obama's extravagance with the...

When I think of Obama I think of the word unctuous. When I think of unctuous I think of Eddie Haskell.

Taking stock this second Christmas after the election of Barack Obama to the presidency -- as a conservative Republican (with growing "tea party" tendencies) -- I'm filled with a thrilling, unexpected hopefulness that the president may be well on his way to losing his battle for the hearts and minds of the American people -- tempered by a shocked disbelief that so much long-term damage could be perpetrated on our economy, national security and way of life in just 11 months of ill-judged governance....

The health care legislation about to be passed by the U.S. Senate requires all Americans to purchase health insurance. All Americans, that is, except for the Senate, other members of Congress and their staff. The Democrats refuse to even allow vote on the matter.....

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama on Wednesday expressed frustration with the way the Senate does business, saying the use of delaying tactics there harms the nation's ability to "deal with big problems in a very competitive world." "Other countries are going to start running circles around us," Obama said in a White House interview with PBS. "We're going to have to return to some sense that governance is more important than politics inside the Senate." Obama's critique of his former Senate colleagues came just as his allies there were on the cusp of giving him what he wants: passage...

First of all, SENATOR SHELDON WHITEHOUSE. You sir, and I say that with VAST qualification, are a SCOUNDREL and a BALD FACED LIAR. The people of your state will challenge you in 2012. Don't think, you smarmy RAT, that you will be forgotten. 2012 just gives us more time to prepare to oust you. This paragon of virtue put on his best TRIAL LAWYER'S FACE and spewed enough venom to wipe out a small city, saying that we AMERICAN CONSERVATIVES are desperate to `break' Barack Obama. No Senator, we are not desperate because Barry Hussein is breaking himself and he'll...

The Belmomt Club sets the scene: Small Dead Animals has a translation of a German article which purports to describe how Barack Obama stormed into a meeting of heads of state, acting like it was a scene from a Hollywood movie. Although the Welt article has the most detail, there are collateral reports from other papers which suggest an extraordinary scene took place, although not necessarily confirming the details of Welt. The question is what happened and what did it signify. The Welt story follows in its entirety, as translated on Small Dead Animals. But it is a strange story,...

I'm not much for vanity posts, but I saw this while cruising around on Facebook today and found it very entertaining but simultaneously frustrating since it reflect the times in which we live. Kudos to Andrew Dunn for creating the rules, and have provided the Google cache page in case the Facebook page doesn't open. These are the rules for Obamanopoly, the overly complicated version of the free-market game Monopoly. 1. At any point in a classic unabridged Milton Bradley game of Monopoly, the Banker can say “Stimulus” and institute any or all of the additional rules so listed 2....

If it has been a while since you were a child waiting for Christmas morning, or whatever time of day the parental green light was given for the opening of presents, you may be a little out of touch with the true magnitude of this event. For most kids, Christmas is a magical time of both gift giving and gift receiving. This holiday event has its own magic that supersedes every other day of the year. While children perceive much more than they are given credit for, they have the tendency to have a somewhat flawed reality of their parents’...

The Conscience of Kansas radio program invites to listen to the political reading of "The Night Before Christmas" by host Paul A. Ibbetson.

Self-Evident Truths: Sen. Dianne Feinstein says it comes under the Commerce Clause. Rep. Steny Hoyer says it's mandated by the "general welfare" clause. Despite liberal wishes, health care is not a right. The "living Constitution" that Democrats and their court appointees have given us may be the death of our freedoms. Their constitution adapts to the times and serves the whims of the elitists. The Constitution is supposed to limit government powers. It does not allow government to do anything it feels like doing. Cass Sunstein, the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, is the author of...

For most Americans, the health reform bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is pushing to pass will be worse than coal in their stockings. Herewith, the Top 10 List of Things You Don't Want From Health Care Reform This Christmas — But Will Get Anyway From Congress. 1. Higher premiums: If you pay for your own insurance, your premiums will cost 10% to 13% more than if the bill didn't pass, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Insurance won't be more affordable. Sixty percent of the newly insured are being enrolled in Medicaid, the public program for the poor....

COLUMBIA, S.C. - The top prosecutors in seven states are probing the constitutionality of a political deal that cut a funding break for Nebraska in order to pass a federal health care reform bill, South Carolina's attorney general said Tuesday. Attorney General Henry McMaster said he and his counterparts in Alabama, Colorado, Michigan, North Dakota, Texas and Washington state — all Republicans — are jointly taking a look at the deal they've dubbed the "Nebraska compromise." "The Nebraska compromise, which permanently exempts Nebraska from paying Medicaid costs that Texas and all other 49 states must pay, may violate the United...

President Barack Obama went on the offensive against Wall Street for not lending more to Main Street. On CBS's "60 Minutes," the president declared, "I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street." He was joined on the Sunday morning circuit by his chief economic adviser, Lawrence Summers, who echoed the message of intimidation. Wall Street fat cats are always a convenient political target, but bankers are responding to the incentives generated by the economic policies of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. First and foremost is the Fed's policy...

History speaks of a Pax Romana, a Pax Britannica, and a Pax Americana - but no other namable eras of sustained peace, for the simple reason cited by Henry Kissinger: nothing maintains peace except hegemony and the balance of power. The balancing act always fails, though, as it did in Europe in 1914, and as it will in Central and South Asia precisely a century later. The result will be suppurating instability in the region during the next two years and a slow but deadly drift toward great-power animosity. Those who wanted an end to US hegemony will get what...

Polls To what extent do you think the health care bill on which the U.S. Senate plans to vote on Christmas Eve will bring down costs? Not at all 79% Unsure 9% A little 7% A lot 5%

Violating its own guarantee of unprecedented transparency, the White House is blocking an investigation into the controversial firing of an inspector general who exposed one of President Obama’s political supporters—a California mayor—for misusing federal funds. First Lady Michelle Obama was reportedly behind the contentious June dismissal of AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin and congressional investigators want to interview the aide (Jackie Norris) who may have given the order. At the time Norris was the First Lady’s chief of staff but the White House counsel’s office has blocked investigators from interviewing her, according to a national news report. Norris is currently...

Apparently, when the President was in South Korea, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak handed him a dobok (Taekwon-do outfit) and presented him with a blackbelt. This is an honor that takes the average student at least a year and a half. It took me around two years for my first degree of blackbelt and ten years to achieve my current rank of fourth degree blackbelt. The original Taekwon-do started by General Choi splintered into two main groups: the World Tae Kwon Do Federation(WTF) and the International Tawkwon-do Federation (ITF). I belong to the ITF, which is the traditional group and...

I listened to Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell on Sean Hannity’s radio show yesterday. He sounded tired and barely able to rally the troops against the Democrats’ government health care takeover. He told Sean’s guest host at the end of an obligatory-sounding critique of Harry Reid that, and I quote, “We’re going to fight ‘em all the way to the finish line.” That’s what he said: “We’re going to fight ‘em all the way to the finish line.” Before the cloture vote on sneaky Sunday, Sen. John McCain had sounded the same message with more energy, invoking John Paul Jones...

President Barack Obama on Wednesday dismissed criticisms stirring among the political left that he has hedged his principles as this year's healthcare debate has toughened. During an interview with PBS's "Newshour," the president said those who now charge he has "compromised" his key healthcare goals are "not paying attention" to the debate itself. He also explained he has been realistic about what is "achievable" with healthcare reform -- a mindset, Obama added, that had resulted in the White House getting "95 percent" of what it originally wanted in a bill. "Oftentimes what happens is, people who are frustrated because they...

Politico’s Mike Allen and Alexander Trowbridge have some bad news for Democrats, especially in the Senate, where Harry Reid has kept the chamber locked in battle over ObamaCare for weeks in an attempt to hit the finish line by Christmas. Barack Obama plans to put the health-care overhaul on the back burner until after the State of the Union address, pushing any conference between the House and Senate off until February. Instead, Obama plans a “hard pivot” towards jobs and the economy: The White House privately anticipates health care talks to slip into February — past President Barack Obama’s first...

I know Jim DeMint has requested a ruling on the Constitutionality of the HealthCare bill but, doesn't the Supreme Court automatically review legislation? And given that the makeup of the court is still in our favor, for the most part, don't we stand a good chance of having the whole thing ruled as un-Constitutional even if we do lose the final vote? Checks and balances, you know?

Much has been made about how Democrats are committing political suicide with the healthcare bill and all the other onerous legislation they have proposed and/or passed this year. There is no mistaking that these actions are extremely unpopular. The widespread uncertainty they have fostered in the business community by coupling job-killing legislation and talk of big tax increases with unprecedented, reckless deficit spending has kept our economy at a virtual standstill. And their insulting, arrogant, dishonest and blatantly corrupt behavior has brought citizen concern and anger to a fever pitch, while Democrat poll numbers plummet. But those who believe in...

WASHINGTON - Exultant Senate Democrats pushed President Barack Obama's landmark health care overhaul past a final procedural hurdle Wednesday, setting up a Christmas Eve vote to pass the legislation extending coverage to 30 million Americans. Democrats voted 60-39 to end a GOP filibuster and move to a final vote Thursday. All 58 Democrats and two independents hung together against unanimous Republican opposition. It was the 24th day of debate on the 10-year, nearly $1 trillion bill. "It is now only hours until this Senate will pass meaningful health care reform," said Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.

Rebuffed this month by skeptical lawmakers when it sought finances to buy a prison in rural Illinois, the Obama administration is struggling to come up with the money to replace the Guantánamo Bay prison. As a result, officials now believe that they are unlikely to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and transfer its population of terrorism suspects until 2011 at the earliest — a far slower timeline for achieving one of President Obama’s signature national security policies than they had previously hinted. While Mr. Obama has acknowledged that he would miss the Jan. 22 deadline for closing the...

The edge of the abyssAlthough the decline of the United States has taken place over a period of decades, in retrospect, critical moments provide the dots, which, when connected create on ominous picture of conspiracy. Yes, conspiracy—the “C” word—a word stigmatized to instantly conjure in the mind visages of paranoid schizoids in tin-foil hats with eyes darting to and fro frantically in search of secret enemy agents. There is no ‘man’ behind the curtain—or so they would have everyone believe. And, in a sense, they are right; for the ‘man’ is not behind the curtain, but working openly, convincing onlookers...

During the 70 years that the communists controlled the Soviet Union, they had a peculiar way of teaching history to the people. They would teach things as historical fact that never happened. If you were one of those who took umbrage with their revisionist history lessons, you would soon find yourself living in a tiny apartment in a part of the country where they laugh at anyone who claims the world is getting warmer. In a communist country this is the only way to convince the masses that they are actually better off than anyone in the history of...

Wither Sovereignty? Executive Order Amended to Immunize INTERPOL In America-Is The ICC Next? Last Thursday, December 17, 2009, The White House released an Executive Order "Amending Executive Order 12425." It grants INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) a new level of full diplomatic immunity afforded to foreign embassies and select other "International Organizations" as set forth in the United States International Organizations Immunities Act of 1945. By removing language from President Reagan's 1983 Executive Order 12425, this international law enforcement body now operates - now operates - on American soil beyond the reach of our own top law enforcement arm, the...

Quite intentionally, the Obama administration is making so many radical moves on so many different fronts simultaneously that it's difficult to stay on top of them all, much less give them the attention they deserve. But while we argue health care and Iran policy and a civilian trial for KSM and the decision to transfer enemy combatants to a U.S. prison, it's important to notice how dangerously irresponsible the administration's obsession to close Gitmo has become, and how tawdry the Justice Department is allowing itself to appear. Not content with the Friday bad-news dump, the administration announced on the Sunday...

At least 10 states are now raising questions about the legality of the deal that Senator Ben Nelson, a Democrat, cut for his home state of Nebraska during the health care negotiations. Under the agreement, which is on the verge of being approved Thursday by the Senate, Nebraska is permanently exempt from paying for its expansion of Medicaid, shoving that cost onto taxpayers in every other state. Mr. Nelson was able to exercise such leverage because in exchange, he was providing the magical 60th vote that Democrats needed to advance their health care bill. The deal has enraged other Senators,...

The left is starting to believe President Obama is a “poser,” Glenn Beck said on his TV show. In their view, he has failed to achieve many of his campaign promises. He dropped the so-called public option from his healthcare legislation which is “the progressives’ ultimate prize.” Said Beck: "As the concessions are being made and this bill gets stripped down, the only thing left is a mandate to buy insurance, a giant boon, they’ll say, to those evil big insurance companies. That’s not exactly what the left had in mind, not Democrats — the left, and they are coming...

President Obama outlined Tuesday a first-year legislative record that he said rescued the economy and placed it on a path of long-term growth, even as he acknowledged that some unfinished items would probably be more difficult to achieve heading into a midterm election year. In an Oval Office interview with The Washington Post, Obama rejected criticism that he has compromised too much to secure health-care reform or turned over too much authority to congressional leaders in pursuing his broad legislative agenda. But some of Obama's signature initiatives, including cap-and-trade legislation and financial regulatory reform, remain unfulfilled heading into an election...

CAIRO - A Saudi-owned newspaper says that one of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's daughters has taken refuge in the Saudi Embassy in Tehran after eluding guards who have held her and five brothers under house arrest for eight years.

It hasn't been a very good week for President Obama in public opinion polls on several different fronts. Not only do 60% trust their own economic judgment more than President Obama's, but 18% more strongly disapprove of the president's performance than those who strongly approve. This was the highest gap of strong disapproval over strong approval since President Obama took office.

I know Bush had his own list of catastrophes; other Presidents did as well. Again, my point is not trying to adjudicate relative culpability, but rather just to remind us all how and why Obama dived over 20 points in the polls in just 11 months—and his speeches transformed from inspirational to caricatures. In short, taken together, after nearly a year, these fissures have nearly ruined the once pretty texture of the Obama administration, and almost rendered it incapable of effective governance. Here is a random selection. I provide no chronology or theme. Nor do I judge the relative importance...

These photos of ornaments on the White House Christmas tree in the Blue Room were taken just days ago. Of course, Mao has his place in the White House. And, of course, it wouldn’t be Christmas without an ornament of legendary transvestite Hedda Lettuce. And, so soon after collecting the Nobel Peace Prize, why wouldn’t the White House have an ornament super-imposing President Obama onto Mt. Rushmore:

Although Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed to allow Democrats to move up the vote on the Senate version of ObamaCare so that Congress could go home for Christmas, Republicans are far from giving up the fight. Even before Congress has a chance to work out a successful compromise between the House and Senate versions of the bill after the holidays, Congressional Republicans and conservative organizations are preparing legal challenges to the bill should it reach Obama's desk.

A liberal group, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (P.C.C.C.), is launching a television ad, criticizing President Obama for endorsing a Senate health care bill which includes a mandate to buy insurance but no government insurance option. The ad was produced overnight, according to the group’s co-founder, to respond “to the anger” that progressives are feeling about President Obama telling today’s Washington Post: “I didn’t campaign on the public option.” The ad, which is starting with only $40,000 behind it, is being launched in Wisconsin, in addition to Washington, D.C., in the hopes that Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., will “be a...

With the Census Bureau's release today of its annual population estimates for the 50 states, the final projections of next year's decennial census reveal further details of the likely winners and losers. Here are some highlights based on the analysis by Polidata, a demographic and political research firm. • Of the 11 House seats that would switch among the states as a result of the projections, Texas would gain four. The remaining seats would be distributed one each to seven states -- four in the West (Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Washington) and three in the South (Florida, Georgia and...

A newspaper front page about the birth of Jesus if written by Obama, Reid, and Pelosi.

Tropical Storm Ida happened well over a month ago, almost two now. But regardless, the great father in Washington has generously opened up the federal purse to help those struggling folks that lost so much to that storm. The devastation was so bad that USA Today said of the storm, "Tropical Storm Ida slogged ashore in the area in November with heavy rains but left relatively little damage." Huh? Wait a minute? If the storm wasn't so bad, why is the Obama Administration suddenly, almost two months later, making a show of sending federal disaster money to Alabama? Oh, wait....

The Left, since the release of Sarah Palin’s book, Going Rogue, and its million plus sales in a matter of weeks, have been wandering the streets in a benighted stupor, tugging at their unkempt hair, and shrieking at whomever will listen with their question of “why”? “Why is she popular, why is she on television, why is she on magazine covers, why, why, why?” “This is Sarah Palin, not Barack Obama, why?” Despite the equitably challenged mainstream media’s shilling Barack Obama like snake-oil out the back of a mountebank’s wagon, and the very same media’s non-stop offensive on Sarah Palin,...