Free Republic

Well, here’s a new declaration from outgoing President Obama. He’s declared himself to be the “father of the Tea Party.” In an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, the anchor (and former Clinton operative) asked the president what sentence would describe him. Stephanopoulos cited the quote by the late Congresswoman Clare Booth Luce, who said “the greater the man, the easier it is to describe him in a single sentence.” Luce uttered this in 1962 when asked by then-President Kennedy what was on her mind. The 44th president said of himself, “President Obama believed deeply in this democracy and the...

resident Obama mentioned in his farewell speech that no foreign terrorist organization has planned and executed an attack on the homeland. Because of the extraordinary courage of our men and women in uniform, and the intelligence officers, law enforcement, and diplomats who support them, no foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack on our homeland these past eight years The president has been laying it on thick over the past week with this claim. On January 4, at Fort Myer in Arlington, President Obama addressed members of the military in a farewell ceremony, where he reiterated the...

The Times of Israel reports: An Egyptian paper has published what it claims are the transcripts of meetings between top US and Palestinian officials that, if true, would corroborate Israeli accusations that the Obama administration was behind last week’s UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements. {.. snip ..}

Scandal, what scandal? President Obama has been squeaky clean, according to his closest adviser, Valerie Jarrett. “The president prides himself on the fact that his administration hasn’t had a scandal and he hasn’t done something to embarrass himself,” Jarrett said in an interview broadcast on CNN Sunday.

During Saturday’s Weekly Address, President Obama reflected on his time in office and touted the “extraordinary progress” the country has made over the last eight years. Transcript as Follows: “Happy New Year, everybody. At a time when we turn the page on one year and look ahead to the future, I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for everything you’ve done to make America stronger these past eight years. Just eight years ago, as I prepared to take office, our economy teetered on the brink of depression. Nearly 800,000 Americans were losing their jobs each month. In...

The Agence France-Presse on Thursday updated a misleading headline that suggested that Russia manipulated US vote totals on Election Day through hacking. "US sanctions Russia over vote hacking," read an AFP headline. The Obama administration leveled sanctions against Russia on Thursday for election-related hacking. But there is no evidence that Russian hackers broke into election systems to change vote totals. The White House and US intelligence agencies have only accused Moscow of hacking the Democratic National Committee and political operatives. The AFP later corrected its headline to read: "US punishes Russia over election hacks." An editor's note was not attached...

Secretary of State John Kerry delcared Wednesday that Israel "can either be Jewish or democratic" but "it cannot be both." Here's a transcript: "The truth is that trends on the ground, violence, terrorism, settlement expansion and the seemingly endless occupation, they are combining to destroy hopes for peace on both sides and increasingly cementing any reversible -- an irreversible one state reality that most people do not actually want. Today, there are a similar number of Jews and Palestinians living between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea. They have a choice. They can choose to live together in one...

I just added 38 items to my list of Obama’s lies, lawbreaking, etc. Items 1 through 500 can be found at https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/obama-252/Items 501 through 1,000 can be found at https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2015/12/04/obama-part-2/Items 1,001 through 1,342 can be found at https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2015/12/04/obama-part-3/Here are the new entries:1,305) Obama’s Justice Department sought to hire “Trial Attorney, GS-14/15” with “mental retardation”In February 2010, the website for Obama’s Justice Department had a help wanted ad for “Trial Attorney, GS-14/15” with “mental retardation.” The complete ad can be read here.1,306) Obama’s Justice Department ordered University of California, Berkeley to pay “compensatory damages” to deaf people because its free educational videos...

‘We have, by no means overcome the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow and colonialism and racism’ America is still struggling to overcome its "legacies of slavery, Jim Crow, colonialism, and racism," President Obama told Comedy Central Monday night. Appearing on "The Daily Show," Obama was asked about how he speaks to crowds about race. How does he "skirt that line between speaking your mind and sharing your true opinions on race whilst, at the same time, not being seen to alienate some of the people you are talking to," host Trevor Noah asked. "You know, my general theory is...

After eight years of blaming America’s problems on George W. Bush, the press that got the election wrong is rolling out a new line — that President Obama is handing President-elect Donald Trump a booming economy. That takes some brass. The jobless rate is down to 4.6 percent, and the growth rate is up above 2 percent or even 3 percent, with housing prices getting back to pre-recession levels. Stocks are soaring. So the idea seems to be that Obama has solved the problem in the nick of time. “Obama’s gift to Trump” is the headline on CNN. “Trump inherits...

As first ladies they could hardly have been more different. But as Democrats looking to fire up female voters, Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton were firmly bonded on Thursday. […] “Seriously, is there anyone more inspiring than Michelle Obama?” Clinton asked, as a crowd in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, answered with cheers. Mrs. Obama declared the feeling mutual. She referred to Clinton as “my girl” and offered reassurance that her testimony for Clinton is both personal and political. […] The Clintons and Obamas themselves have a fraught history, one that includes both spouses. While Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton battled in...

President Barack Obama is telling workers and volunteers signing up customers for health insurance coverage that the enrollment season comes at a critical time in the Affordable Care Act’s history. […] Some insurers have bailed out of markets and premiums are jumping in many states. But Obama says government tax credits will offset the premium increases for most consumers. He says people will be pleasantly surprised at just how affordable their options are, if they shop around. …

During Hillary Clinton’s first presidential campaign, Neera Tanden was described as “the wonk behind Hillary.” A close associate of the Clintons, Tanden helped shape policy for both Bill and Hillary. Then she switched to playing that role for Obama. While Hillary’s email scandal broke, Tanden was in charge of the Center for American Progress, a radical left-wing group that had been described as "Obama's Idea Factory." And she was chatting with John Podesta, the top Clintonite who had founded CAP. Podesta had co-chaired the Obama-Biden Transition Project. Neera Tanden would co-chair the Hillary-Kaine Transition Project under Podesta who headed up...

President Barack Obama offers multiple excuses for why health insurance premiums continue to skyrocket, including blaming Republicans and insurance companies for the problems. He complains that too many reporters spend more time discussing premium increases than explaining why he isn’t responsible for them. “No, I had nothing to do with that,” Obama said, calling it “complicated” despite the “hysteria” that was growing. Obama traveled to Florida to argue that Obamacare was working well, but needed to be fixed

I just added new 55 items to my list of Obama’s lies, lawbreaking, etc. Items 1 through 500 can be found at https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/obama-252/Items 501 through 1,000 can be found at https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2015/12/04/obama-part-2/Items 1,001 through 1,304 can be found at https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2015/12/04/obama-part-3/Here are the 55 new entries:1,250) A spokesperson for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton contradicted Clinton’s own statement about the 30,000 emails that Clinton had deleted from her private serverIn March 2015, ABC News reported the following about the 30,000 emails that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had deleted from her private server:“We went through a thorough process to identify all of my...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — In a closing dispatch to the world he's tried to shape, President Barack Obama conceded Tuesday that the United States and other major powers have only limited ability to solve the world's most profound problems, including Syria's civil war. He lamented the "cycles of conflict and suffering" that seem to kick in every time humanity finally seems to be getting it right. "Perhaps that's our fate," Obama said in his last speech to the U.N. General Assembly. Four months before leaving office, Obama called for a "course correction" to ensure that the unstoppable forces of globalization...

A 76-year-old veteran committed suicide on Sunday in the parking lot of the Northport Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Long Island, where he had been a patient, according to the Suffolk County Police Department. Peter A. Kaisen, of Islip, was pronounced dead after he shot himself outside Building 92, the nursing home at the medical center. The hospital is part of the Veterans Affairs medical system, the nation’s largest integrated health care organization, which has been under scrutiny since 2014, when the department confirmed that numerous patients had died awaiting treatment at a V.A. hospital in Phoenix. Officials there had...

In the case of King v. Burwell, decided by the Supreme Court in June of 2015, President Obama won the day by convincing six justices that Obamacare would collapse if he lost. The case involved the so-called "individual mandate," which imposes a financial penalty on those who neglect to buy health insurance. To many observers, the wording of Affordable Care Act seemed to impose the financial penalty only in states where a state exchange had been set up, not in states where the federal exchange operated by default. At that time, only 16 states (and the District of Columbia) had...

On Thursday, US President Barack Obama proclaimed that Israel was now a supporter of his nuclear deal with Iran, but on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu corrected him, saying that Israel is more worried about the deal than ever. President Obama held a press briefing at the Pentagon on Thursday, coping with a revelation that the US flew pallets loaded with $400 million in cash to Iran in an unmarked cargo plane. The payment came simultaneously with the release of four Americans held in Iranian prisons. Iran claimed the payment was ransom for the prisoners, while the White House...

Federal data released Aug. 9 shows that Americans’ wages are dropping again, seven years after President Barack Obama declared the economy had recovered from the property-bubble — and three months before the 2016 election. The dramatic drop was buried in an Aug. 9 report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which said that officials have radically revised their prior claim that wages grew 4.2 percent in the first quarter, from January to March. “Real hourly compensation decreased 0.4 percent after revision, rather than the previously-published increase of 4.2 percent,” the BLS admitted. Compensation also fell another 1.4 percent in the...