Free Republic

Moderate Senators Huddle With Obama at White House By David M. Drucker Roll Call Staff Sept. 10, 2009, 6:45 p.m. Seeking to unify his party behind his health care reform plans, President Barack Obama on Thursday met with a group of centrist Democratic Senators and was also scheduled to confer with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

This morning, at the “Freedom Summit” that kicked off three days of small government Tea Party protests, I broke from a conversation I’d been having with some attendees when one of them approached Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and asked about the feasibility of suing the government over unconstitutional legislation. Inhofe, seemingly out of nowhere, brought up the example of President Obama’s citizenship. Transcript and video below the fold. You, as a citizen, can say “this is unconstitutional.” File the lawsuit, go through the whole thing. Now, on the whole idea of the birth certificate for Obama, for example. You can...

On a day that has brought tragedy to yet another soldier's family, Gordon Brown has announced he is preparing to send up to 2,000 more troops to Afghanistan in a bid to speed up the end of Britain's involvement in the conflict. A single tear trickled down the cheek of a brave nine-year-old boy as he saluted a military funeral cortege carrying the body of his hero soldier stepfather. Lance Corporal Richard Brandon, 24, died when the vehicle he was travelling in was hit by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan on September 2. He should have been home with his...

Herewith, two scenarios. Scenario A: The supposedly inept president of the United States carefully planned and orchestrated the worst terrorist attack on American soil in our history. Though "only" 3,000 people died, the plan was to kill many more by simultaneously attacking the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and either the U.S. Capitol or the White House itself on Sept. 11, 2001. Hundreds of people, including personnel from myriad agencies, participated. According to some versions of Scenario A, explosives were placed at the World Trade Center to ensure success. In other versions, all of "the Jews" working there were tipped...

Perry spokesman Mark Miner said the governor has given no consideration to whom to appoint as interim senator if Hutchison resigns. “There's no Senate seat open, and no decision has been made,” Miner said. Republicans openly running for the Senate seat include former Secretary of State Roger Williams, state Sen. Florence Shapiro and Railroad Commissioners Elizabeth Ames Jones and Michael Williams. Democrats in the race include Houston Mayor Bill White and former Comptroller John Sharp.

Chairman Johnson and Members of the Subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to be here today to discuss the characteristics of people without health insurance and the relationship between health insurance premiums and insurance coverage. Although more than 240 million people in the United States have health insurance today through a variety of private and public sources, millions of others do not; and the percentage of Americans who are uninsured has risen in each of the last two years for which information is available. In my testimony today, I will discuss some important characteristics of the uninsured population that have received...

President Obama has previously refused to endorse a mandate for individuals to purchase coverage. Obama flip-flopped on this issue in tonight's speech. Now, he says, "individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance — just as most states require you to carry auto insurance." In a 2008 debate in Austen, Texas, Obama criticized Hillary Clinton's health care plan for requiring mandatory coverage. He said he doesn't believe everyone should be forced to purchase health care insurance.Barack Obama: ... So we put in place a catastrophic reinsurance plan that would reduce costs by $2,500 per family per year. So we've...

When I worked in the House of Representatives in the mid-'90s, Congressional Republicans grew enamored of the idea of replicating the tradition of "Question Time" that was popular in the British House of Commons. C-SPAN had just started broadcasting "Question Time", where the British prime minister thrusts and parries with colleagues on the other side of the aisle, while hoping for supportive statements from those on his side of the aisle. It seemed like a lot of fun, most of all because the party out of power could show their disdain for the government's leader in no uncertain terms, and...

Obama and the 9/11 murderers Posted by bs Thursday, September 10th Tomorrow is the eight anniversary of the most heinous terrorist attack ever perpetrated on the United States. Thousands of our friends, family and fellow Americans were murdered in cold blood by vicious terrorists who hated America and what we stand for. On September 19, 2001, a story ran in the Hyde Park Herald containing then-State-Senator Barack Obama’s response to the 9/11 tragedy. In this article (quoted in this article from the New Yorker, under the heading “The Speech”), Obama expresses empathy for the murderers! Not anger, not disdain, not...

We all encounter more than our share of foolish blog posts. Most of the time you simply have to let them be. You could spend the rest of your life correcting drones and automatons who will never have an original or unconventional thought no matter how much you prod them. Their seventh-grade teacher, who was also the track coach, taught them what they know, and they're sticking to it. Once in a while, though, for your own sake and for the sake of readers who suspect the post is all wrong but aren't quite sure why, you let loose with...

You couldn't make it up even if you tried: One day Energy Secretary Ed Milliband sets out his proposed expansion of the U.K.'s wind power-led alternative energy revolution; the next day, Vestas, the U.K.'s largest wind turbine manufacturer, shuts down a big part of its British operations citing "low demand" and public opposition to onshore wind farms.Just bad luck or bad PR? Not quite. Simply another blatant example of the ongoing "disconnect" over energy between those suffering from WTS (Wishful Thinker Syndrome) and the hydrocarbon-fueled present and future energy realities. In 2006, Germany's Angela Merkel was hailed as the "Green...

Guess we're not the most trusted name in news after all... In the hours following the President's address to a joint session of Congress CNN reported that the President had scored a 14% increase in his public polling on the issue. This seemingly miraculous narrative no doubt was generated to support the administration in it's last, still flailing efforts to attempt to jump start a repeatedly killed, choked, mangled, killed, dead, dead, dead version of the take over of a federally nationalized health care system. But it turns out CNN was full of "Misinformation," "bogus claims," "scare tactics," "such a...

Former Colorado Lt. Gov. Jane Norton said Tuesday she has formed an exploratory committee for a possible U.S. Senate race in 2010. She is one of as many as six Republicans who have announced they will seek the seat or are considering the idea. In a statement, Norton said she plans to announce whether she’ll run next week, “after talking to supporters around the state.” Norton, a Grand Junction native, currently serves as executive director of the Denver Police Foundation and lives in Arapahoe County. She served as lieutenant governor from 2003 to 2007 with then-Gov. Bill Owens. Previously she...

In 2007, Shreveport police officer Wiley Willis arrested 38-year-old Angela Garbarino on suspicion of drunken driving. While in custody, as captured on the video below, Garbarino began arguing with Willis about what she said was her right to make a phone call. About a minute later, Willis walked over and turned off the video camera. When the camera returns back on, Garbarino was lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood. She was later photographed with severe facial injuries that looked to have come from a beating. Willis’ attorney stated that she tripped and fell while the...

NEW YORK – Many of the people working with President Obama are Marxists or socialists with backgrounds in the Communist Party, according to a socialist Columbia University professor with strong ties to Obama's radical associates, including Weathermen terrorist Bill Ayers. "What makes Obama different is that he has also been a community organizer. He has read left literature, including my works, and he understands what socialism is," wrote Manning Marable, professor and founding director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University. "A lot of the people working with him are, indeed, socialists with backgrounds in...

The House Democrat campaign operation is using an outburst during President Obama's health speech to a joint session of Congress to make at least $100,000 in donations in the next 48 hours. As Obama delivered his Sept. 9 health-care speech and claimed his plan would not be provided to illegal aliens, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., shouted, "You lie!" A video of the incident follows:

SANTA ANA, Calif. – On Sept. 8, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter ordered a scheduling conference for Oct. 5, 2009, allowing the Obama eligibility case filed by Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq. on behalf Captain Pamela Barnett, Alan Keyes and others to proceed.

The Republican congressman whose outburst of "you lie!" during President Barack Obama's healthcare speech to Congress is now under lock and key. At least online. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) now has a locked Wikipedia page after vandals edited his profile to allege that he was a dooshbag." In his Bio it stated: He is a dooshbag that called the President of the United States a liar on national television and has no respect for the office he holds.

Lucas Smith, the eBay seller who claims he has an authentic copy of Barack Obama's birth certificate issued in Kenya, flew in from the Dominican Republic to show up Tuesday in U.S. District Judge David Carter's courtroom in Santa Ana, Calif., to testify as a witness in a case challenging the president's eligibility. Despite evidence that the Kenyan birth certificate touted by Smith may be a forgery, Taitz has decided to advance the document as part of her case to establish that Obama fails to meet the "natural born citizen" requirement specified in Section 1, Article Two of the U.S....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Senate panel urged the Air Force on Thursday to start developing an export model of its F-22 Raptor, the most advanced U.S. fighter jet, even as it voted to end U.S. purchases. Japan, Israel and Australia have shown interest in buying the supersonic, radar-evading F-22 Raptor, designed to destroy enemy air defenses in the first days of any conflict and clear the way for other missions.