Free Republic

Who is this guy? Has he ever studied history? Read anything from the Founding Fathers? I understand "freedom of religion", but should he be saying this in a Muslim country? Oh... that's right! This is Barack Obama who hates America, hates capitalism and wants to destroy us from within! This is nice; now he's attacking religion and our Judeo-Christian value system this country was built upon.

Lefties around the world are jumping for joy. It appears our president is so concerned that folks in Latin America don't very much like the US (when have they ever?) that he sees normalizing relations with Cuba as just the thing to get all those socialists in Latin America saying nice things about America. THEN HE QUOTES THE GUARDIAN The Guardian: President Barack Obama is poised to offer an olive branch to Cuba in an effort to repair the US's tattered reputation in Latin America. The White House has moved to ease some travel and trade restrictions as a cautious...

Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com: Charges Withdrawn Against Alleged U.S.S. Cole Bombing Mastermind [7:59 pm ET]

ABC News has learned that on Friday, President Obama will likely order the Department of Defense's Military Commission to withdraw charges against terrorist suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The charges may later be reinstated in a military commission or pursued in a civilian court. Al-Nashiri will remain in custody. The announcement will not be made until after President Obama meets with the families of victims of terrorist attacks on 9/11 and on the U.S.S. Cole, where he will assure them that this step is not being done to be lenient towards al-Nashiri. The move is being done to stop the continued...

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday that senior officers must work to prevent the militarization of American foreign policy, and he urged generals and admirals to tell civilian leaders when they believed the armed forces should not take the lead in carrying out policies overseas. Adm. Mike Mullen, who as chairman is the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, also called for more money and personnel to be devoted to the civilian agencies responsible for diplomacy and overseas economic development.

The pick of Leon Panetta as the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency signals just one thing — Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., the president-elect, is ready to capitulate to terrorists. For weeks, there have been rumors in the military and intelligence world that Obama was having difficulty finding a new CIA director because no one who was qualified wanted to work with Eric Holder, Obama’s choice for Attorney General. Holder famously defended the “wall of separation” between the CIA and the FBI during the Clinton administration, which prevented the agencies from sharing intelligence on terrorists, for fear of harming...

Barack Obama's chances of making a fresh start in US relations with the Muslim world, and the Middle East in particular, appear to diminish with each new wave of Israeli attacks on Palestinian targets in Gaza. That seems hardly fair, given the president-elect does not take office until January 20. But foreign wars don't wait for Washington inaugurations. Obama has remained wholly silent during the Gaza crisis. His aides say he is following established protocol that the US has only one president at a time. Hillary Clinton, his designated secretary of state, and Joe Biden, the vice-president-elect and foreign policy...

A recent Military Times survey of active-duty service members found 6 of 10 U.S. soldiers polled said they were "pessimistic" or "uncertain" about Barack Obama serving as commander in chief of America's armed forces. In follow-up interviews reported by the Army Times newspaper, respondents cited Obama's inexperience in leading soldiers, his plans for accelerated removal of troops from Iraq and his pledge to overturn the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding homosexual service members as reasons for their cautious outlook. "Being that the Marine Corps can be sent anywhere in the world with the snap of his fingers," said...

HONOLULU | President-elect Barack Obama will have a Commander in Chief's Ball during his inauguration with military personnel, their spouses and those wounded fighting in the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as guests. In the announcement Thursday, officials said that tickets for the Jan. 20 military-only ball will be free to guests. The formal event will be at the National Building Museum in Washington. "It is a privilege to honor our men and women in uniform during our inaugural festivities by continuing the tradition of the Commander in Chief's Ball. Our troops represent the best America has to offer,...

Army times article

Despite keeping Defense Secretary Robert Gates in the Pentagon, President-elect Obama’s transition team informed 90 Bush appointees their services will not be needed after Inauguration Day. Scott Gration, a senior official on Obama’s transition team, called and emailed several of President Bush’s Pentagon appointees about 10 days ago to inform them they were being dismissed. Those calls and emails were followed up by an email from Jim O'Beirne, the special assistant to the secretary of defense for White House liaisons, who expressed exasperation that Gration informed the employees directly instead of letting O'Beirne's office know first. "With regard to the...

A spokesman for US President-elect Barack Obama on Sunday refused to comment on Israel’s massive aerial assault against Gaza’s terrorist infrastructure. David Axelrod, one of Obama’s top advisors, repeated during a series of interviews that it would be wrong for the president-elect to make position statements regarding the situation in Gaza while President George W. Bush is still in office.

After a comparative lull in the Middle East conflict, yesterday’s Israeli offensive effectively halted months of painstaking diplomatic efforts to revive a long-stalled negotiating process. It also presented Barack Obama, America’s next president, and Hillary Clinton, his incoming secretary of state, with their first serious foreign policy test. The collapse earlier this month of a Gaza ceasefire treaty brokered by Egypt last June gives Obama an early glimpse of the numbing stalemate that has defied the best negotiating efforts of half a dozen of his predecessors. Although the president-elect and his national security team will not take office until January...

HONOLULU, Hawaii (AFP) — US president-elect Barack Obama is "monitoring" the deadly violence in the Gaza strip while he is on vacation in Hawaii, a spokesperson said Saturday. Obama, who takes office on January 20, "is closely monitoring global events, including the situation in Gaza," said his chief national security spokesperson Brooke Anderson. Anderson however emphasized that "there is one president at a time," a statement Obama has said often since he was elected on November 4.

A teacher has been suspended amid claims she punished two children who refused to worship Allah during a Religious Education lesson. Alison Phillips, head of RE at Cheshire's respected Alsager High School, allegedly disciplined the Year 7 duo claiming they were disrespectful for refusing to kneel down and pray. After giving the two boys detention the school was believed to have received several complaints from parents about the long-standing teacher. Today, a school spokesman said she was suspended over the allegations - but also for "ongoing inquiries centred around other practical issues". Joan Feenan, director of Cheshire County Council's children's...

One of Barack Obama's senior foreign policy advisers has said the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran is the biggest threat facing the world. In an interview with the Financial Times, Anthony Lake, a former US national security adviser now working with Obama, said: "I believe that the most dangerous crisis we are going to face in the next three to 10 years is if the Iranians get on the edge of developing a nuclear weapon." Obama and his advisers, such as Lake, have stressed the Democratic candidate's readiness to sit down with Iranian leaders without conditions. In the interview, Lake...

"He's got some bad connections, and he may be terrorist connected for all I can tell. It sounds kind of like he may be." Reacting to Hobbs, Davis' Chief of Staff Beecher Frasier says he does not know for sure if Obama is terrorist connected, but he assumes he is not.

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." John Stuart Mill, English economist & philosopher (1806-1873) The War, a documentary directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novich is the...

Last week we noted the bizarre arguments of Seattle Times editorial writer Bruce Ramsey, who tried so hard to defend Barack Obama against President Bush’s “appeasement” speech that he actually ended up defending Hitler for annexing Austria. His exact words were: “What Hitler was demanding was not unreasonable.” If you think that’s an ahistorical pretzel of monumental proportions, though, you ain’t seen nothin’ — because here comes Pat Buchanan. According to old Pat, not only was the Anchluss not a problem, Hitler’s invasion of Poland was also perfectly understandable, given the Poles’ refusal to negotiate. Those darned stubborn Poles were...

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama fired back at President Bush yesterday, accusing him of an "appalling attack" for suggesting that the Democratic presidential hopeful wanted to appease America's enemies. "Now, that's exactly the kind of appalling attack that's divided our country and that alienates us from the world," Obama said. "And that's why we need change in Washington. That's part of the reason why I'm running for president of the United States of America." Speaking before the Israeli Knesset earlier this week, Bush laced into those who believe that the United States should negotiate with leaders of terrorist states. Last summer,...