Free Republic

Republican stonewalling on tax hikes for the very rich remains the primary obstacle to the Super Committee reaching a debt deal to restore stability to the nation’s economic future. On the issue of raising taxes for the rich, the GOP majority in the House has defied the will of the American people, the Democratic majority in the Senate and the president. So, it is maddening that some Democrats now want to mimic the GOP’s politics of polarization by undermining the Super Committee as it approaches its Nov. 23 deadline. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) recently introduced a bill to repeal the...

Did anyone get the chance to see Neil Cavuto's show on Fox on Saturday, Nov 5th when his guest described the Muslim prayer rug in the oval office?

This Sunday President Obama will celebrate the opening of the new Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial in Washington, D.C. with a speech to be televised nationally. It is a moment rich in history – the first black president dedicating the first national monument to the power of a black minister born at time of racial segregation and who never held high office, led no army to victory and had no wealth. Dr. King is honored for the power of his words, his Christian appeals for equality in the name of America’s enduring, inspiring capacity to right the wrongs of the...

NEW YORK – Ed Koch, a one-time Democratic U.S. congressman and former mayor of New York City, told a radio host today that his vote in the 2012 presidential election is directly tied to how Barack Obama treats Israel. Koch surprised the political world when he joined many other Jewish voters in turning against the Democrats in the special election to replace former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner. Koch endorsed the Republican candidate, eventual victor Bob Turner. "I hope that the president takes note of what happened," Koch told WND Jerusalem Bureau Chief Aaron Klein on his WABC Radio program....

Lots of folks are still wondering whether Sarah Palin is going to jump into the 2012 Republican presidential campaign. But if she really wants to make history, I have a bigger and better idea for her. First of all, let's explore her options. If Sarah Palin ran as a Republican candidate in a crowded field, she might win. Then again, she might not. She would be a late entry. Much of the big money needed to win is already committed. She would add some excitement to the GOP race, but she might not stand out all that much. Only one...

The artwork associated with a political movement says a lot about that movement. The US Day of Rage’s Twitter feed features a photo of a defaced ten-dollar bill. Someone has added black hair and a Hitler moustache to Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, whom Congress honored in 1999 as “the man who more than any other designed the Government of the United States.” The Founders as Nazis: that’s what the leftists who plan to occupy Wall Street tomorrow think of the American experiment. It’s not as if the media-savvy organizers of the US Day of Rage don’t understand the significance of...

On election day 2008, America was handed a triumphant symbolic victory, albeit unfulfilled. To most of us, President-elect Obama was a largely ambiguous character onto whom many of us had attached our own psychological yearnings and contemplations. The truth is, as always, revealed in the fullness of time. Much of the disparate patchwork that weaved together Obama’s life story, the stuff that gave birth to his psychological outlook, was available to us before election ’08. What was not available, however, was any informed analysis of how Obama’s experiences would translate once Obama stopped campaigning and began actually governing. Gawker is...

When the President publicly ordered the leaders of the House and the Senate to appear at the White House the next day, prepared to answer his demands for a debt ceiling resolution, many observers noted the high-handedness of his way of dealing with the coordinate and equal branches of government. He showed no respect for their constitutional independence. Now, though, matters have taken a turn distinctly for the worse. The President has commanded that they make the floors of the legislative houses available to him at a specific time and date without first clearing it with them. Worse, he did...

One of the co-conspirators in a White House-approved plot to use federal resources to produce partisan propaganda to advance President Obama’s policy agenda has been chosen to lead an Obama 2012 get-out-the-vote (GOTV) effort. The Obama operative chosen to head the GOTV effort, Buffy Wicks, was deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. In that capacity she participated in a now-infamous 2009 conference call in which Obama officials urged artists to create art that would help advance Obamacare and the rest of the president’s policy objectives. Wicks will head a GOTV effort named after the branch of...

President Obama's former political director worked at an international advertising agency that received government funds to direct a multi-million dollar campaign to sell Obamacare to the public, WND has learned. Last week, Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates government corruption, reportedly obtained documents showing the White House helped coordinate the taxpayer-funded publicity campaign. The campaign used Internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo to drive Web traffic to government websites promoting the Affordable Health Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

Every once in a while an issue arises that can leave no doubt as to one’s true colors. Clear examples of this are the congressional bills that unambiguously prevent judges in American courts from citing or using Sharia in their rulings. If you support them, you oppose Islamic law in America; if you oppose them, you don’t. The purity of this issue doesn’t allow for prevarication. Michigan Representative Dave Agema, R-Grandville, has introduced the newest of these bills. While it doesn’t openly reference Islamic law (Sharia), it clearly intends to prevent judges from including Sharia in their rulings. The bill...

Today, the President announced several important new initiatives to continue strengthening the rural economy and to create jobs in rural areas. As part of the White House Rural Council’s efforts to improve federal government coordination on rural economic development, the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Small Business Administration (SBA) have been focused on rural small business growth. And for good reason: Half the people who work in America either own or work for a small business, and two out of three new private sector jobs are created by small businesses. Many of these small businesses are in...

A Pentagon task force is proposing the largest overhaul of the military retirement system in 50 years that will do away with a traditional pension system, opting instead for a 401(k)-style contribution program. Under the newly proposed Defense Business Board plan, all troops would receive yearly retirement contributions if they served at least 20 years -- a stipulation of the existing system. The money, however, would not vest until service reached at least three to five years and would then be payable at retirement age. If personnel left before that three- to five-year mark, the time served would be rolled...

It will cost $15 to ask Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) a question in person during the August congressional recess. The House Budget Committee chairman isn’t holding any face-to-face open-to-the-public town hall meetings during the recess, but like several of his colleagues he will speak only for residents willing to open their wallets. Ryan, who took substantial criticism from his southeast Wisconsin constituents in April after he introduced the Republicans’ budget proposal, isn’t the only member of congress whose August recess town hall-style meetings are strictly pay-per-view. Rep. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) is scheduled to appear Aug. 23 at a luncheon gathering...

“We are disappointed in the United States.” That’s a sentiment we seem to hear all too often from our allies these days. A Taiwan Ministry of National Defense official uttered those words to Defense News with word that the Obama Administration will deny his country new F-16 fighters. As Defense News puts it, the Obama Administration’s decision came as a result of “bowing to Chinese pressure.” Instead of the 66 F-16C/Ds that were requested, the Pentagon is instead going to provide “upgrades” of the current Taiwanese system. And the Obama Administration’s decision also most a loss of American jobs. A...

So far the U.S. government has bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the tune of at least $130 billion, and perhaps as much as $1 trillion. And yet, the Obama administration continues to stonewall the release of documents that could shed light on why Fannie and Freddie failed, thereby sending the economy into a tailspin from which we have yet to recover. (Those records are housed at the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) now that Fannie and Freddie are owned and operated by the federal government.) Judicial Watch is especially interested in documents related to the political contributions...

The "buffer zone" parcel at the Obama family mansion in Chicago's upscale Kenwood neighborhood purchased by the wife of convicted felon Tony Rezko was transferred to Barack and Michelle Obama without ever being assessed or taxed, in apparent violation of Illinois law, according to a debt-collection expert. "The Cook County assessor's office told me that there is no record of any tax assessment having been done on this transfer of the buffer zone property into a Northern Trust Co. Deed in Trust," Albert Hendershot told WND. Hendershot, president and owner of Innovative Portfolio Recovery Inc, a debt collection and skip...

We keep hearing from the usual suspects on the Left that voter fraud is virtually non-existent, a figment of the collective imagination of racist vote-suppressing Republicans. And yet more evidence of voter fraud keeps surfacing. In Wake County, North Carolina, Shelia Ramona Hodges, Kierra Fontae Leach, Brandon Earl McLean, and Lela Devonetta Murray have been charged with voting twice, a felony. According to TV station WRAL McLean and his fiancee Leach admit to participating in early voting in the 2008 election. Unsure about the process on Election Day, they said they went to the polls to make sure their vote...

Following the fire storm over our call in Big Government last week-end for an investigation of potential Presidential and Administration leaking of the Standard & Poors downgrade of the AAA credit rating of the United States; the Securities & Exchange Commission has formally requested S&P disclose who at the company knew about the downgrade, “as part of a preliminary look into potential insider trading.” According to the Financial Times: “The inquiry was made by the SEC’s examination staff, which has oversight of credit rating firms, one person familiar with the matter said. The SEC examination staff has the power to...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A judge on Friday threw out Obama administration rules that sought to slow down expedited environmental review of oil and gas drilling on federal land. U.S. District Judge Nancy Freudenthal ruled in favor of a petroleum industry group, the Western Energy Alliance, in its lawsuit against the federal government, including Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The ruling reinstates Bush-era expedited oil and gas drilling under provisions called categorical exclusions on federal lands nationwide, Freudenthal said. The government argued that oil and gas companies had no case because they didn't show how the new rules, implemented by the...