Free Republic

Trayvon Martin Update. Today a second rally, in as many days, was held for Trayvon Martin. Martin’s parents, in their first major appearance since the death of their son, were joined by civil rights leaders in demanding justice for their son, Trayvon. Trayvon Martin Update – Second Rally in Sanford in Two Days The city of Sanford, Florida, is a community of about 54,000, which has now become famous. Thousands of members of the media, as well as activists, protesters, and celebrities have descended on the city as demands for the arrest of George Zimmerman increase. As Trayvon’s family, activists,...

Obama 862 Billion Dollar Stimulus Package – Three Years Later. February, 2012 marked the third year anniversary of Obama’s stimulus package. Has the stimulus delivered on Obama’s promises? Obama 862 Billion Dollar Stimulus Package – What was the Stimulus for? The stimulus, also known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, is an economic stimulus plan that was signed into law by President Barack Obama on February 17, 2009. The main objectives of the stimulus were to 1) save and create jobs almost immediately; and 2) provide temporary reliefe programs for those most impacted by the recession and...

Obama 862 Billion Dollar Stimulus Package – Three Years Later. February, 2012 marked the third year anniversary of Obama’s stimulus package. Has the stimulus delivered on Obama’s promises? Obama 862 Billion Dollar Stimulus Package – What was the Stimulus for? The stimulus, also known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, is an economic stimulus plan that was signed into law by President Barack Obama on February 17, 2009. The main objectives of the stimulus were to 1) save and create jobs almost immediately; and 2) provide temporary reliefe programs for those most impacted by the recession and...

The Absence of Black Leadership in America – Beyond Trayvon Martin. Today, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and NAACP leader, Ben Jealous, marched in Sanford, Florida, the city in which Trayvon Martin, 17, was killed last month. These black leaders have come out in full force in support of justice for Trayvon, demanding that George Zimmerman, the shooter, be arrested. But, where are these black leaders when there’s not a tragedy they can profit from?

Barack Obama’s appointment of Donald Berwick as the head of Medicare and Medicaid became so unpopular — even among moderate Senate Democrats — that Obama ended up making Berwick a recess appointment even before Berwick had submitted a full questionnaire to the Senate. That might happen once again with Obama’s latest entitlement program appointment, Henry J. Aaron, picked to serve on the Social Security Advisory Board. The Brookings Institution economist shares a lot in common with Berwick, including a love of the British system of rationing health care, reports the Weekly Standard, which finds this from Aaron in the 1980s:...

President Obama’s illegal alien half-uncle argued in court today his arrest on a drunken driving charge this summer violated his constitutional rights and he wants evidence suppressed and the case thrown out. Onyango Obama’s lawyer filed a motion to suppress in Framingham District Court today, claiming he questions the legality of the illegal alien’s Aug. 24 arrest on a charge of driving under the influence of alcohol and whether the arrest violated Obama’s Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure.

(Reuters) - In a rare display of cooperation, Republicans and Democrats in Congress overwhelmingly approved a limited jobs bill on Wednesday that would help some veterans find work but otherwise do little to bring down the nation's 9 percent unemployment rate. The bill, aimed at government contractors and veterans, is so far the only piece of President Barack Obama's $447 billion job-creation package to clear Congress. Republicans have lined up behind a contrasting agenda of their own ahead of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections. It passed the House of Representatives by a unanimous vote of 422 to 0. Only...

Libyan gunmen broke into the Saif al-Nasr mosque in Tripoli early on Nov. 8, smashed open a wooden sarcophagus and removed the remains of Saif al-Nasr, a scholar who died 155 years ago, and a former imam, Hammad Zwai. “These bodies have been moved to a Muslim cemetery,” announced graffiti on the walls, explaining the disapproval by some Islamists of the Sufi Muslim tradition of burying scholars and teachers in mosques to honor them. Muslims pushing for a strict intepretation of Islamic law are jostling for power in the chaos that has gripped Libya since the ouster of Muammar Qaddafi,...

So this has been the marketing strategy for Mens Wearhouse all along, huh? The “day of action” is to begin early, with protesters converging on Wall Street camouflaged in business suits hoping to blend in with office workers trooping out of the subway. “We will rise from beneath. They can’t stop all of us. It’s going to get crazy,” vowed one organizer. “They took the first shot Tuesday night. [Thursday] we return fire. We will be peaceful, but we will resist.” The city said it was bracing for tens of thousands of people in the streets. “The protesters are calling...

A pilot who accidentally locked himself in the bathroom of his LaGuardia-bound plane caused a terror scare last night when a helpful passenger with an accent tried to come to his rescue by banging on the cockpit door. The embarrassing comedy of errors began when the captain of a Chatauqua Airlines flight from Asheville, N.Car., decided to take a bathroom break before landing. But when he tried to get out of the men’s room, the door jammed, trapping him in the tight quarters.

Chicago hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, who served as one of President Barack Obama's top fund-raisers four years ago, says he won't be backing Obama again this election. Instead, he'll be fueling an on-again, off-again love affair with the GOP and raising money to help elect Republican Mitt Romney. “Mitt Romney understands that the private sector is the source of economic growth and job creation,” Griffin told Bloomberg on Tuesday. “His ideas can help get America’s economy moving again and start putting people back to work.” Four years ago, Griffin bundled between $50,000 and $100,000 for Obama's election effort. That...

(The Daily Beast) - Just days after President Obama announced a new austerity program to save billions in federal spending and travel, his attorney general, Eric Holder, is spending five days on the taxpayer’s dime hopping around Caribbean islands in the name of improving law enforcement in the region. Holder’s stated mission for the trip was to sign law-enforcement agreements with authorities in the area and to inspect some condos recently seized by federal authorities in a Medicare fraud sting substantially smaller than the department’s usual pursuits prosecuting massive Wall Street fraud, terrorists, and murderers. He’ll also attend an international...

The Blue Dog Coalition of moderate lawmakers endorsed a bill put forward by House Republicans to pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. The endorsement puts them at odds with President Barack Obama, whose administration said it opposed such an amendment. "We do not need to amend the Constitution for only the 28th time in our nation’s history to do the job of restoring fiscal discipline," the Office of Management and Budget said on Tuesday. Speaker of the House John Boehner said he was "disappointed" in Obama for opposing the bill — which is certain to fail in the...

The pictures tell the story ... President Obama's uncle, wheeling and dealing behind a liquor store counter. So there's no doubt, he's still dodging the deportation bullet ... at least for now. Onyango Obama was busted for DUI August 24th in Framingham, Massachusetts ...after almost smashing into a cop car. Immigration officials learned about the arrest, and then discovered the 67-year-old was in the U.S. illegally. In fact, Onyango was on the receiving end of a 1992 deportation order, but it was never enforced. While Onyango challenges the deportation order, the pictures show ... he's making a living at the...

The Obama administration pulled off a rare trifecta this past week, demonstrating in three separate energy decisions how corruption and election manipulation are killing jobs and restricting the nation’s energy supply, but paying political dividends to our sitting president.

We knew, and now new information reveals that the White House knew, that President Obama’s Executive Order to prevent abortion funding in ObamaCare is a sham. In order to gain enough votes to pass ObamaCare, President Obama made a “deal” with a group of supposedly “pro-life” Democrat Congressmen, led by then Congressman Bart Stupak. The deal was simple, if the group of Congressmen would forego their concern that ObamaCare provided funding for abortions – which it does – and vote for the bill, President Obama would sign an Executive Order which he promised would “ensure that Federal funds are not...

President John F. Kennedy’s nephew, Robert Kennedy, Jr., netted a $1.4 billion bailout for his company, BrightSource, through a loan guarantee issued by a former employee-turned Department of Energy official. It’s just one more in a string of eye-opening revelations by investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer in his explosive new book, Throw Them All Out. The details of how BrightSource managed to land its ten-figure taxpayer bailout have yet to emerge fully. However, one clue might be found in the person of Sanjay Wagle. Wagle was one of the principals in Kennedy’s firm who raised money for Barack...

WASHINGTON--The Service Employees International Union announced Wednesday it will endorse President Barack Obama in 2012--an early, but entirely expected endorsement from a union bankrolling Democratic-allied SuperPacs. The endorsement comes before the Republicans even have a nominee, but at least there is no charade about where they stand. "President Obama shares our vision of a nation that invests in good jobs here at home; where everyone pays their fair share; where access to quality, affordable health care is preserved; and where there is a pathway to citizenship for every immigrant worker," said SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry. "It's a vision...

When Steven Chu, a Nobel physicist who had lately devoted his career to climate change and clean-energy research, was nominated by President Obama for Energy secretary in December 2008, it seemed like a perfect match. Until then, the Energy Department had actually played very little role in energy policy. Despite its name, the agency's chief mandate is to guard the nation's nuclear arsenal, and to clean up Cold War-era defense nuclear waste. In most years, about two-thirds of its budget goes to nuclear weapons and waste cleanup, while roughly 10 percent to 15 percent goes to energy research. The idea...

In December of 2009, a guest on an Oprah Winfrey Christmas special was asked to grade the Obama administration’s performance at roughly the one-year mark. Without hesitation, the guest responded, “Good, solid B-plus.” The response may have seemed disingenuous to viewers with an awareness that the president’s $800 billion stimulus had failed to keep the unemployment rate below 8% as promised or that Congress was locked in partisan gridlock despite Obama’s promise to usher in an era of post-partisanship inside the Beltway. Then again, considering the source of that grade—Obama—the inflated self-assessment was hardly surprising. Nor should it come as...