Free Republic

Full Title: Right-wing obstruction could have been fought: An ineffective and gutless presidency’s legacy is failure Predicting the future course of American politics is a lively and flourishing vocation. Guessing how future generations will commemorate present-day political events, however, is not nearly as remunerative. In the interest of restoring some balance to this tragic situation, allow me to kick off the speculation about the Obama legacy. How will we assess it? How will the Barack Obama Presidential Library, a much-anticipated museum of the future, cast the great events of our time? In approaching this subject, let us first address the...

Nine months after Americans began signing up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, a challenging new phase is emerging as confused enrollees clamor for help in understanding their coverage. Nonprofits across the country are being swamped by consumers with questions. Many are low income, have never had insurance and have little knowledge of the health-care system. The rampant confusion poses a potential hurdle for the success of the health law: If many Americans don’t understand health insurance, that could hurt their ability to use their benefits — or to keep their coverage altogether. Community organizations are scrambling to...

San Francisco is taking a new data-driven approach to a longtime city problem: human excrement. For decades, feces on streets and sidewalks has been one of the biggest quality-of-life issues for San Francisco residents and visitors, particularly in the hard-edged Tenderloin, home base for many of the city's homeless and the nonprofits that provide them clothes, addiction help and meals. Now, after a chorus of complaints and a month spent mapping the highest concentrations of human excrement in the Tenderloin, the Department of Public Works on Tuesday will roll out the city's latest approach: mobile bathroom stations at the three...

You’re probably familiar with the weaselly way politicians tend to apologize when they’ve been caught red-handed. The most famous example is the use of the line, mistakes were made. Use of the passive voice in an admission of wrongdoing has become so common that the political consultant William Schneider suggested a few years ago that it be referred to as the “past exonerative” tense. You’ll often see a similar grammatical device when a police officer shoots someone. Communications officers at policy agenies are deft at contorting the English language to minimize culpability of an officer or of the agency. So...

President Obama’s recent campaign-style adventures outside of the White House bubble are a chance for the president to shed the confines of his office, relishing the beer, barbecue, and face-to-face conversations with everyday Americans he wistfully describes as too inaccessible as president. But the more frequently “the bear gets loose”, as the president and top staffers jokingly refer to the unscheduled forays away from the White House grounds, the more heartburn the president causes for the Secret Service agents charged with protecting his life. Obama himself acknowledges that his impromptu walks and trips to restaurants can prove stressful for his...

The National Labor Relations Board (NLB) has identified scores of decisions that must be revisited in the wake of last month’s Supreme Court finding that President Obama appointed members to the board in violation of the Constitution. The task threatens to serve as a major roadblock in the labor board’s drive to shape national labor policy in the waning years of the Obama administration, experts say. “It’s hard to drive forward if you’re looking into the rearview mirror,” said Michael Lotito, an employment and labor attorney and co-chairman of Littler Mendelson's Workplace Policy Institute. NLRB spokesman Tony Wagner said the...

CHELSEA CLINTON never acted out during the eight years she came of age as America’s first daughter. No ditching of her Secret Service detail. No fake IDs for underage tippling. No drug scandal. No court appearance in tank top and toe ring. Not even any dirty dancing. Despite a tough role as the go-between in the highly public and embarrassing marital contretemps of her parents, Chelsea stayed classy. So it’s strange to see her acting out in a sense now, joining her parents in cashing in to help feed the rapacious, gaping maw of Clinton Inc. With her 1 percenter...

Do the Democrats have a “congenital disease” that keeps them from turning out for mid-term elections? President Obama sure thinks that’s what keeps Democratic voters at home. Obama used the phrase Wednesday at a fundraiser in Denver, Bloomberg News reported. They counted five other times he’s used the phrase at Democratic fundraisers since April 9. * But are the Ds’ low turnout numbers really a defect they were born with, like a heart condition? Or is it especially acute these days because they don’t see a whole lot to cheer about?

James Barber yearned to travel to exotic places when he was a boy reading National Geographic. Now 71 and a successful business owner, he is able to indulge that love in far-flung destinations during trips created exclusively for him and his family. There was the trip to Egypt, Jordan and Italy in the months before the Arab Spring in 2010 that included private cooking classes in Jordan, gladiator school for his grandchildren in Rome and an armed guard in Egypt to keep everyone safe. He loved the one to Thailand where his grandchildren got to hold tiger cubs in their...

CRISTIAN OMAR REYES, an 11-year-old sixth grader in the neighborhood of Nueva Suyapa, on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, tells me he has to get out of Honduras soon — “no matter what.” In March, his father was robbed and murdered by gangs while working as a security guard protecting a pastry truck. His mother used the life insurance payout to hire a smuggler to take her to Florida. She promised to send for him quickly, but she has not. Three people he knows were murdered this year. Four others were gunned down on a nearby corner in the span of...

A federal judge signaled on Friday that he would force IRS officials to say under oath what happened to former agency official Lois Lerner’s crashed hard drive. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said he also wanted the government to outline the qualifications of investigators looking into what happened to emails missing because of the hard drive crash. Walton revealed his intentions during a hearing about a lawsuit that a conservative group, True the Vote, filed against the IRS. True the Vote, which applied for and eventually received tax-exempt status, has accused the IRS of targeting it for its conservative beliefs....

After back-to-back potentially serious laboratory accidents, federal health officials announced on Friday that they had closed the flu and anthrax laboratories of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and have halted shipments of all infectious agents from the agency’s highest-security labs. The accidents, and the C.D.C.'s emphatic response to them, could have important implications for other laboratories around the world engaged in research into dangerous viruses and bacteria. If the C.D.C — which the agency’s director, Dr. Thomas Frieden, called “the reference laboratory to the world” — had multiple accidents that could have, in theory, killed not just laboratory...

President Barack Obama and his aides were insistent that his trip to Texas would not be about the border crisis. It’s become all about the border crisis. And the way the White House approached the trip has a lot to do with why. The surge of Mexican and Central American children at the border, some Republicans say, recalls Hurricane Katrina in that Obama isn’t making a personal trip to the border, much in the same way George W. Bush was criticized for not immediately visiting New Orleans. At the same time, they are quick to point out that Katrina was...

In a developing story Thursday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Fox News anchor Sean Hannity are armed and ready to protect America’s border with Mexico. Hannity tweeted out photos showing himself with the governor, with weapons and enough ammunition to shoot plenty of kids who dare to step across the border and cross into the United States. Or that’s certainly the loony possibility that Hannity and Perry seem to imply. Obviously, this is a ratings grab by Hannity and a publicity stunt by Perry. The governor is bound and determined to get more attention for his opposition to the thousands...

Senate Republicans and Democrats blocked progress on a bipartisan hunting and fishing bill Thursday after Democratic leaders refused to bow to their demands for amendments related to guns. The Senate failed in a 41-56 vote to end debate on the measure, which would make it easier to hunt and fish on federal lands. Sixty votes were needed to end debate. Both Republicans and Democrats have demanded amendments related to gun control on the bill. Democrats want to vote on measures that would tighten gun control, while several GOP senators have offered pro-gun amendments. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) accused...

<p>Surely reports that President Obama is going down to Texas at the height of the Katrina-like border debacle to raise money at the home of the popular but often polarizing filmmaker and Quentin Tarantino–collaborator Robert Rodriguez are the stuff of right-wing mythology?</p>

Americans are still OK with guns, and until we can change that, Michael Bloomberg's millions won't mean a thing * The Michael Bloomberg-funded Everytown for Gun Safety announced on Monday a new gambit for creating pressure on candidates to move, finally, in the direction of stricter gun laws: the group will offer them a survey. Everytown – one of several sane competitors playing the long game against the National Rifle Association’s stranglehold on violence in America – will make politicians put their positions on firearm restrictions, however convoluted, on the record. As the head of the organization, which has $50m...

The National Institutes of Health announced today that vials of the virus that causes smallpox were found in a laboratory on its Bethesda, Maryland, campus, which was unequipped and unapproved to handle the deadly pathogen. Because it’s so infectious, the smallpox virus is considered a bioterrorism threat and is only permitted in two labs in the world: One at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Atlanta headquarters and another at the VECTOR Institute in Russia. The newly discovered vials violate an international agreement reached in 1979 aimed at keeping the virus eradicated while allowing some scientists to continue...

The Andy Raymond rant is a thing to behold. Raymond, the co-owner of Engage Armament in Montgomery County, Md., is one of the two gun dealers who, a few months ago, tried to sell the Armatix iP1 — a.k.a., the first commercially available “smart gun” — to his customers. He thought that not only did he have every right to sell a smart gun, but that he was doing the gun world a favor by offering a gun that had the potential to expand the universe of gun owners. * I last looked into smart gun technology about a year...

The Senate overwhelmingly advanced a bipartisan hunting and fishing bill on Monday – but not before facing objections from liberals who criticized the chamber for failing to act on gun-control measures. Senators voted 82-12 Monday evening to move forward on the sportsmen’s legislation, which would boost hunters and anglers through an array of provisions such as helping to build shooting ranges and loosening federal regulations on lead fishing tackle and bullets. The package is a political boon to the host of red-state Democrats up for reelection this year including the bill’s chief Democratic sponsor, North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan. Sen....