Free Republic

Obama just lost another one of his top advisers. His legislative affairs director has stepped down, creating challenges to passing the president's agenda in his final year in the White House, according to The Hill. Chief of Obama's legislative affairs operation, Katie Beirne Fallon is leaving after two years on the job. Fallon, a former aide to Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), was instrumental in helping Obama score victories in trade, budget and Iran nuclear deal agreements last year. Obama called Fallon a "close adviser" and a "good friend," in a statement on Friday. "Republicans and Democrats...

The Democrats plan to offer Americans a whole lot of new "free stuff" if one of them is elected president. This is one of the problems Republicans have to contend with: it's hard to out free-stuff the Democrats. So I watched most of the debate Tuesday night between the five candidates who want to be the Democrats' presidential nominee. I won't be voting for any of them, but being sort of a political junkie I was interested to hear what they had to say. And it's a healthy exercise at times to just listen to those you disagree with to...

Twenty years ago at this time we were in the midst of the federal government’s 51 day siege on a compound of Bible worshippers who with their 12 children were all snuffed out in a raid. “That’s torturing babies,” a U.S. Representative bemoaned at the Congressional hearings investigating the Waco siege during which CS gas vapor was spewed down a long arm of an armored tank onto the roof, into the rooms, and ultimately wafted down into the windowless tower where some of the women and their children were hiding in the Mount Carmel Church compound of the David Karesh...

I am in favor of not raising the debt ceiling unless the President and Democrats come up with meaningful spending cuts and reforms. Contrary to a lot of the Democrats’ spin, the federal government will not default if the debt ceiling is not raised. Only if Little Timmy Geithner decides to not pay certain debts will the government default. It is his choice. But I do think Republicans should be proactive in their approach to the debt ceiling. I think they should have a plan. Specifically, I think the Republicans should propose a BRAC Commission for spending. The BRAC Commission,...

Chief Justice John Roberts said Wednesday what has long been known but seldom spoken. During the third and final day of Supreme Court hearings on whether the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 is unconstitutional, Roberts said states have been compromising their sovereignty for decades through increased reliance on the federal government for money and accompanying directions on the governance of state affairs. "It seems to me that they have compromised their status as independent sovereigns because they are so dependent on what the federal government has done," the chief justice said during Wednesday's nearly three hours of...