Free Republic

I once asked, What if Obama cant lead? The answer after Paris is painful In his mem­oir, Le­on Pan­etta ar­gued that for all of Barack Obama's strengths, he is miss­ing an es­sen­tial in­gredi­ent of lead­er­ship. He lacks "fire," wrote Obama's former CIA dir­ect­or and Pentagon chief. "The pres­id­ent re­lies on the lo­gic of a law pro­fess­or rather than the pas­sion of a lead­er." Obama has proved Pan­etta right again and again dur­ing his pres­id­ency, but nev­er more dan­ger­ously so than with his shoulder-shrug ap­proach to IS­IS. Obama called it a "J.V. team" be­fore it star­ted be­head­ing Amer­ic­ans. He said it...

European UnionIf you are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the "economic collapse", just open up your eyes and look at what is happening in Europe. The entire continent is a giant economic mess right now. Unemployment and poverty levels are setting record highs, car sales are setting record lows, and there is an ocean of bad loans and red ink everywhere you look. Over the past several years, most of the attention has been on the economic struggles of Greece, Spain and Portugal and without a doubt things continue to get even worse in those nations. But in 2014 and...