Free Republic

This is to summarize the law on two issues: One, Citizenship of a person, one of whose parents is a Citizen, the other an alien; and, two, eligibility of a person born outside the geographical limits of the fifty states to serve as President of the United States under Article II, Sec. 1, Par. 4 of the U S Constitution. This is addressed to Obama's status if he was born in Kenya and to John McCain's status on the record birth in Panama. I do not intend to address any of the collateral factual issues. I take it as a...

Barack Obama's policy switches are giving the Left whiplash The Democratic nominee's policy pivots are causing anguish among liberals. He is no fool Gerard Baker Change, it turns out, wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. Having campaigned for the past year as the agent of transformation, the man who would lead an historic shift in America's political direction, Barack Obama is discovering that there is quite a lot he likes about the way things are. Since securing the Democratic nomination a few weeks ago, the only change coming from the Illinois senator has been in what he...

The Republican party's attempts to portray Obama as arrogant could hurt him in the election. Presidential races generally hinge on character issues - as Republicans understand. That's why, the last two times out, the GOP has won the White House by hammering into voters' minds the idea that the Democratic candidate embodies a particular negative quality. In 2000, Al Gore was depicted (with the help of a lazy and compliant press corps) as a serial exaggerator. Four years later, John Kerry was portrayed as a weak-willed flip-flopper. Ultimately, it was these personal caricatures, far more than any specific policy prescriptions,...

The National Rifle Association, long feared by Democrats as the most powerful lobby group in US politics, announced that it will spend $40 million during the campaign, $15 million to specifically persuade gun owners to vote against the Democratic party candidate. The issue of gun rights has been catapulted to the centre of the general election this year, with the Supreme Court last week upholding the second amendment of the Constitution's right to bear arms, and throwing out a ban on handguns in Washington DC. Mr Obama was careful after that ruling to state his support for gun ownership but...

Barack Obama may be getting a pass from the National Media on virtually every issue, but he's not going to get a pass from the National Rifle Association (NRA) on the issue of 2nd Amendment Rights. The NRA is planning a $40 million campaign this fall to make sure Americans know that 2nd Amendment Rights will be in jeopardy if Barack Obama is elected President. Jonathan Martin has the details in these excerpts from a report out today at Politico.com . . .

The wife of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama told a crowd of homosexual activists last week that her husband wants to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and reverse the rule on homosexuals in the military. Michelle Obama also drew parallels with homosexual advocacy groups and the civil rights movement, referring to events "from Selma to Stonewall." Speaking to the Democratic National Committee's Gay and Lesbian Leadership Committee last Thursday in New York City, Michelle Obama said her husband supports "a world where federal laws don't discriminate against same-sex relationships, including equal treatment for any relationship recognized under state...

Sen. Barack Obama did patriotism yesterday, today it is faith and by the end of the day both speeches will have been done in back-to-back states that swing: Missouri and Ohio. The Obama campaign said the Illinois senator plans to go to Zanesville, located in eastern Ohio, to visit a church program that provides food and clothing assistance to those in need.

ABC News's Bret Hovell reports: At a fundraiser tonight in Louisville, Ky., Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said that the word of his opponent for the White House, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., "cannot be trusted." "You know, this election is about trust, and trusting people's word" McCain told a crowd of donors to his campaign. "And unfortunately, apparently, on several items, Sen. Obama's word cannot be trusted." McCain’s remark came at the conclusion of a number of examples of what McCain said were Obama's changes in position. McCain cited a proposal that he and Obama appear together at town hall meetings...

A Win by McCain Could Push a Split Court to Right

Top priority overall or just top domestic priority? Iraq and the economy can wait, I guess. The clip comes, via reader Edgar M, from today’s appearance before NALEO, in which he and Obama took turns to see who could pander most cravenly on immigration. Truth be told, there’s little new here: Lip service is duly paid to securing the border despite the questioner’s emphasis on comprehensive reform “and not just enforcement,” and he recycles his old line about illegals being “God’s children too” as a way of insinuating, a la his crony’s notorious remarks about telling “the bigots” to shut...

Did I just lose some brain matter, or did the Obama's Fact Check website, aka "Fight the Smears," retract the "Here is his birth certificate" statement? I could swear that this statement used to precede the image . Am I wrong? Did anyone else note the change? The way the page is now, there is no lead-in line to the image. BTW, I have a new post today explaining the possible reasons for blacking out certificate number.

WASHINGTON -- If the presidential election hinged on who could best protect us from terrorism, veteran Sen. John McCain would probably defeat freshman Sen. Barack Obama. The Arizona Republican beats the Illinois Democrat by 19 points (52 percent to 33 percent) when voters are asked who would do a better job on that issue, according to the latest USA Today/Gallup Poll. The inadvisability of answering loaded hypothetical questions aside, no wonder Charlie Black, McCain's top strategist, told Fortune magazine that the senator's stock would rise if there was a terrorist attack between now and Election Day. On the bedrock issue...

As Barack Obama has made clear, he believes combatting international terror should be viewed as a "law enforcement" problem rather than a war. Preposterous? Not if you're a modern day liberal. Why? Consider two basic beliefs that inform liberals like Obama. The first is moral relativity, aka there is no black or white, only shades of gray, also known as "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." The second is multiculturalism, aka no one culture is better than any other. First, moral relativity. When one bestows the same rights and privileges on non-citizen, non-uniformed, stateless jihadists [U.S. Supreme Court]as...

"Not Exactly a Crime" is the title of a book on America's vice presidents published in 1972 -- a year before Vice President Spiro Agnew was forced to resign for actually committing a crime. The office of vice president has long been the butt of jokes -- you know the punch lines -- but as we await Barack Obama's and John McCain's choices for vice president, we do so with the knowledge that vice presidents in the last five administrations have been important officers of government. (Yes, including Dan Quayle -- see Bob Woodward and David Broder's book). How the...

With President Obama in office, the days of governments extracting a top marginal rate of 60% will return. Could bell bottoms be far behind? Remember how the press made George Bush’s tax rate cuts look so “huge” in 2001 and 2003? A March 10, 2001, New York Times article by reporters Frank Bruni and Richard W. Stevenson typified the approach. The trick was to talk about the (scary) $1.6 trillion impact of the “cuts” while minimizing attention to their time frame. At the linked article, the reporters waited until the ninth paragraph to tell us that it was a “$1.6...

While in Wayne, Pennsylvania, presumed Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, has attacked presumed GOP nominee Senator John McCain of Arizona on the issue of appointing judges to the United States Supreme Court. Obama gave the suggestion that McCain would overturn Roe w. Wade. Obama had continued to express his support on the recent ruling by the US Supreme Court that said the detainees of Guantanamo Bay do have rights. This ruling was condemned by both US President George W. Bush and McCain. McCain said that this goes against the number one issue, national security of this country. This...

Michelle Boorstein, writing in the Washington Post's The Trail, sounded more like she was presenting a glowing Barack Obama campaign press release than a political story when she announced the hiring of Obama's new religious affairs adviser: Shaun Casey, who teaches religion and politics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., has been hired by the Obama campaign to focus on outreach to evangelical voters. Casey, who has been informally advising the Obama campaign on faith issues for a year, next month will become a formal part of the faith outreach staff, Casey said today. His title will be senior adviser for...

Michelle Obama speaks to gay Democrats NEW YORK - Michelle Obama won a standing ovation on Thursday when she paid a campaign visit to gay and lesbian Democratic activists to promote her husband Barack Obama’s presidential quest. Obama, appearing at a dinner meeting of the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Council of the Democratic National Committee, cited her husband’s efforts to fight discrimination and promote equal rights for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people. She said he supported a complete repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which only recognizes marriages between men and women and upholds states’...

Imagine you are the Karl Rove for your very own Republican candidate. Say you have stumbled upon a position your candidate holds that garners 68 percent-plus support in public opinion polls. The issue polls best among women and young people - often tough nuts for the GOP to crack. Say you noticed Democrats getting wise to the popularity of the issue and are running and winning campaigns that include it in their election platforms. You notice that your candidate's own Democrat opponent, however, takes the 32 percent or less stance. Further, you learn that the election your guy is running...

A landmark education program that provides opportunity to hundreds of families in the nation's capital to attend private schools is being opposed by Democrats in Congress. Barack Obama told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in February that he was open to voucher programs, but just last week announced his intentions to squash the DC pilot program. "Barack Obama prefers private education for his daughters but won't give DC parents the same opportunity," said Brian Burch, President of Fidelis, a Catholic-based political, legal, research and educational organization. "Vouchers are Change," he continued. "Rather than subjecting kids to rotting schools, vouchers have brought change...