Free Republic

President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is working on a plan for what it is calling “pro-growth” tax increases. The Commission is comprised of 18 members. Most are aged political hacks or washed-up bureaucrats. “Critics of government insist that taxes hurt growth,” said Alice Rivlin, a former White House budget director for President Jimmy Carter. “But we’re not convinced this is necessarily true. For example, every family has routine bills it must pay—groceries, rent, transportation. These costs don’t go down just because increased taxes have lowered a person’s take-home pay. It could be that a carefully constructed...

The President Who Won’t Grow Up–Everything I need to know about Barack Obama I learned as a Cub Scout den leader. Everything I need to know about Barack Obama I learned as a Cub Scout den leader. Last week I watched an American president and a Russian leader sign a START treaty. I almost checked the calendar, wondering if I’d been transported back to 1980. In news stories of the summit I found a link to an article Barack Obama had written in 1983 while at Columbia University titled “Breaking the War Mentality.” Back then, Obama was firmly in the...

Those crazy "birthers" are citing National Public Radio. Really? NPR? Archives for the tax-supported organization reveal that a 2008 report described then-Sen. Barack Obama as "Kenyan-born" and a "son of Africa." NPR's promotion for the story included a brief description of West African correspondent Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, who "describes the stories that have been exciting, including the U.S. presidential race of Kenyan-born Sen. Barack Obama." After discussing various issues developing in Africa at the time – such as Kenya's violent elections, the attacks in Zimbabwe and the presidency of South Africa – the conversation on the program "Tell Me More" turned...

There are two different versions of the story of the end of the Cold War: the Russian version, and the truth. President Barack Obama endorsed the Russian version in Moscow last week. Speaking to a group of students, our president explained it this way: "The American and Soviet armies were still massed in Europe, trained and ready to fight. The ideological trenches of the last century were roughly in place. Competition in everything from astrophysics to athletics was treated as a zero-sum game. If one person won, then the other person had to lose. And then within a few short...

The highest tenured faculty member at Chicago Law spoke out on Barack Obama saying, “Professors hated him because he was lazy, unqualified, never attended any of the faculty meetings.” Doug Ross reported this and more: I spent some time with the highest tenured faculty member at Chicago Law a few months back, and he did not have many nice things to say about “Barry.” Obama applied for a position as an adjunct and wasn’t even considered. A few weeks later the law school got a phone call from the Board of Trustees telling them to find him an office, put...