Free Republic

Monday’s vote came a year to the day after the president sacked the government and suspended parliament in a dramatic blow to the only democracy to have emerged from the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. For some Tunisians, his moves sparked fears of a return to autocracy, but they were welcomed by others, fed up with high inflation and unemployment, political corruption and a system they felt had brought few improvements. His opponents say the moves aimed to install an autocracy more than a decade after the fall of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, but his supporters say they were...

Mark Morgan, former Border Patrol chief under President Obama, said Monday he supports an idea floated by President Donald Trump to send immigrants from the border to sanctuary cities. “Congress has failed to do their job. Make no mistake, they could have prevented this (border crisis) and they failed to do so and then every time this current administration tries to come up with an option, they shoot it down. Well, I haven't heard any options from them,” Morgan said on “America’s Newsroom” Monday. “I've been there. The border patrol, ICE, their facilities are overwhelmed, the faith-based organizations and other...

Hamza Bin Laden, the son of former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, is calling for the targeting of Jewish and Western interests and the building of an army to “liberate Jerusalem.” US Jewish institutions on alert following calls for attacks from bin Laden’s son.

Anyone have strong enough stomach and information junkie brain to dare watch with me?

No president in our country’s history has been more concerned about his legacy than has Barack Obama. How ironic that people might someday best remember our first African-American Commander in Chief for having inspired the candidacy of Donald Trump. Six years of Obama forcing unpopular policies down Americans’ throats; six years of lies and misdeeds by unaccountable bureaucrats; six years of lame growth and resulting wage suppression; six years of appeasing our enemies and facing down our friends; six years of dividing the country – they have all taken their toll. People are angry and are willing to champion a...

“[W]e waited too long. We let the Islamic State build up its money, capability and strength and weapons while it was still in Syria,” he said, using an alternate name for the terrorist group. “Then when [ISIL] moved into Iraq, the Sunni Muslims didn’t object to their being there and about a third of the territory in Iraq was abandoned.”

<p>The American Embassy in Baghdad plans to evacuate a substantial number of its personnel this week in the face of a militant advance that rapidly swept from the north toward the capital, the State Department announced on Sunday.</p> <p>The embassy, a beige fortress on the banks of the Tigris River within the heavily-secured Green Zone, where Iraqi government buildings are also located, has the largest staff of any United States Embassy.</p>

At the end of 2013, after serving five years, Barack Obama is a complete failure as President, by his own standards, as reflected in his own words. How many times has President Obama told us that he is “fighting for the middle class”? But real median family income has been in a continuous downward spiral since he became President, actually falling more since the recession ended in the summer of 2009 according to the National Bureau of Economic Research than during the recession. That has added up by now to the middle class losing a month’s pay a year under...

Imagining how the US media would cover a domestic political event if it had happened in a foreign country is a very entertaining thought experiment. Doing so helps shed light on a number of biases and blind spots we’d rather ignore. It’s very easy, after all, to look at other countries and poke fun at their missteps and mistakes. It’s a lot more difficult to look in the mirror and admit error. I fully understand that I’m following in the footsteps of numerous other writers when it comes to this particular style of article. However the disastrous and mistake-filled rollout...

President Barack Obama didn't know about the problems with the Affordable Care Act's website -- despite complaints from insurance companies and the site's crashing during a test run -- until days into its now well-documented abysmal launch, the nation's health chief told CNN on Tuesday. In an exclusive interview with CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admitted Tuesday that there is significant concern in her department and the White House over the technical debacle surrounding the Obamacare website's rollout. The site was supposed to make it simple for people to search and sign-up for new...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Monday said there was "no excuse" for the cascade of computer problems that have marred the rollout of key elements in his health care law, but declared he was confident the administration would be able to fix the issues. "There's no sugarcoating it," Obama said. "Nobody is more frustrated than I am." The president said his administration was doing "everything we can possibly do" to get the federally run websites up and running. And he guaranteed that everyone who wants to get insurance through the new health care exchanges will be able to....

Saudi Arabia, in an unprecedented show of anger at the failure of the international community to end the war in Syria and act on other Middle East issues, said on Friday it would not take up its seat on the United Nations Security Council. The kingdom condemned what it called international double standards on the Middle East and demanded reforms in the Security Council. Riyadh's frustration is mostly directed at Washington, its oldest international ally, which has pursued policies since the Arab Spring that Saudi rulers have bitterly opposed and which have severely damaged relations with the United States, Saudi...

WASHINGTON - President Obama says a tumultuous month as commander in chief, when his policy toward Syria took a number of unexpected turns, may not have looked "smooth and disciplined and linear," but it's working. "I'm less concerned about style points. I'm much more concerned with getting the policy right," Obama told ABC's George Stephanopoulos in an exclusive interview on "This Week." Obama said his surprise announcement on Aug. 31 that he would seek congressional authorization for U.S. military strikes against Syria, then the abrupt cancellation of a vote this week and pursuit of a diplomatic plan led by the...

LIVE DISCUSSION THREAD

Four high-ranking Republican lawmakers criticized the Obama administration on Friday for three failed tests of the country's missile-defense system, saying budget cuts and neglect are to blame. Sens. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., along with Reps. Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., and Mike Rogers, R-Ala., sent Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel a letter faulting President Obama for allegedly gambling with national security by cutting funding to the program. They claim this hampered the ability to conduct vital tests needed to make sure the "ground-based midcourse defense system" (GMD) worked properly and conduct regular maintenance. The last successful GMD intercept test...

Israel -- and by extention, the West -- owes the Syrian dictator, BIG time. But why is Obama ignoring his lessons? (snip) ... Homeland Security Minister Gilad Erdan has been warning repeatedly that it is certain that Israeli population centers will be hit by Syrian ballistic missiles ... (snip) ... the second danger is that the weapons in Syria will proliferate far and wide. US officials have already admitted that they have lost track of much of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal. (snip) The party most responsible for the barbarous, protracted Syrian civil war that will almost certainly drag Israel into...

Bombing Suspects’ Immigration Story Adds Layer to Debate on Overhaul By TRIP GABRIEL April 20, 2013 WAYNE, Pa. — With the television in her pizzeria showing an endless loop of the Boston manhunt on Friday, Bessie Kontis glanced up at scenes of the quasi-military lockdown and shuddered. Greg Ricker said the Boston attack had made him less open to immigration. “I think we should just stop letting people in,” he said. Frank Cunningham, right, favors a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Gary Burnett also favors a path to citizenship and permanent residency. “After something like that happens, they should...

"The FBI interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011 after a request from a foreign government, US law enforcements officials have confirmed. But agents closed the case after finding no cause for concern. In an interview on Russian television, the mother of the two suspects said the FBI had been in contact with her son for several years. It is not known which country made the request, but the BBC's Paul Adams in Washington says it is likely to have come from the Russians." . . ."AnalysisWe may know the names of the suspects in the Boston marathon attacks and also much...

For FReeper comments. Fox reporting U.S Attorney to be present

The Obama administration's strategy of prepositioning supplies for quick distribution in disasters apparently has fallen short on meeting the demand for drinking water in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.   "The agency [FEMA} appears to have been unprepared to distribute bottled water to Hurricane Sandy victims when the storm hit [last Monday]," Breitbart News reported over the weekend.