Free Republic

Jay Gatsby gave big, lavish, new-money parties at his sprawling mansion on the water because he wanted to seem cool. He wanted Daisy to notice him. Barack Obama gave a big, lavish, new-money party at his sprawling mansion on the water because he wanted to seem cool. Being cool is important to him. One difference is that Gatsby opened his house to the uninvited. Obama closed his house to many of the invited after getting flak for hosting “a celebrity mosh pit,” as Stephen Colbert called it, while officials were telling people to mask back up. It’s hard to stop...

While speaking Tuesday at Rice University’s Baker Center with author Jon Meacham and former White House chief of staff, James Baker, former President Barack Obama discussed identity politics and its history regarding race in the United States. Obama said that America, particularly American elites, have had a history of “great smugness” when it comes to wealth and status, Partial transcript as follows: OBAMA: We did not adapt quickly enough to the fact that there were people being left behind. And that frustrations were going to flare up and that all of these changes that were happening were happening really quick,...

Speaking in Berlin on Thursday, Barack Obama pushed for continued globalism and heaped praise on German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “There’s a competing narrative of fear and xenophobia and nationalism and intolerance and anti-democratic trends,” said Obama, discussing democracy and global responsibility with the chancellor, at the biennial congress of the German Protestant Church. “We have to push back against those trends that would violate human rights or suppress democracy or that would restrict individual freedoms of conscience and religion. “In this new world we live in, we can’t isolate ourselves. We can’t hide behind a wall,” Obama declared from the...

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared the Iran nuclear deal a failure on Wednesday but left open the possibility the Trump administration will uphold it nonetheless. The top American diplomat sought to reinforce the notion that the U.S. is aggressively countering Iran’s destabilizing behavior throughout the Middle East, even though President Donald Trump so far has not pulled out of the deal. Tillerson spoke a day after certifying to Congress that Iran is complying with its obligations under the 2015 deal, a requirement for Tehran to continue receiving relief from nuclear sanctions. “The JCPOA fails to achieve the objective of...

As America’s first family enjoys its eighth and final vacation in Hawaii, new estimates put the price tag of the Obamas’ annual trip at $3.5 million or more. In total, the cost of the the first family’s personal or largely personal travel during the last eight years comes to $85 million – though that is likely to climb to $90 million after additional records are released, according to the conservative group Judicial Watch based on federal government records.

"Everything about the so-called deal with Iran, including the reputations of the men who negotiated it, is a lie. It’s likely to be a deadly lie for millions of people who will die on account of it. The world should mark well everyone responsible for it."

President Barack Obama saluted a pair of United States Marines on Tuesday while holding what appeared to be a styrofoam cup in his saluting hand, a breach of military regulations that won't win him fans among veterans and servicemen.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is working to forge a sweeping international climate change agreement to compel nations to cut their planet-warming fossil fuel emissions, but without ratification from Congress. In preparation for this agreement, to be signed at a United Nations summit meeting in 2015 in Paris, the negotiators are meeting with diplomats from other countries to broker a deal to commit some of the world’s largest economies to enact laws to reduce their carbon pollution. But under the Constitution, a president may enter into a legally binding treaty only if it is approved by a two-thirds majority of...

Insiders very close to House White House Press Secretary Jay Carney indicate that he’s on his way out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, The Mirror has learned. Carney has told people he’s leaving the White House soon. In 2008, Carney became Director of Communications for Vice President Joe Biden. In 2011, he became the nation’s 29th press secretary, President Obama’s second, replacing Robert Gibbs. Before that, Carney was a journalist for The Miami Herald and later TIME and CNN. In the last 48 hours, Carney has been getting press attention from outlets like The Weekly Standard and the New York Daily...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama on Friday nominated Sen. John Kerry as his next secretary of state, elevating the longtime lawmaker and foreign policy expert to the top diplomatic job he had coveted. "He is not going to need a lot of on-the-job training," Obama said, standing alongside Kerry at the White House. "Few individuals know as many presidents and prime ministers or grasp our policies as firmly as John Kerry."

Vice President Joseph Biden speaks only for himself and President Barack Obama, and neither man was aware that U.S. officials in Libya had asked the State Department for more security before the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, a top White House official told The Cable. Biden has come under fire for saying at Thursday night's debate, "We weren't told they wanted more security. We did not know they wanted more security there." The Cable asked Deputy National Security Advisor for Communications Ben Rhodes whether Biden was speaking for the entire Obama administration, including the State Department,...

Please spare us all the sanctimoniousness about getting “political,” because whether or not the president of the United States and his administration are equipped with the capabilities to deal with serious threats to our national security sure seems like kind of a big deal that voters deserve to know about.

President Barack Obama’s reelection effort is not blaming the sputtering economic recovery of the past four years on former President George W. Bush, his deputy campaign manager insisted Wednesday. “We’re absolutely not doing that,” Stephanie Cutter said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “In fact, we’re taking credit for the 5.1 million private-sector jobs that have been created over the past four years despite being handed the worst economy since the Great Depression. We’re taking credit for the million jobs that were protected under the president’s efforts to save the auto industry and the increase in manufacturing jobs for the first time...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: CNN is panicking over their own poll. As predicted, the polls are starting to tighten. CNN, at least what they're saying, they're starting to panic. You'll hear the sound bites coming up. Oh, by the way, the Washington Post poll that was so devastating to Romney in the swing states, this goes beyond simple incompetence or media malpractice. This is genuine corruption. We find out, and from the Washington Post's own pollster, that they based last Friday's poll of Romney being up ten, 11, whatever it was in those three swing states, on 160 people with a...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Some shocking news in the Drive-By Media today. The election is over. Mitt Romney has lost. It's all over out there. Actually, that's not the case. The polls today are starting to tighten up exactly as predicted here. Now we're into October. The debate is Wednesday night. Have you noticed what's going on with this? The DNC and Howard Dean and a number of others... Even Obama himself is saying, "Mitt's a much better debater than I am." They're really out there lowering expectations for Obama in the debate on Wednesday night, and he's got a tough...

Madonna offered a profanity-laced endorsement of President Obama at her concert Monday night, which involved the singer stripping down to her underwear to reveal the president's name written on her body. “You all better vote for f---ing Obama okay,” she told the crowd at Washington's Verizon center.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: My question is, why is Obama still campaigning? Could somebody explain that to me. Everywhere I look, this election's over. Why, Obama has hit 50% approval in the polls now for the first time ever. The bounce out of that disaster of a convention was unprecedented, other than Dukakis who had a 17-point lead after his, and somehow he lost. Brit Hume said today on Fox, "Well, you know, you gotta keep in mind the guy leading in the polls in mid-September rarely loses." Ever heard of Dukakis? Ever heard of Jimmy Carter? And now Public Policy...

"Willie Geist, MSNBC: What would you say to that same person that said, 'Well, that hasn't worked for four years. I haven't had the job over time, it's time for a change.'" Video at link...

Patrick Kennedy, a former representative from Rhode Island and son of the late Ted Kennedy, warned in a fundraising email for Congressional Democrats that if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds President Obama’s health care law, then “dangerous Tea Party extremists will go on a rampage.” The fundraising email was sent out Wednesday afternoon, to raise money for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Health Care Rapid Response Fund” ahead of Thursday morning’s expected ruling by the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the health care law. “My father, Ted Kennedy, spent his entire political career fighting tooth and nail for universal...

You can even register your wedding on his campaign website. Could he be any more pompous?