Free Republic

This Is What Democracy Looks Like?: Hating America and Rejecting Peace with Israel Portrayed as Virtuous It’s fascinating to see not only the Middle East going backward but Western analysts and officials cheering on a return to even more war and terrorism. A good example is “In Tumult, New Hope for Palestinian Cause” by Anthony Shadid and David D. Kirkpatrick in the New York Times. Let’s take one paragraph and see what it tells us: In all the tumult of the Arab revolts, one of the most striking manifestations of change is a rejuvenated embrace of the Palestinian cause. The...

On Mexico, Guns, Drugs and Borders Posted by Ann Barnhardt - July 30, AD 2011 5:49 PM MST This is speculation, so take it as such. It is impossible to know for certain what another person or people are going to do until they do it, but when Vanna turns enough letters around on the board, you don’t need to buy any more vowels. I think the Obama regime is intentionally trying to get the Los Zetas drug cartel to overthrow the Mexican government, and do it fairly soon. This thesis is nothing new. If you want citations, do a...

There is one more loose end that needs to be tied together regarding Gunwalker. In the last 2 1/2 months I have heard from very credible sources, who are unconnected, the same thing repeatedly - so frequently that it is truly frightening. There have been numerous, and I mean NUMEROUS, muslim plots to wage Mumbai-style attacks against churches and synagogues that have been foiled and thwarted in the U.S. within the last several years.

COLUMBUS, Ga. - Starting at 10 o'clock Friday, two senior non-commissioned officers from Fort Benning will be on courtesy patrol. The soldiers will be wearing arm bands that read, "Courtesy Patrol."

White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett has “exciting announcements” about small-business investments, but the Obama administration doesn’t want anyone reporting on it. The Energy Department sent out advisory of a conference call Thursday afternoon with Jarrett and other officials “for an update on our inter-agency collaboration on small business procurement and exciting announcements on upcoming events around the country.” DOE encourages recipients to “circulate this call information widely” to businesses in swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Colorado. Even to New York and Washington, D.C. But the kicker: The “exciting call” itself is “off-the-record and is not for press...

A rush of recent reports on energy has much to say about the fundamental foolishness of the green vision of energy production -- the vision long regnant in academia and the one that informs the Obama regime. The green vision -- really, the green dream or delusion -- is that the world is running out of fossil fuels, and we need to switch to so-called renewable/sustainable sources such as solar power, wind power, and biofuels. (These "renewable," allegedly low-pollution green options never include nuclear or hydroelectric power, both of which are proven to be cost-effective and clean -- an interesting...

In response to a legal challenge by conservation groups, the Obama administration today launched a process to reconsider — and probably rewrite — a Bush-era plan for developing oil shale in the West. At issue are decisions by former President George W. Bush’s Interior Department to open roughly 2 million acres of land in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming to commercial oil shale leasing, while also approving regulations setting royalty rates for eventual production that critics blasted as too low. Under a court settlement filed today, more than a dozen groups, including the National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Resources Defense...

Although Saudi King Abdullah warned Barack Obama not to push Mubarak over the edge, according to reports by the Times of London, CIA director Leon Panetta believed the Egyptian president would step down.Just a few minutes ago, the New York Times reported that Mubarak refused to step down. Not only did the speech prove U.S. estimates wrong, it casts doubt over whether their game plan was ever working at all. Even as Mr. Mubarak spoke, angry chants were shouted from huge crowds in Cairo who had anticipated his resignation but were instead confronted with a plea from the president...

A year after the US economy stopped falling, we are still mired in "the worst labor-market crisis since the Great Depression," writes Laura Tyson in The New York Times. Voicing the consensus of the left-liberal economic establishment -- she's reportedly a leading candidate to head up President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers -- Tyson argues that the US unemployment rate, still stuck at 9.6 percent, is reason to try "a second fiscal stimulus" to raise "aggregate demand." She's wrong in a number of illuminating ways. First, the highest unemployment rates are highly A year after the US economy stopped falling,...

"Ideas may be cut loose from experience in two senses: either they have no roots in experience, or they are not submitted to the test of experience. Either way, they are free to be foolish." So wrote Jeane Kirkpatrick in the Introduction to her landmark book, Dictatorships and Double Standards (New York, 1982, p. 10). Kirkpatrick's statement applies perfectly to the band of naïve idealists now in change of our government. The youthful dreamers guiding the Obama administration have almost no private-sector experience. Like Obama himself, the Cabinet and host of czars who direct policy have spent their lives in...

It's not sufficiently divisive, apparently, that a controversial imam wants to erect a mosque near Ground Zero; now the Obama folks have him conducting "outreach" to Arab countries on behalf of the United States -- and on the taxpayers' dime, no less. Can anything be more ill-considered? As Claudia Rosett first reported at Forbes.com, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is headed to the Arab world for a month-long "outreach" tour, courtesy of the State Department. His wife, Daisy Khan, is to make a similar trip. Just what they'll be doing -- their scheduled stops include Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Bahrain...

The free press has all but disappeared. The news is often little more than a means of controlling the message. Entire areas of the country have experienced an information blackout. Many frightened citizens rely on bloggers, face book, twitter and text messages as their only source of news and information. Open warfare rages below the Rio Grande. The Houston Chronicle reports that. "After years of relative calm, the gangland nightmare is back-and yet, barely a single mention of the clashes here has been made by local radio and television or newspapers. The city's journalists, having lost some of their own...

NEW ORLEANS — BP allayed last-minute government fears of making the disaster worse and began testing the new, tighter-fitting cap Wednesday that could finally choke off the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the Obama administration's point man on the disaster, said the government gave the go-ahead after carefully reviewing the risks. "What we didn't want to do is compound that problem by making an irreversible mistake," he said at the end of a 24-hour roller-coaster of hopes raised, hopes dashed and hopes raised again along the Gulf Coast. The cap - a...

If anyone wonders why we so strongly support Sarah Palin, in every way possible, one look at this powerful interview should answer that question for all time. Appearing on Fox Business News’ Money Rocks, with Eric Bolling, Sarah gets right into the issues we are facing courtesy of the Obama regime. Pointing out Obama’s total absence of business experience, and lack of enough wisdom to surround himself with people who have any, Sarah talks about the destructive effect Obama’s policies are having on our nation. Not only are Americans about to be hit with the largest tax increase in world...

The American government, over the last decade, has been notoriously remiss in keeping illegal aliens from crossing our border with Mexico. The Arizona Legislature recently passed a “controversial” law requiring that the existing federal immigration laws be enforced — prompting a threatened lawsuit from the federal government (for enforcing its own laws.) Ten years ago, however, President Clinton ordered a draconian enforcement of our immigration laws, and Clinton enforced our laws not against a career criminal but rather against a minor child. Elian Gonzalez and his mother sought desperate measures to leave the Workers’ Paradise of Castro’s Cuba to seek...

The financial reform that is about to be passed is a farce. Like so much in Washington, it is strictly for the tourists. The following article from Sox First provides commentary on the legislation: "You think the Obama administration's legislation to fix US financial regulation is going to change Wall Street? You're dreaming! Nothing has changed, investment banks are a protected species in the US. Hailed by some sections of the media as something that will put banks on a bigger leash, the reality it does nothing of the sort. It's just a massive con because of the way the...

Contrary to what the Obama administration would have you believe, the biggest recipients of taxpayer funds during the financial crisis have not been Wall Street banks -- but the toxic twins, mortgage behemoths Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And the House and Senate are now finalizing legislation to reform the financial sector -- yet the bill will leave the biggest bailout recipients untouched. In fact, Fannie and Freddie are guaranteed to continue siphoning money from American taxpayers. That's right: The Democratic majority in Congress has made no attempt to reform these two entities, which have already cost us $145 billion....

NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge in New Orleans has blocked a six-month moratorium on new deepwater drilling projects that was imposed in response to the massive Gulf oil spill. Several companies that ferry people and supplies and provide other services to offshore drilling rigs had asked U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans to overturn the moratorium. President Barack Obama's administration has halted the approval of any new permits for deepwater drilling and suspended drilling at 33 exploratory wells in the Gulf. Feldman says in his ruling that the Interior Department failed to provide adequate reasoning for the...

Obama’s speech on Tuesday night was widely disparaged, even by his fan base in the media, MSNBC , where thrills typically run down their legs when he speaks. But the speech is a vivid illustration of Obama’s personality. He’s cold, reptilian. The fact is that he doesn’t give damn about people. He’s in love with idea, concepts, and goals. The people who get hurt as he hurdles in the pursuit of his objectives are collateral damage. They’re expendable, in Lenin’s famous phrase, the eggs you break to make an omelet. The oil gushing into the Gulf from the broken BP...

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) said Tuesday that President Barack Obama is exceeding his legitimate constitutional authority in telling BP it must set up an independent fund, not controlled by the company, for compensating victims of the Gulf oil spill. She described the administration's policy as an action "that's all about extortion." "Private companies need to be held accountable but not necessarily to the executive branch," said Bachmann. "It seems to me there’s a misreading of the Constitution and a misunderstanding of jurisdictional limits from this White House on what the extent of executive power is. They don’t seem to understand that and it—now it seems that it’s all...