Free Republic

Bowing to widespread Democratic skepticism, President-elect Barack Obama will drop his bid to include a business tax break he once touted in the economic stimulus bill now taking shape on Capitol Hill, aides said last night. Obama suggested the $3,000-per-job credit last week as one of five individual and business tax incentives aimed at winning Republican support. He proposed $300 billion in tax relief in a bill that could reach $775 billion, and he resurrected the jobs-credit proposal from the campaign trail as one of his main provisions. (snip) "We've always said we're open to other ideas. This was never...

According to Sun-Times columnist and long-time Chicago journalist, Carol Marin, journalists at Barack Obama news conferences have come to realize that Obama has pre-picked those journalists whom he will allow to ask him questions at the conference and many of them now "don't even bother raising" their hands to be called upon.

One of these day's I'll have to find other subject matter to write about, but stupidity isn't particular. Here we have "larger than life art," according to our giddy narrator, from Chicago elementary school kids, bringing this sky-view image of Barack Obama to life. See video here:

President-elect Barack Obama's ambitious economic recovery plan has a goal to create 3 million American jobs in the next two years. Broadband is a part of the answer. Broadband has the potential to transform our country. It will create jobs in the growth sectors of our economy — jobs that are driving the collaboration and interaction economy. Obama deserves our full support as he looks to revitalize our economy. An economic stimulus package that focuses on infrastructure must put America's broadband infrastructure at the head of the list. We have the opportunity to bring broadband to those who do not...

They lined up at the polls, helping propel President-elect Obama to victory. Now immigrants are calling on him to act quickly and issue an executive order stopping immigration raids and the deportation of illegal immigrants. "This is the moment. He has to show leadership in a very courageous way," said Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez (D-Brooklyn, Manhattan). The message was loud and clear at the Harlem church, where elected officials, clergy and immigrants filled the pews.

Wal-mart Ammo Stock is not being replenished from their warehouse. Is seems that corporate Wal-mart does not want to have it's warehouse stocked with new ammunition merchandise after Obama takes office. If Obama issues an executive order halting, restricting, or banning ammo sales, wal-mart and other retailers maybe left with stock they cannot sell at retail or return to their supplier.

Director draws praise, criticism from observersSince President-elect Barack Obama accepted the resignation of the head of the nation’s leading public health agency last week, her admirers and detractors have been arguing about her legacy and the future of the Atlanta-based research facility. During Dr. Julie Gerberding’s six years directing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, critics lambasted her, accusing her of sacrificing science for politics and carrying the Bush agenda on global warming and other issues into the world of scientific research. Her defenders countered that she kept the agency above political concerns and expanded its mission to include...

To the Editor: Soon, Barack Hussein Obama, the first black American President, will be inaugurated as the President of the USA. This will be done as he takes the oath of office on the day after Martin Luther King Day by placing his hand on the Bible used at Abraham Lincoln's inauguration! The only thing that could make this historic event more momentous would be for Mr. Obama to issue an Emancipation Proclamation for the Unborn. The unborn are the last minority group of people in America who are treated as subhuman chattel to be murdered in evil ways that...

Obama: 9-11 happened because al-Qaida lacks 'empathy' Senator lectures U.S. military, blames terror on 'poverty, ignorance, despair' By Aaron Klein © 2009 WorldNetDaily JERUSALEM – The 9-11 attacks were carried out because of a lack of "empathy" for others' suffering on the part of al-Qaida, whose terrorist ideology "grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair," Sen. Barack Obama explained in largely unreported comments eight days after the mega-terror attacks that rocked the nation. Obama went on to imply the September 11th attacks were in part a result of U.S. policy, lecturing the American military to...

ATLANTA, Jan. 12 /PRNewswire/ --Whitman Publishing, LLC, has released a hands-on "Collector's Vault" honoring Barack Obama's life and historic presidential campaign. The 144-page coffee table book is a combination history, scrapbook, and photo album, packed with souvenir replicas such as buttons, posters, campaign staff passes, and tickets. (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090112/CLM078 ) The Obama Collector's Vault debuts nationwide at Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Costco, Sam's Club, Wal-Mart and other book outlets Tuesday, January 13. It is also available at www.WhitmanBooks.com, or by calling 1-800-546-2995. Written by political veteran Avery Krut, the $49.95 book covers every aspect of Barack Obama's life and historic...

But Holder’s nomination raises other questions about what President-elect Barack Obama claimed he believed during the campaign. Numerous times he promised that he supported an individual’s right to own guns and that he wouldn’t do anything to take away people’s guns. Just last year in a brief to the Supreme Court, Holder argued that “the Second Amendment did not protect an individual right to keep and bear arms,” that it only protected government militias’ rights to guns. He claimed that the Second Amendment posed no obstacle to implementing gun bans. I can’t find even one gun control law that Holder...

Defense: President-elect Obama wants to jump-start the economy by spending on infrastructure. How about spending more on our military and ships like the USS George H. W. Bush?The nation's latest and last of 10 Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers joined the fleet on Saturday, 95,000 tons of aluminum and steel. The planes that will fly off her 4.5-acre flight deck will give future presidents options other than retreat. She will defend America and be the most effective instrument of foreign policy devised by man. She's a fine ship, but she is only one ship. We no longer have President Reagan's 600-ship...

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Barack Obama will be "nerd-in-chief" when he takes office as U.S. president this month, according to Marvel Comics, which is putting him on the cover of its next "Spider-Man" comic.

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama will sign an executive order in his first week in office that sets in motion the closure of the Guantanamo Bay military prison, the highest-profile symbol of the Bush administration's detention policies, two individuals familiar with Obama's thinking said on Monday. They declined to say precisely when he'd sign the directive, but they said it could be within hours of his Jan. 20 inauguration. The order would set out the procedures for shutting the prison at the U.S. Naval base in Cuba , a process that's likely to take a considerable period of time, the...

Here we are on the eve of the inauguration and we face an important question. Just how important is our pro-life stance to the nation and the world? Tomorrow or Wednesday, Mr. Obama is going to sign the "Freedom of Choice Act" -- which is going to mean abortions are going to be more plentiful and easier to obtain the world over. Does your heart weep for all those tiny souls? I know some on Free Republic are probably pro-choice, but I am reminded of comparisons between abortion and the other "life and death" issue that rent the nation during...

President-elect Obama's presentation of his economic stimulus plan last Thursday was thoughtful, clear, and excellently delivered. Despite its charismatic delivery, the speech concerned me. First, the soon-to-be-president sought to lower the expectations of the American public concerning his first term, create a sense of unity, and to communicate a huge number of details about his economic plan. This was too much territory to cover in one short speech. Unfortunately, his comments may have the unintended consequence of taking away the very confidence he wanted to give to the nation. I was shocked that the “Yes we can!” presidential candidate sounded...

....But today, the new focus is Mr. Obama’s stimulus package. If F.D.R.’s New Deal spending made things worse, it follows that the Obama administration should not make the same mistake. The anti-New Deal line is wrong as a matter of economics. F.D.R.’s spending programs did help the economy and created millions of new jobs. The problem, we now know, is not that F.D.R. spent too much priming the pump, but rather that he spent too little. It was his decision to cut back on spending on New Deal programs that brought about a nasty recession in 1937-38. The second problem...

The Senate Finance Committee will move within weeks on legislation to reverse that law, and Mr. Obama is expected to detail his estate-tax preservation proposal in his budget next month, congressional tax writers said. Under the Obama plan detailed during the campaign, the estate tax would be locked in permanently at the rate and exemption levels that took effect this year. That would exempt estates of $3.5 million -- $7 million for couples -- from any taxation. The value of estates above that would be taxed at 45%.

We now have the benefit of PEBO’s* general position on a plan to stimulate our economy. Government shall be our savior. We shall not want. More specifically, government spending. About $800 billion (probably more) will be created out of thin air and then spent by politicians and their cronies in an effort to get our economy moving. Some of PEBO’s spending ideas included “investing” in government schools and modernizing various federal government buildings in Washington and elsewhere. The “investing in education” bit gives you your first real clue of just what Obama is proposing here. He is proposing to use...