Free Republic

Has President Barack Obama potentially destroyed Iran’s chances for regime change? With over 60% of Iran’s 78 million-person population under the age of 30, over 80% of the entire population suffering in utter poverty, and a clerical Islamic regime with a rampant record of human rights abuses–not the least of which includes death by hanging for homosexuality, amputations for crimes such as petty theft, and what has been described as one of the cruelest forms of non-physical punishment (“white torture”) in the world–the lingering fear is that the Islamic Republic of Iran may be close to solidifying a stronghold for...

If anyone has stopped to ask just why global central banks are in such a rush to create inflation (but only controlled inflation, not runaway hyperinflation... of course when they fail with the "controlled" part the money paradrop is only a matter of time) over the past 5 years, and have printed over $12 trillion in credit-money since Lehman, the bulk of which has ended up in the stock market, and which for the first time ever are about to monetize all global sovereign debt issuance in 2015, the answer is simple, and can be seen on the chart below....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A day before the open enrollment deadline for private health coverage under Obamacare, some consumers were unable to submit applications because of "intermittent issues" with income verification, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department said on Saturday. The agency, which announced the problem in a statement on Saturday afternoon, said nearly six hours later that it had been resolved ahead of the Feb. 15 deadline. **SNIP** It said in a statement that it had worked with the Internal Revenue Service to fix the problem.

The NBC anchor’s lies are symptomatic of a culture in which truth has become relativized. NBC Nightly News anchorman Brian Williams frequently fabricated a dramatic story that he was under enemy attack while reporting from Iraq. NBC is now investigating whether Williams also embellished events in New Orleans during his reporting on Hurricane Katrina. Williams always plays the hero in his yarns, braving natural and hostile human enemies to deliver us the truth on the evening news. Former CBS anchorman Dan Rather tried to pass off fake memos as authentic evidence about former President George W. Bush’s supposedly checkered National...

In 1909, Ernest Rutherford, Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden took a piece of radium and used it to fire charged particles at a sheet of gold foil. They wanted to test the then-dominant theory that atoms were simply clusters of electrons floating in little seas of positive electrical charge (the so-called ‘plum pudding’ model). What came next, said Rutherford, was ‘the most incredible event that has ever happened to me in my life’. Despite the airy thinness of the foil, a small fraction of the particles bounced straight back at the source – a result, Rutherford noted, ‘as incredible as...

Earlier today, President Barack Obama said that America’s goal should be to “shrink” the Islamic State until it is a “manageable problem.” His own vice president, Joe Biden, later contradicted him, saying that we will “follow ISIS to the gates of Hell, because Hell is where they will reside.” This afternoon, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki did a “what he really meant to say” routine.

Obama Is Not No Longer The Problem Obama was the problem but no longer. We used to wonder if he had the experience and leadership qualities necessary to preside over a free people under a Constitution that limited government power to protecting the peoples’ rights. That ship has sailed. Obama has provided painful proof that he does not have the ability to lead. His only attribute is to direct and even that is lacking. Obama’s method of governing promoted a Kakistocracy into an Ineptocracy. Obama’s Ineptocracy is defined as a system of government where the least capable to lead are...

Republicans dropped a hammer on IRS Commissioner John Koskinen during a testy hearing covering the disappearance of emails tied to the agency's tea party targeting scandal. The emails, covering the period January 2009 to April 2011, belonged to embattled former official Lois Lerner and could shed light on whether an expansive scheme to single out conservative groups for special scrutiny was guided by members of Congress or administration officials outside the IRS. 'The committee requested all of Lois Lerner’s emails over a year ago,' said House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa. 'And we subpoenaed the emails in August 2013...

symbolic obstacle to girls’ educational progress, not as another murderous example of militant Islam that could be fought by U.S. forces. The straight-faced effort to change the subject from jihad to education policy is a reach even for the White House’s media team, partly because the jihadi group has a decade-long history of bombing Christian churches and schools, and killing thousands of Africans. On May 12, for example, the group paraded more than 100 kidnapped girls who have converted to Islam to escape rape. The first lady and

Unemployment is now the #1 problem in America, according to a Gallup poll released Monday. After the government shutdown in October, “Government/Politicians” ranked #1 as the top problem in America through mid-January, when legislators passed a bipartisan budget deal. After that, there was a 11-percent drop among Republicans who listed “Government/Politicians” as the top problem, from 26 percent in January to 15 percent in February. The new poll shows that unemployment is now the top issue — an increase of 16 percent from January. Republicans, Democrats and independents all said “Unemployment/Jobs” was the top problem, but the jump was the...

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Jerry Brown's image as a responsible, penny-pinching steward of California's finances has been cemented in recent weeks because of his renewed call to pay off California's "wall of debt. That's a term Brown coined when he took office to describe the tens of billions of dollars California owed to public schools and special funds whose coffers were raided to help balance budgets in the past. But look behind that $24.9 billion wall and you'll see a $330 billion skyline of other liabilities threatening the state's financial health. It includes $80 billion needed to cover teachers' pensions and...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Well, ladies and gentlemen, it looks like I continue to live rent free in the head of the president, Barack Obama. It seems that the New Yorker has just posted more from their 18-page Obama interview. I don't know if the whole thing has been on the Internet. I didn't read the whole thing. It may have been up there all the time. But here is what the president said, the New Yorker interview with David Remnick that they have just posted. "Another way of putting it, I guess, is that the issue has been the inability...

It's the sort of abstract puzzle that keeps a scientist awake at night: Can you predict how three objects will orbit each other in a repeating pattern? In the 300 years since this "three-body problem" was first recognized, just three families of solutions have been found. Now, two physicists have discovered 13 new families. It's quite a feat in mathematical physics, and it could conceivably help astrophysicists understand new planetary systems. The trove of new solutions has researchers jazzed. "I love these things," says Robert Vanderbei a mathematician at Princeton University who was not involved in the work. He says...

Sorry that the truncating pages and missing sidebars problem is back again. I'm trying to reach John so he can fix it. No luck so far. Hope he checks his messages soon. I've also asked him what causes this, but he hasn't answered. Hoping we can get a permanent fix soon. Meanwhile, the work around is to set the number of results and items per page to 20 each. Look for the "My Preferences" link under "Account" at the top of any of the latest posts index pages. Thanks

In an interview with Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal, newly re-elected House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) opened up about President Obama’s utter unwillingness to cut a single dollar from federal spending. In a stunning admission, Obama reportedly told Boehner, “We don’t have a spending problem.” Boehner added that President Obama continues to maintain that America’s federal deficit is caused not by governmental overspending but by “a health-care problem.” Said Boehner, “They blame all of the fiscal woes on our health-care system.” Boehner told Obama, “Clearly we have a health-care problem, which is about to get worse with Obamacare....

**SNIP** "We're not going to be defensive about it," Obama said of the State Department review of the attacks during an exclusive interview on NBC's Meet the Press. "We're not going to pretend that this was not a problem. This was a huge problem. And we're going to implement every single recommendation that's been put forward."

A technical department in a Soviet university. An introductory lecture. The professor: For a start I'll explain to you, who an engineer is. There is a factory which receives daily a truckload of alcohol necessary for its operating. The factory has a huge tank with a tap to hold the alcohol. A female employee uses the tap to distribute the alcohol according to written orders. After each shift the tank is emptied with the same tap. Now I have a question to you all: How will an engineer steel some alcohol from the tank?"

History is replete with examples: Politicians tend to follow popular trends, rather than lead. To the extent that segments of the public can be pushed in our direction, we increase constructive pressure on all candidates, who are not compulsion driven ideologues, to be more conservative. The Reagan era is a case in point; the reverse was true in the leftward shift of many formerly conservative Democrats in the early "New Deal." This does not imply lack of personal involvement. Our obvious interest has led to careful consideration of the merits, deficiencies & reasonable possibilities related to each candidate. While Governor...

Trayvon Martin, the Florida teenager shot dead during a scuffle with a neighborhood watchman, was suspended from his Miami school three times over the past year, according to the family attorney. The revelation that Martin, 17, was dogged by disciplinary problems at school was the latest salvo in a war of leaks meant to bolster each side amid rising tension over the Feb. 26 shooting. Martin's parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, will appear before a House panel today and rallies continue around the country demanding that George Zimmerman, the 28-year-old watchman who shot Martin, be arrested. Martin may have...

Before reading my question, below, please read my note. NOTE: I am NOT a newbie with computers - have cleared caches, run anti-malware, anti-virus, cleared old restore points, etc. to clear ths problem. You name it - I've done it. Have even checked the Internet for people with the same problem. QUESTION: Is ANY FR person out there experiencing an ABNORMAL shutdown of IE8? It has JUST started on two of my computers recently. After exiting IE8, I ALMOST ALWAYS get the gray dialog box that states "Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to shut down." Then, I...