Free Republic

We are reaching the 100-day mark in the Obama presidency. Historians are examining whether he has done as much as FDR (no), while pundits are considering whether he is more popular than other presidents (some) and just as polarizing as George W. Bush (yes). But a more interesting question is whether independents, conservative Democrats, and moderate Republicans are bothered by what they have seen and are losing faith in the agent of change. There is reason — actually there are six reasons — why that collection of key swing voters might be having serious second thoughts. First, the president’s budgetary...

Obama says his tax cut for 95% of Americans will lift people out of poverty. Please tell me how an $8 tax cut can possibly lift even one person out of poverty? Especially when these people pay no taxes to begin with. Also, he claims that it's the federal government's job to create jobs for Americans? Oh, yeah? Since when? Here's the formula that will help PRIVATE enterprise create jobs for Americans: Cut the spending. Cut the government. Cut the taxes. Repeat. Get the government out of the way and OFF our backs!! Set our people FREE!!

By inviting Barack Obama to deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree at Notre Dame, the Rev. John Jenkins has polarized the Catholic community nationwide – and raised a question. What does it mean to be a Catholic university in post-Christian America? Are there truths about faith and morality that are closed to debate at Notre Dame? Or is Notre Dame like London's Hyde Park, where all ideas and all advocates get a hearing? To Catholics, abortion is the killing of an unborn child, a premeditated breach of God's Commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill." The case is closed...

In the aftermath of the Madoff implosion, quite a few people have pointed out the parallels between a Ponzi scheme and Social Security. Arnold Kling, whom I respect, has written: I’ve been thinking that Madoff is a perfect analogy for the public sector. The government gives people money, which it expects to obtain by taking the money from people in the future. Even the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities, not known as a right-wing organization, sees the U.S. fiscal stance as unsustainable (pointer from Ezra Klein via Tyler Cowen)—in other words, a Ponzi scheme. Other people have gone farther....

Would Obama Pass a Standard Security Clearance?   By Daniel PipesFrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, October 21, 2008 Obama's Indonesian school registration listing him as Muslim. With Colin Powell now repeating the lie that Barack Obama has "always been a Christian," despite new information further confirming Obama's Muslim childhood (such as the Indonesian school registration listing him as Muslim), one watches with dismay as the Democratic candidate manages to hide the truth on this issue.Instead, then, let us review a related subject – Obama's connections and even indebtedness, throughout his career, to extremist Islam. Specifically, he has longstanding, if indirect ties...

And Obama does and from what that Palin hasn’t eclipsed? Would have been my followup, but I’m not surprised. He’s been a thorn in our efforts since before the 2004 election when all those surprising anonymous “tip” flowed from the State Department to embarssass the Administration. His “insurrection” led to Andy Card asking for his resignation. Note also Powell’s words match verbatim the Obama campaign’s talking points on the “standing in the world” and the “economy”. You’ll remember that in February he had told a group of students that electing a black president would be “electrifying“? That led to preliminary...

-SNIP-Those who accuse presidential aspirant Sen. Barack Obama of empty rhetoric must have missed his speech last July, recently made public, to the benefactors of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. At that festive event, he was as sharp and specific as a scalpel. "The first thing I'd do as president," he told a cheering audience, "is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing that I'd do." The audience cheered enthusiastically. And well they might. As NARAL enthuses on its website, this act would "codify Roe v. Wade's protections and guarantee the right to choose for future generations...

One of the dirty little secrets of the abortion business is that some babies survive efforts to kill them in utero and are born alive. In the past these abortion survivors have been callously thrown into trash cans, where they died of suffocation or dehydration. Nancy Creger, a former nurse from Atlanta and a longtime friend of PRI’s, was the first to uncover the practice in the early eighties. She discovered that 14 infants had been born alive and subsequently “allowed” to die in Atlanta’s notorious “abortion-only” Midtown Hospital in the early 1980’s. Creger was horrified by the information, writing...

Anti-gun hysterics have a new spokesman: Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. I had barely finished writing about anxiety disorders over guns, and "His Honor" opens his mouth and makes my case. Mayor Daley was reacting to the Supreme Court decision striking down the D.C. gun ban, and the likelihood that a similar challenge will soon come against the Chicago ban. Now, some of his rhetoric is the same tired old stuff we've heard before; he called the high court's ruling a "frightening decision" and predicted a "return to the days of the Wild West." The Mayor should be so lucky...

I just logged into my Yahoo account and these were the featured Associated Press headlines: "A housing issue: McCain not sure how many they own (AP)" "Governor: Kaine thinks he's on Obama's short list (AP)" "Obama inspires black Republicans to switch parties (AP)" "Campaigns vie over whether McCain is Bush clone (AP)" "Obama casts McCain as rich, out of touch (AP)" My only question is, does Hussein Obama's campaign pay the AP a retainer?

BEGIN TRANSCRIPTRUSH: Yesterday on Stephanopoulos' Sunday show, the guest was Nancy Pelosi. Now, we have three bites here. The first bite is a montage -- it's comical -- a montage of questions that Stephanopoulos asked Pelosi because he knows, Stephanopoulos knows this issue is killing Democrats. And you'll hear here, he begs Pelosi to allow a vote. Question after question after question. But he never got the answer he wanted.(snip)RUSH: Do you think TIME Magazine would ever do a cover store on Nancy Pelosi where the headline is: "Is Nancy Pelosi Good for America?" as they did with me? Do...

Is Sen. Barack Obama just too weird to be elected president? Since the day Obama claimed the Democratic nomination, pundits and political pros have been waiting for him to take a significant lead in the polls. Here we are in August, and not only has Obama failed to get the Democrat’s traditional summertime bump, he’s tied with John McCain in the latest Gallup and Rasmussen polls. In a lousy year for Republicans, against a GOP nominee who combines the youthful effervescence of Wilford Brimley with the soaring oratory of a life insurance seminar, Obama is actually losing ground. Why? Obama,...

Is Al Gore nuts? I’m serious. Is it possible that the disappointment of losing the presidential campaign eight years ago destabilized him? If you think about it, since then, he’s been a changed man. First he got fat. He went through a dramatic physical change. He put on a significant amount of weight and grew a beard and got reclusive. Then he lost the weight and found a cause. Manmade global warming. It absolutely became his theme in life. After being largely silent on the issue during eight years as the vice president and a good run in the Senate,...

On Sunday, the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz continued his mission of exposing the absurd amount of coverage the media are giving to Barack Obama as compared to John McCain. On CNN's "Reliable Sources," Kurtz amazingly asked his guests, "Where does journalism get off saying it's OK to give one candidate twice as much coverage -- this week, I would say four times as much coverage -- as the other candidate running for president?" This followed last Sunday's warning by Kurtz that "there could be a big backlash against news organizations if this trend continues": HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: Mark Halperin, many...

In his speech in Constitution Hall this week, former Vice President and renewable energy investor Al Gore extolled a stretch goal challenging America to achieve 100% renewable power within 10 years. The quote: "Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years." And my favorite part: "When President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon and bring him back safely in 10 years, many people doubted we could accomplish that goal. But 8 years and 2 months later,...

WASHINGTON - The flap over Hillary Clinton's false claim that she braved sniper fire during a 1996 trip to Bosnia has highlighted a problem that's plagued her for much of her public life: A lot of people think she's dishonest. Ever since she stepped onto the national stage when her husband ran for president in 1992, she's found her honesty challenged along with his - sometimes thanks to her failure to tell the truth and sometimes thanks to the eagerness of her critics to portray innocent misstatements as lies. Either way, the issue has helped to define her and put...

How interesting it is to note the silence from the liberal women cheerleaders when a politically conservative woman "makes it to the top" — into a position of executive power. Example: Condoleezza Rice. More and more, with every passing year, Ms. Rice has been put into strategic speaking spots and administration positions, some concerning especially significant global issues. It is Ms. Rice who was the highlighted power mover in the Middle East. She represented parties concerned about peace. She stood for calm and reason. She deliberated with those in a most contentious situation. Ms. Rice dialogued with Israeli leadership. Likewise,...

Hardly days after our latest bid to re-enter the United Nations was crushed under diplomatic pressure from Beijing, the U.N. is once again in local newspaper headlines, although for an entirely different reason. According to a comprehensive report prepared by the U.S. government's Iraq Survey Group, which pored through voluminous documents left behind by Saddam Hussein's deposed regime and interviewed several former top Iraqi officials, the Iraqi government bought influence over the U.N. and foreign governments through the U.N.-sponsored "oil for food" program. While we are not the slightest bit surprised to hear accusations about the Iraqi regime furthering its...