Free Republic

Given all the hoopla and high expectations surrounding the new president, it's easy to overlook how he has shifted since the election in both tone and substance. As we approach the 100-day mark of his presidency, Barack Obama has broken or bent many tenets of his campaign, including promises on war, spending and good government. In terms of tone, Obama promised to be a hope-filled change agent who could fix our politics and "heal a nation." He would do it by refusing to appoint lobbyists to his administration, increasing transparency in government, and forging new bipartisan consensus. His campaign promised...

A key House Republican Thursday called for a hearing to investigate a Department of Homeland Security report that highlights security risks posed by extremist groups and disgruntled veterans. Rep. Peter King (N.Y.), the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, has asked for a hearing into the matter, one day after the committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said he was “dumbfounded” by how the agency could release such a report. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, who has endured a barrage of congressional criticism over the report, on Thursday made the rounds of the morning news programs, appearing in five interviews...

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Texas fits the Department's profile of potential domestic terrorism described in their newly released report titled, " Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment". Islamic extremists' acts of domestic terrorism were recently given the dignity, by Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano and President Obama, of being classified as man-made disasters, and abroad, the "war on terror" has been reclassified as an "overseas contingency plan". But an entire non-Islamic class, or perhaps by extension entire states, according to the report, are not afforded such considerate and cordial titles if...

President Obama has recently completed the most successful foreign policy tour since Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. You name it, he blew it. What was his big deal economic programme that he was determined to drive through the G20 summit? Another massive stimulus package, globally funded and co-ordinated. Did he achieve it? Not so as you'd notice. Barack is not the first New World ingenue to discover that European leaders will load him with praise, struggle sycophantically to be photographed with him and outdo him in Utopian rhetoric. But when it comes to the critical moment of opening their wallets -...

 1.  Do They all Do This? A good argument could be made that Jacques Chirac was deeply unpopular (along with his foreign minister Dominque de Villepin) in the US and the UK. Even more so was Gerhard Schröder, and to a lesser extent his postmodern foreign minister Joschka Fischer, veteran of the 1960s Days of Rage. No need to comment on the controversial career of Vladimir Putin. But one rarely sees Mr. Sarkozy trash Chirac, or Merkel dump on Schröder, or Medvedev reject Putin. Is the trashing of your predecessor an Obama phenomenon? Why do transnationalist, internationalist European leaders not attack...

While acknowledging that the recession makes the political battle more difficult, President Barack Obama plans to begin addressing America's immigration system this year, including looking for a path for illegal immigrants to become legal, a senior administration official said Wednesday. Obama will frame the new effort — likely to rouse passions on all sides of the highly divisive issue — as "policy reform that controls immigration and makes it an orderly system," said the official, Cecilia Munoz, deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs in the White House. Obama plans to speak publicly about the issue in...

Numb. At some point, that's about how one feels, isn't it? Didn't rogue nuclear power North Korea, in violation of yet another United Nations resolution, test-fire a long-range missile? Didn't this occur while President Barack Obama delivered a speech on nuclear disarmament? Isn't North Korea the same country that helped Syria build a nuclear reactor, showing North Korea's clear intention to sell and export its nuclear technology? And in response, didn't the President call for the United Nations Security Council -- the one that provides Russia and China with a veto -- to … take action?! Did the traditional media,...

The Cold War's Most Dangerous Legacy [Mark Steyn] Jonah, I couldn't agree more on the Soviets' "psychological contamination." I think the Obama response to the North Korean test is a good example of that: The wish for "a world without nuclear weapons" is not merely a pacifist delusion but one that obliquely subscribes to the false equivalence so assiduously promoted during the Cold War. I wouldn't lose a moment's sleep if I read in the paper that New Zealand and Switzerland had decided to become nuclear powers. It's not the technology (which can't be un-invented, any more than the rifle...

FBI InfraGard warns of a crescendo of public concern about Obama's eligibility April 05, 2009 11:14 Tasked by the FBI to provide "informational analysis" on conditions which could be construed as potentially harmful to civil order and national security, InfraGard, of the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), issued an unclassified Protective Intelligence Communication report in March 2009 regarding the "crescendo" of public concern about Obama's presidential eligibility. Authored by Dr. Lyle J. Rapacki, Protective Intelligence Specialist and Agent, the report summarizes the substance of legal challenges to Obama on the question of his constitutional eligibility and concludes that if...

In a blow to Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon has decided to purchase to end funding of the F-22 fighter jet. The decision by Defense Secretary Robert Gates will rouse widespread opposition in Congress and is likely to bog down the 2010 budget approval process, with F-22 supporters maneuvering to secure more money. The Pentagon will fund four of the radar-evading stealth fighters in the upcoming 2009 emergency war-spending request, but those additional aircraft will do little to keep the production line in Marietta, Ga., open beyond 2011. Lockheed Martin is the main contractor for the F-22, each of which costs...

The basic bargain is sound: countries with nuclear weapons will move toward disarmament, countries without nuclear weapons will not acquire them.” -- President Barack Obama, Prague, April 6, 2009 As far as nuclear weapons are concerned, the President of the United States wants America to disarm: “Countries with nuclear weapons will move toward disarmament.” It is hard to imagine a more destructive goal. A nuclear disarmed America would lead to massive and widespread killing, more genocide, and very possibly the nuclear holocaust worldwide nuclear disarmament is meant to prevent. There is nothing moral, let alone realistic, about this goal. Here...

Is this Pres. Obama’s new approach to diplomacy: sending his spokesman out to mock foreign leaders who dare to question his profligate spending, even when those leaders have sacrificed to support US national security policy? Apparently so . . . Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs made the rounds of the morning shows today, and interestingly it was GMA’s Diane Sawyer who asked the toughest questions. She displayed the chart shown in the screencap which demonstrates that PBO is spending, as a percentage of GDP, about 5x as much on his stimulus package as our European allies. When Sawyer quoted Czech Prime...

For months, this newspaper has opposed President Obama's bold, forward-thinking agenda. What a colossal mistake. We realize now that we were merely clinging to the discredited ideas of the past. Holding on to disposable relics like tradition, religion and the Constitution only delays the glorious new world that awaits us all. President Obama has shown America a bright, glimmering future full of widely shared prosperity and national nice-to-each-otherness. Only by universally embracing the President's vision can this nation succeed and prosper. Resistance will bring nothing but social distortion, widespread panic and madness. President Obama has shown us all that to...

I have been watching an interesting phenomenon on the Right, which is beginning to cause me concern. I am referring to the over-the-top hysteria in response to the first months in office of our new president, which distinctly reminds me of the “Bush Is Hitler” crowd on the Left. Speaking of this crowd, have you seen any “I am so sorry” postings from that quarter as Obama continues and even escalates the former president's war policy in Afghanistan and attempts to consolidate his military occupation of Iraq? Conservatives, please. Let's not duplicate the manias of the Left as we figure...

and the people still sit silent as they watch Obamanation grow in unbridled power. Geithner Asks Congress for even Broader Power to Seize private Firms as the average American stumbles through their daily routine as if nothing is happening. (snip) The American people would never trade personal freedom for the false promise of federally redistributed free-stuff under some ill-fated socialist experiment, unless they were first threatened with a soup line existence. And so it shall be… (snip) With their backs against the wall, confused by a daily diet of media manipulated headlines aimed at scaring the public into submission, convinced...

Last year during the presidential campaign, some comedians explained the reason there were so many more jokes being made on television about John McCain than Barack Obama was because nothing about Obama was funny.  The One was a bit too perfect and free of flaws to provide much fodder for joke writers.  Never mind that he had said there were 57 states.  Or that he frequently stammered through sections of speeches when his teleprompter malfunctioned.  Or any of the other mistakes he made.  Most of them received little media coverage and even less ridicule from comics.The New York Times even...

China condemns US warship deployment as tensions mount Jane Macartney in Beijing and Tim Reid in Washington Chinese Navy officers reacted with annoyance today when it emerged that the United States had sent a destroyer to back up a surveillance vessel in the South China Sea after it was harassed by People’s Liberation Army (PLA) sailors. The decision by President Obama to send an armed escort for US surveillance ships in the area follows the aggressive and co-ordinated manoeuvres of five Chinese boats on Sunday. The vessels harassed and nearly collided with the unarmed USNS Impecccable. One unidentified officer quoted...

On Nov. 5, 2008, Americans woke up to a very real Marxist coup — although most didn't realize it. I sat down and cried while a huge crowd gathered and were cheering. I intuitively knew something was very wrong. After watching Barack Hussein Obama aggressively pursue his agenda as president, I now understand why. Most Marxist coups rely on deception — and that was certainly true of this one. Just about everything Obama said during the campaign was a calculated lie. His handlers and key supporters were equally willing to lie and deceive to gain advantage. Once Marxists seize power...

Amongst the several revenue-raising proposals in President Obama’s $3.9-trillion budget proposal is a carbon tax that will impact all American families. His budget aims to raise $646 billion through a cap-and-trade tax on energy. Last year, Peter Orszag, who was then Director of the Congressional Budget Office and is now President Obama’s Director for the Office of Management and Budget, testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on a similar proposal. Speaking about a cap-and-trade proposal to cut carbon emissions by 15%, he said it would cost the average household about $1,300 a year through higher energy costs. He...

Tired, Frustrated Obama Inspires Zero Confidence, Scares MillionsMarch 9, 2009 **SNIP** OBAMA: By the time we got here, there already had been an enormous infusion of taxpayer money into the financial system, and the thing I constantly try to emphasize to people is that if coming in the market was doing fine, nobody would be happier than me to stay out of it. REPORTER: Right. OBAMA: You know, I have more than enough to do without having to worry about the financial system. RUSH: Now, that's an inspiring thing to say. I have more than enough to do without having...