Free Republic

As the Civil War seesawed and the Union scored one of its rare early successes, a man met a somber-looking Lincoln at the White House. Trying to cheer the president up, he suggested that the president should be pleased by the latest news from the battle front. Lincoln agreed but then sighed that "nothing touches the tired spot." And he should have had a tired spot. Abraham Lincoln's administration had to deal with the Civil War and its raft of incompetent Union generals; Indian uprisings; an ongoing monetary crisis of epic proportions; and a dozen major foreign issues, including the...

What will my son be taught about Barack Obama? At two years old, he won’t remember the Obama years, but he’s most definitely going to be taught about them outside the home one day. Liberal bias in schools is well known, and one can only imagine just how slanted curricula will be about the 44th president. When I was in school, I can remember being taught whoppers like: the Second Amendment only applies to militias and/or muskets, the Founders wanted to keep religion separate from the public square, southern Dixiecrats all became Republicans, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt ended the Great...

As contenders scramble for the White House this fall, thoughts have naturally turned to President Obama’s legacy, and particularly his environmental legacy. As taxpayers consider the lessons of that legacy they would do well to consider past support and use of taxpayer dollars for favored industries and companies. One of those once favored companies is the now defunct renewable energy company Solyndra. During the late 2000s, the Obama administration deployed its political capital to cultivate an environmentally friendly image for the president. In a quest for renewable energy as part of the stimulus package and at the urging of the...

Donald Trump shot back at President Obama on Tuesday, after the commander in chief said the GOP nominee is "unfit" to be president. "Well he’s a terrible president, Trump said in an interview with ABC7 Washington. "He’ll probably go down as the worst president in the history of our country, he’s been a total disaster." The GOP nominee repeated that line in an interview set to air Tuesday night on Fox News's "The O'Reilly Factor," adding: "I think he’s been a disaster. He’s been weak, he’s been ineffective." Trump then went through a laundry list of issues he thought Obama...

Denial is defined as a psychological defense mechanism, and was postulated by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, in which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence. One would think that by now, after the Boston Marathon, after Fort Hood, after San Bernardino, after Orlando, after Paris, after Belgium, after 120 years of Islamic terror against the Jewish State, President Obama’s denial and refusal to call a spade a spade – namely that radical Islam is the number one generator of...

Screengrab President Barack Obama on Monday night condemned the "divisive rhetoric" and the omission of facts on the campaign trail. During the keynote address at the Toner Prize of Excellence in Political Reporting, Obama took several swipes at the GOP presidential candidates — without mentioning any names. In the wake of terrorist attacks in Brussels, GOP hopefuls Ted Cruz and Donald Trump have called for monitoring Muslim neighborhoods and Trump, the GOP front-runner, has previously proposed banning Muslims from entering the country. “The divisive and often vulgar rhetoric that’s aimed at everybody, but is often focused on the vulnerable...

Yesterday President Obama declared, "It is entirely possible that these two attackers were radicalized to commit this act of terror." Okay, can we please stop speaking about people being "radicalized"? This language is a subtle attempt to place the blame on the "radicalizer", in this case ISIS, instead of the perpetrators of terror themselves. Getting radicalized is not like contracting a virus or getting cancer. It is a "proactive" action on the part of the soon to be terrorist. But the President's words seemed to lesson the responsibility of the killers and blame ISIS for infecting the terrorists and...

In a new interview with Playboy, former Vice President Dick Cheney accused President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder of "playing the race card" and said that he could "go on for hours" about all of the ways Obama has "undone" the work of President George W. Bush.Although the article claims that Cheney's "preoccupations revolve around the books in his study and the purchase of just the right gifts for his grandchildren," it sounds more like he's kind of obsessed with Obama. Calling him "the worst president in my lifetime," Cheney said his criticism of Obama and Holder has nothing...

President Obama has brought nothing to the presidency except his Marxist theology I won’t be around to see it, but I have little doubt that future historians and others will conclude that President Barack Hussein Obama was the worst President ever to serve in that office. The reason is simple enough. His decisions on domestic and foreign affairs have already demonstrated his astonishing incompetence. His major contribution may in fact be to ensure that the voters elect conservatives in the next two or more elections to come. If he is remembered for anything it well may be the emergence of...

Wow. A reputable poll shows that the public believes Barack Obama is the worst president since World War II. Worse than Richard M. Nixon, driven from the presidency by Watergate? Much. Worse than Jimmy Carter, for decades the very symbol of the feckless chief executive? Loads. Worse than George W. Bush, still a lightning rod on the left and a symbol of disappointment on the right? Definitely. These startling poll results set loose the predictable reaction: A flurry of told-you-so nods on the right and a fusillade of this-tells-us-nothing assertions on the left. For once, they're both right. Obama is...

In a press conference in Dallas on Wednesday, President Obama responded to critics who noted he was refusing to visit the border in a time of crisis. "This isn't theater," the President said, before going further and saying "I'm not interested in photo ops." "Not interested in photo ops." Really, President Barack Obama said that. Needless to say, commentators noted the absolute absurdity of that statement - it would be hilarious if the crisis weren't so serious. A hashtag was spawned on Twitter as people noted the obsession that this White House has seemed to have with photo ops: #NotInterestedInPhotoOps...

Based on this fiscal year's eight-and-a-half months of activity so far, the number of unaccompanied alien children from Honduras apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol will increase 22 times from what it was in 2009. That's a jump from fewer than 1,000 children five years ago to more than 21,000 this year. Similar increases are predicted for unaccompanied alien children from Guatemala -- from 1,115 in 2009 to a projected 17,887 -- and a 13-fold increase in UACs from El Salvador, from 1,221 to a projected total of 16,145. In 2012, when immigration was a key issue during the presidential...

Thirty-three percent chose Mr. Obama as the worst among the 12 presidents since Harry Truman, with 28 percent choosing George W. Bush and Richard Nixon tallying 13 percent. In 2006, Mr. Bush led the pack with 34 percent over Richard Nixon at 17 percent and Bill Clinton at 16 percent, much higher than the scant 3 percent who currently think Clinton is the worst.

President Lincoln has been all but deified in America, with a god-like giant statue at a Parthenon-like memorial in Washington. Generations of school children have been indoctrinated with the story that “Honest Abe” Lincoln is a national hero who saved the Union and fought a noble war to end slavery, and that the “evil” Southern states seceded from the Union to protect slavery. This is the Yankee myth of history, written and promulgated by Northerners, and it is a complete falsity. It was produced and entrenched in the culture in large part to gloss over the terrible war crimes...

In spite of a record number of Americans receiving food stamps, a 7.3 percent unemployment rate, and an embarrassing launch of his signature healthcare program, President Barack Obama says his administration has been the most productive in history. At a private Democratic fundraiser in Beverly Hills, Calif., Obama touted himself and Democratic leaders for surpassing the likes of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who respectively ended slavery and led the country through the Great Depression and World War II.

Rankings released by YouGov/Economist show that Ronald Reagan is viewed as the greatest president of the last 100 years, while Obama is viewed as the "biggest failure." The poll asked respondents "to rate each president [since Theodore Roosevelt] in six categories: great, near great, average, below average, failure, and don't know." Results showed that Reagan bested Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) and John F. Kennedy (JFK) in a tight race for the top spot. 32 percent of the respondents categorized Reagan as "great," while 31 percent labeled FDR "great" and 30 percent chose JFK. When it came to ranking presidents viewed...

Two professional colorists have combined their skills with photographs and fascination with the American Civil War to create a remarkable series of color photographs from the era. British colorist Jordan Lloyd, 27, met fellow colorist Mads Madsen, 19, from Denmark when he started posting on Madsen's subreddit 'Colorized History'. Initially it was Madsen who was colorizing images from the Civil War era, but Lloyd eventually got interested and now the two work together restoring the images, improving their technique by giving each other critiques. Madsen has been interested in the Civil War since he was 12, and was especially fascinated...

A local hospital is closing its doors. Wellmont Health System is citing unprecedented changes in health care as the reason for closing Lee Regional Medical Center. Company officials say three reasons led to the decision reimbursement cuts associated with the Affordable Care Act, extremely low community use of the hospital and a lack of consistent physician coverage.(snip) Wellmont says the closure is to major cuts in Medicare reimbursements by the federal government associated with the Affordable Care Act and a lack of Medicaid expansion by the Commonwealth of Virginia.

From the time Abraham Lincoln entered the White House nearly a century and a half ago, there has been an anti-Lincoln tradition in American life. President John Tyler’s son, writing in 1932, seemed to speak for a silent minority: “I think he was a bad man,” wrote Lyon Gardiner Tyler, “a man who forced the country into an unnecessary war and conducted it with great inhumanity.” Throughout his presidency Lincoln was surrounded by rivals, even among his own cabinet. Outside the White House, his many enemies included conservative Whigs, Democrats, northern copperheads and New England abolitionists. Wisconsin editor, Marcus M....

Road Closures, Detours Ahead Of Obama’s Visit Thursday Richmond, VA—Beginning Wednesday, several streets with be closed in the Carillon and Byrd Park neighborhoods, in preparation for President Obama's visit to the area on Thursday. Starting Wednesday, special parking regulation will go into effect on Rugby Road. Towing will begin at 6:00 AM Thursday in the immediate area of the Carillon Park. Police will be restricting traffic flow all day Thursday. Although officers may need to stop traffic at various times during the day, it is not expected to cause significant delays or backups. There will be no parking at the...