Free Republic

CHILMARK, Mass. – President Barack Obama played tennis with his wife and golf with his buddies Monday, starting his first vacation in office on Martha's Vineyard, a picturesque island known as a refuge for the wealthy and privileged. Obama began the day with a workout at his rented retreat, then tennis with Michelle Obama, White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters traveling with the president. Obama later played golf with UBS Investment Bank President Robert Wolf and Chicago physician Eric Whitaker, both friends. White House aide Marvin Nicholson was also in the foursome. White House officials have stressed that the...

Over the weekend, Democrat congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer wrote of the recent protests taking place in town hall meetings around the country, “These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.”  The White House is concerned that their health care plan is not being accurately characterized.  They have even encouraged Americans who read or hear their friends and neighbors saying anything “fishy” to report them to flag@whitehouse.gov.Democrats’ concerns about allowing all viewpoints to be heard accurately would be a lot...

Jerome Corsi says he warned the nation about President Barack Obama’s socialist indoctrination when he wrote last year's New York Times best-selling book, “The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality.” Now, he fears, the U.S. is becoming a “dual country." “I think it’s ongoing right now,” Corsi says. “We’re already becoming a dual country.” The author, pundit and political scientist says that Obama is using open borders, economic integration, and the crises surrounding the financial meltdown to “advance the agenda of worldwide integration, economically on the way to political integration." The goal is simple: “redistribution of income.”...

The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne asks Obama advisers whether his appointments herald a shift to the center and is told that the answer is No: Obama's selection of a team of highly skilled pragmatists has already been described as a move to the political center, but Obama advisers and longtime acquaintances say that this is a misreading of the incoming president and his approach. They describe it as combining a practicality about means with an overriding concern about the corrosive effects of growing economic inequalities... Washington often divides the Democratic policy world between progressives and pragmatists. With Obama, as yesterday's...

Utah's chief federal judge will not be disciplined for donating money to Barack Obama's campaign. Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Robert Henry cleared U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell in a decision posted last week. He did say the donation was unethical but noted that Campbell had promised no similar donations in the future.

SUNRISE, Florida (Reuters) – U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Wednesday he would include Republicans in his Cabinet if he wins the election. Obama, a Democratic senator from Illinois, also said he had "some pretty good ideas" about people he might tap for senior government jobs, though he emphasized he is focused for now on the final days of the campaign and takes nothing for granted. "There is a transition process -- that I'm not paying attention to on a day-to-day basis -- but that has been set up," Obama told ABC News in an interview. Obama said he...

ABC Radio news just announced Sen. John Edwards will admit to the affair with Rielle Hunter in an interview with the network, but insists the child is not his. We return you to your regularly-scheduled FReeping.

“War is much too serious a thing to be left to military men,” in Talleyrand’s memorable words. In the same spirit, one could say: The American presidential elections are much too serious to be left to the Americans. The US is now the only superpower on earth. It will remain so for quite some time to come. The decisions of the president of the United States affect every human being on this planet. Unfortunately, the citizens of the world have no part in these elections. But they may, at least, voice an opinion. Availing myself of this right I say:...

In today’s testimony before the house, Fed Chairman Bernanke was questioned by Representative Ron Paul in what was a remarkable exchange. Remarkable for how straightforward, lucid, and anti-statist the question was. In his questioning, Ron Paul stated: “I want to follow up on the discussion about moral hazard. I think we have a very narrow understanding about what moral hazard really is. Because I think moral hazard begins at the very moment that we create artificially low interest rates which we constantly do. And this is the reason people make mistakes. It isn’t because human nature causes us to make...

With Al Gore in the news for battling global warming and Al Gore 3rd in the news for getting toasted, my favorite NYPD detective recalled a story that helps explain how father and son each became a particular kind of loser. The story was told to the detective by a Secret Service agent some years back as they worked security for a dignitary visiting New York. Such details largely consist of just standing there for as long as 12 hours and the talk turned to a day when the Secret Service agent was assigned to then-Vice President Gore. The detective...

The national obsession with celebrity collided head-on with the more serious issue of the equal application of justice on Friday, as a judge sent the socialite Paris Hilton back to jail some 36 hours after she was released for an unspecified medical problem. Judge Michael T. Sauer ordered Ms. Hilton to serve the rest of her sentence in a county lockup after the city attorney, whose office had prosecuted her, filed a petition asking that the sheriff’s department be held in contempt or explain why it had released her with an ankle monitor on Thursday, after she had served just...

I watched parts of the Democratic presidential debate, then downloaded the transcript. Of all the column fodder it contained, I was particularly taken by two responses of John Edwards that, I believe, fairly represent the Democratic Party's wrongheaded foreign policy worldview. His statements were at the beginning and end of the evening, and served as figurative bookends that nicely frame the Democrats' curious attitude toward this great nation they seek to lead. They tell us all we need to know about these would-be commanders in chief: that we cannot afford to have them anywhere near the Oval Office, especially as...

Prominent political fundraisers who backed Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign are reserving support for the current slate of 2008 Democrats in hopes the former vice president will swoop in for another White House bid. H.E. "Sonny" Cauthen Jr. told The Washington Times he has been flattered to get calls from candidates asking for his help this time around, but said he is hesitating on picking one while he waits to see what Mr. Gore decides. "If he wants to run, I would be very supportive of that," said Mr. Cauthen, a founding partner of the Washington lobbying firm Cauthen Forbes...

Former Sen. John Edwards campaign announced that he will skip the Nevada Democratic Party's planned August presidential debate, the latest fallout from the party's decision to have the Fox Network host the event. The move sparked an outcry, particularly among liberals and activist bloggers, who accused Fox of being too sympathetic to Republicans and demanded that the Democratic candidates boycott the forum. MoveOn.org, one of the nation's leading progressive organizations, gathered more than 250,000 signatures asking the Nevada Democratic Party to drop Fox as a debate sponsor. The group also created a web site -- www.foxattacks.com -- to highlight the...

With Democrats in control of both Houses of Congress for the first time in twelve years, economic inequality is back on the agenda. In his response to the State of the Union address, new Virginia Senator James Webb began by contrasting how much those at the top of the average company earned with the amount earned by those at the bottom. Running for the Democratic Presidential nomination, John Edwards is returning to his 2004 theme of "two Americas." They are joined by liberal pundits such as Paul Krugman and Jonathan Chait, who between them accuse conservatives of "hatred" and of...

ok, I know this is silly, but I would like to know where I can get final vote percentages for every county (and parish) in the US for the 2004 Presidential Election. help?

Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats.