Free Republic

It will be up to President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team whether Pastor Rick Warren’s prayer at the inauguration is vetted in advance, a spokeswoman for Warren’s Saddleback Church tells CNSNews.com. The spokeswoman would not say whether Warren would object to having his prayer reviewed or edited in advance by Obama.

The “precautionary principle,” in essence, says the following: “Okay, maybe we’re not really, really sure that global warming is occurring. And even if it is, we’re not really, really sure that human activity is causing it. But shouldn’t we err on the safe side, thereby formulating and enforcing strict emissions limits, just in case?” Such an outlook, taken to the extreme, would close the door on any and all future human progress. World opinion, which Obama and leftists love to claim should hold so much sway, isn’t answering “No.” It’s screaming “Heck no!”... Will a President Obama and the people...

At least John McCain is back to his old self. This assumes, of course, at some point he wasn't.Believe me, he was. (See the entire 2008 campaign).He's back to being the crotchety old Republicrat spitfire, Mac the Mav.That reach-across-the-aisle, strolling-down-the-median joie de vivre he possesses (and can beckon at will) is throttling up for the new administration.Goodie gumdrops.Since the time is just about right for McCain to ride the wave of ascendancy back into the good graces of the media (who, you'll recall, once upon a time, had rockets in their pockets for him when he was still their beloved...

The federal government agreed Sunday to take unprecedented steps to stabilize Citigroup Inc. by moving to guarantee close to $300 billion in troubled assets weighing on the bank's books, according to people familiar with details of the plan. Treasury has agreed to inject an additional $20 billion in capital into Citigroup under terms of the deal hashed out between the bank, the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Treasury officials will charge a higher interest rate for the capital injection -- 8% for the first few years -- than it has charged to dozens of...

Gov. Janet Napolitano's spokeswoman confirmed Thursday that U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Phoenix) called to congratulate her on being the "top contender' for the job of Secretary of Homeland Security in President-elect Barack Obama's Cabinet. A release put out by McCain Thursday said: "Senator McCain called and congratulated Governor Janet Napolitano on her emergence as top contender for Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Senator McCain said 'Governor Napolitano's experience as the former U.S. Attorney for Arizona, Arizona's Attorney General, and as Governor warrants her rapid confirmation by the Senate and I hope she is quickly confirmed.' Senator McCain looks...

President-elect Barack Obama says he and Republican Sen. John McCain plan to work together to "fix up the country." The two former rivals met in Obama's transition office Monday in Chicago. Rahm Emanuel, Obama's incoming White House chief of staff, participated in the meeting, as did McCain's close friend, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham.

It's standard fare for a president to make a bipartisan gesture by including one member of the opposing party in his cabinet - just as it's always the case (lest we forget) that every president-elect vows to change the tone in Washington and reach out magnanimously to his vanquished opponents. But John Podesta, the former Bill Clinton former chief of staff who's spearheading the transition for the 44th president, said today that there would be independents and Republicans in Barack Obama's cabinet and "not just at a token level".

The upcoming meeting between President-elect Barack Obama and his one-time rival, Sen. John McCain, was set in motion during a phone call over the weekend between Obama and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), McCain's closest friend. In an interview Friday, Graham said that Obama requested the meeting during a 20-minute phone call that the South Carolina senator described as a "pleasant" discussion about how they could work together effectively. "We just talked about the desire to find something meaningful to work on," Graham said. "He was very nice to me, said that he considered me a serious, reform-minded senator that he...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama will meet with his former rival, Republican Sen. John McCain, on Monday to talk about ways they can work together, an Obama spokeswoman said on Friday. The meeting between the former competitors will take place in Chicago at Obama's transition headquarters two weeks after the Democratic senator won a decisive victory over McCain in the November 4 election. It will be the first time the two have spoken since McCain called Obama to concede the election. McCain gave an emotional speech after the concession in which he promised to help his former rival address...

The former press secretary to George Bush has announced he is backing Barack Obama in the race to replace his ex-boss as US president. Scott McClellan said on Thursday that he had decided to back the Democrat because he wanted to support the candidate with the best chance of changing the way Washington - the political heart of the US - works and gets things done. His announcement is yet another blow to the campaign of John McCain, the Republican contender, who is struggling to erode Obama's opinion poll lead. McClellan is the second former Bush administration figure this week...

RUSH: I wish to reach around and pat myself on the back. Way back during the Republican primaries -- when the battle was between Huckabee and Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, and McCain -- we were told by the Republican Party hierarchy that the only chance the Republican Party had (by the way, we were told this also by some of the intellectualoids in our own conservative media) to win was to attract Democrats and moderates; and that the era of Reagan was over, and we had to somehow find a way to become stewards of a big government but smarter...

Colin Powell’s Endorsement Of Obama Seen As Serious Betrayal To Republicans And Nation, Says Leading Black Commentator Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, Founder and President of BOND Action, Inc., issued the following statement today regarding former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama for president: “Secretary Powell’s endorsement of Sen. Obama is disappointing, but not surprising. Republicans know that Powell is a moderate-liberal Republican, but for him to endorse a socialist like Barack Obama in such a critical election is an act of betrayal to the Republican Party and this nation. “Mr. Powell said he’s not supporting Obama...

Letter from an American CitizenTo our Congress and Senate:You sold us out. You have betrayed every sacred trust that the American People have given you.  I am one angry American. I am not alone. We are sick of your games: your finger pointing and misdirection, your lies and your corruption. Serving yourself and your cronies at the public trough. Feasting as a gluttonous pig on the fruits of our endeavor and labor. Because of your malfeasance, your incompetence, your corruption and betrayal of the public trust for which we elected you, every American family from coast to coast will be impacted...

Mark Udall's Day Off Udall's Day Off - The Trailer

According to the Associated Press, former Rep. David Bonior, who ran John Edwards' recent failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, had harsh words for Edwards upon his confession of an affair with former staffer Rielle Hunter. Bonior, the former Michigan congressman, told the AP that he was disappointed and angry after hearing of Edwards' confession. "Thousands of friends of the senators and his supporters have put their faith and confidence in him and he's let him down," Bonior said "They've been betrayed by his action." Asked whether the affair would damage Edwards' future aspirations in public service, Bonior replied:...

When former Sen. John Edwards dropped out of the presidential race, the progressive Netroots took their affections to Barack Obama, defending him against attack from Hillary Rodham Clinton and others. But with his support of a government surveillance bill that offers retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies — a bill that he vowed last year to filibuster — the honeymoon has ended. Disappointed over his position on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the online activists feel jilted and betrayed and have taken to questioning his progressive credentials. One prominent blogger, Atrios, has even given him the moniker “Wanker of the Day.”...

This hasn't exactly been a good week for the Left. Apparently their own savior, the Obamassiah has betrayed them. No, not on his broken promise about accepting public financing of his campaign. Most (but not all) of them are fine with that because it means more money (they think) with which to destroy the EVIL Republicans. No, they feel betrayed over Obama NOT filibustering the FISA bill as urged by MoveOn. This KOmmie THREAD, "Take One Last Look," posted by KOmmie One Pissed Off Liberal is a reflection of that sense of betrayal. Although the betrayal by their beloved...

The policies of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have helped to generate a spiritual, civic and economic crisis in Britain, according to an important Church of England report. Labour is failing society and lacks the vision to restore a sense of British identity, the report says in the Church’s strongest attack on the Government for decades. It accuses the Government of “deep religious illiteracy” and of having “no convincing moral direction”. The report, commissioned for the Church of England and to be published on Monday, accuses the Government of discriminating against the Christian Churches in favour of other faiths, including...

He was a spokesman for the Chief. He traveled with him, conversed with him, shared meals and confidences with him, was certainly one of his closest friends. He learned from him, believed in him, benefited greatly from the association – and, when asked, would try to explain him and his mission to others. He was trusted. He was identified with the Chief, and he basked in that. Oh, he didn't go along with everything the Chief did, and he didn't fully understand all he said, but he tried faithfully to represent the man and what he was doing, and he...

Although today his book is being touted by left-wing reporters and pundits, his initial plans for the project show former White House press secretary Scott McClellan intended to take a much different approach, one that was more sympathetic to President Bush but also quite hard on the "liberal elites" of the Washington press corps and their "hostility" toward the administration. Reading through McClellan's original book proposal, obtained by Politico.com, it is clear that before his editor Peter Osnos took the book on a sharp leftward turn, McClellan wanted to turn the tables on foes in the press gallery including far-left...

During the Civil War, when the issues of right and wrong were clear, one of President Lincoln’s appointees, General George McClelland, betrayed him.  The anti-war Democrats to whom McClelland pandered were called “Copperheads.�  They rallied around McClelland to defeat the president politically, when they could not defeat the armies of America militarily.  McClelland had a pretty high opinion of himself.  He knew what Lincoln did not:  That the war come not be won, that giving up and bringing the troops home was the only sensible answer, and that the president was not much of a leader. Democrats overwhelmingly supported this...

Hillary Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe tells the National Journal's splendiferous Tammy Haddad that he doesn't care for former Bush White House press secretary Scott McClellen's scathing memoir. "I never like it when someone works for someone and then comes out and writes a book trashing them," quoth the Macker. "I don't care if it is politics or life. If he was that upset about everything, he should have quit. Remember, Gerald Ford's press secretary quit when he disagreed with pardoning, Ford pardoning Nixon. If you don't agree, then get out. And I just, I find it abhorrent the way...

SCOTT McClellan has learned the profound wisdom of the old Groucho Marx line about not wanting to belong to any club that would have him. The former press secretary has written a scathing memoir about his time in the Bush administration - but nothing he says in his book, dully titled (appropriately enough) "What Happened," is as damning as the fact that he spent nearly three years as White House press secretary. Likable, but maladroit and plodding, he was the perfect spokesman for the administration of Harriet Miers, Michael Brown and Al Gonzales. For anyone who doubted that President Bush...

Nothing destroys a man like his betrayal of friends. The mortal wound is self-inflicted and he dies from the inside out, inviting neither compassion nor commiseration, only contempt, disdain and ultimately scorn. This is the hard lesson Scott McClellan is buying with his 30 pieces of silver. George W. Bush, flawed and maker of mistakes, finishes his presidency almost as unpopular as Harry S. Truman finished his, and who knows whether history will revise his presidential reputation.

Liberals are ecstatic over the latest “Tell-All” from Scott McMullen while Conservatives really don’t know how to react. Consider the dynamics of Scott McMullen and determine if you, the reader, would really want to have a guy like this anywhere around you? His friends and co workers say he never gave any indication that he was annoyed, disgruntled or even mildly disturbed at the things he saw being done within the White House. Their claim, pretty much in unison, is “This is not the Scott we knew”. Only Nancy Polosi, with her lack of appreciation for anything American, “entirely agrees”...

Last Wednesday, a carefully negotiated trade deal with Colombia, which was repeatedly re-calibrated to account for Democratic labor and environmental concerns, was nonetheless killed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And in a most disgusting way – by unilaterally changing the House rules after the fact so the requirement of an up-or-down vote within 90 days of the president submitting the signed agreement to Congress could be avoided. It would have been one thing to simply vote it down, but that would put Congress on the record and in a position of culpability for the consequences, and we can't have that, now...

Disloyalty That Merits An Insult. By James Carville Saturday, March 29, 2008; Last Friday the New York Times asked me to comment on New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama for president. For 15 years, Richardson served with no small measure of distinction as the representative of New Mexico's 3rd Congressional District. But he gained national stature -- and his career took off -- when President Bill Clinton appointed him U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and later made him energy secretary. So, when asked on Good Friday about Richardson's rejection of the Clintons, the metaphor was...

Secretary Chertoff is riding into the sunset—dragging the fence behind him. As mentioned in yesterday’s immigration blog by Steve Elliott the Sun Sets on the Border Fence On 12/31/08. This sunset provision of the Omnibus bill H.R. 2764 declares that the Secretary of Homeland Security loses all authority to build the fence—even if he wants to. However, even with the authority to build the fence, the Secretary has been lazy in using it. In a February 22, press release he claims that the Department of Homeland Security has built 302.4 miles of combination pedestrian and vehicle fencing and well on...

The West will live to regret its betrayal of the Serbs An independent Kosovo offers a European foothold for jihadists, argues Hermann Kelly Gordon Brown's support for Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence should surprise and disappoint people in equal measure. Surprise because, as Prime Minister, he failed to discuss the matter in any depth in the Parliament before he made this announcement. And disappoint because this ill-thought-out move breaks international law, creates a dangerous precedent and gives succour and hope to every crackpot secessionist group in the world. This latest Government move has sent out the message that if secessionists...

Captain Thomas B. Weir was the commander of company B, in Captain Benteen’s battalion (one of the three columns that Custer sent against the Indians at Little Bighorn). On June 25, 1876, Weir followed Benteen in his scout on the South of the valley, looking for “satellite villages” (other Indian villages around the main one). __ “WE OUGHT TO BE OVER THERE!” When Benteen understood that the scout didn’t give any results, he came back on Custer’s trail. He had specific orders to follow Custer’s steps and to send him a note about the results of his scouts. Benteen didn’t...

NBC apologises for Jane Fonda's offensive word Fri Feb 15, 2008 12:38am GMT LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Television network NBC apologized for itself and actress Jane Fonda on Thursday after she used an offensive word on the "Today Show." NBC called it "a slip" and said they did not mean to offend audiences. Fonda was on the program on Thursday with playwright Eve Ensler to discuss Ensler's award-winning work, "The Vagina Monologues," in which women talk about their sexuality using frank language about their bodies and references to genitalia. "Vagina Monologues" has spawned a movement called V-Day that aims to...

Jane Fonda said what on national morning TV? Rhymes with runt.

Hanoi Jane Fonda looking through anti-aircraft gunsights used to shoot down US pilots Jane Fonda, the darling of the looney left, turned 70 today. Rad-libs are offering their tributes. For example, Rosie O'Donnell wrote the following wonderful poem: oh what a night truly it was somehow what i thought show biz would b and look in the end it turns out it is my loud off key voice is too close to the flip when bonnie sings who knew jane fonda 70 and fantastic i love her so As loyal Americans and creative conservatives, we can do better than that....

The Great Betrayal by Patrick J. Buchanan Offering more “straight talk” on the Sunday before the Florida primary, John McCain made an arresting prediction: “It’s a tough war we’re in. It’s not going to be over right away. There’s going to be other wars. I’m sorry to tell you, there’s going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars.” Ike promised to “go to Korea” and ended that war. Nixon pledged to end Vietnam with honor. McCain says we may be in Iraq a hundred years and warns, “there’s going to be other wars.”...

Republican hard-liners have a potent hatred for their front-runner. But soon he may be sitting prettier -- with a win by Hillary Clinton. When Republican Rob Haney goes door to door to stump for candidates, he asks them to rate John McCain on a scale from 1 to 10. "The people who don't know much about politics rate him a 9 or 10," says Haney, who is a state party chairman in Arizona's 11th Legislative District. "The people who know what's going on rate him a 1 or a 2, or ask, 'Can I rate him a minus?'" Haney, a...

Our inevitable withdrawal from Iraq could poison American politics for a generation. A few months ago, in a packed, stuffy room atop a hotel in downtown Washington, a prominent speaker made a startling remark. Even more startling, no one in the audience seemed startled. The audience was a predominantly conservative crowd assembled by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a right-of-center think tank. The speaker was Bernard Lewis, a doyen of Western Islamic studies and a man widely admired on the right for his prescient warnings about radical Islam. (Among his writings is a 1990 article for this magazine, “The...

Ladies and gentleman, today I my heart sank...  My jaw dropped....  And my mind screamed!!! I think blood shot out of my left eyeball as I opened my email this evening and I found this message from Chuck Winn, Florida Chief of Staff, Hunter for President  - who if you recall is the guy who provided respones for my campaign interview with Duncan Hunter's campaign.  Well here is he message and some of you may have recieved the same, I couldn't believe it either: QUOTE:I have full confidence that Congressman Hunter made this decision with the sole consideration of what would be...

A man who was kind enough to donate his sperm to a lesbian couple has now--18 years later--been stabbed in the back and hit up for child support. According to the New York Post: "A sperm donor who sent gifts signed 'Dad' to his biological son has been slapped with a child-support order, 18 years after helping his friend get pregnant. "The Nassau County man donated his sperm to a work colleague, and included his name on the child's birth certificate, saying it would give the boy an identity, courts documents revealed. "He then blurred the lines between donor and...

What do the American people have to do to convince congress and the President that we want them to secure our country’s borders and protect us from the illegal alien invasion that is slowly but surely destroying this country? Congress has just passed a bloated a 3,500-page, $555 billion dollar Omnibus budget bill that clearly demonstrates how Congress and the President are out of touch with the American people on the issues of border security and illegal immigration. This outrageous spending bill was written by the Democrat majority and passed 253-154, mostly with their votes, but with Republican help as...

Congressional Democrats, and...Republicans, gut the Secure Fence Act in the omnibus spending bill against the wishes of the American people. In a bill with 9,000 earmarks, border security takes a back seat. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 required the construction of 700 miles of border fence....specifically called for "two layers of reinforced fencing" and listed five specific sections of the border where it should be built. The omnibus spending bill removes the requirement for two tiers...The two-tier fence in San Diego runs 14 miles along the border...It has been amazingly effective. According to a 2005 report by the Congressional...

Liberal Senate Democrats and the U.S. State Department are desperate to get the U.N.'s Law of the Sea Treaty ratified. But Senator David Vitter, a conservative Republican, keeps getting in the way. Through skillful questioning during Thursday's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, the Louisiana Republican got a leading treaty supporter to acknowledge that America's enemies can manipulate the process of mandatory dispute settlement under the treaty so that the United Nations Secretary-General plays the key role in the outcome. Vitter called this a "recipe for disaster" for America and urged more hearings into the treaty's flaws.

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, So help me God.” (snip) To support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; is to at all times by all means, uphold, promote...

Is This The End of The New York Times? Of course this isn't THE end of The New York Times, but it has been a particularly bad week for the paper of record. Conservatives, for one, were almost unanimous in their anger at the full-page Moveon.Org ad that appeared in the September 10 edition of the New York Times, anticipating -- sabotaging? -- perceptions of General Petraeus' testimony. And today news of weak ad sales brought the paper to its 52-week low. Clearly things are not going to get better for newspapers in the forseable future. Although Arthur Sulzberger, Jr....

In the wake of the odious MoveOn.org ad calling our commander in Iraq "General Betray Us," [read Dean Barnett's excellent take here] you might have thought the last thing a responsible member of the media would do would be to accuse other senior officials of "betrayal." I did say "responsible." On this afternoon's "Hardball," Chris Matthews accused President Bush of "betrayal" for his handling of Iraq. The "Hardball" host was fuming over Gen. Petraeus's reluctance to state whether the war in Iraq would make America safer. CHRIS MATTHEWS: He couldn't say whether what we're doing in Iraq makes America safer...

With its full-page “General Betray Us?” ad in the New York Times, MoveOn.org has once again put itself at the forefront of the antiwar movement. And if past patterns are any guide, a number of Democrats are embarrassed, and even angered, by MoveOn’s actions but are afraid to reveal the true extent of their feelings. MoveOn simply has too much fundraising clout — and a fear-inducing inclination to attack Democrats who stray from the MoveOn line — for many in the party to take it on...

WASHINGTON– U.S. Senator Judd Gregg today joined 63 of his colleagues in supporting a motion to proceed to debate on S.1639, a comprehensive immigration reform package. Senator Gregg stated, “Today I voted in support of debating immigration reform, one of the biggest issues facing our country. The bill in its present form needs to be fixed, but so does our immigration system. There is no way to improve this bill if we refuse to take it up and debate it. “It is a known fact that our current immigration laws and procedures are not working. Our borders are porous and...

Russia refused to budge on its opposition to a new Western-backed draft U.N. resolution paving the way for Kosovo independence as the Security Council discussed the document for the first time on Friday. Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said his delegation would not even take part in an experts' meeting set for next Monday to refine the text of the draft, saying it would deal only with details, not with core issues. As the battle over the fate of the Serbian province spread to trying to win over undecided members of the 15-nation council, Western envoys claimed majority support but Churkin...

The Senate debate over the immigration compromise bill was showing signs of trouble Tuesday as leaders began shifting blame to opposing sides on problems that had yet to be resolved.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Please be seated. First, I thank you very much for your hard work on a comprehensive immigration bill and your concern about our country. And the two go hand-in-hand. I believe that now is the time to address the issue of immigration. I think it's in our national security interests, and I think it's in the interest of making sure America never loses sight of who we are. This is a difficult issue for a lot of folks. I understand that. But because it's difficult probably means we need to work doubly hard to get...

For me, the “canary in the mineshaft” of the Bush administration died at 12:00AM this morning, when the Wall Street Journal posted a piece about the President’s unpopular immigration bill by former Reagan speechwriter and influential Republican Peggy Noonan. Whether you like the immigration bill or not, you cannot deny that it is splitting the GOP. And with this bill, the White House has turned its back on its base in a way that is far more politically risky than the Iraq invasion or anything else it has attempted, and could seal Bush’s place in the history books as a...