Free Republic

Romney is stuck at dead center in the Opinion Polls. In order to move the Romney poll needle in a positive direction, why not encourage timid Mitty Romney to SEAL his Federal and State Tax Records when he announces who his Veep will be? In this way Romney would be calling Obama's Bluff, something that Obama has warned others not to do. The Veep announcement and the Sealing of Romney's tax records would give The Media a double surprise at a time of maximum Media audience. Sunday talk shows would then be forced to talk about Obama's sealed School and...

DAVENPORT, Iowa – Newt Gingrich saw the enemy Monday, and his name was Ron Paul. Without speaking Paul’s name, Gingrich took dead aim at the Texas congressman who’s crept up in state polls as he’s started to tumble, and is looking increasingly likely to run strong in the caucuses. Focusing on their foreign policy differences, Gingrich painted Paul as unprepared for the presidency and a threat to American safety. “I will stand apart from some of our candidates and believe we need a strong defense, we need a fairly modernized intelligence community,” Gingrich said during a five-minute opening statement. “I...

Bluff Called. Senate Republicans demanded that Warren Buffett, the namesake of Obama’s tax hikes, turn over his tax returns so they can be compared to his secretary’s returns. Buffett says his secretary pays more taxes than he does. Bluff Called. Senate Republicans demanded that Warren Buffett, the namesake of Obama’s tax hikes, turn over his tax returns so they can be compared to his secretary’s returns. Buffett says his secretary pays more taxes than he does. Republicans want to see Buffett’s tax returns. The Hill reported: The GOP is making a concerted effort to pressure billionaire investment guru Warren Buffett...

Barack Obama is today preparing to re-enter talks with Republicans as the two sides battle to reach an agreement in the ongoing debt ceiling crisis. Fuming lawmakers pointed fingers at one another and Obama on Thursday as negotiations over raising the national debt limit entered a perilous endgame. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned of economic damage, and an anxious Wall Street envisioned catastrophe if the U.S. defaulted on its obligations. In the build up to today's meeting, Moody's ratings agency yesterday said that the U.S. could lose its top credit rating in coming weeks if a stand-off between the...

President Barack Obama told congressional leaders that a deal must be in place on Friday, or lawmakers will have to make contingency plans to raise the national debt ceiling, a top Democratic negotiator said Thursday. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) relayed Obama’s message to reporters Thursday, saying they will have to act fast on a Plan B if a deal doesn’t appear in place by tomorrow. Treasury has said the country will run out of money to pay all of its bills on Aug. 2. "The president has expressed to the group that by Friday we have to get...

Think Donald Trump's proposed presidential run is nothing more than a stunt? So does NBC, home of the real estate mogul's hit show "Celebrity Apprentice." An executive at the network told Entertainment Weekly on Tuesday that no one is falling for Trump's much-rumored 2012 campaign. "We at the network have no idea whether Trump is serious about [running for president] or not," the executive, who asked to remain anonymous, told EW. "He won't tell even us - and we haven't pushed because we've just decided it is whatever it is. If he wants to spout off about things, we're happy...

Here is video of GOP Rep. Eric Cantor responding to President Obama’s cryptic assertion that he’s going to “call their bluff” – speaking of Republicans – next year by putting before the American people “some very difficult choices” on reducing the deficit. Well, Cantor calls Obama’s bluff here, and calls on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to act “this year, not next year.”

President Obama on controlling the debt: "Somehow people say, why are you doing that, I'm not sure that's good politics. I'm doing it because I said I was going to do it and I think it's the right thing to do. People should learn that lesson about me because next year when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country, I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits and debt step-up because I'm calling their bluff. We'll see how much of that, how much of the political arguments that they're making right now are real...

James Gordon Meek of the New York Daily News has posted two recent stories based on documents he obtained through FOIA on the FBI's interview of Saddam Hussein. Meek says that, according to the documents, Saddam denied links to al Qaeda just as he did prior to the invasion and the Baath party recently denied again on their website. In one of the documented interviews Hussein referred to America as his enemy and in another interview discussed Iraq's relationship with, and level of support for anti-Israel groups linked with Abu Nidal and Abu Abbas, who he referred to as "guests."

Not only is this old news, but it’s old news I’ve written about multiple times. Why cover it again? Because: It can’t be stressed enough that as bad as the current nuclear standoff with Iran is, it could have been that much worse if a certain nutjob wild card was still part of the international deck. Hussein’s fear of Iran, which he said he considered a greater threat than the United States, featured prominently in the discussion about weapons of mass destruction. Iran and Iraq had fought a grinding eight-year war in the 1980s, and Hussein said he was convinced...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Saddam Hussein believed Iran was a significant threat to Iraq and left open the possibility that he had weapons of mass destruction rather than appear vulnerable, according to declassified FBI documents on interrogations of the former Iraqi leader. "Hussein believed that Iraq could not appear weak to its enemies, especially Iran," FBI special agent George Piro wrote on notes of a conversation with Saddam in June 2004 about weapons of mass destruction. He believed Iraq was being threatened by others in the region and must appear able to defend itself, the report said. The FBI reports, released...

Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein told an FBI interviewer before he was hanged that he led the world to believe that his country had weapons of mass destruction because he did not want to appear weak to the Islamic Republic of Iran, according to declassified FBI documents released Wednesday. Hussein was quoted as saying that he was so concerned about radical Iranian leaders that he was ready to sign a security agreement with the United States guaranteeing protection from Iran.... Hussein also referred to Osama Bin Laden as a "zealot" and said that he did not deal with al-Qaida....

The Security Council "statement" criticizing Iran's continued "detention" of 15 British Royal Navy sailors is only the first step in what may turn into a major diplomatic attack by London, say U.N. diplomats. The watered-down statement, unexpectedly accepted by British Ambassador to the U.N. Sir Emyr Jones Parry late Thursday, while criticizing the Iranian move, only demanded immediate access to the soldiers by British consular officials. It did not address the claims and counter-claims about whether the Royal Navy violated Iran's territorial waters. However, on Monday, the UK assumes the monthly rotating presidency of the Security Council, followed by the...

A dangerous fatalism has gripped too many people with regard to the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear weapons program. America holds much better cards than the mullahs. We have let ourselves be spooked for far too long. History is full of instances that instruct us in the dangers of wallowing in pessimism. General Abel D. Streight plumbed the low point of his life in the spring of 1863. His cavalry raid into Alabama got off to a good start, but then he came to the attention of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a nightmare situation for anyUnion horseman. A four-day series of...

<p>"We have double sourced that the vice president's chief of staff has been indicted," a reporter for ABCNEWS claimed to a White House press spokesman this afternoon.</p> <p>The White House refused to comment on the claim. The network said they didn't need comment, they were preparing to run with the development on this evening's network news broadcast, sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.</p>

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Gov. Jeb Bush on Wednesday brushed off his father's public suggestions that he should run for president. Gov. Bush, who has repeatedly and sometimes testily said he won't run for the White House in 2008, was asked Wednesday morning about the remarks made by his father, former President George H.W. Bush, on Tuesday's edition of CNN's Larry King Live. "Oh, Lord," Gov. Bush said as he laughed. Shaking his head, he said: "I love my dad." Asked if he is running, the younger Bush simply shook his head no. Former President Bush had said the night...

As chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, I had the wonderful opportunity to talk to people all over America as I campaigned last year for our Senate candidates. No matter where I traveled across our great nation, whether it was South Dakota or Louisiana, South Carolina or Florida, again and again, I found myself talking to folks about the fair consideration of judicial nominees. Whenever I spoke, my point was always this: Judges ought to apply the law, not invent it, and President Bush's nominees should be accorded the fairness of an up or down vote in the Senate...

<p>On the theory that the best defense is a good offense, Sen. John Kerry, in an open letter to President Bush, tried to intimidate the president into not raising the senator's defense and foreign policy voting record as an issue during the campaign. He told the president to stop questioning his "commitment to the defense of our country ... [or ]the patriotism of Democrats who question the direction of our nation." Then, using one of the reddest herrings ever drawn across the public's collective political olfactory sense, he averred: "I'd like to know what it is Republicans who didn't serve in Vietnam have against those of us who did." One searches in vain for a sincere syllable in that flagrant decoy.</p>

WASHINGTON (AFP) Oct 01, 2003 Deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein may have been bluffing about having weapons of mass destruction to deter the US-led invasion, The Washington Post said Tuesday. The possibility Saddam may have deliberately lied is one of the elements of former weapons inspector David Kay's testimony Thursday before the US Congress on his investigation into Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction program, sources familiar with his planned testimony told the newspaper. Kay, who is leading the US effort to account for Iraq's suspected nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs, is expected soon to issue the "first progress...