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Halper believes that the Clintons’ effort to in effect keep their friends close while turning enemies into friends has been a masterful and hugely overlooked part of the rebuilding of their machine: "What has been little understood in the past decade, from 2001 to the present, is how successfully the Clintons undertook a systematic, comprehensive, and sustained effort to win over leaders in the GOP, especially figures who were once the biggest critics. In return, both Clintons were able to develop a bipartisan, statesmanlike image that had eluded them through eight years in the White House."

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) HBO supernatural drama takes aim at conservatives in bloody takedown. HBO's “True Blood” took another stab at conservatives on Sunday's episode when it left a bloody mess of an event held in Ted Cruz's honor. It was exactly what the doctor ordered for an ailing Eric (Alexander Skarsgard), who has been infected with the dangerous virus that's killing vampires. He was all ready to meet the true death until his progeny Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten) informed him that Sarah Newlin, part of the group manufacturing the virus, was still alive and on the run. That was enough for...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The head of Iraq's largest church said on Sunday that Islamic State militants who drove Christians out of Mosul were worse than Mongol leader Genghis Khan and his grandson Hulagu who ransacked medieval Baghdad. Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako led a wave of condemnation for the Sunni Islamists who demanded Christians either convert, submit to their radical rule and pay a religious levy or face death by the sword. At the Vatican, Pope Francis decried what he said was the persecution of Christians in the birthplace of their faith, while U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the...

Anyone who believes that Hillary Clinton will not run for President in 2016 should examine her recently-published book, Hard Choices, which in places reads like a campaign manifesto. The 600 pages of text offer much more, but on myriad domestic and international issues readers can readily predict her positions as president, even beyond what she has already indicated as first lady, senator from New York, and Barack Obama’s first secretary of state. With the escalating violence in Israel and Gaza, for example, her chapter on the Middle East indicates in detail how she dealt with key regional leaders in earlier...

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, made a surprising suggestion Thursday night: If he had been elected in 2000, there might not have been a war in Iraq. The Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war, who lost his race for the GOP nomination that year but went on to become his party’s nominee in 2008, made his comments in a far-reaching interview in CNN and National Journal’s “Politics On Tap” event, after this reporter asked him what would be different if he had won either in 2000 or 2008. On 2008, McCain said “national security” would be different, and he delineated...

Will Mitt Romney run again for president? The question seems absurd. Aside from a single commanding debate performance against President Barack Obama, he was not a very good candidate in 2012. After failing in his first attempt at gaining the Republican nomination four years earlier, Romney struggled across the finish line against weak, underfunded primary opponents whose best days were mostly behind them. He then promptly lost to Obama in November. In fact, Romney has only won one general election in twenty years of running for office. He will be fourteen years removed from that lone victory in November 2016....

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)MSNBC fill-in host and Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson is no fan of calling for a president’s ouster . . . unless it’s George W. Bush. Although he personally signed his name onto a group looking to “create a political situation where Bush himself is driven from office,” Dyson labeled Sarah Palin’s comments about impeaching President Obama as “treasonous accusations.” “The president is acutely aware of the dire situation facing the children and their families crossing into the United States, as evidenced by his tireless effort to help them,” he said on Wednesday’s show in defense of President Obama....

The surge of Central American families and unaccompanied children into south Texas has focused public attention on one of the few recent revisions of immigration law, the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, or TVPRA, also known as the Wilberforce Act. Championed by congressional Democrats such as Senator Dianne Feinstein, the law was a hastily written attempt to improve the handling of trafficked children who came into the custody of immigration authorities, either at the border or within the country. In the face of public alarm over the Obama administration’s massive catch-and-release operation dispersing tens of thousands of illegal border...

NEW ORLEANS — Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison for bribery, money laundering and other corruption that spanned his two terms as mayor — including the chaotic years after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. Nagin was convicted Feb. 12 of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from businessmen who wanted work from the city or Nagin’s support for various projects. The bribes came in the form of money, free vacations and truckloads of free granite for his family business. The 58-year-old Democrat had defiantly denied any wrongdoing after his 2013 indictment and...

Robert Redford has signed on to play Dan Rather in Truth, a film based on the 2005 memoir Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power. The book, written by Rather's producer Mary Mapes, centers on the firestorm that erupted in September of 2004 after Rather reported that George W. Bush had received special treatment while serving in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, a report that was based on documents that turned out to be forgeries. - See more at: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/robert-redford-play-dan-rather-717476#sthash.Y0QB620e.dpuf

RINO boneheads like Jeb Bush are happy to tell you how we need to get past 'nostalgia' for the (toweringly successful) Reagan era and move-on... but the same ossified Gee-Oh-Pee fossils now think it's a good idea to bring up the (unpopular) Bush era when we're already doing well in the polls? Although 'dissatisfied', I'm not one of those rabid Bush-haters-- not any more than any other RINO, anyway. I think he's a decent guy, loves the country, and in his heart he meant well. Of Bush family, he's easily the most likable guy. Spent way too much money and...

Hardball host Chris Matthews made some bizarre comments about the potential Republican candidates for president in 2016 on Tuesday night. Speaking to Jeanne Cummings of Bloomberg News and Republican strategist John Feehery, Matthews took a swipe at Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and suggested “he's the Republicans' John Edwards.” [See video below.](VIDEO-AT-LINK)The Hardball host never explained why in the world he would compare a man who cheated on his wife while pursuing the presidency to Senator Marco Rubio, but nevertheless the snide remark took his panelists by surprise. While Republican John Feehery didn’t directly condemn Matthews’ unusual comparison of Edwards and...

Former U.S. president George W. Bush recently opened the doors to his gorgeous Texas ranch to reveal rooms where he once hosted world leaders and where he now bides his time painting them. Bush gave a tour of the Crawford home he completed just after becoming the nation's 43rd president in 2001 to Architectural Digest for the magazine's August cover story. It's a rare glimpse at the sprawling property where Vladimir Putin once rode shotgun in Bush's pickup and where the younger of W.'s twins, Jenna, held her intimate 2008 wedding. George and Laura Bush have retired to Dallas, Texas...

Despite Sarah Palin's calls, the president won't be impeached. But here's how her demand normalizes other lunacy. “By the Grace of God,” the English used to say, when asked by what authority their monarch ruled. “Divine right” was the answer, and that was that – you didn’t have to like the queen, but God did, and that’s why she was in charge. Simpler times, those were. Today, former GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin announced her belief that President Obama should be impeached. Last week, Speaker of the House John Boehner announced his intention to launch the first congressional lawsuit against...

Mitt Romney has said time and time again that he has no interest in running for president a third time. But, on Sunday morning, CBS' Bob Schieffer said not to write off the idea of a 2016 campaign by Romney so quickly. "I have a source that told me that if Jeb Bush decides not to run, that Mitt Romney may actually try it again," Schieffer said.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has a clear lead in the Democratic primary, topping her potential challengers by an almost 50 percentage point margin, yet fails to hit the 50% mark against any of her potential Republican opponents, a Quinnipiac University National Poll, published Tuesday, shows. Hillary leads the Democratic primary with 58 percent, followed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts with 11 percent, Vice President Joseph Biden with 9 percent and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo with 4 percent. No other candidate tops 1 percent, the poll found. On the contrary, the Republican presidential primary is wide open....

Some of Texas' moderate Republicans say the state's far-right turn since Sen. Ted Cruz's political ascendancy could have unintended consequences.At a breakfast in Washington’s St. Regis Hotel in June, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, took a moment to gather his thoughts before he was ready to answer a question about how junior Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, had changed his home state. “Texas is pretty big and pretty diverse,” Perry said peering intently through his black horn-rimmed glasses. “I’m not sure one person has the ability to change all of that.” A few seconds later, he clarified exactly where he think...

Impressed by the ill-informed hysterical reaction that my “real me” Facebook friends had to the Hobby Lobby decision, I explained to them that the decision is very narrow and will not (a) ban contraceptives across America and (b) lead to anti-gay lynch mobs. Here’s a slightly revised version of my Facebook post, which still failed to satisfy their paranoia and inability to understand the law. I’ve also added a little hypothetical that might open their minds. (No, don’t say it. It’s improbable, but not impossible, that a DemProg mind can open). The Hobby Lobby decision addresses one thing only: whether...

ISIS marching through Iraq has smashed the media’s taboo against criticizing Obama’s foreign policy. Substantive discussions are taking place about why his foreign policy is such a miserable failure. And they mostly miss the point. Liberal journalists still proceed from the fallacy that there was a foreign policy debate between neo-conservative interventionists and liberal non-interventionists. These are a series of digested Bush era talking points that have no relationship to reality since Bush’s foreign policy on Iraq carried over from Bill Clinton. It’s why Hillary gets so uncomfortable when she has to discuss her vote on Iraq. The liberals weren’t...

George W. Bush’s 68th birthday is today. In honor of the 43rd President of the United States, here are fifteen of his most classic and classiest moments:

[...]If Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush were to become president of the United States it would mean the power and influence of the presidency remained in the hands of the Clinton family for possibly sixteen years, and that’s not even counting the princess in waiting, Chelsea; and in the case of the Bush family, possibly twenty years, and that’s not counting the heir apparent, George Prescott Bush. Have we devolved into a nation of bleating sheep, or screaming teenagers at an episode of American Idol? Can it be true that there are no other citizens in this great nation worthy of...

I read conflicting analysis of whether the Obama jobs recovery is better than the George W. Bush jobs recovery. Daily Kos, for example, chastises the GW Bush recovery for having the slowest job recovery in 75 years. It is similar to the age old debate of whether Mickey Mantle was better than Willie Mays. At least Mantle and Mays played roughly at the same time (1950s and 1960s). Bush and Obama each inherited teetering economies and did not serve at the same time. Thus, it is more difficult to compare GWBush versus Obama than a simple Mantle/Mays comparison. Let’s begin...

A look at the frontrunners currently making waves.Mitt Romney hasn’t disappeared from the political scene the way many people thought he would after coming up on the losing end in the 2012 presidential race. But that doesn’t mean he’s running for president — or even thinking about running for president — in 2016. Talk of a possible third presidential bid for Romney has surfaced of late, with poll numbers showing that he is well regarded by Republican voters and a growing sense within the GOP smart set that no candidate has really emerged from the pack as yet. Romney has,...

Believe it or not, it was 10 years ago this month that Barack Obama, then a candidate for the U.S. Senate, introduced himself to America with a speech that shook the Fleet Center in Boston. The main theme of that Democratic convention was the litany of George W. Bush's failures — an unpopular and unending war in Iraq, a faltering image abroad, a stagnating middle class. Obama gave eloquent voice to those frustrations, arguing that all of them could be addressed if only we reunited the electorate. Probably Obama himself would not have guessed then that he would ascend to...

In an expansive essay published on Thursday, Yahoo News’ national political columnist Matt Bai dubbed George W. Bush the most influential president in decades. The imprint the former president left on domestic and geopolitics is so expansive that his shadow still looms over virtually every major issue dominating the headlines more than a half-decade after he left office. Bai’s assessment of Bush’s sizable impact on the world was no compliment, though. It was submitted as more of an attempt to absolve Barack Obama of blame for what Americans increasingly view as his failed presidency. “After a month that saw...

There was a time not so long ago when liberals bristled at what they felt was the over-reach of the Executive branch. NY Times, Jan. 29, 2007 Congress, the Constitution and War: The Limits on Presidential Power But Mr. Cheney told only half the story. Congress has war powers, too, and with 70 percent of Americans now opposed to President Bush’s handling of the war, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll, it is becoming more assertive about them. Congress is poised to pass a resolution denouncing the troop increase. Down the line, Congress may well consider mandatory caps on...

The Clintons have been in the news for a different reason every day since Hillary's book blitz began in late May Much of the coverage about the former first family has not been favorable as both Bill and Hillary have stumbled over questions about Hillary's health and their wealth Now, Americans are getting what Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus calls 'Hillary fatigue' In hypothetical match-ups against other prospective 2016 presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton would beat Republican contenders, but by an increasing smaller margin Hillary Clinton's presidential popularity has dropped significantly since she launched a media blitz to promote her...

It’s not exactly the Ali-Frazier “Thrilla in Manilla,” but the ongoing Rand Paul-Dick Cheney pugilism certainly packs a punch. The libertarian ophthalmologist and the warlord emeritus have been pounding each other for months, and while it’s tempting to just kick back with popcorn and behold the entertainment, we do need to acknowledge the bout’s deeper meaning. Because this is really about something quite serious. Republicans are profoundly split these days over foreign policy: between the non-interventionists who are increasingly wary of American military involvement abroad; and the neoconservative hawks who blundered us into Iraq and want us to keep flexing...

He’s not on any campaign payroll, but you could call him an informal adviser. Several of the GOP’s potential 2016 presidential candidates have, over the past few years, sought the advice of former president George W. Bush in Dallas. Although the former president has deliberately kept a low profile since he left Washington in January 2009, his door is always open for ambitious Republican politicians. He has welcomed a succession of likely 2016 candidates to his office in Dallas for private conversations about life, politics, and the all-consuming quest they will confront if they decide to seek the nation’s top...

The catalog of the errors and failures of the administration of President George W. Bush is large and various. In finance, it began with the modifications to the Community Reinvestment Act in 1993-95, which we now know had the effect of encouraging banks, along with the quasi-governmental Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to allow “innovative” mortgages that encouraged people to buy homes they could no longer afford when an economic downturn came. The effect of this was to encourage higher-risk lending, which led to “securitization” of the loans to spread risks. This securitization was a major contributor to the financial...

Like Birkenstocks and ironic t-shirts, blaming Bush has never gone out of style on the left. When Al Qaeda’s resurgence in Iraq became so obvious that even the media, which had been pretending that Obama’s claims about a successful withdrawal were true, could no longer ignore them, their talking points were all lined up and ready. It was all Bush’s fault.Defenses of the war by pivotal figures like Dick Cheney and Tony Blair only enraged them further. “Why wouldn’t they admit it was all their fault?”But the left’s lazy talking points about Iraq, like their talking points about the economy,...

"Rand Paul took, I think, a really wrong-headed step on the immigration issue last week. I mean, he’s not completely where Jeb is, but almost!"

Given that Barack Obama and the Democrats waged his first presidential campaign on the premise that George W. Bush was the worst president ever, and that Hope and Change were just the ticket, the latest Gallup Poll results must be disheartening: Gallup goes out of its way to soften the blow: Americans typically rate presidents more positively after they leave office, so Obama's relatively worse standing than his predecessors is not surprising. However, the current poll represents Obama's worst favorable rating to date. And it explains away Carter’s dismal showing: Though Carter left office with similarly poor job approval ratings, his lower favorable...

Was George W. Bush wrong about the Iraq War? Because of recent events, some in the media have taken pot shots at the former U.S. President by claiming the younger Bush, and not President Obama, is responsible for an unsuccessful “mission accomplished.” In a related report by The Inquisitr, with the ISIS in Iraq having found Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons stockpiles, some people are saying that George W. Bush was right to have pushed for the Iraq War since the original stated goal was to prevent terrorist groups from getting their hands on any WMD materials. Of course, people say...

As Iraq edges toward chaos, Joe Biden is having a quiet I-told-you-so moment. In 2006, Biden was a senator from Delaware gearing up for a presidential campaign when he proposed that Iraq be divided into three semi-independent regions for Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. Follow his plan, he said, and U.S. troops could be out by early 2008. Ignore it, he warned, and Iraq would devolve into sectarian conflict that could destabilize the whole region. The Bush administration chose to ignore Biden. Now, eight years later, the vice president’s doom-and-gloom prediction seems more than a little prescient. …

Well, here’s some lovely news emerging from the new Iraq. 17.09 Chemical weapons produced at the Al Muthanna facility, which Isis today seized, are believed to have included mustard gas, Sarin, Tabun, and VX. Here is the CIA’s file on the complex. QuoteStockpiles of chemical munitions are still stored there. The most dangerous ones have been declared to the UN and are sealed in bunkers. Although declared, the bunkers contents have yet to be confirmed. These areas of the compound pose a hazard to civilians and potential blackmarketers. Numerous bunkers, including eleven cruciform shaped bunkers were exploited. Some of the...

President Barack Obama, on Dec. 12, 2011, called Iraq "self-reliant and democratic." He praised that country, calling it a "new Iraq that's determining its own destiny -- a country in which people from different religious sects and ethnicities can resolve their differences peacefully through the democratic process." Obama said, "I have no doubt that Iraq can succeed." He campaigned to end the war in Iraq. He did -- at least he ended America's military involvement in the war. He pulled out all the troops, without leaving a residual force behind as we did, for example, in South Korea, where we...

Tragically, all we’ve fought for in Iraq, all that 4,500 American lives were shed to gain, is on the cusp, potentially, of vanishing. - Mitt Romney, “Ideas Summit,” 6/13/2014 All we fought for in Iraq. All we fought for in Iraq is on the cusp of vanishing. That’s what Mitt Romney says. We fought for. We fought for. We. Oh, so it’s we now, is it, Mitt? We. I must have missed you over there, but it was a busy place. We. The guy who helped set up “pro-draft” rallies and yet somehow managed to avoid service in Vietnam is...

VFA-87 Slot Check on board the USS George H. W. Bush.

Like clockwork, the Republican noise machine is blaming Barack Obama for the crisis in Iraq. And like clockwork, they’ve got everything wrong again. The man to blame for what’s happening in Iraq is not President Obama — it’s President Bush. Contrary to Tony Blair’s latest protestations, the U.S./U.K. invasion of Iraq — under deliberately fraudulent pretenses – had a great deal to do with enabling the current emergence of a Sunni terrorist military power in Iraq, but it goes much deeper than that. The recent success of ISIS — the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — is exactly what...

President George W. Bush predicted the current meltdown in Iraq – back in 2007. Bush vetoed a Democratic bill to withdraw troops from Iraq. Via Truth Revolt: I know some in Washington would like us to start leaving Iraq now. To begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we are ready would be dangerous for Iraq, for the region and for the United States. It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to al Qaeda. It would mean that we’d be risking mass killings on a horrific scale. It would mean we’d allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven...

Six years in, Barack Obama is still battling a Bush hangover. The rising chaos in Iraq — and the blame game over who’s responsible — are the latest reminders that halfway through his own second term, he’s still often more consumed by dealing with the legacy of President George W. Bush than building his own. Obama supporters see a president who found himself so deep in so many holes from his very first day in office that cleaning up the aftermath of the previous eight years was going to take at least eight of his own: getting out of Iraq...

In 2007, President George W. Bush warned that if America withdrew prematurely from Iraq, American troops would eventually have to return: To begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we are ready … would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to al Qaeda. It would mean that we’d be risking mass killings on a horrific scale. It would mean we’d allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan. It would mean increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that...

<p>A helicopter jump might not have been the most special part of Former President George H.W. Bush's birthday on  Thursday.</p>

The explosion of bloodshed in Iraq has created the temptation for many to revisit their support for or opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and to ascribe blame for the recent surge in violence to their preferred boogieman. Not all have succumbed to the enticing lure of nostalgia. Not even consistent Iraq War and George W. Bush critic Fareed Zakaria allowed himself himself to take a swipe at the former commander-in-chief for looming over the present crisis. Appearing on CNN on Thursday, Zakaria blamed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for undoing what he said was the good accomplished...

Former President George H.W. Bush can no longer use his legs, but he didn't let that stop him from keeping a vow he made five years ago: to jump from an aircraft on his 90th birthday, which is Thursday. Continue reading Former President George H.W. Bush, left, strapped to Sgt. 1st Class Mike Elliott, a retired member of the Army's Golden Knights parachute team, lands on the lawn at St. Anne's Episcopal Church after making a tandem parachute jump near Bush's summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine. More on this story "It's a wonderful day in Maine - in fact, nice...

Two years ago, George Bush Sr. made a promise that he aimed to keep when he turned 90 years old on Thursday. The 41st president plans to celebrate the milestone by going skydiving one last time, his granddaughter and TODAY contributor Jenna Bush Hager announced on TODAY Thursday.

Tuesday’s defeat of the sitting House majority leader, Eric Cantor, apparently sent a series of “messages,” which we in the pundit world who missed all of the signs that The Shock Heard ’Round the Campaign World was coming, are beginning to interpret. Among the strongest messages: Incumbents beware. To hear some tell it, this message is bipartisan. Because Democrats apparently are unfamiliar with the phenomenon of low turnout midterm elections in districts drawn to be more partisan than they were, which would be an interesting observation if it were actually true. The reality is that in most states, the rates...

Baghdad, 17 Sep. The economy of Iraq is slowly starting to recover after years of war and instability. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has loaned Iraq $746.3 million to aid in the rebuilding of the war-torn nation. It has approved its first review of the country’s economic progress, as stipulated by the loan. The IMF said that Iraq’s economic success largely depends on its ability to maintain security, its reform policies, and how it looks after its oil revenue. One example of economic progress in the country is I-BIZ (Iraqi Business and Industrial Zone), initiated by the US Army Corps...

A column in the paper of record for the globalist "Party of Davos" argues that a Hillary Clinton vs. Jeb Bush battle for the White House in 2016 will be a win-win for America. Writing in the Financial Times, Ed Luce notes that "as wealth is concentrated in fewer hands, so too is political capital" and "the problem with plutocracy is that it is unmeritocratic."However, he argues, Bush and Clinton are "by far their party’s most qualified candidates" and "both deserve their nominations on merit" because each has "made at least as strong a case against the new age of inherited...