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NEW YORK (AP) - Former Vice President Dick Cheney has signed a book deal with a conservative imprint of Simon & Schuster and said he hopes readers of all ideologies will be interested in his story. The memoir by Cheney, widely considered the most powerful vice president in history, is expected to be published in Spring 2011, a few months after President George W. Bush's book comes out. Cheney's work is currently untitled and will cover his long career in government, from chief of staff under President Ford to vice president under Bush, from Vietnam and Watergate to the first...

Whatever else former president George W. Bush got wrong, he was right about this at least: "The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder." (Speech to American Enterprise Institute, February 2003.) That is, foster liberty in the world’s most oppressive countries and watch the axis of evil bend, then break. Look at Iran today. True, the burden of proof is on anybody who wants to attribute a passion for liberty to Tehran’s crowds. At one point, more than a million people were thought to...

If beating dead horses were an Olympic event, Joe Klein would have more medals gracing his neck than Michael Phelps. On his magazine's Swampland blog, the Time columnist returned to his latest overwrought left-wing pandering point: labeling hardliner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the Iranian version of George W. Bush: The protesters admire our freedom, but they are appalled--and insulted--by our neocolonialist condescension over the past 50 years. The reformers, and even some conservatives, consider Ahmadinejad the George W. Bush of Iran--a crude, unsophisticated demagogue, who puts a strong Potemkin face to the world without very much knowledge of what the...

SNIPPET: "Police were nearby and took one suspect into custody while another was arrested after a getaway car was followed to a nearby trailer park."

Exerpt... “To the people of Iran: You are rich in culture and talent. You have a right to live under a government that listens to your wishes, respects your talents, and allows you to build better lives for your families. Unfortunately, your government denies you these opportunities, and threatens the peace and stability of your neighbors. So we call on the regime in Tehran to heed your will, and to make itself accountable to you. The day will come when the people of Iran have a government that embraces liberty and justice, and Iran joins the community of free nations....

George W. Bush: After being pummeled by his successor, the 43rd president ends his silence on America's slide into socialism and timidity. He reminds us leadership is not something that comes off a teleprompter. Perhaps tired about being publicly blamed by the current administration for all our current ills, Bush spoke out in Erie, Pa., on Wednesday at the 104th annual gathering of the Manufacturers and Business Association. On the same day President Obama announced expanded policing authorities for the Fed to deal with a "culture of irresponsibility," another move many feel will stifle the risk takers and entrepreneurs needed...

Here We Go: Bush Goes on Attack Against Obama By Joseph Curl Former President George W. Bush fired a salvo at President Obama on Wednesday, asserting his administration's interrogation policies were within the law, declaring the private sector -- not government -- will fix the economy and rejecting the nationalization of health care. "I know it's going to be the private sector that leads this country out of the current economic times we're in," the former president said to applause from members of a local business group. "You can spend your money better than the government can spend your money."...

The conference on the future of U.S. politics, convened at the American Enterprise Institute on Friday, has come and gone, leaving in its wake more bad news for the Republican Party. I know. You're asking: "So what else is new?" The GOP has been taking a beating in the public opinion polls of late. What makes this particular set of portends scary for Republicans is that the conferees were not studying mere polling snapshots. They were dealing with demography—long-term trends regarding various voting groups identified by age, race and geographic location. And in politics, demography is destiny. I'm going to...

(snip) Meade: Tell me a little bit about Judge Sonia Sotomayor, she's someone that you appointed to a U.S. District Court. Bush: District Court. Meade: Now she's been nominated for the Supreme Court. What would her impact be on the Supreme Court, do you think? Bush: I think she'd pull a ripcord just at the right time and make a very nice parachutist. I'm going to leave that to others to analyze, but she should be given a fair hearing. She should be accorded every courtesy that goes with her record as a judge and her aspirations to be a...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Reserve threatened to force the ouster of Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis if he didn't follow through with plans to buy Merrill Lynch & Co., Republicans said Wednesday after reviewing internal documents. Republicans also said there was evidence that the government tried to restrict information related to the merger from being publicly released. However, none of the documents showed that the government explicitly instructed Bank of America to hide Merrill Lynch's losses from shareholders, they said.

He won’t criticize Obama’s policies, his popularity polls are rising, and Democrats are hailing him as a “statesman.” Nicolle Wallace asks, is Bush becoming history’s classiest ex-president? George W. Bush is the classiest former president in history. Don’t take my word for it: ask the Democrats. In the last two weeks, half a dozen Democrats have commented to me about what a “statesman” George W. Bush has been in his post-presidency. One of those individuals is a senior Obama administration official and two others are former senior Clinton administration officials. It strikes me that Bush’s admirers in the Democratic Party...

George W. Bush hadn’t even begun the 2000 campaign, but, in his methodical way, he was already looking ahead to his presidency. At lunch in Austin in 1999, he mused aloud about lessons to be drawn from his dad’s one-term tenure. The Liberator of Kuwait had enjoyed sky-high approval ratings, but lost the election the next year because he was seen as indifferent to the plight of workers. “I learned that you can’t save political capital,” Bush said. “It doesn’t last. You have to spend it—or lose it.” Are we about to witness a father-son version of “Groundhog Day”? ...

Begin my translation: From a dispatch in Seoul per Japanese JIJI wire services, North Korea's Central News Agency [KCNA] on Wednesday, May 27th said that with South Korea's threatened "total" participation in the PSI Initiative (which allows North Korean ships to be stopped and checked by various nations for nuclear weapons being exported) that it amounts to a "declaration of war against North Korea". The statement was released by the North Korean military representative in Panmunjom military armistace area. He iterated that from now on, South Korean and American vessels traveling in the Yellow Sea (West Sea, just off...

Elections have consequences. Like a stand-up comedian trying to push a catchphrase, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., kept coming back to that statement during an hour-long town hall gathering Tuesday in Marana. Whether it was efforts being made to turn around the economy, President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court or U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi's CIA allegations, McCain told the crowd of more than 200 people at the Marana Municipal Complex that today's America is a direct result of last November's voting. But rather than place all the blame on the ruling Democratic Party, McCain said Republicans were...

Beck asked Limbaugh: "Rush, will you — help me out on this, because you always get thrown under the bus, that — well, you know, where were you when George Bush was spending, et cetera, et cetera. Address — because I — I have to tell you, the Republican Party doesn't get it. You just said, echoed again what I was saying about the progressive Republicans. George Bush, this compassionate conservative movement has got to die a violent death." Limbaugh agreed with Beck's assessment that Bush had gone off the GOP reservation.

Critics in his own party and Republican opponents are attacking Barack Obama’s emerging stance on national security with equal ferocity. Many Democrats are furious that the president has broken his promise to abandon the Bush administration’s war-powers approach to fighting terrorism. Dick Cheney, the former vice-president, and other conservatives attack him for doing the opposite – for keeping his promise and emasculating the US anti-terror effort. The left’s complaints make far more sense than Mr Cheney’s. Mr Obama is adjusting the Bush administration’s policies here and there and seeks to put them on a sounder legal footing. This recalibration is...

Following are excerpts of for mer Vice President Dick Cheney's address at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington yesterday. NOW and for years to come, a lot rides on our president's understand ing of the security policies that preceded him. Whatever choices he makes concerning the defense of this country, those choices shouldn't be based on slogans and campaign rhetoric, but on a truthful telling of history. Our administration always faced its share of criticism, and from some quarters it was always intense. That was especially so in the later years of our term, when the dangers were as serious...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1PEdYYv0ig

Dick Cheney said Tuesday that he's not going to "roll over" while Democrats accuse the Bush administration of breaking the law with its anti-terror policies. The former vice president defended his decision to stay in the public eye during an interview Tuesday on FOX News, his latest appearance in a media blitz since leaving office. Cheney, who has taken heat for remaining so vocal, told FOX News that the Obama administration is "dismantling" the national security policies that kept the country safe since the Sept. 11 attacks. He said he continues to speak out to combat the mounting criticism of...

MIAMI, (AP) -- Five men were convicted Tuesday of plotting to join forces with al-Qaida to destroy Chicago's Sears Tower and bomb FBI offices in hopes of igniting an anti-government insurrection. The jury in Miami acquitted another member of the so-called "Liberty City Six" in the sixth day of deliberations. Two previous trials ended in mistrials when jurors could not agree on the men's guilt or innocence. They were arrested in June 2006 on charges of plotting terrorism with an undercover FBI informant they believed was from al-Qaida. Defense attorneys said terrorist talk recorded on dozens of FBI audio and...

Liz Cheney is defending her dad once again. Former Vice President Dick Cheney recently defended the Bush administration’s handling of the War on Terror and criticized the Obama administration for making the nation "less safe," i.e., releasing details of interrogation techniques used on terror suspects. Cheney’s comments have been slammed by the White House, with spokesman Robert Gibbs saying Cheney should stop regurgitating "ideas and a series of thoughts" that "the last election rejected." But Liz Cheney, a former State Department official, said on MSNBC today that her father is speaking out of genuine concern for the country and to...

POLITICO recently ran a story about the moments that shaped first lady Michelle Obama’s image. I like seeing so much attention paid to a first lady, and I think Americans enjoy knowing what she is working on and how she is spending her time in the White House. The coverage is helpful for all of us to develop an impression about the first lady. And surely there has been no shortage of coverage. I know firsthand what it takes to manage the diverse portfolio of this unique position, which in fact has no official description. The job is what the...

Objecting to the Obama administration's refusal to use waterboarding and other interrogation procedures put into place by the Bush administration, former vice president Dick Cheney said that the U.S. should be "prepared to sacrifice American lives." Unlike former President George W. Bush, who (like many of his predecessors) has demurred from making public comments or criticisms about his successor and his policies, Cheney has been vocal in his attacks on the new president. (CBS) "The reason I have been speaking," Cheney (left) said on CBS News' Face The Nation, is because "the issues that are at stake here are so...

The U.S. Department of Education has just released the latest findings from the “Nation’s Report Card,” the leading nationwide measurement of educational outcomes. The findings contained good news for critics of the 2001 federal education law No Child Left Behind (NCLB). But supporters of the law got good news of their own. The good news for the critics is that the Nation’s Report Card shows reading and math scores still have not substantially changed since 1971. The good news for supporters is that the Nation’s Report Card shows reading and math scores still have not substantially changed since 1971. Welcome...

Excuse me, Jeb Bush, but your daddy and brother already helped push the Republican Party beyond “the good old days” of its Reagan legacy, and we all see how well that’s been working for the GOP since 2006, don’t we. And excuse me, Gen. Colin Powell, but which election did you win because “Americans are looking for more government in their lives, not less …”? Forgive me if I seem a bit cranky here, but, being a card-carrying Reaganaut since 1964, it’s hard not to be whenever the national media lectures the GOP on how to regain voters’ trust. Inevitably,...

This week’s defection of Sen. Arlen Specter to the Democrats predictably set off another round of factional flame wars within the Republican party. The mutual finger-pointing is well-known by now. So-called “moderates” or “reformers” claim the GOP has drifted rightward, or that it is now dominated by a social conervativism toxic to the larger body politic. Social conservatives respond that such critics are unprincipled, that the 2008 presidential nominee, Maverick-y reformer John McCain, was a big loser, and so on. We have heard it all before. The debate was clarified for me by an exchange at Instapundit. Glenn Reynolds correctly...

All of April and the start of May 2009 find us still being bombarded by the media hyping up the first 100 days of President Obama with no sign of it dying down. Following the introduction to the monthly thread I will post some photos to remind us of the first few days of the first May of the George W Bush Presidency - those were the days. The quote I have chosen for this month are remarks made during Commander-In-Chief Trophy Event at the South Portico on May 4, 2001. Tomorrow I will post some more photos from May...

I have bad news for you. I have it on good authority that the congressional Republican leadership, if that is not an oxymoron, plans to give Barack Obama a pass on all of his major appointments. They'll give them a bye. They'll close their eyes, cover their ears and speak no evil against some of the most dangerous nominees for high posts in an administration in American history. I'm talking about kooks and crazies like Cass Sunstein, the so-called "regulatory czar," who once proposed what can only be characterized as a "Fairness Doctrine" for the Internet including a notion for...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senator Arlen Specter's abrupt move to switch allegiance to President Barack Obama's Democratic Party was a sharp blow to Republicans and will likely generate more soul-searching for the minority party. His decision to seek re-election as a Democrat next year was a nakedly political move to hang on to power.

Hey wingnut, Why is it my conservative friends won't admit the truth: that George W. Bush "broke" the United States of America? Sincerely, Mitchell Hello again. Judging by your response to my first three columns, this feature is proving quite popular. I appreciate all the letters that you have taken the time to send. I am sorry I am not able to answer each one of them personally. This week I've been asked to explain why conservatives won't admit that George W. Bush "broke" the United States of America. It's an interesting question, so open-ended it's difficult to choose the...

I really hate it when "parties" do really stupid things. And I'm not talking about Obama's bribe and bait little play with Arlen Specter. Heck he's been voting from that side of the aisle so long I just figured he had forgotten where his seat was. I'm talking about two of my heroes George W. Bush and Rick Santorum taking some really bad advice and snuggling up to the snake-oil Senator when he last ran for re-election. It caused me incredible pain at the time, but the thinking by all the smart people in the room like some of the...

Senator Arlen Specter (PA), who switched from the Republican to Democrat party on Tuesday (April 28), admitted that he did so due to an unwillingness to let voters decide his fate. “I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate,” he said in the statement. “I don’t have to say anything to them. They’ve said it to me,” Specter said. Specter, 79, has been a Republican for his five terms in the Senate. However, he had recently come under fire for supporting the Obama stimulus plan and was expected to face a...

HUMAN EVENTS has learned from staff sources that Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa) is about to announce his switch to the Democratic Party. Developing….

Breaking news on FNC

Statement by Senator Arlen Specter I have been a Republican since 1966. I have been working extremely hard for the Party, for its candidates and for the ideals of a Republican Party whose tent is big enough to welcome diverse points of view. While I have been comfortable being a Republican, my Party has not defined who I am. I have taken each issue one at a time and have exercised independent judgment to do what I thought was best for Pennsylvania and the nation. Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party...

WASHINGTON – Several officials say veteran Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania intends to switch parties, advancing his own hopes of winning a new term next year while pushing Democrats one step closer to a 60-vote filibuster-resistant majority. The sources said an announcement could come later in the day — or Wednesday. The officials who provided the information did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss his plans. Specter is a 79-year-old veteran of five Senate terms, and one of only a handful of moderate Republicans left in Congress in a party made up largely...

A year before Prince William County police say he raped an 8-year-old girl, court documents show an illegal immigrant from Honduras was released by Montgomery County police after being arrested for second-degree assault. Marcos Banegas has been on the run since Feb. 16 when Prince William County police charged him with forcible sodomy and aggravated sexual battery of a Woodbridge girl. But before moving to Prince William where police say he cut hair at a local salon, the 26-year-old was arrested by Montgomery County police. Banegas was accused of “violently” grabbing a stroller, causing the child inside to be shaken,...

Some Democrats, from the White House on down, are pushing the idea of a "truth commission," à la South Africa, to deal with the "harsh measures" used by the Bush administration in interrogating al Qaeda detainees. Good. Let's have lots of truthtelling. Please bring it on. Let's tell the truth about Bush's conduct of the war on terror, which is that it's been a success. His ultimate legacy hasn't been written--Iraq is improved, but not out of danger--but the one thing that can be said without reservation is that the country was kept safe. He delivered on the main charge...

<p>Former President George Bush and some of his White House aides are gathering in Dallas to plan the future George W. Bush Policy Institute. There, I guess, they will ponder grand themes and marble foyers, but I propose they begin by simply renaming the place. I suggest the "George W. Bush Institute of Management Failure" and dedicate it to studying how this presidency went so wrong - a task as big as Texas.</p>

DALLAS -- The new couple at 10141 Daria Place accepted an invitation to a neighborhood dinner party last month. The guest list totaled eight. The main dish was chicken potpie. George and Laura Bush left their cul-de-sac in the back of a dark sedan, exited through a Secret Service checkpoint and rode down streets bordered by lawn signs adorned with gigantic Ws to welcome them home. It had been a bad week for the country. President Obama spoke on television about the burdens he had inherited in office: anti-American sentiment, two wars, a recession. But it had been a good...

Certainly in the 7+ years following the 9/11 attack, the Somali pirates had plenty of opportunities to attack US ships. Why didn't they? Furthermore, why did it take them less than 100 days into Barry's watch to to attack us again? Do they know a coward when they see one? And why did they go after a US military vessel?

Former President George W. Bush's international AIDS-fighting campaign has reduced by 10 percent the mortality rates in 15 targeted countries, primarily in Africa, and has saved 1.1 million lives, according to a study that for the first time quantified the successes of his program. The study by two Stanford University doctors showed the treatment part of PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which involves making drug treatment available to about 2 million people, has shown solid success while the prevention efforts under the program have not yet produced the same concrete results. "It has averted deaths - a...

CHICAGO (Reuters) – A U.S. program launched during the Bush administration has cut AIDS deaths by 10 percent in targeted African nations compared to their neighbors and saved more than a million lives, U.S. researchers said on Monday. The study tracked AIDS deaths and HIV infections in 12 African countries getting aid under the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, during the four years after it was launched in 2003 as a five-year, $15 billion effort. The program has made a major impact in saving lives but has done little to reduce the number of people infected with...

(CNSNews.com) – In emotional testimony before a House joint panel this week, a Virginia man recalled the death of his teenage daughter in 2007 – a death caused by an illegal immigrant who was driving drunk and who had been arrested twice before the crime, but was not deported. “Two years ago this week, my 16-year-old daughter, Tessa, and her best friend Allison were killed as they were sitting at in intersection waiting for a red light to change,” Ray Tranchant said, as friends placed a photograph of Tessa Tranchant on an easel behind him. Since his daughter’s death, Tranchant,...

In 2006, I conducted a three-part interview with former US Border Patrol Supervisor David J Stoddard. For 27 years, David served in Calexico, California, Vermont, Yuma, Tucson Sector Headquarters and Naco, Arizona and worked in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and other locations. He also provided testimony about immigration reform to Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner's (R-WI) House Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims in 1999 and a Congressional subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources in 2002. With the current US-Mexico border crisis — including an actual ongoing war on our southern border — I thought it was time to...

A 42-year-old Richfield man, his 9-year-old son and a 12-year-old girl from another family were killed Sunday morning when the SUV they were riding in was hit by a truck that slid across a snow-covered road in Washington County. The man's 40-year-old wife, two of their children and the 12-year-old girl's 11-year-old brother suffered serious injuries and were taken to hospitals, according to the Washington County Sheriff's Department. The three men who were in the one-ton flatbed truck were not injured. ... According to the sheriff's department: The crash occurred just before 9 a.m. on state Highway 164 north of...

'MARKETS without bombs. Hummers without guns. Ice cream after dark. Busy streets without fear." So began Terry McCarthy's report from Iraq for ABC's World News Sunday on March 15, one of a series the network aired last week as the war in Iraq reached its sixth anniversary. A nationwide poll of Iraqis reveals that "60 percent expect things to get better next year - almost three times as many as a year and a half ago," McCarthy continued. "Iraqis are slowly discovering they have a future. We flew south to Basra, where 94 percent say their lives are going well....

Mexican drug cartels are now as heavily armed as America’s enemies during the Iraq war and are extending their bloody conflict into the United States, say security experts. Law enforcement agencies in American cities close to the border with Mexico — including San Diego in California, and El Paso in Texas — are “gearing up” for street confrontations with the drug gangs, which are armed with rockets and grenades and have brought death and chaos south of the border. The confidence of the cartel chiefs has increased so much that they are moving to affluent neighbourhoods in America to kidnap...

Former U.S. Border Patrol agent Ignacio "Nacho" Ramos wakes up in the middle of the night expecting a guard to shine a flashlight in his face. Jose Alonso Compean, his colleague, still has nightmares that he's not really home. It has not been easy readjusting to life outside their one-man prison cells where they spent the last two years of their lives in segregation. Since the commutation of their sentences by President Bush on his last day in office, the former agents, who were charged with the non-fatal shooting of a Mexican national after he abandoned a load of marijuana...

Friday, March 20th 2009, 3:44 AM Photo Illustration by Lopez/News Take our PollThe book on W. Would you buy a book written by former President George W. Bush? Former President George W. Bush can finally boast "Mission Accomplished" - if the mission is winning a chance to repair his legacy and be paid handsomely for it.