Free Republic

Democrats are starting to wonder: is Sen. Joseph Lieberman some sort of Republican plant? The Connecticut senator describes himself as an "independent Democrat," but today on the Wall Street Journal op-ed page, Lieberman called out Sen. Barack Obama by name as one of the "old voices of partisanship and peace at any price" that re-emerged after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to challenge President Bush at great potential cost. ... Increasingly, prominent Democrats are privately saying that if Lieberman actively works to defeat Obama, assuming he is the nominee, they cannot imagine him as a member of the family much...

Allen West is a true military leader. He’s also a dedicated public servant who decided to spend a year teaching high school in the district before announcing his candidacy. Most importantly, he brings vast knowledge and well thought out solutions to key issues, ranging from small business development to healthcare and pragmatic solutions to the mortgage crisis and job creation. The fact that he’s African-American just goes to show that the GOP is the party of people of all races who share in common sense. That the NRCC (National Republican Congressional Committee) has failed to pay proper attention to this...

According a very poor analysis offered this week by the Politico, which was highlighted by Drudge for all of about half a hour before he realized how false it was and removed it,... ... Allen West is a true military leader. He’s also a dedicated public servant who decided to spend a year teaching high school in the district before announcing his candidacy. Most importantly, he brings vast knowledge and well thought out solutions to key issues, ranging from small business development to healthcare and pragmatic solutions to the mortgage crisis and job creation. The fact that he’s African-American just...

Republican Kevin Mannix's last-minute attack on his 5th Congressional District primary opponent Mike Erickson failed to do the trick. Erickson defeated Mannix in a race that ended with allegations of dishonesty and hypocrisy over Erickson's anti-abortion position that were disclosed just nine days before ballots were due. "I'm glad we ran a positive campaign," Erickson said. "I think voters made a clear statement. They're tired of the politics of personal destruction."

The decision by Vito J. Fossella not to seek another term in Congress has roiled the political waters of his reliably Republican district, as both parties are searching for consensus candidates to succeed him when his term ends in January. The departure of Mr. Fossella might seem to present the Democrats with a major opportunity, but the party’s leaders have yet to agree on a candidate, and disputes have broken out over whether the candidate should come from the Staten Island or Brooklyn side of the district. Mr. Fossella’s decision is not clearly a blow to the Republicans. District Attorney...

Press Releases Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 05/20/2008 Pelosi: House Overwhelmingly Votes to Take Action Against Oil Price Fixing Washington, D.C.- Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on H.R. 6074, the Gas Price Relief for Consumers Act, which passed the House by a vote of 324 to 84, despite a veto threat: “The House today with a strong bipartisan and veto-proof margin voted to hold foreign oil cartels and Big Oil accountable. “The legislation provides the Justice Department with a critical tool to pursue antitrust actions against OPEC-controlled entities for fixing prices and creates a...

WASHINGTON, May 20, 2008 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates asked Congress today to act quickly to approve the president’s $102.5 billion fiscal 2008 supplemental war budget request. Gates told members of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee that the delay in passing the emergency legislation means the department is now using fourth-quarter funds from the department’s base budget to cover current war costs. If Congress doesn’t act soon, Gates said, two critical accounts will run dry, starting with Army military personnel. “After June 15, we will run out of funds in this account to pay soldiers, including those in...

WASHINGTON, May 20, 2008 – The United States needs a defense establishment that confronts the full range of threats in the world today, and the president’s fiscal 2009 defense budget request would fund the military for that purpose, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said today. Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee. The fiscal 2009 request includes $149.4 billion in military pay, health care, housing and quality-of-life funding for service personnel, DoD employees, and their families, Gates said. The request provides for $107.8 billion in...

Politico says: Just a few years after the Republican Party launched a highly publicized diversity effort, the GOP is heading into the 2008 election without a single minority candidate with a plausible chance of winning a campaign for the House, the Senate or governor. At a time when Democrats are poised to knock down a historic racial barrier with their presidential nominee, the GOP is fielding only a handful of minority candidates for Congress or statehouses - none of whom seem to have a prayer of victory. Macsmind reminds us that's not true: There's Lt Col Allen West, an African American,...

Florida District 22 congressional candidate Lt. Col. Allen West (R-Plantation) is demanding that Congressman Ron Klein (D-Boca Raton) “come clean about his use of taxpayer funds to pay for campaign-style mailings.” “This is government waste at its worst. Ron Klein’s only commitment is to staying in office,” said West. “This is a clear abuse of the trust placed in Mr. Klein by the voters of FL 22. Karen Thurman, chair of the FL Democratic Party, said it best: “The people of Florida are suffering...Your campaign coffers are not.” The mailing that started it all was a recent targeted direct mailer...

Coming up on this Saturday’s MacRanger Show at 12:30pm EST, I will be interviewing LTC (retired) Allen West, who is a candidate for congress in Florida’s 22nd District (Broward County). LTC Allen is a decorated Army veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq as well as a former public school teacher, husband and father. He is running against a heavily funded incumbant, Ron Klein who unseated long time GOP representative Clay Shaw in 2006. LTC West is a true conservative and the kind of man we need in Washington that will help the GOP return to it’s conservative roots. Be sure to...

Congress: What, exactly, does House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's latest junket to Iraq have to do with her official duties? Her inability to keep her amateur fingers out of the foreign policy pie suggests a political power grab.Pelosi went to Iraq uninvited Saturday, and her reception was less than warm. Iraq's democratically elected Nouri al-Maliki government wanted nothing to do with her until she admitted the truth about Iraq's progress as a nation and quit braying that U.S. troops must be immediately pulled out, a proposal so naive that even radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr opposes it. Message through, Pelosi admitted that...

House GOP leaders have taken the blame for last week’s devastating loss in Mississippi, but in some Republican circles the real culprit is former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss). Lott created the House opening by opting to leave Congress late last year before tougher lobbying restrictions went into effect. After his departure, Rep. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) was appointed to serve out Lott’s unexpired term, which created the need for the special election to fill Wicker’s seat. Republicans were irked that Lott would retire early just to serve his own financial interests. But that’s only the tip of the anger iceberg for...

Go to the blue box--Blog Talk Radio-- at the top of the right column. Move the time to 30 minutes into the show and enjoy listening to Col. Allen West, an American hero and REAL LEADER who tells it like it is! Col. West's platform IS what all Republicans should be running on.  If you want to help Col. West, go HERE. Allen West(Rep) for U.S. Congress Welcome to Allen West's campaign for Florida's 22nd Congressional District! This site will give you the opportunity to learn more about Allen and his vision for the future of America. Please take a...

It is hard to underestimate the amount of dislike harbored by the Left for George W. Bush, and even among independents and many Republicans, there is a definite sense of Bush fatigue. The respected Rasmussen poll placed the President’s approval rating at just 32% last week - the lowest ever recorded by Rasmussen, with a slumping economy putting the final nail in the popularity coffin of the Administration. Last week’s Republican defeat in Mississippi’s special election has Republican insiders sweating bullets. If current trends hold, many are predicting a GOP rout unlike any in recent history. The traditional GOP brand...

With fill-ups routinely costing $60 or more, cost-conscious drivers naturally look for someone to blame. And just as naturally, politicians are happy to blame others. Enter "Big Oil," the demagogues' favorite villain. Gas prices soaring? It's because oil companies want "excess profits," as Barack Obama puts it. Right? Wrong. The truth is more complicated. Let's look to California, driving capital of the world. Officials there watch gas prices carefully. During March and April, a state analysis found "distribution costs, marketing costs and profits" made up about 10 cents of the cost of a gallon of gasoline, which ranged from $3.46...

Last Thursday, a Gigantic Illegal Alien Amnesty was attached to the War funding bill in the Senate. . . Sellout Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Larry Craig (R-Idaho) have successfully inserted the "Ag Jobs" amnesty components into the Iraq War funding bill. Because this amnesty is attached to a so-called "must-pass" funding bill, it will now prove very difficult to defeat. If it passes, this bill will GIVE AN AMNESTY to about 3 MILLION Illegal Aliens agricultural workers and their families for five years (at least!) They could vote on the spending bill today or tomorrow. If the bill passes...

WASHINGTON -- Whoever wins the presidency this November, it's all but a slam dunk they'll be working with a Democratic Congress. And it probably will be a stronger Democratic majority with more votes than it has today. Even normally optimistic Republicans conceded last week that the landscape is stacked against them after losing their third special House of Representatives election in a row, all in what had been safe Republican districts. "A large segment of the American public doesn't have confidence in the Republican Party," said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., the party's chief political operative for House races. "It should...

Another attitudinal poll was just published by National Public Radio (May 15, 2008), indicating that “80 percent of likely voters surveyed said the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction.” Real Clear Politics has even tracked these “wrong direction or right direction” polls for years, but no one explains how these same geniuses surveyed would define the right direction. In fact, it should not be surprising that this attitude of heading in the wrong direction has increased from 51 percent in November of 2006 to 80 percent today, since the Democratic leaders in Congress, the Democratic presidential primary candidates and...

US Congress moves to bring down oil pricesBy Anwar Iqbal WASHINGTON, May 14: The US Congress has voted overwhelmingly to prevent further rise in oil prices, ordering the government to stop depositing oil in a national reserve. The Senate voted 97 to 1 on Tuesday to stop putting 70,000 barrels of oil a day in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve through the remainder of this year. The House of Representatives later approved a similar bill by a 385 to 25 vote. The move aims at bringing down the price by forcing more oil into the market. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the...

Energy: With the price of oil spiking above $127 a barrel, the search for scapegoats has begun. Some point to the Saudis, OPEC's No. 1 producer. Others blame the oil companies. We have a better candidate: Congress.As President Bush traveled to Saudi Arabia to ask the House of Saud to open the oil spigots a bit wider, Congress showed once again how clueless it is when it comes to energy policy. Underscoring its failure to grasp the nature of our current problems, the Senate Appropriations Committee on Friday refused to end its moratorium on oil shale development in Colorado. "If...

During the run-up to the 2006 elections, future Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made definitive promises that if Democrats won leadership of Congress, they had a plan to lower gas prices. In November 2006, a gallon of gas cost approximately $2.20; it soon will double. In lieu of the current strategy (or lack thereof) of RNC Chairman Mike Duncan, Senator Mitch McConnell, and House Minority leader John Boehner, I propose the following: "Stop apologizing for Democratic mistakes and start campaigning on them!" --Openly challenge Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Howard Dean to a televised debate (and keep shaming and challenging...

WASHINGTON, May 16, 2008 – The deputy secretary of defense called on Congress to act quickly to pass the fiscal 2008 supplemental legislation for the war on terror. In a May 15 letter, Gordon England told Congress the legislation is urgent and needed before the House and Senate recess for Memorial Day. “Absent additional Congressional action, the Army will run out of military personnel funds by mid-June and operation and maintenance funds by early July,” England said in the letter. Civilian personnel funding and money for the Commander’s Emergency Response Program also is included in the operations-and-maintenance accounts. “CERP funding...

TWO DAYS after former Republican Rep. Bob Barr announced his candidacy for President as a Libertarian, and one day after a Republican lost a special election to a Democrat in a strongly GOP Mississippi district, more than half of House Republicans voted for the pork-saturated, $300 billion farm bill. Idiots. Three weeks ago, a Rasmussen Reports poll found that 48 percent of Americans trusted Democrats more than Republicans on the economy. Only 40 percent trusted Republicans more. That is the legacy of big-spending Republican policies pushed by leaders like Tom DeLay and President Bush and continued by the current GOP...

Republican Senate candidate Jim Ogonowski took his attacks against Sen. John Kerry's record to a new level yesterday -- television. Ogonowski, one of two Republicans vying to oust Kerry this fall, launched the first TV ad of the campaign season. The one-minute ad will air on cable stations throughout the state for the next three weeks, his campaign said. "People are absolutely fed up with the fact that he has been there so long and passed only eight pieces of legislation (since 1999)," Ogonowski said. "There's some real excitement in this state if you get to talk to people about...

In an amazing turn of events, the House of Representatives today voted AGAINST the supplemental funding for the war in Iraq!! The bill would have provided $166 billion in war funding, the largest single provision since the war started in 2003. In a move that no one expected, dozens of Republicans voted "present," which is the same as abstaining on the vote.

FBN 05/15/2008 08:03:42: ...average gasoline prices at the pump, $3.77 this morning, but it isn't the local gas station making a ton of money. this morning we're joined by mallory duncan merchants payments coalition welcome, mallory. tell us a little what's going on with that local gas station. everyone thinks because of prices of gasoline going higher these guys are making a lot more money, is that necessarily the case?

I am not an expert on campaign strategy, but I know a losing game plan when I see one. The Republican Party’s strategy in a series of special House elections this year has been to tie Democratic candidates to Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. How’s that working? Three straight losses, all in congressional districts President Bush carried easily in 2004. Some strategy. John McCain may well win the presidential election, but at the congressional and grassroots level, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the GOP in a more severe state of disarray. The worst result yet has come from the...

John McCain, looking through a crystal ball to 2013 and the end of a prospective first term, sees "spasmodic" but reduced violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden dead or captured and government spending curbed by his ready veto pen. The Republican presidential contender also envisions April’s annual angst replaced by a simpler flat tax, illegal immigrants living humanely under a temporary worker program, and political partisanship stemmed by weekly news conferences and British-style question periods with joint meetings of Congress. In a speech being delivered Thursday, McCain concedes he cannot make the changes alone, but he wants to...

NMCEP will lead an event in early 2008 that will define the expectations of Americans that they be provided with reliable and competitively priced energy. This will be the first attempt to inject rural viewpoint into energy policy. Senator Pete V. Domenici is expected to deliver a major address at the event. Additional event details will be up soon.

I was going to title this post "Bend Over, America", but I didn't want to upset the gays. So, by this time I'm sure most of us were expecting to be paying nearly $1 a gallon again for gas and the last of our troops would be coming in from Iraq. Well, at least that's what we were promised by the new Democrat majority in Congress. Instead, their planned retreat from Iraq has (thankfully) failed numerous times and since taking control of Congress, gas prices have risen more than $.50 a gallon. Is anyone allowed to say these things in...

REVIEW & OUTLOOK Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? May 14, 2008; Page A20 We can't wait to hear how Members of Congress explain their vote this week for the new $300 billion farm bill. At a time when Americans are squeezed at the grocery store, they will now see more of their taxes flow to the very farmers profiting from these high food prices. This year farm income is expected to reach an all-time high of $92.3 billion, an increase of 56% in two years, making growers perhaps the most undeserving welfare recipients in American history. But that won't...

One has to admire the Sisyphean tenacity of the Congress as it starts to roll another boulder up the mountain of public opposition to the federal encouragement of illegal immigration. The latest attempt, HR 5515, masquerading under the euphemistic label “New Employee Verification Act” (NEVA) is another unworthy successor to the recently demised “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act” and “Dream Act” in its insolent attempt to procure cheap labor and voting constituencies for the political ruling classes, Democrat and Republican alike. Pushed as replacement for the current E-Verify system (formerly Basic Pilot) by which employers can use the Internet to verify...

The starting point of any discussion of America's energy future has to be this: Shortsighted politicians have created the current energy crisis. For decades left-leaning politicians have advocated higher prices and less energy. They were going to save the environment by punishing Americans into driving less and driving smaller cars. Now their policies have succeeded with a vengeance. The very left wing politicians who favored a policy of no oil and gas exploration, no use of coal, no development of nuclear power, and no aggressive development of new technologies are now panic-stricken that their policies of higher prices have led...

Under current law, the power to govern public employees and unions is left to the states, including rules for collective bargaining, Right to Work protections, etc. In 23 states, workers have the right to work even if they do not wish to join a union, which is, of course, as it should be. That could all change, however, if the so-called, “Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act of 2007,” is enacted into law. The bill – which does anything but promote “employer-employee cooperation,” and actually would endanger “public safety” – has already passed the House of Representatives by an overwhelming 314-97...

Michigan Sen. Martha Scott filed petitions Monday to put her name on the Democratic primary ballot for U.S. representative in the 13th District. The person who currently holds that office is U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.) Scott has served as mayor of Highland Park, a state representative and now a state senator.

Should Congress be allowed via earmark to fund a lobbying organization which is promoting passage of another bill? The National Center for Public Policy Research doesn’t think so, and they have noted an extremely egregious example, where included in the 2005 transportation bill was a $1 million earmark slipped in by Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) for the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Foundation. That lobbying organization then turned around and lobbied, undoubtedly using that funding, for passage of the “Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008” to create the aptly titled, “Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area”, which runs from Gettysburg,...

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md) will testify tomorrow afternoon in an unprecedented hearing before the Select Committee investigating how the Democrats violated House rules to produce a fraudulent result on August 2, 2007. According to a “notice of hearing” obtained by HUMAN EVENTS, and as explained to us by House sources, Hoyer – along with Cong. Michael McNulty (D-NY) – will be the first members to testify in such a hearing in the history of the Congress. Members often testify in behalf of bills they introduce or in behalf of presidential nominees they favor (or against those they oppose)....

Sitting in Congress is a bill sponsored by 8th District Rep. Steve Kagen (D-Appleton) that would allow the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians to sell its fee lands without further approval from the federal government (see related story), but if you think you're entitled to any documents Kagen might have about the bill - including any correspondence between his office and the tribe - think again. The American people don't have the right to see any of it. That's because, as a sovereign nation, the tribe is not subject to federal or state open records statutes....

Texas families are attempting to cope with the latest spike in energy costs and record gasoline prices. The problem is acute everywhere, particularly in North Texas, where use of energy is not an option. People spend a lot of time driving – to work, school or the grocery store. The average family is now paying $1,400 per year more for gasoline than it did last year. Higher associated costs for food and electricity are adding to the burden. Rising prices are caused by several factors, including increased demand for energy in a fast-developing world. The situation has been aggravated by...

Congressmen are like myna birds. If you teach them a phrase, they will repeat it over and over, without the slightest idea what they're saying or what it means. Like “upside down.” Last week a congressman was boasting about a big mortgage bailout plan the Democrats flushed through the House of Representatives. It would put the taxpayers on the hook for the mortgages of people who weren't making their payments. Under the legislation, home lenders would sell their bum mortgages to the federal government at 90 percent of the value of the mortgaged property. That requires the lender to take...

Congress seems ready to spend billions on a new "Manhattan Project" for green energy, or at least the political class really, really likes talking about one. But maybe we should look at what our energy subsidy dollars are buying now. Some clarity comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), an independent federal agency that tried to quantify government spending on energy production in 2007. The agency reports that the total taxpayer bill was $16.6 billion in direct subsidies, tax breaks, loan guarantees and the like. That's double in real dollars from eight years earlier, as you'd expect given all...

Did NASA's James E. Hansen commit perjury when he testified before House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on March 19, 2007? Ferenc Miskolczi had previously informed NASA that the equations being used to predict catastrophic global warming were invalid. Yet Hansen told Congress that "greenhouse gases" posed a serious threat. "The predominance of positive feedbacks, along with the inertia of the oceans and ice sheets, has profound practical implications. It means that if we push the climate system hard enough it can obtain a momentum, it can pass tipping points, such that climate changes continue, out of our control....

Defying disgusted constituents and angry Republican leaders, disgraced Rep. Vito Fossella has told pals he plans to seek re-election. And, shockingly, the Staten Island pol is feeling "pretty good," he confided to friends. I got every indication that he plans to run again," said Guy Molinari, Fossella's political mentor, who's been in close contact with the embattled 43-year-old politician. Fossella is up for re-election in November. "He's not just inclined to run. He plans on running," said Molinari, a former congressman and Staten Island borough president who was succeeded by Fossella as the de facto leader of the borough's GOP.

TEHRAN (RIA Novosti) - The price of oil could reach $200 per barrel if current market conditions persist, Iran’s oil minister said on Thursday. “If the current conditions remain the same, a period when oil is supplied at $200 a barrel is not out of the question,” Gholamhossein Nozari told the IRNA news agency. He said the weak US dollar and supply concerns from Nigeria were the main reasons behind the surge in oil prices. On Wednesday, crude prices hit a record high of $123.53 a barrel. “The US dollar has weakened ... Another reason is related to problems in...

WASHINGTON, DC, May 2 -- US Senate Republicans responded May 1 to near record-high oil prices with a bill to authorize leasing within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and increase access to the Outer Continental Shelf. S. 2958, the American Energy Production Act, would produce as much as 24 billion bbl of oil from ANWR and the OCS, enough to supply domestic needs for 5 years, according to bill sponsor Pete V. Domenici (R-NM), who also is ranking minority member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee. Seventeen other Senate Republicans are cosponsors. "For years now, I have been...

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Pete Domenici, ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, today introduced legislation intended to dramatically increase domestic production of oil and natural gas in order to lower prices and make America less dependent on foreign sources of oil. The American Energy Production Act of 2008 (S.2958) was introduced today by Domenici and nineteen co-sponsors from across the country. By expanding production offshore and in Alaska, the legislation will produce up to 24 billion barrels of oil-enough to keep America running for five years with no foreign imports. In addition, billions more barrels of...

With the nation’s economic anxieties growing in direct proportion to oil prices, let’s not forget this fact: that the Left’s decades-long refusal to address domestic energy supply will cost Americans more than the soaring gas prices they are already paying. Who is to blame for increasing gas prices? Listening to the rhetoric on the Left, it’s the fault of George Bush, or, better yet, Dick Cheney, who must be making some money on the side. (Is it part of a Halliburton plot?) Moving rightward, a surprising number of conservatives seem to be buying into the notion that soaring oil prices...

"There's no way to repeal the laws of economics. Just like we had to work our way through the high-tech bubble, we're going to have to work our way through this. There have been a lot of housing speculators, and I worry that we might craft something that benefits people who were basically engaged in housing speculating." So says Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, sitting in his office just off the Senate floor. And while the Kentucky Republican and his GOP colleagues hold just 49 of the Senate's 100 seats, recent history suggests that a housing bailout is going nowhere...