Free Republic

Thursday, October 04, 2007 What is it about Rush Limbaugh? Whatever influence he has on conservatives, it's nothing next to his influence on liberals. The man behind the golden microphone makes them do the stupidest things. In fact, it's clear that Rush gets them to do the stupidest things without their even listening to his show. Consider the current "phony soldiers" story. Rush uttered these words last week and soon left-wing outfits, TV networks, lawmakers, presidential candidates and others make fools of themselves. Media Matters kicks things off by charging that Limbaugh has said that troops who oppose the Iraq...

Three senior House Democrats proposed an income tax surcharge Tuesday to finance the approximately $150 billion annual cost of operations in Iraq, saying it is unfair to pass the cost of the war on to future generations. The plan, unveiled by Reps. David Obey, D-Wis., John Murtha, D-Pa., and Jim McGovern, D-Mass., would require low- and middle-income taxpayers to add 2 percent to their tax bill. Wealthier people would add a 12 to 15 percent surcharge, Obey said. Top Democrats immediately shot down the idea and Republicans roasted Democrats for linking funding for U.S. troops overseas with tax increases. "Just...

The first thing the members of Congress did before they heard the testimony of General David Petraeus, the Administration's new political point man on the war, was to throw the members of Code Pink out of the room. The Code Pinkers are those obnoxious females wearing their eponymously colored T-shirts with end-the-killing slogans on them. The women of Code Pink are liable to pop up at any solemn public gathering demanding peace at the top of their voices. They are unable to understand that elected officials are better informed and wiser than they are and thus they mistakenly dis people...

Senator Barack Obama will propose on Tuesday setting a goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world, saying the United States should greatly reduce its stockpiles to lower the threat of nuclear terrorism, aides say. In a speech at DePaul University in Chicago, Mr. Obama will add his voice to a plan endorsed earlier this year by a bipartisan group of former government officials from the cold war era who say the United States must begin building a global consensus to reverse a reliance on nuclear weapons that have become “increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.” Mr. Obama, according to...

Sunday, September 30, 2007 It's hard to tell what's more depressing. Is it the fact that MoveOn.org puts a full-page ad in The New York Times essentially calling a distinguished U.S. general a traitor? Or is it the fact that Democrats like Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Earl Blumenauer cannot rise above the muck to condemn this vile attack on a uniformed officer? After all, it's one thing for a left-wing outfit like MoveOn.org to accuse Gen. David Petraeus of "cooking the books for the White House" in assessing the success of the surge in Iraq. It's one thing...

So Hillary Rodham Clinton had a pretty good week. But so did the Republicans. How can that be? Answer: As the junior senator from New York closes in on the Democratic nomination, Republican prospects for the general election are improving - because concern for national honor eclipses enthusiasm for national health insurance. As Clinton demonstrated during her pentathlon of Sunday talk shows, she is an effective Q-and-A advocate for her new health care plan. And that probably guarantees her the Democratic nomination. But Clinton is ahead of the Republican hopefuls, although not by much - just three points or so...

Despite the controversy that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York City has triggered, Senator Barack Obama still vows to meet with rogue leaders if he is elected, reports CBS News' Maria Gavrilovic. “Nothing has changed with respect to my belief that strong countries and strong presidents talk to their enemies and talk to their adversaries,� Obama told reporters at a press conference after receiving an endorsement from the New York City Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association. Obama said he would not have invited Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia University, but he believes in academic freedom. “They have the right to...

In light of Osama bin Ladsen's videotaped message to the West (Or was it a press release from DNC Chairman Howard Dean?), one might be given to muse that liberal abhorrence for the President's surveillance of incoming phone calls from known terrorists might ultimately stem from self-interest. Perhaps they simply do not want to be monitored as they share strategies and talking points with the al-Qaida leader. Furthermore, the DNC may decide to keep a copy of the bin Laden tape, which could come in handy during the 2008 campaign season. Just as aspiring politicians feel compelled to pander in...

WHY DEMOCRATS JUST ABSOLUTELY HATE BEING CALLED ..... I've always being one who likes to get under the skin of the collective left, and glorioski, have I found a way to rattle Democrats. You just refer to their wonderful party as the Democrat Party! Lordy, does this put a burr in their thongs. Well .. now I think I've found out why! A buddy of mine at CNN (who, for obvious reasons, shall remain unnamed) provided me with some interesting information. Joseph J. Ellis wrote a book called "Founding Brothers, The Revolutionary Generation." I ordered my copy this morning. One...

If there is a phrase more closely associated with both Hillary and Bill Clinton than "the politics of personal destruction," it does not come to mind. All the others -- "It's the economy, stupid," for instance -- belong to one or the other, but "the politics of personal destruction" is a phrase both Clintons have used repeatedly -- so much so, it seems, that for Hillary it has lost all meaning. When, for instance, Gen. David Petraeus was slimed as "General Betray Us," Hillary Clinton looked the other way. This was the politics of personal expediency. The swipe at Petraeus...

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DFU YOUTUBE SING-ALONG - THE DEMOCRAT SOUND OF TREASON Democrats In Congress to Troops: “Drop Dead” Update: Democrats Institute Treason As Official Party Policy March 23rd, 2007 Posted By Pat Dollard. By signaling to the enemy that we will run even if the job isn’t finished, how many more American troops did Congress sentence to death today, by encouraging the enemy to keep up the fight? Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the rest of the Democratic Congress, have voted to cut off funding for our troops in Iraq. They will claim that they did not, but only voted for...

In the clamor of Democrats assailing President Bush on Iraq, presidential candidate John Edwards has found a way to be heard after Bush addresses the nation Thursday night: He's buying time for a rebuttal. Edwards has bought two minutes of air time on MSNBC, scheduled to air after Bush's 15-minute televised speech from the White House at 9 p.m. EDT. Bush is expected to announce plans to reduce the American troop presence in Iraq by up to 30,000 by next summer, but say that he will condition those and further cuts on continued progress. "Unfortunately, the president is pressing on...

On the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Americans were treated to two starkly contrasting images that speak centuries of difference between the U.S. and its enemies. In Frame One, we see Gen. David H. Petraeus testifying before Congress on the status of the war in Iraq. In Frame Two is Osama bin Laden in a new video -- resplendent in white robes, his beard recently rinsed dark to conceal the gray -- promising that Islam will subjugate the West. One an image of courage, integrity and honor; the other a caricature of manhood. Then there is a third frame....

DAVID Petraeus is a highly decorated four-star general. He has been designated by the commander-in- chief to lead the young men and women who comprise the great U.S. force of 160,000 soldiers and Marines serving on the battlefields of Iraq, at great danger to themselves and to the officers who lead them. Most soldiers, in pointing out their military honors, will cite the Combat Infantry Badge - which the general wears, as he does those medals awarded to him for personal bravery in combat. Gen. Petraeus has sworn, as do all our military officers, to defend the Constitution of the...

The backlash over MoveOn.org's vile advertisement this week attacking Gen. David Petraeus has the jackals of the left sniffing around for a way out. The brainiacs at MoveOn.org probably giggled like school boys with forbidden magazines when they paid the reduced price for the New York Times' advertisement that had bold letters under a picture of Petraeus spelling out, "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" It should be no surprise that the Times published the anti-American ad. Executive Editor Bill Keller has allowed reporters to publish national security secrets repeatedly in his rag when we are engaged in a hot...

Friday, September 14, 2007 WASHINGTON -- Any objective observer who watched or read this weeks House and Senate testimony of Gen. David Petraeus received an informative assessment of the battlefield situation in Mesopotamia. Our top military commander in Iraq proffered a cool, level-headed report on successes and failures to date, gave a survey of the challenges ahead and provided rational recommendations for the future. By contrast, Americas Democrats gave the world a revealing look at the depths they are willing to plumb in their insatiable quest for raw political power. In what transpired before and during these hearings, Democrats made...

Thursday, September 13, 2007 It was painful watching U.S. Rep. Brian Baird defend himself against disgruntled supporters at an Aug. 27 town hall meeting. I caught the spectacle - which came just short of a public flogging - on television. The crowd gathered at Fort Vancouver High School didn't want so much to hear why the charismatic Democrat is supporting continued troop strength in Iraq, but to tell him he is wrong. Unelectable wrong. Dead-in-the-political-waters wrong. Go-find-new-sign-wavers wrong. And Baird, though trying to be gracious, clearly got a bit peeved. I don't blame him. Most questions from the audience started...

This week, Gen. David Petraeus met Gen. Benedict Arnold in the pages of The New York Times. The introduction was made by MoveOn.org, which – in a full-page ad – rechristened the top American commander in Iraq as “General Betray Us.” This oh-so-clever play on Petraeus’ name was meant to discredit his long-anticipated report to Congress on the Iraq war. In an extraordinary display of prescience, MoveOn and some other Democratic opponents of the Iraq war were attacking the general’s testimony before he’d so much as uttered a word of it. Let’s talk about the word “betray.” According to the...

Thursday, September 13, 2007 Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker spent Monday and Tuesday briefing Congress on developments in Iraq since the start of the surge. The hearings took place over two long days before four congressional committees. Members had the chance to ask questions, real and rhetorical, and to instruct Petraeus and Crocker on how things are going. Lots of questions and non-questions. Lots of answers -- often to the same questions asked over and over. Because most Americans have actual lives and cannot spend their days taking in multiple hearings -- or don't have the stomach to...

Democrats claim Gen. David Petraeus' report to Congress on the surge was a put-up job with a pre-ordained conclusion. As if their response wasn't. Democrats yearn for America to be defeated on the battlefield and oppose any use of the military -- except when they can find individual malcontents in the military willing to denounce the war and call for a humiliating retreat. It's been the same naysaying from these people since before we even invaded Iraq -- despite the fact that their representatives in Congress voted in favor of that war. Mark Bowden, author of "Black Hawk Down," warned...

Democrats claim Gen. David Petraeus' report to Congress on the surge was a put-up job with a pre-ordained conclusion. As if their response wasn't. Democrats yearn for America to be defeated on the battlefield and oppose any use of the military – except when they can find individual malcontents in the military willing to denounce the war and call for a humiliating retreat. It's been the same naysaying from these people since before we even invaded Iraq – despite the fact that their representatives in Congress voted in favor of that war. Mark Bowden, author of "Black Hawk Down," warned...

In November 2006, Republicans were voted out of power in the Congress and Democrats installed to bring an end to U.S. involvement in the war in Iraq. The war had been going on as long as America's war on Nazi Germany. No end was in sight. U.S. casualties and costs were rising. Bush's approval rating had sunk to record lows. The day after the GOP rout, Bush cashiered his war minister, Donald Rumsfeld. In December, the Iraq Study Group, chaired by Bush I Secretary of State James Baker, released its report. "The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. ......

Some Democrats have decided to try to transform the military draft into what the Social Security issue was 25 years ago. Time and time again since the late 1970s, Democratic candidates and campaign committees sought to win the votes of seniors by raising questions about whether Republicans would dismantle Social Security if they ever won control of Congress. The Democrats’ scare tactics on Social Security were not without basis. Republicans opposed the creation of Social Security, and for more than a decade, many conservative GOP candidates and high-profile officeholders, including former Rep. Newt Gingrich (Ga.), bashed the system and berated...

The biggest news yesterday came before General David Petraeus or Ambassador Ryan Crocker uttered a single word in the hearings on progress in Iraq.And it came in the form of a newspaper ad, paid for by MoveOn.org. The ad, which accused Petraeus of "cooking the books for the White House", was roundly condemned by Republicans who time and again in the hearings held up the ad in the New York Times and called on Democrats to condemn it. The statement from RNC spokesman Mike Duncan was typical of the rhetoric: "Will Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the rest of the...

The Democratic National Convention is a year away, but it’s not too early to start auditions for the coveted role of keynote speaker. At this point, Osama bin Laden is making an impressive case. DNC keynoters are expected to do certain things. Obviously, the most important of these is to blame President Bush for all the evils in the world. You also need to attack corporations, declare America to be failing on every front possible and – this is key – feign support for “the troops” while doing everything possible to oppose their mission.

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

Hillary Clinton has been in politics long enough to know the value of the word "change." In 1992, her husband's political guru, James Carville, hung a white sign in the Clinton campaign war room that read CHANGE VS. MORE OF THE SAME. Bill Clinton won the presidency that year with 370 electoral votes. Over the course of the summer, she watched her rivals for the Democratic nomination try again and again to define themselves as change and Clinton as the status quo. ("We're more interested in looking forward, not backward," Barack Obama told reporters. "And the American people feel the...

Former vice president Al Gore's pronouncement that he is likely to endorse one of the Democratic candidates for president before the primary season is over has set off a slew of speculation about who his choice might be. Truth is, the courting of the "Goreacle" began many months ago. Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Gore huddled in Nashville in December, and Gore has also met with former senator John Edwards (N.C.). Gore and Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) conferred as recently as last week. Not surprisingly, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) has not met with Gore. Neither has Sen. Joseph...

WASHINGTON - President Bush's war strategy is failing and the top military commander in Iraq is "dead flat wrong" for warning against major changes, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Sunday. Ahead of two days of crucial testimony by Bush's leading military and political advisers on Iraq, Sen. Joseph Biden indicated that he and other Democrats would persist in efforts to set target dates for bringing troops home. "The reality is that although there's been some mild security progress, there is in fact no security in Baghdad or Anbar province where I was dealing with the...

Friday, September 7, 2007 WASHINGTON -- The commander in chief's surprise Labor Day visit to Iraq has buoyed our troops, reassured an anxious ally and confounded America's adversaries in radical Islam. Whether the president's on-site evaluation will change the political dynamic in Washington or alter the behavior of Iraq's neighbors remains to be seen. For several months now, this column has urged President Bush to put Iraq on his travel itinerary. This week's six-hour visit to the front -- his third since U.S. troops entered Mesopotamia in March 2003 -- is particularly important to the upcoming congressional debate on the...

Thompson's Bold Vision As Fred Thompson proclaimed his presidential candidacy on NBC's "Tonight Show," the most telling moment came when he sparked wild cheering as he spoke this truth: America has laid down more of its blood and treasure in the cause of freedom than all other countries combined. Bingo. If Thompson's advisors don't know what his campaign theme should be, they know it now. It is, indeed, a grand and visionary statement that leaves all opponents of both parties quibbling in the dust over the details of public policy and personal qualifications. Naturally, Thompson will be accused of trying...

IRAQ -- (Senate - September 05, 2007) [Page: S11090] Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the situation in Iraq and the continuing efforts of this administration to paint a rosy picture and to cling to straws when the situation on the ground and common sense suggest just the opposite. Some have argued that the surge in Iraq is working, but all you have to do is look at the facts to know that is not the case. The President went to Anbar Province, which at the moment he is touting as a place of success, but we...

Even though the year is far from over and is likely to have its fair share of hypocrisy, Mrs. Clinton’s comment on the need to compromise to achieve political and social progress has to outclass any other current or future entrant for the Hypocrite of the Year award. This woman, who refused to change a comma or a word of her thousand-page-plus healthcare reform bill and, as a result of her intractable stubbornness, sent the bill down to defeat along with the Democratic Congress and almost her husband’s presidency, is daring to show herself now as the apostle of compromise....

Chuck Schumer, senior Senator from New York and self-described member of the Democratic leadership team in the Senate, really knows how to make friends and influence people. This morning, in a speech on the Senate floor, he explicitly told the U. S. Marines in Anbar province that they've failed and are a part of the problem, not part of the solution. Let me be clear. The violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge. The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from al-Qaeda said to these tribes, "We have to fight al-Qaeda...

Yesterday, I read Bob Novak's column titled "Republican Melancholy," which correctly caught the current depressed mood in GOP circles. President Bush's position on illegal immigration has deeply alienated much of the loyal rank and file Republicans across the country. Key Republican incumbents, such as Sen. John Warner of Virginia and Rep. Debbie Price of Ohio, are announcing their retirements. Sen. Larry Craig's cringe-inducing disgrace only adds to the funereal mood. And, of course, the Iraq War, for all the surge's success this summer, remains vastly unpopular with the public. To top off this GOP discontent, none of our presidential candidates...

September 04, 2007 Flying into Baghdad in a military Black Hawk helicopter last month, Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nev.) reached for his camera to snap photos of signs that American policy was working in Iraq. “I can see it in the streets. People were playing soccer. Cars were in the streets,” Porter said. “It seemed to me the surge is working.” But on a similar flight a few days earlier, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) strapped on body armor and came away with a very different impression. “Anywhere we went, we had to get on a Black Hawk helicopter with machine guns...

DAMASCUS, Syria, Sept. 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In a meeting today with Dennis Kucinich, US Democratic Presidential candidate, Syrian President Bashar Assad said that Syria would be willing to participate in a multinational conference and peacekeeping force to help Iraq to manage its transition from occupied country to sovereign nation. Assad made these assurances and other observations in a two-hour meeting with Kucinich, who traveled to Syria to discuss a peace initiative which has arisen out of his anti-war work in the House of Representatives. President Assad agreed with Kucinich that various US demands for the privatization of Iraq's oil and...

Well, you'd get the Senate Majority leader trolling for a few RINO votes in order to pass something which he can at least try to sell as an anti-war measure: Saying the coming weeks will be "one of the last opportunities" to alter the course of the war, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said he is now willing to compromise with Republicans to find ways to limit troop deployments in Iraq. Reid acknowledged that his previous firm demand for a spring withdrawal deadline had become an obstacle for a small but growing number of Republicans who have...

Fifteen months before the 2008 election, the Democrats are odds-on favorites to put one of their own into the White House. A solid majority of the country rejects the Bush administration and the war in Iraq he initiated. But psychologist Drew Westen says Democrats could lose yet again if they don't learn how to stand up for themselves and connect with voters emotionally. Westen is a clinical, personality and political psychologist and a professor in the departments of psychology and psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University in Atlanta. He's also a political consultant whose bestselling book, "The Political Brain:...

Brian Baird’s statements that the surge is actually working has drawn the wrath of the Netroots. What’s striking is that it doesn’t say that Baird lied about the improving conditions on the ground. Please call Rep. Baird and thank him for his integrity and help prevent him from caving into the moonbats.

Immediately following September 11, many liberals reflexively and preemptively accused those on the right of questioning their patriotism, before anyone had even had a chance to do so. For a honeymoon period of about six months, as President Bush’s poll numbers skyrocketed in response to his successful handling of the aftermath of the attacks, most liberals held their tongues. As those poll numbers eroded as a result of difficult and sometimes unpopular decisions on Afghanistan and particularly Iraq, opponents of the President became more vocal in their criticism.  When public opinion turned against the President and the mission in Iraq,...

In the cesspool that Washington has become, truth and clarity still manage to bubble to the surface on occasion. As Senator Hillary Clinton intensifies and refines her spin, deception, and self-aggrandizement, she inadvertently slipped up in a big way and revealed a truth that will doom her campaign and her party’s chances to reclaim the White House in 2008. Last week, while campaigning in New Hampshire, Senator Clinton said, “It’s a horrible prospect to ask yourself, ‘What if? What if?’ But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean issued the following statement after Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid signed a bill that implements the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission and makes our country safer and more secure: "Democrats have again kept their promise to the American people and showed why Americans trust them to keep the country safe," Dean said. "Even with Republicans blocking them every step of the way, Democrats implemented the recommendations of the bipartisan 9-11 Commission. President Bush and his Republican allies wasted years playing politics with our security. Republicans ignored these recommendations,...

Elizabeth Edwards Responds to Attack Over Parenting Skills August 28, 2007 7:36 PM ABC News Sunlen Miller Reports: Elizabeth Edwards is taking some heat about her parenting skills from the mom-friendly website "Silicon Valley Moms Blog." Blogger "Rebecca" wrote a fiery tirade on the site Monday morning attacking Mrs. Edwards choice to bring her two small children, Jack and Emma Claire, on the campaign trail with her while her husband, John Edwards runs for president. "…. you are being a terrible mother, forcing your young children, who should be in SCHOOL, to ride in buses and talk to the press...

WASHINGTON (Map) - Former Washington lobbyist and candidate for the GOP Presidential nomination Fred Thompson hasn't let accusations that he's violating Federal Elections Commission (FEC) law by running a shadow campaign slow him down. Thompson will be in the Twin Cities today to raise money for his "testing the waters" campaign while experts continue to assert that Thompson is using a loophole in the law to avoid the scrutiny that comes with becoming an official candidate for the GOP nomination. For someone who is only "testing the waters," Thompson's campaign team has seen a lot of upheaval. Today his communications...

The Internet is helping so-called "Hillary Haters" prepare for battle should Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton become the Democratic presidential nominee. A vast army of the self-proclaimed "haters" is repackaging old news and rumors for use on the blog-loaded Internet, the Chicago Tribune reported. Among them is Richard Collins, a wealthy Texas philanthropist, businessman and political aficionado who openly aims to destroy the presidential ambitions of the New York senator. Collins, 60, is behind StopHerNow.com, a snide Web site with a cartoon called "The Hillary Show," a satire portraying Clinton as a mean and unforgiving talk show host, the Tribune reported....

A top adviser for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said Friday that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), the front-runner for her party’s presidential nomination, is obsessed “with what she calls the Republican attack machine.” “I think we need a candidate who is obsessed with unifying this country again,” said Obama adviser David Axelrod. He added that Obama could break “the sort of decades-long battle we’ve had over this jagged divide — red state, blue state, American against American — and try to bring people together and attract disaffected Republicans and attract independent voters so that we could build not just a...

American victory in the Cold War looks inevitable in hindsight. It didn't seem that way in the Seventies. And, as Iran reminds us, the enduring legacy of the retreat from Vietnam was the emboldening of other enemies. The forces loosed in the Middle East bedevil to this day, in Iran, and in Lebanon, which Syria invaded shortly after the fall of Saigon and after its dictator had sneeringly told Henry Kissinger, "You've betrayed Vietnam. Someday you're going to sell out Taiwan. And we're going to be around when you get tired of Israel." President Assad understood something that too many...

Democrat contender Sen. Barack Obama singles out former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as his favorite presidential candidate among the current GOP hopefuls. "Is there a Republican in the field you admire, who you think might do a nice job?" Comedy Central host Jon Stewart asked Obama during his Wednesday night appearance on the program. "I think some of these folks are decent people," Obama said. "I mean Mike Huckabee..." Stewart then remarked, "Worst backhanded compliment ever!" - a remark that drew laughs. "No, no, no," Obama insisted. "I think there are guys like Huckabee who I think are sincere and...