Free Republic

Mike Pence spoke at AEI yesterday in defense of his Medicaid expansion in Indiana. His position has been roundly denounced by most conservative and libertarian policy analysts – for a rare defense, read Grace-Marie Turner here, but even her praise is qualified the deeper you go. Most of the critiques of Pence have focused on the politics of the issue assuming the waiver moves forward, but after seeing his presentation yesterday and talking to him at a session following the event, I have my doubts that this waiver will even go through. The request comes following a year of...

If you've just crash-landed from the planet known as Kepler-186f and have no experience with the human life form or its recent history, let me just clarify something for you: George W. Bush was a divisive and unsuccessful president. Economically, internationally, culturally — you name the category of leadership, and the results pretty much range from disappointment to disaster. A CBS News/New York Times poll clocked Bush's final approval rating at 22 percent, which is about as low as you can go in politics without needing a parole officer. You may get confused about this, because lately Bush is enjoying...

On Meet the Press Sunday morning, host David Gregory challenged former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to defend his and former President George W Bush’s decision to switch focus from the war in Afghanistan to the one in Iraq, asking if that simultaneously diverted resources from fighting the Taliban while radicalizing terrorist groups in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. “Isn’t the legacy of your leadership and that of President Bush in part responsible for the reality today?” Gregory asked. “Did the west fail to deal with the extremism you talk about today appropriately in Afghanistan in a...

Republicans must stop putting moneyed interests ahead of the American family.Now taking his third shot at the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate from New Jersey, Jeffrey Bell has spent his career warning of the risks of kicking the cultural leg out from under Ronald Reagan’s coalition of defense, economic, and social conservatives. Indeed, his 2012 magnum opus, The Case for Polarized Politics, argues that social conservatism, rooted in the moderate Enlightenment that informed the Founders, is indispensable to American exceptionalism and to any Republican resurgence in our time. But the political theorist overstates the ability of even the most...

The greatest work of art George W. Bush ever took part in was in 2008, when an Iraqi journalist threw two shoes at his head. “This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog,” screamed the journalist, Muntadhar al-Zaidi, who had been arrested twice by U.S. forces during the occupation.Bush dodged the shoes with the same ease with which he’d had dodged consequences all his life; those for drunk driving, for ruined companies, stolen elections, war crimes, the destruction of Zaidi’s country.After he dodged the shoes, Bush joked about free countries. Meanwhile, guards beat Zaidi bloody. Police tortured him...

AUSTIN, Tex. — Former President George W. Bush called the achievement gap between white and black children “a national scandal” on Thursday and urged both parties to come together to address it as the central civil rights issue of the modern era. Paying tribute to President Lyndon B. Johnson at a conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, Mr. Bush said the real test of the nation’s commitment to equality would be to fix an educational system that has tolerated low standards for too long. “There’s a growing temptation among public officials in both political parties at...

Excerpted from "Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Culture" One of the odder phenomena of the last decade is hearing national security elites, terrorism experts, and career diplomats discuss the finer points of “flow,” “bling,” and the “politics of cool.” American and European terrorism experts have increasingly expressed concerns over “anti-American hip-hop,” accenting the radicalizing influence of the genre. Noting that Al-Shabaab, the Somali-based Islamist group, uses “jihad rap” in its recruitment videos, Harvard scholar Jessica Stern wrote in Foreign Affairs: “The first- and second-generation Muslim children I interviewed for a study of the sources of radicalization in...

I'll admit it, I was very frustrated and felt done with Bush by the time he left office. In the years that have passed I've come to understand he did the best he could (and a HELL of a lot better than the job I would've done).Above all, quotes like the one below show that he was trying to serve the country, which is in contrast to Obama, who acts like the country serves him...

Apparently they're trying!

President Bush is front and center in the news this week, a position he hasn’t frequently occupied since leaving office five years ago, stepping back into the spotlight to shine a spotlight of his own on post-9/11 veterans and his fight to take the “Disorder” out of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. “We’re getting rid of the D,” he said. “PTS is an injury; it’s not a disorder. The problem is when you call it a disorder, [veterans] don’t think they can be treated. “An employer says, ‘I don’t want to hire somebody with a disorder.’ And so our mission tomorrow is...

"Laura and I want to remind our troops and veterans that we admire and respect them a lot...[it] is a great way to remind all our fellow citizens of the unbelievable courage, skill, and sacrifice of those who wear the uniform of the United States." - President George W. Bush

The Talk Shows February 23rd, 2014 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H.; Govs. Scott Walker, R-Wis., and Peter Shumlin, D-Vt.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): National Security Adviser Susan Rice.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Govs. Bobby Jindal, R-La., and Martin O'Malley, D-Md.THIS WEEK (ABC): Former President George W. Bush.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Govs. Rick Perry, R-Texas, Mike Pence, R-Ind., Dannel Malloy, D-Conn., Jay Nixon D-Mo.

When asked about the poor economic conditions in America ahead of the President’s State of the Union speech, Senior White House Advisor, Dan Pfeiffer, petulantly passed the buck to George W. Bush. The comedic excuse is as pathetic as it is baseless. But don’t let that stop the White House from trying to cast blame for today’s economic failures on an economic crises that came to life in the closing days of their predecessor’s administration. On Fox News Sunday, Pfeiffer explained to Anchor Chris Wallace that the reason for America’s weak economic “recovery” was because of the damage done...

Two years after Obama declared that the administration has decimated Al Qaeda worldwide, Al Qaeda has delivered the most devastating blow to the United States since the 9/11 attacks that precipitated America’s war on Islamic terrorism. The fall of the Iraqi Anbar province towns of Ramadi and Fallujah recently to foreign fighters under control of Al Qaeda, called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, represents not just a tactical defeat in Obama’s “Smart Power” strategy, but a strategic surrender of the entire U.S. foreign policy conception for the last 50 years. “US policies and leaders in three...

This Christmas, for $29.98, you can trim your tree with some of former President George W. Bush’s artwork. The George W. Bush Presidential Center is selling an ornament that features 43’s own painting of a cardinal perched on a branch. Bush painted the bird as a gift for former Ambassador Warren Tichenor, and his wife decided it looked Christmas-y...

George W. Bush was on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno last night. While I was certainly one of the many who felt Bush fatigue by the end of 2008 it's not hard to admit I miss having him around knowing the amateur hour that followed him...

Full Title: 'There's a Rembrandt trapped in this body': George W. Bush presents Jay Leno with the comic's life-like portrait while appearing on The Tonight Show to talk about his life after presidency Former President George W. Bush returned to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno Tuesday night to talk about his life away from the spotlight and bid farewell to his favorite late-night host. Looking trim in a grey suit and red polka-dot die, a beaming Mr Bush, 67, told Mr Leno, who is being replaced by Jimmy Fallon in February, that he wanted to see him before he...

At the last update, I think we were somewhere in “earlyish 2014″ territory (who can even keep up?) for the time frame in which the northern extension of the Keystone pipeline will be either approved or denied by President Obama, but by determinedly delaying on what should have/could have been a simple and bygone decision of his first term, the issue is now a ticking time bomb of highly publicized, faux-environmentalist outrageous outrage. I suppose that the dollars the president has been fundraising from well-monied, self-fancied “green” Democratic donors may have made the delay, delay, delay tactic worth it in...

Former President George W. Bush — who has largely shunned media appearances in favor of a bit of post-presidency privacy — is poised to appear as a guest next week on “The Tonight Show.” The ex-commander-in-chief will sit down with host Jay Leno on Nov. 19. ADVERTISEMENT The last time Bush was a guest on the NBC show was back in 2010 during a book tour. Bush spokesman Freddy Ford told the cable network the 43rd president wanted to swing by the “Tonight Show” set before Leno gives up the host chair next year, saying, “President Bush is going to...