Free Republic

Just saw Kerri Walsh pause the interview after winning the gold to thank W for his inspiration, Class.

There was a familiar quip Hillary Clinton used on campaign stops this year. It usually involved some snide reference to how America's image supposedly has been damaged during the Bush years, punctuated by a line that always drew hoots of approval from audiences that shared her loathing of the president: "The whole world is going to breathe a sigh of relief," she would proclaim, "when that moving van pulls up to the White House on its way back to Texas."

...In an informal survey of 109 professional historians conducted over a three-week period through the History News Network, 98.2 percent assessed the presidency of Mr. Bush to be a failure while 1.8 percent classified it as a success. Asked to rank the presidency of George W. Bush in comparison to those of the other 41 American presidents, more than 61 percent of the historians concluded that the current presidency is the worst in the nation's history. Another 35 percent of the historians surveyed rated the Bush presidency in the 31st to 41st category, while only four of the 109 respondents...

I want to open today's speech with a story that begins on a sunny morning, when thousands of Americans were murdered in a surprise attack -- and our nation was propelled into a conflict that would take us to every corner of the globe. The enemy who attacked us despises freedom, and harbors resentment at the slights he believes America and Western nations have inflicted on his people. He fights to establish his rule over an entire region. And over time, he turns to a strategy of suicide attacks destined to create so much carnage that the American people will...

Following are highlights of President Bush's speech Wednesday at the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention in Kansas City, Mo.Thank you all for letting me come by. I want to open today's speech with a story that begins on a sunny morning, when thousands of Americans were murdered in a surprise attack — and our nation was propelled into a conflict that would take us to every corner of the globe. The enemy who attacked us despises freedom, and harbors resentment at the slights he believes America and Western nations have inflicted on his people. He fights to establish his...

Bush Pledges to Veto Homosexual Hate-Crimes Legislation By Elizabeth O'Brien WASHINGTON, D.C., August 8, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As the contentious "hate crime" legislation that would add sexual orientation as a specially protected class is put before the Senate, after being passed in the House of Representatives, Bush has promised to veto the proposed bill should the Senate vote in its favor, the Washington Times reports Democratic Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy and Republican Oregan Senator Gordon Smith reintroduced the "hate crime" bill, also known as the "Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act" into the Senate this July, buried as one of many amendments to the...

Anti-life "HillaryCare" Socialized Med Scheme Back as House Passes CHAMP Bill; Senate Follows Suit Today Cuts funding for abstinence, covers abortifacient drugs, leaves Seniors with less options By Peter J. Smith WASHINGTON, D.C., August 2, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The advent of socialized health care and massive taxpayer abortion subsidies may take the United States by stealth, unless the new health care bill proposed by Democrats Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Rep. John Dingle (D-MI) is vetoed by President Bush. Today the US House of Representatives voted 225-204 for a massive expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), a...

March 27, 2007 Op-Ed Contributor Prosecution Complex By NEAL KATYAL WashingtonIN 1999, when the Independent Counsel Act (the law that gave Kenneth Starr and Lawrence Walsh their mandates) was expiring, I was given the job of writing the new Justice Department rules for the appointment of a special prosecutor since the department would once again be responsible for overseeing such investigations. There was one hypothetical to worry about once the Independent Counsel Act lapsed: a case in which the attorney general herself and her deputy were suspected of possible misconduct. The rules were therefore written to vest the decision...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrats who are moving ahead with anti-war legislation are using troops as leverage to win domestic political battles, President Bush said Saturday. Democrats pledged to keep pushing until there is a change of course in Iraq. Bush said some lawmakers see a chance "to micromanage our military commanders, force a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq and spend billions on domestic projects that have nothing to do with the war on terror." In his weekly radio address, the president said, "Many in Congress say they support the troops, and I believe them. Now they have a chance to show...

Jordan has charged three terrorists with plotting to carry out attacks, including an assassination of American President George W. Bush. Prosecutors said the terrorists also planned to strike American Danish embassies in Amman but apparently were not aware that Denmark has no offices in Jordan. The arrests were revealed Wednesday, three months after the terrorists were arrested the day before President Bush arrived in Amman for talks with King Abdullah.

I have this picture, on my wall, of a Bald Eagle whith an American flag, Not a Bush bot but he is the best thing this country has had in a while.

Tears rolled down US President George Bush's cheeks as he posthumously honoured a US marine hero, just 24 hours after ordering the controversial deployment of an extra 21,500 troops to Iraq. The unusual display of emotion by the commander-in-chief came during a ceremony for Corporal Jason Dunham at the White House. Corporal Dunham, 22, died from injuries after he jumped on a grenade and saved fellow members of his patrol in Iraq. Mr Bush presented his parents with the prestigious Medal of Honour, America's highest military award. Corporal Dunham saved at least two lives during a struggle with an insurgent...

Thank you GW for your courage and resolve. If not for you, Saddam would still be in power and alive. You are the one person that made this posible! Thank you!

WASHINGTON - Bearing down on a plan for peace, the bipartisan panel studying the war in Iraq faces rising expectations, with the public restless for change and political leaders eager for some help. The Iraq Study Group will meet with President Bush and other White House officials Monday, a pivotal day of talks as the panel nears the end of its review. The group plans to announce its recommendations to Bush and Congress by the end of the year. Even before it is finished, the report is seen by many in Washington as having huge stakes. It could give both...

Report is far from damning of President's insistence on maintaining the course in Iraq TRUTH, like beauty, is apparently to be in the eye of the beholder. That's the only conclusion you can draw from the reaction to the US National Intelligence Estimate entitled Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the US, with a declassified summary of its conclusions released by President George W. Bush after parts were leaked to The New York Times.

I used to be a liberal. I was in one of the first “open” classrooms growing up in very progressive Great Neck, New York, in the 1960s. In 1971, when I was 11, I wrote vitriolic letters to President Nixon demanding an end to the Vietnam War. My first vote, in 1980, was for Independent John Anderson, followed by Mondale, Dukakis, and Clinton-Gore. I read Thomas Friedman in the NY Times and tried to “understand” the “root causes” of the “despair” he said the Palestinians felt that drove them to blow up innocent Israelis.I wasn’t an overtly political person –...

For the White House, the Congressional picnic last week seemed like the perfect setting to mend strained relations with Republican allies on Capitol Hill: President Bush and his advisers eating taquitos and Mexican confetti rice on the lawn of the White House with Republican Congressional leaders. But moments before Mr. Bush was to welcome his guests, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert told the president that House Republicans were effectively sidelining — and in the view of some Congressional aides probably killing — what had become Mr. Bush's signature domestic initiative of the year: an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws. That...

Washington, DC: President Bush made clear today that he thinks guest workers should be able to become American citizens. He stated, "I believe that we ought to say to somebody doing a job an American won't do, 'here is a tamper-proof identity card that will enable you to be here for a period of time. And if that person wants to become a citizen of the United States, because we're a nation of laws, they get at the end of the line, not the beginning of the line." Senator Kennedy issued the following statement in response: "I commend President Bush...

LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland -- The United States must rebuild the power of the United Nations and help "end the empire of oil" if it wants to win the "war on terror," U.S. Sen. John Kerry said Sunday. The Massachusetts Democrat avoided explicit criticisms of the Bush administration during a wide-ranging speech on the global dynamics of terror. But he said Bush's policy of imposing democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan risked looking like a crusade. "If it is seen as the result of an army marching through Muslim lands, it will fail," Kerry told an audience at the University of Ulster...

CHRIS MATTHEWS: 'BUSH BELONGS ON MOUNT RUSHMORE'IF HE WINS 'GREATEST GAMBLE SINCE ROOSEVELT BACKED BRITAIN BEFORE WWII' (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE) WHY DID BILL CLINTON IGNORE TERRORISM?Was it simply the constraints of his liberal mindset, or was it something even more threatening to our national security?by Mia T, 8.18.05 (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE) thanx to jla and Wolverine for the audio "Mr. bin Laden used to live in Sudan. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in '91 and he went to the Sudan. We'd been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Monday he was appalled by the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, acknowledging his own responsibility. "I was appalled that a nation as wealthy as ours was not able to respond as effectively as we should have and took blame for it," Bush said. "I mean, to the extent that the federal government was ineffective, I'm responsible. And I understand that. And now the question is how do we learn lessons from the response." Speaking in an interview with NBC Nightly News, Bush urged patience amid criticism that the reconstruction has slowed....

White House stung by criticism of its stance on Kyoto agreement Montreal: The White House was forced into a U-turn on climate change on Saturday after appearing to misjudge critically the international and domestic mood on its efforts to tackle global warming. After American delegates walked out of the United Nations climate change conference in Montreal over the wording of a draft statement calling for international co-operation on the issue, they signed a revised version after making only "trivial" changes. One senior British official said the U.S. negotiators shifted their position on the joint statement because the Bush administration was...

A tipster informs me that this is indeed the same Ben Barnes who appeared on the infamous September 8, 2004 60 Minutes II broadcast that also introduced the since discredited Killian memos to the American public. From Sunday's Lynn Sweet column in the Chicago Sun-Times: On Dec. 12, Blagojevich discusses the program in an event at the National Press Club hosted by Families USA. Blagojevich timed it to coincide with Democrat Governor Association meetings taking place at the same time. Later in the day, key Blagojevich kitchen Cabinet member John Wyma, a state and federal lobbyist, and his business partner,...

First, it was seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong. On Sunday, hopefuls for China's Olympic mountain biking team got a chance to go pedal to pedal against President Bush in his sport of choice. "Good day for a bike ride," Bush said as he walked toward the six Chinese bikers — three female and three male — at the Laoshan Olympic Mountain Bike Course. Beijing will host the 2008 Summer Olympics. "How do you say, `Take it easy on the old man?'" After posing for pictures, Bush was given a tan, zip-up sweater with a leather "Beijing 2008" logo....

Bush personifies all that pseudo intellectuals detest President George W. Bush is reviled by the Lib-Left media and its adherents and the pseudo-intellectual set in much the same way as President Ronald Reagan was reviled by the Lib-Left media and the pseudo-intellectual set. As we now know, Reagan was actually smarter than all of his detractors, and it may well be Bush will turn out that way, too. The likes of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul ignored the hyenas and the catcalls of the Liberal-Left and backed Reagan to the hilt and thereby brought down one...

IT HAS NOW BEEN TWO WEEKS since George W. Bush touched off a conservative civil war by nominating his White House counsel, Harriet Miers, to the Supreme Court. Miers, who has worked with Bush for over a decade, received the appointment based, we're assured, on the confidence the president has in his attorney. Part of the reaction to Miers's nomination comes from bewilderment as to why Bush selected Miers ahead of a talented field of well-known and well-respected conservative jurists, legal scholars, and practitioners. While backers of the Miers nomination point to her work as managing partner of a prominent...

Miers to withdraw -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: October 13, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Harriet Miers is never going to be grilled by the Senate Judiciary Committee. She is going to withdraw her name from consideration before such hearings ever begin. You can take that to the bank. Why? Because, even though Democrats in the Senate seem more pleased with the choice of Miers than do Republicans, the questions that must be asked of the nominee for Sandra Day O'Connor's Supreme Court seat would be among the most embarrassing ever raised about her boss, President Bush. Most of the attention...

Washington is suddenly hung up on cronyism. According to a quick Lexis-Nexis search, roughly 1,000 stories have mentioned "cronyism" and "Bush" in the last two months alone. It was Michael Brown's putatively dismal performance at FEMA that got the anti-crony buzz going and Bush's selection of Harriet Miers that sent it into the stratosphere. But President Bush has been setting the tinder for quite some time by so successfully keeping a tight inner circle of loyalists in the White House. When he was reelected, Bush made the strategically wise decision of dispatching these loyalists to run important Cabinet agencies, in...

Friends, Americans, bloggers, lend me your earsI come to bury Miers, not to confirm her.The evil that Justices do lives after them;The good is oft preserved by rejecting their nominations;So let it be with Miers. The noble Bush hath told you Harriet is conservative;If it be so, 'tis a glorious qualification,And gloriously may Miers answer it in her hearings.Here, under leave of Bush and the rest,--For Bush is an honorable man;So are they all, all honorable men,--Come I to speak before Miers' hearings. She was an unknown, undistinguished and of no importance to me:But Bush says she is conservative;And Bush...

Bill Clinton is building on Jimmy Carter's example and creating a new paradigm for ex-presidents. They're ba-aack. Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, America's political odd couple, are teaming up for another big roadshow, this time to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Last week, they stood shoulder to shoulder with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office, the 59-year-old Clinton now completely gray and looking a bit fragile, and the 81-year-old Bush looking stooped and a bit weary. Later the pair appeared together in Houston, chatting with evacuees at the Astrodome and the Reliant Center Arena....

WASHINGTON, Sept 12 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Monday named David Paulison, a top official in the Homeland Security Department, to replace Michael Brown on an acting basis as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Bush moved quickly to put Paulison in charge of FEMA after Brown resigned the position under fire for the slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina that killed hundreds and displace 1 million people.

President Bush denied Monday there was any racial component to people being left behind after Hurricane Katrina, despite suggestions from some critics that the response would have been quicker if so many of the victims hadn't been poor and black. "The storm didn't discriminate and neither will the recovery effort," Bush said. "The rescue efforts were comprehensive. The recovery will be comprehensive." Bush made the remarks to reporters at the end of a tour that took him through several flooded New Orleans neighborhoods. Occasionally, Bush had to duck to avoid low-hanging electrical wires and branches. It was Bush's first exposure...

From the moment President Bush set his war policy after the 9-11 attacks, our country has been divided into two factions. The first faction supports the President because it believes he’s doing the right thing, while the second faction opposes the President because it believes he’s doing the wrong thing. Now a third faction has emerged, comprised of those who believe the President is doing the right thing – but that he isn’t doing it very well. Generally, those who belong to this third faction argue that the war is going badly because we aren’t fighting hard enough, or smart...

Special Report Bulletin From Ben By Ben Stein Published 8/18/2005 1:42:28 AM A few humble theses: There is such a thing as evil in this world and such a thing as good. It is simply not true that all if relative and similar. Beheading Iraqi civilians with a saw on the Internet is absolutely evil. Helping children in Mosul get pure water is absolute good. Sending homicide bombers to blow up elementary schools at a kibbutz is evil. Treating the children of your enemies in the finest hospitals in Israel is good. In Europe and Asia and South America and...

There's a big black-tie dinner at the White House tonight. President Bush will don a tuxedo and might even stay up past 10. This is, as they say in Texas, rarer than hen's teeth. The dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (technically an "official" instead of "state" dinner because Singh is head of government but not the state) is notable as one of the few grand parties of this administration. The White House has hosted only four state dinners since Bush took office in 2001; the last one was held in October 2003 for the president of Kenya. It's...

It's happened. Just this morning. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has announced her retirement. Throughout her tenure, Justice O'Connor has been part of the razor-thin majority that has kept Roe v. Wade from being dismantled. Now, for the first time in over a decade, there's a vacancy on the Supreme Court. And unless we act quickly, it will be filled by a right-wing extremist bent on ending a woman's right to choose. We knew a retirement was coming, but if you're like me, today's announcement still came as a shock. Yes, this is a long weekend, but the next few weeks...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A US anti-war group vowed to surround the White House in a sea of demonstrators during coordinated protests scheduled to take place in Washington, as well as Los Angeles and San Francisco on September 24. The ANSWER Coalition expects more than 100,000 people, from families of US soldiers to trade unions and diverse religious groups, to take part in the demonstrations against the war in Iraq.

Accuracy in Media (AIM) has learned that John Bolton's new accuser, Lynne D. Finney, who claims that he yelled at her more than 20 years ago, is a controversial speaker on the subject of "recovered memories" and charges $90 an hour for "conversations" on how to find "inner peace." "One wonders if Ms. Finney 'recovered' her memories of Bolton through hypnosis or New Age spiritual techniques," declared Cliff Kincaid, editor of AIM. Described in anti-Bolton press accounts as just a "motivational speaker," Finney is an activist who proclaims on her website that "We are becoming One" and that, "Like popcorn,...

Dear Friend: A day of decision is upon us. Whether it was the legalization of abortion, the banning of school prayer, the expulsion of the 10 Commandments from public spaces, or the starvation of Terri Schiavo, decisions by the courts have not only changed our nation's course, but even led to the taking of human lives. As the liberal, anti-Christian dogma of the left has been repudiated in almost every recent election, the courts have become the last great bastion for liberalism. For years activist courts, aided by liberal interest groups like the ACLU, have been quietly working under the...

Panel to Review U.S. Tax Code By Warren Vieth, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON — A presidential commission today launched what it promised would be a top-to-bottom review of the U.S. tax code, but acknowledged that it might make more sense to modify the income tax than to try to replace it. Members of the president's advisory panel on federal tax reform said all options were on the table, including proposals to replace personal and corporate income taxes with variations on a national sales tax. "The president is committed to major tax reform, to real tax reform, to something more than...

WASHINGTON — President Bush's tax reform panel listened Wednesday to the pros and cons of taxing money earned or money spent, leading one member to say that a hybrid should be considered. "It has merit," said John Breaux, a former senator from Louisiana and the panel's Democratic vice chairman.

In the hands of a world-class rhetorician — Lincoln, FDR, Reagan — George Bush's soaring Second Inaugural would be vividly understood as the world-class dissertation that it was. Subsequent readings (for the speech reads far better than his delivery of it) verify that rarely has a President — has anyone — expatiated with profounder eloquence on the ennobling cause of liberty. The President termed liberty "the honorable achievement of our Fathers" and now "the calling of our time." He postulated that "no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave." And so: It...

Newspaper investigation digs up evidence of schools cheating on standardized tests Associated Press HOUSTON (AP) — A newspaper investigation has found evidence that a Houston elementary school celebrated for its high test scores obtained at least some of its success from cheating. "You're expected to cheat there," said Donna Garner, a former teacher at Wesley Elementary who said her fellow teachers instructed her on how to give students answers while administering tests. "There's no way those scores are real." The Dallas Morning News investigation also found evidence of cheating at two other schools affiliated with Wesley. Wesley, which has been...

TIME MAGAZINE MAN OF THE YEAR GEORGE W. BUSH NEW YORK - After winning re-election and "reshaping the rules of politics to fit his 10-gallon-hat leadership style," President George Bush (news - web sites) for the second time was chosen as Time magazine's Person of the Year. The magazine's editors tapped Bush "for sharpening the debate until the choices bled, for reframing reality to match his design, for gambling his fortunes — and ours — on his faith in the power of leadership." Time's 2004 Person of the Year package, on newsstands Monday, includes an Oval Office interview with...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leaders of a divided federal civil-rights watchdog agency accused President Bush of deepening racial divisions, in a parting shot after years of sparring with his administration.Mary Frances Berry, chairperson of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and Vice Chairperson Cruz Reynoso delivered a 166-page report to the White House harshly criticizing the administration for setting back race relations and failing to promote civil rights in any meaningful way. But the report is not an official document, because four of the eight commissioners, all of them Republican appointees, voted against adopting it and rejected the charges as politically...

34 minutes ago Op/Ed - Ann Coulter On Fox News' "Special Report," Brit Hume raised the nut conspiracy theories circulating on the Web about Republicans stealing the presidential election. The liberals on the panel responded by quickly pointing out that no national Democrats -- not even Terry McAuliffe! -- had suggested that there had been any systematic vote theft. Hume admitted the rumors of vote fraud were limited to nutcases on the Web. Like most Americans, apparently no one at Fox is watching MSNBC! In a major report on "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" last Monday, Olbermann revealed that Bush's win...

Hoaxes Propped Up CBS's Fraudulent Memos (Part III) Dan Rather's CBS' 60 Minutes Hit Piece on President Bush's ANG Record based on Left-Wing Media Hoaxes. By Col. John H. Wambough, Jr. USAF (Ret.) October 31, 2004 380 Tons of RDX and HMX Missing Hoax Sugarcoated Officer Efficiency Report Hoax Left-Wing Media (LWM) treachery, deception and distortion laid a solid foundation for Dan Rather's CBS' 60 Minute fabricated story and fraudulent memos. Thousands of communications misled the American people about George W. Bush's (GWB's) service in the Air National Guard (ANG). LWM fraudulently orchestrated so many hoaxes on President Bush's Air...

Less than two weeks before Election Day, Kerry held a statistically insignificant 1 percentage-point lead in three of the key battleground states carried by Democrat Al Gore in 2000, was tied in a fourth, and trailed President Bush in three others. All were within the poll's margin of error

Tennessee Democrats Compare Republicans To Special Olympics ChildrenBad picture political garbageOctober 12, 2004 – Democrats in a race for a state House seat in District 82, are circulating a flyer that shows a child with disabilities with President Bush’s face running in a track race. The headline says: “Voting for Bush Is Like Running In The Special Olympics: Even If You Win, You’re Still Retarded.”The flyer is being distributed by Democrat Craig Fitzhugh. His opponent, Dave Dahl has issued a call to Fitzhugh to stop distributing the flyer. According to Dahl, “Hard-ball politics is one thing and everyone expects tough...

http://jb-williams.com/10-5-04.htm How to support Kerry for President Written by JB Williams ©2004-10-05 In order to cast a vote for John Kerry, you first have to believe he is fit to be Commander-in-Chief. Now some don’t believe he is, namely 95% of all the decorated vets who served beside him in Vietnam, more than 70% of all living retired military personnel, and more than 80% of those serving in combat today. But what do they know? Besides, as the Democratic Party points out at every opportunity, what Right do these people (who spill their blood for our freedom) have to speak...