Free Republic

To understand why Iraq is imploding, you must understand Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — and why the United States has supported him since 2006. I have known Maliki, or Abu Isra, as he is known to people close to him, for more than a decade. I have traveled across three continents with him. I know his family and his inner circle. When Maliki was an obscure member of parliament, I was among the very few Americans in Baghdad who took his phone calls. In 2006, I helped introduce him to the U.S. ambassador, recommending him as a promising option for...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Sunday said he blames the current crisis in Iraq on those who backed the 2003 U.S. invasion, not President Obama. Paul was asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether former Vice President Dick Cheney is a “credible critic” after he blasted Obama for his strategy for Iraq in an op-ed last week. “I think the same questions could be asked of the same people who supported the Iraq war,” Paul said. “What’s going on now..I don’t blame President Obama. I blame the Iraq war and I blame the people who supported the Iraq war for...

Former President George W. Bush spent his Memorial Day weekend laid up in Chicago undergoing knee replacement surgery, according to reports. Bush, 67, underwent the outpatient procedure at Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center on Saturday, NBC Chicago reported. Doctors allowed Bush to stay at a nearby hotel after the operation, before he flew home to Dallas Monday afternoon. Bush was accompanied during the medical trip by wife Laura and a Secret Service detail, NBC Chicago reported. The former President has kept a relatively low profile in recent months, even declining to attend the Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum dedication ceremony...

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...

Former President George W. Bush has painted dozens of portraits of world leaders he worked with while in office. His paintings are on public display for the first time at "The Art of Leadership: A President’s Personal Diplomacy,” an exhibit at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas. Before the exhibit opened, Bush said none of the leaders in his display had seen their portraits, but he predicted they would react favorably.

The Congressional Budget Office’s warning that the Affordable Care Act will cause employment to fall by the equivalent of 2.5 million full-time workers is just the latest of Obamacare’s negative surprises. Unfortunately, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s statement that “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it” is proving to be depressingly accurate. The law’s defenders legitimately argue that it is not sufficient merely to criticize the Affordable Care Act; responsible action requires proposing an alternative. Fortunately, Republicans have a good one, and it’s been hiding in plain sight for the past...

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (AP) - A joint wave from the Air Force One, a shared dinner, and a long flight home. President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush shared quality time Tuesday as they returned from Nelson Mandela's memorial service in South Africa. Reconciliation was in the air. Bush and his wife, former first lady Laura Bush, had round-trip passage with Obama and first lady Michelle Obama for the service, an international "who's who" of current and former international political leaders.

(VIDEO) Former first lady Laura Bush gives CNN's John King a tour of the new George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

At the opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Library, President Obama and former President Clinton took to the podium to praise Bush – and in the process, stump for their version of immigration reform. Trying to leverage Republicans into handing over their principles by suddenly singing odes to the president he labeled the root of all evil, President Obama gushed over Bush “reaching across the aisle to unlikely allies like Ted Kennedy” with regard to his immigration reform effort. He continued: “Seven years ago, President Bush restarted an important conversation by speaking with the American people about our history...

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/04/25/george-w-bush-has-saved-more-lives-than-any-american-president/ George W. Bush, not Barack Obama, is the real American hero in Africa. Take it from me, a liberal Democrat who voted for Obama twice. I know a little about Africa: I have been to the continent 17 times over the last 32 years. In particular, I have a great interest in South Sudan; I first traveled there in March 2008, and I have been back 13 since. South Sudan is the mostly Christian nation that won its independence from Sudan after a half-century of civil war; in 2011, South Sudan was admitted into the United Nations as a...

Despite the many differences I had with former President George W. Bush on a range of public policy issues, or as he called them, "decision points," I found common ground with him in one area, simply because we decided to put aside partisanship and do something good. Hurricane Katrina's devastation and the bungled rescue efforts are seared in the national memory. Bush's "heckuva job" remark turned into a byword for government incompetence and public distrust. The shallowness of it coming at such a terrible and low point left deep wounds that are still healing. That was what it was. But...

By JORDAN FABIAN (@Jordanfabian) April 25, 2013 One major piece of unfinished business from George W. Bush's presidency is comprehensive immigration reform. With the issue once again before Congress, President Barack Obama said Thursday if it passes this time, Bush should receive a lion's share of the credit. Obama spoke, along with four other living U.S. presidents, at a dedication ceremony for Bush's new presidential library in Dallas, Texas. All of them mostly avoided discussion of partisan politics, but Obama took a moment to praise Bush for his effort to find compromise on immigration reform.

DALLAS—As former President George W. Bush prepares to officially open his presidential library on Thursday, a question arises as it has for his predecessors: How objective will it be about his time in the White House? Bush left office five years ago as one of the most unpopular presidents in history, his poll numbers weighed down by public discontent over his handling of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and worries about the economy. But the former president wanted to take the controversies about his presidency head-on, say several former aides who worked closely with him on the library.

Everyone knows we’re approaching a date that lives in infamy in American history – Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. But there’s another more recent date in American history that should live in infamy. It’s Dec. 16, 2008. That’s the date on which President George W. Bush admitted what he did with the bailouts of the major investment firms and banks that were “too big to fail.” Here’s what he said in that infamous admission: “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system,” Bush told CNN, saying he had made the decision “to make sure the...

It’s wrong to say that American was founded by capitalists. In fact, America was founded by socialists who had the humility to learn from their initial mistakes and embrace freedom. One of the earliest and arguably most historically significant North American colonies was Plymouth Colony, founded in 1620 in what is now known as Plymouth, Massachusetts. As I’ve outlined in greater detail here before (Lessons From a Capitalist Thanksgiving), the original colony had written into its charter a system of communal property and labor. As William Bradford recorded in his -- Of Plymouth Plantation, a people who had formerly been...

If Only D'Souza Were Right Mises Daily: Monday, September 03, 2012 by Gary North by Gary North 2016: Obama's America I went to see 2016: Obama's America. Dinesh D'Souza wrote, stars in, directed, narrates, and did the original research for it. If we look at this from the point of view of its success as a documentary, I think it is effective. It is making money in theaters. This is amazing for a documentary. It is a campaign-year documentary, and it is a good one. It is also dead wrong. That is because it misses the fundamental political fact of...

In the first three years of the administration's of Barack Obama and George W. Bush, Obama hit Americans with 106 major heavy-handed regulations costing taxpayers $46 BILLION. By contrast for the same period in Bush's first three years, there were 28 major regulations at a cost of $8.1 BILLION. The report cites a Gallup poll from earlier this year that found 46 percent of small business owners are not hiring because they are worried about new government regulations. In addition to current regulations, the report found that proposed regulations continue to generate uncertainty and could result in significant additional costs...

President George W. Bush hugs a young child during a visit to the Kasisi Children’s Home, in Lusaka, Zambia, on Wednesday, July 4, 2012 Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/george-w-bush/2012/07/05/president-bush-hugs-young-orphaned-child?cmpid=cmty_fb_Gigya_President_Bush_Hugs_a_Young_Orphaned_Child#ixzz1zoH5HdRP

Passengers say their problems is not with rules at the airport. They understand why drinks are not allowed through security, but when they buy one while they wait for their flight, they say the TSA shouldn't ask to test it. Passengers say traveling is a big enough stress, but now some are worried the drinks they are getting are not safe.