Free Republic

(snip) MCCAIN: ... just wants to spend money. Hello? He just wants to spend more money. You and I are -- remember when Ronald Reagan said the worst deal he ever made was when he sat down with the Democrats and said they would cut spending $3 and raise taxes for every $1. Guess what? They raised taxes and they didn’t cut spending. That’s why the Tea Partiers and others would – I’m not a Tea Partier -- but the fact is, we need a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. We couldn’t get it through the Senate as the...

HARTFORD, Conn. – Criticized for saying he "regrets" misstatements he made about his military service during the Vietnam War, Connecticut Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal is now apologizing. On Monday and late the night before, the Democrat told various media outlets that he made mistakes and is sorry for them. "I think he wants to put this behind him. He wants to start getting back to talking about the issues that matter most to the people of Connecticut and start talking about who is going to best represent the people of Connecticut in Washington," said Maura Downes, a campaign spokeswoman. The...

The president is scheduled to give the State of the Union address at 9 PM eastern.

t didn't take long for the critics to come out in force -- and on YouTube -- against the Obama administration's just-leaked plan to propose a three-year freeze in discretionary, "non-security" spending as part of the upcoming budget. Some Democrats scoffed at the idea, calling it the wrong approach during a time of deep economic recession. Republicans depicted it as a political gambit destined to be shot down by a non-compliant Congress. One particularly tough attack, however, was delivered in Obama's own words -- in the form of a video compilation showing the president scoffing at just such a proposal...

"As soon as I sign this bill," President Obama promised in his prime-time address to Congress, "it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick." Thunderous applause followed. It's easy to understand why - no one wants to lose their insurance coverage when they need it most. But here's a news flash: It's already illegal for insurance companies to drop patients once they become ill. It has been for over a decade. The American people should take note, as President Obama is using this non-existent crisis to justify massive federal intervention in...

But not for the reasons Obama cites. She "was about to get a double mastectomy when her insurance company canceled her policy because she forgot to declare a case of acne," he said in one telling. Beaton did not lose her insurance because she failed to own up to a skin problem in her past. She lost it because, when enrolling in the plan, she had not reported a previous heart condition and did not list her weight accurately. Obama tells stories of real-life hardships repeatedly, in his speech to a joint session of Congress, in interviews and at his...

WASHINGTON – The House has voted to admonish Rep. Joe Wilson over his "You lie" outburst to President Barack Obama during the president's health care speech to Congress last week. The 240-179 vote on the resolution of disapproval reflected the sharp partisan divide over the issue. Democrats insisted that the South Carolina Republican take responsibility for what they said was a serious breach of decorum. Republicans characterized the vote as a political stunt.

Finally! I have proof positive that Obama was born in Kenya! I guarantee that this will hold as much credibility in a court of law as the Rather National Guard letters or the COLB that Obama posed on Kos.

The Obama campaign talks a lot about new ideas and expanding the political map, but in the swing state of Pennsylvania, which the campaign has focused on almost exclusively since the Democratic convention, old-school issues still rise to the fore. The latest example came Friday during a small political event at SCHOTT North America Inc., a glass factory in Duryea, Pa., where even a hand-picked crowd threw Barack Obama a curve ball. A woman in the crowd told Obama she had “heard a rumor” that he might be planning some sort of gun ban upon being elected president. Obama trotted...

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 28, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - New Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden was blasted on Wednesday, in the wake of Nancy Pelosi's much derided remarks to the same effect, for claiming that his radically pro-abortion stance is "totally consistent" with the teachings of the Catholic Church. Biden made the remarks in an interview with the Christian Science Monitor (CSM) in August of last year, which has received renewed attention in the aftermath of the controversy surrounding Pelosi's remarks. While discussing his desire to attract Catholics to the Democratic Party, Sen. Biden said, "My views are totally consistent with...

It took nearly five years, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger broke his no-tax pledge in an effort to break a budget deadlock.It was the right thing to do, even if we would have preferred a more progressive alternative to the governor's proposed temporary one-cent increase in the sales tax. But let there be no doubt: The $4 billion tax increase would have less of an impact on low-income Californians than a commensurate cut in state programs.Now the challenge will be for Schwarzenegger to persuade a handful of Republicans to break their own no-tax pacts that have all but frozen any meaningful...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The mother of a missing Orlando girl said her gut feeling is that her daughter is OK and still close to home, she said during a newly released jailhouse call. The weekend call between Casey Anthony, 22, and her brother Lee Anthony was released Monday night. The conversation begins with Lee Anthony warning his sister, the mother of missing Caylee Anthony, that everything she says is being recorded and will be released to the media. He then tells her she can reach out to local detectives and she doesn't have to go through her attorney before asking...

TOKYO — North Korea took a step on Thursday toward reintegration into the world community and rapprochement with the United States by submitting for outside inspection a long-delayed declaration of its nuclear program. The 60-page declaration from North Korea, one of the world’s most isolated and impoverished nations, was expected to describe in previously undisclosed detail its capabilities in nuclear power and nuclear weapons — meeting a major demand of the United States and other countries that consider the North a dangerous source of instability. “This can be a moment of opportunity for North Korea,” said President Bush, announcing the...

BOCA RATON — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama stood in the middle of one of the state's largest Jewish communities Thursday and was asked to prove his pro-Israel credentials. He pointed to the black voters in his Chicago hometown. "One of the raps on me when I first ran for Congress in the African-American community was, 'He's too close to the Jewish community. ... All his friends are Jews,' " Obama told about 600 people at B'nai Torah Congregation. "That's part of why this kind of conversation is frustrating." Obama, who lost that 2000 race, tried to assuage concerns from...

Maybe it was the pressure of the moment. Being under the Tim Russert spotlight can get to anyone. Under Russert's grilling about guns on this morning's "Meet the Press," former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney claimed an endorsement he'd never won. ....snip..... "I just talked about, about guns. I told you what my position was, and what I, what I did as governor; the fact that I received the endorsement of the NRA." The problem? He was never endorsed by the NRA, and didn't have their official support during his 2002 gubernatorial campaign. The NRA declined to endorse in that race,...

During a campaign swing for his wife, former President Bill Clinton said flatly yesterday that he opposed the war in Iraq “from the beginning” — a statement that is more absolute than his comments before the invasion in March 2003. Before the invasion, Mr. Clinton did not precisely declare that he opposed the war. A week before military action began, however, he did say that he preferred to give weapons inspections more time and that an invasion was not necessary to topple Saddam Hussein. At the same time, he also spoke supportively about the 2002 Senate resolution that authorized military...

Things I'm starting to see on the main forums for the Duke case confirm my opinion that a legal equivalent of WW-II is about to erupt in Durham; I would anticipate hundred million if not billion-dollar suits against Duke and the city of Durham, and a hundred or so million-dollar suits against individuals. The most major forum for such discussions seems to be liestoppers.blogspot.com. One article posted there today appears to be a rundown of the causus belli for the coming war and reminds me more than anything else of the list of grieviences against King George: "...there were freshmen...

MANCHESTER – New York Sen. Hillary Clinton said yesterday her 2002 vote for a resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq was "not a vote for a pre-emptive war," but instead a show of support for further United Nations weapons inspections. The Democratic Presidential front-runner, who has been criticized by hard-line anti-war groups for not apologizing for the vote, emphasized that distinction in a telephone interview from Washington. While fellow candidate John Edwards, a former senator, has apologized for his vote on the October 2002 resolution, Clinton again did not. "I will let others speak for themselves," she said. "I have...

One of four ministers who oversaw three weeks of intensive counseling for the Rev. Ted Haggard said the disgraced minister emerged convinced that he is "completely heterosexual." Haggard also said his sexual contact with men was limited to the former male prostitute who came forward with sexual allegations, the Rev. Tim Ralph of Larkspur told The Denver Post for a story in Tuesday's edition. "He is completely heterosexual," Ralph said. "That is something he discovered. It was the acting-out situations where things took place. It wasn't a constant thing." Ralph said the board spoke with people close to Haggard while...

NEW YORK - Her on-off relationship with Jude Law made her an overnight celebrity, but Sienna Miller says that wasn’t her goal. “I was just never desperate to be famous, which I know sounds cliched and probably like a lie, but it is, in my case, very true,” the 24-year-old actress says in the January issue of W magazine. “And that’s the irony of my situation. “It was always about acting, and now it’s all about everything but that. I fell in love with someone very, very famous, and that’s beyond all of our control. Strategically I probably could have...