Free Republic

National Security: It won't generate the buzz that torture allegations do, but a provision in the defense spending bill requires the White House to explain why Russia developed a cruise missile in breach of a 1987 treaty. President Ronald Reagan coined the phrase "trust but verify" regarding dealing with the Russians for good reason. American security was to be guaranteed through the strength of our will and the genius of our technology, not through pieces of parchment, handshakes, clinking glasses at conferences, or reset buttons. Enter President Obama and the age of flexibility, back-stabbing our allies on things like missile...

Late last night the Washington Post broke a story about a connection between White House aides and the 2012 Secret Service prostitution scandal. When the scandal broke two years ago, the White House denied involvement or knowing about the details of what happened. The Post story proves otherwise and provides evidence a White House volunteer officially checked a prostitute into his hotel room in Cartagena, Colombia. The report also details threats made against the Inspector General, who was asked to delay the release of embarrassing and damaging information about the connection between the White House and the scandal until after...

Barrack Obama: F- Ron Paul : D- Newt Gingrich: D Mitt Romney: C+ Rick Santorum: A-Excerpts about Rick's grades STOPPING AMNESTIES Sen. Santorum earned an A+ on stopping amnesties while in Congress. And he has challenged his own Catholic Church leaders as well as other candidates for supporting the legalization of millions of people who have broken immigration laws. MANDATE E-VERIFY. In 1996, Sen. Santorum voted against creating the program that became E-Verify. But on the campaign trail 15 years later, he has promised to push mandatory verification. He misses an EXCELLENT rating because he continues to talk about there...

Interesting, but sadly not surprising! Quotables: “He definitely saw America as the enemy… “My sense of him was that he was a pure Marxist socialist and I didn’t see him thinking in terms of race. I just think that’s surprising given what he wrote in Dreams of My Father… “He and Barack Obama looked like a wealthy gay couple. That’s what I thought of them when I first saw them. My girlfriend had to tell me kind of secretly on the side that they weren’t gay. They were very well dressed… Hear complete audio interview here.

Palin/McCain: Still Not Good Enough What? It's McCain/Palin! No, public attention has been focused more on Palin then McCain, and Palin polls better with Republicans than McCain. If McCain wins, it will not be because of McCain, so to speak. Yes he did make a great choice. McCain has proven he is a better decision maker than Obama in the fact that he picked a VP running mate that has energized his base. Obama, on the other hand, acted like a child with a grudge when he could not suck it up like a man and pick Hillary Clinton,...

GENEVA — North Korea has agreed to declare and disable all its nuclear facilities by the end of this year, the chief U.S. negotiator said Sunday. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said two days of talks between the United States and North Korea in Geneva had been "very good and very substantive" and would help improve chances of a successful meeting later this month when both sides meet with Japan, Russia, South Korea and China in six-nation talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program and improving relations between North Korea and other countries. "One thing that...

State's top court to weigh privacy right, liability for harm - The California Supreme Court will sift through the ruins of the marriage of an AIDS-infected couple today to decide what information partners must tell one another about past high-risk sexual activity. At a hearing in Los Angeles, the court will look into the legal consequences of a woman's claim that her husband -- a healthy person, by all outward appearances and his own assurances -- infected her with HIV. Her lawsuit, in which she is seeking damages, raised issues that require the justices to weigh health concerns against the...

*SNIP* To Bush, this is all a matter of anti-Arab profiling: "I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a [British] company," which last week was sold to the UAE firm. With all due respect, Mr. President, here's why: * The UAE — and, specifically, Dubai — has been a breeding ground for terrorism. * Its banking system — considered the commercial center of the Arab world — provided most of the cash for the 9/11 hijackers. * * It...

In Defense Of Dubai WASHINGTON, Feb. 22, 2006 A nefarious multinational corporation secretly controlled by a hostile Arab government has engineered a covert takeover of six major U.S. ports. America is at risk of losing control of its borders and compromising national security in an entirely preventable way. Horselips. Never have I seen a bogus story explode so fast and so far. I thought I was a connoisseur of demagoguery and cheap shots, but the Dubai Ports World saga proves me a piker. With a stunning kinship of cravenness, politicians of all flavors risk trampling each other as they rush...

PRESIDENT Bush wishes to allow the United Arab Emirates to buy a British company that operates six major U.S. seaports. Returning to Washington from Colorado, President Bush told reporters traveling with him on Air Force One, "I want those who are questioning it to explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company." Let us count the reasons. First, the United Arab Emirates is not being held to a different standard. The British company was privately owned; now it's owned by a shadowy government of a Middle Eastern...

A few words on the Dubai Ports World imbroglio, written without pause or editing, which is probably just as well. Short version: the administration may have thought it was helping a Valuable Ally and probably a pal, end of story. But it plays like Bush defending eminent domain to condemn a neighborhood to build a mosque. I don’t make predictions, because – well, who cares? You either repeat the conventional wisdom and hide with the herd when you’re wrong, or buck the prevailing opinions and get a reputation as a “maverick” when you’re wrong, again. Works for some. But if...

Hugh Hewitt has jumped the shark. I do not know that I will ever be able to entertain an argument of his seriously again. Suspicion was raised when Hugh backed Arlen Specter for Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Suspicion is confirmed with Hugh's unyielding defense of Harriet Miers. Hugh has ceased to be a conservative pundit and is now a shill for the administration. While critics of the Miers nomination are willing to give her credit for much, Hugh has apparently ignored all objectivity and closed his eyes to all concerns so that he can be an effective pimp of...

WASHINGTON — Republican and Democratic senators called on President Bush yesterday to release documents relating to Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' service as White House counsel, with some warning that she may not win confirmation otherwise. In discussions on television talk shows, senators of both parties said that the biggest obstacle to Miers' confirmation is a lack of information about her capabilities. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., ordinarily a Bush ally but also a social conservative who is expected to seek the GOP presidential nomination in 2008, warned that the Senate "is not a rubber stamp." "If we're to give advice...

WASHINGTON – Harriet Miers, President Bush's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace Sandra Day O'Connor, is on record as supporting the establishment of the International Criminal Court, homosexual adoptions, a major local tax increase and women in combat, WorldNetDaily has learned. While some conservative leaders and organizations were stunned by the appointment, most were not alarmed by the lack of a paper trail by the nominee who has never served as a judge at any level. But a profile of her positions as a leader of the American Bar Association, a Dallas city councilwoman and as presidential counselor...

If U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts' confirmation hearing is any guide, we won't learn anything from Harriet Miers' confirmation hearing. So here are some questions we would like President George W. Bush to answer. You said, "Trust me." But why should we trust you when experience proves we could not trust the judgment of President Reagan (who gave us Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy) or President George H.W. Bush (who gave us Justice David H. Souter)? Are you more trustworthy than Reagan or your father? You said, "She's not going to change. ... Twenty...

We need a fool in the White House. No, I've not joined the leftist Bush-is-an-idiot crowd. The president is a smart man, but he's in deep trouble. And no one in the White House seems willing to tell him why, which is where an official fool -- or White House jester, if you prefer -- would come in handy. In the Middle Ages, the court fool was often the only person who could point out the king's foibles and live to tell about it. No less than some medieval castle, the White House can become a haven for yes-men (and...

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Making the rounds Monday on Capitol Hill, Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers sought to clarify her judicial philosophy but may have wound up sowing more confusion about her views on abortion. Her position on the contentious topic appeared to gain some clarity when Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., emerged from a nearly two-hour meeting with her, saying she'd affirmed a key underpinning of the Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion. But a short time later, his spokesman issued a statement saying the senator had misunderstood the nominee and that she had not taken...

HOUSTON — In the early 1990s, lawyer-bashing was all the rage. And Harriet Miers didn't like it one bit. Then the president of the State Bar of Texas, Miers used her monthly column in the Texas Bar Journal to condemn politicians who were trying to score points by disparaging the legal profession. She suggested the criticism was myopic, and noted that it was coming, by and large, from Republicans.It was time, she wrote, to "fight back." The written record of President Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court is meager. But her musings in the Texas Bar Journal in 1992 and...

Supreme Court confirmation battles usually involve excavations of the nominee's judicial opinions, legal briefs and decades-old government memos. Harriet Miers is the first nominee to hit trouble because of thank-you letters. Miers's paper trail may be relatively short, but it makes plain that her climb through Texas legal circles and into George W. Bush's inner circle was aided by a penchant for cheerful personal notes. Years later, even some of her supporters are cringing -- and her opponents are viciously making merry -- at the public disclosure of this correspondence and other writings from the 1990s. Bush may have enjoyed...

The nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court has splintered President Bush's base and triggered a growing demand from his own supporters to withdraw her nomination. "What a stupid, stupid mistake," said Mark W. Smith, a member of the conservative Federalist Society who has actively supported Mr. Bush but wants to see the nomination withdrawn. "You cannot fix this for 25 years." Conservatives have stuck with Mr. Bush through the bloodiest and gloomiest days of the war in Iraq, held firm as administration officials are investigated for revealing a CIA operative's identity and given him a pass on the...