Free Republic

Tea Party’s heyday may be coming to an end, say political experts By Alexander Bolton - 08/14/11 02:57 PM ET The reign of the Tea Party may be coming to an end in Washington, according to academic political experts who say polls show a backlash against the conservative movement. Two national polls released this month by CNN and The New York Times in conjunction with CBS News showed the Tea Party’s unfavorable rating at an all-time high. Political scientists say the data shows a backlash of independent voters against conservative lawmakers who have taken a hard line against bipartisan compromise...

I know this sounds crazy. I know it goes completely against the grain of mainstream political opinion. I know you probably haven't heard this anywhere else before. But I don't think Barack Obama will be on the Democratic ballot as a candidate for re-election to the presidency. And I know he's not going to win a second term. Just look at the way he is already second-guessing his announcement to run again. In an interview that aired on the "Today" show earlier this week, he said this: "There are days where I say that one term is enough." Aside from...

On October 1, 1939 – two weeks after their invasion of Poland – Winston Churchill described Russia with these memorable words: “It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, but perhaps there is a key.” Today, as it faces the political and economic realities of the 21st century, the same statement can be made about modern-day Turkey. We happened to be in Turkey during the 2007 re-election of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. We traveled all over the country, and we were so enamored with the city of Istanbul that we decided to return this spring. However,...

Is Right-Wing Talk Dying? by John Avlon Info Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh are losing fans in a key market. John Avlon on why listeners and station managers are sick of anti-Obama tirades—and who bucks the trend. Here’s another sign that the tide might be turning against the Wingnuts—Glenn Beck’s TV ratings are down 50 percent and major market radio stations are dropping him. That’s not all—a look at radio ratings shows that hyper-partisan talk has been declining or flat-lining between ‘09 and ‘10, despite the intensity of the election year. There’s a demand for something different—smart, un-predictable,...

National Public Radio yesterday detailed the chain of events that led the news organization to wrongly report that Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had died in Saturday’s shooting rampage, and said it is considering new safeguards regarding the deaths of public officials. “NPR follows a basic two-source rule when reporting that someone has died. In this case, we followed the two-source rule, but the sources were not as optimal as desired. Also, we did not cite our sources,” spokeswoman Anna Christopher said. “We’re not changing our policy, but we will reinforce best practices going forward.” NPR was the first of several...

As a 2008 primary front-runner, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani tanked. But as a 2012 dark horse, he could do surprisingly well. It’s not because Giuliani has shifted; it’s because the Republican Party has. The 2010 election was less about social conservatism than it was fiscal conservatism, and that aligns with Giuliani’s socially moderate and fiscally conservative ideology. There is another promising wind of change blowing Giuliani’s way, one that’s less ideological. This isn’t the era of kinder, gentler politicians. This is the age of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and...

Presidents Generally Age In Office,But have you ever known of a President Shrinking? Did you take notice of Obama's side-view today during his speech? He looks about 160 Pounds! At Six-Foot One,a healthy weight is around 185/190.Obama already appears as a weak leader&being so underweight only shows that he is stressing out&caving in on Conservatives being he knows now that he will never get his way. And so now he is losing his appetite or being attacked by Republican Tapeworms.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who saw her powerful position taken from her in Tuesday’s landslide election, was adamant the day after Democrats lost 60 seats in the House that the results were not a rejection of the agenda pursued by President Obama and herself. “Let’s understand the message,” Pelosi told ABC’s Diane Sawyer. “The message was not, ‘I reject the course that you are on.’ The message is it didn’t go fast enough to produce jobs.” Pelosi, who would not comment on whether she will retire from Congress rather than go back to the minority, also predicted that Obama will...

Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, says the primary victory by Sen. Michael Bennet in Colorado shows the party still has “a lot of mojo.” And Kaine crowed that the GOP added to a crop of “flawed candidates” with Tuesday’s results. “In a whole series of these races in different states,” the former Virginia governor said Wednesday in a phone interview, “what we see is Democrats picking good candidates, Democrats coming together and Republicans picking flawed candidates and, frankly, candidates that are kind of continuing to divide their party.” The president’s political organization — including the DNC’s Organizing...

Holder: Osama bin Laden won't be brought in alive By: Josh Gerstein March 16, 2010 05:28 PM EDT Attorney General Eric Holder told a congressional panel Tuesday that the question of reading Osama bin Laden his Miranda rights is absurd – because he won’t be brought in alive. “Let’s deal with reality,” Holder said. “You’re talking about a hypothetical that will never occur. We will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Obama bin Laden. He will never appear in an American courtroom. That’s the reality….He will be killed by us or he will be killed by his own...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – From the time of the Crusades to the modern day, war refugees have struggled to integrate into their new communities. They are often economically impoverished and socially isolated, which results in increased conflict, systematic violence and warfare, within and between communities as the new immigrants interact with and compete with the previously established inhabitants. Now, University of Missouri researcher Todd VanPool believes pottery found throughout the North American Southwest comes from a religion of peace-seeking women in the violent, 13th-century American Southwest. These women sought to find a way to integrate newly immigrating refugees and prevent the...

Israeli officials remained doggedly silent on Wednesday in the wake of a Dubai police decision to seek the arrest of the Israeli prime minister and the head of its spy agency over the murder of a top Hamas militant in the Gulf emirate. Neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office nor the foreign ministry would comment on Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan's order for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Mossad chief Meir Dagan. Khalfan says the hit on Mahmud al-Mabhuh was carried out by Mossad agents using European and Australian passports. Israel has not confirmed or denied the accusations, although opposition...

The government watchdog overseeing economic stimulus spending says the White House was too quick to take credit for saving or creating 640,000 jobs. The White House trumpeted job figures released last month, saying they proved the administration is on track to save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.

Obama hearing Monday 10/5/2009 8AM U.S. District Court Santa Ana, CA.

(CNN) -- Could George W. Bush or some of his top aides end up behind bars? It's extremely unlikely, but the Obama administration is taking its first steps along a path that could lead in that direction, with the investigation of Central Intelligence Agency interrogators involved in the war on terror. "You don't know where these things are going to end up," former CIA agent Peter Brookes told me. "They could go to very high levels in the government." The probe will focus on whether interrogators exceeded their instructions and broke the law when, for example, they choked a prisoner...

Meacham: So how bad is it, really? Your title doesn't quite declare conservatism dead. Tanenhaus: Quite bad if you prize a mature, responsible conservatism that honors America's institutions, both governmental and societal. The first great 20th-century Republican president, Theo- dore Roosevelt, supported a strong central government that emphasized the shared values and ideals of the nation's millions of citizens. He denounced the harm done by "the trusts"—big corporations. He made it his mission to conserve vast tracts of wilderness and forest. The last successful one, Ronald Reagan, liked to remind people (especially the press) he was a lifelong New Dealer...

The editor of The New York Times Book Review and the paper's "Week in Review" section, Sam Tanenhaus is the biographer of Whittaker Chambers and is at work on the life of William F. Buckley Jr. In a new, short book, The Death of Conservatism, he argues that the right needs to find its footing for the good of the country. In an e-mail exchange with Jon Meacham, Tanenhaus reflected on the book's themes. Excerpts:

Congress Votes to Outsource Presidency Washington, DC , July 10, 2009 Congress today announced that the office of President of the United States of America will be outsourced to India as of September 1, 2009. The move is being made in order to save the President's $500000 yearly salary, and also a record $750 billion in deficit expenditures and related overhead that his office has incurred during the last 3 months. It is anticipated that $7 trillion can be saved to the end of the President's term. "We believe this is a wise financial move. The cost savings are huge,"...

A few months ago, most people assumed former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's political future was unpromising, to put it nicely. Sure, he might run for governor of New York if Governor Patterson ran for re-election, but his national ship had sailed. After all, if the economy was the big issue, who better to nominate in 2012 than former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney -- who, at Bane Capital, excelled at turning around struggling businesses? Despite getting off to a fast start in the 2008 Republican Primary campaign, Giuliani had faded fast, a victim of poor political strategy and social views...

Sounds far-fetched and, to some, totally implausible. But the Republicans are losing potential candidates at a pace that is downright alarming if you believe in a healthy two-party system. The demise of John Ensign’s political career a few weeks ago and the surreal downfall of Mark Sanford last week is enough to send chills through the even the most optimistic Republican strategist. We know that of the 2008 crop, only Mitt Romney seems likely to stay on as a contender. The old stalwarts like Newt Gingrich may get a lot of press, but it is unlikely they can mount a...