Free Republic

In the predawn hours this morning, over 30 people loaded a chartered bus in a parking lot across from Ross Park Mall were seeing red and it had nothing to do with getting up before 3:00 a.m. "We want to let Washington know that we are not going to let them pass legislation without them knowing how we feel," said Pam Smith of Evans City. Smith was part of a group of grassroots activists and concerned citizens heading down to Washington, D.C., this morning to issue a "code red" alert to stop the health care overhaul legislation from advancing in...

NEW YORK - Eight years ago, President George W. Bush stood on a pile of rubble and told New Yorkers, "I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." Perhaps President Barack Obama should take a cue from his predecessor and hear what New Yorkers say about his administration's decision to prosecute five Sept. 11 suspects here. Finding a New Yorker who is happy about that is difficult. "I don't see the upside," said Louis Polanco, a retired New York City cop. "The unprecedented...

Franklin D. Roosevelt understood what it meant to be a core Democrat and maintaining his party’s ranks. He built winning coalitions around his policies by empowering previously suppressed groups, such as labor unions and urban ethnics. In the process, he created a 40-year dynasty for Democrats. Today’s bunch? Not so much. The problem for FDR’s party is that it hasn’t adapted swiftly enough to two realities – that jobs are the most important issue to the nation, and that the middle class (which Democrats claim to champion) is dissolving under its watch. It seemed that Democrats may be starting to...

INDIANA, Pa. – Turn the corner onto Philadelphia Street in this small Western Pennsylvania town, and you might be on the main street of Bedford Falls, the mythical town in Frank Capra’s Christmas classic film, It’s a Wonderful Life. “This is a town where you hear people tell each other ‘Merry Christmas’ without ever considering if it is politically correct,” said Chris Carter of Dayton, Ohio, here for the day on business. Earlier Carter, 30, posed for a picture with the statue of Jimmy Stewart, Indiana’s hometown everyman. Carter thinks places like Indiana or his hometown of Dayton are overlooked...

The 2008 national election clearly shows our next generation of leaders must possess something that many recent and current elected officials lack: intellectual courage. President Nixon believed all leaders, regardless of their time, needed “brains, guts and heart.” Others have defined those character traits as “the right stuff.” “Given what is likely needed to right our ship of state, I don't think that it will come as a great surprise to many that our current men and women in the military are likely going to be the ‘right’ individuals for the job when they come home,” said Lara Brown, a...

COAL RIVER MOUNTAIN, W.Va. – This mountain in southern West Virginia, right in the middle of Appalachia’s spine, is fast becoming someone’s Waterloo. It’s too soon to tell who will be the loser: the coal industry, the environmentalists or the people who call this region home. Nearly 500 mountaintops in Appalachia have been destroyed (or used for commerce, depending on your perspective) by mountaintop-removal mining. MRM, as it is known, is cheaper and faster than underground mining. It involves blasting the top of a mountain to remove its layers of coal. The Coalition for Mountaintop Mining, an advocacy group under...

Much will be said in coming weeks about Sarah Palin and the Republican Party -- especially after the Democrat "upset" in New York's 23rd Congressional District and the "over-the-top" Republican gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey. First of all, Palin will not leave the Republican Party. "As independent-minded and anti-establishment as she is," says Villanova University political science professor Lara Brown, "she seems to understand well one of my favorite quotes from political scientist John Aldrich from Duke University: 'The standard line that anyone can grow up to be president may be true, but it is true only if...

Author's Note: Republican Dede Scozzafava dropped out of next Tuesday’s NY 23 special election early Saturday morning. She did not endorse either of her two opponents, Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman or Democrat Bill Owens. Would one-party domination in any combination of Tuesday’s off-year elections really indicate where this country is going politically? You’ve got gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, a congressional special election in upstate New York, and a state Supreme Court race in Pennsylvania. “I see no particular harbingers for 2010,” says Purdue University’s Bert Rockman. “While people are deeply unhappy about current conditions, they are...

A poll of opinion polls shows that Americans are undergoing rapidly changing attitudes. RealClearPolitics, a national polling aggregator, shows that Americans are becoming less and less thrilled about the direction of the country and with the job Congress is doing. Support has been peeling off steadily, says RealClearPolitics executive editor Tom Bevan. The danger for the Obama administration and the Democrat Party is the independent voters' shift away from Democrat policies. “Independents have flipped negative,” warns Bevan, who mans the polls for a living. “That’s not a good thing for any party.” You need to look no further than the...

Remember the city mouse and the country mouse who exchanged visits? In the end, the gap between the cousins' worlds left both comfortable with their own choices and baffled by the other's. That's not so different from how anyone who lives 15 minutes outside of Washington, D.C., feels about those who govern their lives and deliver their news. "Absolutely," agrees John King, CNN's "State of the Union" host and chief national correspondent. King spends considerable time outside of Washington's beltway, reporting the news. He says he's a better reporter because he's gotten to know the real feelings of people not...

The “Overseas Contingency Program” – more commonly known as the “war on terror” – is back at the center of the political world, thanks to the uncertain prosecution of the war in Afghanistan. As President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Congress and the generals in the field contemplate the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t consequences of Afghanistan, terror has reappeared in the American vernacular. “America is still a salient target and attractive target for terrorists,” said Paul Pillar, a former senior CIA counter-terrorism official. And while words like “Islamic terrorist,” “jihad” and “Muslim extremist” have been scrubbed from administration chatter, we remain...

Two political dangers have emerged in recent months for Democrats, Republicans, and the media that covers both. Those are the dismissal of protests by all three, and the crude overuse of the race card. It’s disturbing that Washington really doesn't “get” the rest of the country that is beyond their bubble, says Villanova University political scientist Lara Brown. Last Saturday’s “Tea Party” protest, spreading out across Capitol Hill, received little to no coverage; most news organizations wildly underreported the crowd’s size. Later, former president Jimmy Carter said racism is behind the rhetoric of President Obama’s critics; New York Times columnist...

Politicians will tell you they’d rather have you hate them than distrust them because hate is an emotion that can be tweaked, while trust is an investment in character – a bond that, once broken, can never fully be repaired. The problem for President Barack Obama and Democrats is that, in poll after poll, Main Street does not trust them. Republicans are not exempt, either; while Dems keep sliding in the polls, the GOP is recording no parallel gain. On the eve of Obama’s health-care pitch to Congress and the country last week, an Associated Press-GfK poll highlighted his fall...

* * Fix this sick system About the writer Salena Zito covers politics for the Trib. She can be reached via e-mail or at 412-320-7879. Sign up now! Home Delivery Subscribe to our publications Politicians will tell you they'd rather have you hate them than distrust them because hate is an emotion that can be tweaked, while trust is an investment in character -- a bond that, once broken, can never be repaired fully. The problem for President Barack Obama and Democrats is that, in poll after poll, Main Street does not trust them. Republicans are not exempt, either; while...

The Afghan war belongs to President Obama. He may not have broken it but by his rhetoric, his actions and his commitments, he now owns it. The question for the president, politically and strategically, is whether we need to fight this war for our own nation’s security. If we succeed in Afghanistan, will we merely push the battle lines into Pakistan? That would be even more threatening to our security. “The situation in Afghanistan is akin to a multi-dimensional game of chess,” said Mark Davidson, former member of the Clinton administration and a Navy Reserve captain. “No move, activity or...

Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold reminded President Barack Obama via a statement this afternoon that the public option in health care reform is "real change." From the Feingold statement: "Opposing the public plan is an endorsement of the status quo in this country that has left tens of millions of Americans uninsured or underinsured and put massive burdens on employers. I have heard too many horror stories from my constituents about how the so-called competitive marketplace has denied them coverage from the outset, offered a benefit plan that covers everything but what they need or failed them some other way. A...

The Republican Party became Humpty Dumpy in August 2006 and, by the 2008 election, all the king’s horses and men couldn’t put the cracked party together again. The question now is whether it’s time for the GOP to try getting back up on the wall. What if I told you that, while the party’s base is anxious for Republicans to begin crafting a positive message and start building support for 2010, to do so at this moment would be premature? Might even hinder its long-term efforts? Instead, the GOP should retain a crisp message of being champions of limited government,...

Deep-Democrat-blue New Jersey is on a direct course to go Republican-red this fall, and it does not look like even Obama-esque hope and change can stop that. To the middle-right (the only way New Jersey can reasonably go red) is former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie. To his left is Gov. Jon Corzine, running in one of two (Virginia is the other) off-year gubernatorial elections. RealClearPolitics’ average of recent polling shows a 51-39 lead for Christie. For an incumbent, being not only behind, but far under 50 percent, is deadly. Just ask Pennsylvania’s former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum . . .

WINCHESTER, Va. – Virginia will be the center of political attention this fall, thanks to the first statewide election in a battleground state since the 2008 presidential election. “Here we go again,” said Larry Larsen, an independent voter accustomed to the national attention that Virginia races attract. November’s gubernatorial race matches former state attorney general Bob McDonnell, a Republican, versus state senator Creigh Deeds, a Democrat. A SurveyUSA poll last week gave McDonnell a 15-point lead. RealClearPolitics shows McDonnell as 6.3 percentage points in the lead, based on aggregate polling data. “If McDonnell were to win this, the message it...

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. says the majority and the most serious of criminal charges against workers for a community activist group stemming from a voter registration investigation will not be affected by a constitutional challenge filed by the American Civil liberties Union.

A recent Gallup poll found that twice as many Americans have become more conservative than liberal. Yet, at the same time, twice as many Americans now identify themselves as Democrats as opposed to Republicans. How did this seeming paradox come about? What, if anything, can the Republican Party do to restore itself? Or are these so-called "Blue Dog" Democrats the new placeholder for the conservative spot on the block? First, let's look at the origins of conservatism. British parliamentarian Edmund Burke, defender of the colonists' cause to preserve their rights against oppressive taxation, was conservatism's founding father. He spoke in...

PennDOT has spent $60,000 to create large green road signs telling motorists that funding was secured by the federal stimulus package. Agency spokesman Eric Waters said the signs will be visible at 30 projects across the state. The signs will cost about $2,000 each. "We received $1 billion for roads and bridge projects; not all of the 242 projects will have signs," he said

Among the many things that have changed in Washington since Barack Obama took over is the overwhelming “czaring” of key confidantes and power-brokers to the president. The czars of imperial Russia were unelected emperors who ruled without oversight. So what is their role in a democratic country? Well, in a way, they are the same thing – presidential appointees who are not required to go before Congress for approval. The Obama press office sternly pushes back on the “czar” title, noting that it is not an internal word used to describe personnel, urging the press to be cautious and clear,...

Palin does a parade in small town New York in June and 20,000 show up!Shouldn't the news media which is going ga-ga over Sarah Palin pay some attention to this? Biden fails to draw crowd in Erie By Selena Zito Pittsburg Tribune Posted July 1, 2009 11 :29 AM Wattsburg, Pa. — Vice President Joe Biden visited a small town on the outskirts of Erie today to talk to rural folks about federal stimulus money that can be used to expand broadband access to the Internet for rural areas that typically have poor connections. Apparently stimulus money and broadband are...

Using just a person's birth date and birth state, two Carnegie Mellon University researchers say they've found a way to figure out people's Social Security numbers, potentially opening a new front in the battle against identity theft. Alessandro Acquisti and Ralph Gross said they hope their findings, published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Wattsburg, Pa. — Vice President Joe Biden visited a small town on the outskirts of Erie today to talk to rural folks about federal stimulus money that can be used to expand broadband access to the Internet for rural areas that typically have poor connections. Apparently stimulus money and broadband are not all that interesting to the local folk here: Only around 100 or so people have showed up so far to hear Biden talk at noon at Seneca High School off Route 8 in Wattsburg. The room looked so sparse that about 30 or so chairs were removed by...

A district judge who held another ACORN worker for trial Monday on election law violations urged prosecutors to go after the real culprit, the organization that employed him. "Somebody has to go after ACORN," Senior District Judge Richard H. Zoller said about the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. "It's happening all over the country. All you have to do is turn on the television," he said, referring to voter registration fraud charges brought recently against ACORN and its workers in Nevada. "We will," Allegheny County Detective Robert F. Keenan promised as he wrapped up his testimony. A spokesman...

Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak stands on the precipice of not only taking on U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter in a Democratic primary, but beating him. Numerous polls back up that scenario; the only thing that stands in the way is his "official" announcement. Without the announcment, Markos Moulitsas, editor of the left-leaning DailyKos.com political blog, said he can't raise money for Sestak. The Daily Kos was instrumental in the insurgent candidacy of Connecticut businessman Ned Lamont in the 2006 Democratic primary election against incumbent Sen. Joe Lieberman. The blog began a netroots phenomenon that gave Lamont a legitimate resume, daily message...

President Barack Obama made news at a press conference last week – by planting a question with a blogger, not by offering anything new in spite of taking his sharpest questions to date. The sharper edge of reporters’ questions had much to do with the setting, one White House press corps member said afterward: “It was our turf, in our seats … no formality of the East Room or even (the) Rose Garden. So I think when we're comfortable, we're more likely to fire back at him for follow-ups.” Obama coming unarmed with news led to more probing, analytical-style questions...

The Merriam-Webster definition of "common sense" is pretty straightforward: "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts." The phrase originated in 1726 — 50 years before Thomas Paine penned his pamphlet, "Common Sense," and gave voice to the rising sentiments of American colonists before the Revolutionary War. Glenn Beck, Fox News commentator and host of a talk show on TV and radio, thought perhaps it was time for America to have a little more Paine — which is why he penned a 21st century version of the "Common Sense" pamphlet.

The upside to Gerald Walpin’s firing as inspector general for the federal agency that oversees AmeriCorps is that he could appear in one of those “Organizing for America” ads that highlight Americans who have lost their jobs along with their health care. It’s just a thought. Walpin became the center of some media attention last week for suspending Barack Obama supporter Kevin Johnson, a former NBA star and now mayor of Sacramento, for irregularities in his use of federal money when he ran a charity. Walpin was asked by the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service to...

Democrats in West Virginia are gravely concerned about the health of their senior U.S. senator, 91-year-old Robert Byrd, who has been hospitalized since May with a series of infections. "We are just praying for him to get back to the Senate real soon," said Nick Casey, West Virginia Democratic Party chairman. Byrd's absence has caused distress among supporters and speculation about who would fill his seat if he is unable to return to work. As the Senate president pro tempore, Byrd is third in the presidential succession line, behind Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He is...

Organizing for America (OFA), the political arm of President Barack Obama, is putting a summer ground game together across the country to get people all excited about the Obama administration's health care reform efforts. OFA said today in an e-mail to over 13 million Obama voters that they are kicking off a push for support for Obama care by launching a "Summer Organizer program." From the OFA e-mail: "Just as President Obama answered the call of service to organize communities on the south side of Chicago, Americans from across the country will be joining Organizing for America's efforts for health...

Missile defense has been a political issue since President Reagan introduced his plan to win the arms race by rebuilding our arsenal while using technology to prevent a successful Russian nuclear attack against us. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., dismissed Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) as "Star Wars." Yet Reagan appealed to Americans' common sense in a 1983 speech: "What if free people could live secure in the knowledge ... that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil?" SDI is now the Ballistic Missile Defense program. Its mission is to defend our forces and...

Ohio has a political-identity crisis. Is it a “blue state,” as demonstrated by Democrats’ statewide wins in 2006 and 2008, or a “red state” that is just fed up with the behavior of its former Republican elected officials? “Well, it's more like an orange state,” said Bert Rockman, a political scientist from Purdue University. Ohio, Rockman explains, is mostly up for grabs: “Through gerrymandering – and, yes, both parties do it – Republicans had for some time a lock on the state legislature and, therefore, a lock on the state's congressional delegation.” That's changed some, precipitated by the misfortunes during...

Mt. Washington's Grandview Avenue "campaign" office of "Sanders for Senate" was so lifelike to those passing by that many stopped in to find out about the new candidate for the U.S. Senate. "Every single one of them asked if 'Sanders' would be running against (Pennsylvania Democrat U.S. Sen.) Arlen Specter, and, if so, where could they sign-up to volunteer," said media expert John Brabender on the set of "Moving Numbers," a Webcast about to go national for a new political entertainment group.

Pittsburgh native and former Ohio congressman John Kasich will be announcing his bid to take on Democratic Governor Ted Strickland for the Buckeye state's executive office in 2010. Look for the announcement to appear around the same time on his Web site Kasich hails from the McKees Rocks suburb of Pittsburgh that also gave Pennsylvania the late Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll and cable news junkies frequent appearances of Oxi-Clean spokesperson, Billy Mays (Hi, Billy Mays here!). A former nine-term congressman, presidential candidate and host of his own Fox News Show appropriately called "Heartland with John Kasich," Kasich, 57, filed...

Two weeks ago, ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper wrote in his “Political Punch” blog that the Obama White House has begun covering its own stories, “complete with cuts, interviews and chyrons identifying who's speaking.” Although Tapper called the “coverage” (Obama at the White House basketball court shooting hoops with the NCAA champs Lady Huskies) and White House logo “cute,” he pointed out that ObamaTV – OTV for short – comes at the expense of pool reporters: “Your Pool was not allowed to go over and shoot POTUS (President of the United States) with the team shooting hoops. We...

Two weeks ago, ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper wrote in his "Political Punch" blog that the Obama White House has begun covering its own stories, "complete with cuts, interviews and chyrons identifying who's speaking." Although Tapper called the "coverage" (Obama at the White House basketball court shooting hoops with the NCAA champs Lady Huskies) and White House logo "cute," he pointed out that ObamaTV - OTV for short - comes at the expense of pool reporters: "Your Pool was not allowed to go over and shoot POTUS (President of the United States) with the team shooting hoops. We...

Word out of Washington is that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the political wise-guys from the Obama administration plan on "visiting with" Pennsylvania Democrat Rep. Joe Sestak. Their objective? A clear message: Get off of the stage and out of a possible primary race against "incumbent" Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter. "I have received a call from DSCC chair Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey," admitted Sestak in an interview. "But we keep missing each other." Probably a good thing for both men at this moment: Sestak has no inclination to be pushed out of a race and Menendez's marching...

Will the last activist who hopes the antiwar cause will re-emerge as a central tenet of the Democratic Party please turn out the lights on the way out the door? Little evidence exists that any antiwar movement is alive, well and influencing policy in this country. Certainly no voice for it is coming from Barack Obama's White House. In fact, Obama has been pretty consistent in

WASHINGTON -- Michael Steele wanted to rebuild the Republican Party after two crushing national election defeats because he has "a passion for a party I believe in." "When the opportunity presented itself," Steele said in his office, just blocks from the Capitol, "I saw it as a chance to help take the elephant by the tail and turn it around in a new direction." That direction is not turning away from principles and values that have defined the party since 1854 but "in a direction that those principles and values can be relevant in the 21st century." At first, Steele,...

Arlen Specter switched parties for one and only one reason: to save his career. No principle was involved; there was no "the party left me" moment. It was pure, unadulterated political greed; he wanted his seat. Out of honor, Specter should have resigned, had Gov. Ed Rendell reappoint him, and then run in a special election in the fall as a Democrat. Instead, he abandoned his principles and went from a fiscal conservative and social moderate to a social liberal who voted for President Obama's trillion-dollar stimulus package. What he has left behind with his switch to the other team...

When Arlen Specter became the 21st senator to switch parties while in office, he did so with considerably more flash than one predecessor. "I basically tried to move about without notice," said former Sen. Harry F. Byrd Jr. of Virginia. Byrd, 94, switched from Democratic registration to independent in 1970. "Colleagues were cordial, but I did my best to avoid everyone." Specter, 79, had little chance of repeating that feat Tuesday. His announcement kicked off a national frenzy of news stories and speculation about what it might mean for Pennsylvania politics, President Obama's agenda, the balance of power in the...

Despite the drubbing taken by American newspapers in recent months, the Tribune-Review has posted significant gains in circulation since 2007. Average circulation for the Sunday Tribune-Review rose by 2,681 newspapers, or 1.4 percent, to 193,563 in 2008, according to unaudited figures recently filed with Audit Bureau of Circulations. Since then, the Sunday Tribune-Review's average circulation for the six months ended March 31 increased by 1,084 to 193,507, or nearly 1 percent higher than a year ago. And average daily circulation for the six months ended March 31 jumped by 13,400 to 164,311, or almost 8.9 percent higher than the year...

Everybody complains about taxes and government spending, but nobody does anything about them. Perhaps that's because whenever they do something, they're often labeled as racists, right-wing extremists or worse. That's what happened when various news organizations covered the April 15 "tea parties" across the country; the media clearly did not know what to make of such a robust turnout for the loosely organized events, and wound up dismissing or belittling them. The tea party movement may or may not go forward -- but anytime the media or politicians dismiss a grassroots effort, they do so at great peril. People attending...

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter (R) finds himself down 21 points to former Rep. Pat Toomey in a potential 2010 Republican primary, according to a new Rasmussen poll. Specter now has a 42%/55% favorability rating, while Toomey enjoys a 66%/19% rating. Toomey lost to Specter by a slim margin in the 2004 Senate primary, but in an on-camera interview with Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Salena Zito, Toomey said things are different this time. "It's a very different race," Toomey said. "I think the press has figured out that this time the outcome is going to be different." "Let me assure you, I...

As with anything involving Pennsylvania politics, it’s complicated. Much of Pennsylvania’s 2010 U.S. Senate race will depend on turnout in the primary and general elections. Sounds obvious, right? Yet in an odd turn of political and geographical shifts, the Senate candidates will have little control over the outcome. That is largely because of fiercely competitive primary races on both sides – for Republicans, incumbent Arlen Specter versus former U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey; for Democrats, state Rep. Josh Shapiro versus former Philadelphia deputy mayor Joe Torsella. In the middle, all of the traditional party organizations will concentrate more of their money...

SAN ANTONIO, Texas — With The Alamo as a backdrop, thousands of Texans here joined demonstrators across the nation Wednesday to protest federal spending, corporate bailouts and taxes. "The Alamo is the perfect symbolic place to hold this rally," said Carl Benton, a Michigan native who moved to Texas a decade ago. "This is where people who had held deep convictions made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom." Benton, 43, a construction worker, said Americans are making sacrifices by cutting personal spending, but he does not see similar sacrifices from Washington.

Asked why his new show on Fox News Channel is so popular, Glenn Beck is uncharacteristically muted: "I am just a guy." Beck is a guy, but "just" is not the word that most people would use to describe him. Just ask any fan or foe. The radio talk-show host, former host of a CNN Headline News program, and now Fox host owes his success largely to an every-man appeal, spoken without a filter. In other words, he forgets to use his "inside" voice.