Free Republic

A couple long-time friends and readers brought this to my attention from 1994:In a city where name recognition is synonymous with success, Ron Klain has made a virtue of being unknown. As Attorney General Janet Reno’s chief of staff, he is all but invisible to the public but recognized in Democratic circles as the man to have on your side in a political or legal fight. A rare mix of top-flight lawyer and savvy politician, Klain shepherded the nominations of Reno and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg through the Senate and steered the omnibus crime bill through the...

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) denied Friday that George W. Bush won Florida in the 2000 presidential election, saying Al Gore won it and the Supreme Court elected Bush to the presidency. MSNBC reporter Hallie Jackson did not push back on Schultz’s claim. In fact, she agreed. Bush won the state by an official tally of 537 votes after a prolonged recount period that eventually went to the Supreme Court... "The Supreme Court elected the president," Schultz said. "Al Gore won the state of Florida in 2000, although not the presidency."

WASHINGTON, June 11— The General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said today that ''damage, theft, vandalism and pranks did occur in the White House complex'' in the presidential transition from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush. The agency put the cost at $13,000 to $14,000, including $4,850 to replace computer keyboards, many with damaged or missing W keys. Some of the damage, it said, was clearly intentional. Glue was smeared on desk drawers. Messages disparaging President Bush were left on signs and in telephone voice mail. A few of the messages used profane or obscene language. ''A Secret...

Hey, it was just a harmless prank! No real harm done. Ha! Ha! That is the tone of The Atlantic magazine article explaining away the vandalism performed by the Clinton White House as it transitioned over to the incoming George W. Bush administration. The article is about how tough it is to transition from one White House administration to the next but the real purpose as we shall see is to slam Donald Trump for mishandling a transition that has yet to happen because he hasn't even been nominated yet. First author Russell Berman attempts to explain away a major...

A yearlong investigation into whether Clinton administration aides left the White House in fraternity-party disarray as they vacated the presidential premises has turned up about $15,000 in damage, according to a government report released Tuesday. Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) asked the General Accounting Office last June to look into allegations that Clinton staffers had ripped phone cords from walls, left obscene voicemail messages, defaced bathrooms and vandalized computer keyboards by removing the "W" keys when they left the White House. A number of items, including a 12-inch presidential seal and several antique doorknobs, were assumed stolen. "The Clinton administration treated...

The political scientist who applies the ‘rational choice’ theory of economics to voters says there was a method to the GOP’s primary madness. Go to the source:

At ease in a Manhattan hotel ballroom filled mostly with Democratic women, Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday made a broad appeal for women to support her Senate campaign, casting her Republican opponent, Representative Rick A. Lazio, as a bully in last week's debate and dismissing his tax plan as misleading and mathematically unsound. (snip) Most pointedly, however, Mrs. Clinton exploited an opportunity before a friendly audience of women to make a concerted attack on Mr. Lazio's debate tactics. Many supporters of Mrs. Clinton said they found Mr. Lazio to be pushy and disrespectful during the debate in Buffalo -- bullying her...

"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." – Joseph Stalin (allegedly) One thing in US history is consistent throughout every single election cycle — allegations of voter fraud. These allegations, however, are not the ramblings of a kook with tinfoil wrapped around his head, they are substantiated and reach as high as the Supreme Court. Don't believe it? Ask Al Gore and George W. Bush. If you think that the ruling class would leave it up to the voters to...

Searching old newspapers is one of my favorite pastimes, and I have tried to use them many times to shed light on current events - or to inform readers about how the past is prologue to our very interesting present-day quandaries. Recently, I came across a syndicated column from November 1979 that seemed to point 30 years into the future toward an obscure campaign issue that arose briefly in the 2008 presidential campaign. Though by no means definitive, it provides an interesting insight, at least, into how Chicago politics intersected with the black power movement and Middle Eastern money at...

Business mogul Donald Trump told CNN Wednesday House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should have sought to impeach President Bush when she had the chance. In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Trump said the president and his administration deliberately lied about the Iraq war, and congressional Democrats missed an opportunity to impeach him when the party took control of Congress in 2006. "I was surprised that she didn't do more in terms of Bush and going after Bush," Trump said. "It was almost - it just seemed like she was going to really look to impeach Bush and get him out...

Hollywood star John Cusack has attacked filmmaker Michael Moore for failing to support the Democratic party in the last American presidential elections. Moore, who won the Best Documentary Oscar at this year's Academy Awards for his anti-gun film Bowling For Columbine, threw his backing behind left-wing candidate Ralph Nader in the 2000 elections - but Cusack believes that he should have joined him in tactical support of Democratic candidate Al Gore instead - to ensure Republican George W. Bush was beaten. Cusack explains, "He lost a lot of credibility when he went and campaigned for Ralph Nader because he was...

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a Republican presidential candidate, sparred with MSNBC host Chris Matthews on Wednesday over whether the Supreme Court has become too “partisan” following the high court’s recent decisions on Obamacare and gay marriage.Though he’s done so in the past, Cruz said he’s reluctant to advocate for “judicial retention” elections every eight years. However, he also said he’s tired of seeing some of the justices “not honoring their judicial oaths.”Matthews later insinuated hypocrisy, accusing Cruz of “loving” it when the Supreme Court “seized the presidency in 2000” for former President George W. Bush during the infamous Florida recount...

Ted Cruz sparred with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews over his proposal for judicial retention elections during an interview on “Hardball” Wednesday night, at one point debating the judicial propriety of allowing ballots to be recounted in Florida during the historically close 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. The Texas Republican senator and presidential candidate said he is “reluctant to call for elections,” adding that it “makes him sad” but that he has done so because “a majority of the justices are not honoring their judicial oaths.” “Is that the solution? Elections?” Matthews countered. “Look, if unelected judges...

Donald Trump, the bombastic builder of Trump towers and Trump gambling casinos, is moving from his reality TV show to the theater of presidential elections. If he survives the first three months of mass media drubbing him and his notorious affliction of ‘leaving no impulsive opinion behind,’ he’s going to be trouble for the other fifteen or so Republican presidential candidates. Already the commentators have derided his massive egotitis – he said “I” 195 times in his announcement speech, not counting the 28 times he said “my” or “mine” or the 22 mentions of “me.” But Trump revels in self-promotion...

DISPATCHES FROM THE AMERICAN FRONT George Bush, Real ManBy James Benton You could see it in his eyes, hear it in his tone Tuesday night in the second half of his State of the Union speech: this was a man not to be trifled with, a man who would see a difficult, dirty business through to the end, and God help anyone who stood against him as he does battle against the foes of America and her ideals. If anyone had doubts about Bush's commitment to victory in the War on Terrorism, they were laid to rest Tuesday night. Rarely...

The 2016 presidential election is attracting an unusually large number of hopefuls. The Republicans will probably field more than a dozen candidates and the Democrats, as many as five. Presently, very few of these supposed contenders have a real chance of becoming president. Republicans Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz are long shots. On the Democratic side, that term applies to everyone but Hillary Rodham Clinton.. ~snip~ If you tell them in private, "You do not have a chance to be president," they will point to underdogs who won, such as Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan, or front-runners who...

"Elizabeth Drew@ElizabethDrewOH 3H...Admin officials told Bibi that if he's reelected, his egregious ambo to US Ron Dermer, co-plotter with Boehner, has to go"

Most Americans haven’t forgotten the bald-faced lies the Clintons told about Bill’s affairs and molestations along with the sheer savagery of the attacks their surrogates launched against these women. For example, we all remember Bill Clinton perjuring himself by saying, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” Of course, Bill was lying which helped lead to the House voting to impeach him. The Senate attempted to follow suit and although 50 Senators voted for impeachment, they didn’t reach the 67 vote threshold needed to send Clinton home in disgrace. What you may not remember was the...

The real reason Tom Daschle didn’t run for president. The national press corps didn’t bother to tell you why Tom Daschle, the Democrats’ Senate leader, decided at the 11th hour not to run for president: In the end, he calculated that he couldn’t survive scrutiny of his persistent service to the clients of his wife. Linda Daschle has been one of the airline industry’s top lobbyists for two decades — when she wasn’t busy running the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which explains why, just 11 days after the 9/11 attacks, her husband rushed through the Democratic Senate, which he controlled,...

It really is staggering. You have to see it to believe it. When was the last time you took a foray into enemy territory? When was the last time you looked at the Democrats 2000 platform? Click here for the real thing: http://www.democrats.org/about/2000platform.html. Go there, look around. Have some fun like I did. Oh- by the way, the Demoncrats platform is quoted in red, which seems appropriate. Israel, the Middle East and the Demoncrats Have you ever wondered where the Demoncrats stood on Israel? Read the next paragraph. "Jerusalem is the capitol of Israel and should remain undivided…responsibility now resides...