Free Republic

America's first Muslim congressman has provoked outrage by apparently comparing President George W Bush to Adolf Hitler and hinting that he might have been responsible for the September 11 attacks. Addressing a gathering of atheists in his home state of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, a Democrat, compared the 9/11 atrocities to the destruction of the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1933. This was probably burned down by the Nazis in order to justify Hitler's later seizure of emergency powers. "It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that," Mr Ellison said. "After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed...

"The key to turning [Anbar] around was the shift in allegiance by tribal sheiks. But the sheiks turned only after a prolonged offensive by American and Iraqi forces, starting in November, that put al-Qaeda groups on the run." -- The New York Times, July 8 Finally, after four terribly long years, we know what works. Or what can work. A year ago, a confidential Marine intelligence report declared Anbar province (which comprises about a third of Iraq's territory) lost to al-Qaeda. Now, in what the Times's John Burns calls an " astonishing success," the tribal sheiks have joined our side...

Hard Ball with Ann Coulter as a guest is live today outside of the MSNBC Washington DC studio. Before the program went live Chris Mathews joked that perhaps they would draw a bigger crowd if we were beheading Ann Coulter. The crowd was silent as was Ann Coulter after his remark so he repeated it! Still crickets from the audience.

It is probably fair to say that when Sen. Barbara Boxer makes a racket about something, it does not necessarily follow that all her colleagues will listen. After all, California Democrat Boxer is prone to loud announcements and speeches that sometimes call for the politically impossible – goals that are too left of center, too removed from the congressional mainstream. So it is with some interest that observers watched the former Marin County activist lead a charge last week to oust Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Democrats long have expressed frustration with the war in Iraq, saying the Bush administration...

I was at the Queens College Commencement this morning, and I saw the whole thing occur. I also called up the Post and spoke to a reporter immediately afterwards -- so it's possible that I helped trigger this. The context was this. There were lots of Democrat politicians there: Schumer, Hevesi, Jay Hershenson (CUNY Vice Chancellor), and Helen Marshall (Queens Borough President). Schumer spoke first, and they were all patting each other on the back, saying how great they all were and how important it was that graduates vote in the future. A few other not-so-subtle digs on Bush and...

WMAL-AM in D.C. just reported on their news break that Rep. Barney Frank ('Rat-Mass.) accused President Bush of 'ethnic cleansing' in his response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina to New Orleans last year. Franks was reported to be in New Orleans on a fa(ct) finding trip during Mardi Gras.

"Bush also always wears a prominently-placed American flag pin on his lapel...I can never help thinking of the image of Hitler wearing his quiet Iron Cross on an otherwise plain, neatly-tailored uniform." This moral idiot twists logic like a pretzel with this one. Because Bush and Harper use the term "God Bless", he some how ties it in with Hitler. It cant be long now till the left start calling Bush Satan...unbelievable.

I left blogger row yesterday reluctantly, just as the outrageous actions of the Democratic caucus on Judiciary hit its nadir. The smear tactics trotted out to derail the nomination of Judge Alito over the past few weeks had hit their nadir when Ted Kennedy demanded a subpoena for the William Rusher papers to determine whether the National Review publisher may have written something about CAP and Alito. Never mind that this was an entirely off-subject line of questioning from the beginning; Alito's own hiring record proved that he has no animus towards equal opportunity for women or minorities, and the...

The Democrats are determined to win the war and will stop at nothing to vanquish the enemy. The only problem is that they're fighting the wrong war against an imaginary foe. This week, a majority of Senate Democrats (and a tiny handful of nervous Republicans) decided to abandon the war on terror and instead wage war on what they mistakenly believe is a Bush administration assault on civil liberties. First, they threatened to filibuster the renewal of certain provisions of the Patriot Act, despite having overwhelmingly supported these same provisions when the law was enacted in 2001. Then they jumped...

The War on Terror has brought on many complex problems and challenges. Perhaps none is more critical than the conduct of the political Left which is apparently set on sabotaging our efforts. Unable to come up with a logical explanation, political observers either throw up their hands in bewilderment or ascribe rhw Left’s posture to some irrational nihilistic impulse. But such conclusions are neither satisfactory nor correct. The Left’s sabotage of this war is a deliberate attempt to give relief to the other side. This is because their corresponding views on capitalism and the West make Islamic radicals and the...

DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA ((You're not in Kansas anymore)) How the Bush administration got spooked By Tom Engelhardt It's finally Wizard of Oz time in America. You know - that moment when the curtains are pulled back, the fearsome-looking wizard wreathed in all that billowing smoke turns out to be some pitiful little guy, and everybody looks around sheepishly, wondering why they acted as they did for so long. Starting on September 11, 2001 - with a monstrous helping hand from Osama bin Laden - the Bush administration played the fear card with unbelievable effectiveness. For years, with its companion "war...

This will be remembered as the week when President Bush lost control over the Iraq war debate. His administration has perhaps six months to get things right. If the situation in Iraq fails to improve significantly, public pressure for withdrawal will become irresistible. There was a political thunderclap across the capital yesterday when Rep. John Murtha -- Marine veteran, defense specialist, longtime hawk and traditional supporter of presidential prerogatives in foreign policy -- called for pulling American troops out of Iraq. American soldiers, he said, "have done all they can in Iraq." Continued engagement by American troops was "not in...

An influential House Democrat who voted for the Iraq war called Thursday for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, another sign of growing unease in Congress about the conflict. "This is the immediate redeployment of American forces because they have become the target," said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., one of Congress' most hawkish Democrats. At times during his remarks to reporters, the decorated Vietnam War veteran was choking back tears. "It is time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering, the future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course. It...

November 16, 2005, 1:54 p.m. Sunshine Senators If the Bush administration is under any illusions about the sorry political state of the Iraq war, yesterday's Senate action should dispel them. A Democratic proposal for a timetable for withdrawal was beaten back 58-40, but Republicans passed their own version to force the administration to make quarterly progress reports to Congress and express its sense that 2006 should be the year when Iraqi security forces take the lead. Substantively, this might not have been particularly objectionable, but politically it was calamitous. It continued the narrative of Bush losing even his own party...

Cheney Joins GOP Criticism of Democrats By MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 1 minute ago Vice President Dick Cheney added his voice on Wednesday to the chorus of Republican criticism of Democrats who have accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence on Iraq, calling it "one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city." "Some of the most irresponsible comments have, of course, come from politicians who actually voted in favor of authorizing force against Saddam Hussein," Cheney said in remarks prepared for a GOP fundraiser. Cheney's attack was part of a GOP effort...

(Reuters) - In the sharpest White House attack yet on critics of the Iraq war, Vice President Dick Cheney said on Wednesday accusations that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to justify the war were a "dishonest and reprehensible" political ploy. Cheney called Democrats "opportunists" who were peddling "cynical and pernicious falsehoods" to gain political advantage while U.S. soldiers died in Iraq. The comments were the latest salvo in an aggressive White House counterattack on war critics, launched as Democrats step up their criticism of the war and polls show declining public support for the conflict. Cheney repeated President George W....

A Friday, November 4, 2005, op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times by HBO host Bill Maher begins as follows (emphasis mine): "President Bush's new Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito, must bomb an abortion clinic." It gets ... worse. Four paragraphs later (emphasis mine): "Is Alito a decent man with Christian values? Until he kills a nurse with a pipe bomb, there's no way to be sure. Sometimes the only way to convince some people that you're truly pro-life is to kill a few of them. Like when a gang member has to knife some random guy to prove himself."...

"The democrats are circulating a 'hit sheet' headed by the charge that Alito, quote, embarrassed the government by failing to obtain a crucial mafia conviction back in 1988. He failed to convict the Lucchese family in New Jersey."

Al Franken Goes On NBC's TODAY SHOW: “I Think Rove And Libby Will Be Executed”...

<p>If this doesn't sicken and/or infuriate you, you're probably not a FReeper. Check out the email just received from Howard Dean's group. These vultures are ghoulishly trying to support our Iraqi war dead.</p> <p>Today marks the day that 2,000 brave servicemen and women have sacrificed their lives for the war in Iraq. Most of us cannot imagine what it must be like for their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. But as a nation, we can take a moment to send our gratitude and support to those families.</p>