Free Republic

Obama campaigns against Bush - again By: Carol E. Lee May 22, 2010 07:02 AM EDT President Barack Obama is trying to ride the wave of anti-incumbency by taking on an unpopular politician steeped in the partisan ways of Washington. It doesn’t matter that George W. Bush left office 16 months ago. The White House’s mid-term election strategy is becoming clear – pit the Democrats of 2010 against the Republicans circa 2006, 2008 and 2009, including Bush. It’s a lot to ask an angry, finicky electorate to sort out. And even if Obama can rightfully make the case that the...

Bush was preparing to give a speech to the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. The conference is the event of the year for conservative activists; Republican politicians are required to appear and offer their praise of the conservative movement. Latimer got the assignment to write Bush's speech. Draft in hand, he and a few other writers met with the president in the Oval Office. Bush was decidedly unenthusiastic. "What is this movement you keep talking about in the speech?" the president asked Latimer. Latimer explained that he meant the conservative movement -- the movement that...

David Frum on Scott McClellan's new book: George Bush got the team he deserved Posted: May 30, 2008, 3:47 PM by Marni Soupcoff David Frum Except maybe for MSNBC’s wild-eyed commentator Keith Olbermann, nobody in politics or media seems to have a good word to say for Scott McClellan, the former George W. Bush press secretary turned ferocious Bush critic. The right complains of McClellan's disloyalty. The left complains that McClellan’s change of heart arrived too late. The old Washington hands shake their heads at a press secretary writing a book at all: FDR’s and Eisenhower’s men took their secrets...

After a court order and four years late, Bush administration scientists issue an assessment. President Bush's top science advisors issued a comprehensive report Thursday that for the first time endorses what most scientific experts have long asserted: that greenhouse gases from fossil fuel combustion "are very likely the single largest cause" of Earth's warming. The 271-page report could undercut opposition to the more aggressive provisions of climate legislation, which is to be debated in the Senate next week. The Bush administration had long resisted a congressional mandate, the 1990 Global Change Research Act, requiring the White House to report every...

Bush rips Democratic lawmakers' failures By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer 19 minutes ago President Bush accused Democratic lawmakers on Saturday of being unable to live up to their duties, citing Congress' inability to pass legislation to fund the federal government. "Democrats are failing in their responsibility to make tough decisions and spend the people's money wisely," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "This moment is a test." The White House has said the failure of a broad immigration overhaul was proof that Democratic-controlled Capitol Hill cannot take on major issues. "We saw this with immigration, and we're seeing...

Gingrich decries bilingual ballots By KASIE HUNT, Associated Press Writer 34 minutes ago Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich equated bilingual education Saturday with "the language of living in a ghetto" and mocked requirements that ballots be printed in multiple languages. "The government should quit mandating that various documents be printed in any one of 700 languages depending on who randomly shows up" to vote, said Gingrich, who is considering seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. He made the comments in a speech to the National Federation of Republican Women. "The American people believe English should be the official language...

CNN’s Cafferty on Dems Rejecting Push to Impeach Bush: ‘Strange’ Posted by Scott Whitlock on December 11, 2006 - 17:32. Jack Cafferty, a vociferously anti-Bush CNN contributor, on Monday spoke approvingly of an impeachment bill introduced by outgoing Congresswoman, and fellow Bush hater, Cynthia McKinney. He found it "strange" that, unlike McKinney, so many Democrats are unwilling to consider impeachment. What’s strange is that Cafferty would cite McKinney as a rational source of information. This is, after all, a woman who previously wondered if President Bush knew about 9/11 before it happened, attacked a Capitol Hill police officer and whose...

MSNBC just announced the John Bolton could be resigning.

Taepodong-2 pointed at waters near Hawaii: report (Kyodo) _ The Taepodong-2 long-range missile recently test-fired by North Korea was pointed at waters near Hawaii, the Sankei Shimbun reported Friday in its online edition. Citing government sources in Japan and the United States, the report said Japan's Defense Agency and the U.S. military reached the conclusion after analyzing the missile's path from data collected by Aegis-equipped destroyers and RC-135S electronic reconnaissance aircraft. The missile was test-fired from its launching site in Musudanri in northeast North Korea early Wednesday local time before landing into the Sea of Japan about several hundred kilometers...

Mr. Bill Keller, Managing EditorThe New York Times229 West 43rd StreetNew York, NY 10036 Dear Mr. Keller: The New York Times' decision to disclose the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, a robust and classified effort to map terrorist networks through the use of financial data, was irresponsible and harmful to the security of Americans and freedom-loving people worldwide.  In choosing to expose this program, despite repeated pleas from high-level officials on both sides of the aisle, including myself, the Times undermined a highly successful counter-terrorism program and alerted terrorists to the methods and sources used to track their money trails. Your...

While the White House argues with the Heritage Foundation over how many new immigrants will be minted by the administration’s immigration plan, and Congress debates how many miles of fencing they should fund along the Mexican border, no on is paying attention to the real immigration scandal. If left unattended, this one could cost the lives of millions of Americans, not just their livelihoods. Even as we speak, tens of thousands of illegals from terrorist-sponsoring states are roaming the streets of America, according to a stunning new report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General. Although the...

:08 A.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Luis. Thanks for your introduction. Right before we came in, I said, Luis, how's your school doing? See, I got to first know Luis when I went into inner-city Philadelphia, and he said, I'm starting a school. I said, how's your school doing? He said, "Oh, pretty good." He said, "Last year we had 69 of the 70 graduates from our school go to college." (Applause.) Luis' school is doing better than pretty good, it's doing great. And we hold out hope to some kid, you know, that it's amazing what...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein accused President Bush of abusing his authority Tuesday by claiming the right to override hundreds of laws and by sweeping aside congressional attempts to regulate wiretapping. "The president is usurping power from both the legislative and the judicial branches and destroying this balance that has served our country so well,'' the Democratic lawmaker said at a dinner meeting of the Queen's Bench bar association in San Francisco. "I believe we are on our way to a most serious constitutional confrontation.'' Feinstein focused much of her criticism on Bush's use of presidential signing statements to interpret laws passed...

When President Bush ordered the sequestration of documents seized from the office of Rep. William Jefferson (D-La), he was trying to calm outraged House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Hastert sided with the Democrats in demanding the return of evidence in a criminal investigation taken pursuant to a properly issued search warrant. It is only by the courage of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that the Hastert-Bush effort to obstruct justice wasn't immediately successful.

If you liked the politics of last weekend's Oscar nominees, you'll love "V for Vendetta." But if you're like the rest of America--you support our troops and believe in firmly responding to terrorists on our own shores--then, don't waste your time at this piece of garbage masquerading as a superhero movie. It is anything but. If the other political films subtly whisper of an agenda, "V" clocks you over the head with it with a still sizzling, iron frying pan. Based on the graphic novel series of the same name, "V" comes complete with all the bogeymen the far left...

"Thousands Remember Coretta Scott King" ---------- I was watching Fox News and they showed Jimmy Carter speaking at Coretta Scott King's funeral, and sure enough, he started talking about illegal wire-tapping and other examples of government run amok. I am appalled that he would use this opportunity to bash the President, but not really surprised. :-(

Today's memorial service for civil rights activist Coretta Scott King -- billed as a "celebration" of her life -- turned suddenly political as one former president took a swipe at the current president, who was also lashed by an outspoken black pastor! The outspoken Rev. Joseph Lowery, co-founder of Southern Christian Leadership Conference, ripped into President Bush during his short speech, ostensibly about the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. "She extended Martin's message against poverty, racism and war. She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions way afar. We know now that there were no weapons...

SACRAMENTO - The state employees' union can collect extra money to fight two ballot measures from workers who had objected to having their dues used for political purposes, a federal judge ruled Friday. Eight state employees had sued to stop the Service Employees International Union from collecting an additional two-tenths of 1 percent of their salaries - and from the salaries of all 28,000 nonunion workers - to fight two initiatives pushed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Morrison C. England Jr. issued a temporary restraining order that prevented the state controller from turning over the...

It’s not easy being the world’s greatest rock and roll band. The Rolling Stones, currently on tour and selling tickets for $450 a pop, are having so much trouble getting their new single played on the radio that they’ve even hired a specialist to help them. “Rough Justice,” a song with just enough salacious bite in the lyrics to get someone’s attention, would have benefited from being banned. Unfortunately, its double entendres haven’t sparked enough interest one way or another. The result is an uphill battle to get played on stations that are crowded with younger acts — many of...