Free Republic

2008 White House hopeful Hillary Clinton is blaming right wing "ideologues" for denying women access to contraceptives - leaving them no choice but to end their unwanted pregnancies with abortion. The move to withhold contraceptives "was started by a small group of extreme ideologues who claim the right to impose their personal beliefs on the overwhelming majority of the American people," Clinton declared in an e-mail to supporters on Wednesday. "They're waging this silent war on contraception by using the power of the White House and their right-wing allies in Congress," she complains, adding, "and so far, they're getting away...

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick's eyes twinkle at the mention of that August 1984 night at the Republican National Convention in Dallas when she eviscerated liberal Democrats as the "blame America first crowd." "When Marxist dictators shoot their way into power in Central America, the San Francisco Democrats don't blame the guerrillas and their Soviet allies," ... "They blame United States policies of 100 years ago. But then they always blame America first." With those words, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations -- a long-time Democrat -- described the difference between President Reagan's determination to defeat communism and Democratic Party leaders'...

[No Excerpt]

Blame colicky Suri, not Exxon, for gas price panic By Eric Heyl TRIBUNE-REVIEW Friday, April 28, 2006 Price gouging? Don't be silly. A myriad of legitimate reasons exist as to why the cost of gas continues to soar. Among them are skyrocketing crude oil prices, escalating international tensions and a need to ensure ExxonMobil executives can afford what the company now charges for gas. (Suffice to say former ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond, who pocketed $400 million last year, doesn't now and probably won't ever again fret a fill-up.)

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) crashed his car near the Capitol early Thursday, and a police official said he appeared intoxicated. Kennedy said he had taken sleep medication and a prescription anti-nausea drug that can cause drowsiness. Kennedy, D-R.I., addressed the issue after a spate of news reports. His initial statement said: "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident."'Later, however, he issued a longer statement saying the attending physician for Congress had prescribed Phenergan on Tuesday to treat Kennedy's gastroenteritis.Kennedy said he returned to his Capitol Hill home on Wednesday evening after a final series of votes...

Just let it be known for the energy record: While Congress digs up oil companies' tax records, China's digging for something else: oil. China is plunking down more than $4 billion to gain a foothold in key Nigerian oilfields. This is on top of PetroChina's $800 million deal last year to tap up to 30,000 barrels a day of Nigerian crude. And get this, it's spending billions more to explore for oil. Guess where? Here! Only miles off the Florida coast.That's the same coast environmentalists prevented U.S. oil companies from tapping. I don't know. All I do know is while...

I expected this, but not so soon. "Egyptian analyst: Can't rule out that Mossad was involved in attack," from Ynet News, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist: Retired General Salah al-Din Salim, an Egyptian researcher at the Strategic Studies Institute in Cairo, said that it could not be ruled out that the Israeli Mossad was involved in the terror attack in Dahab. "The Mossad's ability to penetrate the Bedouins in Sinai is known," Salim said in an interview with al-Jazeera.

Democrats Blame Bush for High Gas Prices 9 minutes ago Consumer gasoline prices continue to soar as the Bush administration places too much emphasis on drilling reserves and not enough on alternative fuels, Democrats said Saturday. In his party's weekly radio address, Sen. Bill Nelson (news, bio, voting record) of Florida noted that Brazil has announced it will achieve energy independence this year, something the United States has sought since the country's first oil crisis in the 1970s. "In Brazil, drivers are filling up their cars with ethanol instead of gasoline," Nelson said. "And today in America, President Bush says,...

Western imperialism, pervasive poverty, a reaction to oppression, etc. — contain kernels of truth but ultimately fail to satisfy. Such explanations identify some of the problems afflicting Muslim societies but don’t adequately explain why so many in those societies have responded with terrorism when others afflicted throughout history by similar problems haven’t. The search for a more comprehensive explanation might begin with the proposition that the fusion of church and state that Islamism represents is actually part of a broader absorption of all aspects of life into a religiously defined existence. The idea that religion explains everything about existence is...

The following statement was issued to clarify the felony provision in H.R. 4437. America is a nation with borders and borders matter. We are a nation of citizens and citizenship matters. We are also a nation of laws and laws matter. We have an important immigrant heritage and honoring that heritage matters. In December, the House of Representatives passed a strong border security bill aimed at securing our borders and preventing illegal immigration. However, on December 16, 2005, there were 191 House Democrats who voted to oppose House Republican efforts to reduce the crime of unlawful presence in the United...

Associated Press WASHINGTON — President Bush blamed Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid today for the potentially fatal blow dealt to compromise immigration legislation. The landmark bill, which would offer eventual citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants, fell victim Friday to internal disputes in both parties. But Bush — echoing earlier complaints from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. — sought to place all the blame on Reid, D-Nev., who refused to permit votes on more than three Republican-backed amendments. "I call on the Senate minority leader to end his blocking tactics and allow the Senate to do its work and...

Climate changes such as global warming may be due to changes in the sun rather than to the release of greenhouse gases on Earth. Climatologists and astronomers speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Philadelphia say the present warming may be unusual - but a mini ice age could soon follow. The sun provides all the energy that drives our climate, but it is not the constant star it might seem. Careful studies over the last 20 years show that its overall brightness and energy output increases slightly as sunspot activity rises to the peak...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, Islamic leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini and Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah all blamed Israel for the bombing of a Shi'ite mosque in Iraq last week. "These heinous acts are committed by a group of Zionists and occupiers that have failed. They have failed in the face of Islam's logic and justice," Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast live on state-controlled TV. "But be sure, you will not be saved from the wrath and power of the justice-seeking nations by resorting to such acts," the Iranian firebrand declared, answered by cries of "Death to Israel" and "Death to...

DUBAI, Feb 23 (Reuters) - An Iraqi militant grouping led by al Qaeda blamed Baghdad's government and Iran on Thursday for the bombing of a major Shi'ite shrine and vowed reprisals after retaliatory attacks on Sunni Muslim mosques. Sectarian violence swept the country after the bomb attack destroyed the Shi'ites' Golden Mosque in Samarra on Wednesday, unleashing attacks on Sunni mosques and dozens of killings. "The Mujahideen Council declares that it will not allow this overt aggression and violation on the Sunnis and their mosques. The answer will be jolting," the body, set up by Iraq's al Qaeda and other...

The vice president's decision to talk only to Fox News -- which Democrats maintain has a pro-Bush bias -- enabled Cheney to dodge an adversarial no-holds-barred news conference with an agitated White House press corps. That rankled some Democrats, including Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York. ''Doing an exclusive interview with any single news organization is not enough," Schumer said. ''The vice president hasn't had a press conference in three and a half years, and he ought to have one to clear the air not only on this issue, but more importantly on the many other issues that have...

In an exclusive interview with Fox News' Brit Hume this afternoon, Vice President Dick Cheney took full responsibility for shooting his hunting companion, who has until now been pictured as the guilty party. The interview will not air in full until 6 p.m., but according to Hume, in summarizing the contents, the vice president remained "totally unapologetic" about the long lag in reporting the shooting to the public -- and also said that he had consumed one beer at lunch that day. Speaking on camera and disclosing some of the unaired footage, Hume said Cheney was "utterly unapologetic" about the...

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's hard-line president on Saturday accused the United States and Europe of being "hostages of Zionism" and said they should pay a heavy price for the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that have triggered worldwide protests. Denmark — where the drawings were first published four months ago — warned Danes to leave Indonesia, saying they faced a "significant and imminent danger" from an extremist group and announced it had withdrawn embassy staff from Jakarta, Iran and Syria. Yemen announced that three chief editors of privately owned Yemeni papers will stand trial for printing the Danish...

TORY chairman Francis Maude yesterday accused Margaret Thatcher's governments of hounding his gay brother into his grave. He blamed homophobic Tory policies for driving gay men into ghettos. Charles Maude died, aged 42, from an Aids-related illness in 1993. Francis said: "If the government had been more willing to recognise gays...a lot of people like my brother would not have succumbed to HIV and lost their lives."

WASHINGTON - The White House and Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff failed to provide decisive action when Hurricane Katrina struck, congressional investigators said Wednesday in a stinging assessment of slow federal relief efforts. The White House had no clear chain of command in place, investigators with the Government Accountability Office said, laying much of the blame on President Bush for not designating a single official to coordinate federal decision-making for the Aug. 29 storm. Bush has accepted responsibility for the government's halting response, but for the most part then-FEMA Director Michael Brown, who quit days after the hurricane hit, has...

A large majority of Germans associate the European Union with economic and social problems and as many as 84 percent fear jobs may be lost to EU countries where labour costs are lower. The figures appeared in a Eurobarometer study carried out on behalf of the European Commission and seen by the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung. In the survey 64 percent said they saw loss of social standards and benefits as a problem. The European Union was not a solution to this, but rather part of the negative development. The survey was carried out among 1,534 citizens in October and...