Free Republic

The Judiciary Committee chairman has not had much to say about the Obama administration’s decision to release Binyam Mohammed, the al-Qaeda jihadist who was planning to carry out mass-murder attacks in American cities, who is now free and clear to live and plot in Londonistan. Leahy did, however, make time last week to conduct a hearing on his banana-republic scheme for a “non-partisan” — also non-elected, non-accountable — sideshow that would conduct an inquisition into the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies. His model, he has explained, is South Africa’s “truth and reconciliation commission.” Let’s roll that around the brain, shall we?...

HOUSTON -- Grammy-winning Tejano singer Emilio Navaira's survival was in doubt Monday after the tour bus that police said he was not licensed to drive crashed on a freeway, leaving him with serious head injuries."There is a chance he may not make it," said Dr. Alex Valadka, director of neurotrauma services at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center and vice chair of neurosciences at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston."Everyone needs to understand that right up front. That's how bad it is."Navaira, 45, known to his fans simply as Emilio, was removed from the bus that wrecked before dawn...

IN THE CURRENT by GOLDA SHIRA By . (06/15/2007) President George Bush is my hero. No, this is not another Bush joke. The truth is that I have come to see him as a man of rare integrity. What a guy! No, I wouldn't have said those things seven years ago. I certainly wasn't keen on the mechanics of his election. And I wasn't voting for a guy who started out not too interested in international involvements, certainly not in the Middle East. Yet he has risen to the challenges presented during his presidency with courage and enormous self-sacrifice. So...

One of the biggest advantages Senator Clinton enjoys as she launches her presidential bid is the vast web of politically active Democrats who worked in the federal government under her husband, President Clinton. But not everyone who served during the Clinton years is promoting a reprise. A handful of top Clinton administration officials and a smattering of lower-ranking ones have taken up with Mrs. Clinton's rivals for the Democratic nomination. Most cite pre-existing personal or professional loyalties. In some instances, however, the Democratic activists seem to have concluded that they will have more of an impact in the leaner ranks...

I occasionally wander over to the left side of the blogoshere to have a look-see. Not too many surprises. Hate,rage,disgust,arrogance, and mockery disguised as cynicism and reality-based thinking. It makes you wonder: if President Bush were as evil as they imagine, and were as hell-bent on installing a theocratic dictatorship as they claim, then why haven't they taken up armed revolt against this unjust government? One reason may be that the members of their group who would have had the courage to take such a stand are no longer voting for Democrats. And, until the Democrats are willing to seriously...

IN the 1960s, my sister was part of the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley. She was arrested in a civil rights sit-in. Naturally, she was a lifelong Democrat. Today, she is a “9-11 Republican.” She is not alone. My sister is no less committed to civil rights than before. But she believes that not being murdered by Islamist terrorists is also an important civil right. She is not sure that the Democratic Party completely agrees with her. For 9-11 Republicans, this is the most significant political issue. The GOP “gets it,” while the Democratic Party doesn't. Many recent former Democrats...

Bush's Democrats Some Democratic members of Congress who have been trashing President Bush, including several African Americans, arrived at the House up to 45 minutes ahead of President Bush's State of the Union address in order to get aisle seats for his speech. When Bush walked in shortly after 9 p.m., the Democrats on the aisle were as eager as the Republicans opposite them to shake hands with the president. African-American Democrats Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick of Michigan and Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas engaged in hugs and kisses with Bush. He shared a joke that caused Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones,...

One of President Bush's most reliable allies in defending the war in Iraq and the global war on terrorism is writer/pundit Christopher Hitchens. The Vanity Fair columnist and former socialist would almost be a card-carrying libertarian if it weren't for his hawkish, interventionist foreign policy. I talked to him by telephone from his home in Washington, where he's starting work on his next book, "God Is Not Great."

The media and the Democratic congressional leadership, including Senator Harry Reid and Representative Nancy Pelosi, joined by some other members of Congress, have denounced President Bush for, as The New York Times noted, secretly authorizing the National Security Agency “to intercept the communications of Americans and terrorist suspects inside the Untied States without first obtaining warrants from a secret court that oversees intelligence matters…” According to The Times, “sometime in 2002, President Bush signed a secret executive order scrapping a painfully reached, 25-year-old national consensus: spying on Americans by their government should generally be prohibited, and when it is allowed,...

Ron Silver ...Indeed, you're a former liberal Democrat who became a Bush convert only recently. What do you have against the Democrats? The Democratic Party is becoming the tool of an extreme domestic leftist insurgency led by the Michael Moores and the Cindy Sheehans and other neoreactionary, neoisolationist Americans. ...[my] new documentary, "Broken Promises: The United Nations at 60," which portrays the U.N. as the height of incompetence. If you and I put a flag outside our door and we called ourselves a country, we would have a seat at the table. Is that some sort of cheap shot at...

ST PAUL MAYOR Total Number of Precincts 104 Precincts Reporting 69 Total Votes 17902 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BILL DAHN 35 GLEN MANSFIELD 27 RANDY C. KELLY 4816 SHARON ANDERSON 153 CHRIS COLEMAN 9172 NICK TSCHIDA 92 ELIZABETH DICKINSON 3582 JACOB PERASSO 25

Actor Ron Silver, newly-turned supporter of President Bush and various conservative causes, being interviewed on "Hollywood and Politics" by Jeff Greenfield on C-Span for probably the next hour...also, Charles Krauthammer to be interviewed by Brian Lamb on C-Span this evening at 8:00.....

A treasure trove of data on the meaning of the 2004 presidential election has just been released, and you can bet that if reporters don't look at it carefully, strategists for potential candidates will. The 2004 election numbers may explain why Hillary Clinton is taking care to present herself as a centrist. While we vote for president in local precincts and then see the election results reported by state and county, the way to get a feeling for the underlying trends of an election is to wait for the results to be broken down into the nation's 435 congressional districts....

Bush Democrats...A detailed look at last year's voting suggests big Republican opportunities. A treasure trove of data on the meaning of the 2004 presidential election has just been released, and you can bet that if reporters don't look at it carefully, strategists for potential candidates will. The 2004 election numbers may explain why Hillary Clinton is taking care to present herself as a centrist.

A treasure trove of data on the meaning of the 2004 presidential election has just been released, and you can bet that if reporters don't look at it carefully, strategists for potential candidates will. The 2004 election numbers may explain why Hillary Clinton is taking care to present herself as a centrist. While we vote for president in local precincts and then see the election results reported by state and county, the way to get a feeling for the underlying trends of an election is to wait for the results to be broken down into the nation's 435 congressional districts....

The revenge of Bob Casey Abortion is a losing issue for the Democratic Party By FRANCIS X. MAIER My wife is a Democrat. Her family home in Chicago is lined with photos of the Kennedys. She remembers Saul Alinsky organizing neighborhood groups in the living room of her childhood home at the invitation of her mother and father. She volunteered on the Eugene McCarthy campaign. She worked as a floor runner at the 1968 Democratic Convention. Adlai Stevenson was a household icon. My wife is a Democrat. Always was, always will be -- at least in her heart. But she...

Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - Stage and screen actor Ron Silver, in Washington for President Bush's State of the Union address Wednesday night, credited left-wing celebrities -- particularly filmmaker Michael Moore -- with helping to re-elect George W. Bush. "The celebrity backlash helped," Silver said. "Michael Moore, I think, was a big factor --a really big factor," Silver told Cybercast News Service in the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall, following Bush's speech. Silver's acting credits include the television series "The West Wing," and "Chicago Hope" as well as the movie "Reversal of Fortune." He also is a co-founder of the Creative Coalition,...

Tonight on Special Report with Brit Hume, it was announced that tomorrow night, New Year's Eve, there would be a special one hour interview by James Rosen, with author Tom Wolfe. A clip showed him talking about his support for Bush and his responses to the euromedia's horror at his support. The show will replace the Special Report program and will air at 6p EST and again later int he evening.

Joan Vennochi said - "The day after the election, a group of women was sitting shiva in my health club locker room. Huddled together, they asked, `How could Kerry have lost? How could Americans be so stupid?' I meekly asked the most vocal if she thought everyone who voted for Bush was stupid. `Yes,' she said. `Stupid, stupid, stupid.' "I guess that makes me stupid. I'm one of those nameless people in Massachusetts with a full set of teeth and lots of education who voted for Bush and won't tell anyone. Not even my best friend who lives 2,000 miles...

MIAMI (AP) -- A newspaper's review of ballots cast in three north Florida counties where registered Democrats heavily outnumber Republicans showed just what officials reported: The counties' voters did on Election Day as they often do, voting for a Republican for president. The Miami Herald review goes against Internet-fed rumors questioning whether there was a conspiracy against Sen. John Kerry in those counties. Kerry won in much of South Florida, where voters vote on touch-screen machines that can't be checked. Reporters for the newspaper went over more than 17,000 optical scan ballots cast in three rural counties mentioned by doubters:...