Free Republic

The explosion of bloodshed in Iraq has created the temptation for many to revisit their support for or opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and to ascribe blame for the recent surge in violence to their preferred boogieman. Not all have succumbed to the enticing lure of nostalgia. Not even consistent Iraq War and George W. Bush critic Fareed Zakaria allowed himself himself to take a swipe at the former commander-in-chief for looming over the present crisis. Appearing on CNN on Thursday, Zakaria blamed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for undoing what he said was the good accomplished...

"...If they truly fear the unchecked growth of presidential power, then their best option is to come to the table and force compromise. It's the one sure way to keep Obama from going cowboy (or, in their minds, tyrant)."

The construction of a massive new headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security, billed as critical for national security and the revitalization of Southeast Washington, is running more than $1.5 billion over budget, is 11 years behind schedule and may never be completed, according to planning documents and federal officials. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the George W. Bush administration called for a new, centralized headquarters to strengthen the department’s ability to coordinate the fight against terrorism and respond to natural disasters. More than 50 historic buildings would be renovated and new ones erected on the...

For the Democratic Party, history began and ended with the election of George W. Bush. Nothing had happened before him. Every world crisis began with him and would only come to an end when the Democratic Party finally squeezed one of its own into the White House. If there was a problem, Bush had caused it. If another country hated America, it was Bush’s fault. Bush alienated Europe, Russia, Asia, the Middle East and even parts of Antarctica. It was all his fault, the media, academia and angry Trotskyite grandmothers marching for peace and tyranny in San Francisco agreed. Books...

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow charged Monday that the George W. Bush administration's Middle East policy has steered America's current security policy and response to global crises — including the one in Ukraine. Talking about her new documentary, "Why We Did It," involving circumstances leading to the Iraq War, Maddow told MSNBC colleague Andrea Mitchell that the Bush administration is largely responsible for the nation's current course overseas. “The decisions of our generation on national security are determined more than anything by what the George W. Bush administration did with that nine-year war in Iraq and, alongside it, a 13-year war...

Taken from Tuesday's edition of The Jason Rantz Show on KIRO Radio. After some backlash following the Grammys, there were all these tweets being highlighted that Macklemore sent out years ago that might cast him in a bad light. One of those particular tweets was sent out on Sept. 18, 2009. He tweeted this: That is, according to Buzzfeed, a regurgitation of a lyric from a Mos Def song that says the same thing. But I ask, does this make him a 9/11 Truther? Is this someone who actually holds this belief system? We look at some of his music....

Is Seahawks coach Pete Carroll a 9/11 truther? That all depends: Does badgering a former four-star general about whether 9/11 was real make one a truther? Here's what happened, according to a couple sources: Late last spring, retired general Peter Chiarelli, who had just finished his term as the Army's vice chief of staff, visited Carroll at the Seattle Seahawks headquarters. Chiarelli was expecting a pleasant meeting. After all, the pair had what important businesspeople tend to call synergies: Chiarelli—who grew up in Seattle—is a big Seahawks fan. His post-military work concerns traumatic brain injury research, a cause of some...

Pelosi to Reporter: It’s Not Obamacare, It’s The Affordable Care Act BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff January 9, 2014 4:45 pm House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) retorted to a reporter’s question about slipping support for Obamacare at her Thursday press conference that it was called the “Affordable Care Act.”Pelosi has referred to the law previously as Obamacare, although she also told Meet the Press host David Gregory she’d “always” called it the Affordable Care Act during a contentious November interview.Full exchange:Q: The three “Obamacare” bills on the floor tomorrow in the House, some Democrats have indicated they might...

Apparently we’re on George W. Bush’s fourth term. And here I’ve been making a fool of myself criticizing some Illinois senator for messing up the country. If only NBC News had told me this piece of breaking news sooner. Introducing a report on Monday’s NBC Nightly News about Al-Qaeda forces seizing control of the Iraqi city of Fallujah, anchor Brian Williams went out of his way to blame the President George W. Bush for the deteriorating security situation: “U.S. fighting forces are gone from Iraq. But as so many predicted when President Bush chose to go to war there after...

(CNSNews.com) - Because President George W. Bush has "ignored the threat of global warming," Floridians can expect to be hit by increasingly destructive hurricanes, a new billboard campaign says. The billboards, going up along Interstate 4 between Tampa and Orlando -- a week before the presidential election -- read, "Global warming equals worse hurricanes. George Bush just doesn't get it." The billboards show a photo of a hurricane swirling toward Florida. The campaign is co-sponsored by Scientists and Engineers for Change and Environment2004. The NAACP National Voter Fund is also involved in the effort to blame Bush for ignoring global...

“Almost Orwellian” -- that’s the description a federal judge gave earlier this week to the massive spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) on virtually all 380 million cellphones in the United States. In the first meaningful and jurisdictionally grounded judicial review of the NSA cellphone spying program, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee sitting in Washington, D.C., ruled that the scheme of asking a secret judge on a secret court for a general warrant to spy on all American cellphone users without providing evidence of probable cause of criminal behavior against any of them...

MRCTV's Dan Joseph had a question on his mind that he couldn't shake: who bears the brunt of the blame for the government shutdown? Who really is responsible for the mess we're in right now? Is it President Obama or former President George W. Bush? He decided to take these questions to the heart of our misery: Washington D.C. Despite the fact that "Dubya" has been out of office for the past five years, most of the respondents said former President George W. Bush is to blame for the shutdown.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday blasted Congressional Republicans for their “wrong-headed” budget brinksmanship he said led to a partial government shutdown, while maintaining that city services are still immune to the impasse in Washington. “It’s time for the Republican leaders in Congress to step up, provide leadership and tell a small minority in their party to stop trying to hold the country hostage to their ideology,” Emanuel told reporters at an unrelated press conference on Wednesday. As the first federal shutdown in nearly 18 years entered its second day, Emanuel said city services are still unaffected by the shutdown,...

James Carville blames Bush for lack of support for war in Syria (Video) Joe Newby Spokane Conservative Examiner Related Photo: James Carville blames Bush for lack of support on Syria Alex Wong/Getty Images September 5, 2013 George W. Bush is turning out to be the most powerful president in history, with the capability of influencing public opinion five years after being in office without even saying a word. On Wednesday, James Carville blamed the former president for the fact that many Americans do not support Obama’s proposed military strike on Syria during an appearance on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor.”...

He’s there in every corner of Congress where a microphone fronts a politician, there in Russia and the British Parliament and the Vatican. Blame Bush? Of course, President Obama has to lead; it’s his superpower now, his armies to move, his stage. But the prior president gave every world leader, every member of Congress a reason to keep the dogs of war on a leash. The voice that stands out most by his silence, the one that grates with its public coyness, is Bush himself. He has refused to take a side in the Syrian conflict. The president, he said,...

On Wednesday's MSNBC Daily Rundown, minutes after President Obama denied setting a "red line" on Syria's use of chemical weapons, chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd excused the obvious falsehood: "I think it was clear that the President was trying to depersonalize the Syria issue a little bit....to say, you know, 'Stop making this about the President personally, depersonalize this.'" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] Following those instructions from Obama, Todd proceeded to blame Republicans for the President trying to distance himself from his own red line: "...there are some House Republicans who are...

"...Blame Bush? Of course, President Obama has to lead; it’s his superpower now, his armies to move, his stage. But the prior president gave every world leader, every member of Congress a reason to keep the dogs of war on a leash. The isolationists in the Republican Party are a direct result of the Bush foreign policy. A war-weary public that can turn an eye from children being gassed — or express doubt that it happened — is another poisoned fruit of the Bush years. And for the nearly 200 members of both houses of Congress who voted on the...

Administration officials have made clear that Obama isn't angling for "regime change" with any intervention, a point he touched upon as he stressed that the goals of the United States and its allies are less dramatic. He's considering "limited, tailored approaches, not getting drawn into a long conflict, not a repetition of, you know, Iraq, which I know a lot of people are worried about," he said.

NASA is committed to launching our astronauts on American spacecraft from U.S. soil as soon as possible. Since the end of our Space Shuttle Program in 2011, NASA has relied on the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) for the launch and safe return of astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) aboard its Soyuz spacecraft. While our Russian counterparts have been good partners, it is unacceptable that we don't currently have an American capability to launch our own astronauts. That’s why the Obama Administration has placed such a high priority on correcting this situation. Three years ago, the Administration...

Faulk says he and others in his section of the NSA facility at Fort Gordon routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted, alerting office mates to certain time codes of "cuts" that were available on each operator's computer. "Hey, check this out," Faulk says he would be told, "there's good phone sex or there's some pillow talk, pull up this call, it's really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, 'Wow, this was crazy'," Faulk told ABC News. Faulk said he joined in to listen, and...