Free Republic

President Joe Biden took one question from reporters when he returned to the White House this afternoon after *another* weekend in Delaware but we have no idea WTF he said at the start of the exchange.

<p>The half-dozen conservative senators and governors who had planned to run before Bush brought out his shock-and-awe fundraising campaign, had to laugh: They viewed Bush himself as an intruder, a political semi-retiree who sat on the sidelines for eight years while they fought Barack Obama. Now it was Bush’s turn to rage at an outsider.</p>

Three men looking to party with three females in a Calimesa motel instead found themselves ripped off by the trio after the victims removed their clothing, according to the Riverside County Sheriff's Department.

A gem by Anne Coulter..... "On the bright side, after two weeks of TV coverage of the Terri Schiavo case, I think we have almost all liberals in America on record saying we can pull the plug on them. "

Austin "FOR A WHILE I thought about moving to Atlanta," Jeff Lewis was saying, "but then I realized the Austin connection, being here, gives us a kind of special edge, and we really, really didn't want to lose that sort of, I don't know, allure. I mean, other people do what we do, but we're here, right in this man's backyard." Jeff is barefoot and ear-ringed and prefers black--today it's black jeans under a flyaway black linen shirt, unbuttoned to the sternum. With his business partner Bill Callan, he is founder of "Two Unemployed Democrats Co." an Internet and mail-order...

MIAMI -- As President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry squared off in their last debate Wednesday night in Arizona, key Kerry operatives were working to make sure that Democrats don't end up again feeling that a potential victory at the polls is snatched from them. The specter of the 2000 presidential election, plagued by partisan legal battles and decided unceremoniously by the Supreme Court, floats freely over Florida, where the Bush-Gore debacle could be repeated if the election turns out to be as close as polls predict. Florida is one of several key states where lawyers, both Republican...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Insurgents detonated two bombs near a convoy of U.S. military vehicles in southern Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 33 people and wounding scores more, Iraqi police said.   They said the first blast was probably caused by a car bomb. A second bomb detonated shortly afterwards, as U.S. troops tried to help those hit in the first explosion. A policeman at the scene said he had counted at least 33 bodies and said around 50 people were wounded in the explosions. Local hospital officials said they were inundated with casualties. It was not immediately clear how...

Well! If you have never seen a flock of enraged birders, you don't know what danger is. These people don't just watch pewits and tweety-birds, they're into raptors, too falcons, eagles ... they know how to swoop and strike. If we find Rove beaten to a pulp with binoculars, it will be no surprise. How could he ignore the immemorial warning, "Beware the wrath of the birding legions!' Back to business. There's no way to keep up with the Bush administration's assaults on the environment, they're just endless. Most notable lately was the decision to let mercury pollution, which is...

A few days ago, a Respected Party Elder advised me to stop dissing John Kerry on account of, ''He will be our nominee.'' He may be ''our nominee,'' but he'll still be a boring stiff. OK, sort of an impressive boring stiff. So far, this is a swell race, and we're in for another terrific week if both Kerry and John Edwards do the issue stuff they're both well-placed to do. Kerry has a strong, well-thought-out healthcare plan, and he should make it his signature issue -- and put some passion into it, if he's got any. Edwards, with his...

<p>The debate over President Bush's new immigration reform has so far been mainly about election-year politics. But what we believe most commends it is that it recognizes the world as it exists.</p> <p>Like it or not, the U.S. is part of an integrating regional and world economy in which the movement of people across borders is inevitable. Despite nearly 20 years of efforts to "crack down on the borders," the immigrants keep coming--an estimated eight million without legal U.S. documents today. As long as the per capita income differential between the U.S. (nearly $32,000) and Mexico ($3,679) continues to be so wide, we can't stop immigrants short of means that will violate our traditions, our conscience, and our national interest.</p>

Diane Rehm: ``Why do you think he (Bush) is suppressing that (Sept. 11) report?'' Howard Dean: ``I don't know. There are many theories about it. The most interesting theory that I've heard so far -- which is nothing more than a theory, it can't be proved -- is that he was warned ahead of time by the Saudis. Now who knows what the real situation is?'' -- The Diane Rehm Show, NPR, Dec. 1 It has been 25 years since I discovered a psychiatric syndrome (''Secondary Mania,'' Archives of General Psychiatry, November 1978), and in the interim I haven't been...

bushwhacked by tailhook: the real reason       "'Al has a way of looking at you like his eyes are kind of burning,' said Nashville Tennessean reporter John Warnecke.You would get that when you mentioned his dad'. Asked in a 1987 interview about relations between father and son, Tipper Gore said:'You remember Oedipus? She quickly added that she was kidding, sort of. 'You had a very powerful father - a hero to many people - and a son coming to maturity and learning to find his own dignity.'" Inventing Al Gore by Bill Turque, p. 30    ...