Free Republic

The News: Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens Jr. emerges as a leading fund raiser for Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani. The Upshot: Mr. Giuliani so far has raised more money in this key state than all Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. T. Boone Pickens Jr. has made most of his estimated $2.5 billion fortune in the oil market over the past eight years. Now, the Texan is betting big money on a bull market in another commodity: the presidential candidacy of Rudy Giuliani. The 78-year-old hedge-fund manager and former corporate raider says he has raised more than $500,000 for Mr....

Rudy Giuliani would make a superb president. he combines Reaganesque vision with extraordinary attention to detail. He is strong on national security and also has the principles and policies to strengthen the economy. He is a tax cutter and a foe of the federal income tax's complexity. He is a fervent free trader, much needed, as global protectionist pressures are rising. He has also demonstrated an antipathy toward unnecessary regulation. If Sarbanes-Oxley hasn't been amended by the time Giuliani takes office, he will push hard to remove its counterproductive elements. While I disagree with him in certain areas--I am pro-life,...

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-New York, has raised less money so far in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination than her chief opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, but she still sits atop the largest cash reserves of any White House hopeful, according to campaign finance reports filed Sunday. Clinton raised $19 million from contributors in the first three months of the year specifically for her nomination bid, compared to $24.8 million for Obama, according to the reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. Overall, the New York senator actually brought in a record amount for this point in a presidential...

They praise Schwarzenegger for getting the public to focus on greenhouse gas emissions and using his political celebrity to shift national debate in a green direction. They say the governor has scored major accomplishments by signing a bill to reduce emissions 25 percent by 2020 and pursuing new alternative fuel requirements. But they have misgivings about the governor's past opposition to top environmental priorities. They say the governor has focused on long-term plans that may not require real sacrifices for years. Yet he has opposed more immediate environmental solutions as too costly to businesses. Schwarzenegger's staunch opposition to fees led...

But we're gearing up for this election, and if you don't think that in the Drive-By Media and the Democrat Party, if you don't think 2008 is all about the Clintons getting back in the White House, you've got another thing coming. I'm going to tell you as we sit here today, there is an 80% chance that Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States, if you look at the way things are falling out right now. They're trying to take out Rudy Giuliani. Guess what? Rudy's a "draft dodger" now. Did you see the story...

Last July The Jewish Press published an interview with controversial author and columnist Ann Coulter that became the most viewed article on our website for 2006. Nine months later, we decided it was time to once again get Ms. Coulter’s take on recent events. THE JEWISH PRESS: Who or what is to blame for the Republicans doing so badly in the November elections? Ann Coulter: The evaporating spine of the American people, the relentless media onslaught and the feckless Bush presentation of the case for war. What would a Democrat in the White House mean for America’s Mideast policy? Do...

An Iraqi government source says the country's security forces killed two key insurgent leaders with the help of Iraqi tribes leaders in Al-Anbar province. The Interior Ministry source said the operation, which also resulted in the arrest of 37 al-Qaida linked terrorists... ...also arrested six other terrorists in south Amiriyah and arrested 11 al-Qaida suspects in the Euphrates area.

Presidents Day next February may have a whole new meaning.It's likely that a third of all presidential primaries and caucuses will be held in the first two months of 2008, which means the parties' nominees could be known by early February, thanks to an "earlier the better" front-loading strategy emerging on the political landscape. Critics warn the strategy will bypass many voters and lengthen the general-election campaign well in advance of the November vote. In the previous primary season, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry effectively nailed down the 2004 Democratic nomination by March 2. But strategists in both parties now say...

Battling to hold on to his job, World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said misleading information has been circulating over his involvement in a huge pay increase awarded to a close female friend. “I feel, however, that this has left a vacuum, which has largely been filled by misleading information” and conceded the 109 pages of documents about the controversy released by the board are “a lot to wade through for significant facts so I would like to call your attention to a number of them." Wolfowitz included a link to the package of documents, as did a posting on the...

A mother cat in China has adopted a mouse, letting it join her family of newborns. The cat was brought into a children's clothing store to catch mice, reports Yanzhao City News. Ten days ago, the cat gave birth to five kittens. "She stays in the box all day long, taking care of her babies, but three days ago, my colleague found a small mouse playing with the kittens," said a spokesperson for the store in Shijiazhuang city. "The cat was protecting the mouse, and would become alert if anyone came too close." The store staff threw the mouse out...

Rudy Giuliani is still the most popular presidential hopeful for Republican Party supporters in the United States, according to a poll by Gallup released by USA Today. 38 per cent of respondents would back the former New York City mayor in a 2008 primary. Arizona senator John McCain is second with 16 per cent, followed by actor and former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson with 10 per cent, former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich also with 10 per cent, and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney with six per cent.

according to a poll by Rasmussen Reports. 49 per cent of respondents would support the former North Carolina senator in 2008, while 43 per cent would vote for former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. In a separate contest, Edwards holds a 14-point edge over actor and former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson. John Edwards (D) 49% vs Rudy Giuliani (R) 43% John Edwards (D) 50% vs Fred Thompson (R) 36% Source: Rasmussen Reports Methodology: Telephone interviews with 800 likely American voters, conducted on Apr. 4 and Apr. 5, 2007. Margin of error is 4 per cent.

The governor of Maryland did Tuesday what the governor of California should have done last fall: sign a bill making his state the first to begin junking the electoral college. At least, chuck the electoral college as it has evolved. Circumvent the relic, render it moot and elect America's president by popular vote. The bill makes Maryland the first state to sign an interstate compact that obligates each signatory to cast all its electoral votes for the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote. The compact won't go into effect unless it's signed by enough states to comprise a...

Washington needs a hefty dose of fiscal discipline. To restore accountable and effective leadership to America, government needs to run more like a business. That is what I did in New York. My administration inherited a $2.3 billion deficit. We responded by imposing fiscal discipline. We cut programs. We cut taxes. And we got results. We turned the deficit into a multibillion-dollar surplus. We cut bureaucracy by 20,000 workers - while increasing cops on the street and teachers in the classroom. And we cut taxes 23 times, all while working with a Democrat-dominated city council. Every year - in good...

On Abortion: "Government should stay out of it... The ultimate decision must be made by the women... Government should treat its citizens as adults capable of making moral decisions on their own." -- Fred Thompson, July 1994 Are the Social Cons ignorant of Thompson's background? Back in the early to mid-1990s, there was a raging battle in the Republican Party between the Moderates/Libertarians versus the Religious Right. On one side there was Ann Stone's Republicans For Choice, the Ripon Society, Log Cabin Clubs and the organization that I had founded in 1990 - the Republican Liberty Caucus. On the other...

Adults in the U.S. have a clear idea of the character traits their next president should possess, according to a poll by Gallup released by USA Today. 77 per cent of respondents want a strong and decisive leader, 68 per cent call for a person who has good moral character, and 63 per cent urge for an effective manager. In addition, 59 per cent of respondents think it is important for their next head of state to focus on uniting the country, 47 per cent call for consistency with issue positions over time, 46 per cent would prefer a person...

March was undoubtedly a rough month for Rudy Giuliani (and April's not shaping up so great, either). But, the fact is he's still doing extremely well in the polls. Much was made of Mr. Giuliani's drop to 31% in the Gallup poll at the end of March, from 44% in the same poll at the beginning of March. However, in the first Gallup poll taken in April, Mr. Giuliani's back up to a quite-robust 38%. John McCain is still on his way down (to a low of 16% in the Gallup poll). And Mitt Romney is still a flat line...

Of course, Giuliani's had a rough week or two; even if he's still the front-runner, he's hardly a sure thing for the nomination. He raised an impressive $10 million in March alone, but keep in mind that his high standing in the polls has a lot to do with the relative weakness of the current field, which could change. That said, I suspect the "Rudy can't win" mantra is being driven as much by Democratic fear and loathing - of both conservatives and Giuliani himself - as by Republican politics and performance. As Deborah Hart Stroberand Gerald Strober's "Flawed or...

Supporters will renew their efforts this week to legalize gay marriages in California, but there seems to be little doubt that the outcome will be a rerun - another veto by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Assemblyman Mark Leno, the San Francisco Democrat who introduced the gay marriage bill that Schwarzenegger vetoed in 2005, said he is confident lawmakers will send the measure to the Republican governor again this year. In his veto message in 2005, Schwarzenegger said the Leno bill violated Proposition 22, the anti-gay marriage initiative approved by California voters in 2000, and that any attempt to legalize same-sex weddings...

Long before he became mayor of New York or the Republican front-runner for the presidency, Rudy Giuliani made a name for himself as a crime-busting federal prosecutor in Manhattan, taking on the mob and white-collar criminals in a manner that hinted of bigger things to come. During a nearly seven-year stretch ending in 1989, Giuliani steered dozens of high-profile cases to completion, garnering more than 4,000 convictions. He tangled with mob bosses, Wall Street executives and corrupt politicians — and was never afraid to invite the bright lights of TV cameras to accompany his quests. Giuliani went after mobsters and...