Free Republic

The other night I was having dinner with two friends in an Upper West Side restaurant when an extraordinarily loud group of about a dozen people settled into the next table. THE LONG KNIVES HAVE BEEN out for Giuliani ever since he started proving liberals wrong in the 1990s, and it's only going to get worse. "Him?" was the one-word headline on the cover story in New York last week, followed by, "New Yorkers may be surprised by how far Rudy Giuliani has come already. But that's only because we know him." As a footnote, it should be pointed out...

One also knows a political leader by the action he takes. As mayor, Mr. Giuliani took on the nanny state that city government had become, reducing the dependency that had one in seven New Yorkers living off government support. As for New York's huge welfare rolls, he more than halved them and had more than 100,000 welfare recipients finding work annually by 1999. He cleaned up the crime-ridden streets, cutting crime by 64% and murder by 67%. By cutting spending and taxes, he turned an economic basket case into an economic marvel. In eight years he reduced or extinguished 23...

Not since Teddy Roosevelt took on Tammany Hall a century ago has a New York politician closely linked to urban reform looked like presidential timber. But today ex–New York mayor Rudy Giuliani sits at or near the top of virtually every poll of potential 2008 presidential candidates. Already, Giuliani’s popularity has set off a “stop Rudy” movement among cultural conservatives, who object to his three marriages and his support for abortion rights, gay unions, and curbs on gun ownership. Some social conservatives even dismiss his achievement in reviving New York before 9/11. An August story on the website Right Wing...

If I thought the most important task the next American President would face would be dealing with abortion policy or protecting second amendment rights, a Giuliani candidacy would not arouse my interest. Because I will be looking to the next President first and foremost to address issues of foreign policy and national security, though, Giuliani is a candidate I am enthusiastically considering. snip When I look at candidates, though, I am considering the biggest challenges the next President will face. Americans are moving closer to the conservative position on abortion and gun control. Gone are the days that Democrats could...

During a swing through Northern California this week that included a close encounter with a mechanical milker, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani snitched a bite of blackened chicken quesadilla off a woman's plate at Mimi's Diner in Fresno. In Southern California next week, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., will appear in the Los Angeles area with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to promote his climate-change policies and talk about how they can be taken national. Both stops are precursors of a seismic shift taking shape in presidential politics -- California as a top priority for Republicans. The nation's largest state has always...

Fox News Channel says it has obtained controversial unseen footage from ABC's miniseries "The Path to 9/11" and will air the video during "Hannity's America" on Sunday night. Before "Path" aired in September, Democrats and former aides to President Clinton demanded changes to the miniseries, which revolves around the events leading up to the September 11 attacks, saying that it contained fictionalized scenes and unfairly blamed the Clinton administration for failing to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. Ahead of "Path's" broadcast, ABC was said to have made minor edits, including altering a scene in which an actor playing Sandy...

Days after Barack Obama jumped into the presidential sweepstakes, he was hit with a thinly sourced story from his past--39 years in his past, to be exact. The allegation, by a conservative magazine, raised questions about whether the Illinois senator had been schooled in Islamic radicalism when he was all of 6 years old. Insight, a magazine owned by the Washington Times, cited unnamed sources in saying that young Barack attended a madrassah, or Muslim religious school, in Indonesia. In his 1995 autobiography, Obama said his Indonesian stepfather had sent him to a "predominantly Muslim school" in Jakarta, after two...

The White House on Tuesday denied it was planning a U-turn on its climate change policy by embracing a system of formal caps on greenhouse emissions, despite rising pressure from European governments to change its stance. Although energy security will be a key theme in President George W. Bush’s State of the Union address next week, the White House issued an unusually public rebuttal of rumours about its climate change policy. Tony Snow, White House spokesman, said: “I want to walk you back from the whole carbon cap story...The carbon cap stuff is not accurate. It’s wrong.” http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e43fe006-a58b-11db-a4e0-0000779e2340.html

Press conference scheduled for 2:30 regarding Nifong's request to be excused from Duke case. FNC will carry live.

District Attorney Mike Nifong said after a private swearing-in Tuesday that he intends to help Durham heal the wounds of the Duke University lacrosse case. The prosecutor, who faces ethics charges for his public statements about the sexual assault case against three former lacrosse players, began his four-year term of office in a ceremony closed to avoid reporters.

Al Qaeda might be on the run in Afghanistan, but Osama bin Laden's agents are in the driver's seat at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Officers tell of daily attacks by al Qaeda inmates against U.S. military personnel, who are ordered not to respond. The officers have also been ordered to fulfill the religious, cultural and even entertainment needs of the inmates, including providing Arabic translations of Harry Potter. "I have never once since I've been down here ever heard of a detainee being abused, but I've seen the soldiers and sailors get abused," Staff Sgt. Thomas...

Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America by Brigitte Gabrielle Brigitte Gabriel lost her childhood to militant Islam. In 1975 she was 10 years old and living in Southern Lebanon when militant Muslims from throughout the Middle East poured into her country and declared jihad against the Lebanese Christians. At that time, Lebanon was the only Christian-influenced country in the Middle East and the Lebanese Civil War was the first front in what has become the worldwide jihad of fundamentalist Islam against non-Muslim people. For 7 years, Brigitte and her parents lived in an underground bomb shelter....

Freepers, I some information about the recent intelligence report that said, in part, that the war in Iraq was creating more terrorism. There was more to the report that the media didn't report, as it turns out, and that's the information that I need. Thanks in advance for any help provided. I'll check in later.

WASHINGTON — Just about a week into his drive to highlight terrorism and national security, President Bush appears to be getting some new political traction. A CBS News/New York Times poll found 55 percent of Americans approve of how Bush is handling the anti-terrorism campaign, a slight increase from last month. In recent days, Bush delivered four major speeches and a national radio address on terrorism, bolstered by a quick round of network television interviews. If Bush's strategy for reminding Americans about the threat of terrorism helps Republicans in November's congressional elections, it will be in part because he's mining...

Much is being disputed about the contents and conclusions asserted within the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report attempting to compare, in three major sections, prewar Iraq intelligence estimates with postwar Iraq findings regarding ‘Iraq’s WMD Capabilities,’ ‘Iraqi Links to al-Qaeda’ and ‘Regime Intent.’ While it is being currently touted in media reports with the air of a comprehensive and definitive assessment, it is decidedly neither. This is the introduction of a collaborative series of analytical reviews of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee report titled, "Postwar Findings About Iraq's WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism And How They Compare With...

The media reported extensively in the 90's about the world's alarm at the growing relationship between Saddam and Osama. Clinton's federal indictment mentions their relationship. A federal judge finds Iraq partially responsible for 9/11 and finds for 9/11 families.

Former president Bill Clinton is blasting the ABC 9/11 docudrama “The Path to 9/11” for being inaccurate and unfair. You’ve got to love the irony of that. Wasn’t he the guy who hired Hollywood filmmakers to create a campaign biopic of his life? Sure, “The Path to 9/11” makes up dialogue, invents scenes and creates a composite character or two, but sometimes you have to craft the facts in a certain way to tell a complicated story. Just like sometimes you have to reconsider what the definition of “is” is when you don’t want people to know you’ve had an...

NEW YORK A not especially eventful press briefing at the White House today turned rancorous with NBC's David Gregory telling Press Secretary Tony Snow, "Don't point your finger at me," and Snow accusing the newsman of being "rude" and delivering Democratic talking points. Earlier, speaking to reporters, Snow, continuing the administration's media focus on the war on terror, accused "some in the Democratic Party" of saying "we shouldn't fight the war" and "we shouldn't apprehend al-Qaeda" or even "question al-Qaeda." Snow got into a tussle with Gregory after the NBC journalist told him, in a lengthy remark, that the public...

The president is scheduled to speak at 1:20 p.m. in what is being billed as a major speech in the war on terror.

The much-publicized Plame civil suit is off to a bad start. The plaintiffs moved for permission to leave their residential address off the complaint. Judge Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia gave the motion short shrift: Plaintiffs ask that, ”[o]ut of respect for [their] privacy in light of their public visibility,” Pls.’ Mot. at 1, they be excused from complying with rules requiring that each party to a civil action include his or her full residential address in the caption of the “first filing by or on behalf of” the party. See L. Civ. R....