Free Republic

"According to a new CBS News poll, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) continues to lead the Democratic presidential field, garnering 39% of the vote. Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) comes in second with 24% and former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) places third with 21%. "On the Republican side, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) continues to enjoy a comfortable lead over the pack with 47% of the vote. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) trail with 25% and 10%, respectively." This poll is a three way matchup, but including a "none" choice. Here is a...

JERUSALEM (AP) -- In a dramatic response to an Arab peace initiative, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday invited Arab leaders to a regional peace conference to discuss their ideas for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. ... Speaking at a joint news conference with Merkel, Olmert said, ''I would take advantage of this important opportunity of being here in Jerusalem with the president of the European Union to invite to a meeting all Arab heads of state, including, of course, the king of Saudi Arabia, whom I regard as an important leader, in order to engage in dialogue.'' He said...

The same things have been posted about Rudy ad nauseum on this site, over and over and over, so I thought I would put up a top 22 list of Rudy comments so folks can just cut and paste their favorites, and not have to go to the trouble of pounding the keyboard. 1. Rudy is a social liberal and will destroy the GOP brand 2. The GOP brand is in extremis, and only Rudy can save it from implosion. 3. Rudy has had too many wives and is unfit 4. The GOP candidates have had about a dozen wives...

TOMORROW MARKS the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, as appropriate a moment as any to take stock. What matters most is finding the best policy now -- doing whatever can be done to help Iraq and safeguard U.S. interests in a vital region. But looking back also is essential, particularly for those of us who supported the war. We will never know what might have happened had Saddam Hussein and his sons been left in power. Nor do we know how Iraq will evolve; history's judgment in five years or 10 may look very different than...

American conservatism is in crisis. ... A Giuliani or Romney candidacy [versus Clinton], could well eke out a victory in 2008. ... The strains are there, all right, and they have been made much more acute in the Bush years under the weight of massive spending increases, evangelical overreach, abuse of executive power, conventional corruption, and (most disastrously) a mismanaged war. ... The crisis, rather, is of a different kind. It is intellectual, and it is deeper than anything captured by the conventional categories. The sole merit of Dinesh D'Souza's new book is that it acknowledges this intellectual collapse, even...

Thompson Seeking Political Operatives "The hype over former Sen. Fred Thompson has some substance to it, as the actor-politician has already begun approaching experienced campaign hands in key states," according to the latest Evans-Novak Political Report. "Thompson effectively embraced the Republican right when he ran for and entered the U.S. Senate. From the perspective of the Republican Party's conservative base, he stacks up well against each of the "Big Three" leading Republican candidates. His voting record (lifetime American Conservative Union rating: 86%) in the Senate is more conservative than that of Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain (lifetime ACU rating: 82%),...

Mitt Romney is in trouble. In a deeply conservative party, the former governor of Massachusetts is a ghost of Republicanism past: a moderate. His presidential announcement speech read like a tribute to his father, [who was] liberal enough to get elected and reelected governor in a Democratic state, Michigan. ... "We have lost our faith in government--not in just one party, not in just one house, but in government," as if oblivious to the heresy: Rehabilitating government as a good in itself is not the usual way of introducing yourself to voters in today's post-Reagan Republican Party. Maybe Romney's tried...

I felt a funeral in my brain, And mourners, to and fro, Kept treading, treading, till it seemed That sense was breaking through. And when they all were seated, A service like a drum Kept beating, beating, till I thought My mind was going numb. And then I heard them lift a box, And creak across my soul With those same boots of lead, Then space began to toll As all the heavens were a bell, And Being but an ear, And I and silence some strange race, Wrecked, solitary, here. And then a plank in reason, broke, And...

Hagel Still Thinking About 2008 Sen. Chuck Hagel said "that if he launches a campaign for the presidency in 2008 he would do so as a Republican. But the Nebraskan didn't completely rule out a bid as an independent," the Omaha World Herald reports.

Obama 'was educated in madrassa' Tim Reid and Tom Baldwin in Washington # Senator hid time there, says article # Clinton distances herself from claims Barack Obama was given a rude awakening to the cut-throat world of presidential politics yesterday after being accused of hiding four years in which he was educated at a madrassa when a teenager. The claim, made in the conservative Insight magazine, also revealed the Machiavellian scheming of political activists in a presidential race still nearly two years away. It was aimed at tarnishing Mr Obama’s image in the week he announced himself as a White...

The list of presidential wannabes could get a little longer soon. Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican who has gained a national following — and the ire of some Latino groups — as a staunch opponent of illegal immigration, hinted Friday that he is ready to pursue the Oval Office. When asked whether he plans to take action to start an official bid for the GOP nomination he said, “That is a distinct possibility.” Tancredo wouldn’t be the only candidate with a “tough on border security” platform. Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, a major force behind constructing fences along...

Manpower The world of work Jan 4th 2007 | MILWAUKEE From The Economist print edition To see how the nature of work is changing around the world, look at the evolving strategy of a global employment provider “CORPORATE America is not bulimic any more.” In the 1990s firms indulged in a “feeding frenzy on employees”, only to spew out many of their new recruits when the economy soured. During the recent boom years, however, most companies have had a “good, balanced diet of people coming in.” So says Jeff Joerres, the boss of Manpower, one of the world's leading employment-services...

Mormons A modern prophet goes global Jan 4th 2007 From The Economist print edition The Mormon faith is spreading. But is it a world religion? AP LIKE any religious community, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (better known as the Mormons) will always cherish the locations connected with its foundation story. Not only the places in New York state where its prophet, Joseph Smith, said he received a vision of God (in 1820) and then a new set of scriptures, or the faith's spectacular headquarters in Utah, the state where Mormon pioneers found refuge. Also dear to Mormon...

NEW YORK — Despite the almost incredible amount of buzz about potential presidential hopeful Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the latest FOX News poll finds that New York Sen. Hillary Clinton soundly outperforms Obama in the Democratic primary and also in hypothetical head-to-head matchups. Even though a lot could change before 2008, so far Republicans have clearly coalesced around former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain as their party’s frontrunners. President George W. Bush’s job performance rating is unchanged from last month -- currently 38 percent of Americans approve and 54 percent disapprove. Opinion Dynamics Corporation conducted...

Clink on the Link.

I first heard of Milton Friedman when I was interviewed an undergraduate applicant to the College at the University of Chicago. I told the interviewer that I knew that I was going as a conservative into a liberal shark den. Diplomacy at that stage of my life was not very well developed. Are you in favor of the negative income tax queried the interviewer? No, I replied. I am opposed to welfare, and giving out taxpayer’s money to those who have not earned it. Well, replied my patient elder, the idea behind the proposal is to encourage work by giving...

In a new research paper, three political scientists attempt to use the results of generic congressional polls to predict the outcome of the midterm elections. "Via computer simulation based on statistical analysis of historical data, we show how generic vote polls can be used to forecast the election outcome. We convert the results of generic vote polls into a projection of the actual national vote for Congress and ultimately into the partisan division of seats in the House of Representatives. Our model allows both a point forecast-our expectation of the seat division between Republicans and Democrats-and an estimate of the...

We're nearly all Celts under the skin IAN JOHNSTON SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT A MAJOR genetic study of the population of Britain appears to have put an end to the idea of the "Celtic fringe" of Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Instead, a research team at Oxford University has found the majority of Britons are Celts descended from Spanish tribes who began arriving about 7,000 years ago. Even in England, about 64 per cent of people are descended from these Celts, outnumbering the descendants of Anglo- Saxons by about three to one. The proportion of Celts is only slightly higher in Scotland, at...

In Maryland, Senate Race Now Deadlocked In Maryland's U.S. Senate race, a new SurveyUSA poll finds Ben Cardin (D) and Michael Steele (R) in a statistical tie, with Steele holding a 48% to 47% edge that's well within the survey's margin of error. Key finding: Steele, who is black, gets 54% of white vote and 33% of the black vote, more than twice the support among blacks than fellow Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich (R) in his race for governor. Meanwhile, in the gubernatorial race, Martin O'Malley (D) leads Ehrlich by 7 points, 51% to 44%.

McCain Eyes Torture Rules Compromise Senator: 'Making Progress' On Rules For Interrogating Terror Suspects DANBURY, Conn., Sept. 18, 2006 Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., says he is confident a compromise can be reached with the White House on proposed rules for interrogating terror suspects. (CBS) Legal experts say that under international law, the provisions banning "humiliating and degrading treatment" and "outrages upon personal dignity" would likely bar the CIA's more aggressive tactics. (AP) Sen. John McCain said Monday that he is confident a compromise can be reached with the White House on proposed rules for interrogating terror suspects. "We are certainly...