Free Republic

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Here is Charlie Rose last night on his PBS show. His guest is New York Magazine National Editor John Heilemann, and they're talking about the presidential race. This is the question that I told you about right before the top of the hour. Basically Charlie Rose says: Why do Republicans want to beat Obama so bad? ROSE: What is it about the President that seems to make them so passionate to defeat him? HEILEMANN: That's kind of like a PhD dissertation-style question. ROSE: Yeah. HEILEMANN: There is a part of the Republican Party, the conservative -- far...

Growing numbers of New Yorkers seeking food stamps have created an unwelcome spillover effect at some of New York City's job centers: overcrowding that in some cases has grown so severe, benefits were jeopardized. The crush of people grew so large at one Brooklyn center in November that the Fire Department intervened and prevented anyone from entering the building.

(Reuters) - U.S. officials have met members of the Muslim Brotherhood's political party, a U.S. diplomat said, after Washington announced it would have direct contacts with Egypt's biggest Islamist group whose role has grown since U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak was ousted.

By Clark S. Judge, White House Writers Group (www.whwg.com ) and chair, Pacific Research Institute (www.pri.org ) When Shakespeare’s Richard the Third decried the “winter of our discontent”, he meant that unhappiness had gone into hibernation. He intended to awaken it. No need for R-III-R in Washington these days. With all problems diagnosed as “systemic”, systemic pessimism is everywhere. Two weeks ago, in her weekly Wall Street Journal column ( http://tiny.cc/4gkz6 ), Peggy Noonan pointed to reports of Americans giving up their citizenship. She worried that popular gloom over economic decline and powerlessness to change an out-of-touch leadership could lead...

Obama can hold his hand over his heart for the USSR but not for America? What is going on with Obama? When will America Wake up? Freely distribute.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said his country could give up nuclear weapons if everyone else that had them did the same. The remarks came as Russian and US officials negotiate a successor to the 1991 Start treaty on arms reduction, which expires in December. US President Barack Obama will discuss the issue in Moscow next month with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev. Meanwhile a top general said Russia should not go below 1,500 warheads. Col-Gen Nikolai Solovtsov, who commands Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces, said Moscow needed this number to ensure its own security. But he added that the...

The Obama administration has asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit against Iran filed by Americans held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran 30 years ago. The request comes in a $6.6 billion class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington. Fifty-two American diplomats and military officials were held captive for more than a year at the end of Jimmy Carter's presidency by a group of Islamist students who supported the Iranian revolution.

The recent meeting between a deputy of Richard Holbrooke, the United States special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and an emissary of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), is by all accounts a landmark move in the United States' stated aim of involving militant groups in ending the conflict in Afghanistan. The choice of Hekmatyar also indicates just how desperate the US is in finding an escape route from the escalating crisis in Afghanistan. Hekmatyar is a declared terrorist with a reported $25 million price on his head. The 61-year-old engineer from Kunduz province and his anti-government fighters are...

A lot of people are already preparing to adorn their cars with bumpers stickers that say "01-20-2013 Obama's last day". Let's look at history over the past 88 years to see the likelihood. 1921-1933 Republicans ran the White House ( Harding, Coolidge, Hoover - 12 years) 1933-1953 Democrats ran the White House (Roosevelt and Truman - 20 years) 1953-1961 Republicans ran the White House (Eisenhower - 8 years) 1961-1969 Democrats ran the White House ( Kennedy and Johnson - 8 Years) 1969-1977 Republicans ran the White House (Nixon and Ford - 8 years) 1977-1981 Democrats ran the White House (Carter...