Free Republic

President Barack Obama said on Thursday he is shifting his focus to domestic priorities from a tense period during which he sought congressional approval to use military force against Syria for its suspected use of chemical weapons. "Even as we have been spending a lot of time on the Syria issue and making sure that international attention is focused on the horrible tragedy that occurred there, it is still important to recognize that we've got a lot more stuff to do here in this government," the president said before a meeting with his Cabinet at the White House. The president...

The recent court decision voiding the efforts of the Bush administration to allow utilities to upgrade their plants — partially, rather than fully, as the law requires — signals the start of a redefinition of federal-state relations. The plaintiff in this litigation was not an aggrieved individual or company but a dozen states acting in concert to battle the Bush rules. On the merits of the lawsuit, I agree with the administration. The all-or-nothing requirement on upgrading utility plants has served to freeze the current dirty technologies in place and prevent any improvements at all. Half a loaf, in this...

Where does President Bush go from here? U.S. deaths in Iraq hit 2,000, which sadly had the antiwar crowd celebrating. Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination for the Supreme Court, which had just about everybody celebrating but Mr. Bush. Syria plotted to kill a Lebanese leader, and the leader of the world organization responsible for doing something about it tried to protect Syria instead. Sen. Tom Coburn put forward at least two amendments to cut pork, and just 13 senators voted for it--including only one Democrat, Russ Feingold, who is looking more and more like a great presidential candidate who sticks...

p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- Odd things can happen when presidents no longer have to worry about re-election. George W. Bush embarks on another four years in the White House unleashed from election concerns for the first time in his presidency, raising questions about what he will do with the freedom of a second term. Past presidents have often reached big in their second term, with some accomplishments that build on earlier ones and others that can appear to contradict them. Regardless, with their eyes trained away from the voting booth and toward the history books, many have taken the chance to...

An official says all provisions will be examined by a reform panel. Many experts think Bush will favor a piecemeal approach. As the White House prepares to name a blue-ribbon panel on tax reform, the labyrinthine U.S. revenue code could face the first top-to-bottom rewrite since President Reagan closed loopholes and slashed income tax rates on a historic scale in 1986. "This is a fundamental look at the entire code, every component of the code," a senior administration official said late last week. "Nothing is off the table." "Simplification would be the goal," Bush said Thursday during his first postelection...

The CEO president is back in the saddle again. Wasting no time after last week's election victory, a supremely confident President Bush mapped out an aggressive - some say radical - agenda to reshape the American economy through tax and Social Security overhauls, and to make government less intrusive on businesses and entrepreneurs. So much for a traditional, sedate second term. Behind Bush's economic strategy is his firm belief, fueled by advisers who see a rare conservative convergence of power in Washington, that a major overhaul of the economy could usher in a new era of significantly higher growth for...

Contending Americans have embraced his conservative agenda, President Bush pledged Thursday to aggressively pursue major changes in Social Security, the tax code and medical malpractice awards, working with Democrats if they are receptive and leaving them behind if they're not. "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it," Bush said a day after a decisive victory that made him the first president in 68 years to win re-election and gain seats in both the House and Senate. CBS News Correspondent Wyatt Andrews reports the president's idea of reforming Social Security begins with creating...

WASHINGTON - Republicans will be much stronger on Capitol Hill next year, almost in a position to give President Bush whatever he wants on taxes, limits on legal damages, drilling in the Arctic and nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court. With minimum clout in the House and reduced numbers in the Senate, Democrats will have to be much more careful in deciding what battles to fight against a more powerful Republican majority. Politically, House Democrats have just about hit rock bottom, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, conceded Wednesday. "We have lost just about everything we can lose," she said....

"The role of Government is not to create wealth; the role of our Government is to create an environment in which the entrepreneur can flourish, in which minds can expand, in which technologies can reach new frontiers." -President George W. Bush Three years. Three tax cuts. An economic recovery—American ingenuity—unleashed. At a critical moment in the Nation's economic history, while a recession was taking hold, America was attacked, and corporate fraud was exposed. In response to these challenges, the President acted decisively to strengthen the economy and create jobs. The President's leadership resulted in Congress returning taxpayer money to the...

It's really funny hearing Democrats and left wing losers like John "Crushed" Kerry and members of the mainstream press talk about the need for President Bush to "reach out" to them, and "uniting" the country. Yes, the President gave it lip service in his speech, but he had to do that and we hope he's not serious about it, at least in the way they mean it. We don't operate under such restrictions and niceties. We see no need to make conciliatory gestures towards the losers. None whatsoever. If Election Day taught us anything is that America is a conservative...