Free Republic

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- As the soaring cost of fossil fuels grabs both voters' and the candidates' attention, alternatives including nuclear power are enjoying a renaissance on the campaign trail. But while both Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama embrace nuclear power as a viable form of energy, hurdles remain to ramping up production, including the cost of building plants, where to store the related waste and how to transport it. Moreover, politicians will have to overcome jitters about building new plants in local communities. With 104 nuclear power plants in the U.S., nuclear energy currently produces about 20% of U.S....

See the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiTpS4MK3D8

When folks in Washington want to find out what's on the mind of the American people, they tune in to CNN or Fox News and listen to the best of the Washington talking heads. Not me. I have breakfast at my favorite diner in Eufaula, my hometown in Oklahoma. Last week, the folks at J.M.s Restaurant weren't talking about senators Obama and McCain, or the fact the Iraqi government has al Qaeda on the run. They were talking about energy prices. They were talking about the fact it costs $80 to fill up their cars and $120 to fill up...

It's another reminder of how much McCain is glad to talk about national security and also to let Obama define the race. Said the GOP nominee to a military veteran gathering in Denver: "We rejected the audacity of hopelessness, and we were right," McCain said of the surge and Obama's long-standing support for withdrawing troops in Iraq, mocking his rival's signature phrase and the title of his most recent book.

Vetting the First Ladies by Paul Hallrah Michelle Robinson Obama was born in Chicago in January 1964. Following graduation from high school she attended Princeton University where she majored in Sociology and African American Studies. In her senior thesis, titled “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community,”' she asserted that America was a nation founded on “crime and hatred” and that white Americans were “ineradicably racist.” Moving on to Harvard Law School, she received her Juris Doctorate in 1988 and returned to Chicago. She joined the Sidley Austin law firm where, as part of her responsibilities, she was assigned to mentor...

Senator McCain can't seem to catch a break during Senator Obama's widely watched trip abroad this week. The Arizona senator's campaign had planned for the Republican candidate to make a dramatic push for offshore oil drilling while standing on a rig off the coast of Louisiana today, but weather associated with Hurricane Dolly forced the campaign to cancel, Politico reported. Mr. McCain will instead head to Ohio and attend a summit on cancer with Lance Armstrong. The detour also forced Mr. McCain to scrap a meeting with Louisiana's Governor Jindal, who has been mentioned as a possible vice presidential pick....

The online activists are angry with Barack Obama. But only a bit IT WAS summer and it was Austin, where keeping things weird is a popular civic pastime. But for the 2,000 bloggers and readers at last weekend’s Netroots Nation, the mood was more wonkish than wild. The “netroots”—the online version of “grassroots” political activists—spent hours in panels on policy and technology, and kept up running analyses via blogs and Twitter. They allowed themselves to be plied with margaritas of an evening, but made it back for a morning question session with Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of...

(Second part of a three-part series) Here are more reasons to vote against Barack Obama. This part and the first part of the series, which ran on Thursday, can be found on The Bulletin's Web site at www.thebulletin.us. * This different kind of politician is different in still another way besides changing his mind on issues faster than any other politician in history. He doesn't want to be criticized, and doesn't respond to it. When criticized for associating with an anti-American, racist pastor or an unrepentant terrorist, he tries to fob that all off by saying that's the old politics....

Sen. Barack Obama claims there has been only a "shift in emphasis," not "wild shifts," in his political positions. Many already know the list: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, NAFTA, public financing of campaigns, abortion, gay marriage, Social Security taxes, the death penalty and negotiating with rogue nations.Possibly one of the more remarkable changes has been his position on guns. But despite Obama's recent concession on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" that there has been a "shift in emphasis" on various issues, on guns he held firm: "You mentioned the gun position. I've been talking about the Second Amendment being an...

Barack Obama and his associates reveal their racial views.

The first in a three part series on why to vote against Sen. Barack Obama and for Sen. John McCain. Will America elect an inexperienced Chicago machine politician, a radical, extremist, leftist, liberal, elitist, with no legislative or other accomplishments, who has demonstrated he is a world-class flip-flopping zigzagger? Will we go for someone with a painfully thin resume and body of experience, who has already demonstrated bad judgment by his selection of associates (racists, bigots, terrorists, and crooks) and by his output of ideas? This candidate is totally unfit to be our commander-in-chief and president in a time of...

While Democrat Barack Obama continues to lead Republican rival John McCain in the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, the survey also reveals that voters have some serious misgivings about an Obama presidency. In the poll, 47 percent of respondents said they prefer Obama to win, compared to 41 percent for McCain. That’s the same lead Obama enjoyed a month ago. But when asked which candidate would be better when it comes to being knowledgeable and experienced, 53 percent said McCain and only 19 percent chose Obama. Asked who would be the better commander in chief, again 53 percent said McCain,...

Lesser of Two Evils vs. Riskier   [Byron York] From the new NBC/WSJ poll: When it comes to your vote for [president], would you say that you are excited to be voting for him, you are satisfied to be voting for him, or you are voting for him as the lesser of two evils?                             McCain Voters                    Obama Voters Excited                        14                                       33Satisfied                       42                             ...

Hillary used to go ballistic in frustration at the latest rather shameless incarnation of Obama, and McCain should not fall into the same malady. He understandably is angry because Obama, whose opposition to the surge and erstwhile desire to be done with Iraq by March 2007 would have lost the war, rode the anti-war wave when it was popular, and now, in his current metamorphosis to centrist, has piggy-backed onto the good news in Iraq as if it had nothing to do with the surge — as if McCain's lonely support for it either never happened or was irrelevant. And...

id that it would fail. I supported it when it was the toughest thing to do. I believe that my record on national security and keeping this country safe is there. And the American people will examine our records, and I will win." That's John McCain explaining why he'll win. He's wrong. He's leading a loud chorus of conservatives and Republicans desperate to make the surge the defining issue of the campaign. In an editorial for the conservative Weekly Standard, Fred Kagan (the primary intellectual author of the surge strategy) wrote: "It would be hard to design a better test...

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama's plan to build up U.S. forces in Afghanistan while keeping perhaps 50,000 troops in Iraq has triggered a deep rift among antiwar activists, a reminder of the difficult tasking facing the presumptive Democratic nominee as he tries to broaden his appeal. The Illinois senator wrapped up three days of tours and talks in the war-ravaged nations Tuesday, stressing in a news conference that the "situation in Afghanistan is perilous and urgent" and that "we should not wait any longer" to provide additional troops. In Iraq , Obama won a tacit Iraqi endorsement of a plan to...

McCain: Will end dependence on foreign oil (NECN: South Portland, Maine) - Senator John McCain attended a picnic at the Maine Military Museum in South Portland, Maine on Monday. "Everybody here knows what has happened to a gallon of gas, our lowest income Americans are hurting the most, some of them can't even get to work," said the Republican presidential candidate. "We are sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much and some of that money ends up in the hands of terrorist organizations. I will end this dependence on foreign oil," said McCain.

Americans must restart our creative engines for energy security. For more than 30 years, our engines have been in the pits, as our energy needs and innovative spark have fallen victim to environmental alarmism and strangling government regulation. What we have to do begins with where we are now. That’s also called “the status quo.” Ronald Reagan said “status quo” was “…Latin for the mess we’re in.” In the 1980 Republican convention, soon-to-be President Reagan said: "Those who preside over the worst energy shortage in our history tell us to use less, so that we will run out of oil,...

The McCain campaign is out with another contrast ad, and this one suggests that Senator Barack Obama bears some of the responsibility for skyrocketing gas prices. “Who can you thank for rising prices at the pump?” the announcer in the ad asks as a still-shot of Mr. Obama fills the screen and an unseen crowd chants, “Obama! Obama!” Subtle? Not so much. The 30-second spot highlights Senator John McCain’s support for more offshore drilling to wean the country off its dependence on foreign oil. “One man knows we must now drill more in America and rescue our family budgets,” the...

President McCain in 2000 I must be one of the few conservative writers in cyberspace who never feared a McCain presidency. When Senator McCain looked like he might win the Republican nomination in 2000, I asked what, exactly, my friends were so worried about. McCain was honest, like Bush, while Clinton and Gore were steeped in moral slipperiness. McCain was pro-life, like Bush, while Clinton and Gore were pro-abortion. McCain, like Bush, supported a strong military, while Clinton famously “loathed” the military and Gore followed him like a trained poodle. McCain’s ACU (American Conservative Union) voting record is conservative and...