Free Republic

With two weeks to go until Election Day, voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on eight of ten important issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen including the economy and health care.

Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe stood on the Senate floor last year to declare 2009 "the year of the skeptic." Turns out he jumped the gun. This year, a host of Republican Senate hopefuls are trumpeting their rejection of climate science on the campaign trail. Christine O'Donnell became the latest to enter the spotlight last week when she rode tea party support to knock off Rep. Mike Castle -- one of eight House Republicans who voted for cap-and-trade climate legislation last summer -- in Delaware's open-seat GOP Senate primary.

A group probing whether President Obama is addressing matters of concern to African Americans will discuss the issue Saturday at the annual conference of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation hours before Obama is scheduled to address conference attendees. Political scientist Ron Daniels formed the Shirley Chisholm Presidential Accountability Commission in late 2008 as a mechanism for black leaders to hold the nation's first black president accountable. Eventually, the group hopes to issue a report card that grades the administration on how well it is doing in closing racial disparities. The commission is named after the first African American woman elected...

What can anyone from Florida tell us about the candidates running for District 3 (FL) US Congressional seat? All 3 seem to look okay online, but two are more vocal in their stand: Mike Yost and Dean Black. They both actually state their beliefs, not just a nice-sounding background. Anyone know either of the two men mentioned, or have good inside information?

With the controversy over the location of a new, $100 million mosque near the spot of the 9-11 attack heating up, leading luminaries of the Democratic Party have come out in favor of going ahead with it as planned. From the White House we have observed President Obama giving his blessing to the project, both in words and deeds. “Building this mosque adjacent to the site of the worst massacre of civilians in US history opens up a dialogue between proponents of Islam and what are termed ‘unbelievers,’” the President said. “And dialogue is what America is all about. That’s...

WASHINGTON - Democrats complain they were blindsided when President Obama weighed in on the Ground Zero mosque and handed the GOP a new club to beat them with. (snip) White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has spent three days on the phone doing damage control with angry Democrats and urging them not to go public against the President, Democratic sources said. Obama went ahead with the Ramadan dinner remarks even though his top political advisers had not reached a consensus on what he should do. Emanuel was one of the skeptics.

For President Obama, there is no vacation from vacillation. By the time he got to the beach this weekend, the controversy over his Friday speech seemingly supporting the proposed mosque at the 9/11 site left him so rattled, he could hardly wait to put on his flip-flops. Even the hastily arranged Gulf vacation itself was more of a placation, as in placating those who complained his family time off had not included the BP-besieged Gulf shores, making his ringing words of support ring hollow. Soon after he arrived he hastened to hollow out his words from the evening before, at...

I mean, it's not an illogical notion, but the political reality and the speed of the media churn make the notion that Democrats can run against Bush this year vanishingly unlikely. Still, the DNC seems to be trying. From communications director Brad Woodhouse: Serious question here - where is George Bush? Why is he not on the Campaign Trail for Republicans? In recent weeks Republican leaders have said they want to return to the “exact same agenda” that was pursed under George Bush (Pete Sessions), that President Bush will be seen in a more favorable light by the public as...

Read reports on the files at:Der SpiegelThe New York TimesThe GuardianIntro by Der Spiegel:Close to 92,000 US documents have been uncovered that shed new light on the war in Afghanistan. In an unprecedented development, close to 92,000 classified documents pertaining to the war in Afghanistan have been leaked. SPIEGEL, the New York Times and the Guardian have analyzed the raft of mostly classified documents. They expose the true scale of the Western military deployment -- and the problems beleaguering Germany's Bundeswehr in the Hindu Kush. A total of 91,731 reports from United States military databanks relating to the war in...

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/February/10-at-182.html NOTE: The following text SNIPPET is a quote: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, February 23, 2010 Department of Justice and USDA Workshops to Explore Competition and Regulatory Issues in the Agriculture Industry to Begin March 12 in Iowa Initial Workshop to Be Held in Ankeny, Iowa, at Des Moines Area Community College, FFA Enrichment Center WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced today the agenda and panelists for the first joint public workshop, which will be held on March 12, 2010, in Ankeny, Iowa, to explore competition and regulatory issues in the agriculture...

PHOENIX – The nation's top civil liberties group on Wednesday issued travel alerts for Arizona, saying the state's new law cracking down on illegal immigrants could lead to racial profiling and warrantless arrests. American Civil Liberties Union affiliates in Arizona, New Mexico and 26 other states put out the warnings in advance of the Fourth of July weekend. The Arizona chapter has received reports that law enforcement officers are already targeting some people even though the law doesn't take effect until July 29, its executive director said. The alerts are designed to teach people about their rights if police stop...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-obama-and-president-medvedev-russia-us-russia-business-summit Home • Briefing Room • Speeches & Remarks The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release June 24, 2010 Remarks by President Obama and President Medvedev of Russia at the U.S.-Russia Business Summit U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Washington, D.C. 3:08 P.M. EDT PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, good afternoon, everybody. It is a pleasure to be here with my friend and partner, President Medvedev, and I want to thank him again for his leadership, especially his vision for an innovative Russia that’s modernizing its economy, including deeper economic ties between our...

Deficits? Fascism by the left? Abortion? Foreign affairs? Repealing ObamaCare? How can the Tea Party Movement contribute? Who would be the candidates to take us forward?

The National Rifle Association is suffering a sudden onset of amnesia this week, as the gun lobby cuts a deal to exempt itself from the latest Congressional attempt to repeal the First Amendment. NRA members may soon regret the organization's bid to ingratiate itself with Democrats at the expense of its longtime free-speech allies. The campaign finance bill, sponsored by Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Chris Van Hollen, is the Democratic response to the Supreme Court's January decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which restored the First Amendment right of corporations, unions and nonprofits to make independent campaign expenditures. At...

WASHINGTON — Rand Paul, the Tea Party candidate who challenged the Republican establishment to win the party’s Senate nomination in Kentucky two days ago, criticized a landmark civil rights law on Thursday, landing himself in a potentially damaging dispute over civil rights and race. In doing so, he provided Democrats an opportunity to portray him as extreme and renewed concern among Republicans that his views made him vulnerable in a general election. Mr. Paul, in a series of television and radio interviews, suggested that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was too broad and should not apply to private businesses,...

THE RADAR: 10 Brewing Stories You Need To Watch Right Now Gregory White May. 17, 2010, 1:04 PM Right now, uncertainty is stretching over markets worldwide as micro issues, like the BP oil spill, and massive one's, like the collapse of the euro, rattle traders minds. We've got the most important stories, both long and short term, you need to watch here, with details of where they are and where they might head next. Click to see the stories you must be following >[snip]

RUSH: So this guy running for the Senate, Mr. Kirk, has got to explain why he joined Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. Mr. Giannoulias, you Democrats need to explain why you are siding against the American people, from the administration on down. Speaking of Elena Kagan, there's some incredible things about her in the news. This is from Investor's Business Daily. I know he needs to explain to voters how his family's bank failed and where the money went, but no he doesn't, because in Chicago everybody expects a Democrat to be corrupt. It's the stupid ones that get caught...

It was a jarring split screen.On one side of the television, members of Congress were bloviating about the need for financial reform to prevent another crisis.On the other side of the screen, Greek rioters were finally dispersing in a cloud of tear gas after their firebombs sent world markets skidding.Down in the lower right corner, the readout on the Dow looked like the altimeter on a nose-diving jet.How funny that anyone would promise to bring security and predictability to a financial world that can be undone by the protests of some uncivil servants in a little country in the corner...

John Allen looks at the background of Pope Benedict's coming trip to Fatima, Portugal. He notes that the five foreign trips the Pope has scheduled for this year-- to Malta, Portugal, Cyprus, Great Britain, and Spain-- "are almost laid out in ascending order of difficulty." Benedict in Portugal: A different crisis, secularism, and 'Marian Cool' As fate would have it, Pope Benedict XVI's five foreign trips in 2010 are almost laid out in ascending order of difficulty. Last month's weekend stop in Malta, arguably the most Catholic society on earth, amounted to the warm-up act, while next week's four-day swing...

Arizona Sen. John McCain's town hall in Tucson Saturday was all about immigration. McCain had sounded a note of support for Arizona's tough new immigration, calling it a “good tool” for law enforcement. But he stopped short of fully endorsing the measure. “I haven’t had a chance to look at all the aspects, but I do understand why the Legislature would act,” he said. Even though it wasn’t clear to him “whether all of it is legal or not,” he said state lawmakers “acted out of frustration because the federal government didn’t do its job.” He spoke of his 10-point...