Free Republic

Jennifer Loven, an 18-year AP veteran and the wire service's chief White House correspondent, has decided to put her communications talents to work for The Glover Park Group, a DC-based “strategic communications firm” founded in 2001 by a bunch of Clinton and Gore staffers, most prominently Joe Lockhart, who found themselves unemployed after the 2000 election. She'll be “Managing Director in its Public Affairs practice,” a Thursday press release from the Glover Park Group, plugged by Politico's Mike Allen, announced. She's the second President in a row of the White House Correspondents' Association to leave journalism for a left-wing, or...

President Barack Obama said the United States, China and several other countries reached an "unprecedented breakthrough" Friday to curb greenhouse gas emissions - including a mechanism to verify compliance - after a frenzied day of diplomacy at the U.N. climate talks. The agreement, which also includes the developing nations of India, South Africa and Brazil, requires each country to list the actions they will take to cut global warming pollution by specific amounts, a senior Obama administration official said. The official described the deal on the condition of anonymity because specific details had not been announced. Under the agreement, the...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The success of President Barack Obama's ambitious agenda—from health care and climate change to education—could depend on how quickly he recovers from the sharp drop in support among white voters after criticizing a white policeman's arrest of a black Harvard scholar. Obama's widely publicized effort to defuse the first racial flare-up of his young presidency by inviting the protagonists to the White House last week for beers and conversation ended well by most accounts, even though there were no apologies. Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. Joseph Crowley and Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. agreed to disagree about...

Pointing with concern to "red ink as far as the eye can see," President-elect Barack Obama pledged Wednesday to tackle out-of-control Social Security and Medicare spending and named a special watchdog to clamp down on other federal programs — even as he campaigned anew to spend the largest pile of taxpayer money in history to revive the sinking economy. The steepness of the fiscal mountain he'll face beginning Jan. 20 was underscored by stunning new figures: an estimate that the federal budget deficit will reach $1.2 trillion this year, by far the biggest ever, even without the new stimulus spending....

AIRFAX, Va. - Republican presidential nominee John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, equated lawmakers' requests for funding for special projects with corruption on Wednesday even though Palin herself has requested nearly $200 million in so-called "earmarks" this year.

At long last, has the Associated Press lost all sense of decency? The AP's story (saved here for future reference in case the wire service is embarrassed into revising it; you might consider saving it too as Exhibit A on how far over the cliff the dinosaur media has driven itself) by Douglass K. Daniel, with Jennifer Loven contributing (I might have known), gets in at least three cheap, fundamentally untrue, and totally uncalled-for shots at Tony Snow, who died earlier this morning.

Classless AP Takes Cheap Shots at Just-Passed Snow Photo of Tom Blumer. By Tom Blumer (Bio | Archive) July 12, 2008 - 09:03 ET At long last, has the Associated Press lost all sense of decency? The wire service's story (saved here for future reference in case the wire service is embarrassed into revising it; you might consider saving it too as Exhibit A on how far over the cliff the dinosaur media has driven itself) by Douglass K. Daniel, with Jennifer Loven contributing to the story (I might have known), gets in at least three cheap, fundamentally untrue, and...

An interesting recent claim about al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) says it is a totally homegrown and separate entity from the al Qaeda (AQ) that Osama bin Laden heads. Sen. Chuck Schumer, on Tuesday’s “Larry King Live” said, "The al Qaeda the president is talking about is different than the al Qaeda of Mesopotamia, which is the al Qaeda that's in Iraq. The al Qaeda that bin Laden is in charge of is a totally separate organization." And AP’s Jennifer Loven, in an article on the same day, claimed that AQI “"is mostly homegrown ... ". She further claims that,...

An increasingly confrontational President Bush on Friday vetoed a bill authorizing hundreds of popular water projects even though lawmakers can count enough votes to override him. Bush brushed aside significant objections from Capitol Hill, even from Republicans, in thwarting legislation that provides money for projects like repairing hurricane damage, restoring wetlands and preventing flooding in communities across the nation. This level of opposition virtually assured that Bush would have a veto overridden for the first time in his presidency. He has used the veto very sparingly for most of the time he has been in office, but has made more...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Hurricane Katrina has many legacies for the Bush White House, none pleasant. One is the guarantee that as soon as disaster strikes in the United States, President Bush's every move is closely scrutinized to gauge the speed and tone of his response.

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 2 minutes ago WASHINGTON - Hurricane Katrina has many legacies for the Bush White House, none pleasant. One is the guarantee that as soon as disaster strikes in the United States, President Bush's every move is closely scrutinized to gauge the speed and tone of his response to the suffering. This became clear yet again on Tuesday, as the enormity of the wildfires sweeping across Southern California became apparent. The White House reacted with what has become a familiar pattern: Bush dropped a few lines of sympathy and promised assistance into an...

WASHINGTON — U.S. President George W. Bush volunteered an unapologetic defence Friday of his administration's harsh interrogations of terror suspects, saying they are lawful, helpful and won't stop. Amid fresh skepticism that U.S. interrogators may be going too far when trying to pry information from terror suspects, Mr. Bush said: “The American people expect their government to take action to protect them from further attack. And that's exactly what this government is doing. And that's exactly what we'll continue to do.” For decades, the United States had two paths for questioning suspects: the U.S. justice system and the military's Army...

WASHINGTON - New penalties against Sudan — check. More dollars to fight AIDS in Africa — check. A respected internationalist to lead the World Bank — check. Friendly words about tackling global warming — check. George Bush is ready to go to Europe. His bag packed with a pre-emptive agenda he spent all week detailing, the president leaves Monday on a trip that will take him to six countries in eight days. Bush journeys from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean, with the centerpiece of his travels a three-day summit in Germany with leaders from Europe, Canada, Japan and Russia....

Bush bypasses Senate to name ambassador By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer 7 minutes ago President Bush named Republican fundraiser Sam Fox as U.S. ambassador to Belgium on Wednesday, using a maneuver that allowed him to bypass Congress where Democrats had derailed Fox's nomination. Democrats had denounced Fox for his 2004 donation to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The group's TV ads, which claimed that Sen. John Kerry exaggerated his military record in Vietnam, were viewed as a major factor in the Massachusetts Democrat losing the election. Recognizing Fox did not have the votes to obtain Senate confirmation, Bush...

WASHINGTON - The White House pressed Sen. John Kerry Wednesday to apologize for a comment Republicans say was disrespectful of U.S. fighting forces in Iraq, saying he "put gasoline on the fire" of an already sizzling midterm election campaign. "Sen. Kerry may have botched the line, but what he said was insulting to the troops, and what he ought to say is, 'Look, I botched the line, but I'm sorry for giving offense,' " press secretary Tony Snow said on CBS's "The Early Show."

Posted by Dan Riehl on September 26, 2006 - 22:22. Rather than offer a reasoned analysis of a National Intelligence Estimate declassified by the Bush administration today, the AP selected only the most negative aspects of the report for inclusion in their story. WASHINGTON - The war in Iraq has become a "cause celebre" for Islamic extremists, breeding deep resentment of the U.S. that probably will get worse before it gets better, federal intelligence analysts conclude in a report at odds with  President Bush's portrayal of a world growing safer. In the bleak report, declassified and released Tuesday on Bush's orders, the nation's...

President Bush and President Karzi will hold a joint news conference at 11:30AM ET

Thursday September 21, 2006 By JENNIFER LOVEN Associated Press Writer TAMPA, Fla. (AP) President Bush, politicking at full campaign speed, contended Thursday that a vote for Democrats this fall would be a vote to siphon money out of American families' budgets. It was Bush the Politician, unleashed, seven weeks before the midterm congressional elections. The president's campaigning to help his party win governorships and maintain control of Congress in the November voting has been kept largely under wraps of late. Most of his political appearances have been at closed fundraisers. That reflected his low approval ratings that have GOP candidates...

Another member of the Bush family is getting cozy with former President Clinton. First lady Laura Bush joins the former president as a keynote speaker opening his three-day Clinton Global Initiative in New York next week. Clinton has famously formed a close friendship with the current president's dad. Clinton has been a repeat guest at the Kennebunkport, Maine, home of George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara. Clinton also sparked curiosity when he was spotted at the White House last month. It turns out that he and the current president were having lunch, something White House aides said they do...