Free Republic

RALEIGH -- In an odd political bedfellows moment, three North Carolina congressmen - two progressive Democrats and one religious-right Republican - joined forces Monday to urge the Obama administration to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan. At an anti-war town hall meeting in the Legislative Building, Republican U.S. Rep. Walter Jones and Democratic U.S. Reps.David Price and Brad Miller sought to keep the pressure on the administration to end the American combat operations by the middle of 2013. "Our concern is that too many times, administrations will say that the date for coming home is a year from now, 18 months...

Candidates lob shots during convention Open season on Scott Brown officially kicked off yesterday with five of the six Democratic candidates seeking to reclaim the “people’s seat” training their sights and barbs squarely on the freshman U.S. senator during speeches at their party’s state convention in Lowell. “When Ted Kennedy went behind closed doors with lawmakers and lobbyists, he always fought for us,” Bob Massie, the nonprofit executive who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 1994, told some 3,000 Democratic delegates gathered on the floor of Tsongas Center. “When Scott Brown goes behind closed door with lawmakers and lobbyists and...

The budget cuts, if they stand, do great damage to our foreign policy. Congressman Jim McGovern recently condemned the cuts, stating, "This isn't a question of charity. It's an issue of national security -- of what happens when desperate people can't find or afford food, and the anger that comes from people who see no future for their children except poverty and death." ...Whether it is hunger in the U.S. or far away in Afghanistan, it can be dealt with if there is the will. Fighting hunger is also one of the most relatively inexpensive investments that can be made.

During a debate with his Republican opponent, Marty Lamb, in Massachusetts Jim McGovern said the thinks the Constitution is wrong in regards to campaign financing. "We have a lousy Supreme Court decision that has opened the floodgates, and so we have to deal within the realm of constitutionality. And a lot of the campaign finance bills that we have passed have been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. I think the Constitution is wrong. I don’t think that money is the same thing as human beings." In the question and answer section of the debate an audience member apparently asked...

BOSTON — Tonight in a debate at Shrewsbury High School, Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern shocked the audience when he declared, “I think the Constitution is wrong” (0:32): The videoDiscussing campaign-finance regulation, and apparently referring to the U.S. Supreme Court’s January Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission ruling, McGovern said: “We have a lousy Supreme Court decision that has opened the floodgates, and so we have to deal within the realm of constitutionality. And a lot of the campaign finance bills that we have passed have been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. I think the Constitution is wrong. I don’t...

"We have a lousy Supreme Court decision that has opened the floodgates, and so we have to deal within the realm of constitutionality. And a lot of the campaign finance bills that we have passed have been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. I think the Constitution is wrong. I don’t think that money is the same thing as human beings," Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) said at a debate Wednesday. He was commenting on the Citizens United v. FEC decision.

Two lawmakers of President Barack Obama's Democratic Party appealed Thursday to let Uighurs locked up at Guantanamo Bay move to the United States, saying they were victims of injustice. The plea came despite an overwhelming Senate vote a day earlier to block money to transfer inmates out of the deeply controversial "war on terror" prison in Cuba, which Obama on Thursday vowed again to shut down. US authorities four years ago cleared 17 imprisoned Uighurs -- members of a largely Muslim group in northwestern China who the State Department says face worsening persecution by Beijing. But they are stuck at...

US Islamist Congressman Keith Ellison was arrested as he was protesting for aid groups to be allowed into Darfur to help his Muslim brothers. He was asked to leave and would not, subsequently he was arrested. Would Mr.Ellison of showed so much passion if it were not Muslims involved? I doubt it.

In Washington, New York, and all over the country, it’s business as usual, as usual.When it’s time to pick a nice wine, I usually order beer. It’s not my fault, really. My people hail from the west coast of Ireland, not the west coast of France. County Mayo has many things to recommend it; vineyards are not among them. Still, I can enjoy the occasional playful Chardonnay or plummy Merlot now and again. And wine has been on my mind a good bit lately, since I’ve been wondering what vintage goes best with pork. To find out, I may have...

"Trust me when I tell you things are so much better in Iraq," said one US military official to me on my recent visit to that war-ravaged country. I didn't know whether to scream or pull the remaining two strands of hair out of my head. I was in Iraq as part of a delegation of eight members of Congress, led by House minority leader Nancy Pelosi. Everything we have been told about Iraq by the Bush Administration has either been an outright lie or overwhelmingly false. There were no weapons of mass destruction; we have not been greeted as...