Free Republic

John Kerry has never hidden his contempt for the armed forces very well, not even when he served as an officer in the Navy. Yesterday the mask slipped a little bit, as John Ziegler at KFI notes on his website, and Allahpundit mirrors at Hot Air. At a political rally for California's Democratic challenger to Arnold Schwarzenegger for governor, Phil Angelides, Kerry told the Pasadena City College crowd to study hard and get an education -- or wind up like the losers in the military: “You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and...

CHICAGO – Three years have now passed since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which triggered the start of the most acute phase of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Is the financial world a safer place today? Within days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the US had erected new and enormous security measures at airports throughout the country. Within a month, the US military was on the ground in Afghanistan. Within three years the US had an official report on the causes of the events of 9/11; the well-resourced expert commission that produced it identified the weaknesses of America’s national-security...

The 2008 financial crisis was an “avoidable” disaster caused by widespread failures in government regulation, corporate mismanagement and heedless risk-taking by Wall Street, according to the conclusions of a Congressional inquiry. The government commission that investigated the financial crisis casts a wide net of blame, faulting two administrations, the Federal Reserve and other regulators for permitting a calamitous concoction: shoddy mortgage lending, the excessive packaging and sale of loans to investors, and risky bets on securities backed by the loans. < snip > ..... Many of the findings have been widely described, but its synthesis of interviews, documents and testimony,...

WASHINGTON — The 2008 financial crisis was an “avoidable” disaster caused by widespread failures in government regulation, corporate mismanagement and heedless risk-taking by Wall Street, according to the conclusions of a federal inquiry. The commission that investigated the crisis casts a wide net of blame, faulting two administrations, the Federal Reserve and other regulators for permitting a calamitous concoction: shoddy mortgage lending, the excessive packaging and sale of loans to investors and risky bets on securities backed by the loans... While the panel, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, accuses several financial institutions of greed, ineptitude or both, some of its...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 — The Apollo Alliance, a national coalition of business, labor, environmental and community leaders, today proposed a comprehensive quick start, clean energy economic recovery strategy to immediately create or retain 650,000 direct green-collar jobs and an additional 1.3 million indirect jobs in communities across the country. The Alliance’s proposed Apollo Economic Recovery Act responds directly to President-elect Barack Obama’s call last week for a “big stimulus package” in January to “jolt” the economy and “lay the groundwork for long- term, sustained economic growth.” “With a new president and Congress taking office in January, we have a tremendous...

We can confirm this is not a joke...

Cindy Sheehan, Tom Hayden, and the Hate America Left meet with pro-Ba'athist members of the Iraqi parliament to discuss “peace.” TO FIND PEOPLE WHO HATE AMERICA AS MUCH AS THEY DO, the Fifth Column Left had to go halfway around the world to meet with Iraqi political leaders who call terrorism “honorable national resistance” and say foreign jihadists “are guaranteed Paradise” – and at least one of whom has ties to militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. By the end of the trip, the American leftists would echo these sentiments. Somehow most of the media – occupied with interminable coverage of Hurricane...

Polls Show Democrats Not Connecting With Angelides. Former Assembly speaker and San Francisco mayor Willie Brown on Friday predicted that fellow Democrat Phil Angelides will lose his campaign for governor. Brown's forecast came during a fundraising breakfast for his public policy institute, which drew many of the state's top elected officials, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. With a nod to the Republican governor, who was seated in the audience, Brown told several hundred well-connected listeners that Schwarzenegger will win his bid for a full term next month. "No matter what, I think he'll be re-elected governor," Brown said. Angelides campaign spokesman...

NWN has learned that the Phil Angelides for Governor campaign has sent a letter to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger demanding that he release all those audio tapes on the Governor’s Office computer system by October 4th. Or else, they will. You’ll recall the infamous backfiring tape flap earlier in the month. Using a cyber trick that Democratic spinners couldn’t explain for an agonizing period of time, Angelides opposition researchers surreptitiously came up with a tape of a private Schwarzenegger discussion with top staffers in which he mused about ethnology. Which they then leaked to the Los Angeles Times, which promptly slapped...

I don't know a single Democrat not on a political payroll who is enthusiastic about state Treasurer Phil Angelides' run for governor. In the Capitol, many Dems can't stand the guy. No one can argue with a straight face that Angelides has a serious plan to balance state finances. If Schwarzenegger is the free-lunch governor -- he won't raise taxes and has failed to slice spending to eliminate the state's $4 billion to $5 billion structural budget shortfall -- Angelides offers free lunch followed by free desert. Angelides' recipe for state finances: no new taxes, unless you're rich, and a...

This is an unfortunate trend with Angelides. He has proposed a number of spending plans along the campaign trail but never answered the question, "How will you pay for it?" He wants to dramatically increase school funding, supports state-run single-payer health care, says he will close the budget deficit and advocates immediate universal health care for California children, among other spending. His only on-the-record plan to pay for these things: raising taxes on the "wealthy" and closing "corporate tax loopholes." He has failed to detail these "loopholes" and how much more money he would bring in from them. And he...

ANGELES (Reuters) - Karl Rove, U.S. President George W. Bush's senior political advisor, on Tuesday took the administration's message on immigration reform to Latino leaders, saying the country was approaching a "critical moment" in the debate. >br> Speaking at the annual convention of leading Latino civic group the National Council of La Raza, Rove said Bush would work with Republicans and Democrats in coming weeks to push through reform legislation that has bitterly divided Congress, the Republican Party and the nation. "We face a critical moment in our immigration debate, a moment when our nation will make an important decision...

White House adviser Karl Rove is scheduled to speak tomorrow at the annual conference of the federally funded, left-wing, open-borders-advocacy group, the National Council of La Raza. If he does not want his speech to look like an act of appeasement, he should confront La Raza on its opposition to commonsense policies designed to secure both U.S. borders and U.S. pocketbooks. La Raza, which means “The Race” in Spanish, has denounced as “horrendous” and “appalling” the House immigration bill passed in December, which was sponsored by Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R.-Wis.) and supported by the overwhelming majority of House Republicans....

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is moving to shore up an area of vulnerability in his re-election campaign against his trailing Democratic opponent, Phil Angelides. On Tuesday at an event in L.A., he will announce the formation of Hispanic Families for Arnold. When he was elected in the 2003 recall election, Schwarzenegger garnered 34 percent of the Latino vote, a good total given that the replacement Democratic nominee, Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, is Mexican-American. But in some recent polls matched up against Angelides, Schwarzenegger is running under 20 percent. Forty to fifty community leaders and their families will join Schwarzenegger at the...

Democratic candidates spend time in church The Democratic candidates for governor went to church on Sunday and prayed for victory, as well they might in a race that is neck and neck heading into Tuesday's primary. Steve Westly, who made his fortune at eBay, and Phil Angelides, a wealthy former developer, have been battering each other with nasty television ads for several weeks. Analysts say voters may respond to the negativity campaign by not voting. Westly, the state controller, appeared with Rep. Diane Watson, D-Los Angeles, at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles, which he joined three...

Click pic to Enlarge Despite a thriving economy, shrinking budget deficits, rising public school test scores and record low jobless claims, Phil Angelides still believes that pushing his socialist agenda will get him elected. And regardless of the fact that polls show he is out of touch with California voters, the Democrat party base is following him down the road to communism. Read More...

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger holds a solid lead over either Democratic challenger in a head-to-head battle in the November election, at least among those who have a preference, but 30 percent of likely voters remain undecided, according to a nonpartisan poll released today. The survey, by the Public Policy Institute of California, is wide ranging but a theme emerges: The news is good, or at least better, for the governor on virtually all fronts - and it's clear his two Democratic challengers have a lot of work to do. One-on-one, Schwarzenegger holds an 8 percentage point advantage...

Defend California's Clean Car Bill! Take Action! Fight global warming. Sign this petition and tell the automakers to drop their effort to block California's tough new global warming law. Send this petition to: Mitsubishi, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, BMW, GM, Porsche, DaimlerChrysler, Automobile Associations Excerpted from: http://ga4.org/campaign/sufc_cleancar_petition?rk=9da4h7d17BDsW

We Need 100 FReepers to Help Now!!!Republicans may be able to take the post of California State Treasurer. This would be a stunning upset - putting a fiscally conservative GOPer - Greg Conlon - at the helm of the treasury of the 6th largest economy in the world. The stunning news comes from recent polls which show Conlon and Angelides locked in a dead heat. Not GOP polls. But typically liberal-leaning polls. The more stunning news is that incumbent liberal Angelides is sitting on his cash for a future run for higher office (at one point he thought of challenging...

<p>The California Public Employees Pension System steered $700 million in investment capital to a wealthy financier who has donated more than $600,000 to Gov. Gray Davis and thousands more to officials who serve on the CalPERS board, according to state records.</p>