Free Republic

Will President Biden pardon Hunter and himself?

One of the most notable incidents from Tuesday's State of the City address occurred even before the mayor's speech began. After the Pledge of Allegiance, Rene Marie was introduced to sing the national anthem. But that's not what she sang. Martin actually sang the tune of the traditional national anthem with the lyrics to "Lift Every Voice and Sing." It's a song some have called the National Black Anthem, the Negro National Anthem or the Black National Anthem. Once she finished performing, there was a moment of awkward silence and then the crowd gave her mild applause. Marie said she...

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama, accused of being elitist for remarks he made about small-town American voters, said on Tuesday the slap at his background is amusing and signals a nation in the midst of "political silly season." The Democratic senator, campaigning in Pennsylvania, dismissed the charges of being elitist and out of touch by fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton and by Republican John McCain as unfounded, given his background. "I am amused about this notion of elitist, given that when you're raised by a single mom, when you were on food stamps for a while when you were growing up, you...

SURE sign that it's silly season: The normally sensible Tony Blair and the normally reasonable Governator are teaming up to defeat global warming. OK, I know it's been hot lately, but that doesn't mean the globe is in any danger of burning to a cinder. And the notion of Blair and Arnold Schwarzenegger grappling the global-warming dragon into submission by charging for carbon is just absurd. Anybody else remember when the hot part of the year was just called summer? And sometimes summer was cooler than "normal" and sometimes it was hotter than "normal." Until very recently, there was none...

Ninety percent of California small-business owners who are members of the National Federation of Independent Business gave their approval to endorse a candidate in this year's gubernatorial election, according to a survey released today. And 95 percent of the votes were for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Only 1 percent of the people who employ the majority of working Californians supports State Treasurer Phil Angelides for governor, the survey shows. Four percent of survey respondents chose other candidates. Based on the results from the fax survey conducted in June that drew 1,124 respondents, the NFIB board voted to endorse Schwarzenegger for re-election....

So this is the October surprise? The Los Angeles Times headline that Arnold Schwarzenegger groped and humiliated women? None of the six women interviewed by The Times filed legal charges. Four of the six were quoted anonymously. Of the two who were named, one, a British television hostess, had told her story to Premiere magazine years ago, and it has been widely known and largely ignored. The other recounts an alleged incident of fondling at Gold's Gym nearly 30 years ago.

Sex, sports, sabotage. You want a scandal, have we got a scandal for you. We've got one with a capital "S" at the White House, involving a possible leak, an investigation, the FBI and the CIA. Throw in a navy Gap dress and we'll be ducky through next spring. If you're unfamiliar with the story, you probably should skip to the comics, but here's the short version. Several months ago, syndicated columnist Robert Novak named a CIA undercover agent in a column about Niger's alleged sale of "yellowcake" to Iraq. He said he got the agent's name from two senior...

One thing about this summer, there was no so-called silly season. There was too much menace, from Iraq to Indonesia to northern Virginia, for the media to muster the enthusiasm to obsessively tally shark attacks, assiduously track global warming, or chronicle even the most vapid celebrity breakups as if they mattered. But if there was no silly season, there may have been a summertime spike in the ludicrous, from California recall reports of Arianna Huffington's measly $771 two-year federal tax bill (but what did she pay the accountant?) to a Washington Post front-pager parsing the finer points of identity politics...