Free Republic

As the designated political heir of a deeply unpopular president — according to Gallup, President Bush has the highest disapproval rating recorded in 70 years of polling — John McCain should have little hope of winning in November. In fact, however, current polls show him roughly tied with either Democrat. In part this may reflect the Democrats’ problems. For the most part, however, it probably reflects the perception, eagerly propagated by Mr. McCain’s many admirers in the news media, that he’s very different from Mr. Bush — a responsible guy, a straight talker. But is this perception at all true?...

NEW YORK (AP) -- The U.S. financial industry has been shedding jobs at a record clip, and some analysts predict the pace will only accelerate over the next year-and-a-half as banks cut costs in the face of the housing market slump and the weak economy. Analysts at the financial research firm Celent LLC said in a report Tuesday that it expects the U.S. commercial banking industry -- essentially, all companies that lend or collect deposits -- to lose 200,000 of its 2 million jobs over the next 12 to 18 months. An annual loss of 200,000 jobs at the nation's...

The White House apparently is so reluctant to discuss the issue of pardons or commutations for convicted U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean that a spokesman doesn't even want to allow questions about the issue to be finished. The circumstances arose during a White House press gaggle with spokesman Tony Fratto, when Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House, tried to raise the issue of the disparity in the treatment of the Border Patrol agents, compared to that given Scooter Libby, an aide to Vice President Dick Cheney who was convicted of lying during an investigation...

President Bush this week asked Congress to approve a supplemental spending bill for $42.3 billion. The bill is intended to fund U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, in a remarkable expansion of the meaning of the words “U.S. military”, “Afghanistan” and “Iraq” the bill also includes $724 million to fund U.N. Peacekeeping operations in Darfur and $500 million for Mexican police to fight Mexican drug dealers.

Bush administration Cabinet members joined Mexican officials yesterday to assure the public that Mexican trucks are safe to drive on U.S. highways and to promote increased trade between the two countries. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters, appearing alongside U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and Mexican Transportation Secretary Luis Tellez, sought to assuage American fears of Mexican trucks by conducting a public safety inspection of two vehicles participating in a cross-border pilot program. Each truck's country of origin remained a mystery while a Maryland state trooper performed safety inspections. After kicking the tires and checking the headlights, among other things, both...

Fortune Magazine) -- Here I go. I am about to walk into one of the biggest sucker's games in the whole world of economics: declaring that the U.S. consumer is tapped out, so desperately in hock and troubled about the future that he finally just can't spend like it's 1999 anymore. And to be clear, that is what I'm declaring. Unless I can talk myself out of it by the end of the column. I must be nuts. One of the most reliable ways to look like a business dope over the past several years has been to announce that...

President Bush's demands in the Medellin murder case, now being heard before the U.S. Supreme Court, are "bizarrely grotesque," according to the chief counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. And the warning from ADF Chief Counsel Benjamin Bull notes that the case could result in U.S. laws being subjugated to U.N. resolutions and rules to the point that local police officers will have to spend more time studying international law than catching criminals. "The notion that an international body can Mirandize the right of an illegal immigrant to call a consulate, so that if the local police trip up and...

To put it bluntly, Texas wants President Bush to get out of the way of the state's plan to execute a Mexican for the brutal killing of two teenage girls. Bush, who presided over 152 executions as governor of Texas, wants to halt the execution of Jose Ernesto Medellin in what has become a confusing test of presidential power that the Supreme Court, which hears the case this week, ultimately will sort out. The president wants to enforce a decision by the International Court of Justice that found the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexican-born prisoners violated their rights...

WASHINGTON — To put it bluntly, Texas wants President Bush to get out of the way of the state's plan to execute a Mexican for the brutal killing of two teenage girls. Bush, who presided over 152 executions as governor of Texas, wants to halt the execution of Jose Ernesto Medellin in what has become a confusing test of presidential power that the Supreme Court ultimately will sort out. This undated photo released by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows death row inmate Jose Ernesto Medellin. Texas wants President Bush to get out of the way of the state's...

Death Penalty Case Puts Bush and Texas at Odds Over Mexican's FateSunday, October 07, 2007 WASHINGTON — President Bush, who presided over 152 executions as governor of Texas, wants to halt the state's execution of a Mexican national for the brutal killing of two teenage girls. The case of Jose Ernesto Medellin has become a confusing test of presidential power that the U.S. Supreme Court, which hears the case this week, ultimately will sort out. The president wants to enforce a decision by the International Court of Justice that found the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexican-born prisoners violated...