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WASHINGTON - President Bush hopes to revive his plan to overhaul the U.S. Social Security retirement program if his Republican party keeps control of the Congress in the November midterm elections, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. ADVERTISEMENT Despite polls suggesting Democrats have their best chance in years to regain control of the House of Representatives, Bush told the newspaper in an interview he was confident a power shift was "not going to happen." "I just don't believe it," he said, adding that if Republicans prevail at the polls, next year might be a good time to reintroduce the...

The fall 2006 elections are now just two months away. Although the conventional wisdom is that Republicans will have a tough time this fall, I believe that we can still win -- but not without substantial changes. In this edition of "Winning the Future," I outline 11 values-led policies that are both morally right and that enjoy (not coincidentally) the overwhelming support of the American people. These are the values and the policies that Republicans should embrace this fall. Here's the key: Republican victory in 2006 depends on a return to the American values that twice elected Ronald Reagan and...

The most telltale clue to Congress's fall agenda may be an item that still may be added: middle-class tax cuts. Down in polls and divided internally, Republicans want to block debate on domestic policy and shift attention to national-security issues that command more party unity. But census data last week highlighted the economic squeeze on many families, and House leaders are considering a pre-election bid to make permanent the $1,000 child tax credit and marriage penalty relief provisions enacted in 2001. Like most of the Bush administration's tax breaks, these are due to expire at the end of 2010, when...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4 — As they prepare for a critical pre-election legislative stretch, Congressional Republican leaders have all but abandoned a broad overhaul of immigration laws and instead will concentrate on national security issues they believe play to their political strength. With Congress reconvening Tuesday after an August break, Republicans in the House and Senate say they will focus on Pentagon and domestic security spending bills, port security legislation and measures that would authorize the administration’s terror surveillance program and create military tribunals to try terror suspects. “We Republicans believe that we have no choice in the war against terror...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Attempts by the administration of US President Gearge W. Bush to justify the continuing war in Iraq by comparing it to the 20th century war against Nazism as November elections draw near could actually benefit divided Democrats, experts said. "The battle for Iraq is now central to the ideological struggle of the 21st century. We will not allow the terrorists to dictate the future of this century, so we will defeat them in Iraq," Bush told the American Legion veterans group Wednesday in Salt Lake City, Utah

The American Legion opened its national convention in Salt Lake City this week with high hopes the gathering would help "unite America" behind the war in Iraq. Instead, the veterans have found themselves in a fight with the city's anti-war mayor. Mayor Rocky Anderson, a Democrat in a city that is considered liberal by heavily Republican Utah's standards, has accused the Bush administration of lying about the rationale for war. He has called President Bush a "complete disaster." And he organized a protest rally Wednesday a few blocks from the Salt Palace Convention Center, just hours before Bush's arrival here...

FOR the third time in less than a year, and two months before crucial US elections, President George W. Bush is launching a new campaign to counter opposition to the Iraq war with a series of speeches he insists are not political. Mr Bush will kick off the speeches with an appearance tomorrow at the American Legion annual convention in Salt Lake City and will maintain the theme of the Iraq war and national security throughout September. Amid a sharp escalation of violence in Iraq over the past few months, Mr Bush will acknowledge "that these are unsettling times", White...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — President Bush is kicking off another series of speeches to counter opposition to the war in Iraq, impatience with the rising U.S. death toll and anxiety about possible terrorist attacks. ADVERTISEMENT Bush delivers the first speech Thursday to the annual American Legion convention in Salt Lake City. The appearances will continue through the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks and culminate on Sept. 19 when Bush addresses the U.N. Security Council. It is the third time in less than a year that Bush has made a series of speeches on Iraq and terrorism. They come...

WASHINGTON - Even though he's not running for re-election this year, President Bush knows just what he would focus on if he were: the economy and taxes. As Republicans face an increasingly tough political outlook, in part because of Bush's sagging approval ratings, the president offered some advice Monday to GOP candidates in the midterm elections. "If I were a candidate ... I'd say, 'Look at what the economy has done. It's strong. We've created a lot of jobs. ... I'd be telling people that the Democrats will raise your taxes. That's what they said. I'd be reminding people that...

Just a quick post to tell you about an exciting new website: Rightroots. Rightroots provides you with a quick and easy way to financially support conservative congressional candidates... I have proudly endorsed Rightroots and I hope you will too, by visiting them today and making a contribution to one or all of the candidates Rightroots has listed. If the Democrats gain control of the Congress, “today’s environment” will seem mild compared to what we’ll have to endure in 2007 and 2008 – total gridlock for the President and for the country. I see the tactics of Harry Reid and Nancy...

Well, it is a very pleasant time to be in Washington. Senators and representatives alike have vacated the premises. Most have headed off to ply their trade on their constituents. The off-year elections are approaching, and most of our federal legislators want another stint at what the Democrats call "public service." That is a euphemism for what all reasonable observers call the "public trough." The Democrats are in a sunny mood. As they see it, we are losing in Iraq. We are losing the war on terror. And Wal-Mart just posted a quarterly loss. All of this means, so the...

Well, we have the MSM's drum beat slogan firmly established. It is increasingly being used time and again since the British uncovered their terror plot last week. Republicans are merely "using" this whole terror thing as a tactic to get votes. It couldn't be that we REALLY face terrorism, that is is something to be worried about and discussed seriously, right? Nah, it must just be a dirty GOP trick! Today, CNN has posted a story from their senior political analyst, Bill Schneider, titled "Can the GOP use the terrorism issue to win -- again?, Suspected plot to blow up...

Scaring Americans for political gain? "So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself­nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory." – Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933 So, we meet again. The United States has once again been challenged with another threat to our existence. This time, however, we are...

Republicans seized on the arrests of terrorism suspects in Britain yesterday to bolster a White House campaign to turn national security issues to their advantage this fall, arguing that the nation needs tough Republican policies to protect Americans from threats from abroad. Officials in both parties said they viewed the arrests as critical in determining how they would approach the fall campaign, with Republicans saying it could be a turning point in a year in which they have been on the defensive over the war in Iraq and other issues. The developments played neatly into the White House-led effort, after...

WASHINGTON (July 6) - President George W. Bush, still down in the polls and grappling with grave matters on the world stage, is breaking his summer vacation routine this election year to travel the country and boost the standing of his presidency and the Republican Party.

Back from the DeadMARIE COCCO June 27, 2006 WASHINGTON -- The corpse will be revived. Plans to resuscitate President Bush's stone-cold proposal to turn Social Security from a guaranteed insurance program into a patchwork of private savings accounts already are in the works. All it will take, says Grover Norquist, conservative strategist extraordinaire, is the election of another five conservative Republican senators -- enough to surmount procedural roadblocks by Democrats or those tremulous Republican moderates who would try to preserve the nation's most successful and best-loved government program. ``I believe that when there are 60 Republican senators we will move...

WASHINGTON - House Republicans intend to hold votes this summer and fall touching on abortion, guns, religion and other priority issues for social conservatives, part of an attempt to improve the party's prospects in the midterm elections. The "American Values Agenda" also includes a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage — which already has failed in the Senate — a prohibition on human cloning and possibly votes on several popular tax cuts. "Radical courts have attempted to gut our religious freedom and redefine the value system on which America was built. We hope to restore some of those basic...

With just five months to go before the midterm elections, President Bush, whose once-faithful base has abandoned him in droves, is turning to the same conservative hot-button issues that won him re-election in 2004 -- homosexual "marriage" and judicial nominees. The president, now fully aware that his plummeting approval ratings could cost the Republicans control of one or both congressional chambers in November, will use his radio address today and a speech Monday to push a constitutional amendment banning same-sex "marriage," just as the Senate prepares to vote on the issue. The crux of his argument is simple: A majority...

President Bush will promote a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, a cause dear to his conservative backers, at a Rose Garden event Monday, the eve of a scheduled Senate vote on the issue. The amendment would prohibit states from recognizing same-sex marriages. To become law, the proposal would need two-thirds support in the Senate and House, and then be ratified by at least 38 state legislatures. It stands little chance of passing the 100-member Senate, where proponents are struggling to get even 50 votes. Several Republicans oppose the measure, and so far only one Democrat — Sen. Ben Nelson (news,...

FOR A PRESIDENT who is (allegedly) the lamest of lame ducks, George W. Bush had a pretty good month of May. Not quite a merry month of May. Certainly not a Lerner-and-Loewe-like lusty month of May. But a pretty good month, and perhaps a sign of better things to come. To wit: Congress extended, and the president signed, the wildly successful supply-side tax cuts on interest and dividend income originally passed in 2003. The new tax rates are now in force until 2010, providing helpful certainty for the economy and the markets, and forcing Democrats in this year's congressional elections,...