Free Republic

BOSTON (AP) ― The four Republicans who held the Statehouse Corner Office for 16 years have endorsed Charles Baker for governor next year. William Weld, Paul Cellucci, Jane Swift and Mitt Romney made the announcement Tuesday during a fundraiser for the Massachusetts Republican Party.

Obama Threatens Insurers’ Anti-Trust Exemption By PETER BAKER Published: October 17, 2009 WASHINGTON — President Obama mounted a frontal assault on the insurance industry on Saturday, accusing it of using “deceptive and dishonest ads” to derail his health care legislation and threatening to strip the industry of its longstanding exemption from federal antitrust laws. In unusually harsh terms, Mr. Obama cast insurance companies as obstacles to change interested only in preserving their own “profits and bonuses” and willing to “bend the truth or break it” to stop his drive to remake the nation’s health care system. The president used his...

Note: Photo and video included. SNIPPET: "Chadwick Everett Baker, 33, Arrested In Connection With Incident In SE OKC" SNIPPET: "Bomb technicians said the devices were fake but were made to look like pipe bombs."

This came from a Marine unit over in Iraq. SLEEP LAST NIGHT? Bed a little lumpy... Toss and turn any... Wish the heat was higher... Maybe the a/c wasn't on... Had to go to the john... Need a drink of water... Scroll down Yes... It is like that! Count your blessings, pray for them, Talk to your Creator And The next time when... The other car cuts you off and you must hit the brakes, Or you have to park a little further from Walmart than you want to be, Or you're served slightly warm food at the restaurant, Or...

Here is video from California Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy holding a Town Hall Meeting in Bakersfield where he was asked why the Congress was allowing President Obama to create all the "Czars" he is creating. Just before he answered there were shouts from the audience of "He's a communist!" McCarthy answered the question by saying he did not believe Obama had the right to appoint these "Czars" AND give them powers that encroach on the "Checks and Balances" the Constitution requires. . . . . (Watch Video)

After nearly two years of investigating non profit hospitals, Albany, Georgia surgeon Dr. John Bagnato and his accountant, Charles Rehberg, were convinced that they had uncovered systemic corruption in the non profit hospital system. While their investigation encompassed the non profit health care system as a whole, its nexis began at the local non profit hospital, Phoebe Putney. The two of them were certain that they found irrefutable evidence that Putney was making hundreds of millions each year, charging unnecessarily high fees to their poor patients, all while their executives enjoyed handsome compensation and the hospital paid no taxes because...

President Barack Obama plans to nominate Meredith Attwell Baker to a Republican seat on the Federal Communications Commission, the White House said on Thursday. Baker has more than 12 years of experience in telecommunications and technology policy in the private and public sector, the White House said. She is a former Commerce Department official.

Note: The following text is a quote: Federal Judge Hands Downs Sentences in Holy Land Foundation Case Holy Land Foundation and Leaders Convicted on Providing Material Support to Hamas Terrorist Organization Today, in federal court in Dallas, U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis sentenced the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) and five of its leaders following their convictions by a federal jury in November 2008 on charges of providing material support to Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization. "Today's sentences mark the culmination of many years of painstaking investigative and prosecutorial work at the federal, state and...

Rep. Charlie Rangel, Congress's lone champion of reinstating the military draft, can count on another Korean War-era vet for support: Republican James Baker, a soldier in the Reagan and Bush administrations. Baker, secretary of state during the first Gulf War, visited a private girls' school in Virginia, where he was asked how to attract kids into some kind of service that gives them a stake in the country's future. "This is a very unpopular thing that I am about to say," he warned. "But one thing that makes it harder to go to war is to have a draft, because...

LONDON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush's special envoy for Iraqi debt, James Baker, is simultaneously working for a commercial concern that is trying to recover money from Iraq, a British newspaper said. The Guardian said that Baker, a former US secretary of state, has a reported 180-million-dollar (150-million-euro) stake in the merchant bank and defence contractor the Carlyle Group. This consortium, it said, is secretly proposing to collect 27 billion dollars on behalf of Kuwait, one of Iraq's biggest creditors, by using high-level political influence. According to the Guardian, the Carlyle Group claims that Baker will not benefit...

CAMDEN, New Jersey-A man who admitted letting a group of accused terror-plotters shoot his guns at a firing range was sentenced to 20 months in prison on Monday. Judge Robert Kugler said Agron Abdullahu, who is originally from Kosovo, deserved more than the 10 to 16 months that sentencing guidelines call for because he knew the men who were talking about violence against Americans. "I am convinced that he is not as innocent as he'd like us to believe," Kugler said before handing down his sentence. "This is not a common, ordinary, technical violation of the law." However, the sentence...

Richard Baker says that he's not in the business of advising presidential candidates. That's too bad. The candidates and the American taxpayer might be in a better place if he were. Mr. Baker, of course, is the former Louisiana Republican who spent nearly a decade crying in the wilderness . . . er, Congress . . . that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were ticking time bombs. Earlier this year he was named CEO of Managed Funds Association, a lobbying firm that represents the hedge-fund industry. And amid the financial carnage, he is somewhat bemused to hear people say they...

BAKER, VERA WASHINGTON, DC 20001 BAKER-WOMBY $500 03/01/2004 P OBAMA FOR ILLINOIS INC - Democrat Seems she only gave money to one candidate in that year. In 2006, another good looking guy got her cash..... BAKER, VERA E NEW YORK, NY 10009 ALTA CAPITAL/INVESTMENT $300 05/11/2006 P HAROLD FORD JR FOR TENNESSEE - Democrat

Remember how the media had to play catch-up with the National Enquirer and blogs after rumors that begged for investigation were ignored? Many enjoyed that. Will the media repeat the same mistake again now that strong rumors are surfacing of an Obama affair? The rumors are swirling, but I never heard them. The first I heard of them was in this preemptive defense calling them smears. Larry Johnson is talking this up, but he isn’t the most reliable source…however when Jammie Wearing Fool has info and predicts this will be a scoop I listen. From Sharon Churcher’s preemptive defense piece:...

Who is Vera Baker? Some people in Chicago claim she was Obama’s Finance Director for his 2004 Senate campaign. FEC Senate campaign records show she was paid a pretty penny as “Finance Director”. However, people familiar with Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign say Claire Serdiuk was Obama’s Finance Director. Looking through everything we can see online for that 2004 campaign, Claire Serdiuk is consistently listed as the Finance Director - because that’s what she was. There’s no mention of Vera Baker…but Vera Baker was paid as the “Finance Director” too. And then, suddenly, Vera Baker was relocated to New York. Right...

It is now consensus that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are at the heart of the systemic meltdown we are seeing in the mortgage market. They are costing taxpayers billions through their own bailouts and through the role they played in fueling an artificial mortgage boom.But eight years ago, when I testified before Congress that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's "special privileges create a serious hazard to the market, to taxpayers (and) to the economy," my criticism of these sacred financial entities was met with ridicule. At the hearing on June 21, 2000, before the House Financial Services Committee, I...

In 1985, Barack Obama traveled halfway across the country to take a job that he didn't fully understand. But, while he knew little about his new vocation--community organizer--it still had a romantic ring, at least to his 24-year-old ears. With his old classmates from Columbia, he had talked frequently about political change. Now, he was moving to Chicago to put that talk into action. His 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, recounts his idealistic effusions: "Change won't come from the top, I would say. Change will come from a mobilized grass roots. That's what I'll do. I'll organize black folks....

Anyone familiar with the threat posed by the advancing American Fifth Column understands all too clearly that our Constitution is under attack. Whether it is the insistence that the Constitution is a living document meant to conform to the will of the times or the institution of political correctness – a shadow set of laws effectively usurping the laws of our Constitutional Republic – the American Fifth Column is slowly, incrementally, systematically, chipping away at the wisdom as set forth by our Founders and Framers. With news that a non-governmentally charged commission is introducing a measure that would impose “group...

The United States needs a new law requiring that the president consult with Congress before going to war, a blue-ribbon panel led by two former secretaries of state said Tuesday. The current War Powers Resolution is "ineffective, and it should be repealed and it should be replaced," James Baker said in a joint appearance with Warren Christopher, announcing the results of the study they led. The recommendation follows failed efforts by Democrats in Congress to put a stop to the war in Iraq or to put conditions on President Bush's conduct of it. Congress passed a joint resolution to authorize...

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) - Five former U.S. secretaries of state are urging the next presidential administration to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and open a dialogue with Iran. Each says closing the facility in Cuba would bolster America's image abroad. Regarding Iran, they say it's important to maintain contact with adversaries and allies alike.

5 Ex-Chief Diplomats: Close Guantanamo Mar 27 08:46 PM US/Eastern By GREG BLUESTEIN Associated Press Writer ATHENS, Ga. (AP) - Five former U.S. secretaries of state on Thursday urged the next presidential administration to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and open a dialogue with Iran. The former chiefs of American diplomacy, who served in Democratic and Republican administrations, reached a consensus on the two issues at a conference in Athens aimed at giving the next president some bipartisan foreign policy advice. Each of them said shuttering the prison camp in Cuba would bolster America's image abroad. "It says to...

The Bend Bulletin of Oregon has an interesting article on Bishop Robert Vasa of the Diocese of Baker in eastern Oregon. It is too long an article to reproduce here, but it is well worth the read. I would like to just quote some of the more interesting excerpts and quotes. Bishop Vasa on his "controversial" orthodoxy: “I as a teacher have an obligation to say these are not opinion, they are our teachings and are part and parcel of the Catholic Church,� he said. “These are things which stem directly from God himself.�On the value of a Catholic education:“Children...

WASHINGTON - U.S. Rep. Richard Baker, R-Baton Rouge, issued the following statement today on reports of a "deal" reached in the U.S. Senate for "comprehensive immigration reform": "News reports indicate that members of the Senate claim to have reached a 'grand bargain' designed to overcome legislative stalemate on illegal immigration. Though I haven't seen the specific bill language yet, from what I can discern from the reports, this bargain shows some deference to overwhelming public opinion in favor of increased border security and tougher enforcement of workplace rules, and stipulates that 'only after' the administration has shown progress on these...

US and Syria hold landmark talks Condoleezza Rice also said "hello" to her Iranian counterpart US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has held a ground-breaking meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem at a summit in Egypt.Mr Muallem said the highest-level talks between the two countries in several years were "frank and constructive". US-Syrian relations have worsened in recent years over claims of Syrian interference in Iraq and Lebanon. The meeting took place on the sidelines of a conference called to help develop and bring peace to Iraq. Delegates endorsed a five-year International Compact for Iraq (ICI), under which...

America’s prejudices are a barrier to Middle East peace The blowtorch of media scrutiny is steadily taking layers of gaudy paint off the happy caravan that is Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. … -snip- Of much more interest is the flak that the Democratic senator is taking for some remarks he made about the Middle East. Hillary Clinton, his main opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination in next year’s election, has seized upon them as proof that the senator cannot be trusted with US national security nor as a true friend of Israel. What exactly, was the young senator’s offence? Did...

Former Senate Republican leader Howard Baker said Friday he is urging his friend Fred Thompson, a TV actor and former U.S. senator, to run for president and is encouraging others to draft him. Among potential complications in a Thompson race is that he is good friends with McCain, a current presidential candidate. Thompson endorsed McCain for president in his 2000 bid. Baker said his wife, former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker, R-Kan., already supports McCain for president and Baker said he too might back McCain if Thompson does not run.

WASHINGTON — Former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker Jr. said today he is urging his friend Fred Thompson to run for president and encouraging others to convince him. Baker, R-Tenn., in a telephone interview with The News Sentinel, said: "I'm planting the seed that he might run or might be convinced to run." Baker also was White House chief of staff to President Reagan and most recently served as U.S. ambassador to Japan. Thompson, 64, an actor on the TV drama "Law & Order" also was a Republican senator from Tennessee for eight years through 2002. Baker said he's talked...

WASHINGTON - Four former Senate majority leaders are heading a new group aimed at putting aside partisan politics and offering solutions to the nation's biggest issues. The Bipartisan Policy Center, to be announced at a news conference Tuesday, will be directed by former Sens. Howard Baker, R-Tenn.; George Mitchell, D-Maine; Bob Dole, R-Kan.; and Tom Daschle, D-S.D. "We've all been leaders and you know how difficult it is," said Dole, who served as both majority and minority leader between 1985 and 1996. "We're all partisan in a way," Dole said in an interview Monday, adding they also hope to show...

Now it seems as though George W. Bush might be paying more attention to former Secretary of State James A. Baker III’s Iraq Study Group than he initially let on. For starters, the president’s apparent about-face last week from his earlier rejection of meetings with Iran or Syria falls right in line with one of Baker’s chief recommendations.Baker’s blue-ribbon panel, co-chaired with former Democratic Rep. Lee H. Hamilton of Indiana, unveiled 79 recommendations in December for salvaging Iraq. The 10 members of the group — five from each political party — checked their partisanship at the door to draw a...

On Feb 19/07 Washington Post published "Can a Saudi Dealmaker Rescue Bush?" For 22 years Prince Bandar bin Sultan wheeled and dealed his way through Washington as Saudi Arabia's ambassador. By his account -- provided expansively to favored journalists -- he had a hand in most of America's major initiatives in the Middle East over a generation. During George W. Bush's presidency, for example, he brokered U.S. rapprochement with Libya and previewed plans for the invasion of Iraq two months before the war. For a while after returning home in the summer of 2005, Bandar kept a low profile. Some...

WASHINGTON - The United States and the Iraqi government are launching a new diplomatic initiative to invite Iran and Syria to a “neighbors meeting” on stabilizing Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday. “We hope that all governments seize this opportunity to improve their relations with Iraq and to work for peace and stability in the region,” Rice said in remarks prepared for delivery to a Senate committee. Excerpts were released in advance by the State Department. The move reflects a change of approach by the Bush administration, which previously had resisted calls by members of Congress and by...

Telling Rice students "there's plenty of doing that needs done," former President Clinton on Thursday encouraged them to help steer the country in a positive direction while taking a global view of today's challenges. "Private citizens have more power to do good in public areas than ever before," he said. "People with no money at all who can just give a little bit have the chance to change the world if they all agree on the same thing at the same time." The Autry Court speech, sponsored by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, was attended by about 4,000...

The United States Senate has started its process of deciding the future course of the United States in Iraq. This process will last for at least two or three weeks and will undoubtedly include extensive testimony, give and take behind closed doors, floor votes and amendments, and finally votes on funding. The report below shows some of the complexity of the committees and personalities that shaped up during the first day…. It is become clearer by the day now that there are clearly two or perhaps three “camps” or “sides” forming within the United States Senate. One side, made up...

MUST READ - James Baker Works to Establish Direct Diplomatic USA - Iran Ties Former US Secretary of State Baker Attempts to Bypass Bush White House on Iran Defense & Foreign Affairs Analysis. By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS. Former US Secretary of State James Baker, who co-chaired the recent US Iraq Study Group — the main recommendations of which were rejected by the George W. Bush Administration — is working indirectly and behind the scenes to bring about direct diplomatic ties between the US and Iran. This is in defiance of Bush White House policy which essentially has said...

On September 29,2006 at 11:30 AM, Mr. Yousuf N. Shaikh & Mr. Kamel H. Fotough came to my office to introduce themselves to me as the new neighbors. These two gentlemen informed me that they had purchased the adjacent house along with the 11-acre tract of land from the Sacco family on 09/22/06. They asked that I remove my cattle from this 11-acre tract & remove my electrical fence. They said they were going to use the existing house as a community center. Children would be coming to play on the grounds, and as an engineer, Mr. Fotough felt it...

Recommendations of Baker-Hamilton Report call United States to hold talks with Iran, Syria in order to recruit their help in Iraq. Secretary of state says, 'We aren't prepared to pay price of Tehran, Damascus' help. Iran will want easing up on their nuclear program and Syria will want us to turn blind eye to their involvement in Lebanon' Yitzhak Benhorin Published: 01.11.07, 20:06 WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended in a Congress hearing Thursday the Bush administration's opposition to maintaining contacts with Iran and Syria in an effort to recruit their help in Iraq, in opposition to...

The Islamo Arab Goliath Mafia LobbyAt the UN, EU, and in Generalhttp://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.13545/pub_detail.asp The Arab lobby crippling police in security http://www.scottishfriendsofisrael.org/united_nations.htm Arab lobby and UN http://www.wzo.org.il/en/resources/view.asp?id=26 The Arab Boycott: Economic War Against the State of Israel http://www.islamreview.com/articles/europeanfears.shtml Arab lobby functioning through European functionaries, built into the European institutions to influence Europeans http://www.jewishagency.org/JewishAgency/English/Jewish+Education/Education+FAQ/Hasbara+-+Israel+Advocacy+Resources The campaigns were fueled by the financial and international political power of the Arab lobby in the UN and the world, which exerted pressure through ... http://www.middleeastfacts.com/Articles/ arabian-fights-how-the-saudis-lobby.php Arabian Fights: How the Saudis Lobby http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15962 Already the Euro-Arab lobby of the powerful replacement theology models Arafat as a Moses,...

Former Secretary of State James Baker was involved in a cover-up of illegal trading by his law firm with the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, according to a former contractor who did work for Mr. Baker’s firm. Mr. Baker used non-Americans to help acquire funds from Iraq in violation of the United Nations embargo and U.S. law, the former contractor said. Nir Gouaz, an Israeli security veteran, said that in 1999 Mr. Baker's leading deputy at the law firm of Baker Botts ordered him to destroy all documents that detailed how he obtained from Iraq more than $250 million...

The baker who beat McDonald's From Richard Owen in Rome AFTER a five-year battle, the fast-food giant McDonald’s has retreated from a southern Italian town, defeated by the sheer wholesomeness of a local baker’s bread. The closure of McDonald’s in Altamura, Apulia, was hailed yesterday as a victory for European cuisine against globalised fast food. Luigi Digesù, the baker, said that he had not set out to force McDonald’s to close down in any “bellicose spirit”. He had merely offered the 65,000 residents tasty filled panini — bread rolls — which they overwhelmingly preferred to hamburgers and chicken nuggets. “It...

JERUSALEM – An Israeli businessman who says he served as a broker in a multimillion-dollar Iraqi collection deal by the law firm of former Secretary of State James Baker now charges in a WND interview Baker's firm tried to cover up the alleged transactions, concerned about exposure after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The deal was structured to bypass U.S. sanctions on Iraq, according to the middleman, Nir Gouaz, president of Caesar Global Securities in Israel. Gouaz claimed Houston-based Baker Botts made about $30 million collecting funds owed to a South Korean company by the Iraqi government at the peak...

WELL done video! Zucker says in Comedy what everyone else is afraid to say!

Businessman charges ex-secretary of state used middleman to 'sell out' Israel for profit RAMAT HASHARON, Israel – The law firm at which former Secretary of State James Baker is a senior partner used an Israeli middleman to bypass U.S. sanctions on Iraq and push through a multimillion-dollar collection effort involving the regime of Saddam Hussein, according to a businessman here who said he mediated the deal.

Israeli reveals: James Baker hired me to bypass US sanctions on Iraq By Israel Insider staff and partners December 18, 2006 Bookmark to del.icio.usDigg This Story Ben Caspit, journalist from Maariv, has obtained documentation which shows that the law firm in which former American secretary of state James Baker is senior partner used an Israeli agent to bypass the US sanctions on business dealings with Iraq. Houston-based Baker Botts, with extensive dealings in the Arab world, earned tens of millions of dollars from a deal it made between the Korean Hyundai concern and the Iraqi government at the peak of...

The Iraq Study Group Report is the last thing one would have hoped to see in the New World Order. Sadly, it seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Gone were the days, we thought, when the fate of a nation was decided by outsiders consulting with everyone and every nation except the one most affected by, and concerned with, the decision. Yet, that is precisely what happened with this commission. The President of Kurdistan received a telephone call from Baker a couple of days before the release of the report assuring him of taking...

Much ink has already been spilled on the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report. Welcomed by liberals and condemned by conservatives, more importantly it has been rejected by just every public figure in Iraq. Without a doubt, the report’s most controversial recommendation was the call for direct talks with the governments of Syria and Iran. What has gone unrecognized, however, are the stunning misconceptions underlying that recommendation. (Note: the page references below all refer to the PDF version of the report, which can be downloaded here. All emphasis is my own). Misconception #1: “Given the ability of Iran and Syria to...

As a result of the Iraq Study Group, President Bush has been given one last chance to alter course on Iraq. This did not, however, come about the way James Baker intended. It came about because the long-anticipated report turned out to be such a widely agreed-upon farce. From its wildly hyped, multiple magazine-cover rollout (Annie Leibovitz in Men's Vogue, no less) to its mishmash of 79 recommendations, the report has fallen so flat that the field is now clear for the President to recommend to a war-weary country something new and bold. The study group has not just been...

As a result of the Iraq Study Group, President Bush has been given one last chance to alter course on Iraq. This did not, however, come about the way James Baker intended. It came about because the long-anticipated report turned out to be, as is widely agreed, a farce. From its wildly hyped, multiple magazine-cover rollout (Annie Leibovitz in Men's Vogue, no less) to its mishmash of 79 (no less) recommendations, the report has fallen so flat that the field is now clear for the president to recommend to a war-weary country something new and bold. The study group has...

'Diplomacy' comes best at gunpoint By: JIM HORN - Commentary: President Bush was spanked with the 2006 elections. Many Americans are fed up with the failures in Iraq. Increasing numbers of frustrated Americans want to bail -- a very bad idea that would only encourage Muslim extremists worldwide to stay their course of destroying the United States. Enter James Baker and the Iraq Study Group, an august bunch of mostly has-been political hacks who have no experience -- along with no understanding of the history of Iraq, the cast of characters and the Islamic culture involved over there -- and...

. . . . From its paltry discussion of America's counterinsurgency in Iraq, to its recommendations about troop levels, to its scathing condemnation of American diplomacy under Condoleezza Rice and Iraqi politics under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, to its embrace of "engagement" with Syria and Iran, and to its unstated but clear call for American pressure on Israel to concede more "land-for-peace" to the Palestinians, the ISG report is strong on assertions but weak on arguments. . . . . . And what does the Baker-Hamilton Commission recommend? More of the same, except faster. We are going to embed more...

Since its release, much has been said and written about this report that took about six months and millions of tax payer dollars to be prepared. The report in general is stating the obvious and has not come up with any new and creative blueprint, except for the recommendations that are seen by a wide range of concerned parties and observers as nothing, if implemented by Bush administration, but a perfect resume for disaster and chaos. So far, the report has been sharply criticized by Kurds and Shiites who compromised more than 80% of Iraqi people as well as many...