Free Republic

Republicans are once again ascendant—and for this they can thank Rahm Emanuel. John Batchelor gets the scoop from gleeful conservatives on the trail of Democratic destruction left by Obama’s bullying enforcer. Suddenly the disgraced and demoralized Republican Congress has an unearned future, thanks to the superhuman clumsiness of a man who has made himself indispensable to the Obama administration and insufferable to the Democratic Congress, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. The GOP always knew that Emanuel was a problem that could not be solved and could only be endured while he served three tempestuous terms in the House. But now...

Conservative radio talk-show host John Batchelor says the whack jobs disrupting health-care town halls confirm the Republican Party has become a cruise ship to the seventh grade. The sad-eyed Townhall Turfers now follow the saucer-eyed Birthers and the cranky Tea-Baggers as the latest political fad that the weakling Republicans not only cannot get away from but also cannot get enough of, like chocolate sauce on anything. The phenomenon of surly, verbose, sweaty voters crowding into overlit public rooms to hear out the numbing conclusions of a member of Congress on health-care reforms in all the 57 varieties has taken over...

Sunday 805P Eastern Time: Ed Hayes, attorney, re Sotomayor nomination, re Ireland Will Take Two of Remaining 229 Guantanamo Bay Detainees From U.S. Ireland agreed to take two of the remaining 229 prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba Sunday 820P Eastern Time: Aaron Klein, WND, watching the build-up in BEkaa by the now fully re-armed Hizballah. Re George Mitchell's mission to Damascus. Sunday 835P Eastern Time: Brooks Hansen, author, "John the Baptizer," the life and times of the man who baptized Jesus. Sunday 850P Eastern Time: Exeunt re the Birthers grow.

The GOP, reduced to hosting loonies who obsess over Obama’s birthplace, is slipping into the ash heap. The Daily Beast’s John Batchelor on why Republican incoherence may doom the party to the fate of the Whigs. The romantic yarn that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, not in the United States, and is therefore an illegitimate POTUS is the core of a still-evolving conspiracy theory that now explodes like a neutron stink bomb splashing on the right wing while leaving the center and left idly smiling and curious. What is going on with the despondent Republican Party that it hosts...

Rather than a blow to a career, Sarah Palin's decision to resign underlines her self-awareness, writes The Daily Beast's John Batchelor. She is now unmatched for the 2012 primary. The early excuse for the Republican circular firing squad of the holiday weekend is that Weekly Standard editor and party brainiac Bill Kristol claims that pugnacious McCain campaign enforcer Steve Schmidt has been caught gossiping to Vanity Fair’s Todd Purdum about Sarah Palin’s rambling and incoherent vice-presidential campaign last September and October...

Rather than a blow to a career, Todd Purdum’s piece is a spectacular tribute to a force of nature built for another national race. The excuse for the Republican circular firing squad of the holiday weekend is that Weekly Standard editor and party brainiac Bill Kristol claims that pugnacious McCain campaign enforcer Steve Schmidt has been caught gossiping to Vanity Fair’s Todd Purdum about Sarah Palin’s rambling and incoherent vice presidential campaign last fall. Purdum, writing with a polite disdain, does flatter Palin as “the sexiest and riskiest brand in the Republican Party,” before he goes on to mention unnamed...

The stand-up comedian Wanda Sykes took only seconds in her disciplined 15 minutes at the White House Correspondents' Dinner—a naughty performance that mocked both Barack Obama and Rush Limbaugh—to lay out a vision for the Republican Party. Of course, Sykes didn’t mean to help the GOP, yet in the manner of a prophet she climbed up on the mountaintop of C-SPAN at the precise moment that the glamorous tribes of Washington, New York, and Hollywood had gathered to worship, and she spoke the words that came to her as if from a special effects Yahweh. Wanda Sykes articulated a simple...

The public may have liked the president’s big speech, but the GOP isn’t worried. Insiders say they’re raring for a fight, and that they think Obama’s in a very vulnerable position. ... “I feel sorry for him sometimes,” confided a senior Republican House member about President Obama. “He invited us over to the White House to explain to us how the stimulus plan is working, and how the budget is going to work, and he spoke to us a couple of times. He doesn’t act like he knows what’s going on with the economy. He’s so afraid of confrontation, when...

From their shared loathing of Rahm Emanuel to the insurgency led by the minority leader (“he took us by the throat”), the inside story of why not a single House Republican supported the president’s stimulus package. "Rahm, you don't waste a crisis," a senior Republican, speaking on the phone in a mock dialogue, pretended to tease White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel the day before the stimulus bill vote in the House of Representatives. "Rahm, you're making the Clinton mistake going for spending in a crisis. Reagan radically adjusted the tax code in his crisis. Rahm, all you’re trying...

Gaza Starts Grim-Looking Year" Special.   705P ET:  John Gapper, Financial Times, with Simon Constable, DowJones, co-host, re how the credit catastrophe of 2008 points to mrket failures, gloom, and a kind of numb fear similar to the families robbed by the Pied Piper, re the coming cars crash, newspaper/magazine crash, retail crash.  In '09, Not Much to Cheer About Either 720P:  Kerry Grace, Wall Street Journal, with Simon Constable, DowJones, re the delayed fuses of rotten mortgages, theft, brown lawns, ghost towns, wrecked families, accelerated despair, in the U.S. housing market that looks to become black humor in the new year.  "My house is...

The John Batchelor Show Sunday October 3rd, 2008 Listenlive from 7pm – 10pm ET (4pm – 7pm PT) on WABC AM 770 New York City 10pm – 1am ET (7pm – 10pm PT) on KFI AM 640 Los Angeles WABC, WMAL, KSFO Schedule Sunday September 28, 2008 by John Batchelor. posted on October 3rd, 2008 at 2:09 PMWABC-AM New York City/WMAL-AM Washington DC/KSFO San Francisco Sundays 7 PM-10 PM Eastern Time705P ET:  Thaddeus McCotter, Member of Congress, 11th Michigan (R), re the Paulson bailout fight, re the rejection in the House on Monday, 205-228, re the jam job by the Senate,...

The John Batchelor Show Sunday September 28th, 2008 Listenlive from 7pm – 10pm ET (4pm – 7pm PT) on WABC AM 770 New York City 10pm – 1am ET (7pm – 10pm PT) on KFI AM 640 Los Angeles WABC, WMAL, KSFO Schedule Sunday September 28, 2008 by John Batchelor. posted on September 26, 2008 at 2:09 PMWABC-AM New York City/WMAL-AM Washington DC/KSFO San Francisco Sundays 7 PM-10 PM Eastern Time705P ET:  Victor Davis Hanson, Hoover Institution, re the Ole Miss debate and the spin room.  Re the theatrics of the Hank Paulson deal.   "The Limits of Obamamania in Europe"720P:  Thaddeus...

There is no deal likely, not today, not tomorrow, not this weekend, and the holidays next week move this melodrama to late next week. And why? Because the emails and faxes and phone calls to Capitol Hill are running 10 to 1 against the Hank Paulson deal. Ten to one against from the Democrats. One hundred to one against from the Republicans. Because the American taxpayer is making a stand. Because the House GOP has found the high ground, and the American citizenry is on the same high ground. Why do we see (right) Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Chuck...

The John Batchelor Show Sunday September 21st, 2008 Listenlive from 7pm – 10pm ET (4pm – 7pm PT) on WABC AM 770 New York City 10pm – 1am ET (7pm – 10pm PT) on KFI AM 640 Los Angeles WABC, WMAL, KSFO Schedule Sunday September 21, 2008 by John Batchelor. posted on September 19, 2008 at 5:24 PM  WABC-AM New York City/WMAL-AM Washington DC/KSFO San Francisco Sundays 7 PM-10 PM Eastern Time 705P ET:  Nomi Prins, author, "Other People's Money," re the Week that Scared Hank and Ben, re the cure, re the global credit markets, re Lehman owes money to Freddie?...

McCain's Right ArmBy John Batchelor. posted on September 12, 2008 at 10:05 PM September 1968 After a year of starving and abusing 32 year old John McCain, no medical attention, abandonment and isolation in a windowless cell at the North Vietnamese Potemkin Village of a prison called the Plantation, the sadistic boss of the camp, Major Bai, called "Cat" by the POWs, ordered that the torturers break the admiral's son and force him to sign a confession. It was September, 1968. John McCain's father, John S. McCain, had become admiral of the Pacific Fleet the summer before, and the son's...

There is a secret group in the Obama-Biden campaign tasked with shutting off any leaks from the record that links Barack Obama to his longtime adviser and mentor Bill Ayers, professor of education at the University of Illinois and unrepentant Weatherman terrorist and fugitive from the 1970s. This surprising fact has been developed by Chicago-born and Ralph Nader-supporting Professor Steve Diamond of Santa Clara University Law School, who maintains the Global Labor and Politics blog and has pieced together over many months the unusual surreptitious activity around the public records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) grant now housed at...

The John Batchelor Show Sunday September 7th, 2008 Listenlive from 7pm – 10pm ET (4pm – 7pm PT) on WABC AM 770 New York City 10pm – 1am ET (7pm – 10pm PT) on KFI AM 640 Los Angeles WABC, WMAL, KSFO Schedule Sunday September 7, 2008 by John Batchelor. posted on September 06, 2008 at 3:26 PM   WABC-AM New York City/WMAL-AM Washington DC/KSFO San Francisco Sundays 7 PM-10 PM Eastern Time 705P ET:  William McGurn, WSJ, re Joe Biden and the lunchpail Dems, re the Biden pick to appeal to Scranton, to Cathlics, to the Reagan Dems, re Biden...

The John Batchelor Show Sunday August 31st, 2008 Listenlive from 7pm – 10pm ET (4pm – 7pm PT) on WABC AM 770 New York City 10pm – 1am ET (7pm – 10pm PT) on KFI AM 640 Los Angeles WABC, WMAL, KSFO Schedule Sunday August 31, 2008 by John Batchelor. posted on August 29, 2008 at 10:27 PM WABC-AM New York City/WMAL-AM Washington DC/KSFO San Francisco Sundays 7 PM-10 PM Eastern Time   705P ET:  Laura Meckler, WSJ, re the McCain choice of Palin and the vetting and secrecy of the last weeks as the choice narrowed, re the McCain...

The John Batchelor Show Sunday August 24th, 2008 Listenlive from 7pm – 10pm ET (4pm – 7pm PT) on WABC AM 770 New York City 10pm – 1am ET (7pm – 10pm PT) on KFI AM 640 Los Angeles KFI Sunday Schedule August 24, 2008 by John Batchelor. posted on August 22, 2008 at 5:10 PM KFI-AM 640 LA Sundays 7 PM -10 PM Pacific Time   705P PT: Eli Lake, NY Sun, re Daniel Kurtzer of the Obama Team in Syria, re Assads of Damascus in Moscow, re the new Cold War in Syria and the reborth of the...

Listenlive from 7pm – 10pm ET (4pm – 7pm PT) on WABC AM 770 New York City 10pm – 1am ET (7pm – 10pm PT) on KFI AM 640 Los Angeles Sunday Schedules Home /Schedules /Sunday Schedules / Sunday in NYC, DC, SF, LA. WABC, WMAL, KSFO Schedule Sunday August 17, 2008 By John Batchelor. posted on August 12, 2008 at 2:30 PM WABC-AM New York City/WMAL-AM Washington DC/KSFO San Francisco Sundays 7 PM-10 PM Eastern Time705P ET: John Bolton, AEI, re the Georgia crisis at the UN Security Council, the the Cold War Remake, re what does Russian aggression...