Free Republic

Brock Lesnar discusses how he almost died from poor Canadian healthcare, how we don't need Obamacare and Soctt Brown's victory. Wish more athletes were like this guy. Good listen

A new poll of rural voters in battleground states shows John McCain with a 10 point lead over Barack Obama. McCain leads 51-41, has nearly caught up with Obama as a good manager of the economy and has tied his Democratic rival as a change agent. Also, the poll shows McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, is popular with rural voters. The survey was conducted Sept. 16-18 in 13 swing states, such as New Mexico, Colorado and Missouri. If it contains any bad news for McCain, it's that he may lag George W. Bush's 2004 performance in rural areas....

<p>Ros-Lehtinen mocked him: "Yeah, you know because you've been there." Belzer rudely lashed back: "What, I don't fucking read!? Don't do that!" He went on to argue: "It's this patronizing thing that people have about if you're against the war everyone's lumped together. You know, the soldiers are not scholars, they're not war experts." That was too much for host Bill Maher: "You're going to lose even me...”</p>

January 20, 2006 -- Size doesn't matter — at least not in the war on terror, according to Star Jones. Yesterday, the co-host of "The View" told viewers that the war on terror was nothing more than a clash of male egos between President Bush and Osama bin Laden. "You know what? At some point, one of these men has to put it back in his pants and zip up the zipper," she said during a discussion of bin Laden's latest audio tape Jones, a former Brooklyn prosecutor turned TV star, has a long history of speaking her mind —...

RITA Cosby, the pugnacious, former Fox New Channel reporter, joins the club tonight. Along with FNC's Greta Van Susteren and Headline News anchor Nancy Grace, Cosby will be initiated into a small, elite sorority of cable-news women who have - in just the last year or two - invented a new TV archtype. They are the hard-nosed hosts of prime-time news shows - a generation younger than Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer, who have advanced to the top ranks through their charm as much as their intelligence. No one would ever call this new group of female news anchors "charming."

PARIS - A hush fell over a crowd of thousands of Parisians gathered expectantly outside City Hall on Wednesday as rival London defeated the French capital in a hotly contested battle to host the 2012 Olympics. Raindrops began falling just before the announcement, and dejected spectators folded up French flags and streamed away from the square after Paris failed in its third attempt since 1992 to bring the games back to the city, which hosted the Olympics in 1900 and 1924. Tony Parker of the NBA champion San Antonio Spurs said Paris’ loss proved the IOC had an Anglo-Saxon bias....

he time has now come for fiscal conservatives to publicly admit the truth: the Republican complicity in the great spending spree of the early 21st century has placed our agenda on life-support. By failing to cut spending while implementing tax cuts and fighting a war, we now find ourselves in a predicament. The beast has not been starved, the deficit has once again become a political issue, and the chances of acceptable Social Security reform, overhaul of the tax code, and the permanence of the previous tax cuts are all in jeopardy. This dismal situation harkens back to events in...

U.S. Fails to Make List of World's Freest Economies The United States is missing for the first time from an annual ranking of the world's 10 freest economies. Story Continues Below The Index of Economic Freedom, published by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal since 1995, finds that the United States is letting Big Brother grow obese as other countries get lean and fit. Chile, Australia and Iceland improved enough to leave the U.S. in a tie with Switzerland for 12th place. "The United States is resting on its laurels while innovative countries around the world are changing...

Get ready for another impassioned censorship crusade by the "let's-censor-television-to-protect-the-children" crowd. The latest Nielsen TV ratings are out, and they reveal that in addition to being the most popular show among adults, ABC's smash-hit "Desperate Housewives" is also the most popular broadcast-network TV show with kids ages 9-12. No doubt, the relentless censorship advocates at the Parents Television Council are already firing up the engines at their automated complaint factory to bombard Federal Communications Commission regulators with letters. Recent Freedom of Information Act requests to the FCC have revealed the PTC has been responsible for more than 98 percent of...

Sunday, Aug. 22, 2004 The Right's New Wing Diverse and well funded, the next generation of conservatives is winning battles on campus. But not all are fighting for George W. Bush By JOHN CLOUD Earlier this month, a group of students met in Washington to bash George W. Bush, debate the power of multinational corporations and hear a speaker who denounced the Iraq war, the Patriot Act and stricter airport security. A leader of these college kids calls them "the new counterculture," but here's the thing: they aren't liberals. The 185 students were in Washington to attend the 26th annual...

A different America By Elizabeth Scanlon Thomas August 10, 2004 THE FIRST CLUE I had that today's America is different from the America I grew up in came shortly after my son and I flew in from England to attend a funeral. I was trying to drive my normal-sized rental car carefully because I hadn't taken out collision insurance, and I was surrounded by enormous vehicles larger than run-of-the-mill SUVs. My little car was overwhelmed by these monsters. I had trouble pulling out of places as they blocked my vision the way skyscrapers steal sunshine from city dwellers.

“Had I been reading to children and had my top aide whisper in my ear that America is under attack, I would have told those kids very nicely and politely that the president of the United States has something that he needs to attend to,” Kerry said.

Aug 2, 2004— John Kerry took a tepid bump in support out of his nominating convention, gaining an advantage over President Bush among registered voters — but not so among those most likely to vote. A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Kerry's gain is smaller than usual for a convention bounce, testament to the unusually polarized race, with many voters committing early to each candidate. Still, it comes at a crucial time for the Democratic candidate, countering a loss of momentum leading up to his convention. The Massachusetts senator gained five to eight points among registered voters on issues...

WASHINGTON -- Connecticut Republican Rep. Christopher Shays said he was surprised Friday to see his name listed as a potential candidate to head the CIA. But if offered the job, he said he'd love the challenge. "When I read the newspaper this a.m. I was surprised to see my name on the list," said Shays, referring to a report in the Washington Post that included him among a half dozen possible successors to director George Tenet, whose resignation takes effect Sunday. "Had I thought seriously about having that responsibility? No. Did that article get me to think about it? Yes."...

Kerry Seeks Columns From Iowa Governor 2 hours, 4 minutes ago Add Politics - AP to My Yahoo! By RYAN J. FOLEY, Associated Press Writer DES MOINES, Iowa - Aides to presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) have asked for hundreds of newspaper columns written by Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, one of the Democrats whose backgrounds are being checked as Kerry ponders a running mate. Vilsack wrote the weekly "Mayor's Moments" column for the Mt. Pleasant News from 1987 to 1992. He became mayor of the southeastern Iowa town of 8,700 people after a gunman opened fire during...

Goldilocks Economy' Could Be Pure Fantasy Saturday June 5, 7:34 AM EDT By Dick Satran NEW YORK (Reuters) - A not-too-hot and not-too-cold economic story has warmed the hearts of Wall Street investors for months. Stocks rose Friday after the release of a long-awaited jobs report that showed an economy that still isn't growing fast enough to require drastic tightening by Alan Greenspan's Federal Reserve. But Wall Street's Goldilocks tale might need a bit of revising soon, and maybe Britney Spears could take the starring role. Like Spears, who was asked by the Chinese government not to dress too hot...

Four Scenarios for November Will Bush's troubles will sink him? Can Kerry close the deal? Here are some possible outcomes -- each one well within reason By Doug Harbrecht This much seems certain: The 2004 Presidential election outcome will probably be a stunner -- as if 2000 were a boring affair. George W. Bush is clearly in trouble, with his approval ratings dropping in the low- to mid-40s. Consider that the five most recent incumbent Presidents who won re-election never dipped below 50% at any point during the election year, while the three whose ratings did -- Bush's father, Jimmy...

Sorry to do this but I thought it would be a useful discussion. Who was the more formidable candidate at this time in the election- Gore in May 2000 or Kerry in 2004. My opinion is that is indeed the Goreon who was a more tougher candidate and hurdle to climb. At the time, the US was (perceived) to be in a boom economy, Gore had the power of incumbency, had run for President before and was perceived by some to be a "centrist" before he launched his ill fated "The People vs the Powerful" campaign theme. Kerry has the...

Cash and Kerry The Dem challenger needs money fast to counter Bush's overflowing coffers -- and he doesn't much care where it comes from Democratic Presidential candidate-in-waiting John F. Kerry likes to style himself as a foe of "powerful special interests in Washington." But with his campaign fighting off an intense media barrage from President Bush's megabuck reelection effort, Kerry has apparently decided that populism stops at the river's edge -- in this case, the Potomac. On Mar. 16, some 300 Kerry fans from Washington's legal and lobbying powerhouses sipped coffee and nibbled Danish pastries at the tony St. Regis...

<p>February 26, 2004 -- THE Democratic dream candidate for vice president on a John Kerry ticket is a Republican - Vietnam War superhero John McCain. The Republican fantasy for Kerry's veep is New York's own Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. But it looks like zero chance. Few pols have more credibility than McCain - no wonder Kerry never misses a chance to cite him. Kerry's four months in Vietnam combat are central to his campaign bio. Imagine if he could add McCain's 51/2 years as a hero POW in the Hanoi Hilton.</p>