Free Republic

The construction crew refers to it as "The Mobile Home." Others say it looks like a Star Wars diner. A shuttle pod on stilts. At night, the futuristic gleaming silver-and-glass structure on the southern bank of the Arkansas River actually resembles a guitar fret board. Elvis lives. "A glorified house trailer," former President Bill Clinton joked at a luncheon here yesterday to kick off the dedication of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library. "That's me. I'm a little red and a little blue." (snip) And what better site to store his legacy — tarnished or not — than a scruffy,...

Forget Florida. And Ohio. And Pennsylvania. The next President of the United States may well be elected in Michigan. In 2000, Al Gore carried the Wolverine State by more than 200,000 votes. This year's conventional wisdom has conceded it to John Kerry. Two weeks ago, Democratic operatives began telling reporters that Michigan was in the bag. They were wrong. Last Thursday, a poll in the Detroit News put President Bush ahead in Michigan by 4 points. A Knight-Ridder survey showed the race is a virtual tie. This came as a shock to the Kerry camp, which has concentrated its efforts...

Political thuggery is on the rise in America. Because most of it is directed at the right, the legacy media does not find the trend towards organized political violence of much interest, beyond briefly noting individual incidents, particularly if videotape happens to be available. That is why the wave of attacks on Bush-Cheney campaign offices and supporters, including bullets fired, has not inspired front page articles all across America. A thought experiment: imagine that all across America offices of the NAACP or Planned Parenthood were attacked. Do you really think that the New York Times would not feature the campaign...

The coffee pot was still hot Wednesday morning in the Latourette Cottage when Jacksonville Inn owner Jerry Evans took a look at where President George Bush and his wife had just spent the night. "They were the most pleasant, accommodating, polite people," he said. Evans agreed to let a couple of nosy journalists have a peek at the cottage minutes after the president and first lady had left. Napkins with the presidential seal sat on the counter, the shower area was still steamy and the table hadn’t yet been cleared. The president had eaten a bowl of Post Honey Bunches...

WASHINGTON - Awash in a sea of public opinion polls — national and state, telephone and Internet, independent and partisan — voters must be seeing double by now. And it's about to get much worse as the presidential campaign heads into the home stretch. Those trying to make sense of the swirl of numbers need a "poll survival guide." "Even for people who study politics, it gets confusing," said Norm Ornstein, a veteran political analyst for the American Enterprise Institute. "There is now such a blizzard of surveys. They are done by candidates and campaigns, news organizations, academic institutions. They...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks he's found a way to pin down rowdy protesters at the Republican National Convention — by offering them a powder-blue button that labels them "Peaceful Political Activists." In a bid to tame potentially disruptive protests, Bloomberg and tourism officials Tuesday offered a unique package of discounts on hotels, restaurants, plays — even cut-rate entry to the Museum of Sex — to the best-behaved demonstrators. In exchange, they must promise to obey city laws and regulations and pick up their blue pledge pin, Bloomberg said during a news conference at NYC & Co., the city's tourism bureau....

Allegations that presidential hopeful John Kerry embellished if not outright lied about his behavior in Vietnam to gain Purple Hearts and awards for bravery in just four months are afloat like something rude in a punch bowl. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, including all but a handful of Kerry's former comrades from Coastal Division 11, assert Kerry lied to gain those some of those medals and is unfit to be commander in chief of U.S. military forces. As a 527 organization, named for the section of the IRS code that governs such groups, they're making that point in a television...

Washington -- House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi went out on a political limb Thursday, flatly predicting in the face of conventional political wisdom that her Democrats will win back control of the House in the Nov. 2 elections, making her the first female speaker in the country's history. "We're putting our credibility on the line,'' the House minority leader from San Francisco told reporters at her weekly news conference in her Capitol offices. "I told you we are going to win. I told you that I am going to be speaker. "If the election were held today, there would be...

MARQUETTE - Surrounded by her rowdy friends and a collage of red, white and blue dress, Betty Johnson sat in the Superior Dome bleachers like the leader of a patriotic street gang. While others staggered around looking for the best seats available, the 60-year-old Marquette resident led her choir of companions in a medley of all-American music. Sporting a T-shirt that read "W - Marquette President," Johnson belted out "God Bless America" at the top of her lungs, with ample accompaniment behind her "They made me the director," she said, gesturing to the group of women behind her. Meanwhile, in...

MARQUETTE - The White House and the Bush-Cheney National Campaign headquarters have confirmed President George W. Bush will visit Marquette next Tuesday. "The president is going to be making remarks in Marquette," Merrill Smith, campaign press secretary for the Midwest, confirmed Tuesday. Marquette City Manager Gerald Peterson said the city has been in contact with advance parties for the visit and the use of Lakeview Arena has been discussed, but not locked in. The campaign's Michigan headquarters said Bush will make remarks in Marquette at 1:45 p.m., followed by a rally in Duluth, Minn., at 6 p.m. CDT. Smith said...

ROME (Reuters) - Hooded pacifists said Tuesday they plan to disrupt President Bush (news - web sites)'s visit to Italy next week by blocking roads and attempting to break through barriers erected to protect his entourage. Bush is set to attend ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of Rome's liberation by the Allies on June 4 but many see his visit as a opportunity to express their opposition to the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq (news - web sites), which the Italian government has supported. "Starting in the morning we will attempt to penetrate the security zone," said the two...

TARMAC LOITERER Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry belittled President Bush while the candidate's plane sat on the tarmac in Topeka, Kansas, on Monday. After making his speech commemorating the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, Kerry and his entourage were boarding the Kerry charter, then due to fly west to Oregon. An advance staffer for the candidate informed Kerry that they had to hurry and take off so that the airspace around the airport could be secured for President Bush's arrival. Kerry refused to move quickly, instead loitering and refusing to take his seat on the plane. At...

Babs Hypnotized? Is Barbra Streisand getting sleepy? I'm told that she's been having so much trouble sleeping that she's enlisted one of Hollywood's top hypnotists to help her nod off. The hypnotherapist may also be able to cure Babs of her noted stage fright in time for her big June 7 John Kerry fund-raiser in Los Angeles with Neil Diamond and Willie Nelson — reported here first exclusively. Meanwhile, Streisand fans are gearing up for June 5, when the Diva of Divas auctions off 400 lots of personal memorabilia, including most of her movie costumes, to raise money for her...

KARBALA, Iraq (AFP) - US-led coalition forces urged residents to leave this Iraqi holy city after three civilians were killed and seven wounded in fighting between Shiite Muslim militiamen and Iraqi troops. US warplanes flew low overhead and coalition soldiers drove through town telling people to leave over loudspeakers following clashes between US-trained Iraqi paramilitaries and loyalists of Shiite radical leader Moqtada Sadr. A patrol of the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps (ICDC) came under attack 50 metres (yards) from the mausoleums of Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas, among Shiite Islam's most revered shrines, said witness Hassan Ghanem. Ghanem said he...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army general under investigation for anti-Islamic remarks has been linked by U.S. officials to the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal, which experts warned could touch off new outrage overseas. A Senate hearing into the abuse of Iraqi prisoners was told on Tuesday that Lt. Gen. William Boykin, an evangelical Christian under review for saying his God was superior to that of the Muslims, briefed a top Pentagon (news - web sites) civilian official last summer on recommendations on ways military interrogators could gain more intelligence from Iraqi prisoners. Critics have suggested those recommendations amounted to a...

Hillary Clinton is ambitious, audacious, and fully capable of creating devious, multi-step strategies. Blindsiding her fervent opponents, she may yet shock the world and realize her longstanding ambition to win election as President -- in the year 2004. Doing so would only require her to use tactics which she and her husband have already perfected. Small signs already indicate she and her husband are laying the foundations for a fascinating gambit which could land her in the Oval Office next year. Step one requires her to obtain the nomination as Vice President on a John Kerry ticket. No less an...

Less than 24 hours after accusing the Walt Disney Company of pulling the plug on his latest documentary in a blatant attempt at political censorship, the rabble-rousing film-maker Michael Moore has admitted he knew a year ago that Disney had no intention of distributing it. The admission, during an interview with CNN, undermined Moore's claim that Disney was trying to sabotage the US release of Fahrenheit 911 just days before its world premiere at the Cannes film festival. Instead, it lent credence to a growing suspicion that Moore was manufacturing a controversy to help publicise the film, a full-bore attack...

Bob Woodward's new book "Plan of Attack" tells the story of White House speechwriter Michael Gerson, a former reporter for U.S. News & World Report, who accompanied President Bush to West Point, where Bush announced a signal change in American foreign policy: a call for more pre-emptive actions. Afterward, Gerson told a reporter the speech would be quoted for years to come. The reporter replied, "There's no news in that speech. You don't use the word Iraq." "Gerson was stunned," Woodward wrote. That episode tells you in a nutshell how American newspapers and political pundits have fallen down on the...

Diplomats and leading experts are warning that the "chaotic" European Union is ill-equipped to cope with the biggest expansion in its history. The EU is described as chaotic and without vision Finnish ambassador to the UK Pertti Salolainen, who said he was speaking in a personal capacity, said: "The EU is chaotic, it has no vision, no leadership and it seems it will have no constitution." Mr Salolainen - who helped negotiate Finland's entry to the EU - says the union urgently needed a period of calm to "digest" its latest changes. The EU becomes the world's largest trading bloc...

AN Internet ad is showing up on John Kerry Web sites attacking a U.S. contractor whose subsidiary workers are driving supply trucks in Iraq and sometimes paying for it with their lives. The ad shows a billboard sign emblazoned with the name "Halliburton,' the multinational that has won several U.S. humanitarian contracts to help with Iraq's reconstruction. Next to the billboard picture is this caption: "For the first time in history, a corporation was allowed to invade a nation.' This is a low blow against an American corporation whose workers are sacrificing life and limb to help supply food, medicine...