Free Republic

Condi was in Romania yesterday, fighting back against critics of the US who maintain that we have been operating secret prisons overseas. The Romanian president has denied allegations that he is letting the CIA use a base there for holding terror suspects. Many Euros are upset at the thought that we would hold people without due process on European soil. A few days ago a German citizen sued the CIA for unlawful detention.

Former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer is the first person in a long time to stand up and tell it like it is. He quipped that current gov Kathleen Blanco had plenty of news conferences but hasn't done much else. Buddy is "waiting to see action," from Blanco. So are a lot of other people. I haven't kept up with every movement of Kathleen, but it does seem that once again she is waiting for somebody else to clean up the mess. She blamed Bush, and then went to Washington crying for money and help.

Several former members of the 9/11 commission have gone public with their assertion that while we are not adequately prepared to stop another 9/11 from happening. The commission was comprised of five Democrats and five Republicans and one of the most important duties was to make recommendations to the President and Congress on how to make this country safe. According to both Dems and Republicans, many of the recommendations have not been implemented. Former chairman Thomas Kean had this to say, "More than four years after 9/11 ... people are not paying attention. God help us if we have another...

I was listening to the news while sitting in traffic, and one of the last news tidbits was that at least tow of our coalition partners in Iraq are going to pull out within the next 30 days. The Ukaraine and Bulgaria will remove about 1,500 troops and personnel before the end of the year, and several other countries are thinking about doing the same. After reading the announcement online, it seems that several other countries have had their fill or Iraq and are thinking about bailing out also. I am sure Nancy Pelosi and Johm Murtha are going to...

I understand that there are plenty of people out there who do not agree with the President's handling of Iraq, and that is fine with me. What I do have a problem with is elected officials who advocate the 'cut and run' approach to Iraq and say that it is going to strengthen our military and country. A couple of weeks ago it was John Murtha, and now Nancy Pelosi is singing the same song, and my question to her would be how would us bringing our troops home make Iraq more stable and make America safer?

Donald Powell is a hurricane relief advisor to President Bush, (I didn't know he had one) and part of his job is to issue recommendations to the White House on who should pick up the tab for making New Orleans safe. After Katrina, Kathleen Blanco verbally bitch-slapped Bush, and then did a complete 180 and taked about working together with the President when she went to D.C. to beg for money. Depending on who you listen to, rebuilding the leveees and storm drain systems of New Orleans could take anywhere from ten to thirty years and cost as much as...

Speaking at Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona, Bush is once again talking about immigration reform and more importantly making our borders secure. This is an issue where everyone has an opinion, but congress needs to sit down and figure this out now. In the recent Homeland Security bill, money was given to the border patrol to increase personnel and build better barriers, but it is not enough. Immigration reform and secure borders are two issues that need to be looked at as one. We need to control our borders before we can put into place any policy that allows non citizens...

What would happen is the US and Britain decided to take the Representative John Murtha from Pennsylvania and turn tail and run out of Iraq. Could we really say our mission was complete? I think maybe Mr. Murtha has forgotten that we are at war, and the al Quada in Iraq is our enemy? Does Mr. Murtha really believe that, as he put it, "Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on our present course." al Quada and their associated groups delcared war on us, not the other way. Whether or not...

What happened last week made me sick. In a move designed to shut up the Democrats in the house, a bill was introduced that would have called for the immediate withdrawal of all US troops in Iraq. Only three Dem's voted for it, but not before some serious yelling and screaming. Nancy Pelosi called it "A disgrace." A representative from Maryland chimed in with "The rankest of politics and the absence of any sense of shame." The whole mess started when John Murtha from Pennsylvania held a press conference about his plan to remove 160.000 soldiers from Iraq ASAP. Part...

Dick Cheney has always impressed me as an astute politician, a man who knows his way around Washinton politics and cares more about the outcome than slinging mud. I do not always agree with Cheney, but I certainly do respect him. The Democrats, with the help of the media have been somewhat successful in hurting the image of the president and his administration without much in the way of a rebuttal coming back at them. Unitl now. A few days ago Bush was in Alaska and he finally told the truth about many of the Democrats who are criticising his...

I occasionally listen to public radio and it is pretty clear to me that NPR leans way to the left. If NPR were entirely supported by private donations or advertising, I would have no problem with their content, but they are not private. PBS, like NPr is supported by your tax dollars and while I haven't analyzed every minute of their broadcasts when it comes to their political discussions they are decidedly pro-democrat. Kenneth Tomlinson who was the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is accused of breaking a 1967 law that was intended to keep politics out of...

Bush took at trip up to Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska talk to the troops and go on the offensive against the Democrats. "Some Democrats who voted to authorize the use of force are now rewriting the past. They're playing politics with this issue and they are sending mixed signals to our troops and the enemy. That is irresponsible." He couldn't have said it better. Somehow in the past year, the Democrats in the Senate and House have forgotten that they voted for the resolution authorizing military action against Iraq. They were privy to some of the same top...

If there is one trait in Al Gore that is to be admired, it is persistence. After losing the election he has tirelessly spread the word about global warming to anyone who would listen. Several times I have written about Al's rants, but this one takes the cake. In a visit 'down under' Gore compares the refusal of the US and Australia to sign the Kyoto pact to Neville Chamberlain who did everything he could to appease the Nazis in hopes they would not attack Britain. According to Gore, "I don't want to diminish the threat of terrorism at all,...

The special election in California Tuesday was a battle between a governor tyring to turn a state around and the unions who rule Sacramento. Unfortunately Arnold and his propositions lost and now it is going to be very difficult for him to do anything in a state run by liberal Democrats. Arnold put his bigger than life image up against the powerful unions, and he got rolled. When Arnie was running for election against then governor Gray-out Davis, he promised the world-a complete accounting of state funds, cost cutting measures at every state office and removing barriers for businesses to...

A quick search of the headlines on Iraq revealed that four US soldiers were killed in a suicide attack, another soldier died in a roadside bomb, and several Rangers are accused of mistreating detainees. The anti-war demonstrations after the Pentagon released the name of the 2,000 solider killed in Iraq was the top story on TV news in Los Angeles even though 500 people out of a local population of over 5 million showed up. Is it just me, or does the American public just not care about what is going on in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Yesteday the Democrats took the unusual move of calling for a private session of the senate to discuss the intelligence presented in the weeks before the war in Iraq. Bill Frist threw some mud, "The United States Senate has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership," but didn't address the issue-that to the best of our ability, we knew Saddam was working on WMD's but we didn't have absolute specifics. A committee of Dems and Republicans has been working on a follow up to the 2004 report which chronicled our intelligence efforts going back years. The second part of that report...

After a tough couple of weeks, Bush emerged from the failed nomination of Harriet Miers and the legal troubles of Scooter Libby to hit a home run as big as anything we saw by the White Sox. All that I know about Samuel Alito is what I have read and heard in the past several hours, and almost every objective analysis of Alito confirms what most conservatives want-a justice who does not believe that judges should make the laws.

I have always found it fascinating that reporters for TV and newspapers always rely on so called inside sources for information on the President. An article on nydailynews.com has quote from a couple of people close to the President who say that he is "frustrated, sometimes angry and even bitter" so say his "associates." I don't know how W. could be happy, we are in the middle of a war and American soldiers are dying. Bush has steadfastly held his ground that it was the correct thing to do, but very few in his own party will cover his back.

It has been a while since Mr. Dean publicly put his foot in his mouth, but as always he never fails to amaze. Dean is an interesting person. He is intelligent, well spoken (except for the primal yell that killed his presidential hopes) and passionate about his cause, but for some reason his brain occasionally malfunctions and drivel pours from his mouth. Such is the case on a recent trip to Maine. According to Dean, W's administration is the most crooked since Warren Harding. His plan: "The first thing we're going to do is we're going to have ethics come...

You knew it was coming, the inevitable hearings in Washington about 'what went wrong' with the federal response to hurricane katrina. I have read reports from both side which paint FEMA either a well-oiled machine or a broken down Yugo. Marty Bahamonde arrived in the big easy before the storm hit and updated Mike Brown's staff as to what was occuring in the city before and after the storm hit. According to Bahamonde, two days after the storm he e-mailed a brown staffer as to the dire situation in the city. Three hours later Brown's press secretary sent out a...