Free Republic

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - A top adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign said Wednesday that Democrats should give more thought to Sen. Barack Obama's admissions of illegal drug use before they pick a presidential candidate. Obama's campaign said the Clinton people were getting desperate. Clinton's campaign tried to distance itself from the remarks. Bill Shaheen, a national co-chairman of Clinton's front-runner campaign, raised the issue during an interview with The Washington Post, posted on washingtonpost.com. Shaheen, an attorney and veteran organizer, said much of Obama's background is unknown and could be a problem in November 2008 if he is the...

Bill Clinton: Wife's record not covered By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer 15 minutes ago Bill Clinton said Tuesday that if reporters covered the candidates' public records better, his wife's presidential bid would be far ahead of her rivals. During a campaign stop on behalf of his wife, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former president said he can't understand why so much of the media coverage of the campaign ignores her experience — and, without naming him, the relative lack of experience of her closest Democratic rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. "One percent of the press coverage was...

Press Releases Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 11/29/2007 Pelosi: Bush and His Republican Allies Are Preventing Extra Funds from Reaching Our Troops Washington, D.C. — Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement today in response to President Bush’s remarks this afternoon at the Pentagon: “Earlier this month, Congress approved nearly a half trillion dollars for the Department of Defense. Just two weeks ago, House Democrats passed $50 billion in additional funding for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have provided every penny that is currently necessary to fund Defense Department operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around...

Paul: My policy benefits Israel Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul says his foreign policy would benefit Israel. Mainstream Jewish groups have shunned Paul, a U.S. congressman from Texas upsetting his party's presidential field. His lonely anti-war candidacy, once thought of as a long shot, is now competitive with front-runners in fund raising.Paul has long opposed defense and other assistance to Israel, a policy consistent with his opposition to all foreign aid. He also has said the pro-Israel lobby is too influential in Washington, another statement that is consistent with his disdain for foreign policy lobbying. In a statement released Wednesday...

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who made his fortune as a trial lawyer, says attorneys should have to show their medical malpractice cases have merit before filing them. He also said attorneys with a history of frivolous suits should be barred from filing new cases. Edwards' proposal is similar to "certificates of merit" laws that have been adopted in several states in recent years. Those laws usually require that an independent doctor assert the validity of a malpractice case before it is filed. Speaking Monday at a health care forum hosted by Families USA and the Kaiser Foundation, Edwards also...

Washington, D.C.—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued the following statement today after Republicans blocked the Webb-Hagel Amendment to enhance military readiness: “In blocking this bipartisan bill, Republicans have once again demonstrated that they are more committed to protecting the President than protecting our troops.  They have shown they will allow President Bush’s flawed war strategy to continue to strain our military rather than allow the availability of troops to dictate our operations.  And they believe it is in our national security interest to push our brave troops and their families beyond their breaking point.“Democrats disagree.  We care deeply about rebuilding our...

Most people would include compassion on the short list of human virtues. At one point, I would have been one of those people. But, no longer is that the case. Like so many other things, it has taken on a far different meaning in recent times. In the past, compassion was extended to the elderly, the abused, the innocent and the infirm. But during the last few decades, it has become an entitlement demanded by members of various voting blocs. In short order, it has been transformed into political currency doled out by political hacks trolling for votes. But as...

Democrats to conduct nationwide survey of administration of elections as part of an ongoing commitment to protecting the rights of every American WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As the 42nd anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act approaches, the Democratic National Committee today announced its unprecedented 50-state election protection effort to prepare for the 2008 election. When signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson said that the "right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies." But nearly 42...

... "It looks as though it will take two years for us to have adequate earning power again, so we are looking for people who will help us monthly for two years," the e-mail said. "During that time we will continue as full-time students, and then, when I graduate, we won't need outside support any longer." Haggard left the 10,000-member New Life Church late last year and resigned as head of the after a former male escort accused Haggard of paying him for sex. Mike Ware, an overseer for New Life Church, told The Gazette of Colorado Springs on Friday...

The other night, as the Senate's Republicans were blocking the state budget, GOP Sen. Tom McClintock alluded to the driver's license pledge, sending an implicit but unmistakable message that a big impediment to a deal was mistrust of the governor's promises to cut enough spending to bring the budget into rough balance. Rightly or wrongly, Republicans believe that he'll sell them down the river in his eagerness to deal with Democrats. That mistrust, when coupled with Schwarzenegger's cavalier treatment of GOP politicians last year, made all but one of the senators impervious to his pleas.

White House reacts to Clintons' comments By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent 41 minutes ago The White House on Thursday made fun of former President Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, for criticizing President Bush's decision to erase the prison sentence of former aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. "I don't know what Arkansan is for chutzpah, but this is a gigantic case of it," presidential spokesman Tony Snow said. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has scheduled hearings on Bush's commutation of Libby's 2 1/2-year sentence. "Well, fine, knock himself out," Snow said of Conyers. "I mean, perfectly happy....

Former US vice president Al Gore on Friday criticized the "trivialities and nonsense" of celebrity gossip in the media and called on people to focus instead on issues like Iraq and climate change. Gore, who is promoting his new book "The Assault on Reason," made the comments at a book signing in New York, where he was treated to a rock star reception by more than 1,300 cheering and screaming fans. "What is it about our collective decision-making process that has led us to this state of affairs where we spend much more time in the public forum talking about...

Early coverage of Al Gore's new book, The Assault on Reason, has focused on the fact that the book is largely an assault on the Bush administration. But they have glossed over the most significant and alarming theme that Al Gore has taken up: his alleged defense of "reason" includes a justification for government controls over political speech. Judging from the excerpts of Gore's book published in TIME, his not-so-subtle theme is that reason is being "assaulted" by a free and unfettered debate in the media--and particularly by the fact that Gore has to contend with opposition from the right-leaning...

Pelosi's Office Calls GOP Demand for Action on Iraq Bill 'Political Stunt' Monday , April 09, 2007 WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office charged Monday that Republicans had engaged in a "cheap political stunt" when they sent her a letter accusing Democrats of stalling on passage of the critical war funding bill. The spat is over the current bill Congress is considering to pay for ongoing efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also includes money for Gulf Coast recovery and farming initiatives. Both the House and Senate have passed versions of the bill — the House version is $124...

Russia?s globally recognized military hardware shamefully pirated in Western countries 22.03.2007 The Russian government is concerned with the problem of pirated Russian arms made in other countries, including the new East European members of the WTO and EU. It turns out that this matter is of a concern not only for analysts and observers. For the first time this problem was publicly mentioned on the highest political level. At the meeting of the Committee on Export Control held recently in Moscow Russian First Vice-Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov put it flatly that western countries, forbidding the sales of the Russian arms...

Dear xxx, During the campaign and since then, we have talked to Americans from coast to coast about the environment and the critical challenge we all face in protecting the earth for future generations. From those conversations the idea emerged that we should write a book, This Moment on Earth, which we hope will help spark a new conversation about ways that everyday Americans from all walks of life can have an impact on the environment around them. The stories have inspired and moved us. Our hope is that they lead all of us to question the way things are,...

N.Korea says South's Web ban violates freedom Fri Jan 26, 10:40 AM ET North Korea said on Friday the South Korean government was violating the public's basic right to information by blocking access to Web sites sympathetic to the North. South Korea has denied access to more than 30 Web sites that it has designated "pro-North Korea" since 2004, including the North's official KCNA news agency's Web service and sites operated outside. "This is a fascist action against democracy and human rights as it infringes upon the South Koreans' freedom of speech and deprives them of even their right to...

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Ned Lamont's campaign says Sen. Joe Lieberman has failed to account for $387,000 in petty cash his campaign spent days before the state's August Democratic primary. "Whenever this much cash is floating around it certainly raises suspicions of possible vote buying and other potentially illegal activities that the Lieberman campaign must answer," said Liz Dupont-Diehl, a Lamont spokeswoman. "It is crucial for the public to know what they were doing with this slush fund." The Lieberman camp denied any wrongdoing. Lieberman spokeswoman Tammy Sun said Sunday the cash was paid to field coordinators who then distributed money...

ROTTERDAM, The Netherlands -- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton says he had plans in the early 1990s to attack and destroy North Korea's nuclear facilities after the secretive communist state was found to be producing weapons-grade plutonium. At the time, he said, North Korea had plans to produce between six and eight nuclear weapons per year.

Relishing the prospects of a triumph, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday promised to restore integrity and civility to the House if voters put her party in control this fall. "We'll turn the most closed and corrupt Congress into the most open and honest Congress," Pelosi, D-Calif., told The Associated Press in an interview. She spoke five weeks before the midterm elections as the House ethics committee opened an investigation into an unfolding sex scandal that led to Rep. Mark Foley's resignation and calls for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., to step down. "The only way you can make the...