Free Republic

If conservatives want to keep the House and win the Senate, we need to fire John Boehner as speaker of the House. We only need 16 House votes to do it. As most conservatives know, Boehner and the House GOP Steering Committee decided to purge four conservative House members from their committee. Congressmen Justin Amash and Tim Huelskamp were removed from the House Budget Committee, and Congressmen David Schweikert and Walter Jones were cut from the Financial Services Committee. Amash, Huelskamp, and Schweikert were targeted because they were too fiscally conservative—all three have voted against Boehner’s debt ceiling hikes. Amash...

THIS IS AN EXCERPT: For years, many veterans and active military have been alarmed about the idiocy of the changes in battlefield evacuation known as Dust Off. For reasons having nothing to do with patient care, Dust Off has been removed from the control of the professionals, the medics, and put under the control of amateurs, aviation staff officers. According to Gen. Creighton Abrams, former U.S. Army chief of staff and former supreme commander in Vietnam: “A special word about the Dust Offs … Courage above and beyond the call of duty was sort of routine to them. It was...

Mideast: Iran tests an advanced warhead design as it gets caught shipping weapons to Hezbollah. Syria is reported to give the group operational control over Scud missiles. It's five minutes to midnight. Tyranny abhors a vacuum. While the U.S. and the West dither in Hamlet-like fashion over whatever we shall do in places such as Afghanistan and Iran, the Axis of Evil is in full swing in its plans to destroy Israel and threaten Europe and America. Israel last week seized what it said was the largest arms cache ever intercepted in the region. Israeli navy commandos boarded the Francop,...

War On Terror: Sen. John Kerry, who was so wrong about Iraq, now says our commander in Afghanistan is "reaching too far, too fast" and that a "good enough" policy should suffice. It won't. Offering his advice on how to micromanage the war against the Taliban, Kerry said Gen. Stanley McChrystal, President Obama's hand-picked general to fight what he called a "war of necessity," is wrong in saying he needs 40,000 more troops to fight and win it. Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, Kerry advocated a "good enough" policy designed not to achieve victory in al-Qaida's...

Afghanistan's messy election ended yesterday with President Hamid Karzai securing another five-year term after his challenger withdrew and a run-off was called off. Maybe now President Obama can get on with his job as Commander in Chief of deciding whether this really is the "war of necessity" he pledged for two years to fight. Mr. Karzai's election should put to rest the doubts about his "legitimacy" heard in America's liberal media and in whispers from the Administration, even if it won't. He won that legitimacy by agreeing to a second round, once the official electoral commission invalidated enough of his...

War On Terror: Sen. John Kerry, who was so wrong about Iraq, now says our commander in Afghanistan is "reaching too far, too fast" and that a "good enough" policy should suffice. It won't. Offering his advice on how to micromanage the war against the Taliban, Kerry said Gen. Stanley McChrystal, President Obama's hand-picked general to fight what he called a "war of necessity," is wrong in saying he needs 40,000 more troops to fight and win it. Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, Kerry advocated a "good enough" policy designed not to achieve victory in al-Qaida's...

Obama Requests More Options for Troop Levels The Washington post reported two officials as saying late Friday Obama asked the Pentagon's top generals to provide him with more options for troop levels in Afghanistan. President Barack Obama grappled Friday with the costs and consequences of a long-term commitment to Afghanistan, but reached no decisions about troop levels, a top aide said, as military advisers briefed the president on an armed services already taxed by challenges around the globe. The president reviewed his options with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and made clear he wants at least one more meeting with...

Leadership: As the fire grows in Afghanistan and U.S. troops suffer their worst casualties since Fallujah, the commander in chief remains AWOL on his intentions, delaying the tough decisions. Is he opting for defeat? Afghanistan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned in August that time was short to win this war. Now October is ending as the deadliest month in the Afghan war. With 55 dead since August, McChrystal's warning now stings. Even so, each day brings a new excuse from the White House for delaying a decision on troop reinforcements McChrystal has sought. The goal posts move almost daily. This...

As usual, Mark Steyn nails it in this Investor's Business Daily editorial, as only Steyn can do. Steyn points out what should be obvious, but hasn't been articulated or emphasized often enough, which is, Obama's enemies are all American citizens (FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, Oil Industry, Insurance Industry, Tea Party participants, doctors, drug companies, Wall Street, bankers, etc.). He has no problem with, and his door is always open to, the true foreign enemies of America and freedom, like Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il, Chavez, and Castro (also: they are publicly both fond of him and his policies). It's sadly ironic...

Bookworm Room offers a study in contrast between the Decider-in-Chief and the Waffler-in-Chief who yearns for his glory days of being able to simply vote "present" in his handling of Afghanistan. He certainly talked up a good game....up until the moment when it matters the most. Lucianne.com: Every now and then we like to run this picture The picture that launched a thousand moonbats: That's the decider. That's leadership. And the contrast? Wright men can't jump! This is the ditherer-in-chief. Hmmm.... So many choices...Rocky Road or pralines and cream? Do I go with more sprinkles and nuts? Or a drawdown...

THE White House may be stalled in getting things done in Afghanistan, getting out of Iraq, getting its act to gether with Iran and what to do with health care and how to handle the economy and which way to go with gays -- but the Oval Office isn't going in circles on how to handle the bunch that got them elected. In this case they know what to do. As you've heard, tonight's a small dinner at New York's Mandarin Oriental. They're hinting it's a very very small dinner. No. More like 150. A fund-raiser for the Democratic Party....

ICONOCLAST DAILY NOTEBOOK.... Bill Clinton's Legacy.... February 13, 2003: Hey, we don't usually post to this feature more than once a day. But today's an exception. If you're going to read only one thing today, make sure it's the latest opinion piece from wise Washington pundit Charles Krauthammer. It's called Bracing for the Apocalypse, and it describes in scary detail the real legacy left by America's most undistinguished political procrastinator and First Felon, William Jefferson Clinton. Here's just a sampling of what Charles Krauthammer has to say today: You don't get to a place like this overnight. It takes at...