Free Republic

Chemical weapons are evil, but you could also say they're a curse. They have a talismanic power to bend and distort U.S. foreign policy. You can ask George W. Bush or Barack Obama. In 2003, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz gave a lengthy interview to Vanity Fair that caused a huge uproar, largely because the magazine shamefully distorted what he was trying to say. Wolfowitz explained that within the Bush administration there were a lot of arguments for why we should invade Iraq. Some had to do with the fact that Saddam Hussein was a state supporter of terrorism. Some...

Sen. Barack Obama snatched the 2008 democratic nomination from Sen. Hillary Clinton for many reasons, none more important than Obama’s opposition to the Iraq War. All of Obama’s major opponents — Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C. and then-Sen. Clinton, D-N.Y. — had voted for authorization for war. Obama, then an Illinois state senator and a candidate for the U.S. Senate gave a speech in October 2002. He called it “a rash war… based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.” Sen. Obama pre-emptively criticized President George W....

Ann Coulter flip-flops: N.J. Gov. Chris Christie’s ‘dead’ to me Conservative firebrand and best-selling author Ann Coulter has changed her tune and flip-flopped on her support for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. In a Thursday tweet, she wrote: “@GovChristie’s dead to me.” The tweet came on the heels of Republican Sen. Jeffrey Chiesa’s vote to end debate on the immigration reform bill. Mr. Chiesa was appointed to the seat by Mr. Christie after Sen. Frank Lautenberg died. At the tail of her tweet, Ms. Coulter also added: “Jeffrey S. Chiesa R NJ votes ‘Aye’ on Amnesty bill.” The denouncement is...

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio understood he was taking considerable risk by putting his name on the immigration reform bill currently being crafted by the so-called “Gang of Eight.” He expected to alienate some conservatives, but did he anticipate Sarah Palin to be among them? The former Republican governor of Alaska took to Twitter on Sunday to call Rubio out for his “flip-flop” on immigration reform. Sarah Palin ✔ @SarahPalinUSA Politicians wonder why we can't trust them? Campaign flip-flops like this and carve-out bribes in the Amnesty... http://fb.me/2IsL1uspC 11:30 AM - 23 Jun 2013 497 Retweets 143 favorites As noted by...

Just weeks after going 2 for 22 on the basketball court, President Barack Obama went to shoot hoops again -- but this time there were no camers allowed. He was joined by his former aide Reggie Love,who played basketball for Duke. Here are today´s pool report: Sunday morning hoops -POTUS,wearing baseball cap and casual clothes,trotted down north steps of WH to waiting motorcade at 9:24 am. Arrived at FBI for basketball 9:30 am.… Potus sighted trotting up steps of North Portico, accompanied by another tall man, but WH not revealing identity of hoops companions. .. As he reentered WH after...

I'm conservative/libertarian. My family are all Obama 'Rats/moochers/OWS types. We had just watched the movie "Lincoln". I opined that it was good (and unusual) to see a Hollywood movie cast middle-aged, white, male Republicans in a favorable light. Yes, of course, the conversation immediately became about race. A few of my family said that at some point in history Republicans became and Democrats and vise-versa. I thought my head was going to explode. I am a huge fan of history and absorb it - especially the civil war. But I had never heard this before. Should I buy more duct...

We mighta, coulda, woulda, shoulda, still-some-day-may elect a president serious about the matter of the nation's freedoms. Or, possibly, not. The second possibility -- so an ancient mariner reflects -- arises from a sea change in our culture. It could be that more than half of us - a fast-rising proportion -- don't understand "serious" the way it was understood until half a century ago. The loose, lax, louche United States of 2012 seems dissimilar in important respects to the country that chose Dwight D. Eisenhower for president. A week after the Nov. 6 debacle, the post-mortems go on: the...

Despite statements by Vice President Joe Biden, the State Department is about to begin formal negotiations over the extension of U.S. troops past 2014, a top State Department official said Tuesday. Last week, U.S. and Afghan negotiators met in Kabul to talk about the Bilateral Security Agreement that will govern the extension of U.S. troops past 2014, when President Barack Obama said the combat mission in Afghanistan will end and the U.S. will complete the transition of the entire country to Afghan government control.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney made his pro-life views clear today in response to a question from a reporter on the campaign trail in Ohio.Romney said he would govern as a pro-life president, de-fund the nation’s largest abortion company, and reinstate a policy preventing taxpayer funding of international abortion promotion efforts on the part of Planned Parenthood.“I think I’ve said time and again that I’m a pro-life candidate and I’ll be a pro-life president. The actions I’ll take immediately is to remove funding for Planned Parenthood. It will not be part of my budget. And also I’ve indicated that I...

The amazing conclusion to yesterday’s snafu involving the Democratic platform’s language on Israel. After an evening of bad press they decided to reinsert the language about Jerusalem being the capital of Israel, along with some language about God after people noticed that the phrase “God-given” in the 2008 platform had been dropped in the new one. Simple process, in theory: Have someone from the floor propose adding the new language, then let the delegates approve it via a voice vote. The result? A trainwreck so awful that even Paul Begala didn’t try to spin it. As you’ll see, Villaraigosa’s astonishment...

- After sharp criticism from Mitt Romney and Republicans, the Democrats have reinstated the language into their party platform that recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as well as the words "God-given" that were removed in this year's platform.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The last time Alice Heiman participated in the Susan G. Komen walk in San Francisco to raise money for breast cancer, she gathered a group of friends and made a big trip from her home in Reno to support a cause close to her heart. This year, though, nine months after the national organization sparked outrage when it refused to fund Planned Parenthood, she's ignoring donation requests that keep popping up in her inbox and has no plans for a return trip. She's not alone. Just days before Sunday's 5k Race for the Cure along the Embarcadero...

Here's the dilemma: Talk radio and other parts of the 'conservative' media started defending Mitt Rmoney several weeks ago. IIRC, the first 'defense' was actually made to protect Ann Romney from the "stay-at-home" charge. So, Rush and Co. are now promoting Rmoney, after they first dismissed him, then they defended him. I will vote for neither Rmoney or Obama. I will "wait and see" (WAS). I will vote "none of the above" (NOTA). If Rmoney wins AND governs as a conservative for four years, THEN I'll vote to re-elect him in 2016. Not before. (Another Freeper mentioned this exact strategy...

With the economy threatening to fall into another recession and job growth plummeting, Obama came before the American people today demanding taxes be raised on those making over $250,000 a year, including what he admitted would include 3% of small businesses. Even if that 3% is correct, which is disputed, that 3% means a tax increase on 900,000 small businesses. That's nearly a million small business owners who will now be even more crippled and have less capital available to expand their payrolls -- which of course means fewer jobs for the middle class and the poor who would like...

http://www.wepolls.com/p/9637685/Will-his-endorsement-of-same-sex-marriage-help-or-hurt-Obama-in-November 66 votes Hurt 30% 113 votes Help 51% 32 votes No Difference 15% 9 votes I don't know flag 4%

RNC Chairman reince Priebus on MSNBC (May 7, 2012) [1:57-2:32] Andrea Mitchell: "Let me ask you about this whole issue of gay marriage and give you a chance to respond... what is the latest position of Mitt Romney and Republicans on this issue [same-sex marriage]?" Reince Priebus: "Governor Romney and the Republican Party have been pretty clear, marriage is between one man and one woman. We believe ultimately that you can't federalize that kind of mandate, which is why we believe that individual states can make that decision on their own..."

Mitt Romney is shifting to the center to attract important voting blocs that he may have alienated in the bruising Republican presidential primary.Romney has recently sought to ingratiate himself with voters in industry-heavy Ohio, women, Hispanics and college students by softening his tone on a range of issues. “Romney is starting to shift to the center. He knows he needs to get independent voters in November, and if he doesn’t he’s going to lose,” said Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution. Campaign aides, wary of the flip-flopper label that plagued Romney during the...

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of Labor today issued the following statement regarding the withdrawal of a proposed rule dealing with children who work in agricultural vocations: "The Obama administration is firmly committed to promoting family farmers and respecting the rural way of life, especially the role that parents and other family members play in passing those traditions down through the generations. The Obama administration is also deeply committed to listening and responding to what Americans across the country have to say about proposed rules and regulations. "As a result, the Department of Labor is announcing today the withdrawal of...

Think Progress flags an amazing exchange on CNN, in which Eric Fehrnstrom, a top adviser to Mitt Romney, seems to confirm that the conservative positions Romney has been forced to take during the primary won’t be a big deal because he can simply erase them once he becomes the GOP nominee: HOST: Is there a concern that Santorum and Gingrich might force the governor to tack so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election? FEHRNSTROM: Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like...

In Puerto Rico, for the price of 20 delegates, Mitt Romney sold out his conservative principles. There is a long history of Congress requiring English to be the language of government and schools for territories seeking to be admitted to the Union — e.g., Louisiana, Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma. For all of the territories that had large non-English speaking populations, Congress announced before the territories voted on the question of statehood that a change in language policy would be a prerequisite for statehood. In the case of Puerto Rico, where according to the latest Census only 15% of residents...