Free Republic

A few weeks into Joe Biden’s presidency, I had the following thought: How many articles, opinion pieces and stories can be written and/or reported about one person’s utter stupidity? At some point, the sheer repetition of pointing out Scranton Joe’s uselessness as a leader, speaker, role model and human being would become background noise. It’s now just accepted that this man has no discernable virtues as a leader, no abilities that come to the fore, and is possibly the most annoying blowhard that has ever been in government. None of this is a revelation to anyone who has been awake...

THE federal Liberal-National coalition is likely to govern with a majority of at least 30 seats after a swing of just over three per cent against Labor. The ALP has become the first two-term federal government to be thrown out of office since Gough Whitlam's regime in 1975. Tony Abbott's coalition is on track to pick up 90 seats, with Labor holding 57, in the 150-seat parliament, but it won't have a majority in the Senate.

Last night at my second job, an illegal alien began chatting with me (due to my Spanish fluency, he felt more comfortable giving his views) and told me that this country was soon going to be "Latino". He said the Americans wanted to deport the illegals, but were not going to be able to do so because so many were born here and were therefore U.S. citizens. He was bold and adamant that the country was going to belong to them and that the "...white man would fade away." I agreed with him to keep him going and sold him...

The Democratic slaughter Tuesday will make it harder for President Obama to govern -- but might make it easier for him to win re-election in 2012. The Obama White House will shift into re-election mode in a few months, and the 2012 presidential campaign headquarters will be Chicago again, if all goes as planned. But for now, a lot of attention on the political front will have to be on dealing with a GOP-controlled House and a Senate where Republican gains will make it harder to get the 60 votes needed to get anything done.

JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secretly has proposed a new plan whereby Jews living in the West Bank will remain in their communities after the territory becomes part of a Palestinian state, WND has learned. Officials in both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have confirmed the plan to this reporter, marking the first time an Israeli leader has ever put on the table in a serious way a proposal involving Jewish West Bank residents remaining in a Palestinian state. Conventional negotiations always has assumed an Israeli evacuation of its communities inside any territory taken over by the PA.

Since Democrats have made it abundantly clear that the only way their "by any means necessary" war on the America is going to end is by being forcibly removed from office, it appears guaranteed that the GOP will soon be back in charge. When this happens, Republicans could decide to adopt the "post-partisan" ways of "change" and start insulting, trashing and excluding their opponents at every turn while relentlessly misinforming the public...

Obama, the Un-decider...

JERUSALEM – In a statement to WND, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office today objected to U.S. condemnation of the Israeli government for enforcing property law in Jerusalem by evicting Arabs from a Jewish housing complex they purportedly had been illegally occupying for almost a century.

Reporting from Sacramento -- Gray Davis had just landed in Pennsylvania on a trip last June when he was struck by the differences between that state and the one whose voters drove him out of office early in his second term, blaming his leadership for state government failures that included deep debt and legislative paralysis. Pennsylvania roads were clean. The state's budget was balanced. Lawmakers had socked enough away in a rainy-day fund to build what was then a decent surplus. Government seemed to run effectively. "It's not like other people can't do this," the former governor said recently. But...

CARACAS (AFP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Thursday he will govern until 2013 when his mandate ends, now that voters rejected constitutional reforms that would have allowed him to seek endless reelection. "The shouting is one thing, the reality another ... The reform was not approved, so I have to leave the government in the year 2013. I will work tirelessly until the last day I have left here," Chavez said at an event in the capital. He also told his supporters: "You have a debt with me, you will tell me if you will repay it or...

Meantime, the past seven months of Democratic rule have been anything but super-productive. Nor have they been united over the war on terrorism -- even on whether or not it should be called a war. They certainly haven't improved the tone and temper of congressional deliberations. Civility is at its lowest ebb ever in both chambers. A partisan maneuver last week that smacked of dirty tricks cut short a House roll call on a Republican amendment that ended the voting before all votes were cast. GOP lawmakers stormed out of the chamber crying "shame, shame." The Democrats' strong-arm tactics and...

The election results pose two enormous strategic choices for America. First, the obvious outcome of a Democratic-controlled Congress and a Republican White House is the need for bipartisan cooperation in order to get anything done. The key question is: Which kind of bipartisanship will emerge? Will there be a Ronald Reagan approach to bipartisanship which appeals to the conservative majority of the House? Or will there be an establishment bipartisanship which cuts deals between liberals and the White House? Second: Will the departure of Donald Rumsfeld and his replacement by Robert Gates lead to a tactical effort to minimize the...

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- As the traditional gift-giving season gets under way, American people, corporations and service groups are showing their gratitude to American service members, especially those who are deployed, in combat zones, or have been wounded. "The outpouring from the public of goodwill, compassion and recognition for the sacrifices of these military personnel is remarkable and very gratifying," said Stephen Epstein, director of the Standards of Conduct Office within DoD's Office of the General Counsel. However, Epstein added, recent misunderstandings that have been reported in the media have surfaced about what can and can't be donated to service members,...

When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty and property of the people from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted; and so far from being a guarantee for the enjoyment of those inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression; when the Federal Republican Constitution of their country, which they have sworn to support, no longer has a substantial existence, and the whole nature of their government has been forcibly changed without their consent, from a restricted federative republic, composed...

Leaders of a U.N. Internet panel yesterday said they hope to set up a global system where cyberspace would be under the control of the United Nations. The committee, which was set up in December 2003, is laying the groundwork for the U.N.-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society where a final decision on the control of the Net will be determined, stated a Reuters report. The summit will take place in Tunis in November. The panel is considering such problems as cyber-crime and e-mail spam. ICANN, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, currently is the most recognizable...

 Is the United Nations attempting self-parody?   How else to explain the announcement that a panel has been elected to decide which complaints will be heard by the U.N. Human Rights Commission at its annual meeting in Geneva this spring -- and that three of the five members are Cuba, Zimbabwe and Saudi Arabia? Placement on the diplomatically-named Working Group on Situations virtually guarantees that these abject human rights abusers won't be criticized, censured or sanctioned no matter what crimes they have committed, are committing or plan to commit. If any senior U.N. officials are troubled by this system, they are too discreet...

<p>California voters have chosen you to replace a man who came to be intensely disliked for his passive, risk-shunning, vision-free approach to governing this most populous, most diverse -- and therefore most-difficult-to-manage -- state. And by that action, Californians have declared that they want a governor who accepts the responsibility to manage the state's affairs; they want results, not platitudes, promises or evasions.</p>

Bush will ask for help to govern Iraq in UN address By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles 22 September 2003 One year after he told the United Nations he was prepared to go it alone in Iraq if necessary, President George Bush will return to the UN General Assembly tomorrow to appeal for international help to meet the mounting human and financial cost of maintaining a post-war occupation force. Mr Bush's cap-in-hand gesture seems unlikely to be accompanied by much humility, however, as the prevailing rhetoric in the United States continues to blast the French for obstructionism and suggests that...

CANBERRA: The United States should govern Iraq with the help of Britain and input from Australia in the immediate postwar period, Prime Minister John Howard said on Wednesday. He added that disunity within the United Nations suggested the world body may not be suitable to help administer a post-conflict government. Howard said he had given that view to US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair who would discuss the postwar reconstruction of Iraq at a meeting in the United States this week. Australia has been one of the staunchest supporters of the tough US line on...