Free Republic

Racism is driving anti-Obama protests, says Carter Philippe Naughton The former American president Jimmy Carter says racism and fear is driving the wave of anger directed at Barack Obama as he tries to drive through comprehensive reform of the US healthcare system. The 84-year-old included in his analysis the heckling of a Republican lawmaker, who shouted out "You lie" at President Obama during his speech to Congress last Wednesday. “I think that an overwhelming proportion of the intensely-demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, he’s African-American,” Mr Carter told NBC...

Over rising opposition, Libyan leader Muammar el-Qadaffi has canceled his proposed Bedouin tent campout in Englewood, New Jersey. The Libyan leader will instead stay in New York City as he awaits to address the UN General Assembly next month.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The Iranian opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi announced the formation of a new social and political movement on his Web site on Saturday, following through on a promise made last month and defying a renewed government campaign of intimidation aimed at him and his supporters. The movement is not a political party — which would require a government permit — but a “grass-roots and social network” that will promote democracy and adherence to the law, Mr. Moussavi wrote in a statement on his site. It is to be known as the Green Way of Hope,...

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley confirmed Monday that a new housing development in east Jerusalem had been a topic of conversation last week during a meeting between senior US diplomats and Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren. Crowley said US opposition to construction in east Jerusalem and settlements in the West Bank had not changed. "We have made our views known to Israel," he told reporters. "Our views are not new either: that this kind of construction is the type ... of issue that should be subject to permanent-status negotiations."

Finally, we’re starting to see him sweat. President Barack Obama made his personal icy cool the trademark of his campaign, the tenor of his White House and the hallmark of an early run of successes at home and abroad. But as the glamour wears off and a long, frustrating summer wears on, he is being forced to improvise, stooping to respond to political foes and adjusting his tactics and demeanor for the trench warfare of a legislative agenda. The root of the change is one that faces every president: Economic and international realities that resist political charm. Iran and North...

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has told Mousavi to pursue his demands through the electoral system and called for Iranians to unite behind their Islamic government, an extraordinary appeal in response to tensions over the presidential vote. But Mousavi appears unwilling to back down, issuing on his Web site a call for a mass demonstration Thursday. "We want a peaceful rally to protest the unhealthy trend of the election and realize our goal of annulling the results," Mousavi said. He called for his followers to wear or carry black in mourning for the alleged election fraud and the deaths of...

One day after signing the $410 billion omnibus funding bill into law, along with provisions ending the Department of Transportation's Mexican truck demonstration project, the Obama administration has announced intentions to restart the program as soon as possible.

Rush Limbaugh ‘just an entertainer?" Well, Mark Twain was an entertainer. But he was also one of the finest satirical voices in our history, a searing mocker of our national conscience at the time of slavery. He made people laugh until it hurt, but his aim was fundamentally moral. For the Chairman of the Republican Party to call Limbaugh "just an entertainer" is both inaccurate and political suicide. Michael Steele saw that quickly, and apologized. ‘Nuff said. Steele allowed himself to slip on CNN's carefully scripted banana peel, but he knew better. Most of our media Neanderthals don't.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's call to raise taxes on high earners and greenhouse gas polluters met fierce opposition Tuesday from congressional Republicans and also a few Democrats. "I would never want to adversely affect anything that is charitable or good," Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said of Obama's call to limit high-income taxpayers' itemized deductions for charitable donations and mortgage interest. Republicans said the president's plan to charge fees to industries that spew greenhouse gases amounts to a stealthy tax increase for all Americans that will far exceed the new $400...

Liberty is punch drunk. Every day she absorbs a frenzy of body blows from the Obama administration that are sure to result in knockout, of not permanent hospitalization or a coma. Liberty is not the only lady under assault. Truth has been mugged and muzzled. She cannot be heard. We no longer have a free press. The media is silent about the excesses, abuses, cronyism, and outright corruption of the Obama administration. The media has traded its traditional role of watchdog for lapdog. It uses its bandwidth lavishing praise and worship in a sickening display of, well, a sickening display....

For example, Dr Eugenie Scott of the staunchly anticreationist National Center for Science Education (NCSE) revealed their agenda when she said: “ … I would describe myself as a humanist or a nontheist. I have found that the most effective allies for evolution are people of the faith community. One clergyman with a backward collar is worth two biologists at a school board meeting any day! … What we [such clergy and atheists] have in common is that we want to see evolution taught in the public schools … .”4

We are used to hearing hysterics from the left about the fearsomeness of the "Republican Attack Machine," even though evidence of its existence has been scarce. This is unlike the "Democrat Attack Machine," a term you will never read in the mainstream media, but which keeps humming along destroying innocent conservatives on a near-daily basis. But assuming there ever was anything resembling a Republican version of this machinery, it must be in the shop undergoing repairs right now. Check out the frightening display of partisan unity when Barack Obama met with Congressional Republicans today: Mr. Obama walked into a meeting...

On Obama's agenda, according to his White House website, is the goal to "encourage diversity in media ownership." Obama elaborates on the site that his aim is to "encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation's spectrum." The plan apparently aligns with longstanding Democratic suggestions to resurrect the "Fairness Doctrine." The policy was abandoned in 1987 under President Reagan when there were 75 radio talk shows in the U.S. Reagan opposed the policy because it required...

Reporting from Beirut -- Black clerical turbans bobbed up from the sea of long, curly hair and fashionable berets. Venezuelan leftists sought an interpreter to speak with Egyptian nationalists. Iranians handed out DVDs celebrating the assassin of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and baseball caps that carried a quote from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini: "Israel must be wiped out." Many snoozed during former U.S. Atty. Gen. Ramsey Clark's speech about American foreign policy in the 1950s. But all perked up when the Shiite militia Hezbollah's No. 2, Naim Qassem, delivered a fiery keynote speech slamming the United States and Israel's war against...

Bandera local farmers and rancher charge that the I-69 Trans-Texas Corridor Tier One Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) has failed to meet important environmental standards. Barbara Mazurek, Bandera County Farm Bureau President says that these failures are indicative of the problems that exist with the entire Tran-Texas Corridor (TTC). “Because these environmental standards have not been met, the Texas Department of Transportation should seriously consider alternatives to its current model,” Mazurek said. According to Mazurek, there are three main reasons that the DEIS is flawed. • It limits its analysis to alternatives that fit the TTC “vision” of a multimodal...

The House passed a $14-billion, stopgap bailout of the automotive industry on Wednesday night. But in the Senate, Republicans have the votes to prevent it. And despite urging from the exiting Bush administration, they appear poised to do so. This is big. Normally, lame-duck congresses concern themselves with far less consequential matters. The addition of seven or eight more Democrats in the next Congress may come weeks too late to prevent the bankruptcy (or, in the worst case, failure) of General Motors. In the hours leading up to the critical votes, NRO spoke with Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), a...

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela's growing opposition and President Hugo Chavez's left-wing party shared the spoils from weekend elections, jostling for political advantage in the OPEC nation Monday. The multi-party opposition eroded Chavez's dominance of regional politics, winning six top posts that govern almost half of the population, although his Socialist Party took a 17 state races -- a clear majority. The results complicate Chavez's plan to change the law to run for reelection in 2012. The opposition defeated that move in a referendum last year and gained further ground Sunday on the popular anti-U.S. president who came to power in...

Texas politicians who support toll roads won't have Sal Costello to kick them around anymore. Costello and his family moved to a small town in Southern Illinois this summer. He announced it on his blog Sunday, quietly, an adverb seldom associated with Costello in the past. Costello, if you're new around here or have forgotten, was a Southwest Austin graphics designer who in 2004 made a warp-speed trip from obscurity to notoriety after politicians pushed through a plan to build seven more toll roads. The plan included putting tolls on three roads that were already under construction using nothing but...

Toyota, BMW, Hyundai Workers' Senators Oppose Rescue

A San Antonio lawmaker filed a bill that would repeal the establishment and operation of the Trans-Texas Corridor. It’s not the first time he’s done so. In the 2007 legislative session, Rep. David Leibowitz filed an identical bill, but it languished in the House Transportation Committee without a hearing. Leibowitz spokesman Rob Borja said the legislation may have a better fate the second time around. At least four of the nine committee members will change this session, including the chairman. “Probably most important is there will be a new chairman, because the old chairman Mike Krusee wouldn’t let any bills...