Free Republic

> Source: VOA China (video stream HERE.Candidate Huntsman's (I would add, a bit easy on the eyes) daughter talking about her father's personality orientation (more Chinese than American), Huntsman droning on in Chinese bragging about his closeness to the Red Chinese, and other fun stuff, all in Chinese from VOA China (a personal profile on the guy).

Insurance Commissioner Jones Sends Ramadan Greetings to Muslim Community Praises Muslims for Sharing their Religion, Culture and Heritage with Californians Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones today sent warm wishes to Muslims across California as they begin their month-long celebration of Ramadan. "Since the early 20th century, Muslim Americans have enriched the fabric of California and have made tremendous contributions across the nation," said Commissioner Jones. "It's important to recognize those contributions during this special religious celebration." During Ramadan, Muslims fast, pray, and donate to charities in order to strengthen their relationship with God. It is intended to teach spirituality, humility and...

John McCain, so called maverick who at every turn has used his political capital to move this nation far left in the name of moderation. I worked for his campaign in 2008 because of his VP choice, and knew the background of the person he was running against. Immediately, I saw how unorganized his operations were and it seemed to me they were just going through the motions. The more I heard John say we need to tone down the rhetoric, the harder it became to show up and make calls. But once again I knew there was a promising...

(AP) Republican Mark Kirk broke with his majority of his party Saturday to support repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military, casting one of the first high-profile votes he’s faced as Illinois’ junior senator. The Senate voted 65-31 to let gays serve openly in the military. President Barack Obama was expected to sign the legislation next week, although the change wouldn’t take immediate effect. The House had passed an identical version of the bill, 250-175, on Wednesday. Kirk was one of six Republicans to break ranks. The move was a reversal for him after...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Saturday that the failed Democratic effort to pass the DREAM Act in the lame duck session dealt a blow to future talks on a wider immigration bill. “It was an exercise to try and taint Republicans with Hispanic voters, knowing that the DREAM Act under these circumstances could never pass,” Graham told reporters in the Capitol after the bill sputtered on the floor. “What they have done on the DREAM Act is hurt overall comprehensive immigration reform,” he said. The DREAM Act, which would give legal status to illegal immigrants who came to the country...

U.S. President Barack Obama will use his visit to the United Nations General Assembly later this week to emphasize to Iran that the "door is open" to them for international engagement, the White House said on Monday.

You can't burn a Koran in a crowded theater, and Supreme CourtJustice Stephen Breyer suggests that to placate foreign extremists, Koran burning might be banned everywhere else in America too. In an interview aired Tuesday on ABC's "Good Morning America,"Justice Breyer, who is on tour promoting his new book, averred that in the Internet age, speech traditionally protected by the First Amendment may have to be weighed against its global impact. George Stephanopoulos asked the justice about the canceled Sept. 11 Koran burning proposed by Pastor Terry Jones, and whether the fact that people riot in Afghanistan over what happens...

I just watched our "president" give his 9/11 address, and I was amazed. I have seen this man twist and distort and outright lie for five years now. I am still stunned at what I just heard. As tone-deaf and arrogant as we have come to know this empty-suit to be, he just set a new low for even himself. The thrust of his entire 9/11 address was a very thinly-veiled scolding for those who oppose the Ground Zero Mosque. The man is a shameless pig who routinely defiles the office he feigns to hold. I am going to be...

The culture of America is always under siege. Countless new arrivals have transformed American culture over the generations. Muslims from places as diverse as Morocco, Albania and Malaysia will change American culture, too. Whoever follows them will change it again. The idea that a handful of Islamic radicals can destroy a nation of 300 million people protected by the world's largest military is absurd. But questions about the Muslim world and its intentions toward the United States deserve answers, and I don't mean the ignorant rants polluting cyberspace. Fortunately, we have Karen Armstrong, a former Roman Catholic nun and an...

Fox News reporter Jennifer Steinhauser recently spent a few days following Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) around Arizona, on his re-election campaign. Not surprisingly, the topic which voters continue to hound the Senator on is that of illegal immigration. During a town hall meeting at a North Scottsdale library, a man named Richard Martin railed against McCain, saying: “We all know what happened after 9/11. Why didn’t you close this border down? Where were you, Senator?” Steinhauser reports that over the three days she spent with the McCain campaign, the most commonly asked question was why he supported amnesty for illegal...

I was somewhat surprised to see that Americans for Tax Reform's president, Grover Norquist, has decided to join the Advisory Council of the homosexual group GOProud. Grover is usually a masterful Republican strategist and coalition builder -- but in this case, he seems prepared to compromise a unified conservative movement in order to appease a tiny minority of the overall population. GOProud is not a conservative organization that happens to be gay. It's a homosexual organization that's marginally conservative. GOProud's own website explains just how radical its priorities are. This is a group that opposes the death tax and ObamaCare...

Obama supports the Mexican people — while opposing the people of Arizona! As Limbaugh would say, “What country does this guy think he’s the president of?”...

During Saturday’s illegal rally supporting illegal aliens outside of the White House Congressman Luis Gutierrez was arrested chanting “Si se puede” (Yes, it is possible) and wearing a shirt saying “Arrest me not my friends” in English. Gutierrez has made a career out of helping illegal aliens drain whatever they could out of America. Here’s some information about the hypocritical Luis Gutierrez. Gutierrez doesn’t live in the district he represents. This is legal but it raises suspicions. He’s recently moved his family from Chicago’s 60647 zip code which has become saturated with Hispanics. The racial breakdown of 60647 is 68%...

The UN's former envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, has strongly criticised Pakistan's recent arrest of high-ranking Taliban leaders. Mr Eide told the BBC the arrests had completely stopped a channel of secret communications with the UN. Pakistani officials insist the arrests were not an attempt to spoil talks. Mr Eide confirmed publicly for the first time that his secret contacts with senior Taliban members had begun a year ago. He said they involved face-to-face talks in Dubai and elsewhere... Mr Eide said there were now many channels of communication with the Taliban, including those involving senior representatives of Afghan President...

(Reason #)8. A right-wing blogosphere that is almost universally dominated by raging hate speech (see: Hot Air, Free Republic, Ace of Spades, etc.)

Ladies and Gentlemen, I apologize up front for this vanity, but this photo is very telling. In the photo, we see our military rendering honors to the Veterans (both deceased and still with us). Why is it that this punk stands there with his hands folded? He makes it really obvious that he could really care less about America and our great Soldiers, Airmen, Marines, Sailors, Coast Guardsmen and Merchant Marines. Why does he fail to salute our Veterans and our great society?

Here’s how: The bills require a federal declaration of a “climate emergency” if world greenhouse gas levels reach 450 parts per million. Guess what? The Pacific Northwest National Lab says it is a virtual certainty that level will be reached within a few months. The bill then requires the president to “direct all Federal agencies to use existing statutory authority to take appropriate actions...to address shortfalls" in achieving needed greenhouse gas reductions. The Examiner's David Freddoso reports that Sen. David Vitter, R-LA, is holding a news conference later today concerning this provision. Vitter wonders if companies that support cap-and-trade in...

Watching the coverage of the national tragedy in Fort Hood, one is forced into one of two conclusions regarding the media--either they are absolute idiots or they are politically correct cowards. Either way this nation is in for a world of hurt. The much-maligned 43rd president of the United States for the most part, rightly understood that America is at war with radical Islam. For some reason, the talking heads in the media and the Obama administration have yet to figure that out. The media was beside itself yesterday and much of the morning today trying to wonder why this...

Barack Obama has demanded the Pentagon conduct a radical review of US nuclear weapons doctrine to prepare the way for deep cuts in the country's arsenal, the Guardian can reveal. Obama has rejected the Pentagon's first draft of the "nuclear posture review" as being too timid, and has called for a range of more far-reaching options consistent with his goal of eventually abolishing nuclear weapons altogether, according to European officials.

President Barack Obama essentially handed Russia a gift on Thursday with his decision to roll back a planned U.S. missile defense in eastern Europe. The Russian government had loudly protested U.S. plans begun by Obama's predecessor, Republican George W. Bush, to deploy an anti-missile system in eastern Europe that the United States insisted had been aimed at defending against a potential missile attack from Iran. Obama's...move drew praise from fellow Democrats and some arms control advocates who saw the Bush plan as aimed at a Iranian missile threat that did not yet exist... But Republicans and missile-defense advocates called the...

(snip) "No. I fought against waterboarding," the Arizona Republican said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "I have spoken out as forcibly as possible everywhere against what went on. It harms our image so much around the world when photographs come out. We all know bad things were done. We all know the operators were under orders to do so… I agree with the president of the United States it's time to move on, and not look back." (snip)

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said that Republicans would work with President Obama on a second stimulus bill, as long as it's like the tax cut-heavy package the GOP proposed earlier. Cantor told reporters Monday that Obama made a mistake by pushing through a $787 billion stimulus bill in February that had too much government spending. With the economy still scuffling and unemployment approaching 10 percent, Cantor said that Republicans could back new stimulus legislation that focuses on help for small businesses. "We stand ready and willing to work with the president to produce a bill that will actually...

The year is 2003. Tom Ridge is chatting, explaining what’s going on with Homeland Security, having a seemingly good time. His good natured counterpart in the conversation lets Ridge run with the conversation. The other party in the conversation is Rush Limbaugh. Ridge had called into Rush’s show. Over the past twenty years Rush has been on the air, people like Powell, Ridge, and others have had no problem using Rush to air their policy views, defend themselves, and chat. And in those twenty years, as anyone who has regularly listened to Rush can tell you, the substantive coverage of...

On Sunday talk shows, he says the 'big tent' party of Reagan and the late Jack Kemp has been replaced by rigid conservatism. BY MARK TRUMBULL Sen. Arlen Specter (D) of Pennsylvania and leaders of the party he bolted last week surprisingly struck a chord of near agreement in discussing the future of the Republican Party Sunday. The question of whether the party can stage a revival without welcoming Northeastern moderates came to the fore on television talk shows Sunday morning. On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Senator Specter blamed the inner workings of the conservative movement for his own departure,...

After the flippant dismissal by U.S. Circuit Court Judge James Robertson of the lawsuit to attempt to determine whether Barack Obama is constitutionally eligible to serve as President, D.C. attorney John Hemenway received a letter from a lawyer representing Barack Obama and Joe Biden, his Vice President.  (Hemenway had enjoined the suit launched by Hillary Clinton's ally, Philip Berg, the former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania and attorney Lawrence Joyce of Arizona, in an attempt to force President Obama to disclose his birth records, currently being protected against public scrutiny by the Obama legal team at a reported cost of as much as one million dollars.) ...

Darwin’s quisling (Charles Kingsley) Clergymen betraying the faith they profess is not new. But perhaps none was as destructive as the famous author who smoothed the way for Darwin...

April 02, 2009Obama bows down to Saudi KingClarice Feldman I am quite certain that this is not the protocol, and is most unbecoming a President of the United States.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Many detainees locked up at Guantanamo were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants, a former Bush administration official said Thursday. "There are still innocent people there," Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a Republican who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, told The Associated Press. "Some have been there six or seven years." Wilkerson, who first made the assertions in an Internet posting on Tuesday, told the AP he learned from briefings and by communicating with military commanders that the U.S. soon realized many Guantanamo detainees were...

Barack Obama bought and paid for these banks. They better get in line behind his plan to abolish the secret ballot in unionization elections. That’s Rachel Maddow’s position. The MSNBC host is furious that banks taking bail-out funds have the audacity to do what they think is in the best interest of their businesses, instead of supporting the president’s scheme to do away with what most Americans consider a sacred element of democracy: the secret ballot. Apparently Citi and Bank of America have hosted conference calls in which opposition was expressed to the Obama-backed, Orwellian-named, Employee Free Choice Act, which...

In an interview with The Times, President Obama opened the door to a reconciliation process in which the American military would reach out to elements of the Taliban.

Indonesia shows Islam, modernity coexist: Clinton 17 Feb 2009 By Arshad Mohammed and Ed Davies JAKARTA (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held up Indonesia on Wednesday as proof that modernity and Islam can coexist as she visited the country where U.S. President Barack Obama spent four years as a boy. Clinton's 24-hour stay in the world's most populous Muslim nation underlined Obama's desire to forge a better relationship with the Islamic world, where his predecessor George W. Bush's policies were deeply unpopular, notably the invasion of Iraq. Clinton, on her first trip as secretary of state, said...

President Barack Obama will send his Vice President Joseph Biden and a top-level delegation to the Munich Security Conference this weekend to hear what US allies have to say before his new foreign policies go into effect. Biden's speech at the conference Saturday was billed by an Obama official who requested anonimity as "the first major foreign policy of this White House." While Obama focuses on the economic crisis back home, Biden in Europe "will outline the sort of vision of foreign policy and national security policy that this administration brings to the world stage now that it's in power,"...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- President Barack Obama said in an interview with Al-Arabiya television news that the U.S. isn't an enemy of the Muslim world. Obama told the Dubai-based network that he had Muslim relatives and that he lived in the Muslim-majority nation of Indonesia for several years.

In Indonesia alone, 19 million Muslims support violent jihad but Barack Obama believes the problem is only with a few rogue Al-Qaeda terrorists.In a 2006 Pew international survey a majority of Muslims believe that Arabs are not behind the 9-11 and millions believe that violent attacks against civilians are acceptable. The Politico reported on Obama's interview with Al-Arabiya tonight.The post-partisan president once again bashes President Bush: The interview with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya Network was a dramatic piece of public diplomacy aimed at capitalizing on the new American president's international popularity, though it balanced America's traditional commitment to Israel, whose security...

GOP Sen. John McCain is positioning himself to be one of President Barack Obama’s strongest supporters, effectively giving Democrats the votes they need to override any GOP attempt to block the new administration’s legislative agenda. Obama heaped warm praise on his GOP rival during a dinner held in McCain’s honor the day before the inauguration, calling him a hero. Insiders duly noted McCain was granted a prime spot on the dais at the inauguration, sandwiched in a seat between White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The day after the inauguration, Obama and...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Now, ladies and gentlemen, I must admit to you here that I'm a bit conflicted about what happened here today and what to say about it, being totally candid and up front and honest with you. There's no question it's an historic day in the United States of America. There is no question that this is a day that has been built up and hyped, the inaugural address, we were told, would be soaring, that the words would be chiseled into stone -- CNN reported this yesterday -- and this is what happens when you build up...

As I write this, the man presently calling himself “Barack Hussein Obama” has not even been sworn in as President, and yet his chosen administration is already the greatest collection of criminals since the last time Hillary Clinton sat alone in her East Wing office in January, 2001. As I’ve previously noted, an unwritten law of politics says that you’re supposed to get sworn in, before committing high crimes and misdemeanors. It is a political commonplace for a president to have his inaugural and his cabinet’s swearing-in, after which all hell breaks loose. There is nothing at all commonplace about...

Senior Bush administration officials are preparing to ask lawmakers for the second half of the $700 billion financial rescue package despite intense opposition in Congress and then have President Bush use his veto if the request is voted down, three sources familiar with the matter said. The initiative, which is being coordinated with the Obama transition team, may be taken within days, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity because no announcement has been made. Democratic Senate aides were notified in a meeting this afternoon that the request could come as soon as this weekend and that a vote...

TUSCALOOSA | Don't tell Bill Maher, but the vote among the white electorate in Alabama for president elect Barack Obama was the lowest in the county at only 10 percent. From an analysis by MSNBC: "We took a look at Obama's performance with white voters in all 50 states. In 13 of them, Obama received less than 35% of the white vote. His three lowest performing states: Alabama (10%), Mississippi (11%), and Louisiana (14%). The other 10: GA (23%), SC (26%), TX (26%), OK (29%), AR (30%), UT (31%), AK (32%), WY (32%), ID (33%), and TN (34%). On the...

Internal police investigators are looking into whether a number of Durham officers posted derogatory remarks about President-elect Obama on their MySpace pages. "There's no exact words that were said," Police Chief Jose L. Lopez Sr. said from San Diego, where he is attending the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference. "It wasn't a racial slur, but we're still investigating it." Investigators are looking into the context of what was written. Lopez wouldn't say what was written or how many officers are being investigated. Police officials have been looking into the allegations since Thursday after a department employee complained about...

PEARL, Miss. -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi said Friday that it had received numerous reports from throughout the state from parents and students regarding alleged violations of students’ free speech following Tuesday’s election, Jackson television news station WAPT reported. On Thursday, the Pearl Schools superintendent said that a school bus driver and a coach were disciplined for allegedly telling students not to say President-elect Barack Obama’s name. Reporters with 16 WAPT News received several calls from upset parents that said a school bus driver told the children on a Pearl school bus that if they said Obama’s...

President Bush is unhappy the conversation between him and President-elect Barack Obama has been cast as a trade-off between Bush signing a second stimulus package in exchange for congressional passage of the Colombia Free Trade Deal, administration officials told FOX News on Tuesday.

Cartoonist: Amjad Rasmi Source: Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London, November 10, 2008 (Pretty much the same thing Obama said he was going to do.)

President-elect Barack Obama issued a statement honoring America's veterans today, the 90th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that ended World War I. His statement follows: As we mark Veterans Day, all Americans are united in honoring the extraordinary service and selfless sacrifice of our nation's veterans. Our veterans are part of an unbroken line of heroes who have defended the American people and stood up for American values -- from the beaches of Normandy to the battles in East Asia; from the deserts of Kuwait to the skies above Kosovo; from the cities of Iraq to the mountains...

Former top Democratic aide-turned journalist George Stephanopoulos appeared on Friday's edition of the "Oprah Winfrey Show" and agreed with the host that it was "impossible" not to feel exuberant when Barack Obama was declared the winner on election night. Stephanopoulos also repeatedly admitted that he fervently believed all along the Democratic candidate would defeat Senator John McCain. Stephanopoulos' wife, actress Ali Wentworth, also appeared as part of the show's weekly "Oprah Fridays Live" series and asserted that in the spring she asked her reporter husband, "Is Obama going to win? Is Obama going to win? He said, 'Yes. He's going...

Politics: Venezuela's President, Hugo Chávez, congratulated Barack Obama for his "historic election" on Tuesday and confirmed his desire to establish "new relations" with the United States and re-launch "a constructive bilateral agenda" for the wellbeing of the two peoples. "In this day of hope for Americans, President Hugo Chávez, on behalf of the people of Venezuela, congratulates the people of the United States and the president-elect Barack Obama for his important victory," reads a statement of the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as reported by AFP. Chávez, who expelled US ambassador to Venezuela Patrick Duddy in mid-September, is a major...

PHILADELPHIA -- Seventeen-term Congressman John Murtha has won re-election in southwestern Pennsylvania. With over half the vote in, he has 58 percent of the vote. Centre County GOP chairman Glenn Thompson has won the state's only open congressional seat. In northwestern Pennsylvania, seven-term Republican Rep. Phil English is trailing Democratic political newcomer Kathy Dahlkemper. She has nearly 53 percent of the vote.

ONE of the things that most amazes people about Barack Hussein Obama is the suddenness of his rise. Barack who? A year ago, most people didn't know his name. The conventional wisdom on all sides was that Hillary Clinton, beneficiary of the mighty "Clinton machine", was certain to snatch the nomination and then march triumphantly to the White House. It was one of those certainties that was inevitable until it didn't happen. An important point to grasp about Obama's success is that his obscurity, far from being a handicap, has been a tremendous asset. And I do not mean only...

A retired Army general said today at a news conference sponsored by the Republican Party of Virginia that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama isn't qualified to be Commander-in-Chief of the United States because he couldn't get top secret clearance. Jerry Curry said Obama's past association with former anti-war radical William Ayers would prevent him from getting security clearance. Curry, who is an African-American, spoke at an ethnic outreach news conference at the Bell Tower in Capitol Square. If Barack Obama had been commander-in-chief of the forces in the Revolutionary War instead of George Washington "we'd still be a British colony,"...

At this juncture, I wouldn't want to bet even a subprime mortgage on this presidential election. As perhaps never before, multiple hidden factors could alter the outcome. Judging by polls, it would seem that Barack Obama will be our next president. Monday's Washington Post-ABC tracking poll, for example, showed Obama even winning 22 percent of conservatives and getting 12 percent support among Republicans. But polls only reflect what people say they think, not what they really think. Which is to say, we have both an election and a shadow election in progress. The latter, in which unconscious motivations come into...