Free Republic

McCain’s Cult of Teddy RooseveltThe Sage of Sagamore Hill was not a conservative. By Michael Knox Beran Asked recently by the New York Times to name a conservative model, John McCain cited Theodore Roosevelt. Teddy, of course, had no shortage of virtues. Conservatism, alas, wasn’t one of them. It’s one thing for a conservative to admire T. R.’s style and gallantry, the charge up San Juan Hill, the rounding up of crooks in the Badlands. It’s something else for a conservative to identify Roosevelt as a fellow reformer, as Sen. McCain did in the Times interview. Far from allaying conservative...

McCain’s Conservative Model? Roosevelt (Theodore) By ADAM NAGOURNEY and MICHAEL COOPER HUDSON, Wis. — Senator John McCain in a wide-ranging interview called for a government that is frugal but more active than many conservatives might prefer. He said government should play an important role in areas like addressing climate change, regulating campaign finance and taking care of “those in America who cannot take care of themselves.” “I count myself as a conservative Republican, yet I view it to a large degree in the Theodore Roosevelt mold,” Mr. McCain said, referring to Roosevelt’s reputation for reform, environmentalism and tough foreign policy....

HUDSON, Wis. — Senator John McCain in a wide-ranging interview called for a government that is frugal but more active than many conservatives might prefer. He said government should play an important role in areas like addressing climate change, regulating campaign finance and taking care of “those in America who cannot take care of themselves.” “I count myself as a conservative Republican, yet I view it to a large degree in the Theodore Roosevelt mold,” Mr. McCain said, referring to Roosevelt’s reputation for reform, environmentalism and tough foreign policy.

HUDSON, Wis. — Senator John McCain in a wide-ranging interview called for a government that is frugal but more active than many conservatives might prefer. He said government should play an important role in areas like addressing climate change, regulating campaign finance and taking care of “those in America who cannot take care of themselves.” “I count myself as a conservative Republican, yet I view it to a large degree in the Theodore Roosevelt mold,” Mr. McCain said, referring to Roosevelt’s reputation for reform, environmentalism and tough foreign policy. The views expressed by Mr. McCain in the 45-minute interview here...

A little lesson on the history of the Olympic torch relay: You might think, as I did before Tuesday, that it was a representation of everything that is good in all of us. That its history was lush with goodwill. Maybe you thought the relay dated back to the ancient Greeks, that it was a dramatic tribute to mythology. Prometheus stealing the fire from Zeus. Those of us who watched, as the torch was carried across the Cascades and into a high-school stadium in Wenatchee on the Fourth of July in 1984, felt inspired. Wasn't that what this relay was...

Clinton Testimony on FBI Files Blocked Apr 2 11:20 AM US/Eastern WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judge has rejected an effort to force Hillary Rodham Clinton to testify in a decade-old lawsuit over White House acquisition of FBI background files. The court ruling spares Clinton a politically sensitive deposition at a time when she is fighting to overtake Barack Obama in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. The lawsuit is over the Clinton White House's acquisition of hundreds of FBI files on Republican appointees to White House jobs in previous administrations. The conservative group Judicial Watch accused the former...

A year ago, Barack Obama addressed a group in Selma, AL commemorating the 1965 voting rights march. He credited the event with giving his parents the idea that they could have a child. The result was him--Barack Obama, Child of Destiny. The only problem is he was born in 1961. "What happened in Selma, Alabama and Birmingham also stirred the conscience of the nation...This young man named Barack Obama...came over to this country. He met this woman...(who) had a good idea there was some craziness going on because they looked at each other and they decided...it might...be possible for us...

According to Scuttlebutt the legendary One Arm Paper Hanger has retired. "Busy as a Politician in a Brothel" expression will assume the Paper Hanger's previous duties

The rumors about Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and the Green Iguana just wouldn't go away. The story goes that the Florida governor frequented the Green Iguana, a bar in Tampa, back in the early 1990s when he was just starting his political career. He was less careful back then, people say, and during his partying at the Green Iguana, he was openly gay. When I got Rick Calderoni, the bar's well-known owner, on the phone, I expected him to stonewall me about it. He didn't. Calderoni, who is gay, confirmed that Crist came into his bar quite often and that...

most everyone is familiar with the concept that all the people in the world are only six degrees of seperation apart. If a person in a leadership position finds crooks and criminals within those degrees of seperation, it may warrant further examination. But what if a presidential contender is only two degrees of seperation away from one of the most notorious heads of state in modern times? This is the case with Barack Obama. If you follow the money, you will find only two degrees of seperation between Obama and Hussein -- Saddam Hussein. Bill Gertz of the Washington Times...

New NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard took up a flurry of complaints when veteran news anchor Jean Cochran told listeners President Bush was traveling to Africa, the "dark continent." They insisted NPR was sounding racist:

(CHICAGO)(February 8, 2007) Chicago-based Internet journalist, broadcaster and critic Andy Martin will hold a news conference Friday, February 9th at 11:00 A.M. to announce that U. S. Senator Barack Obama is a citizen of Kenya and became a citizen of Kenya under the Independence Constitution of Kenya in 1963. Obama has never renounced his Kenyan citizenship. He is also a U. S. Citizen. “For our ‘Obama Week’ leading up to Barry O’s announcement on Saturday that he feels qualified to lead the free world, ContrarianCommentary.com unleashed a worldwide team of constitutional law experts to delve into Kenyan law and the...

It may be just a wee bit early to say that Hillary Clinton has blown her chance at the Democratic presidential nomination, but it’s not too late to address the exploding amazement of the political pundit class over the ineptness of her campaign. Rarely has a storyline been, in such equal parts, so dominant and fun to read. How did the Clinton people manage to run such an embarrassingly bad campaign? Inquiring minds want to know. But it’s really not that hard to figure out. In truth, they had nothing to work with – a problem that was only exacerbated...

(2006 photo of Sen. Barack Obama in traditional Somali garb is at the center of a new political controversy.) The Democratic White House race detoured into name-calling and accusations of "fear-mongering" Monday as Hillary Clinton scrambled to save her teetering campaign from annihilation. The increasingly bitter duel for the nomination in advance of tonight's final debate went nuclear over a picture of Barack Obama dressed in traditional African garments making the rounds on the Internet. Obama's team accused a "shameful" Camp Clinton of circulating the photo of Obama dressed as a Somali elder, taken during a visit to Africa...

One wonders how the United States has come to the brink of nominating and probably electing someone with almost no experience as either an executive or national legislator, replete with ratings and rankings that suggest he will be about the most liberal Presidential candidate since George McGovern --snip--Instead, we are disliked by everyone, and for good reasons. The fact that Iranian mullahs, the House of Saud cousins, Hugo Chavez’s communists, European mullahs, and the Arab street don’t approve of America says more about us than it does them. The solution is to follow more the dictates of European Union and...

Is “coalition politics” at work in Obama’s rise to power? In his biography of Barack Obama, David Mendell writes about Obama's life as a "secret smoker" and how he "went to great lengths to conceal the habit." But what about Obama's secret political life? It turns out that Obama's childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, was a communist. In his books, Obama admits attending "socialist conferences" and coming into contact with Marxist literature. But he ridicules the charge of being a "hard-core academic Marxist," which was made by his colorful and outspoken 2004 U.S. Senate opponent, Republican Alan Keyes. However, through...

Spread Of 1918 Flu Pandemic ExplainedThis transmission electron micrograph of an ultra-thin specimen revealed some of the ultra-structural morphologic features seen in 1918 influenza virus virions. The prominent surface projections on the virions are composed of either the hemagglutinin, or neuraminidase type of glycoproteins. (Credit: Cynthia Goldsmith) ScienceDaily (Feb. 19, 2008) — MIT researchers have explained why two mutations in the H1N1 avian flu virus were critical for viral transmission in humans during the 1918 pandemic outbreak that killed at least 50 million people. The team showed that the 1918 influenza strain developed two mutations in a surface molecule called...

It's not that we expect politicians to have squeaky-clean donor lists. You try running for office without, at one point or another, taking money from someone you probably shouldn't. Even Barack Obama, Mr. Clean, has Tony Rezko. But the Frank Giustra-Kazakhstan-Uranium affair, blown open by The New York Times last week, serves as a reminder that the relationship between the Clintons and money has not always been lily-white. Here, a guide to the unsavory characters who have been associated with Bill and Hillary Clinton. THE DONOR Norman Hsu, Hong Kong "apparel executive." THE GREEN Hsu bundled more than $850,000 for...

Former President Bill Clinton invited Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining executive, to travel with him to Almaty, the capital of Kazakhstan in September 2005. Apparently, they were not simply sight-seeing. Every Quid was finding its Pro. Hours after his arrival in that mountainous dictatorship, Clinton endorsed Kazakhstan’s bid to join an international pro-democracy organization. Human-rights activists have long blocked Kazakhstan’s admission to the group because, ahem, its one-party rule has filled a lot of body bags. Clinton’s companion got what he wanted, too. Guistra who runs UrAsia, a relatively small Uranium mining concern with no reputation in the region, suddenly...

Beyond the melodrama of Sen. Hillary Clinton's tears-on-her-pillow triumph in New Hampshire and her gaming victory in Nevada lies the profoundly disturbing question of the Clintons' hidden record of suspected crimes. It's that very record which likely prompted Sen. John Kerry's sudden endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama just two days after Mrs. Clinton's first primary win, followed by two more supportive votes from ranking congressional Democrats.

Hillary Sends Bill on Campaign Trip to Antarctica Will Remain There Until Convention, Aides Confirm Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has sent her husband, former President Bill Clinton, on a “special campaign trip” to Antarctica that could last “six or seven months,” Clinton aides confirmed today. “From here on in, Bill is going to be our man in Antarctica,” said top Clinton strategist Mark Penn. “We have sent him down there with enough food and firewood to last until the Democratic convention this summer.” The unexpected change in the former president’s itinerary happened just hours after Mrs. Clinton’s drubbing...

After a decade fighting to stop illegal file-sharing, the music industry will give fans today what they have always wanted: an unlimited supply of free and legal songs. With CD sales in free fall and legal downloads yet to fill the gap, the music industry has reluctantly embraced the file-sharing technology that threatened to destroy it. Qtrax, a digital service announced today, promises a catalogue of more than 25 million songs that users can download to keep, free and with no limit on the number of tracks. The service has been endorsed by the very same record companies - including...

When I was a kid chicken wings were one of the things that your mom would throw out. Today, because of some idiot in Buffalo, they are a million dollar business. Today with the big games, parties, etc., chicken wings are a great source of enjoyment. Now these guys are no longer the coveted domain of Buffalo but they are enjoyed in many sizes and tastes of the USA from South West to the East. My question is: Where can I get the best Chicken Wings in your area?

January 27, 2008 12:26 PM ABC News' Rick Klein Reports: Senator Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., will endorse Barack Obama's presidential bid on Monday in Washington, a source close to Kennedy tells ABC News. The endorsement gives Obama a boost in the eyes of the Washington establishment, and comes after some prominent Democrats criticized Senator Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and former president Bill Clinton for their campaign tactics before Obama's landslide victory in South Carolina. Caroline Kennedy, the late President John F. Kennedy's only daughter, announced her endorsement of Obama in an Op-Ed for the New York Times on Sunday.

"The Chris Plante Sunday Show" runs from Noon to 3:00 p.m. ET. Tune in through streaming audio (or radio in the D.C. region) for two hours of the most fun-filled, fastest-growing and sensational radio talk show, “The Chris Plante Show”, transmitting LIVE from Washington, D.C.’s 630AM - WMAL (see links below). “The Chris Plante Show”, 630AM - WMAL, Washington, D.C. is broadcast live during the week, Mondays through Fridays from 8:06 p.m. - 10:00 p.m. and on Sundays from 12:06 - 2:00 p.m. by himself and with Jerry Klein, WMAL's “Pet Liberal“, from 2:06 - 3:00 p.m. If you want...

A Norwegian cruise ship carrying some 300 people lost engine power during an electrical outage and struck an Antarctic glacier, smashing a lifeboat but causing no injuries... The MS Fram hit the ice late Friday near Browns Bluff in the Antarctic... The engine started again and the liner continued to King George Island for an inspection. "We hit a glacier. We have damage to a starboard lifeboat and a little bit forward," ... the ship apparently suffered no serious damage. Hansen said the power outage lasted 40 to 50 minutes and sent the vessel adrift against the glacier, where it...

NEW YORK (AP) - The horse-drawn carriages that clip clop around Central Park could be banned under City Council legislation to be introduced at the urging of animal advocates who say the horses are treated inhumanely. Councilman Tony Avella, who plans to introduce the bill next Wednesday, said the horses that have entertained tourists and New Yorkers for decades are exposed to cruel conditions and are at risk of injury or death as they weave through city traffic. In September, a horse died after it was spooked by street musicians with drums and bolted down Central Park South. It was...

DES MOINES – With Oprah Winfrey headed here on Saturday to campaign for Senator Barack Obama, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton brought a surprise guest of her own: Chelsea Clinton. It was Ms. Clinton’s debut on the presidential campaign trail, smiling broadly as she walked into Palmer’s Deli a few steps behind her mother for a breakfast photo opportunity. She shed her coat and immediately began shaking hands and mingling with Iowa supporters who were seated among the diners. “Chelsea, delighted to meet you,” said Julia Martinusen, 49, who signed up as a Clinton supporter in recent weeks. “I was just...

Picture of 'back from the dead' canoeist in Panama exposes wife's 'pack of lies'A wife's claim that she thought her missing husband had been dead for five years has been exposed today as a lie after a sensational picture emerged which appears to show him and his wife in Panama in July 2006 - during the time that he was supposedly missing. Doctor's receptionist Anne Darwin says she was "as amazed as anyone" when John, 57, walked into a London police station on Saturday. But a smiling Mr and Mrs Darwin were pictured together in Panama City last year. He...

Questions About Hillary's Handling of Her First First Crisis What did Hillary do to provoke this hostage taker that he would take her people hostage? Why has Hillary lost so much respect among the world's hostage takers? Why was the first response an armed (SWAT) response? Why didn't she use negotiation first--before sending in the troops? She plans to meet with her staff--but, why won't she meet with the hostage taker? Why the delay in going to NH? What took so long for her response?

CNN: Corrupt News Network A self-serving agenda was set for the Republican presidential debates. December 1, 2007 THE United States is at war in the Middle East and Central Asia, the economy is writhing like a snake with a broken back, oil prices are relentlessly climbing toward $100 a barrel and an increasing number of Americans just can't afford to be sick with anything that won't be treated with aspirin and bed rest. So, when CNN brought the Republican presidential candidates together this week for what is loosely termed a "debate," what did the country get but a discussion of...

November 29, 2007 Dinosaur graveyard may unearth new reasons for their extinction Thomas Catᮠin Madrid Spanish scientists have unearthed what could be Europe’s largest dinosaur boneyard, finding the remains of 65ft plant-eaters never before discovered on the continent. The palaeontologists believe they have found eight different species amid the 8,000 fossils discovered so far. The range of species they are finding at the 80 million-year-old site and their state of conservation is virtually unparalleled in Europe and challenges long-held beliefs about the way in which dinosaurs became extinct. “This is completely beyond what we expected to find,” Francisco Ortega, co-director...

DH answers Hillary's political operative--CNN denies knowledge--Morning Joe sums it up...

<p>Oh, yeah, he wants $150,000 in damages, but he is willing to settle this for the bargain price of $10,900.</p> <p>And, to silence them.</p> <p>All under the aegis of "rights..."</p> <p>At least with a common street criminal, you know you are dealing with a crook- he is nothing more than a silk-shirted thief.</p>

Republican Party of Iowa to host presidential debate in DES MOINES Debate to be nationally televised by FOX NEWS CHANNEL The Republican Party of Iowa announced today that it will hold its presidential debate at Hy-Vee Hall in downtown Des Moines. The event, to be held the evening of December 4, 2007, will be the first debate in Iowa to be televised by FOX News Channel this election season, as well as the first debate sponsored by the Republican Party of Iowa. Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Ray Hoffmann said, “With the caucuses less than a month away, our December...

In over 30 years of working in and watching the ways of Washington, I must say, I have never seen anything quite like it. According to Senator Jon Kyl, the entire Senate Republican leadership is now opposed to a controversial treaty supported by the president and an implausible alliance of special interests – from the U.S. Navy to Greenpeace. At a joint press conference last Wednesday, he was one of several Senators to declare that, as a result, supporters would be unable to muster the necessary 67 votes for ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). Yet, it...

In some quarters, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee appears to be the flavor-of-the-month Republican candidate for president. Given his folksy charm, social conservative credentials, and embrace by the mainstream media, it is not surprising that some are increasingly enamored with him. But this flirtation does a great disservice to the conservative movement if it overlooks Huckabee’s stunning record of big-government liberalism. During Huckabee’s tenure as governor, the average Arkansan’s tax burden increased 47 percent, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. A dyed-in-blue tax hiker, Huckabee supported raising sales taxes, gas taxes, grocery taxes, even nursing home bed taxes. He virulently opposed...

When the Wall Street Journal broke the Yuan Yuen "Norman" Hsu story, some likened Norman to "Johnny" Chung and "Charlie" Trie, and wondered if the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) was passing money again to the Clintons. Now, with the Los Angeles Times' story about Clinton's fundraising in New York City's Chinatown, there's another question to consider: Is the Clinton campaign a target of Asian criminal groups looking for political influence? On August 28, 1990, Hsu claimed he was kidnapped by Raymond "Shrimpboy" Chow. Who is Chow? In December 1992, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental...

Her Heinous Hillary, Senatrix from New York, smartest woman in the world, enabler of sexual predator Bill Clinton and launderer of Chinese cash spoke out in Boston tonight on the efforts of conservatives to shed light on the efforts by Democrats to expand S-CHIP benefits to middle class families.According to the Associated Press, Clinton warned President Bush and Republicans to, "lay off Graeme Frost," the 12 year old boy being used by her party as a human shield to ward off efforts to incrementally nationalize health care.Clinton, who was reported to have led the campaign to intimidate and discredit women...

Dots. Reduced to layman's terms, this was the style of French painter George Seurat. Painting in the manner of what has been called "Neo-impressionism" or "Pointillism," Seurat created paintings composed of thousands of carefully colored points or dots. No one dot had any meaning. Taken by itself alone it was a single vivid point on the artist's canvas. Only when the dots were seen in their entirety, when one pulled back and looked at a Seurat painting as a whole, could you suddenly see the entire pattern of dots forming a remarkable portrait. The question: Is left-wing billionaire George Soros...

In at least some cases, Clinton or her aides directly channeled contributions from Hsu and his network to other politicians supportive of her presidential campaign, according to interviews and campaign finance records. snip Last fall, as the Nevada governor's race was heating up, Clinton agreed to help raise money for Democrat Dina Titus, a prominent party leader in a state that holds a key early presidential caucus. Clinton arranged for Hsu, at the time a little-known New York apparel executive with no apparent reason to take interest in Nevada politics, to give Titus $5,000 on Nov. 3, according to a...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union countries have struck Turkey off the map of Europe as represented on new euro coins, prompting protests from some lawmakers about a bias against the potential future EU member. The European Commission proposed Turkey and other countries on the EU's borders should feature on a new series of EU coins. But the final design approved by EU governments excluded Turkey whose membership of the bloc is opposed by some European countries such as France. "Clearly the Council (of EU member states) is not embarrassed that the new European map should include, as well as Ukraine...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A diet rich in fish and other sources of omega-3 fatty acids helped cut the risk that children with a family history of diabetes would develop the disease, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday. whose study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association. "It is exciting because it suggests we might be able to develop nutritional interventions to prevent diabetes."Type 1 diabetes, formerly called juvenile diabetes, is the most common form of diabetes in children. It occurs when the immune system goes haywire and starts attacking insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.No one knows exactly what triggers...

Sooner would have been much better than later09/25/2007 The Buffalo News It's the right move for the Clinton campaign to return $850,000 in tainted donations, but for a number of reasons, including another fundraising debacle involving a candidate named Clinton, it would have been far better to have done it sooner. Questions about fundraiser Norman Hsu had been raised as early as June. Still, it took until recently for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to announce that she would return that money - the largest amount ever returned by a single candidate - and cut ties with Hsu. In the meantime,...

WASHINGTON (MCT) -- In the latest sign of how unsettled the Republican presidential race is, Newt Gingrich says he'll run if supporters come up with $30 million in three weeks. "I don't see as a citizen how you could turn that down," Gingrich said on "Fox News Sunday." The fiery and controversial former speaker of the House has been a polarizing public figure. Still, he believes he can mount a White House bid just a few months before voting starts because the GOP faithful have yet to solidify behind a candidate. Rudy Giuliani remains the leader, at 30 percent in...

Meeting last week in Wyandotte County, officials from 22 states had hoped to move closer to their goal of collecting sales tax on all Internet purchases nationwide. At the end of the two-day meeting, they left empty-handed. Right now, many Internet vendors collect sales tax voluntarily at the urging of some states, but not all do. The patchwork of sales tax laws currently presents a burden on interstate commerce that courts have ruled unconstitutional. To solve the problem, several states — including Kansas — have joined the “Streamlined Sales Tax Project.” The member states are working to simplify sales tax...

Fred Thompson Defends McCain-Feingoldby John Gizzi Human Events Posted: 09/22/2007Mackinac Island, MichiganFred Thompson finally made clear his position on the statist campaign finance restrictions embodied in the McCain-Feingold bill. And conservatives are clearly not going to be pleased. When the former star of TV's "Law and Order" series and newly-minted presidential candidate spoke to reporters on the porch of the Grand Hotel here, I asked Thompson whether he was proud of his role in enacting the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation in '01. "Yes," replied the former Tennessee senator without hesitation. "You will recall that the central part of the...

Blackwater is a private company that does the dirty work for America in various wars, both covert and those we know about all too well. It began only 10 years ago as a sort of cheerful paintball and shooting range in the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina, but these days it has some 20,000 mercenaries on its books (the “whores of war”), not to mention a whole bunch of quasi-military aircraft, a military base, lots and lots of guns and connections with precisely the right people. It was brought into existence by Erik Prince, a somewhat right-of-centre Roman Catholic...

'Lights Out'' around Salt Lake City was a bust. Rocky Mountain Power technicians were unable to measure any reduction in energy use on Wednesday night when Utah residents were urged to turn off their lights for an hour. ''I wouldn't call it a blowout, but it's indicative of the proportion of lighting to other electrical uses. It just wasn't visible on our load curves,'' said Rocky Mountain Power spokesman Dave Eskelsen. Lighting accounts for just 14 percent of Utah's urban energy use - refrigerators and air conditioning make up 52 percent of the total, he said. But from a commanding...

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., wants to make a point about food stamps. Ellison was to be joined at a news conference in Washington, D.C., Tuesday by Rabbi Steve Gutow, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. They, and others, plan to live for a week on $21 -- the national average for food stamp benefits. Ellison and others planned to announce a weeklong "Food Stamp Challenge." One of the goals is to raise the minimum food stamp benefit. Ellison is the first Muslim elected to Congress. The week that he and Gutow will join the challenge falls...