Free Republic

I live in two Americas. One is the America I recognize; the one I grew up in and the one in which I am proud. The other is a hollow, cheap and immoral imitation. I saw the distinction between these two Americas as I observed two funerals…one on television and one in my hometown. The first funeral was for Edward M. Kennedy, senior Senator from Massachusetts. The other, Jonathan T. Rape, a local boy who died in Afghanistan from a roadside bomb. One was watched by millions and personally viewed by tens of thousands. They lined the processional for miles...

CHILMARK, Mass. – President Barack Obama played tennis with his wife and golf with his buddies Monday, starting his first vacation in office on Martha's Vineyard, a picturesque island known as a refuge for the wealthy and privileged. Obama began the day with a workout at his rented retreat, then tennis with Michelle Obama, White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters traveling with the president. Obama later played golf with UBS Investment Bank President Robert Wolf and Chicago physician Eric Whitaker, both friends. White House aide Marvin Nicholson was also in the foursome. White House officials have stressed that the...

"My expectation is that, at some point, something happens," Elizabeth saidThe wife of philandering former Sen. John Edwards said she expects a paternity test will take place soon to determine the father of the 18-month-old child of her hubby's former mistress. In an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live," Elizabeth Edwards confronted rumors that her cheating husband was set to claim paternity of little Frances, his alleged love child with ex-mistress Rielle Hunter. When asked about testing the paternity of the baby, Edwards said her "expectation is that, at some point, something happens. And I hope for the sake of...

The National Enquirer is reporting what everyone already knew—that John Edwards is in fact the father of Rielle Hunter's child—and a North Carolina TV station says he may admit paternity. This news has been met largely with shrugs. Edwards is not only a failed candidate, he is a failed politician, with next to no influence among Democrats. Still, the news raises two tantalizing hypothetical questions: What if Edwards had won the Democratic nomination? What if he had won the presidency? First question first. It's easy to forget how close John Edwards came to being the Democratic nominee. When Edwards entered...

As the New York Times struggles to hold onto its dwindling pile of cash, its board is getting slammed by angry employees for hiking top executive pay as much as 35 percent.

One of the favorite refrains of the class-warfare left has long been to lament what it perceives as a division in America between economic haves and have-nots. From the standpoint of egalitarian, socialistic philosophy, the fact that some Americans prosper more than others is prima facie evidence of injustice. It is considered unfair that some Americans are allegedly left behind while yuppies and others get richer. It seems never to have occurred to the egalitarians to analyze WHY individual Americans’ income differs. Those who work hard at acquiring skills valued in the marketplace, and who then work hard to succeed...

There should be no more arrests or convictions for tax fraud, non-payment of taxes or vehicular homicide until Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Senator Ted Kennedy are tried for their "alleged" crimes! Are we a republic or an oligarchy? Why do powerful men and women get off scot-free when lower and middle-class people rot in a jail cell or prison for similar (or lesser) crimes?! "Equal Justice Under The Law" is what's inscribed on the front of the Supreme Court building in Washington! When will that become a reality?! We are either a nation of laws or men, we cannot...

Utah's chief federal judge Tena Campbell will not face punishment for breaking the rules by donating to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Because she admitted the error, promised to stop donating to candidates and publicly apologized, she will not face any serious sanction, according to Robert H. Henry, chief justice of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Henry dropped a charge of judicial misconduct on Nov. 11, in a dismissal order that doesn't name Campbell, but the series of events it describes matches her case. The order also sheds new light on how she handled the violation once it was made...

John Edwards Was Right I never thought I would say this, but John Edwards was right. The former presidential candidate became well known for a campaign stump speech in which he posited that there were “two Americas” one rich and one poor. The standard class warfare based shibboleth is not surprising coming as it does from a populist democrat. What else was he supposed to say? The surprising thing is that John Edwards was right. No, he wasn’t right that we have become a country of the haves and have-nots. Class warfare has not suddenly become the transcendent philosophy of...

A number of readers have taken me to task over my contention ...that most poor people are impoverished by choice. To be clear, I don't mean that one day a person gets up and decides to live in poverty. I believe a person winds up poor because he or she chooses not to succeed. Truth is, staying above the poverty line is relatively simple. Basically, all that's required is to finish high school, wait until at least age 20 to get married and not have a child out of wedlock. Now how hard is that? Not very, which is why...

ABC Radio news just announced Sen. John Edwards will admit to the affair with Rielle Hunter in an interview with the network, but insists the child is not his. We return you to your regularly-scheduled FReeping.

ohn Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extra-marital affair with a novice film-maker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today.

<p>It was only three weeks ago that John Edwards was fielding media questions on his chances of filling the Democratic Party's vice presidential slot on Barack Obama's ticket or a potential Cabinet position in an Obama administration.</p> <p>On Wednesday, however, the former U.S. senator and 2004 vice presidential nominee was eager to duck the press when the questions took a tabloid turn.</p>

Republicans are saying Democratic strategist Paul Begala went “over the line” when, in a fundraising appeal, he called the attendees of a GOP fundraiser “dirtbags.” Begala, who worked for Bill Clinton in the White House, discussed the annual Republican President’s Dinner in an e-mail to supporters that seeks to raise funds for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). “You should have seen the joint: wall to wall fat-cats. The limos were lined up around the block. If you’d stood in the middle of the ballroom and yelled, ‘Hey dirtbag!’ a thousand necks would have snapped around,” Begala wrote. The strategist...

t’s time to take a serious look at John Edwards - - again. Capitalizing on the “anybody-but-Hillary� wave that swept over Hawkeye State Democrats last Thursday, former Senator and Vice Presidential Candidate Edwards emerged as a second-place winner in the Iowa caucuses. He achieved this despite his comparatively low levels of campaign funds, and a campaign organization that perils in comparison to that of both his first place rival Barack Obama, and the opponent who now in some sense “trails� him, former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. And given this, and given the highly unpredictable nature of this entire campaign...

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa -- The back, right corner of the Kirn Middle School auditorium erupted. After hours of voting, haggling, and a recount, John Edwards had been declared the winner of the 9th precinct caucus in Pottawattamie County. He edged out Clinton here as he edged her out statewide, finishing in a better-than-expected second place. The horse he rode to his current success, however -- bomb-throwing class warfare -- cannot carry him to the White House. Some political analysts and many Iowa voters believe Edwards, being a Southern white male, is the most electable of the top three Democrats. In...

Mark Steyn’s review of the candidate’s Christmas campaign messages is a must-read today because it’s likely to be the funniest thing you’ll see all day. Here’s a taste: John Edwards’s message is the usual Dickensian affair about the two Americas. I forget the details, but the upshot is that one America is a land of spindly emaciated Tiny Tims with barely three farthings to rub together for their next cup of gruel, while the other’s a marshmallow world where Dick Cheney, high on wassail, shoots a brace of turducken out of season, and then chows down as the Radio City...

DAVENPORT, IOWA - Wherever he campaigns these days, John Edwards illustrates his devotion to working-class values with two chapters of his life story: growing up in Southern mill towns and whipping corporate lawyers in North Carolina courtrooms. "This battle against entrenched powerful interests, I've been fighting this battle my entire life," Edwards recently told 650 people in a school auditorium in this Mississippi River town. Edwards' new campaign attire is blue jeans. The former North Carolina senator has tromped through cow manure and watched his campaign van nearly get stuck on muddy country roads, all the time working to demonstrate...

John Edwards finally got something right. There really are two Americas. And the gap between them is widening at an alarming rate. To view this divide, one need only tune in to the mainstream media. Topping the news these days are stories covering such earth-shattering events as who offended whom, who needs to apologize and whose feelings have been hurt, followed by several he-said-she-said controversies. After a commercial break, we get the latest “I'm Outraged” sound-bite followed by the latest crisis report, usually coupled with a demand for more “investments” (that's liberal speak for taxes), couched in moral imperatives.

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 26 — Out of the burning brush, from behind canyon rocks, several immigrants bolted toward a group of firefighters, chased not by the border police but by the onrush of flames from one of the biggest wildfires this week. Their appearance startled the firefighters, who let them into their vehicles. But with the discovery of four charred bodies in an area of heavy illegal immigration, concern is growing that others may not have survived. “Their hands were burned, and they were clearly tired and grateful,” Capt. Mike Parkes of the State Department of Forestry and Fire Protection...

"The Carolina Week staff learned the importance of standing their ground against a disgruntled source, even when that source is a candidate for president." See the related link for details on the controversy on this story.

A UNC-Chapel Hill professor says John Edwards' presidential campaign tried to kill a student's video story about the campaign's headquarters. In an interview with State Government Radio, Associate Professor C.A. Tuggle said that he received phone calls from two top staffers for the former North Carolina senator. The journalism professor said the staffers threatened to cut off access to Edwards to all UNC student groups if the student-run television program aired a segment critical of the location of the Chapel Hill headquarters. "I'm dumbfounded by it," Tuggle told the radio station. "I can't imagine that a national campaign would spend...

John Ford will not have to report to prison on Oct. 17 as scheduled. The former state senator was granted additional time this morning for his appellate attorney to obtain and review several thousand pages of transcripts from his bribery trial. Ford, 65, who was convicted in April of taking $55,00 in bribes as a state legislator, was sentenced last month to 5 ½ years to be served in a federal prison near El Paso, Texas. U.S. Dist. Court Judge J. Daniel Breen, however, continued the report date and set a hearing for Nov. 28 to determine whether he Ford...

When presidential candidates volley numbers at each other and toward voters, the truth sometimes gets caught in the crossfire. In recent weeks, Ron Paul overstated the U.S. death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan, Rudy Giuliani overstated the impact on national crime rates of declining New York rates during his mayoral tenure, Barack Obama overstated the potential impact of an increase in voter turnout among black voters in the South, and John Edwards chose the higher of two government estimates of the number of Americans without bank accounts to emphasize a point.

Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation is a national authority on poverty and the U.S. welfare system. Specializing in welfare reform and family breakdown, Rector has done extensive research on the economic and social costs of welfare. With presidential candidates of a certain hue decrying the suffering of the 37 million Americans who have been officially classified as poor by the U.S. Census Bureau, we thought we'd ask Rector if these poor people are really as poverty-stricken as we have been led to believe. I talked to the author of “America's Failed $5.4 Trillion War on Poverty” Thursday, Sept. 6,...

A subprime lender with ties to Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards has moved to foreclose on more than 130 homes in South Carolina since the S.C. native went to work for its parent company, an analysis of courthouse records shows. The lender, Green Tree Financial, also was once the subject of a $30 million class-action verdict involving thousands of South Carolinians. Edwards’ ties to the company are disquieting to some supporters of the North Carolinian. On the campaign trail, Edwards has insisted he is the champion of lower-income families. Edwards’ ties to Green Tree also could hurt him with voters...

Once upon a time, Ted Kennedy could count on his daily dose of veneration. The right wing hated the Massachusetts Democrat, but progressives honored him as a defender of old-school liberalism. In a remarkable turnaround, liberals are now heaping scorn on the 73-year-old senator. Young audiences boo at his name, and the leftish "Daily Show" on Comedy Central makes fun of him. The source of unhappiness is Kennedy's efforts to kill an offshore wind farm on Nantucket Sound. Cape Wind was to be the first such project in the United States and a source of pride to environmentally minded New...

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards told a labor group he would ask Americans to make a big sacrifice: their sport utility vehicles. The former North Carolina senator told a forum by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, yesterday he thinks Americans are willing to sacrifice. Edwards says Americans should be asked to drive more fuel efficient vehicles. He says he would ask them to give up SUVs. Edwards got a standing ovation when he said weapons and equipment used by America's military needs to be made in the United States. He says tanks...

The following is a transcript of Comrade John Edwards' prepared speech to the proletariet in New Hampshire. In order to prevent vomitting and wretching by Capitalists, I felt it was necesary to load it up with big pictures courtesy of the brilliant folks over at Peoples Cube and some of my own original work: This election is unlike any we have faced before. The stakes are higher. And the challenges we face as a nation are greater than at any time in memory. We as a nation must choose whether to do what America has always done in times like...

Francois de La Rochefoucauld had a point when he said, in his frequently quoted formulation, that hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. In the case of John Edwards, however, hypocrisy is simply a way of life. The infamous $400 haircut — actually, some of his hairstyling sessions ran as much as $1,200 all told — wasn’t a freak embarrassment for a candidate so self-righteously devoted to the poor. It was part of a pattern so pervasive that it has become the defining aspect of Edwards’s candidacy. When he lambasted hedge funds for incorporating offshore to avoid or...

Embarrassed presidential hopeful John Edwards promised yesterday to take millions of dollars of his own fortune out of a hedge fund tied to subprime lenders who foreclosed on victims of Hurricane Katrina. The populist candidate - who has denounced such lenders - invested $16 million of his $30 million in assets in Fortress Investment Group. The Wall Street Journal reported that 34 New Orleans homeowners struggling to overcome Katrina's aftermath faced foreclosure suits from subprime-lending units of Fortress. Yesterday, the red-faced Democratic candidate vowed to remove from his portfolio any Fortress funds that have a stake in those lender units....

If he weren't rich, handsome and so well married, you might feel a little sorry for John Edwards. Never before in the 231-year history of our republic have the inalienable traits that Edwards possesses -- his fair skin and a Y chromosome -- been anything but a prerequisite for presidential politics. Today, his race and gender stand a chance of derailing his campaign altogether. (snip) The Edwards campaign presents his progressive evolution as a return to his core beliefs. "In 2004 he was consultant-driven," says Moulitsas. "In his gut he was against the war, but Bob Shrum talked him into...

As his Democratic rivals debate whether to talk with leaders of hostile nations, a tough-talking John Edwards told hundreds of people Saturday that he's against negotiating with the big insurance, oil and drug companies that he said are running the American government. Instead, he pushed for taking on "entrenched interests" with "big change." "Now, there are some people who believe ... the way to do this is to sit at the table with them and negotiate. I think that is a complete fantasy," he said, standing in front of the Rotary Arts Pavilion in a crowded Henry Law Park. Big...

It is just after Christmas in 2003 and John Edwards is running hard for president of the United States. He is in Iowa, with the caucuses about three weeks away. Pundits, guided by a massive disinformation campaign, have decided that Howard Dean is going to win Iowa. Edwards remains undiscouraged. A highly effective stump speaker, Edwards always gets a laugh by saying, "Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear." Edwards is a product of the American middle class. His father worked in a textile mill, and his mother ran an antique refinishing business and then became a...

NEW ORLEANS -- Sen. John Edwards plans to warn later this week that the nation’s schools have become segregated by race and income, and he will propose measures to diversify both inner-city and middle-class schools. The plan calls for beefing up inner-city magnet schools to attract suburban kids, and providing extra money for schools in middle-class areas as a reward for enrolling more low-income students. Edward lingered in the Big Easy this morning – admiring a 5-year-old Head Start pupil’s sneakers and hobnobbing in a wood-floored café -- before racing into Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee as part of a three-day...

Al Gore's daughter showed up to bail baby brother Al Jr. out of the slammer and paid in cold hard cash -- with twenty large! Law Enforcement sources tell TMZ, when Sarah Gore came to Orange County Jail to bail out Lil' Al, she brought $20,000 dollars in CASH! Green indeed! Al Gore Jr. was busted on suspicion of drug possession last week, after his Prius was pulled over for doing 100 on an OC freeway and sniffin' Sheriffs smelled weed in his car. A search of the vehicle turned up marijuana, Valium, Xanax, Vicodin, Adderall and Soma.

Can JRE pull off a JFK, or an RFK? John Edwards plans to announce Monday that he’ll take a break from fund-raising and campaigning in early-voting states next week for a three-day, eight-state, 12-city “Road to One America” tour aimed at calling attention to poverty in the deep South, the Mississippi Delta, Appalachia and the Rust Belt. The campaign points out that none of the states he’ll visit has an early 2008 primary, and says Edwards won’t be doing rallies. Instead, TV viewers will see Edwards in coal country, Edwards in a factory, Edwards on a farm, Edwards in a...

RUSH: Story today, John Solomon, Washington Post. "Splitting Hairs, Edwards's Stylist Tells His Side of Story. For four decades, Joseph Torrenueva has cut the hair of Hollywood celebrities, from Marlon Brando to Bob Barker," did you see, by the way, speaking of Bob Barker, the Clintons were in some sort of Fourth of July parade yesterday or day before, they were out there in Iowa for four days, and apparently some old women that were just there, because it's something to do to get out of the house, saw Clinton and Hillary walking down the street and they started screaming,...

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) - Orange County prosecutors say they have until August first to decide whether to file charges against Al Gore's son following his arrest on suspicion of illegally possessing marijuana and prescription drugs. A sheriff's spokesman says Al Gore the Third was driving about 100 miles per hour on the San Diego Freeway early Wednesday when he was pulled over. Sheriff's deputies say they found a small amount of marijuana plus Xanax, Valium, Vicodin and Adderall, which is used for attention deficit disorder, in his Toyota Prius. Sheriff's officials say the 24-year-old Gore did not have a...

With doctors in custody over attempted terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow, British police have now discovered a group of 45 Muslim doctors threatened an attack in the U.S. with car bombs and rocket grenades. The threat was found in an Internet chat room run by Younis Tsouli, 23, of London, one of three members of a "cyber-terrorist" gang, according to the Daily Telegraph of London.

A New Hampshire presidential poll by WHDH-TV and Suffolk University shows that local Democrats prefer Al Gore to any of the current contenders. Hillary Clinton has a solid lead over the rest of the current Democratic field. The poll, released this afternoon, shows 37 percent of likely Democratic voters backing Clinton or leaning towards her. Barack Obama was at 19 percent, with both John Edwards and Bill Richardson at 9 percent. Al Gore, however, could enter the race as the leader. When his name is added, Clinton loses more than a quarter of her support, while Gore is backed by...

Could Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards actually be right about something? Not where to go to get a haircut, mind you, I mean about there being two Americas. There is the vibrant America . . . and the stagnant one. There is the America of ever-increasing wealth, innovation, creativity, of a dynamic economy, new jobs, new products and services. Choices galore. Information overload. The abundant work product of freedom. And there is the politician's America: The regulated America, the subsidized America, the earmarked America. The failing America. In one America it is what you produce that gets you ahead. In...

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is complaining about the growing divide between rich and poor as he returns to the theme of "Two Americas" from his unsuccessful 2004 White House bid. The former North Carolina senator plans to focus on the economic gap he said has widened in four years. Edwards planned to deliver a speech Thursday night in New York. The text provided by the campaign states that the tax system has been rewritten by President George W. Bush to favor the wealthy and shift the tax burden to working families. The economic theme was the focus of Edwards'...

John Edwards may be running for the White House as a populist concerned about "the other America," but that doesn't mean he has to sit in the cheap seats. The ex-North Carolina senator attended Thursday night's NBA finals in Cleveland, watching from the courtside "Platinum Suites" VIP seats costing thousands of dollars. "He should sue himself . . . for political malpractice," said Dan Ronayne, deputy communications director of the Republican National Committee. Countered Edwards spokesman Eric Schultz: "Breaking news - a candidate from North Carolina likes basketball. Wait till they find out he had a hot dog."

I’ve concluded that John Edwards and Laura Ingraham are right. That may sound like a strange source of consensus — a liberal presidential candidate agreeing with a conservative radio talk show host — but bear with me. Edwards has made his “two Americas” theme the cornerstone of his presidential campaign. He should know. A multi-millionaire former trial lawyer, Edwards lives in a mansion and sports $400 haircuts while charging in excess of $50,000 for speeches on the subject of “poverty in America” to breathless university crowds. But he assures us that he has never forgotten his meager origins and wants...

I watched parts of the Democratic presidential debate, then downloaded the transcript. Of all the column fodder it contained, I was particularly taken by two responses of John Edwards that, I believe, fairly represent the Democratic Party's wrongheaded foreign policy worldview. His statements were at the beginning and end of the evening, and served as figurative bookends that nicely frame the Democrats' curious attitude toward this great nation they seek to lead. They tell us all we need to know about these would-be commanders in chief: that we cannot afford to have them anywhere near the Oval Office, especially as...

According to the latest Public Policy Polling survey of likely South Carolina primary voters, Sen. Barack Obama leads the Democratic presidential race with the support of 34%, trailed by Sen. Hillary Clinton with 31% and John Edwards with 15%. On the GOP side, Fred Thompson leads his rivals with 27%, followed by Mitt Romney at 16%, Sen. John McCain at 15%, Rudy Giuliani at 14% and Newt Gingrich at 11%

(Washington, D.C.) - Presidential candidate Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) responded today to Senator John Edwards’s comments that the War on Terror is nothing more than a "bumper sticker slogan." "If Senator Edwards is saying that the war on terror doesn’t exist, I would agree", Congressman Tancredo said. "Terror is a tactic used by the enemy with which we are at war. The enemy is radical Islam, and if he does not believe that, then he is delusional. America can’t afford a president that is an ostrich, with his head in the sand on this issue." Edwards, in a speech to...

Democrat John Edwards said Tuesday that he worked for a hedge fund between presidential campaigns to learn about financial markets and their relationship to poverty—and to make money too. In an interview with The Associated Press, the former North Carolina senator said his yearlong, part-time position with Fortress Investment Group helped his understanding of the connection but he has more to learn. Edwards has made eradicating poverty a focus of his second White House bid. Edwards, a multimillionaire after years as a trial lawyer, would not disclose how much he got paid for a year of consulting beginning in October...