Free Republic

President Joe Biden opposed the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize abortion one year after Roe v Wade. “I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body,” he told the Washingtonian in 1974, one year after the court legalized abortion.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) nor his office could explain to Breitbart News why Utah’s junior senator opposed making Ketanji Brown Jackson a federal circuit judge last year and then voiced his support for her to become a Supreme Court Justice this year. Romney joined the 43 other Senate Republicans in 2021 to oppose Jackson’s bid to become a circuit judge for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Of all the potential Republican presidential contenders for 2024, CNN's John Berman seems to have singled out Nikki Haley for special opprobrium. Who knows whether it's out of conviction, or a sense that Haley might pose the biggest electoral threat to President Biden—or, as the case may be—to Kamala Harris, who shares Indian-American heritage with Haley? Berman's beef with Haley is over what he has described as her flip-flopping. In a February Politico article, Haley was sharply critical of President Trump. But yesterday, Haley declarated she would not run for president in 2024 if Trump does. Haley also mentioned that...

Depends on who is President.

Democrats are voicing strong misgivings about President Trump’s reported decision to keep James Comey atop the FBI. Comey infuriated Democrats in October when he announced an extended investigation into presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server days before the election.

FBI Director James B. Comey overstated key findings involving the Hillary Clinton email investigation during testimony to Congress last week, according to people close to the inquiry. In defending the probe, Comey offered seemingly new details to underscore the seriousness of the situation FBI agents faced last fall when they discovered thousands of Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s emails on the computer of her husband, Anthony Weiner. “Somehow, her emails were being forwarded to Anthony Weiner, including classified information,” Comey said, adding later, “His then-spouse Huma Abedin appears to have had a regular practice of forwarding emails to him for him...

Huma Abedin — Weiner’s wife and a top Clinton deputy — had made “a regular practice” of forwarding “hundreds and thousands” of Clinton messages to her husband, “some of which contain classified information.” Comey testified that Abedin had done this so that the disgraced former congressman could print them out for her boss. (Weiner’s laptop was seized after he came under criminal investigation for sex crimes, following a media report about his online relationship with a teenager.)   The problem: Much of what Comey said about this was inaccurate. Now the FBI is trying to figure out what to...

- After sharp criticism from Mitt Romney and Republicans, the Democrats have reinstated the language into their party platform that recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as well as the words "God-given" that were removed in this year's platform.

The latest ad from the Rick Perry camp nails Mitt Romney on a charge that has haunted him during his entire political career; namely, flip-flopping and being inconsistent on issues depending on who he happened to be talking to at any given moment. Take a look. Mitt Romney’s Race to the FlopThe Romney camp tries explaining the flip by changing the subject, which they have been able to do fairly successfully throughout the campaign so far. But The flip-flopper charge is probably the most damaging to Romney because it gets at the level of trust and character, and whether voters...

President Obama may deplore enhanced interrogation techniques, but he's learned a few things from cops and criminals. Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer's article entitled "The Sting, in Four Parts" may have missed one part. The good cop bad cop scam. Krauthammer listed four parts to "The Sting": (1) The Whopper, Obama's phony computation of deficit reductions; (2) The Puzzler, his brazen misrepresentation of domestic discretionary spending; (3) The Non Sequitur, his false connection between the economic crisis and radical reforms in healthcare, education and energy; and (4) The Swindle, the unsustainable level of federal spending he proposes. All four parts of...

Incredibly, Senator Barack Obama admitted that raising taxes on small business owners, investors, and high-income workers might actually hurt the economy.

John McCain and Barack Obama have both changed positions in this campaign. That's OK. Voters understand that politicians can and, sometimes, should change their views. After all, voters do. Witness the wide swings in their answers to opinion polls. But before accepting the changes, voters typically ask themselves three questions: Does the candidate admit he's shifting? What's the new information that altered his thinking? Does the change seem reasonable and not calculating?

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama tried to please a pro-Israel crowd this week by saying that Jerusalem should be the capital of Israel and that the holy city should not be divided. That angered Palestinians, who claim part of the city, and Obama clarified his remarks to say that the fate of Jerusalem should be a matter for negotiation. That angered some Israelis and their U.S. supporters. By week's end no one was happy. WHAT HE SAID: Obama told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain...

WASHINGTON - Republican Mitt Romney sought Sunday to deflect charges that he is a flip-flopper, insisting he had learned from experience and could be counted on to keep his campaign promises if elected president. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, also called on his top rival Mike Huckabee to apologize to President Bush. In an article in the journal Foreign Affairs, Huckabee criticized Bush's foreign policy as an "arrogant bunker mentality." Huckabee said no apology is necessary and that Romney should read the article. Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," a somewhat defensive Romney acknowledged that he has shifted positions on...

Per FR policy, Des Moines Register is link only.STORY:Romney: It's OK to change your mind

Al Gore was guilty of it. John Kerry was the master. Hillary Clinton has a family history. But Rudy Giuliani? Not that Rudy Giuliani! Yep, the former mayor of New York, tough-guy champion of clarity and action, waffled, ducked and dodged in the clutch. Asked a series of straight questions about abortion during the Republican presidential debate, Giuliani proved incapable of giving a straight answer. Would it be OK with him if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade? Yes and no. Is he still for public funding of abortion? Maybe. Finally, on his third try, he managed a tortured...

When Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani came to the home county of Terri Schiavo last month, he said he supported the controversial effort by Congress to intervene to keep the severely brain-damaged woman alive. But now it's not so clear where he stands on the Schiavo case. In a televised presidential debate Thursday night, Giuliani suggested the Schiavo controversy should have been left to the courts. "The family was in dispute. That's what we have courts for. And the better place to decide that in a much more, I think in a much fairer and even in a deeper way,...

It was by no means a bad appearance for Rudy Giuliani late Tuesday morning at the Latino Coalition. But one got the feeling that his applause lines were a little out of sync with his audience’s passions. Latino Coalition Chairman Hector Barreto — President Bush’s appointed head of the Small Business Administration from 2001 until last year — gave an introduction so effusively enthusiastic that Giuliani ought to take him on the road with him for his stump speeches. Barreto noted that the group had invited every major candidate, “Republican, Democrat, Green, red or blue” and that only Giuliani had...

There's something much worse than being accused of "flip-flopping": refusing to flip when it's obvious that your course of action is a flop. I say this to President Bush as someone who learned the hard way how embracing the world's complexity can be twisted into a crude political shorthand. Barbed words can make for great politics. But with U.S. troops in Iraq in the middle of an escalating civil war, this is no time for politics. Refusing to change course for fear of the political fallout is not only dangerous -- it is immoral. I'd rather explain a change of...

Sacramento -- Newport Beach (Orange County) Councilman Richard Nichols won't be among those cheering when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger takes the stage this weekend at the state Republican Convention in Los Angeles. Like a lot of conservative voters, the 66-year-old Nichols said he's disillusioned with the governor's recent efforts to recast himself as a political moderate in order to curry favor among Democrats and independent voters. Schwarzenegger's new strategy, which has boosted him in the polls, has also attracted criticism from both ends of the political spectrum that the governor has reversed position on key issues -- like education spending, the...