Free Republic

There is nothing conservative about the war in Afghanistan. The Center for Defense Information said a few months ago that we had spent over $400 billion on the war and war-related costs there. Now, the Pentagon says it will cost about $1 billion for each 1,000 additional troops we send to Afghanistan. One Republican Member from California told me recently that we could buy off every warlord in Afghanistan for $1 billion. Fiscal conservatives should be the ones most horrified by all this spending. Conservatives who oppose big government and huge deficit spending at home should not support it in...

Go back into hiding, GOP begs Dick Cheney — please By Molly K. Hooper Posted: 03/23/09 08:10 PM [ET] Congressional Republicans are telling Dick Cheney to go back to his undisclosed location and leave them alone to rebuild the Republican Party without his input. Displeased with the former vice-president's recent media appearances, Republican lawmakers say he's hurting GOP efforts to reinvent itself after back-to-back electoral drubbings. The veep, who showed a penchant for secrecy during eight years in the White House,has popped up in media interviews to defend the Bush-Cheney record while suggesting that the country is not as safe...

WASHINGTON – Opponents of a pilot project that allows Mexican trucks to travel throughout the United States took another step toward ending the program yesterday, when a House committee approved a bill to bar its continuation next year. The bill could get a vote by the full House when lawmakers return from their summer break in September. “We believe it's time to end the program,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., the chief sponsor of the bill. DeFazio blasted the Bush administration for ignoring a law passed by Congress last year to end the pilot program. He said lax safety standards...

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., R-Knoxville, endorsed Mitt Romney for president less than two weeks ago, but he says he instead will back Tennessee's Fred Thompson if he joins the fray. "If (former Sen.) Fred Thompson gets in there, then I definitely would support him," Duncan, a Republican, said in an interview. "He's been a long-time friend. I know him a whole lot better than I know (former Massachusetts) Gov. Romney." Duncan backed Romney before Thompson made any public declaration that he was interested in potentially running for president. Thompson was an attorney and part-time big-screen movie...

The House on Friday voted 256-153 to support the military mission in Iraq Forty-two Democrats bucked their leadership to join a virtually united Republican Party and declare that the United States must complete "the mission to create a sovereign, free, secure and united Iraq" without setting "an arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment" of U.S. troops. Three Republicans — Reps. Ron Paul of Texas, John Duncan Jr. of Tennessee and Jim Leach of Iowa — joined 149 Democrats and one independent to oppose the resolution. Three Democrats and two Republicans voted present in protest. Nineteen lawmakers did not vote....