Free Republic

Wednesday on “The Stephanie Miller Show,” former President Jimmy Carter said because of the “stupid” Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case, America has become a “plutocracy.” Carter said, “The basic structure of our moral values of the framework of our democracy has gone down the drain in the last twenty years or so and it’s now become pretty much a plutocracy where money determines who will be the Democratic and Republican nominees. Money determines who will win election for Congress or for the U.S. Senate or for the governorship And the massive infusion of money that has come...

ATLANTA (AP) -- Former President Jimmy Carter is congratulating the people of Egypt on taking the first steps toward a new era of democratic legitimacy.

CHIANG MAI, Thailand (Nov. 16) -- Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Monday that he had no regrets about his handling of the Iran hostage crisis more than 30 years ago, saying he didn't attack the country as his advisers proposed because thousands of people would have died. Islamic militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979, and seized its occupants. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days. Carter acknowledged that his failure to bring the hostages home — including a botched rescue mission in which eight U.S. servicemen died — led to his election defeat...

Another moment of lunacy from this nation’s biggest Oval Office mistake of the 20th century — which may be akin to saying “water is still wet,” but we should be keeping a tally. While in Columbia, former President Jimmy Carter told an interviewer that the Bush administration “could have been involved” in the 2002 coup attempt against Venezuelan wanna-be dictator Hugo Chavez. Dan Calabrese unloads on America’s worst ex-president: On Sunday, Jimmeh told the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo that he believes the Bush Administration was likely behind a coup against Hugo Chavez in 2002 in Venezuela. “I think there is...

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Southern African nations must intervene more decisively to end Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and other prominent world figures said on Monday. Describing Zimbabwe as close to a humanitarian disaster, Annan urged the Southern African Development Community's leaders to pressure President Robert Mugabe and the opposition MDC to break a deadlock blocking the formation of a unity government. "SADC must bring its full weight to bear," Annan, flanked by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and human rights campaigner Graca Machel, the wife of Nelson Mandela, told a news conference. "I think...

Carter: Stop favoring Fatah over Hamas By ASSOCIATED PRESS DUBLIN, Ireland http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1181813074587&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull The United States, Israel and the European Union must end their policy of favoring Fatah over Hamas, or they will doom the Palestinian people to deepening conflict between the rival movements, former US President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday. Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was addressing a conference of Irish human rights officials, said the Bush administration's refusal to accept the 2006 election victory of Hamas was "criminal." Carter said Hamas, besides winning a fair and democratic mandate that should have entitled it to lead the Palestinian...

Michaal Ramirez's cartoon commentary on Jimmy Carter is here.

ATLANTA (UPI) -- Fourteen members of an advisory board at the Carter Center in Atlanta have resigned over former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's controversial Mideast book. The group, including some who worked with Carter when he was in the White House 30 years ago, said it could "no longer in good conscience continue to serve" because of Carter's "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid," the Wall Street Journal said Thursday. "It seems that you have turned to a world of advocacy, including even malicious advocacy," the departing members said in a letter to the former president. The book, published Nov. 14 by...

Shortly after Jimmy Carter's "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" began appearing in bookstores, the former president stated that one ultimate goal of the book was "to help restart peace talks (now absent for six years) that can lead to permanent peace for Israel and its neighbors." One might assume, then, that Mr. Carter might be troubled by the signal lack of interest and comment the book has stirred in Israel. Unless Carter's beef was not really with Israel. Unless, that is, Carter's true intended target was the organized American Jewish community. If Carter's intent had been to foster a revival of...

For an event that would turn a page in American history, former president Jimmy Carter has agreed in principle to host former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami for talks during his visit to the United States starting this week. Carter's term as president was dominated by the rupture in relations after the 1979 Iranian revolution and the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days until the day he left office. Iranians made the overture for the meeting, and the Carter Center in Atlanta is working on the possible timing, said Phil Wise,...

Former US president Jimmy Carter speaks with DER SPIEGEL about the danger posed to American values by George W. Bush, the difficult situation in the Middle East and Cuba's ailing Fidel Castro. SPIEGEL: Mr. Carter, in your new book you write that only the American people can ensure that the US government returns to the country's old moral principles. Are you suggesting that the current US administration of George W. Bush of acting immorally? Carter: There's no doubt that this administration has made a radical and unpressured departure from the basic policies of all previous administrations including those of both...

by Mark Finkelstein November 2, 2005 - 07:22. Ah, Abu Ghraib! Good old days for the MSM, when for months on end they could justify displaying salacious photos, confident that every time they did, Pres. Bush took a hit. Is there hope for Abu Ghraib redux? The Today Show is clearly doing its best to promote the notion. In its coverage of revelations in the Washington Post that the CIA maintains secret prisons around the world to confine top Al-Qaida members, Today at least twice displayed an Abu Ghraib photo. This despite the absence of any allegations that the US...

So President Malaise has done it again. Former President Jimmy Carter has trashed his country on foreign soil. This man, whose blip on the historical radar screen is best known for the damage he was able to impose within a mere four years, says he is "embarrassed" because we are keeping terrorists locked up at Guantanamo Bay prison. Most normal Americans — who are not under the spell of liberal academics and media types — will say we should keep the terrorists right where they are until and unless solid evidence emerges that clearly shows they pose no threat to...

Jimmy Carter: American Revolution Was 'Unnecessary' Recently we described Jimmy Carter as the worst president of the past 100 years. We apologize. He's the worst president ever. In trying to compare the American Revolution to the war in Iraq, here's what the jug-headed Georgian said to fellow Democrat Chris Matthews on "Hardball" Monday night, according to MSNBC's own transcript: 'A Little More Sensitive' Well, one parallel is that the Revolutionary War, more than any other war up until recently, has been the most bloody war we've fought. I think another parallel is that in some ways the Revolutionary War could...

GENEVA, Dec. 1 — To prove that Middle East peacemaking is possible, self-appointed Israeli and Palestinian negotiators came together here today to sign a sweeping shadow agreement that calls for creation of a Palestinian state and provides a mechanism for resolving the status of Israeli settlements, Palestinian refugees and the city of Jerusalem. The unreality of the event was overshadowed by the painful pleas from the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to their leaders to talk to each other once again about a permanent solution. "The document is virtual, but all of us are real, and our heartbeats are real," the...