Free Republic

Cenk Uygur was thrust onto the MSNBC schedule in January, when Keith Olbermann‘s departure set in motion several host changes on the progressive channel’s lineup. Now TVNewser hears Uygur may be moved out of the 6pm hour, possibly to be replaced by Al Sharpton. When the host changes happened earlier this year, the 6pm hour was simply known as “MSNBC Live,” a telling sign that MSNBC was trying out Uygur. Sharpton has hosted the 6pm show for the last two weeks. This past week, the hour was second, to Fox News, in A25-54 viewers Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.Insiders tell us...

Starting today, WILD 1090 is taking world news from a Chinese perspective, more specifically China Radio International (CRI), featuring news, music, language lessons and human interest stories from China live from Beijing. CRI which is leasing airtime on WILD's daytime only-signal will be heard every day from sunup to sunset. WILD is owned by Maryland-based Radio One and has been featuring syndicated news/talk programing geared toward African-American audience since January 2006. WILD is the second US station to turn its entire broadcast day schedule over to China's state-owned radio network. Last winter, KGBC 1540 in Houston/Galveston began airing CRI's 24/7...

Soap giant Dove has landed itself in hot water after an advert for one of its products appeared to suggest it can change a user's skin colour. The promotion, for Dove VisibleCare Creme Body Wash - a £2.69 product that is available in Boots - features a 'before' and 'after' skin chart behind a black woman, possibly a Latina and a blonde - all wrapped in towels - standing beside each other. The caption reads: 'Visibly more beautiful skin from the most unexpected of places - your shower.' But critics are in a lather over the ad, accusing Dove of...

Al Sharpton may have mellowed - but he still won't apologize for the Tawana Brawley debacle. A quarter-century later after he whipped up racial tensions over the incendiary case, Sharpton still stands by a story that the courts of law and public opinion long ago ruled a hoax. Pressed on CBS' "60 Minutes" to explain why he never apologized for accusations that proved false, Sharpton said, "I don't know that." "I have thought about that a million times," Sharpton said. "I just don't believe they treated that case fair." Back in 1987, 15-year-old Brawley claimed she had been abducted and...

Looks like Rev. Al has friends in high places. President Obama, embroiled in a furious battle over the federal budget, swept into New York last night for a star-studded celebration of the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network and gave the beaming civil-rights leader a rousing slap on the back. "Some things have changed a lot since 1991. I told Rev. Al backstage he's getting skinnier than me," the president joked about his formerly portly pal during a keynote address celebrating the 20th anniversary of Sharpton's organization. "But he hasn't lost his style," Obama said.

"I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it," President Obama declared in Tucson, Ariz., in January. He was referring to Christina Green, the 9-year-old girl whom Jared Loughner allegedly murdered five days earlier, and making a plea for civility and decency in politics. "Obama will be speaking Wednesday for the first time as commander in chief at the annual convention of the National Action Network and standing with its founder, the Rev. Al Sharpton--whom the President largely ignored before his 2008 election," reports New York's Daily News. In The Wall Street Journal a decade ago, Fred...

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is focusing on two parts of his plan to make America more competitive: energy and education. [Snip] The president is meeting with workers at a branch of the Spanish company Gamesa Technology Corp. to talk over those ideas. Gamesa makes giant turbines that use wind to generate electricity and, according to the White House, is the first overseas company of its kind to set up shop in the U.S. [Snip] Education is another item on Obama's competitiveness agenda. That issue was to be the focus of a speech he was giving later Wednesday to the Rev....

'She's becoming Al Sharpton, Alaska edition' read the headline for today's Politico story on some leading conservatives' growing disillusionment with Sarah Palin. The line was courtesy of Weekly Standard writer Matt Labash, who noted with apparent dismay Palin's "frequent appeals to victimhood and group grievance." Clearly conservatives consider the comparison an insult. But Reverend Al, for his part, says he refuses to be baited into getting offended. Instead, he tells us, "I would look at it with some curiosity, but it’s a funny circumstance to see them in. A lot of the establishment in the civil rights community didn’t know...

Sarah Palin has played the sexism card, accusing critics of chauvinism against a strong woman. She has played the class card, dismissing the Bush family as “blue bloods,” and complaining that she is the target of snobbery by people who dislike her simply because she is “not so hoity-toity.” Most famously, she has played the victim card—never more vividly than when she invoked the loaded phrase “blood libel” against liberals and media commentators in the wake of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting.

Cornel West, an extremist race-relations instructor at Princeton, addressed the 10th annual Young Democratic Socialists conference earlier this month. The three-day event took place at Norman Thomas High School in Manhattan, named after an American socialist activist. The meeting, entitled "Real change for a change," described itself as a "snap shot of the current socialist movement in the United States."

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has vowed to clean up his fiscal house, has a new tax lien to pay. Sharpton owes $359,973 to the IRS for 2009 personal income tax... Public records show he owes a total of $3.7 million in city, state and federal taxes, including penalties, dating to 2002

Reverend Al Sharpton returned to MSNBC's The Ed Show to continue his jihad against conservative free speech on Monday. Although the primary target of Sharpton's attack was Rush Limbaugh, the real target is anyone he disagrees with, which usually means conservatives. According to Lachlan Markay of Newsbusters, the reason (this time) was Rush Limbaugh's satirical piece mocking Chinese president Hu Jintao. Schultz asked Sharpton how the FCC could govern what talk show hosts might say in those situations. “Would there be a review board? Would it go — because obviously once the license is given out, they still put talkers...

Al Sharpton accuses Limbaugh of anti-Chinese racism; wants FCC to crack down. Al Sharpton is exploiting another non-story by jumping all over Rush Limbaugh’s imitation of Chinese (communist) President Hu Jintao. On a portion of yesterday’s Rush Limbaugh program, the radio host made the point that he was watching the speech that Jintao made at the White House during his recent visit, yet no one had the courtesy to translate on the channel he was watching. Limbaugh added that this was unusual because a translator normally speaks at the same time a foreign leader is giving a speech. So, to...

In an interview with Al Sharpton on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, host Donny Deutsch used Martin Luther King, Jr. day to interject an opinion that Arizona no longer belongs in America. The assertion is that Arizona does not recognize MLK day and therefore should leave the Union. Sharpton, for his part and as a leader, should know that Arizona has recognized MLK day since 1992 and is the only state to pass the holiday by public vote. Aside from misrepresenting Arizona’s racial history, MSNBC and Rev. Sharpton are misrepresenting Dr. King’s dream. Arizona is a state that believes in the individual,...

In what is becoming a weekly series on MSNBC's The Ed Show, Reverend Al Sharpton upped the ante yet again regarding his crusade against conservative speech. Not content with going after people he thinks are racists, Sharpton is now targeting anyone he believes to be sexist or "homophobic". This Wednesday, Sharpton told Shultz: Well, first of all, we're not talking about censorship. We're talking about standards. And there are already standards in place. We're saying those standards ought to include those that in an explicit or even an implicit way practice racism or sexism or homophobia on the airwaves. And...

"We're saying, those standards ought to include those that -- in an explicit r even implicit way practice racism or sexism or homophobia on the airwaves. Can you image the arrogance of saying 'federally regulating airwaves should not be subjected to federal public hearings?," Al Sharpton told MSNBC. Sharpton said Limbaugh's free speech on the "federally regulated" airwaves is not a "right" or "an entitlement." "You are a real fighter for the American people for what is socially correct," MSNBC host Ed Schultz said in praise of Al Sharpton. Last week, it was revealed that Al Sharpton once said "punk...

Welcome to Al Sharpton's Brave New Radio World. A world in which the FCC would take a hard look at the licenses of stations that carry Rush Limbaugh. Al is outraged at the prospect that the FCC would "allow people to say what they want." Ed Schultz has, as I've noted, been offering Sharpton a serial stage to trumpet his censoring threats, and there was Al at it again tonight. According to the Reverend, the FCC should clamp down not merely on "explicit" racism, sexism or homophobia, but also on any of those isms or phobias in their "implicit" forms....

Public hearings would instead be used to drag unfavorables like Rush Limbaugh before the Commission to "explain how they justify" their availing themselves of their First Amendment rights. And to threaten their stations' broadcast licenses should they fail the FCC's definition of "justification."

As President Obama prepared to sign his $858 billion tax deal Friday, White House aides moved quickly to soothe the anger among liberal constituency groups that bitterly opposed the measure. An e-mail distributed to black leaders declared the package a "major victory for African-Americans," arguing that a series of middle-class tax cuts will give "targeted" aid to minorities. The White House also invited one of its key African American surrogates, the Rev. Al Sharpton, to Friday afternoon's bill signing and scheduled a private meeting with top labor union leaders who had railed against extending the George W. Bush-era tax cuts...

EXCERPTS "I'm against tax cuts for the rich too...but this is absolutely over the top to blame this on President Obama," Sharpton told the Daily News. "The goal is to take care of working class people, not to attack the President." (snip) "There will be pushback," Sharpton vowed, likening the attacks to "blaming the ransom" and "not the kidnapper." ...