Free Republic

How ironic it is that when news emerges of Governor Palin's book becoming available prior to its expected date, she shows up in my school's library. No, she didn't show up in person and no, there was no announcement to inform interested students about her book, which reportedly is already number one on the Barnes and Noble list. She showed up in the center of a display highlighting Banned Books Week.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will cut short its summer break in early September to hear a new argument in a momentous case that could transform the way political campaigns are conducted. The case, which arises from a minor political documentary called “Hillary: The Movie,” seemed an oddity when it was first argued in March. At issue is whether the court should overrule a 1990 decision, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which upheld restrictions on corporate spending to support or oppose political candidates. The court’s order calling for re-argument, issued in June, has generated more than 40 friend-of-the-court briefs....

Brooklyn's chief librarian has yanked a nearly 80-year-old book from the shelves because it depicts Africans as monkeys. Tintin Au Congo is the only book in the city library system hidden from public view after a reader complained that it was "racially offensive." The popular Belgian children's work - due to be made into a movie by Steven Spielberg - is locked behind a series of hidden doors on the third floor of Brooklyn's central library. "'Tintin au Congo' was relocated," said director Richard Reyes-Gavilan. Library officials across the city said they've debated pulling about 25 books and DVDs from...

Just bought "The Case Against Barack Obama" at the local Barnes and Noble, through no help from somebody who had turned the display copies backwards so the title could not be seen - not finding the book I wanted on the political book display, I saw a book turned backwards and magically, there it was! Hard to outsmart a Freeper. I did comment to a clerk (sure, he coulda been the one that did it but I would suspect a customer) that, "Someone had taken the liberty of turning these books backwards, but I fixed it." He apologized and said...

WASILLA — Wasilla Public Library has decided not to shelve two children’s books dealing with homosexuality donated by a gay activist in California. Michael Petrelis, a 49-year-old from San Francisco, donated the books in September after learning of Gov. Sarah Palin’s question about banning certain books when she was Wasilla’s mayor. In 1996 Palin asked Wasilla’s librarian how she would feel about banning certain books at the library. While no books were banned, Palin’s question started a brief controversy over censorship at the library. Palin reportedly took issue with the book “Pastor, I Am Gay,” by local author and now-retired...

Students Protest School Library’s Rejection of Christian Books on Homosexuality

PALIN'S BOOK-BANNING EFFORTS, REDUX.... Here's what we know about Sarah Palin's interest in banning books. Time reported last week that Palin asked the Wasilla librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, about the process for banning library books. Baker was reportedly "aghast" at the question. Soon after taking office, Palin, according to a New York Times report, fired Baker, and news reports from the time indicate that Palin thought Baker hadn't done enough to give her "full support" to the mayor. Palin reversed course on Baker's dismissal after a local outcry, and later said the discussions about banning books were "rhetorical." Yesterday, ABC...

Librarians irked colleague sent unverified Palin e-mail By LAURA GREEN Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Thursday, September 11, 2008 A Palm Beach County School District library manager set off an e-mail controversy this week when she sent school librarians a list of books Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin allegedly tried to ban as mayor of a small Alaska town. Problem was the list turned out to be a hoax. It included Harry Potter books that weren't yet published when Palin had an exchange with the Wasilla librarian about removing books.

Did Palin Try to Ban Books? Librarian Can't Recall By BRIAN ROSS, RHONDA SCHWARTZ and ANNA SCHECTER September 10, 2008— The librarian at the center of a 1996 controversy with then-Wasilla mayor Sarah Palin says she can't recall any effort by Palin to ban specific books from the town library. In her first public statement since Palin was named the GOP vice-presidential candidate, Mary Ellen Baker said today, "I simply do not recall a conversation with specific titles," Baker told ABCNews.com.

Sarah Palin’s biography includes such honorifics as hockey mom, moose hunter, town mayor, governor, and now Republican vice-presidential nominee. But Palin’s detractors would like to add another title to that list: Book banner. It’s a surprisingly effective attack — but just another smear. Fact is, Sarah Palin has never advocated censorship. She never railed against “filthy” literature as mayor or as governor. And although Palin is an evangelical Christian, the only real crusade in her career has been against political corruption and self-dealing. Yet far-left bloggers and interest groups, abetted by Palin’s political rivals in Alaska and the press, say...

Sarah Palin seems like a perfectly normal person, but partisans both in and out of the media have been busily trying to depict her as some sort of religious nut. Among other things, Palin's opponents claim that as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, she was a "book banner"--which is to say, that she sought to have books removed from the local public library. This claim has been debunked--but not before it has spread all over the Internet with the help of some in the mainstream media. The book-banner tale seems to have originated in a widely circulated Aug. 31 email from...

WASILLA, Alaska- Back in 1996, when she first became mayor, Sarah Palin asked the city librarian if she would be all right with censoring library books should she be asked to do so. According to news coverage at the time, the librarian said she would definitely not be all right with it. A few months later, the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, got a letter from Palin telling her she was going to be fired. The censorship issue was not mentioned as a reason for the firing. The letter just said the new mayor felt Emmons didn't fully support her and...

The bogus Sarah Palin Banned Books List By Michelle Malkin  •  September 6, 2008 12:01 AM Photoshop: David LundePalin Derangement Syndrome strikes again. This time it’s hysterical librarians and their readers on the Internet disseminating a bogus list of books Gov. Sarah Palin supposedly banned in 1996. Looks like some of these library people failed reading comprehension. Take a look at the list below and you’ll find books Gov. Palin supposedly tried to ban…that hadn’t even been published yet. Example: The Harry Potter books, the first of which wasn’t published until 1998.The smear merchants who continue to circulate the list also...

Moscow, January 27, Interfax - Members of Russia's Public Chamber and human rights activists have proposed that a list be compiled of extremist literature whose dissemination should be formally banned. According to the report of an Interfax correspondent, together with Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Civil, Criminal, Arbitration and Procedural Legislation Pavel Krasheninnikov, they considered the proposed amendments enhancing the criminal and administrative responsibility for extremist activity at a round-table conference in Moscow. ‘The most productive result of today's discussion was the unity of opinion on the need for a list of extremist literature,’ Genry Reznik, a well-known...

Libraries and schools throughout the country are ready once again to observe Banned Books Week. It's that special time each year when some in the library profession point an accusing finger at parents, especially Christians or conservatives who might dare to question the value or appropriateness of certain materials available to youth. For 25 years since its inception, Banned Books Week has been warning America: "Beware of the ignorance and repression of censors! They will deprive us all of valuable knowledge and freedom." Setting aside any danger that the government might ban valuable materials, which is not happening in any...

AMMAN -- Jordanian authorities reportedly confiscated copies of the controversial bestseller, The Da Vinci Code, for slandering Christianity. Amman's daily Al Ghad said that copies of the book were seized from a publishing house in the Jordanian capital and its owner, Ahmed Abou Tawk, was summoned for interrogation. The paper quoted the president of the state's Publication Department, Ahmed Kodat, as saying that other titles were confiscated in addition to The Da Vinci Code for undermining religions. "This book is largely harmful for Christianity and was banned from many countries, including Lebanon," Kodat said, noting that Christian clerics in Jordan...

BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS Bibles banned on playgrounds Legal group challenges restriction on student activity during recess Posted: May 12, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com     An elemenatary school principal who barred students from reading the Bible during recess after a complaint from parents is violating the Constitution, according to a public-interest law firm challenging his actions. In a letter to the Knox County School District in Tennesee, the Alliance Defense Fund declared the principal of Karns Elementary School is on "shaky constitutional ground."   "The Constitution does not prohibit Bibles during recess; it prohibits the wholesale banning of...

They are pathetic. They are telling listeners to go to bookstores and move the book "Unfit for Command" to the fiction section.

Media Matters for America Asks Top Booksellers to Review Policies on Selling 'Unfit for Command'; David Brock Calls AntiKerry Veterans Book 'the Hitler Diaries of this political season' To: National Desk, Political Reporter Contact: Naomi Seligman of Media Matters for America, 202-756-4108 WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 /U.S. Newswire/ -- On the heels of the August 19, 2004 Washington Post article shining the light that a key allegation in "Unfit for Command" is false, Media Matters for America (MMFA) called on three of the nation's leading booksellers to, at the very least, inform customers about the book's false allegations and lies. David...

US Senator John Kerry’s campaign team today called for a book which contains “proven falsehoods” about the presidential candidate’s Vietnam war record to be taken off the shelves. Unfit for Command, written by a former US sailor who served in Vietnam, alleges that Mr Kerry lied to win his war medals. It also claims that the former Swift Boat captain, who hopes to oust George Bush from the White House in November, won a silver star for bravery by actually shooting a lone, fleeing teenage Viet Cong soldier in the back. Mr Kerry yesterday made his first direct attack on...