Free Republic

Nearly 20 years ago, former Virginia governor L. Douglas Wilder announced that he wanted to create a museum that would tell the story of slavery in the United States. He had the vision, the clout, the charm to make it seem attainable, and he had already made history: the grandson of slaves, he was the nationÂ’s first elected African American governor. He assembled a high-profile board, hosted splashy galas with entertainer Bill Cosby promising at least $1 million in support, accepted a gift of some 38 acres of prime real estate smack along Interstate 95 in Fredericksburg and showed plans...

From The Christian Post.. Christian Post: I understand you're a dedicated football fan and I recently saw a video of you encouraging Tim Tebow as he encounters public criticism. Why do you like him? Cosby: I like what's happening in Denver. The beauty of what I see is that Tebow speaks his mind. When we look at the settling of this country we see a Bible in hand and God. Every Thanksgiving has God and the peacefulness of gratitude. It was important when the Twin Towers were hit and the sorrow with them that the first thing Congress did was...

EXCERPT "While I have never been a fan of Cosby’s, I had always assumed he liked or respected me because every time I met him — the last time at the David Letterman show where I preceded him as a guest — he was always so nice, saying 'let’s get together' —— asking me out to dinner, and being polite to the point of offering to buy me a suit because he has a 'great tailor,'" Trump said. “In any event, as I watched the show, the subject of Donald Trump came up. I was surprised to hear him blabber,...

His suggestion to Donald Trump, self-inaugurated Birther #1? "Just shut up."He just can't stand the idea of anyone challenging Obama, and especially not on the grounds of Obama's constitutional (in)eligibility for office. Donald Trump's broadside on Obama's unexplored and, therefore, unknown history is causing liberals to see red. Bill Cosby looks like he's going to throw up at the idea of The Donald tossing his hat into the ring. I think that gives you some idea of the power of the issue. When a guy like Trump makes liberals act like someone just charged a lifetime subscription to Rush Limbaugh's...

Count Bill Cosby as a big fan of school choice. With Congress and the White House gearing up for a major battle over the future of education policy, the comedian who famously criticized academic failings in the black community added his voice Wednesday to that of House Speaker John A. Boehner and others who want to give parents a bigger say in their children's education. The debate over reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which was renamed the No Child Left Behind Act by the Bush administration, is expected to be resurrected during the 112th Congress. Congressional leaders...

On Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume condemned NPR for its “howling double standard” in firing Juan Williams for expressing an opinion, a standard “manifestly not being applied to other NPR people.” He forwarded the theory that “in the culture of NPR, appearing on Fox is a sin” and “for an African-American man” to “be kind of a Bill Cosby liberal, not a down-the-line liberal, is a sin as well.” Hume’s assessment came after host Chris Wallace read from a column in which Cokie Roberts denounced Glenn Beck as “worse than a clown. He’s more like a terrorist,”

Was National Public Radio correct to fire Juan Williams, their National News Analyst, for saying, “…when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous”? The answer is a simple one: you betchya. This is, as the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan wrote, "anti-religious bigotry in its purest, clearest form." How could NPR employ an ostensibly unbiased “National News Analyst” who admits an irrational bias against Arabs and Muslims? What would our reaction...

On the panel on Fox News Sunday.

An achievement gap separating black from white students has long been documented — a social divide extremely vexing to policy makers and the target of one blast of school reform after another. But a new report focusing on black males suggests that the picture is even bleaker than generally known. Only 12 percent of black fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 percent of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys. Poverty alone does not seem to explain the differences: poor white boys do...

First black heads Harvard journal CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — His boyhood friends in Indonesia were street peddlers, and his grandmother still lives in a mud-walled house in Kenya. But Barack Obama is another world away, presiding over the Harvard Law Review as the first black president in the prestigious journal's 103-year history. The charismatic 28-year-old, ensconced in the halls where tradition reigns, is taking aim at another custom: Obama's sights are set on the South Side of Chicago, not on a U.S. Supreme Court clerkship or a fast-track career with, a cushy firm. "I'm not interested in the suburbs. The...

Crowd cheers advice to turn off TV, skip Popeyes for breakfast FORT WORTH, Texas -- On the campaign trail, Democratic front-runner Sen. Barack Obama talks about how he would use the bully pulpit if president, and he offered a demonstration Thursday when he drew wild cheers as he told a mostly African-American crowd that parents need to shape up, turn off the TV, help their kids with their homework and stop letting them grow fat eating Popeyes chicken for breakfast. "It's not good enough for you to say to your child, 'Do good in school,' and then when that child...

Bill Cosby’s Rant Link to Bill Cosby's RantQuote: They’re standing on the corner and they can’t speak English. I can’t even talk the way these people talk: Why you ain’t, Where you is, What he drive, Where he stay, Where he work, Who you be… And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. Everybody knows it’s important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can’t be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. In fact you will never get any kind of job making a...

Bill Cosby wasn't always the affable family man that he plays on television.Angered by taunts that he didn't do enough in the civil rights struggle, Cosby once sucker punched Tommy Smothers according to Gerald Nachmans new book.Smothers recalls Cosby told him, 'Maybe I will give you a knock upside the head one of these days. I said, 'Yeah, go ahead and give it a try.'A few weeks later Cosby made good on his threat when the two ran into each other at one of Hugh Hefners Playboy Mansion parties.'I should have never turned my back on him,' Smothers said. 'He...

Bill Cosby has a great way of distilling things. Looks like he's done it again! I HAVE DECIDED TO BECOME A WRITE-IN CANDIDATE. HERE IS MY PLATFORM: (1) 'Press 1 for English' is immediately banned. English is the official language. Speak it or wait at the border until you can. (2) We will immediately go into a two year isolationist posture to straighten out the country's attitude. NO imports, no exports. We will use the Wal-Mart policy, 'If we ain't got it, you don't need it.' (3) When imports are allowed, there will be a 100% import tax on it....

Dear John, What part of "Thou Shalt not Kill" did you not understand? Or did you simply forget because it was rarely on your mind? Maybe you were never taught that in the first place. As I understand it, you're not just a cold blooded murderer, you are now in prison for life - sharing the same unit as Charles Manson. Did you ever think it would come to this? You said you could not get the help you needed. Did you even realize the kind of help you needed was not just mental, but spiritual and emotional? Did you...

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy; it’s inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” Winston Churchill To understand the above quote from Sir Winston Churchill is to understand how Barack Obama rose to power without actually having accomplished anything of substance beyond the spoken word. It also explains why his Presidency is doomed to failure. Indeed, his very political philosophy (and, to a similar extent, the entire philosophy of far left-wing democrats) is the antithesis of tenet #6 in the series of tenets by William J. H. Boetcker, defining democracy...

During an interview, Bill got up, approached a female publicist - and then told her to SHUT UP. After he finished chastising the women, he then began a diatribe BLASTING Black people for the high murder rate throughout the United States.

I received this in an email. Not sure what the date was that he said this but it is a good read: This is actually word for word what he said to a gathering of students who asked about the bailout in America Great response... 'They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English.' I can't even talk the way these people talk: Why you ain't,? Where you is,? What he drive,? Where he stay,? Where he work,? Who you be...? And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk....

When Bill Cosby arrives in Newfoundland in a few days, it will be a return of sorts for the famous comedian. Cosby was stationed at the U.S. military base in Argentia, about 120 kilometres from St. John's, N.L., as an American military corpsman in 1959. While there was work to be done at the naval base and air station that was home to thousands of military personnel, it's the play that seems to stick out in the now-72-year-old comedian's memory. "These guys had their own bar and they drank better than movie stars," he says. "You could get a litre...

Ralph Nader has been many things: lawyer, consumer-rights bulldog, political activist and perennial third-party presidential candidate. He has now added a new title to his business card: fiction writer. His latest book, Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!, is a 700-page populist fantasy in which a small group of billionaires and media moguls — led by Warren Buffett and including Ted Turner, George Soros, Bill Cosby, Yoko Ono and Phil Donahue — pool their massive resources to reform the U.S. With the help of a $15 billion war chest and a p.r. campaign starring a talking parrot, the group successfully...

Dr. Bill Cosby, I am ashamed of you and for you. I have been a fan and admirer, of you from the days when your only exposure was your wonderful comedy albums. I still relish my memories of your stories about theme music and the movie theatre monster statue at the top of the steps. I have always considered you a man of good character, and of an honest and decent heart. And now I feel as if you have betrayed a lifetime of dispelling the evil that sneaks it's way into the hearts of men through racism. You have...

From Cosby’s Facebook page: I agree with President Carter that racism is playing a role in recent outbursts against President Obama. During President Obama’s speech on the status of health care reform, some members of congress engaged in a public display of disrespect. While one Representative hurled the now infamous “you lie” insult at the President, others made their lack of interest known by exhibiting rude behavior such as deliberately yawning and sending text messages ….

I agree with President Carter that racism is playing a role in recent outbursts against President Obama. During President Obama’s speech on the status of health care reform, some members of congress engaged in a public display of disrespect. While one Representative hurled the now infamous “you lie” insult at the President, others made their lack of interest known by exhibiting rude behavior such as deliberately yawning and sending text messages. Health care reform is the most important domestic issue facing America today. Disease does not discriminate. African American, White, Asian, Latino, Republican, Democrat, no one in America is immune....

Bill Cosby spoke about his feelings regarding black people and education in his recent rant called We Cannot Blame the White People Any Longer. Cosby is probably the only person who could get away with talking the way he does because he is well respected among people of all races. “People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education, and now we've got these knuckleheads walking around,” he says. “They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk….You can't be a doctor with that kind...

Police in Cambridge have reacted predictably to having the President call them stupid, as ABC reports today. Their union lashed out at Obama for commenting without having the facts on hand, and witnesses dispute Obama’s recounting of the event: .... I’ve heard about five different reports [on the details of the arrest],” Cosby said on Boston’s WZLX. “If I’m the president of the United States, I don’t care how much pressure people want to put on it about race, I’m keeping my mouth shut.” “I was shocked to hear the president making this kind of statement,” Cosby said referring to...

On a Boston radio program this morning, Bill Cosby suggested that President Obama spoke too soon on the controversial arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates. “I’ve heard about five different reports [on the details of the arrest],” Cosby said on Boston’s WZLX. “If I’m the president of the United States, I don’t care how much pressure people want to put on it about race, I’m keeping my mouth shut.” “I was shocked to hear the president making this kind of statement,” Cosby said referring to the president’s remarks during last night’s press conference. The comedian appeared to have dialed...

Bill Cosby, the entertainer-turned-activist known for his controversial comments on race, told Washington’s WTOP radio station Saturday that Barack and Michelle Obama were examples of the parenting and family values he’s challenged Black America to strengthen. “Who is Barack Obama and what did he tell us, when he talked about his mother? What was it he was saying when he said his mother woke up, 4:30 in the morning…to correct his homework, to get it done?” Cosby asked rhetorically. “Let’s listen to Michelle Obama who talks about her father with a disease, but he doesn’t call in work and say,...

Life for the First Children By Derrick Z. Jackson Globe Columnist / December 26, 2008 With some minor irony, the longer version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" talks about Santa bringing "curly-head dolls that toddle and coo." So far, these girls, who are about to give curly hair an unprecedented place in American history, have done nothing but warm American hearts. Much has already been made of the potential of Barack and Michelle Obama being the ultimate Huxtable family of the old "The Bill Cosby Show." The incoming First Couple says they expect the First Children to do...

The 71-year-old actor-turned motivational speaker offered some blunt comments about the need to teach children about the dangers of having sex - and maybe more of his comments were directed at young women than young men - but despite his language, the message appeared to be well taken by parents, teachers, and teens alike. " There is no woman who has ever died because they didn't have sex," Cosby said. "And there is no boy who has ever died or had a bad orgasm from wearing a rubber." Cosby also said that young women aren't getting "pregnant." Rather, he said,...

I can't tell you just how disappointed I am to read in today's Oakland Press (MI)that Cosby is campaigning for Obama in Michigan. I guess I just assumed that their values were polar opposites. The article that the link refers to is not nearly as comprehensive as the actual article that appears in the paper, but it's by the same writer and is the only article in the online edition. Cosby has three appearances scheduled in Michigan.

Bill Cosby pleaded with blacks to stop blaming the "white man" for their problems on Thursday, and he reiterated his harsh critique of the current state of African-American culture. "It is almost analgesic to talk about what the white man is doing against us, and it keeps a person frozen in their seat. It keeps you frozen in your hole that you are sitting in to point up and say, 'That's the reason why I am here.' We need to stop this," Cosby said in an address before Jesse Jackson's 33rd Annual Rainbow/PUSH Coalition conference in Chicago.

Hey you guys! An old favorite is available on DVD and your child can learn to read with a little help from Morgan Freeman, Bill Cosby, Rita Moreno and a cast of funny and talented actors whose goals are to keep your children interested and teach them words and concepts without them realizing they're learning. That's right, "The Electric Company” is now available, and it actually works. Adults who grew up watching it on PBS will remember the classic songs, like "Hey Diddle Diddle,” "Knock Knock Rock” and "Whimper and Whine” (You know you've heard it: "We are the kids...

"We are living in a new time, where people are behaving in abnormal ways and calling it normal…No longer is a person embarrassed because they're pregnant without a husband. No longer is a boy considered an embarrassment if he tries to run away from being the father of the unmarried child" -- Bill Cosby, speaking to African-Americans at St. Paul Church of God in Christ, Detroit, July, 2007. As Mother's Day approaches, it seems a fitting moment to point out the truth of Bill Cosby's observation. Left unsaid but well understood by him: This "new time" and these "abnormal ways"...

NEWARK, N.J. -- Comedian Bill Cosby told several hundred people at a conference of community associations Thursday to stand up and confront the ills facing black Americans and ignore those he called "intellectual panhandlers." Characterizing his own words as "blunt, but not harsh," Cosby criticized a culture in which "babies are wearing $40 sneakers while their mothers are feeding them Oodles of Noodles" and in which pimps and murderers are seen as heroes. During a speech that lasted nearly an hour, he began by comparing current attitudes to a patient who ignores a toothache until it requires major surgery. Several...

The audacity of Bill Cosby’s black conservatism ___ Last summer, in Detroit’s St. Paul Church of God in Christ, I watched Bill Cosby summon his inner Malcolm X. It was a hot July evening. Cosby was speaking to an audience of black men dressed in everything from Enyce T-shirts or polos to blazers and ties. Some were there with their sons. Some were there in wheelchairs. The audience was packed tight, rows of folding chairs extended beyond the wooden pews to capture the overflow. But the chairs were not enough, and late arrivals stood against the long shotgun walls, or...

They called it "a Bill Cosby moment" when an Atlanta judge cleared whites from his courtroom to lecture black youth last month. Thursday evening, Bill Cosby joins that judge for an invitation-only "fireside chat" with at-risk Atlanta teens. WSB's Veronica Waters reports Fulton County Superior Court Judge Marvin Arrington asked white lawyers to leave, then dressed down the black defendants who were gathered in the courtroom when he emerged from his chambers. "It was spontaneous," Arrington tells WSB. "I was sitting there literally with tears in my eyes." Though some criticized him for excluding white people from the lecture, Arrington—who...

Bill Cosby's path has taken him from pudding pops to hip hop. The 70-year-old has recorded a hip-hop CD set for release next month. "Cosby Narratives Vol. 1: State of Emergency'' blends the comedian's concepts and stories with a hip-hop, pop and jazz soundtrack. "I do not rap on any of these things,'' Cosby told The Associated Press on Monday. "I wouldn't know how to fix my mouth to say some of the words.'' What Cosby does know, though, is that the hip-hop music he hears is profane and degrading. His album is "the opposite of what I think is...

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Comedian Bill Cosby's hip-hop album, described as an "unflinching look at life in the 21st century, but without the profanity, misogyny, violence and braggadocio" is expected to reach stores within the next several weeks, a spokesman said. "Cosby Narratives Vol. 1: State of Emergency" is designed as a companion to Cosby's provocative book "Come on People: On the Path From Victims to Victors," which he co-wrote with Dr. Alvin Poussaint last year. The album weaves hip-hop, jazz, pop, funk and other genres around frank, positive messages drawn from Cosby's lyrics, stories and musical ideas. Cosby does...

<p>Last summer, in Detroit’s St. Paul Church of God in Christ, I watched Bill Cosby summon his inner Malcolm X. It was a hot July evening. Cosby was speaking to an audience of black men dressed in everything from Enyce T-shirts or polos to blazers and ties...</p>

<p>Last summer, in Detroit’s St. Paul Church of God in Christ, I watched Bill Cosby summon his inner Malcolm X.</p> <p>He began with the story of a black girl who’d risen to become valedictorian of his old high school, despite having been abandoned by her father.</p>

Even as Barack Obama’s speech on race Tuesday morning was being widely hailed for its candor on a subject about which Americans—and, it must be said, especially liberal Americans—are notoriously less than candid, it strived to set, and limit, the terms of this long overdue conversation. Yes, Obama acknowledged, there is vast miscommunication between the races, a constant misreading of signals and intent. Things get said on both sides that, while regrettable, aren’t meant precisely as they may sound to ears of a different color. Obama readily admitted that his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, as a man who came of age...

A few years ago, Bill Cosby set off a fire-storm with a speech excoriating his fellow African-Americans for, among other things, buying $500 sneakers instead of educational toys for their children. In a recent book, Come On People, he repeats his argument that black Americans spend too much money on designer clothes and fancy cars, and don't invest sufficiently in their futures. Many in the black community have been critical of Cosby for blaming poor people rather than poor public policies. Others have defended Cosby's comments as an honest expression of uncomfortable truths. But notably absent from the Cosby affair...

Bill Cosby’s status as sage is confirmed by the release of his new book, co-authored with Dr. Alvin Poussaint of Harvard Medical School, Come On People: On The Path From Victims to Victors. Cosby and Poussaint remind us that black America’s hope for escape from abysmal self-destruction is moral formation — not government programs or blaming white people.  This book will arouse needed controversy as it challenges the victim mentality often promulgated by men like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Michael Eric Dyson, and other black liberal elites. Cosby and Poussaint are direct, candid, and engender a spirit of urgency. We...

It's no secret that in America knowing how to speak the English language is the basic requirement for success -- if you can’t speak the language everybody else speaks, you are back at the Tower of Babel wondering what everybody around you is trying to say. For any youngster starting out in life, knowing and speaking the common language is the first step in moving up the ladder. And in the United States, English is the common language, and has been from the beginning. The Constitutional debates were conducted solely in English. Only English is spoken in Congress and in...

Comedian Bill Cosby laced some humor into his messages to Lakewood kids and parents in an afternoon session Tuesday, but he also earnestly urged youngsters to talk to others about feeling sad before it grows into something worse. To hundreds of kids in the audience, he said: “Whatever you’re sad about, the longer you leave the sadness in, the more it turns into frustration and anger and will come out some way.” To parents, he said: If your children complain that they have nothing to do, “and if you believe that, you’re not parenting. Give the child something to do....

Martin Luther King had a dream that some day his children would "live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." He wanted his children to become strong, beautiful people. But what we see today in poor African American neighborhoods is a nightmare. We know there are forces that make the ability to escape poverty seem bleak: overburdened single-parent homes, a high dropout rate, joblessness, gangs, drugs, crime, incarceration, deaths at an early age from guns fired by angry black men. We know that systemic racism...

As a longstanding fan of Bill Cosby, it pains me to criticize a man whose comedy and politics have been overwhelmingly constructive. But in the matter of AIDS, he needs to be a bit more forthcoming. A report published Monday by University of Arizona evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey has traced the path of AIDS from its origins in the Congo to the United States via Haiti as early as 1969.  It depicts an HIV epidemic ignited by Haitians returning home from Africa and spreading undetected for over 10 years within their country before expanding to America and, ultimately, throughout the...

Happy Halloween! It's an all Halloween edition with lots of funny/scary cartoons, a montage of poor pets costumed by their owners and some people costumes as well. Plus some more miscellany including Bill Cosby's book excerpt, food ads versus the reality with appropriate pics and other this-and-that including some reverie on the ugliest but most comfortable of shoes.

They’re standing on the corner and they can’t speak English. I can’t even talk the way these people talk: Why you ain’t, Where you is, What he drive, Where he stay, Where he work, Who you be… And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. Everybody knows it’s important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can’t be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. In fact you will never get any kind of job making a decent living. People marched and were hit in...