Free Republic

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...