Free Republic

Religious right is deadBILL PRESS 26.DEC.07 No matter who becomes the next president of the United States, the American people have already won a great victory — with the total disintegration of the once all-powerful religious right. Starting in 1979 when Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority, Christian conservatives have been the most powerful voting bloc in the Republican Party. Ironically, they began by casting out of the White House a born-again Christian who continued, as president, his lifelong practice of teaching Sunday school, and replacing him with a divorced and remarried man who seldom stepped inside a church. But...

http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?p=303669First the false quote: "A moment I've been dreading. George brought his ne're-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida. The one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I'll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they'll hire him as a contributing editor or something. That looks like easy work." -- Ronald Reagan in his recently published diaries, May 17, 1986. _________________________ I heard this...

CIA: Asleep At The Switch August 23, 2007 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the days and weeks following Sept. 11, how many times did we hear some terrorism expert say: If only the CIA had known al-Qaida operatives were in the United States, this tragedy might never have happened? Well, now it turns out they did know — but did nothing about it. In an explosive report, the inspector general of the United States concludes that CIA agents had tracked two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hamzi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, from a terrorist summit in Malaysia to the United States. CIA officials...

That's bad news for journalism and bad news for the country. Bad news for journalism because it further undermines the credibility of an already-distrusted media. When one newspaper openly shows its bias, all other newspapers are suspected of having their own bias.

Osama bin Laden. Where, oh where, can he be? In the spring of 2003, as President Bush was busy sending the nation into war with Iraq, reporters repeatedly asked him about Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts. Was it wise to start another war, they wanted to know, when the leader of al-Qaida — the main target of the war in Afghanistan — was still on the loose? With typical disdain, Bush dismissed any questions about bin Laden as irrelevant. “I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and don’t care. It is not important, and it is not...

The movie “SiCKO” — I went, I saw, and I was conquered! Yes, I came out of “SiCKO” more convinced than ever that single-payer is the only solution to America’s healthcare problems. Come on! We’re the wealthiest country on the planet. Why is it that Canada, Britain, France and even Cuba can deliver healthcare — FREE! — to all their citizens, and we can’t? Go see “SiCKO” and you’ll know the answer. It’s because of the powerful opposition of insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and big HMOs. As long as they’re in charge, we’ll never be able to deliver healthcare to...

The nation’s leading Christian conservative is dead. On CNN’s “Crossfire” and other shows, I debated Jerry Falwell many times. I’m still trying to recover from that fact that he once called me “his favorite liberal.” But I will say: He was a true gentleman, always tough, and always fair. Jerry Falwell was a true believer. It’s too bad his brand of Christianity was so narrow and so negative. As a Christian myself, listening to Falwell, I often wondered if he and I had read the same Scripture. Certainly the Gospel of Jerry Falwell was not the Gospel of Jesus Christ....

We Mourn Students, But Not Soldiers April 26, 2007 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It never occurred to me there was any disconnect in President Bush's order that flags be flown at half-staff to honor the memory of 32 students and faculty gunned down at Virginia Tech. It was, I believed at the time, the fitting tribute of a nation, united in grief, over the slaughter of so many young and talented people. I still believe President Bush did the right thing. But now I'm also troubled by the disconnect: Why are flags flown half-staff to mourn slain students, yet never flown half-staff to...

Democrats Strangely Silent On Gun Control April 19, 2007 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On gun control, how times have changed. Not so long ago, the lament was: Why does it take a massacre like Columbine to prompt any action on gun control? Today, the lament is: Why won’t a school massacre as bad as Virginia Tech prompt any action on gun control? Listen carefully. That sound you hear are chickens cackling — chickens, also known as Democrats, running away from the issue of limiting access to guns. Isn’t it sad? In the wake of the mass murder at Virginia Tech, not one Democratic...

Firing Imus Is Only The Beginning April 12, 2007 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We shouldn’t be surprised at what happened to Don Imus. After all, it’s in the Bible. As the prophet Hosea predicted: “They sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind.” For decades, Don Imus sowed the winds of insult, hatred and racism on the radio. But this week — after one ugly comment that shocked an entire nation — he finally reaped the whirlwind. Imus got fired. This should have happened a long time ago. Good for NBC for dumping this minister of poison off the air. The only question is:...

When he appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Jan. 18, 2007, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales knew he might be grilled about reports that several U.S. attorneys had been fired as part of a political witch hunt. He decided to strike first. “And so let me publicly sort of pre-empt perhaps a question you're going to ask me,” Gonzales piously told the senators, “and that is: I am fully committed, as the administration's fully committed, to ensure that, with respect to every United States attorney position in this country, we will have a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed United States attorney.” Gonzales...

Among potential Democratic candidates for president, he may be the best of them all. He’s a Vietnam vet. He’s been against the war in Iraq since the beginning. He’s leading the fight against global warming. He served as congressman, senator and vice president of the United States. He’s star of one of the most successful documentary films in history. He just won an Oscar. And he’s been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Yes, Al Gore’s on a roll. So why doesn’t he run for president? That’s what a lot of Democrats are asking. And even some Republicans. MSNBC’s Joe...

OK, what’s next? Democrats lost their second attempt to debate the war in Iraq on the Senate floor. So, what’s next? Seems to me there’s only one answer: The White House didn’t want a non-binding resolution. So, let’s give them something binding, instead. Next priority for Democrats in Congress: Repeal the 2002 resolution authorizing the use of military force in Iraq. There are three reasons for doing so: We know Bush lied to Congress about WMD in order to get it passed. So it’s based on false pretenses. Bush has abused his authority ever since: not sending enough troops, not...

Watching George W. Bush struggle with foreign policy is like watching a rerun of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” You never know which personality, the good guy or the bad guy, is going to prevail. The problem is, neither does he. Like the protagonist in Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic clash of dual personalities, George Bush is capable of doing both good and evil, often at the same time. Look at the contrast between Iraq, Iran and North Korea. From the beginning, Bush’s policy in Iraq was pure Mr. Hyde: Bomb first, ask questions later. No time for diplomacy. No time...

For Republicans, Mitt Romney’s an attractive candidate. He has a good track record as head of the Salt Lake City Olympics and governor of Massachusetts. And, thanks to a convenient, pre-presidential conversion, he’s now anti-choice, anti-gay rights and anti-gun control. There’s only one problem: He’s a practicing Mormon. Should Romney’s religion be an issue in politics 2008? It already is. Indeed, given the basic tenets of Mormonism, there’s no way Romney could escape it. Most of us only know Mormons from two experiences: either having zealous young missionaries knock on our door; or watching HBO’s hit TV show “Big Love”...

Intolerance! It’s raising its ugly head again. And, once again, intolerance comes from the religious right. This time, a conservative Jew: radio talk show host Dennis Prager. Prager’s upset because Congressman-elect Keith Ellison from Minnesota plans to take his ceremonial oath of office in January with his hand on the Koran, instead of the Bible. Of course! Ellison’s a Muslim — the first Muslim, in fact, ever elected to Congress. But that’s no excuse, says Prager. Ellison has to embrace the Bible, or else. “Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values...

Posted by Matthew Sheffield on September 18, 2006 - 21:08. Bill Press, the former CNN and MSNBC host refuses to yield ground on the Plame story. Starting to sound a lot like a crazy guy shouting about aliens, Press creates a unified conspiracy theory of Plame. That's a little difficult given recent news events, so Press has to resort to distorting the words of columnist Robert Novak: So where's my apology to Karl Rove?That's what many readers want to know: Having accused Karl Rove of leading a conspiracy within the Bush White House to reveal the identity of undercover CIA...

So where’s my apology to Karl Rove? That’s what many readers want to know: Having accused Karl Rove of leading a conspiracy within the Bush White House to reveal the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame, don’t I owe Rove an apology now that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has admitted that he, not Rove, was Novak’s primary source? Well, here’s my answer: Hell, no! Armitage’s involvement doesn’t disprove the Rove conspiracy. It only proves it was a lot wider than we originally thought. We remember the facts of the case. Plame’s identity was first blown in...

Karl Rove Gets No Apology From Me September 14, 2006 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So where’s my apology to Karl Rove? That’s what many readers want to know: Having accused Karl Rove of leading a conspiracy within the Bush White House to reveal the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame, don’t I owe Rove an apology now that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has admitted that he, not Rove, was Novak’s primary source? Well, here’s my answer: Hell, no! Armitage’s involvement doesn’t disprove the Rove conspiracy. It only proves it was a lot wider than we originally thought. We remember...

Getting Desperate, Bush Plays The Terror Card In a way, you can’t blame him. He can’t defend his record on the economy, health care, immigration or Social Security. He certainly can’t defend the war in Iraq. There’s only one way George Bush and Republicans can possibly win in November — and that’s to scare the hell out of the American people. So it’s no surprise that President Bush gave four speeches in one week, all trying to tie an unpopular war in Iraq to a still-popular (barely) war on terror. If you believe George Bush — and fewer and fewer...