Free Republic

This is from Barry Ritholtz's blog: Here’s what I learned recently: Someone I spoke with claimed that Ailes was scheduled to speak at their event in March, but canceled. It appears that Roger’s people, ostensibly using a clause in his contract, said he “cannot appear for legal reasons.” I asked “What, precisely, does that mean?” The response: “Roger Ailes will be indicted — probably this week, maybe even Monday.” You read it here first . . .

You should have known something like this was going to happen. The vitriol and anger in our nation's sports talk has never been harsher - and we may as well face it: most of it is coming from Chicago Bears Fans. So today a squad of violent men, emboldened by the climate of hate in Chicago towards any of "Da Bears'" opponents, committed murder. Murder most foul. They killed the Seattle Seahawks' chances of playing in the Super Bowl. The Seahawks were sent to their football grave. The Bears beat them - beat them, mind you - 35-24. The Bears,...

Disgraced presidential wanna-be John Edwards slept with his kooky lover in his wife's bed and made a sex tape with her, a shocking new book claims. In "The Politician," Andrew Young - the aide who once claimed Edwards' love child was his - says the ambitious ex-senator stopped at nothing to hide his indiscretions, including urging his girlfriend to abort their child. Young describes Edwards as "barely under control" the first time the two men discussed Hunter's pregnancy. Edwards called Hunter a "crazy slut" and questioned who fathered the baby. He asked Young to help talk her into an abortion,...

ABC's Sunlen Miller and Raelyn Johnson Report: Barack Obama told a Racine, Wis., crowd that he would want John Edwards involved and partnering with him if he becomes president. The response came when an audience member asked if they should anticipate an Obama-Edwards ticket anytime soon. Obama said he tries to avoid being presumptuous because he has not locked in the nomination but added, "I will say this, I think John Edwards is somebody who lifted up the issues of poverty and the working families, in a powerful way. I think he's extraordinarily talented. He is going to be a...

Families who fail to get health insurance could be fined up to $3,800 under a health care reform plan proposed

Former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean will be at BookHampton in East Hampton this Friday evening (08/07) to discuss his new book, “Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform.” Dr. Dean’s discussion will begin at 8 p.m. at BookHampton at 41 Main Street in East Hampton

While not exactly a film buff, Gordon Brown was touched when Barack Obama gave him a set of 25 classic American movies - including Psycho, starring Anthony Perkins on his recent visit to Washington. Alas, when the PM settled down to begin watching them the other night, he found there was a problem. The films only worked in DVD players made in North America and the words "wrong region" came up on his screen. Although he mournfully had to put the popcorn away, he is unlikely to jeopardise the special relationship - or "special partnership", as we are now supposed...

SOUTHWEST FLORIDA - A woman making national headlines after a tearful moment with President Obama has a new home. Thursday morning, Chene Thompson handed Henrietta Hughes the keys to her home in Hendry County. Thompson is the wife of State Representative Nick Thompson (R-District 73). Hughes and her son will live at the home rent free. However, a local organization is coming forward saying Hughes isn't being honest about how much help she's had in the past. The director of We Care Outreach Ministry, Tanya Johnson, says just last month she offered Henrietta Hughes permanent housing and a place to...

It’s 3 p.m. and the phone in the White House press secretary’s office is ringing. It rings and rings and rings. Eventually, a recorded voice asks callers to leave a message—followed by a second voice saying the voicemail box is full. After a full week of such calls, a human being answers. But Ben Labolt immediately bristles when asked to spell his name, refuses to give his job title, and says he is going “off the record” until I stop him to explain that the reporter grants that privilege, not the other way around—a basic journalistic standard that Labolt seems...

Tonight on the O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly asked Ann Coulter if he could pass along some advice from author Bernie Goldberg. Coulter told O'Reilly she only takes advice "from people who sell more books than I do." So O'Reilly asked her if she would take his own advice since he sold more books than she did. Coulter said "No, you don't sell more books than me.", O'Reilly said "yes I do", and Coulter again said she sells more books.

It's not easy being green. The first time that realization hit me was when I first heard someone answer the age-old eco-awareness question, "Paper or plastic?" I'd always assumed that, naturally, paper shopping bags were better, because they biodegrade and plastic bags don't. But the calculus of green is a lot more complicated than that; what people tend to ignore is all the upstream cost of those end products.

Is Scott Rasmussen spinning big time for Obama or losing his marbles? Maybe both. Last night he told Bill O'Reilly that Pennsylvania is the only state that Kerry took in 2004 where McCain has any chance of winning. He really should do less TV and more reading. His own poll shows McCain within the margin of error in New Hampshire, a state that Kerry won. And that poll was done over a week ago.

For seven years, the presidential candidate had a "father-son" relationship with Frank Marshall Davis, who has confessed to having sex with children, sadomasochism, bondage and practicing a wide array of deviant sexual activities. In his 1995 memoir Dreams from My Father, Obama identifies his childhood mentor only as "Frank," but Obama insiders later confirmed he was referring to Davis, a journalist and poet who was a pal of Obama's maternal grandfather, Stanley Dunham.

When Mike Pyne and other union foot soldiers knock on doors to promote Senator Barack Obama, they often confront a tricky challenge: how to persuade union members to vote on the basis of their wallets rather than on issues like abortion, gun rights and race. In battleground states like this one, union voters could be vital to the outcome of the election, and the labor movement has mounted a huge push on behalf of Mr. Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, built largely around the message that with unemployment rising, the financial system reeling and gasoline and food prices soaring, the...

If you thought you heard Cramer call a bottom during Tuesday’s Mad Money, you were right. “It smells to me like something, in fact many things,” he said, “have at last changed for the better.” “I am indeed sticking my neck out right here, right now,” Cramer continued, “declaring emphatically that I believe the market will not revisit the panicked lows it hit on July 15. And I think anyone out there who’s waiting for that low to be breached is in for a big disappointment, and [they’re] missing a great deal of upside.” “Stop waiting,” he said, and “buy...

Sun Sep 14, 2008 at 11:53:24 AM PDT I started phone-banking last week, and I've been doing a couple of hours a day since then. Today I called a bunch of voters in Pennsylvania, and had long conversations with five undecided voters. It was really illuminating. A lot of what I've been reading on this board is supported by my observations, but a lot ISN'T. First of all, all of the undecided voters I talked to like Palin. They like her a lot more than they like McCain. They are compelled by her energy and her looks and her demeanor....

Barack Obama's $66 million haul in August donations may set records but it's only a down payment on the huge sums the Democratic presidential nominee must continue to collect in order to compete through the Nov. 4 election. Obama is attempting to become the first candidate to privately finance the general election phase of his campaign, and his August performance seems to be a good start. His announcement that he had $77 million in cash in the bank at the end of August came strikingly close to the roughly $85 million in taxpayer funds that Republican John McCain has to...

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In most cases, the one to bring a complaint to the library is a concerned parent or a citizen sincerely interested in the future wellbeing of the community. Although complainants may not have a broad knowledge of literature or of the principles of freedom of expression, their motives in questioning a book or other library material are seldom unusual. Any number of reasons are given for recommending that certain material be removed from the library. Complainants may believe that the materials will corrupt children and adolescents, offend the sensitive or unwary reader, or undermine basic values and beliefs. Sometimes, for...

September 13, 2008 The [New York]Times adds context to the allegations that Palin considered trying to ban books in Wasilla, context that's likely to add juice to one social issue that hasn't become divisive this cycle: gay rights. The new mayor also tended carefully to her evangelical base. She appointed a pastor to the town planning board. And she began to eye the library. For years, social conservatives had pressed the library director to remove books they considered immoral. “People would bring books back censored,” recalled former Mayor John Stein, Ms. Palin’s predecessor. “Pages would get marked up or torn...