Free Republic

DECEMBER 6--In the days after Bristol Palin was voted into the finals of “Dancing with the Stars,” viewers from across the country wrote to the Federal Communications Commission accusing the ABC show of everything from running a “payola type program” to “encouraging and promoting teen pregnancy.” Many of the complainants, whose letters were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, were upset that, as one Oregonian put it, “the top scores were voted off yet Sarah Palin’s daughter remained on.” One viewer from Pittsburgh alleged that the show’s voting system had been “fixed by extreme supporters of the Tea...

The Internet's been buzzing with talk about how members of the U.S. Tea Party movement have been getting out the vote for Bristol Palin on Dancing With the Stars. The blog Jezebel had a post about it today, complete with quotes from conservative message boards about how Bristol's supporters were exploiting ABC's email voting system to cast multiple ballots for Sarah Palin's daughter. Jezebel quoted one site, FreeRepublic.com, that urged its members to "make liberal heads explode" by voting for Bristol, "even though she is not the best dancer." Well, my liberal head is kind of exploding right now because...

"Mm, your tears are so yummy and sweet! Oh, the tears of unfathomable sadness! My-yummy!" -- Cartman, South Park Admittedly, it has been a lot of fun to watch the wailing and gnashing of teeth on the Left after the savage beating they received on election day. However, it's more than a little disturbing that almost no one on the Left seems to think they lost because they actually did a bad job. In other words, according to liberals: Obamacare, the failure of the stimulus, Obama bowing to foreign leaders, the way they handled the BP oil spill, trying to...

President Obama allowed Republicans to define the terms of the nation's political argument for the past two years and permitted them to draw battle lines the way they wanted. Neither he nor his party can let that happen again. Democrats would be foolish to turn in on themselves in a fruitless battle over whether their troubles owe to a failure to mobilize and excite their base or to win support from the political center. In fact, Democrats held onto moderate voters while losing independents. What hurt them most was this brute fact: Voters younger than 30 made up 18 percent...

If you think you can't stand reading about how the media are covering Michelle Obama's Spanish vacation, then you deserve credit for good taste. But bear with me. Because, given the absence of any substance whatsoever, it serves as a perfect laboratory exercise in how rightwing activists bully the nominally liberal mainstream press into validating the most ludicrous of partisan talking points. As you may know, late last week the first lady and her daughter Sasha arrived in Spain for a few days. With the exception of a government-provided security detail, the trip is costing the taxpayers nothing. Yet it...

If you’re at all web-savvy, you’ve probably heard of Digg.com. Founded in 2006, Digg is the reigning king of the social news ecosystem, cracking the top 50 websites in the U.S. and the top 100 worldwide. Its million-plus users democratically filter the torrent of online media, upvoting or “digging” desired content while “burying” rubbish and spam. The most popular content is promoted to the site’s highly-trafficked front page. The result is a peek into the consciousness of the internet: a mixture of comics, videos, sensationalism, and breaking news that is the growing face of new media.Digg’s popularity makes it...

South Carolina's Democrats are poised to decide whether to overturn the results of the primary election that saw Alvin Greene, an unemployed military veteran, win the nomination for U.S. Senate. The state party's executive committee is meeting Thursday in Columbia to hear a protest by former state lawmaker Vic Rawl, whom Greene defeated in the June 8 primary. Rawl has said malfunctions in voting machines or software may have caused him to lose race. He said voters have told him they meant to vote for him but saw Greene's name on their screens instead. The executive committee could uphold the...

Hackers must be behind Senate candidate Alvin Greene's victory in the South Carolina Democratic primary last week, Rep. James Clyburn claimed in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday. Trying to account for how a candidate who had no money and no campaign infrastructure was able to pull out a victory over a well-funded local lawmaker in a statewide race, the powerful South Carolina Democrat said the touch-screen voting machines used by the state are notoriously unreliable. Without citing evidence, Clyburn said the voting machines could have been compromised. "I believe there was some hacking done into that computer," Clyburn...

The most ballyhooed effort is under way in Texas, where conservatives have pushed the state school board to rewrite guidelines...challenging the idea that the Founding Fathers wanted to separate church and state. In articles and speeches, on radio and TV, conservatives are working to redefine major turning points and influential figures in American history, often to slam liberals... Joe McCarthy? Liberals lied about him. He was a hero. "We are adding balance," Texas school board member Don McLeroy said. "History has already been skewed. Academia is skewed too far to the left."

SACRAMENTO — Sarah Palin typically generates controversy with what she says. Now the former vice presidential candidate is creating a buzz over how much she'll make at a black-tie gala she plans to headline at Cal State Stanislaus. How much she is commanding for her June 25 appearance at the $500-per-ticket affair won't be known because her contract with the CSU Stanislaus Foundation stipulates secrecy. It's the secrecy that rankles state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, who is calling for full disclosure. "The CSU should immediately disclose how much money is being diverted from students to pay Sarah Palin's exorbitant...

Its new film The Princess and The Frog features a black princess, but Disney has still been criticised for its alleged lack of diversity. Disney has been praised for breaking down barriers by featuring its first black princess in the film The Princess and The Frog. Oona King, who was Gordon Brown's senior policy adviser on equalities and diversity, is not satisfied, however. "You never see disabled people," the former Labour MP complained to Mandrake at a screening at the Mayfair Hotel in London. "When are you going to see a Disney film with a disabled character in the lead...

'Mexican Man' costume offends Latino shoppers, community groups By Sean Maher EMERYVILLE — A costume dubbed "Mexican Man" has offended Latino shoppers and community groups after being discovered at a Halloween chain store. The photo on the costume packaging shows a man with a thick mustache wearing a poncho and a sombrero. Oakland resident Monica Plazola said she discovered the costume last week at the Spirit Halloween store in Emeryville, which she was visiting with her two children, ages 7 and 9. "We were there at the store, with all kinds of costumes, and that was the only one identified...

OBAMA: What I reject is when some folks say we should go back to the past policies when it was those very same policies that got us into this mess in the first place. (Applause.) Another way of putting it is when, you know, I'm busy and Nancy busy with our mop cleaning up somebody else's mess --- we don't want somebody sitting back saying, you're not holding the mop the right way. (Applause.) Why don't you grab a mop, why don't you help clean up. (Applause.) You're not mopping fast enough. (Laughter.) That's a socialist mop. (Laughter and applause.)...

Couldn't resist. He blames Bush for everything else. I guess Obama has inherited his low poll numbers from Bush too....

Lemme cut to the chase, Kanye West is phony as was his contrived outburst when he rushed the stage to disrupt an acceptance speech from country singer Taylor Swift, during last night’s MTV Video Music Awards. It was a perfectly executed stunt which was designed to make national headlines (which it did). It was designed to become among the top trending topics in twitter and one of the hot key words in google (which it is). It was obviously designed to take away attention from issues at hand as Kanye’s outburst overshadowed many of the performances and presenters including the...

ACORN is the latest victim of Fox news personality Glenn Beck's racist smear campaigns. Beck aired a staged video on his program entrapping a couple of low level members of ACORN. ACORN is a non-profit organisation that works to serve low income and working Americans. ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is the nation's largest community organization of low and moderate income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities. These are good Americans working for the benefit of those less fortunate. ACORN has over 400,000 members and more than 850 neighborhood chapters in over 100...

Specter wants Wilson censured Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Penn.), who's looked at POTUS from both sides now, was just on the Bill Press radio show suggesting the South Carolina firebrand Joe Wilson be censured for his heckle heard round the world. Said the Republican-turned-Dem: "He apologized immediately afterward but I don't think that’s adequate... If an apology is the consequence of an outburst I think we can expect more – that’s not a sufficient penalty that’s not a sufficient price to pay.. I'm not saying the guy should be kicked out of the House… But there ought to be some rebuke,...

Your tax dollars at work... funding this America-hating gasbag on PBS. Bill Moyers goes on a tirade against Republicans and angry town hall protesters for not allowing Obama to nationalize health care.

Editor, At the risk of sounding sexist, how did the health care debate get hijacked by an overgrown teenage girl on Facebook? Sarah Palin quit her job as governor of Alaska to become an unpaid right-wing blogger, yet still has the power to disrupt any rational discourse. Possibly related: How did someone like Palin even rise to the spotlight in the first place? Her rise was born in the waning days of the contentious Democratic primaries between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. After the controversial Democratic National Convention Rules Committee decision to split in half the delegates from Michigan and...

Accusations and responses from Liberal Kook to Rational Conservative:. You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.[ Damn straight! - The US Supreme Court said, "No Cherry Picking Vote Recounts from Democrat Counties....It's UnConstitutional ] You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.[ That's Right - Its like NOT having Politicians pretending to be Health Care Providers ] You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.[ Plame was not "covert" -- she was a political HACK that needed to be outed.....her and her...

Think about it. Has there been a lousier 10 years in American history? OK, the Civil War, granted. And the Great Depression wasn't so hot, either, the pictures suggest. But this one has been close enough to an all-time bad to merit the kind of willful amnesia that I'm proposing. sajohnson@tribune.com

Barack Obama, a reputed master of the persuasive art, has settled on his central argument for the stimulus bill: I won. That Obama is reduced to this crude appeal is a symptom of the intellectual collapse of the case for his stimulus bill, a congressional spendfest untethered from its stated goal of providing a rapid “jolt” to the economy. As far as political arguments go, “I won” has its power—provided it’s made on behalf of an agenda ratified by the American electorate. But Obama didn’t campaign on a sprawling, nearly $1 trillion new spending plan. If he had pledged in...

MADRID - Spain’s former prime minister Jose Maria Aznar drew criticism Wednesday by reportedly referring to what he called the "historic exoticism" of Barack Obama’s election as US president. Aznar was asked by a journalist from the Spanish edition of Vanity Fair magazine about the election in November of the first black president of the United States. "A historic exoticism and predictable economic disaster," replied the conservative former leader. "Obama is a person of black race who managed to become president of the United States, which is an extraordinary change for them", he said, without indicating whether he was referring...

At least Dick Cheney, as wrong a guy as we've ever had this close to the presidency, goes out in character, thinking that he and George W. Bush were right about everything. The problem is that Cheney's character now sounds as weird and unhinged as Jack Nicholson's in "A Few Good Men." There was Cheney on the Fox television network Sunday, always more a home to him than Yankee Stadium is to Derek Jeter, defending the last days of a dying administration and a dying Republican empire, defending Bush and Iraq and Donald Rumsfeld, defending Guantanamo and torture and surveillance...

Tina Fey appeared right when I needed her, just when all seemed bleak. The NYPD was reporting another murdered child and the latest casualty reports from Afghanistan included a New Yorker who was a particularly nice guy. That made me think of two other fine men I know in Afghanistan, as well as two buddies in Iraq. Then my lawyer friend Eddie Hayes called to say that the economy seemed to be headed for the Greater Depression. "The guys who are supposed to be getting us out of this are the same guys who got us into it in the...

You cannot parody these people. You just can’t: “Palin is wearing white again, inciting the racist crowds. She should just drop all pretense and put on her white hood and light up a cross. She is a despicable human being.” A sample of comments in the PDS-infected thread at the Democratic Underground: Coming next: The Associated Press publishes an “analysis” of Sarah Palin’s “racially-tinged” wardrobe.

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a traitor and an idiot. Also, my mother should have aborted me and left me in a Dumpster, but since she didn't, I should "off" myself. Those are just a few nuggets randomly selected from thousands of e-mails written in response to my column suggesting that Sarah Palin is out of her league and should step down. Who says public discourse hasn't deteriorated? The fierce reaction to my column has been both bracing and enlightening. After 20 years of column writing, I'm familiar with angry mail. But the past few days have produced...

So Sarah Palin's participation in the vice presidential debate is going to be the sparring equivalent of bumper bowling. The McCain camp insisted upon a tightly formatted structure for Palin's debate with Joe Biden, one that is designed to protect her from spontaneous questions and discussion. Geraldine Ferraro was granted no special protection when she debated George H.W. Bush in 1984, and it is inexplicable why the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates gave in to McCain's demands now. It's hard to call this progress. An experienced, knowledgeable female candidate should not require special treatment. But Sarah Palin is a female...

I know, I can't believe it either: Karl Rove, the legendary Republican strategist whose name has become synonymous with hard-ball campaign tactics, has asserted that both presidential campaigns have wandered too far from truth. "McCain has gone in his ads ... one step too far," Rove said on Fox News Sept. 14. "Sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent-truth test." In recent weeks the McCain campaign has accused Barack Obama of advocating sex education in kindergarten. (In reality, Obama voted for a bill that called for warning young children about sexual predators.) The McCain...

I assume John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential partner in a fit of pique because the Republican money men refused to let him have the stuffed male shirt he really wanted. She added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn't already have sewn up, the white trash vote, the demographic that sullies America's name inside and outside its borders yet has such a curious appeal for the right. So why do it? It's possible that Republican men, sexual inadequates that they are, really believe that women will vote for a woman just because she's a woman. They're...

Sarah Palin makes me sick. I hate that she was able to steal Barack Obama's mojo just by showing up wearing rimless glasses and a skirt. I hate that she makes Joe Biden look like John McCain and John McCain look like the maverick he is not. I hate that Palin reminds me of Susan Sarandon's feisty character in "Thelma & Louise." I loved Sarandon in that movie, yet I couldn't stand Palin's feistiness at the Republican National Convention. Sarah Palin makes me sick -- not because she may speak in tongues -- but because she is a fast talker....

Maybe he was sick of the lack of media attention…maybe he had enough of the late night talk show hosts poking fun at his age…maybe he realized that belonging to a party that has been associated with rich, white men was not going to connect with voters in this historical election year. Or maybe he was just ready to take back some of the spotlight that has shined so brightly on Barack Obama and the Democrats since the beginning of the Democratic convention. Desperation can motivate people to make some pretty cynical and hypocritical decisions. Whatever the reason, John McCain’s...

ABC News' Jennifer Parker reports: Presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said conservative criticism of his wife, Michelle, infuriates him. "I don't have a thick skin when it comes to criticism of my wife," Obama told the women's magazine Glamour in an interview to run in the magazine's October issue. "And you know, the problem is that rarely do these folks have the guts to say it to your face." Obama, who is vying for the support of women voters who flocked to Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign during the primaries, argued his wife and Clinton have been the target...

SUSAN SARANDON, who appeared in three films last year and won kudos for her TV movie "Bernard and Doris," is still not a contented soul. She says if John McCain gets elected, she will move to Italy or Canada. She adds, "It's a critical time, but I have faith in the American people."

Sen. Joe Biden, piling on to Democratic complaints about President Bush’s speech in Israel today: “This is bullshit, this is malarkey. This is outrageous, for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, to sit in the Knesset . . . and make this kind of ridiculous statement.” Speaking before the Knesset, Bush said that “some people” believe the United States “should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along." "We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland...

In a stealthy flurry of legal mumbo-jumbo, the Boulder County Commissioners have launched a proposal that would ban any April Fools jokes targeted at the “general Boulder County public,” including residents, visitors and employees within county limits. “If there was a way, we’d ban all statewide pranks, but we don’t have that authority,” Commissioner Will Tour said. “We had to settle for county-wide bans, but that should put a stop to them.” When pressed, Tour said that “them” referred to a certain monthly newspaper that had been a thorn in the commission’s side since it began concocting stories, but that...

Via Media Matters: During the March 31 edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Willie Geist repeatedly mocked Sen. Barack Obama’s bowling performance — which Scarborough called “dainty” — at a March 29 campaign stop at Pleasant Valley Lanes in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Deriding Obama’s score, he said: “You know Willie, the thing is, Americans want their president, if it’s a man, to be a real man.” Scarborough added, “You get 150, you’re a man, or a good woman,” to which Geist replied, “Out of my president, I want a 150, at least.” Later in the show, after NBC...

This redirects the attack on the Electoral College by avoiding the amendment process to the US Constitution.   The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is an agreement among U.S. states that would effectively end the electoral college system of presidential elections and replace it with a direct nationwide vote of the people. As of February 2008, this interstate compact has been joined by Maryland and New Jersey; their 25 electoral votes amount to 9.3% of the 270 needed for it to take effect. The compact is based on Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which gives each state the...

Comedienne Rosie O'Donnell has hit back after she was named the world's most annoying celebrity by insisting all stars are irritating.

A usual round of media self-criticism turned into a schoolyard brawl last week, as editors, reporters and bloggers traded insults over a front-page article in The Washington Post, all at the very online water cooler where they usually get their news about the industry. The Post article, which ran on Nov. 29, was about rumors of Barack Obama’s ties to the Muslim world. snip Then things got really ugly. On Dec. 10, Chris Daly, a Boston University journalism professor, posted an entry on his blog that turned the debate over the merits of the article’s reporting into a debate over...

Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats or independents to rate their mental health as excellent, according to data from the last four November Gallup Health and Healthcare polls. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans report having excellent mental health, compared to 43% of independents and 38% of Democrats. This relationship between party identification and reports of excellent mental health persists even within categories of income, age, gender, church attendance, and education. The basic data -- based on an aggregated sample of more than 4,000 interviews conducted since 2004 -- are straightforward. The differences are quite significant, as can be seen. While...

AP Posted: 2007-07-23 06:09:53 Filed Under: Nation, Politics WASHINGTON (July 22) - Liberal Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold said Sunday he wants Congress to censure President Bush for his management of the Iraq war and his "assault" against the Constitution. But Feingold's own party leader in the Senate showed little interest in the idea. An attempt in 2006 by Feingold to censure Bush over the warrantless spying program attracted only three co-sponsors. Feingold, a prominent war critic, said he soon plans to offer two censure resolutions - measures that would amount to a formal condemnation of the Republican president. The first...

GULFPORT, Miss. - They gave Greg Porter the key to the city for his volunteer work after Hurricane Katrina. Then, he says, they showed him the door. Porter received widespread acclaim — including an award from the White House — for founding God's Katrina Kitchen, a faith-based relief operation that has served more than 1 million meals to the storm's victims and the volunteers who helped them. But the roadside-tent operation has been forced to move for the second time since September, because of what officials say were neighborhood complaints. Unable to find a new home, Porter expects to close...

President Bush, at podium, speaks to members of the media prior to the ribbon-cutting ceremony ... At this morning's ribbon-cutting for the newly renovated White House Briefing Room, President Bush dropped in just long enough to rub reporters' noses in his cheerful refusal to take them seriously. ... the president was in full frat-boy mode, clowning around during introductory remarks by C-SPAN's Steve Scully. ... Bush apparently felt Scully went on too long. "I like a good, short introduction," Bush jeered as soon as Scully gave up the podium. Here's the transcript. "We missed you -- sort of," Bush...

Description on main page of website: "Some of us — hopefully most of us — are trying to understand and appreciate the effect our recent election will have on you, the citizens of the rest of the world. As our so-called leaders redouble their efforts to screw you over, please remember that some of us — hopefully most of us — are truly, truly sorry. And we'll say we're sorry, even on the behalf of the ones who aren't."

I’m not backing off. I tried to remove myself from the political realm of the US, what BushCo is turning into an Evil Empire, but the blatant audacity of George commuting Scooter’s sentence (he’s not ruling out a full pardon —and you know he will) has dragged me kicking and screaming back in… Did we ever think that the criminality and arrogance of the Nixon White House would be eclipsed in our time with nary a “baaaah” from the Sheeple in Congress?… The recent commutation of I. Scooter Libby’s sentence, however, was the straw that broke my camel’s back of...

Coulter is a prime suspect in the theft of the nation's moral compass. (SALEM, Ore.) - When we grow up we are taught the difference between right and wrong. Well before reaching adulthood, we are supposed to have a sound understanding of the bottom line, and a reasonable appreciation for the fact that mistakes carry consequences. But moral decay, divisiveness and polarity are the order of the day in 2007. As a society, it seems like we no longer aspire to be chivalrous. Instead we go for the most outrageous, the most shocking, the most revealing, and the least-clothed. And...

Hollywood beauty Scarlett Johansson has fueled reports she will star in the New York City production of South Pacific, after declaring her love for the musical during an interview. Last month, the New York Post reported Johansson was in talks to play US Navy nurse Nellie Forbush in a revival of the musical at the Lincoln Center, which is scheduled to open in January 2008. In an interview with the latest UK edition of Glamour magazine, Johansson admits she's a huge fan of the Rodgers And Hammerstein show, but she has a problem with the heroine's surname, which shares a...

This is directed at those so called "conservative" retards who did not vote for their Republican Senators and Representatives in the few close states, or who voted Libertarian or Democrat. I knew a country once. It was called "America". "Libertarians" and Republicans who didn’t vote; YOU ARE TRAITORS to that country and your so called conservative values. It’s that simple. And you just handed America to the Modern American Socialist party. Good job. Well done. GO TO H**L!!! I am so disgusted and ashamed of America right now I can’t even hardly type. I can’t sleep either. I can not...