Free Republic

From the Post, Levi Johnston was spotted Tuesday at JFK airport where he refused to stand in line with the "regular" people. Levi, who goes by the name "Ricky Hollywood" these days, made quite a show of his boarding the flight headed for the left coast: A spy on his American Airlines flight told Page Six: "He then made a big show of getting on first. He was seated in the front row of first class, looking like he was born to be there and waiting for some recognition. Jason Alexander was quietly sitting behind him." We wish Levi would...

The National Football League has become an arm of the Obama administration with its partnership with Obama's "United We Serve" program.A video posted by the Obama administration to YouTube this week that is planned to air during broadcasts of the NFL's Thanksgiving Day games shows Barack Obama playing football on the White House lawn.The one-minute-thirty-second propaganda video is entitled, President Obama, United We Serve, and the NFL Team Up for Fitness and Service and is described by the administration on the site:In support of his United We Serve initiative, President Obama and NFL stars Drew Brees, DeMarcus Ware, and Troy...

John McCain's problems inside his own party were hardly overcome by his place as its nominee, Rasmussen reports. The new poll shows McCain up just two points, 45% to 43%, in a hypothetical contest with former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, now a popular local radio talker, who's mulling a bid.

When the clock strikes midnight tonight, Sen. Robert Byrd will become the longest-serving member of Congress ever — a capstone on a remarkable career in which the adopted son of a coal miner propelled himself from poverty to the pinnacle of legislative power, where he could, did and still does send billions of federal dollars back across the Blue Ridge to help build his home state of West Virginia. Byrd’s stat sheet speaks for itself: • Served 20,774 days — or 56 years and 10½ months — in Congress • Attended 18,582 Senate roll call votes • Elected to Senate...

Read it and weep all of you MSM talking heads..

On July 27th, Michelle Malkin launched the publicity tour for Culture of Corruption on Sean Hannity's radio show. Starting on May 18th, the same Michelle Malkin began writing a series of blog posts that featured Anita Moncrief, an informant that blew the whistle on a connection between ACORN and the Obama administration. Malkin has used the monikor "whistle blower" to describe Moncrief, and her coverage hasn't merely been positive but sometimes downright fawning in describing Moncrief. In fact, Malkin featured Moncrief ten times before the book came out. Before this post on the 18th, Malkin had written only once about...

Reporting from Kennett Square, Pa. - As he is quick to point out, President Obama is presiding over two wars, a sour economy and an epic fight to rework the nation's healthcare system. Now tack on a trio of state and local political races. With an off-year election fast approaching, Obama is stepping up his commitment to Democratic candidates in hopes that an infusion of campaign charisma might pump up turnout. What the party is finding, though, is that the electricity of 2008 is tough to recapture. Some Democratic candidates running for local office around the country call the phenomenon...

For 30 months the nation has been in the grip of a certain Obama obsession, immune to countervailing facts, unwilling to face reality, and loath to break the spell. But like all trances, the fit is passing, and we the patient are beginning to appreciate how the stupor came upon us, why it lifted, and what its consequences have been. How Obama Won Barack Obama was elected rather easily because, in perfect-storm fashion, five separate trends coalesced last autumn. 1) Obama was eloquent, young, charismatic - and African-American. He thus offered voters a sense of personal and collective redemption, as...

Veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas on Monday advised the Obama administration to stand down and avoid fighting with Fox News and its correspondents. In an interview with MSNBC, the columnist -- who is promoting her new book on presidents and their campaigns -- also stressed the White House ought to "stay out of these fights." "They can only take you down. You can't kill the messenger," said Thomas, who has covered every president from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama. Whether the White House takes her advice, however, is another story. Just this weekend, Senior Adviser David Axelrod charged...

A Historic Speech By Michael Savage, that was supposed to be given at the Cambridge Debate Union on the topic of political correctness and free speech, but was cancelled at the last minute under political pressure by the Gordon Brown administration. Audio Here Part 1- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV2Ok8_PJ0o Part 2- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4g8C7vfNIU

I go to Monday Night Football to see the game and I get ... OBAMA! Geez, can't this guy stay away from the TV cameras? Now we have to see him kicking off Monday Night Football. TOO MUCH!!!!!

It sounded to White House advisers like a good idea. Put President Barack Obama on five Sunday morning talk shows. This would focus attention on health care, re-establish momentum, and show off Mr. Obama's passion, intelligence, and persuasive abilities. It didn't work. Mr. Obama made a classic mistake of politicians on a downward-bending arc. He jumps out in front of the cameras without having something fresh to offer.

After a year in which she angered Republicans and Hillary Clinton fans by backing Barack Obama, and infuriated Christian ones by promoting a New Age religion book, Winfrey has been punished by declining ratings which fell to a record low. The average audience for The Oprah Winfrey Show fell under seven million last season – a seven per cent slip on the previous year and its fourth straight year of decline. Broadcasting experts also believe that the multi-millionaire Winfrey's relentlessly upbeat, anything-is-possible philosophy may be jarring with viewers struggling to cope with a recession. Falling audiences are almost a fact...

Someone once said of Madonna that she felt she would cease to exist unless a cameraman was following her around recording her every move. I’m beginning to get the same vibe from President Obama, like we’re watching someone who’s in the grip of a serious psychological addiction. How else to explain his bizarre decision to schedule not one but two big television events for his first week back on the job. This after barely a week out of the limelight – his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, which ended prematurely after he insinuated himself into the Ted Kennedy memorial service, becoming...

I've never posted a straight Vanity before. But I am sick and tired of this good conservative, generally religious site being overrun by people posting "I'd hit it", whenever a picture of a good-looking girl is displayed. It's demeaning, it's immoral, and I guess I'm just a prude but announcing to the world that you'd like to have sex with a woman based on her picture, like she was some object, hardly seems like the appropriate attitude on a conservative political site. But rather than post in response to any particular person, I figured I'd just vent here where everybody...

This newspaper traces its roots to before Las Vegas was Las Vegas. We've seen cattle ranches give way to railroads. We chronicled the construction of Hoover Dam. We reported on the first day of legalized gambling. The first hospital. The first school. The first church. We survived the mob, Howard Hughes, the Great Depression, several recessions, two world wars, dozens of news competitors and any number of two-bit politicians who couldn't stand scrutiny, much less criticism. We're still here doing what we do for the people of Las Vegas and Nevada. So, let me assure you, if we weathered all...

Potential U.S. Senate candidate Peter Schiff has a very simple plan for Washington D.C. Get rid of the politicians. “We need citizens, people who are in the private sector, to come to Washington, to really get a job done, and then to leave,” Schiff told Newsmax TV’s Dan Mangru. Individuals who become career politicians, such as his potential opponent Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn), are what’s wrong with Congress in Schiff’s opinion because eventually they get assimilated into Washington D.C. culture. Schiff points out that Dodd has never actually worked in the private sector, never ran a business, and has never...

Meghan McCain has got to go Dumb as a rock, and with her face everywhere, she, like omg, doesn't understand why people don't want her around: "What do Malkin and the other conservative pundits hope to accomplish by arguing that people “like me” have no place within the Republican Party? And who exactly are people “like me”? Young people? Moderate people? Young female people? People with tattoos who go to biker rallies?" No, people who are morons and don't know what the hell they're talking about yet get to be on TV as the token "Republican". Those people. She goes...

Let me answer that question this way. Not only have The One’s rhetorical tics infested my brain — half my tweets start with “let me be clear” or “as I have consistently said” nowadays — but when I saw him on cable news this afternoon at that townhall, my thought was actually formulated this way: Let me be clear: I can’t believe this f***ing guy is on TV again. In all seriousness, I wonder if his overexposure has become self-defeating in the same way that the stimulus has. If not for that hard lesson, we might be stuck with ObamaCare...

Oprah Winfrey's endorsements have been golden for many book publishers and product makers. But some picks have tarnished the talk show host's reputation a bit. "The Oprah Winfrey Show" garnered lots of publicity -- and some enthusiastic new fans -- when it gave away new cars to all 276 members of its studio audience one day in September 2004. The marketing stunt cost General Motors $7 million and generated a lot of buzz for Winfrey and her show. But it did not translate into sales for the car in question, the 2005 Pontiac G6. Trade magazine Automotive News reported that...

Michael Jackson fatigue has set in among Americans inundated with titillating media coverage of the pop star's celebrated life and unexpected death almost three weeks ago.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Nearly two out of three Americans believe the media gave too much coverage to the death of Michael Jackson and just three percent think it was too little, according to a survey published on Wednesday. Twenty-nine percent of the 1,000 people polled June 26-29 for the survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press believe the coverage of Jackson's sudden death on Thursday at the age of 50 was the "right amount." Thirty percent of those polled said they followed the coverage of Jackson's death "very closely" while 28 percent said they followed...

The real strength of American popular culture, in fact, is its democratic impulse -- a willingness to take into account the reality that, for most people, entertainment is an end in itself. American entertainment bows to what economists call "consumer sovereignty," and (Michael) Jackson's popularity, with its demonstrable impact on music, dance and fashion, was a clear example of that. That accounts for the fervor that has the performer's fans organizing candlelight vigils around his star on Hollywood Boulevard and mass "moonwalks" in London. But what explains the saturation media coverage of Jackson's death -- coverage that crowded out virtually...

I am referring to the TV, not the website. How can they possibly justify this coverage? Surely they cannot be talking to the average Joe on the street, as nobody I know cares one whit about this.

If President Obama's job approval ratings begin to dip, the cause isn't likely to be disapproval of policies so much as the public getting exhausted at an overexposed presidency. Obama speaks two or three times a day, invites news networks (ABC and NBC of late) to take up residence at the White House, appears with foreign leaders and even makes fun of his relentless presence on camera. "'Inside the Obama White House' is my favorite new show: There's just something compelling about the main character," our 44th president told the radio and TV correspondents dinner. "It's wonderful narrative. In fact,...

Actor Jeff Goldblum died while filming a movie in New Zealand early this morning - June 25, 2009. Preliminary reports from New Zealand Police officials indicate that the actor fell more than 60 feet to his death on the Kauri Cliffs while on-set. Specific details are not yet available. The accident occured at aproximatly 4:30 a.m. (UTC/GMT +12). Additional details and information will be forthcoming.

A Truth and Reconciliation Commission could smooth the transition. Thirty years ago, millions of Iranians took to the streets to demonstrate for their fundamental rights. They demanded the basic freedoms of Azadi-e Baian, Azadi-e Qalam, Azadi-e Andish-e: freedom of speech, freedom to write, and freedom of thought. They called for independence. And they demanded the end of the monarchy and the establishment of an Islamic republic. But the revolution of 1979, which began with the hope of freedom, has ended in the rule of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mr. Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust and boasts that he would wipe Israel, a...

Enough, already. That's the reaction of many Republicans to Dick Cheney's surge of media appearances to defend the Bush administration, especially on national security issues. "I don't think anybody would call him and say, 'Shut up.' It wouldn't work," says a GOP strategist who formerly advised Ronald Reagan. "He obviously feels that his work as vice president is under attack. But he is not our best spokesman." The concern among Republican strategists is that the public will think Cheney is speaking for the GOP, and this won't be helpful because the former vice president remains an unpopular figure across the...

Liz Cheney is defending her dad once again. Former Vice President Dick Cheney recently defended the Bush administration’s handling of the War on Terror and criticized the Obama administration for making the nation "less safe," i.e., releasing details of interrogation techniques used on terror suspects. Cheney’s comments have been slammed by the White House, with spokesman Robert Gibbs saying Cheney should stop regurgitating "ideas and a series of thoughts" that "the last election rejected." But Liz Cheney, a former State Department official, said on MSNBC today that her father is speaking out of genuine concern for the country and to...

Bill Bennett, CNN's token conservative, has been at that leftist network for too long. He is fast becoming the liberal idea of what a conservative should be. We all know what kind of "conservatives" the Left pretends to like - Colin Powell, Peggy Noonan and the like. If any of these people is the least bit conservative, it would have to be Conservative Lite. We could see which way the professor was going when he co-authored this defense of John McCain as the likely Republican presidential nominee back in February of 2008. Well, now we all know what a smashing...

U.S. Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., says he has introduced a bill that would limit when TV and radio advertisements for erectile dysfunction medication can be aired. Moran said he proposed the bill in April after hearing numerous complaints about radio and TV advertisements that offer medication to help with the sexual dysfunction, CNN reported Thursday. "A number of people," Moran said, "have come up, including colleagues, and said I'm fed up. I don't want my 3- or 4-year old grandkid asking me what erectile dysfunction is all about. And I don't blame them." Moran's proposal would have the Federal Communications...

The amount of stories about pit bulls is just plain silly! I don't know what pit bulls have to do with the essence of this site but since so many articles are posted maybe they need their own section for "pit bull stories". Maybe they are posted to push out important articles about what is really important to those of us who cherish this site, or how about pit bull free week? Lets see if we can live with out pit bull stories? For major pit bull addicts you can always get an RSS feed from google to keep up...

It's been 100 LOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG days and I am sick to death of OBAMA. Everywhere I turn, there's another OBAMAITE swooning over his swindling style.What worries me is not his lies, deceit, socialist agenda or his developing a civilian army or his bankrupting bailouts or plagues visited upon us...it's that he is giving all our technology to countries like Turkey, who in turn gives it to China, Russia, Iran, Syria and a host of other "FRIENDLY" nations.I worry for the sovereignty and the wellbeing of the taxpaying citizens of this country who are being ripped off right and left, and the...

Meghan McCain says we need to take back Twitter from the creepy people—like Karl Rove, "America’s Toughest Sheriff," and the other undesirables who now follow her every Tweet. Karl Rove follows me on Twitter. That’s creepy. I joined Twitter a few months ago; so far, it has been a liberating way to transition from political to personal blogging. It’s allowed me to share the less-serious aspects and humorously uncensored moments of my life. But there’s also been a downside: I am now being followed by Karl Rove, and my local sheriff, and God knows how many other political pundits. We...

Isn't it time for him to go home yet? It is good, in theory, that the new President of the United States is taking so much time to tour Europe. He arrived in London last Tuesday, has been to Strasbourg, Prague yesterday and now he's off to Turkey. It shows, I suppose, that he cares about the outside world and that is 'A Good Thing'. But his long stay means that we are hearing rather a lot from him, way too much in fact. His speeches have long under-delivered, usually leaving a faintly empty sensation in this listener even though...

Nevadans (South Dakotans) must -- must! -- re-elect Reid (Daschle). Not on the merits of performance, but because he's a Beltway big shot. Conventional wisdom says he's just too darn powerful to throw away. He's politically to a small state what AIG is to the economy -- "too big to fail." I'm not buying that bedtime story, and if Harry's smart he shouldn't either. Even in the best of times, Nevadans love to hate Harry. In fact, the further away Harry gets from the dwindling numbers inside Las Vegas union halls, the testier people become toward him. If Harry banks...

Isn't it time for him to go home yet? It is good, in theory, that the new President of the United States is taking so much time to tour Europe. He arrived in London last Tuesday, has been to Strasbourg, Prague yesterday and now he's off to Turkey. It shows, I suppose, that he cares about the outside world and that is 'A Good Thing'. But his long stay means that we are hearing rather a lot from him, way too much in fact. His speeches have long under-delivered, usually leaving a faintly empty sensation in this listener even though...

Kerry Dougherty Kerry Dougherty's column appears in the Hampton Roads section of The Virginian-Pilot every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Pit bull carnage continues Tired of hearing about pit bulls? Me too. But as long as people are allowed to keep these animals in residential areas, we're going to keep a body count. Two. That's how many children have been killed so far THIS WEEK by pit bulls. The most recent attack was this morning, in San Antonio. A seven-month-old baby was shredded by two pit bulls who breeched a baby gate and killed the infant in a bed. Last Thursday...

President Obama is a man in a hurry. He knows that time is not on his side. He will never be as powerful as he is now, and his opposition — the leaderless GOP — will never be as weak. So he pushes hard to win acceptance of as much of his agenda as possible, but the inevitable erosion has already begun. Last month, his approval rating was in the mid-60s. Now it's in the high 50s. Last week a Zogby poll had him at 50 percent. Many voters are increasingly put off by the spectacle in Washington. A couple...

Mr. Speaker, recently released documents from AIG accounts for some of the more than $180 billion in aid that AIG has received. And it's revealed that over $58 billion of that $180 billion has gone to foreign banks around the world. And $58 billion have gone to French banks, German banks. French and German banks, respectively, pulled in $19 billion and $17 billion of American taxpayer money. I understand the outrage over bonuses, $166 million in bonuses, but that's a pittance compared to the $58 billion that have gone to overseas banks. Societe Generale, based in France, was the top...

Sen. John McCain's daughter continued her all-out media tour with a stop on CNN's "Larry King Live" Tuesday night, voicing support for her father's campaign opponent, President Obama, but none for her Republican critics. Meghan McCain, a columnist for TheDailyBeast.com, also tried to take the high road after conservative radio host Laura Ingraham had joked about the 24 year-old's weight last week. "As far as I'm concerned with what's going on with Laura Ingraham, on my end, it's over," McCain told King. "There are nine million women in this country suffering from eating disorders. And I'm not going to be...

Democrat anger at Obama overkill Concern is mounting at the president’s tactics The AIG saga has prompted some senior Democrats to distance themselves from Obama Tony Allen-Mills WHEN the White House announced last week that President Barack Obama will be returning to the nation’s television screens on Tuesday for a prime-time press conference that will postpone the latest episode of American Idol - the talent show watched by 25m viewers - fans of the programme were quick to respond. “Stop, please stop, Mr O, we can’t take much more,” one angry viewer wrote on an Idol-related website. “Not again!” complained...

Concern is mounting at the president’s tactics The AIG saga has prompted some senior Democrats to distance themselves from Obama WHEN the White House announced last week that President Barack Obama will be returning to the nation’s television screens on Tuesday for a prime-time press conference that will postpone the latest episode of American Idol - the talent show watched by 25m viewers - fans of the programme were quick to respond. “Stop, please stop, Mr O, we can’t take much more,” one angry viewer wrote on an Idol-related website. “Not again!” complained another. “It’s the same speech he’s been...

Saying the federal government has taken too much control over Kansas affairs, some key state senators and a minor political party are supporting a resolution to affirm the state's sovereignty.Senate Concurrent Resolution 1609 by Sen. Mary Pilcher Cook, R-Shawnee, calls on the federal government to "cease and desist" from withholding federal funds or otherwise penalizing states that don't comply with federal mandates.The resolution cites the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reserves to the states powers that aren't specifically granted to the federal government.Pilcher Cook said she was not yet ready to discuss the resolution with the media.But the...

The French writer François Mauriac once said during the cold war that he loved Germany so much, he was glad there were two of them. After what an undivided Germany had done to France in World War II and before, that was understandable. To paraphrase Mauriac, I love France, but I don’t want there to be two of them, least of all if one is in the United States. Don’t get me wrong, I think President Obama’s counter-revolution goes in the right direction. In fact, it’s less a question of right and wrong with his budget than of necessity. After...

Atlas is done with merely shrugging. Atlas is raging. The Ayn Rand novel, "Atlas Shrugged" is much in the news this week because of the absolutely fantastic rant on CNBC the other morning by on-air editor Rick Santelli. I happened to be watching CNBC when this all took place, although I suspect this may become one of those thinks like Woodstock which, over the years, seven million baby boomers have proclaimed they were in attendance. This was the morning after President Obama had announced his plan to save the housing industry by helping bail out people who weren't making their...

15) The stimulus bill is the single largest spending bill in the history of humankind and yet, Obama is running around telling everyone how he's going to cut the deficit in a few years. Obama claiming to be a deficit hawk -- that's like getting a lecture on honesty from Bill Clinton. 14) ACORN, which engaged in large scale voter fraud during the 2008 election that won't be seriously investigated because Obama is in the White House, is now unapologetically breaking into houses across the country and encouraging squatters. Apparently, if you're a liberal group, you are above the law...

Am I the only one who is sick of the fixation on Barack Obama's visit to Ottawa? He is not God. He is not even our president. He is a Chicago politician who was elected by and works for Americans, something that Obama understands even if breathless Canadians occasionally forget. The best thing about the new U.S. president is that he's not George W. Bush. But that doesn't make him a saint. It just makes him not George W. Bush.

Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) today becomes the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives in history, but his honor comes just as his colleagues have effectively declared that his time of grand power has passed. As he eclipses the 53-year-and-two-month tenure of former congressman Jamie Whitten (D-Miss.), Dingell's 19,420-day career representing the western suburbs of Detroit has been remarkable not just in length but also in accomplishments. The 82-year-old held the gavel in 1965 when the House passed the legislation that created Medicare, he helped write the 1973 Endangered Species Act, and he led dozens of investigations into waste...

I'm not writing about the Barack Hussein Obama government this early in his administration. It would sound like sour grapes and as an American, I do wish Obama well. But Sen. John McCain of Arizona has to "get out." John, buy a house in Green Valley, join a country club and go away! Our form of government is called advisarial. That means Democrats don't have to love Republicans, Republicans don't have to love Democrats. McCain has become a joke! He stood by while some of the Cabinet picks were shooed in. Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder and that tax evader Tim...