Free Republic

Like millions of their fellow Americans, the First Family often gathers around the television on Sunday nights to watch ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition team create livable homes for families in need. Such a fan of the show, First Lady Michelle Obama couldn't resist jumping in and helping out on the Sept. 25 season premiere. "This particular show is especially moving because it features Barbara Marshall, a Navy veteran, who despite her own struggles opened her home to serve homeless female veterans in her community," Obama tells PEOPLE. "She's an amazing example of the strength, values and service of America's...

8/10/2009 - BEAVERCREEK, Ohio (AFNS) -- Amid a hearty "welcome home" shout-out from Airmen and volunteers, an employee from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, fought back tears as he and his family saw their new, custom-built home for the first time Aug. 6 here. James Terpenning, a civilian computer specialist, received the house after being selected by producers of the popular ABC-TV series "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," which is an Emmy award winning reality television series that provides home renovations for deserving families. Mr. Terpenning, who is confined to a wheelchair, said the experience was a dream come true. "We...

A group of men from the 7 Nissan neighborhood in northern Mosul shovel the trash that has accumulated in empty lots and along curbsides. Many neighborhoods in Mosul are undergoing clean-up projects to beautify the city's streets. Photo by Sharla Perrin, 1st Cavalry Division Public Affairs. MOSUL — In the past, this city had often been referred to as the last haven of insurgent activity in Iraq.  However, as security has improved, the residents are working to beautify the city they love so much. Col. Greg Maxton, the deputy commanding officer of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division,...

Call it the “Extreme Rake-Over: Taxpayer Edition.” Three years ago, Patricia and Milton Harper were handed the keys to their brand-new, 4BR dream home on ABC-TV. When Ty Pennington handed them the keys, he also gave the Harpers $250,000 to cover taxes and maintenance for the next 25 years. Three years later, the home is in foreclosure and scheduled for auction - another “casualty” of the mortgage crisis. A free house, a sack of dough, and the Harpers still managed to get $450,000 in debt and lose their home? They are the poster couple for the $300 billion mortgage bailout...

“Ooh-rah!” What else did you think Marine Iraq war veteran Daniel Gilyeat would yell when he saw his new home? Today was the day Gilyeat and his four children finally got to see what a crew of hundreds has been working on for the past week: their new home, compliments of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”

Representative Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) speaks at a news conference after an altercation with a Capitol Hill police officer earlier in the week in Washington March 31, 2006. McKinney is waiting to learn if she will be charged for apparently striking an officer after she entered a House office building earlier this week unrecognized and did not stop when asked. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Extreme Makeover: Church Edition From the producers of the hit Trading Worship Spaces comes an all new ecclesial reality series Extreme Makeover: Church Edition. Put together a Church renovated sometime since or during the sixties, a deserving parish, and our team of experts. Our special team consists of Duncan G. Stroik and others of the new wave of classical architects, liturgical experts who actually follow Church documents, artisans in hand embroidered liturgical vestments, and Choir directors specializing in Gregorian chant. Each episode of Extreme Makeover: Church Edition is self-contained and features a race against the liturgical clock on a project...

Last week, we wrote about the cornucopia of celebs who support clemency for convicted murderer Stanley "Tookie" Williams, co-founder of the Crips and murderer of at least four people (probably more). To recap, we reported that Williams was a multiple-time Nobel Prize nominee for writing a kids book and allegedly helping to stop violence (not really). Today, we have some questions we'd like to raise about Tookie. Questions that were NOT raised by the mainstream media. But, first, we'd like to draw your attention to "their" Tookie versus the REAL Tookie Williams, as encapsulated in the photo the liberal (mainstream)...

WELLS — Doug Goodale's story was custom built for television. A Maine lobsterman who cut off his right arm in a freak fishing accident, Goodale made a perfect candidate for "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," the hit reality TV show that each week creates a lavish new dwelling for a needy family with a compelling story. This fall the show enlisted more than 1,000 volunteers and replaced Goodale's double-wide mobile home with a $500,000 log home. But in the weeks since Goodale, his wife and their two children moved into their new home, the story of the 40-year-old lobsterman has become...

Facing criticism that he appeared disengaged from the disaster wrought by Hurricane Katrina, President Bush has been looking for opportunities to show his concern. But the White House will take the effort a step further Tuesday, venturing into untested waters by putting the nation's first lady on reality television. Laura Bush will travel to storm-damaged Biloxi, Miss., to film a spot on the feel-good, wish-granting hit "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." Mrs. Bush sought to be on the program because she shares the "same principles" that the producers hold, her press secretary said. It's not clear exactly what Mrs. Bush will...

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (Army News Service, Sept. 19, 2005) – The home “makeover” of a Soldier injured in Iraq will kick off the season premiere of ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” Sept. 25. In late June, the family of Master Sgt. Luis Rodriguez got a surprise visit from the cast and crew, including the popular Ty Pennington, and a new 3,225-square-foot home near Fort Campbell, Ky., specifically tailored to the Rodriguez family’s needs. Rodriguez was injured in Iraq in 2003, losing his right leg above the knee, two fingertips on his left hand and he sustained serious shrapnel wounds when...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Texas woman has sued ABC's popular reality show "Extreme Makeover" for more than $1 million claiming among other things that an abrupt cancellation of her appearance on the program led to her sister's death. Deleese Williams of Conroe, Texas, claims she came to Los Angeles to be a contestant on the show after undergoing a series of medical exams to determine if her crooked teeth and droopy eyes could be fixed and her small breasts enhanced, according the suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. The suit starts with the blunt description: "Deleese Williams is...

LOS ANGELES - The producers of "Extreme Makeover" promised Deleese Williams "a Cinderella-like" fix for a deformed jaw, crooked teeth, droopy eyes and tiny boobs that would "transform her life and destiny." But when the ABC reality show dumped the Texas mom the night before the life-changing plastic surgeries, it shattered her family's dream and triggered her sister Kellie McGee's suicide, says a bombshell lawsuit filed in L.A. Superior Court. As part of the premakeover hype, producers coaxed McGee and other family members to trash Williams' looks on videotape, the suit alleges. When they suddenly pulled the plug on the...

Downey family has sued ABC and the producers of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," claiming that there is a tale of greed and deception behind the scenes of the heartstring-tugging reality hit. In a suit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Charles Higgins II, 22, and his four younger siblings say that the producers took advantage of the family's hard-luck story and promised them new cars and other prizes to persuade them to participate in the program, first broadcast on Easter Sunday, March 27. The Higgins children say that after both parents died within weeks of one another in 2004,...

WASHINGTON, May 20, 2005 – ABC's hit TV program "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" this weekend will feature the show's design team building and furnishing a new home for the family of a soldier killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The family of Army Pfc. Lori Piestewa, a soldier who died during the opening days of the Iraqi war, recently took ownership of a new $500,000 house north of Flagstaff, Ariz., that resulted from the effort. A team from the Extreme Makeover program designed the sprawling home and furnished it in a southwestern motif. A two-hour season finale, to air May 22,...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is scheduled to make a cameo appearance on the ABC television show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" on Sunday to tout the use of solar electricity in homes and businesses. The Republican governor will appear during Sunday night's episode, when a home is renovated with a solar photovoltaic system that allows the house to produce its own electricity, helping the owner to save on electricity bills, according to ABC's Web site and the San Francisco nonprofit Vote Solar. Schwarzenegger is championing new legislation - known as the Million Solar Roofs Initiative - that would create...

BREMERTON, Wash. (NNS) -- A Kingston, Wash., family benefited from the generosity and teamwork of Navy volunteers when ABC's hit TV show, "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" built them a new 3,200 square foot custom home Nov. 10-17. In the episode, which airs on ABC Jan. 9 at 8 p.m. eastern, nearly 200 crew members from USS Columbus (SSN 762) and USS Ohio (SSGN 726), together with Seabees from Bangor, Wash., and some crew members' spouses, answered the call to help build a new home for the Dore family. The family, a widow and her three daughters, had been living on...

TO:  Bush-Cheney '04 Campaign LeadershipFM:  Matthew Dowd       Chief StrategistRE:  The Democratic convention and its       effect on the presidential race John Kerry becomes the first presidential candidate since 1972 to receive a negative bounce from his convention.  Kerry’s performance in Gallup's post-convention poll is even worse than George McGovern’s in 1972, making it the worst convention bounce in Gallup’s history of presidential campaign polling.  "An examination of Gallup polls in presidential elections since 1976 reveals that a challenger's vice presidential selection and nominating convention can have a dramatic (if often short-lived) effect on the head-to-head poll numbers.  In fact, historical analysis suggests John Kerry should...

BostonAT 4:15 ON MONDAY, July 26, Miss Teen New Mexico takes the stage at the Democratic convention to belt out a stirring rendition of the national anthem to the nearly empty Fleet Center. What it stirs, mainly, is a sense of dread. Looking for my niche in the teeming journalistic ecosystem, I've settled on the quaint concept of ditching the receptions and covering the convention--the parts you don't see on TV. The sessions are gaveled to order each day at 4:00 P.M., and there are hours of events before prime-time coverage begins. Happily, there are almost no other reporters around....

BostonSOME PARENTS probably had visions of incontinence on long family car trips when Alexandra Kerry promised Thursday night that, should her father become president, our children will be able to "control their own bodies." But if the reference went over the heads of confused Middle Americans, abortion advocates had no trouble recognizing it as a bone thrown their way by the Democratic campaign. Kerry's own challenge to President Bush--"Let's never misuse for political purposes the most precious document in American history, the Constitution of the United States"--will have been received in living rooms across the nation as an insistence that...