Free Republic

Hiring news rookie CHELSEA CLINTON for NBC’s “Rock Center with Brian Williams” has created an ugly behind-the-scenes backlash, insiders say. The former first daughter is the focus of “intense jealousy” among the show’s female cor­respondents, including news veterans Ann Curry, Natalie Morales, Kate Snow and Mer­edith Vieira, sources say. While the women are honored to work alongside anchorman Williams, legendary “Nightline” host Ted Koppel, former CBS newsman Harry Smith and NBC Sports anchor Bob Costas, “the daggers are out for Chelsea,” an insider told The ENQUIRER. “Chelsea has been hired as a ‘special correspon­dent’ with no TV news experience whatsoever,...

WASHINGTON - Like many members of Congress, Rep. Michele Bachmann has been a fierce critic of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, blaming the government-backed loan programs for excesses that helped create the financial meltdown in 2008. And like millions of other home purchasers, Bachmann took out a home loan in 2008 that offered lower costs to the borrower through one of the federally subsidized programs, according to mortgage experts who reviewed her loan documents. Just a few weeks before Bachmann called for dismantling the programs during a House Financial Services Committee hearing, she and her husband signed for a $417,000...

An employee of Bed, Bath & Beyond in St. Davids Square shopping center reported to Radnor Township Police on June 5 a package containing human vomit was left in the parking lot there. He estimated that about 35 pounds of vomit was in the package discovered June 5 and stated that a similar package was left in the same spot the week before. According to the employee, the package was concealed in a white kitchen trash bag and placed about 10 parking rows from the store behind a tree. Radnor Police redacted information that describes what the hidden package was...

"I find it as cool to be an Obama supporter. Having sat with him for two years is the White House and watched him -- watching him work through some very difficult things with a lot of intelligence and grace, equilibrium. I, I have great admiration for him," Obama's chief campaign strategist told CNN. "The people who were participating in the campaign in 2008 weren't involved n some sort of cult of personality. It wasn't just about Barack Obama, it was the country and they cared deeply about this country," Axelrod said in his answer a question about how to...

House Speaker John Boehner has broken into one of the most exclusive groups in Washington — the small circle of old friends and administration officials President Barack Obama has invited for a round of golf. Boehner, who sports a fairway tan and an 8 handicap, will tee off with Obama June 18 — marking one of the only times the leader of the free world will have played with a Republican or a fellow elected official and the first time he will have played with a sitting member of Congress.

Hero Builders An Oxford company has released an action figure inspired by the capture of Osama bin Laden. Navy SEALs have become national heroes since news broke that they took down Osama bin Laden, so it’s fitting that the newest action figure from a Connecticut company is a fierce looking President Barack Obama as a SEAL. The minute Obama said late on the night of May 1 that the U.S. had found and killed bin Laden, Emil Vicale knew which his action figure company’s would make next -- Rambama. On Wednesday morning, Hero Builders released the Obama SEAL Team 6...

Newsweek Editor Wins 'Obamagasm' Award: Obama 'Sort of God' Monday, May 09, 2011 By Eric Scheiner (CNSNews.com) - The Media Research Center held it’s 2011 Gala and DisHonors Awards event this past Saturday. The DisHonors awards recognizes and roasts the liberal media’s worst moments, with winners in several different categories and an overall ‘winner’ with a ‘Quote Of the Year’. In the “Obamagasm Award” category, the winner was Newsweek Editor Evan Thomas who said, “Reagan [at the 1984 D-Day commemoration] was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is, ‘We are above that now. We're not just parochial,...

SECRETARY OF STATE Hillary Rodham Clinton is more popular than President Obama, the onetime rival who grudgingly dubbed her “likable enough’’ on the New Hampshire campaign trail. According to a new Gallup poll, 66 percent of those surveyed have a favorable view of Clinton, giving her a higher rating than the president (54 percent favorable) or vice president (46 percent favorable). The Gallup poll was conducted from March 25 to 27, while the United States was actively involved in its controversial Libya mission; other polling is even more negative about Obama. As Libya goes, so goes Obama, and Clinton, too....

Run-of-the-mill violence Gene Lyons Probably every decent American had the same emotional reaction as former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to the appalling events in her home state of Arizona. “It sounds like something that might happen in some place like Afghanistan,” she told The New York Times. “It shouldn’t happen in Tucson.” We keep saying that, but political assassinations and assassination attempts are more common in the United States than just about anywhere. During my adult life, lunatics with guns or bombs have changed American history more than any election: President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert Kennedy, Rev....

President Obama will sit down with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly in an interview set to air on Super Bowl Sunday. A Fox News spokeswoman confirmed reports that the president would sit down with the conservative pundit for a pre-game interview before the Super Bowl on the Fox broadcast network. The sit-down will be a moment of outreach between Obama and the network, which his administration has clashed with during the past two years over the network's coverage of the White House. It's also the second straight year Obama will use one of the most watched television events of the...

I am not sure when I first detected the noxious fumes that would envelop the conservative movement in the Obama era. It might have been early on, in April 2009, when I visited a series of gun shows in rural California and Nevada. Perusing tables piled high with high-caliber semi-automatic weapons and chatting with anyone in my vicinity, I heard urgent warnings of mass roundups, concentration camps, and a socialist government in Washington. “These people that are purchasing these guns are people that are worried about what’s going on in this country,” a gun dealer told me outside a show...

"How's that hopey-changey stuff workin' out for ya?" Sarah Palin asked the anti-élitist Tea Party élites — those who could pay $549 for a ticket (liberal lies -tickets were acctually $349 to see Palin) gathered in suffocating self-righteousness at the Opryland Hotel on the first weekend of February. It was classic Palin, a brilliant line, brilliantly delivered: she does folksy far better than George W. Bush or any of the other Republican focus-group populists ever did. It was the signature line of her speech, which rocked the joint — and then, slowly, began to rock the national political community. The...

CHEROKEE (AP) — A casino is battling a highly contagious virus that has sickened hundreds of people. The Asheville Citizen-Times reported today that workers at Harrah's Cherokee Casino and Hotel are cleaning slot machines every two hours with a bleach solution to control the outbreak of intestinal troubles including vomiting and diarrhea. Door knobs, escalator handrails and restrooms are being sanitized hourly.

Obama 'entirely dissatisfied' with jobless rate 15 mins ago WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama said Wednesday he is "entirely dissatisfied" with the level of US unemployment and cannot congratulate himself on his first year in office between the jobless rate is so high. "I am entirely dissatisfied with where we are right now in terms of jobs, and the fact that families out there on the eve of Christmas are still really worried," Obama said in an interview with public television station PBS. "And so I don't pat myself on the back at the end of this year,"...

It is a cynical but time-honoured practice in Middle Eastern politics: the statesmen who decry the political and humanitarian crisis of the approximately 3.9 million Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Gaza ignore the plight of an estimated 4.6 million Palestinians who live in Arab countries. For decades, Arab governments have justified their decision to maintain millions of stateless Palestinians as refugees in squalid camps as a means of applying pressure to Israel. The refugee problem will be solved, they say, when Israel agrees to let the Palestinians have their own state. Yet in the two decades since...

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — The interim Honduran government on Monday revoked an emergency decree that prohibited large street protests and limited other civil liberties following the return of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. The decree, which resulted in dozens of arrests and the closing of two pro-Zelaya media outlets, "has been completely revoked," Interim President Roberto Micheletti said at a news conference with U.S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican. Micheletti did not say whether the lifting of the decree would take effect immediately. He had said in a morning television interview it would be formally repealed Tuesday when the new...

This year's Day of the Soldier celebrations in Honduras got a mixed response. The military is now seen as tarnished by its role in the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya. Tegucigalpa, Honduras - With rifle shots into the air and the national anthem sung by soldiers in salute, Saturday's Day of the Soldier in Honduras seemed no different than any other year's commemorations for the armed forces. But this Oct. 3, after the June ouster of President Manuel Zelaya catapulted the Honduran military into the middle of a political saga, the customary congratulations from Honduran citizens are more muted.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – The coup-installed president of Honduras backed down Monday from an escalating standoff with protesters and suggested he would restore civil liberties and reopen dissident television and radio stations by the end of the week. Riot police ringed supporters of ousted President Manuel Zelaya who gathered for a large-scale protest march, setting off a daylong standoff. The government of interim President Roberto Micheletti declared the march illegal, sent soldiers to silence dissident broadcasters, and suspended civil liberties for 45 days. But in a sudden reversal, Micheletti said Monday afternoon that he wanted to "ask the Honduran people for...

(IsraelNN.com) Iranian protestors threw a show at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as he was riding to speak in a presidential campaign speech, according to Iranian blogs. His convoy sped away from the scene, but supporters of Ahmadinejad called the report a false rumor.

WASHINGTON (CNN)—Arizona Senator John McCain is adopting a major 2008 campaign slogan for a new political action committee designed to support not only his own planned re-election run in two years, but help him put his stamp on the rebuilding of the Republican Party. The formation of the “Country First” PAC is to be announced Wednesday, two sources familiar with the plans tell CNN. One of the sources called it the “first official step” of the GOP Senator’s re-election campaign. McCain made it clear not long after losing the presidential election that he intended to seek re-election to the Senate...

It's one of those things that sneaks up on you in politics, a sense of things happening not quite as you expected. It started in April when our Times colleague Louise Roug called with a quote from Sen. Hillary Clinton.

For most politicians, boxing is a metaphor. But it never has been for John McCain. Hillary Clinton waved Kelly Pavlik’s gloves during a primary stop in Youngstown, Ohio. It was symbol, a photo op, for a candidate who wanted to be seen as a fighter. But gloves are no symbol for McCain. McCain has worn them. The former Naval Academy boxer says he intends to take up an old fight as he resumes the daily rounds of work as Arizona’s senior senator after the Republican nominee lost in a bruising campaign to Democrat Barack Obama for president.

ATLANTA (AP) - Georgia's top court ruled in favor of a transgender politician who was slapped with a lawsuit by two political opponents who claimed she misled voters by running as a female. The Georgia Supreme Court's unanimous ruling on Monday found that the two political opponents who filed the lawsuit failed to produce evidence of fraud, misconduct or illegal action after claiming that Michelle Bruce bamboozled voters by identifying herself as a female. Bruce, who was believed to be the state's first transgender politician, landed one of four council seats in Riverdale, Ga. in 2003. Running unopposed, she pledged...

As he prepared to meet US presidential candidate Barack Obama later Friday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told a French newspaper that the Illinois senator was his "buddy." "Obama? That's my buddy," Sarkozy was quoted as saying in Friday's edition of Le Figaro. "Contrary to my diplomatic advisors, I never thought Hillary Clinton had a chance. I always said Obama would be chosen" as the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. "I am the only French person who knows him," Sarkozy said, recounting that he had met Obama during a visit to the United States in 2006, when he was Interior...

My previous commentaries on Barack Obama's candidature for the presidency of the United States have made it clear that I am sceptical about his winning. I am now even more sceptical despite his de facto defeat of Hillary Clinton for the nomination of the Democratic Party. Sir Ronald Sanders This is not because I don't want him to win. I firmly believe that his election as US president could make for a stronger America both within its own borders and in the world. For, if Obama wins, it will be because a majority of white people joined black people in...

Maybe you thought reality TV hit the lowest of the low when "Fear Factor" contestants devoured cockroaches, or when gold diggers paraded their wares in hopes of marrying a millionaire, or when Tila Tequila got a second shot at "love" with 10 guys and 10 girls. Those shows look like "Masterpiece Theater" compared to what's coming. Take, for instance, "Hurl," an eating-and-regurgitating competition in which contestants gorge themselves on everything from chicken pot pies to peanut butter sandwiches, then get strapped into spinning contraptions -- whoever vomits last wins....

A human tongue has been served up in a hospital canteen's chicken risotto — and bosses reckon it was accidentally dropped into the food by a doctor.

"The Hillary Clinton for President Campaign celebrated the opening of its new San Francisco headquarters with a launch party that coincided with the Democratic presidential debate on July 23, 2007. The radical activist groups Breasts Not Bombs and Code Pink heard about the event and decided it would be a good opportunity to stage a surprise topless protest to publicize their anti-war message." "I heard about the planned party-crashing and made sure I was on hand to record what happened." WARNING: link to website contains topless photos ( Mother-Of-All-Barf-Alerts)"Everyone crowded around several large TVs to watch the Democratic candidates. The...

WASHINGTON - In returning $850,000 to donors associated with a disgraced fundraiser, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton sets a significant new standard for how campaigns should respond in the face of potential scandal. Clinton's decision also underscores the price — financial and political — that her campaign is paying for failing to spot trouble with the fundraiser, Norman Hsu, even after receiving a warning. The campaign announced it would now conduct background checks on its fundraisers, an extraordinary and potentially time consuming step. By returning the money, Clinton also puts pressure on presidential rivals and other politicians with rainmakers who have...

We welcome you to the fourth anniversary issue of the 50 Most Beautiful People on Capitol Hill. With more beautiful people nominees than ever before, making choices was a wrenching and angst-filled process. Thanks to all that participated and we are happy to introduce The Hill's Top 10 beautiful people on Capitol Hill: . . . . 4. It girl strikes a pose Name: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) Age: 67 Hometown: Baltimore, Md. Political Party: Democrat Dating Status: Married to Paul Pelosi It is rather uncomfortable calling the 67-year-old House Speaker HouseNancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), mother of five and grandmother...

In all my years of Today-watching, I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite like the display Matt Lauer put on this morning. In beseeching Al Gore to run for president, Lauer literally portrayed him as the planet's potential savior. "If you were to run for president, you could take this issue to the next level, even if just during a campaign. And if you were fortunate enough to win the presidency, you would sit in the most powerful office in the free world with a real chance to make . . . " Matt stopped himself at the enormity...

Daniel Ortega (R) speak in a Managua hotel November 4, 2006. Carter is in Nicaragua to observe Sunday's general elections. Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo is seen in the centre. REUTERS/Oswaldo Rivas

Elder statesman can bring peace and stability, avoid war It isn't easy to come here and propose that an 83-year-old man should be elected to the post of prime minister, but that's exactly what I intend to do: Shimon Peres for prime minister. Considering the current state of the country – the terrible disappointment over the leading Olmert-Peretz team and the big fear of the Netanyahu-Lieberman alternative – choosing the perennial Peres is the lesser of evils. If Kadima wishes to remain vital, its grand mission now is to replace the prime minister. Olmert won't be delivering. He may take...

WE ARE THE TROOPS Dear Joe, I remember when I was back home from Vietnam and veterans were speaking out against the Vietnam war policy, someone yelled at the vets: "You should support the troops." One of those veterans said simply: "Lady, we are the troops." With a war in Iraq gone horribly wrong and a Republican attack machine determined to smear those who speak out, there's nothing more important this fall than electing veterans to Congress who can speak out about Iraq with a special moral authority. And man, do we need them. Recently, John "Randy" Kuhl, a Republican...

HAVANA -- Iran, Syria, North Korea and more than 100 other nations are pushing to broaden the world's definition of "terrorism" to include the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Converging on Fidel Castro's communist Cuba for a summit this week, members of the Nonaligned Movement complain of a double standard: powerful nations like the United States and Israel decide for the world who the terrorists are, but face no punishment for their own acts of aggression. A draft of the group's joint declaration condemns "terrorism in all its forms," especially violence that targets civilians. Terrorism...

American support for Israel's unwinnable aim of destroying Hizbullah only boosts its support in Lebanon and beyond Noam Chomsky Friday September 1, 2006 The Guardian In Lebanon, a little-honoured truce remains in effect - yet another in a decades-long series of ceasefires between Israel and its adversaries in a cycle that, as if inevitably, returns to warfare, carnage and human misery. Let's describe the current crisis for what it is: a US-Israeli invasion of Lebanon, with only a cynical pretence to legitimacy. Amid all the charges and counter-charges, the most immediate factor behind the assault is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

http://www.strategypage.com/gallery/articles/military_photos_20068293847.asp

Hillary’s Sex Appeal Seriously… By Louis Wittig New York, NY — There was a sharp, mischievous article in this. It just wasn’t materializing. Everything started out great. I arrived early for the press conference at the Museum of Sex where sculptor Daniel Edwards was unveiling his latest piece, The Presidential Bust of Hillary Rodham Clinton. I talked to Bob Kunst, founder of HillaryNow.com, a grassroots pro-Hillary website / organization, who was standing outside the museum entrance holding up a hand drawn “Hillary in ‘08” sign for a dozen reporters and cameramen. I had quotes before I even went inside. And...

Every neighborhood has one, a loudmouth bully who shouldn't be provoked into anger. He's insulted? He'll pull out a knife. Spat in the face? He'll draw a gun. Hit? He'll pull out a machine gun. Not that the bully's not right - someone did harm him. But the reaction, what a reaction! It's not that he's not feared, but nobody really appreciates him. The real appreciation is for the strong who don't immediately use their strength. Regrettably, the Israel Defense Forces once again looks like the neighborhood bully. A soldier was abducted in Gaza? All of Gaza will pay. Eight...

THERE must be something in the water. The family of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the American presidential hopeful, hails from the same part of northeast England as George Washington, the first president of the United States. Clinton, wife of Bill Clinton, the former president, traces her ancestry to a mining family in Co Durham. Washington was the descendant of a family who lived in a village, now a town, of the same name 10 miles away on land once owned by the Bishop of Durham. The lineage of the former first lady, who may one day be an incumbent of the...

COLUMBUS, OH: Bishop Katherine celebrates transgender Jesus By Hans Zeiger VirtueOnline Correspondent www.virtueonline.org COLUMBUS, OHIO (6/21/06)-While addressing a morning Eucharist at the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop-elect Katherine Jefferts Schori declared, "Our mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation. And you and I are His children." With Jefferts Schori as the leader-to-be of the Episcopal Chuch, it seems that the church will move beyond gender-inclusive language to transgender-inclusive language. Yesterday however, the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops refused to even consider a resolution that would affirm the exclusive Lordship of Jesus Christ as "the only...

June 10, 2006 was the date for the World Naked Bike Ride, which -- as its name suggests -- is an international political event at which protesters take off all their clothes and ride bicycles through various cities around the globe. The focus of the protest is theoretically to encourage people to give up their "dependence on fossil fuel" -- but in practice the messages (which the organizers tell participants to paint directly on their bodies) are more scattered, ranging from "free speech" to presidential politics. I attended the San Francisco version of the event, which started at noon in...

What a moron. Ann Coulter, that is. After calling a group of 9/11 widows "harpies" who seem to be "enjoying their husbands' deaths" in her new book, the conservative pundit has gone too far. She even added: "And by the way, how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they'd better hurry up and appear in Playboy..." Huh? Ugly is the only way I can describe what Coulter has written. Now I understand why Time magazine put her on the cover a few years ago and made her look...

Following are excerpts from an interview with the American linguist Noam Chomsky, which aired on LBC TV on May 23, 2006. Interviewer: Do you consider Hizbullah to be a terrorist organization? Chomsky: The United States considers Hizbullah a terrorist organization, but the term terrorism is used by the great powers simply to refer to forms of violence of which they disapprove. So the U.S. was of course supporting the Israeli invasions and occupation of southern Lebanon. Hizbullah was instrumental in driving them out, so for that reason they are a terrorist organization. [...] It's an interesting dilemma. Personally I'm very...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - American director Oliver Stone and British producer John Daly plan to make a film about the 2002 coup that briefly brought down Venezuela's government, President Hugo Chavez said Sunday. Chavez said Stone and Daly plan to announce the upcoming film at the Cannes Film Festival in France. He added that the two called Venezuela Sunday morning to discuss their plans. "They've asked for our permission to announce it today in Cannes, and we've told them yes, that we're interested in that film being made," Chavez said during his weekly television and radio program.

Palestinian Authority marks 'Disaster Day' for State of Israel's establishment. Gaza residents seem worn out, not eager to demonstrate; 'how could people be expected to go out and protest with no salaries?' Fatah activist explains Gaza residents on Monday marked the 58th Nakba Day – the "disaster" that struck the Palestinian people following the establishment of the State of Israel, which caused millions of Palestinians to become refugees all over the Arab world. This year, however, the day was different than before and stood in the shadow of what Gazans refer to as "the current Nakba" – the economic and...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s message to our president ought to give all the leaders of our country as well as the rest of us pause. He is absolutely right to suggest that President Bush, and the rest of our nation, “do some soul-searching and atone for past U.S. transgressions.” While many proclaim that we are a “Christian nation,” we are not. We are not even a moral nation. If we were, our economic policies, both domestic and foreign, would reflect a deep, abiding care and compassion for our brothers and sisters around the globe. We would care for the Earth....

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) crashed his car near the Capitol early Thursday, and a police official said he appeared intoxicated. Kennedy said he had taken sleep medication and a prescription anti-nausea drug that can cause drowsiness. Kennedy, D-R.I., addressed the issue after a spate of news reports. His initial statement said: "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident."'Later, however, he issued a longer statement saying the attending physician for Congress had prescribed Phenergan on Tuesday to treat Kennedy's gastroenteritis.Kennedy said he returned to his Capitol Hill home on Wednesday evening after a final series of votes...