Free Republic

Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign is trying to tap a new audience of potential voters by taking his campaign message straight to liberal and nonpolitical issues-based blogs, which reach millions of readers but don't often delve into conservative politics. The strategy was in full swing yesterday when Mr. McCain invited non-conservative bloggers to join his regular blogger conference call, just hours after he delivered a major speech previewing his war strategy and other priorities for a first presidential term. It already has started a war among liberal bloggers over how to react to Mr. McCain's overture. In answering the first...

I must admit that I had just about given up on the notion that a Republican could win the White House this year. With an unpopular war in its sixth year and an economy heading into a recession, the political landscape had all the earmarks (excuse the expression) of a country that was ready to put another party in power. Additionally, with the history-making candidacies of the first woman and the first African-American with a serious chance to become the nation’s Chief Executive, it looked like curtains for the GOP. Add to that scenario the fact that conservative groups were...

Recently on a talk radio show, the guest, a Democrat, said there was little difference in policy between John McCain and the two Democrats running for President. Many of those calling in agreed. Considering McCain’s recent comments on global climate change and his position on some other issues I can understand why some might have that impression. If voters are convinced there would not be much difference in policy between a McCain and an Obama presidency, it is likely the majority will go for the young, charismatic candidate who would make history as the first black President. If they vote...

Two cheers to the Seattle School District for eliminating its Office of Equity, Race and Learning Support. I'll award the third cheer if a district spokesman's contention that this move is purely a budgetary fix turns out to be a glossing over of the truth. I hope the real story is that someone in charge came to their senses and realized the Office of Equity, Race and Learning Support would have been better titled the Office of Race Propaganda, White Guilt and Bogus Sociology. The director of the office, Caprice Hollins, gained notoriety for a variety of offensive acts. Most...

NORTH BEND, Wash. - John McCain on Tuesday cast Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton as latecomers to the environmental battle, saying he would be willing to debate the issue with either of them in the general election to underscore his experience with the issue. "People will trust my stewardship not only because of my background and knowledge, but also my vision for the future," he told reporters during a news conference at a nature center in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. "They have never, to my knowledge, been involved in legislation nor hearings nor engagement on...

Los Angeles Democrat Karen Bass was sworn in Tuesday as speaker of the California Assembly, the first black woman to lead either house of the state Legislature. Bass told her fellow lawmakers and the California political and cultural figures who attended the ceremony that she feels the weight of history on her shoulders. "If we could only harness the power of our common humanity, I don't think there's anything we couldn't do for the people of this state," she said. The 54-year-old becomes the 67th speaker, succeeding fellow Los Angeles Democrat Fabian Nunez. He is relinquishing the post because he...

“Legal Dramedy”, is how Wikipedia defines the format of the TV series Boston Legal. Living TV describes the show as a “… critically acclaimed and Emmy Award-winning quirky legal drama …” That is a good summary of why I first became enamored with this brilliantly entertaining program. Unfortunately, it has become increasingly common to hear the production characterized as “shamelessly liberal”. With that, Boston Legal’s brilliance and entertainment value has continued to decline and its charm is rapidly fading for me. Ironically, in a recent episode, entitled “Tabloid Nation”, Boston Legal, itself, addresses my very concern. In that episode, during...

• You say that even if global warming turns out to be no crisis (the World Meteorological Organization says global temperatures have not risen in a decade), even unnecessary measures taken to combat it will be beneficial because "then all we've done is give our kids a cleaner world." But what of the trillions of dollars those measures will cost in direct expenditures and diminished economic growth—hence diminished medical research, cultural investment, etc.? Given that Earth is always warming or cooling, what is its proper temperature, and how do you know? ..excerpted...

(IsraelNN.com) A new study carried out at Brandeis University finds that as the liberal Jewish community empowers its women, its men appear to be losing interest in their Jewishness. According to a report in JTA, which publishes parts of the study, "outside the Orthodox world, men are becoming less and less engaged in every aspect of Jewish life, from the home to the synagogue to communal organizations. Numerous studies show that fewer boys than girls go to non-Orthodox youth groups, religious schools or summer camps, fewer go into the rabbinate and cantorate, and fewer serve on synagogue or federation committees....

Dear John, I'm writing because these are crucial times for my country – our country. I don't take political campaign shenanigans lightly, even though I know the whole business costs too much money, takes too much time, avoids critical issues and ultimately gets too dirty. But it leads to the White House and the presidency and "President John McCain" sounds awfully good to you. Yes, yes, I know. Both you and Cindy have said that you want to keep it all on the high road until Election Day – that you don't want to run a negative campaign. I think...

Last week on the Larry King Show, Michael Moore took the high road. He simply could not bring himself to pronounce judgment on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s tirades. “I’m a white guy,” explained the rotund film-maker. “And I mean, you have to ask yourself, Larry, what’s it like to be black in America? ….And I do not believe, as a white guy, that I am in any position to judge a black man who has had to live through that.”

Star-Telegram Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson takes his job seriously. Fine. But he sometimes takes too seriously duties that don't fall within his job description, like being interpreter of the U.S. Constitution and official czar for Second Amendment rights. Patterson, whose title automatically makes him chairman of the School Land Board, is in charge of overseeing some state-owned property. His office has the power to invest in real estate to benefit the Permanent School Fund, which supports public education. For months now, the commissioner has been at the center of a public fight involving a 14.5-square-mile tract in West Texas...

There is a news report starting to make the rounds amongst the MSM on a study that claims to have discovered why conservatives tend to be happier than liberals and it is just the sort of bilge that the MSM loves to promulgate. We may see more of it over the next several days because, while it is titled “Conservatives Happier Than Liberals,” it is basically saying that the reason conservatives are happier is because they just don’t care about other people. This purported research claims to pinpoint the reason conservatives are happier and it is because they have theirs...

She was once the darling of conservatives like Newt Gingrich, but now you can't watch a television news-talk program without seeing her calling for more government and showing scorn for those who want less. She's Arianna Huffington, website impresario and author of "Right Is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution and Made Us All Less Safe". I interviewed her for "20/20" last week because I was impressed by the success of the website she created. In just three years she made the Huffington Post a hot liberal opinion site. What happened to Huffington's beliefs? In 1994,...

There are major differences between liberals and conservatives, and that’s why I never know what people such as Barack Obama are talking about when they speak of bringing us all together. And I suspect that Jeremiah Wright’s surrogate son doesn’t know, either. For instance, if I support the surge in Iraq and you insist on bringing the troops home by next Thursday, what’s our compromise? Bringing our troops only partway home? Say as far as the Canary Islands? If you’re in favor of same-sex marriages and I happen to think the whole idea is a very silly joke, where’s our...

According liberals, they are tolerant, open-minded, sensitive to complexity and nuance, and wary of simplistic explanations. So why is a column by the liberal Michael Hirsh, in the liberal newsweekly Newsweek, so intolerant, close-minded, simplistic and bigoted? Hirsh’s piece sounds the alarm over the fact that “Southernism” has taken over the “national dialogue” and has “transformed the sensibility of the country, . . .setting the agenda for our political, social and religious mores.” What alerted Hirsh to this “Southernization of our national politics” was a piece in The New York Times about the elimination from the American Idol television show...

America's position on homosexual activity has radically changed over the past few decades. Fifty years ago, every state criminalized homosexual acts under "sodomy laws." As recently as 1986, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of such laws. In 2003 there were still 13 states that criminalized homosexual acts (though the laws were rarely enforced). That year, however, the Supreme Court ruled these laws unconstitutional. Today, laws are used to protect rather than prohibit homosexual activities. The supreme courts in California and Connecticut are about to decide whether same-sex couples have a right to marry in those states. Massachusetts already granted...

Unless we're subjected to another major league game of "double-dare ya" between the Legislature and Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the 2008 session will soon come to a merciful end. With luck, we'll still have a few bucks in our over-taxed pockets and a few freedoms left to enjoy. But with political food fights the name of the game at the Capitol, it can be hard to see beyond the battle du jour and ask ourselves the big question: Who do we want to be as a people in Minnesota? To get some perspective on this, it can be helpful to visit...

Matthew Modine was a guest on Bill O'Reilly's show on 4/29, and made a very strange and incoherent comment that included the N-word. The video is at patdollard.com (Warning- offensive language on this website - I can't even link to the URL name), but the link included (http://thebluesite.com/?p=1475) is a brief transcript of the exchange. I don't know what Modine was trying to say, but if this had been a conservative so casually using this word, it would be all over.

Presidential contender, Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has been taking flak for his 20-year association with Reverend Jeremiah Wright of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ. Wright is now making a tour of media outlets to “try to set the record straight.” “Commentators like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh would have their audience believe that I am un-American,” Wright complained. “Listen, when I said ‘God dam America,’ I was trying to urge the nation to make an investment in the expansion of clean hydroelectric power and flood control. I mean, coal-fired electricity is contributing to global warming. And we all saw...

"Karl Rove, who masterminded the last two Republican victories in presidential elections, is gazing with undisguised relish at the giant target being painted on Barack Obama's back before the next one. In an interview with The Times yesterday, he described the likely Democratic nominee as a “frail� candidate, who represents the values of an out-of-touch liberal social elite and demonstrates “tone deafness� to the concerns of ordinary Americans. “You have probably seen this kind of guy at London parties, trailing ash from a fashionable cigarette into the carpet and making snide remarks about someone ‘being an abominable bore’,� Mr Rove...

In this interview, Arthur C. Brooks, author of Gross National Happiness, offers some telling data about the relative happiness of liberals and conservatives: In 2004, people who said they were conservative or very conservative were nearly twice as likely to say they were very happy as people who called themselves liberal or very liberal (44 percent versus 25 percent). Conservatives were only half as likely to say they were not too happy (9 versus 18 percent). Political conservatives were also far less likely than liberals to express maladjustment to their adult lives. For example, adults on the political right were...

It is a tribute to John McCain's remarkable political luck that the issue of his temper should arise just as the Democratic contest has reached a stage of red-faced, ear-steaming mutual contempt. It was former President Bill Clinton, not McCain, who recently lost his cool during a meeting with California superdelegates. In a finger-pointing rage over Gov. Bill Richardson's endorsement of Barack Obama, Clinton claimed, "Five times to my face (Richardson) said that he would never do that." The San Francisco Chronicle reported that one attendee called it "one of the worst political meetings I have ever attended." All of...

Barack Obama, meet John Adams. Adams noted during the Boston Massacre trial that “Facts are stubborn things.” And it appears that, for the moment, the facts have caught up with Obama here in Massachusetts. How else to explain the amazing, astounding and unthinkable results of the latest SurveyUSA presidential poll: Republican John McCain is tied with Barack Obama in the Bay State. The last Republican to win Massachusetts? Ronald Reagan. The last Republican before that? Dwight Eisenhower. Even George McGovern managed to carry Massachusetts in 1972, the one Democratic holdout in Richard Nixon’s 49-state landslide. Replace “McGovern” with “MoveOn.org” and...

Just in time for Earth Day, Palo Alto must decide which grass is greener - composting within city limits or creating a new park. Residents insistent on seeing the Byxbee Park landfill become parkland - as required in the Baylands Master Plan - could force the city to start trucking out its compost to a regional location, such as the Sunnyvale station. The trucks would add 1,100 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, according to a feasibility study released last week. To put that sum in context, city staff members estimated that the city's entire fleet of vehicles emits...

Violent chickens roost on candidates' shoulders: exploring the liberal/Marxist nexus Wes Vernon April 21, 2008 Last week's Clinton/Obama debate opened a new door on an old coalition: What is it about Marxists (violent or otherwise) that attracts liberals (well-meaning or otherwise) to their defense? What is their common goal (to the extent that they have one)? The counterculture sixties Here is the mantra of the Weather Underground, as enunciated by one of its leading disciples: "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents. That's where it's really at." Who said...

White House security personnel have reportedly booted a young female intern off the staff after discovering she was a mole planted by the Democrats -- on a mission to seduce President George W. Bush! While the mystery woman's name has not been revealed and the strange incident has been hushed up, administration sources claim that sneaky Democrats cooked up the botched scheme, hoping to create a Monica Lewinsky-type scandal and unseat Bush. "The infiltrator was unmasked within six weeks after Inauguration Day," said a high-level Republican Party source. "Because of the swift actions taken by the White House staff, this...

We were not as completely aware as to how deeply the Socialist movement had permeated our core and our culture until the Vietnamese War. It was then that this disorganized and traitorous mob tested its strength by pulling the plug on our soldiers with a propaganda campaign never equaled in our history. With the aid of our weak legislative leadership and a willing and uninformed press we allowed victory to the North Vietnamese and the eventual slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents. It was a black blot in the history of a once great nation. The North Vietnamese admitted...

Voluntary, Not Mandatory, Indoctrination by: Bethany Stotts, April 17, 2008 The University of Delaware is considering a revival of its controversial residence life program, confirming Accuracy in Academia’s suspicions that President Patrick Harker’s halt to the program was a result of the media coverage rather than remorse over the curriculum content. Indeed, President Harker argued in his letter to the community that he was upset “that the actual purpose [of the program] is not being fulfilled,” but that he still promotes residence life programs which “support the intellectual, cultural and ethical development of our students.” President Harker later referred the...

It's OK to pick on fat people in the workplace … isn't it? Apparently, too many people think the answer is yes, according to a new study from Yale University, which found discrimination against overweight or obese people may not only be the last "acceptable" bastion of prejudice, it may actually be more pervasive than discrimination based on race. "We found that weight discrimination is very common in American society and it occurs virtually as often as racial discrimination," Rebecca M. Puhl, one of the study's authors, tells DiversityInc. "In fact, among women, weight discrimination was actually more common than...

Here’s an informative news analysis: “The session of Congress beginning tomorrow may not do much – a little bread and a few circuses – but it may well vote a 5-cent increase in the gasoline tax, the idea being to repair highways, bridges, and so on, and to put some of the unemployed back to work. Practically everybody says it’s a nice idea. But the Democrats want to spend the money where unemployment is highest; the Republicans want to spend the money where the repairs need to be made. And the two are not always in the same places. …...

For those who have been paying close attention to the gap between the rhetoric of Obama during the incipient stages of his campaign and the trickling evidence of his core political beliefs, based on his actual record as a legislator and as expressed in the recent controversies that increasingly are defining his candidacy, it was only a matter of time before the mythologizing started to wear off. As an obscure state senator from Illinois with a limited political pedigree, in Obama’s own words, the entire justification for his candidacy was that given his mixed racial ancestry, he alone was capable...

Recently, Collin Powell's new group, America's Promise Alliance, issued a report (the link to it is at the bottom center of their home page.) from the EPE Research Center listing the large cities in this country which had the worst graduation rates. Shockingly, many of our biggest cities have graduation rates of less than 50% with the worst, Detroit, graduating only 25% of it's high schoolers. Given the perception that most cities are liberal leaning at best, I decided to see if there was any correlation between a city's liberalism and the results from this graduation rate study. Yes, I...

I'm about done with Obama over this mill-closures-drive-small-town-losers-to-guns-and-God business. If you're running as a glamorous blank slate on which people project their own utopian fantasies, you've got to be very careful not to give the game away - especially when the game turns out to be the usual cliched elite disdain for the great unwashed. I mention in the current issue of NR how odd it is that Michelle Obama is in many ways more condescending on the stump than Teresa Heinz Kerry. Now her husband's at it, too. As Ed Driscoll says: Leave it to Obama to make John...

The professor told his class one day: 'Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will e-mail your partner that paragraph and send another copy to me. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story and send it back, also sending another copy to me. The first person will then add a third paragraph,...

Barack Obama joined Democratic presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday in calling for President Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games in Beijing. Clinton had commended British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for announcing that he will skip the August ceremonies in China's capital, and called on Obama and likely Republican presidential nominee John McCain to join her in urging Bush to do the same. Obama did later in the day; his campaign issued a statement in which, for the first time, he urged Bush to boycott the festivities. Activists are urging world leaders to stay away...

Hi, I'm Nick and I am from Illinois. I'm writing on this page because I have been brought up to be very liberal on every issue dominating the upcoming presidential election. I feel like I kind of been brain washed into thinking this way and have this image of every right-winged supporter to be a redneck, gun crazy racist. Now I know that this is sure as hell not the truth, but the real truth for me is that I really do find it hard to agree with a lot of Republican ideals especially when dealing with illegal immigration and...

When liberals don't like a policy, they turn it into a giant boogeyman. The liberal response to the cold war was to run around screaming for 30 years that the nuclear missiles were about to fall and wipe out the entire planet. Endless tedious novels, movies and songs were produced based on the premise that we were all about to die. At the heart of that obsession was the idea of "Nuclear Winter", a concept which had as little credibility as human centered global warming does.

From the Phillies 2008 campaign: Libertarian Presidential candidate George Phillies today condemned claims that the Libertarian Party is a right-wing conservative Party. "Libertarians are not conservatives," Phillies said. "It is an act of fraud, a violation of our party's statement of principles, to lure conservatives to join by lying to them. Claiming our party is 'true conservative' is dishonest, and will wreck our party. "Yes," Phillies continued, "there are issues where we agree with conservatives. There are also issues where we agree with progressive liberals. For voters: If you agree with us on issues you care about, please vote for...

Recent polls are showing that by a good 60% margin, Barack Obama is seen as a candidate who can "unify" the nation.  This may be the most brilliant example of what George Orwell called "doublethink" in the recent history of the Democratic Party.  Think about it: for over thirty, maybe forty years the American public has been variously sermonized and threatened by crusaders in Obama's same party into embracing not unity, but "diversity."  Call it what you will - brilliant or duplicitous - it is still a masterful political achievement. For decades students in our schools have been told to...

Since the 1960s, bigotry has undergone an aesthetic makeover. Today, the most pernicious racists do not wear pointy hoods, scream epithets and anonymously burn crosses from behind masks. They don starched suits, recite sententious bromides and stage political lynchings before television cameras. For proof, behold the mob stalking Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Wright has long delivered fiery (and occasionally outrageous) sermons, to little fanfare. Now, though, a gang of thugs is inflicting a guilt-by-association blow to Obama by excoriating his spiritual adviser for three specific declarations. Sean Hannity, Fox News' own George Wallace, turned a fire hose on...

Last week, a mob of screeching protesters invaded the Bear Stearns headquarters in Manhattan demanding more aid for homeowners. As you know, I oppose federal bailouts of every make and model — and that includes both the Bear Stearns deal and the bipartisan stimulus-palooza in Washington. But the bank-bashers who held their demonstration in New York City against Bear Stearns and JPMorgan are totally unhinged. And out of control. Here is the face of the entitlement culture gone mad: “We will go to their neighborhood, we will educate their children on what their parents do. They should be ashamed,” said...

When it comes to being labeled "a liberal," Barack Obama is dismissive. "Oh, he's liberal. He's liberal," he said recently in describing a characterization of him by Republicans. "Let me tell you something. There's nothing liberal about wanting to reduce money in politics. It's common sense. . . . There's nothing liberal about wanting to make sure that everybody has health care."

SANTA ANNA PUEBLO, N.M.— Advisers to Sen. John McCain's presidential bid say he will not try to "soften" the Republican party's platform on abortion and same-sex marriage to appeal to more voters. McCain associates told The Washington Times that his operatives are not going to work behind the scenes to eliminate the party's calls for constitutional bans on abortion and homosexual marriage before the GOP convention in September. Previous Republican nominees, such as former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, have sought to alter the party's positions, which are honed and released in the platform immediately before the nominating convention. Mr. McCain,...

Attn McCain Apologists: Talk all you want! But he's still a constitution trampling RINO and unless he repeals McCain-Feingold, repudiates amnesty and global warming, drops all support for embryonic stem cell research and stops talking about partnering up with the Democrats and instead swears to fight the evil bastards he won't be getting my support. You kicked the conservatives to the curb and nominated your RINO, now all you gotta do is get him elected. However, that shouldn't be all that tough to do. Look what he'll be running against. A corrupt, power hungry Marxist radical feminist control freak or...

Obama is liar. He claimed he never heard anything controversial from his pastor just before he claimed he had in his big race speech. His dishonesty has been shown in full light to any honest American. But Obama has also attempted to portray himself as a moderate candidate who will bring about unity. He is attempting to decieve and lie to the American people by hiding his true far left record. He is not middle of the road, and he in no way represents a uniter. He would be the most liberal President in our history if he were to...

By now, most McCain haters will have already skipped down to the comments section to post their expletives and tell me how it’s a free country and they have a 1st Amendment right, etc. to yammer on and on about how bad McCain sucks, totally missing the point of my post, again. But I’m here to tell you, in this free country, that in my opinion, you should SHUT YOUR STINKIN TRAP! To all you ingrates, rageaholics, and self-absorbed punks, WE KNOW YOU HATE MCCAIN. You can give yourself a rest now and stop posting on every single thread the...

John McCain's unconservativism was on display this past Wednesday in Los Angeles.  Perhaps not in all ways, but in one telling way.  Before a gathering of the World Affairs Council, the Arizona senator outlined his thinking on national security and foreign policy.  The speech's larger elements have received plenty of coverage.  One element did not.   McCain made a stalwart's argument for finishing the job in Iraq.  That's a good thing, and expected.  He made a case for greater collaboration with America's allies.  That's a nod to the prevailing sentiment that Cowboy America needs to become Settler America-you know, an America...

Republican presidential candidate John McCain launched his first television ad of the general election on Friday.It portrays the 71-year-old Arizona senator as a courageous leader with the knowledge and experience to keep the country safe as a wartime commander in chief.For now, the ad will run only at a strong level throughout the swing state of New Mexico.Other states will follow in the coming weeks.McCain has lagged far behind his Democratic rivals in fundraising -- and that money would finance ads.In February, Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton raised more than $80 million. McCain raised $11 million and...

Here is a video report that seeks to answer the question, "Is Barack Obama too liberal?" It examines the issue from both sides, and does a fairly good job of bringing out some of the key issues.This is the ground on which the 2008 General Election will be decided. John McCain must convince Americans that we simply cannot afford Obama's far-left liberal agenda. There are a myriad of issues and examples with which to highlight Obama's liberal record and intentions.Obama has already tried to inoculate himself against this attack by essentially saying the use of the word "liberal" is out...