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June 20, 2008Berkeley, California This week the global edition of the New York Times ran an article titled "Michelle Obama to get subtle makeover." This in itself would normally not be a big deal, but it just so happens the consultant brought in to do this makeover is an old friend of mine, (Fabulous) Frankee Felaesho! I call Frankee (Fab) to get the inside poop on his Obama overhaul.According to Fab, there were several areas the campaign staff wanted to address in response to negative public perceptions. He faxed me his Makeover Action Plan (MAP): Perception: Michelle Obama hates white peopleRemedy: Instruct Michelle to (1) start referring to...

Now her husband’s presidential campaign is giving her image a subtle makeover, with a new speech in the works to emphasize her humble roots and a tough new chief of staff. On Wednesday, Mrs. Obama will do a guest turn on “The View,” the daytime talk show on ABC, with an eye toward softening her reputation. Her problems seemed hard to imagine last fall and winter. Mrs. Obama, a Harvard-trained lawyer, appeared so at ease with the tactile business of campaigning and drew praise for humanizing, often with humor, a husband who could seem elusive. Then came some rhetorical stumbles....

Michelle Obama's eyes flicker tentatively even as she offers a trained smile. As her campaign plane arcs over the Flathead Range in Montana, she is asked to consider her complicated public image. Conservative columnists accuse her of being unpatriotic and say she simmers with undigested racial anger. A blogger who supported Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton circulates unfounded claims that Obama gave an accusatory speech in her church about the sins of "whitey." Obama shakes her head. "You are amazed sometimes at how deep the lies can be," she says in an interview. Referring to a character in a 1970s sitcom,...

Rudy Giuliani yesterday cited 9/11 to justify his conversion from ardent gun-control advocate to supporter of citizens' rights to bear arms. "You have to look at all these issues in light of the different concerns that now exist - which is terrorism - the terrorists' war on us," the GOP presidential front-runner said in an interview with The Associated Press. Giuliani said his conversion was triggered in part by a court ruling striking down local firearm restrictions in Washington, D.C. "It is a very, very strong description of how important personal liberties are in this country and how we have...

I just got an email from a realtor I had talked to a while back. I thought some of us MN Freepers might want to go over and watch or volunteer. They began construction today, Aug. 21 and will go for, of course, the next seven days. Click here to volunteer. If you want to just watch, Click here for maps on how to get there if you just want to be in the crowd!

NEW YORK, New York, May 16, 2007 (ENS) - Former President Bill Clinton today announced the creation of a $5 billion global effort to fight global warming by retrofitting existing buildings with more energy efficient products, thereby reducing the emission of greenhouse gases. A project of the Clinton Climate Initiative, the program brings together four of the world's largest energy service companies, five of the world's largest banks, and 15 of the world's largest cities to reduce energy consumption in existing buildings. President Clinton announced the Energy Efficiency Building Retrofit Program at the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit now underway...

The TV show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" will be making a dream come true for a local single mom and her four sons, thanks in part two donations from two local companies - Curtis Lumber in Ballston Spa and Furniture Theatre in Malta. Debbie Oatman-Gaitan answered her door at 23 Fairway Lane in Colonie Thursday to discover she had been selected to receive a free new home. Demolition of her existing house is to begin Saturday. The new house, which will be near the Town of Colonie golf course, is scheduled to be ready on Thursday. Yes, a new house,...

WILFORD, Idaho (AP) -- The Hepworths knew the house would require some maintenance. But they never thought they'd need a snake charmer. Shortly after Lyman and Jeanine Hepworth began working on a rundown property outside of town, they experienced a trauma more fit for Samuel L. Jackson's character in "Snakes on a Plane" than a pair of eastern Idaho do-it-yourselfers. Snakes, perhaps thousands of them, fell on Lyman Hepworth's head when he opened the door to a pump house near the small house the couple planned to buy. "When it warmed up, we walked onto the yard and the whole...

7/20/2006 - ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska (AFPN) -- Used to dealing with extremes in the Alaskan environment, nearly two dozen Airmen from Elmendorf Air Force Base and three Soldiers from Fort Richardson drove to North Pole, Alaska, to lend their assistance in building a home for a family in need. They were joined by more than 150 Airmen and Soldiers from Eielson AFB and Fort Wainwright. North Pole residents Betsy Rogers, her nine children, her brother and his children all lived in a two-bedroom home. More than 300 friends and neighbors nominated the Rogers family for the ABC reality...

U.S. Army Maj. Rhonda A. Keisman (second from right) checks the progress of Iraq's Muqdadiyah Technical School. U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Cassandra Groce Iraq's Diyala Province Schools Get a Makeover A U.S. Army civil affairs team and Iraqi engineers monitor reconstruction work on three schools, ensuring the contractors meet the necessary requirements. By U.S. Army Pfc. Cassandra Groce 133rd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment MUQDADIYAH, Iraq, Feb. 27, 2006 — Through the efforts of Iraqi locals and coalition forces, the schools in Iraq's Diyala Province are getting a makeover. "The goal is to turn the projects over to the...

Organization to pay spin doctor USD 180,000 to boost its image among Americans, Europeans. Hamas has an image problem, advisor says Hamas makeover? The Hamas organization has recently hired a media consultant, and has paid the specialist USD 180,000 for boosting Hamas' image among Americans and Europeans, a report in British newspaper The Guardian revealed this week. According to the report, quoted in Israel's leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, the consultant is Dr. Nashat Aqtash, a media professor at the Birzeit University in Ramallah. Aqtash was entrusted with helping Hamas in persuading the western nations the organization was not a fanatical...

Photo sourceABC's Extreme Makeover may promise to make "dreams come true" by giving participants looks they've always wanted, but a Conroe woman who was cut from the show the night before she was to undergo extensive plastic surgery says the experience was nothing short of a nightmare. In a lawsuit filed Friday in Los Angeles, 30-year-old Deleese Williams says her experience with the show set in motion a spiral of events that eliminated her self-esteem, strained her relationships with loved ones and prompted the suicide of her sister, Kellie McGee. According to the lawsuit, Williams flew to Los Angeles...

PENTICTON, B.C.—Hours before a 22-year-old personal banker won a free set of breast implants, elderly churchgoers did their bit to change the minds of 36 contestants ....[Skipping the whole beginning, which was kinda irrelevant] "[I]t's my body and I'm going to do whatever I want," said Tiffany Friesen between celebratory screams and gulps of champagne inside the club. Names of all the contestants, most of whom were 19 or in their early 20s, were taped to a prize wheel for a chance at the $3,000 prize. One by one they filed up on stage in mini skirts and tight dresses...

Microprobe makeover for museum's mummy Selina Mitchell JUNE 28, 2005 THE CSIRO has teamed up with the National Gallery of Victoria to reconstruct and conserve the last resting place of a teenage Egyptian priestess who died around 700BC. The coffin lid, one of the first major Egyptian antiquities to arrive in Australia, is in a fragile state. About 60 per cent of the wood, and even more of its painted surface, are lost, but the original bright colours on the remaining pieces survive under layers of dirt – gallery officials think. "It's good that it's in many pieces, because unlike...

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,...

<p>Hate the U.S. tax code? Now's the time to speak up.</p> <p>The President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, four months into examining what's wrong with the U.S. income tax system, is soliciting ideas from the public.</p> <p>It is possibly the first time in history — and certainly the first time in generations — that the general public has been asked to help revamp tax law, said Jeffrey Kupfer, executive director of the panel. Taxpayers have until Friday to submit proposals on how to fix or replace the income tax system.</p>

With one eye on the present and the other on the presidency, Hillary Clinton has left her husband's shadow behind to enjoy her political sunshine. Michael Gawenda reports. Several weeks ago, during a lightning trip to Iraq by a group of United States senators, Hillary Clinton, the junior senator from New York and the former president's wife, who was the subject of more abuse, rumour and innuendo than any first lady in American history, gave a rare interview on one of the Sunday morning television talk shows. She was sitting in the garden of the US compound in Baghdad beside...

After five months in prison, Martha's primed and ready for her next act: two TV shows and a marketing blitz stage-managed by a new A-list team. Inside the Martha Makeover Machine. Stewart: What a difference a prison stay makes NewsweekMarch 7 issue - Just after 5 on a recent frigid winter morning, Debbie Gettings lined up outside a Detroit TV studio for a chance to work for her idol: Martha Stewart. The 34-year-old suburban homemaker was not deterred by the fact that Stewart, at that moment, was sleeping in a prison cell in West Virginia. To the contrary, Gettings is...

How can Coyote battle gravity in space, where everyone floats? WATCH out world, I’m angry. Warner Brothers is messing with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, updating them for the 21st century. Is nothing sacred? Calling them Loonatics, as if they were escapees from Bedlam, these descendants of our familiar friends will rocket through space some 700 years in the future. Instead of their natural fur and feathers, they have been redrawn wearing hard-edged space costumes and now resemble Japanese robots. Most appallingly, each has been given a crime-fighting superpower. Why? When did we stop believing that ordinary human traits such...

When Oklahomans who live on the street decide it's time to start over, they need help. The reality is, thousands of people have nowhere to live and little hope for a future. Amy Lester explains how one organization is giving a group of women a new lease on life. For 15 women who recently lived on the streets, a new life is right around the corner. Today, they learned a lesson that raises their self-confidence to a whole new level. It's a day full of pampering -- fit for a beauty queen. From the shortest hairs to the longest locks,...

HILLARY MODIFIES ABORTION LANGUAGE Proposing new political language about abortion rights for an increasingly skittish Democratic Party, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that friends and foes on the issue should come together on "common ground" to reduce the number of "unwanted pregnancies" and ultimately abortions, which she called a "sad, even tragic choice to many, many women." Clinton, in a speech to about 1,000 abortion rights supporters at the state Capitol, firmly restated her support for Roe v. Wade. But then she offered warm words to opponents of abortion and said that faith and organized religion were the "primary"...

PHOENIX (Nov. 19) - For Ray Krone, his crooked smile became a criminal offense. Krone was wrongfully convicted twice of killing a Phoenix woman based largely on expert testimony that purportedly matched his teeth with bite marks found on the victim. Now the ABC reality show "Extreme Makeover" plans to transform the since-exonerated Krone, once dubbed the "snaggletooth killer," into a man with a winning smile. "It's the embarrassment of being called the snaggletooth killer, living with that," Krone said in a phone interview before heading to California for his cosmetic adventure, which began Thursday. "My teeth are what they...

There is a new documentary about Kerry. I don't know if this has been posted already. I did a search and couldn't find where it had. Go to demextrememakeover They have just posted the documentary and it is called Kerry Iraq Documentary. It illustrates Senator Nuances semantical word play about Iraq. He can try but he can't run from his own words. He isn't as slick or charming as Clinton.

Dear FReeper,The extreme makeover of John Kerry continued last night in Boston.Centrist Democrats paraded across your television screen to praise the most liberal Senator in Washington and his running mate - the 4th most liberal member of the Senate.The Democrats are working hard to make Americans believe that these far-left politicians are actually mainstream.  Only you can ensure this doesn't happen.www.GeorgeWBush.com/JebBush/My brother is the President, and I am very proud of him.  But the truth is, I would be working just as hard for his re-election if he wasn't.Why?Because I believe he is the right person to lead.My brother believes that...

"There is neither strength nor wisdom in John Kerry's vacillation on the very serious issue of Iraq and the War on Terror.  John Kerry's positions have shifted with the political winds - a troubling sign for a candidate for President at a time when our nation faces unprecedented challenges at home and abroad.  President Bush has led with the clarity, purpose and strength that comes with the wisdom of a leader with deep convictions and principles and a clear vision for where he wants to lead this country over the next four years."- Steve Schmidt, Bush-Cheney '04 Spokesman Kerry's...

Maine Bush-Cheney ’04 Chairman Peter Cianchette Previews John Kerry’s Expected Makeover During the Democratic National Convention(title edited for length) BANGOR, ME – Today, Bush-Cheney ’04 Chairman Peter Cianchette made the following comments in regard to Sen. John Kerry’s expected makeover during the Democratic National Convention in Boston next week: “John Kerry will not be able to gloss over his out-of-the-mainstream positions during a week-long convention in Boston. Although we expect him to try to transform his record into something that would relate to the American people, he cannot cover up the fact that he has a record of supporting deep...

The Democrats’ Extreme Makeover – Can John Kerry and John Edwards do anything to shake their extreme liberal record? That’s what they’re trying to do in Boston next week but it’s a big job considering those pesky National Journal ratings that list Kerry as the most liberal member of the Senate in 2003 and Edwards as the 4th most liberal member that year. The Problem With the Democrat Platform – Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie began setting the stage for the RNC’s response to the Dems Extreme Makeover in Boston, telling journalists in a conference call Monday, “John Kerry...

The New York Times' Maureen Dowd, whose columns just ooze liberal smugness, chalks up President Bush’s opposition to gay marriage to him being too ''butch.'' In response, she suggests that he and his administration get a makeover from the cast of ''Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.'' In Dowd's warped view, any man who suffers from what she calls "hypermasculinity," must be in need of a cure. Unfortunately for her, you can’t just makeover masculinity, not to mention morality and tradition. Let's get it straight. The president and the pope aren't riding the new gay wave. Until last week's denunciations,...

LOS ANGELES (AdAge.com) -- Major marketers are ogling placement deals on the breakout hit Queer Eye for the Straight Guy even as NBC plots an Aug. 14 special in which they will make over Jay Leno. Highest-ever rating Audience numbers for the July 29 Queer Eye, in its fourth airing on Bravo, shot up 62% from the prior week, according to Nielsen Media Research, earning the cable network its highest-ever rating. "This is the breakout show of the summer on any network, cable or broadcast," crowed Jeff Zucker, president-NBC Entertainment. "It's out of control right now." The Queer Eye premise:...

FREEP!! the Hildebeest in Ridgewood, NJ, on Friday, July 11th at 3 PM, I suggest you get there by 2 PM   Sponsored by the Tri-State Chapter of the  Free Republic   Hillary for President Coming Soon to Bookends BookEnds Hillary Rotten Clinton the Wicked Witch of the EastMeet Hillary Rodham Clinton as she signs; "Living History" on July 11th, at 3:00 PM. 232 E. Ridgewood Ave. Tel: 201 445-0726     Hillary Rodham ClintonThursday, July 11th – 3:00 PMHILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, U.S. Senator and Former First Lady, writes about her life from childhood through the White House Years...