Free Republic

The future of conservatism is bright. All those liberal Republicans who were arguing that the GOP needed to “rebrand” itself and move leftward are now crying in their coffee. Arlen Specter is feeling lonely. Break out the world’s smallest violin. I’m verklempt. Bloomberg News: At a Tuesday reception for moderate Republicans, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter hushed the cocktail chatter when he began ticking off a long list of like- minded lawmakers who no longer hold office. “Today, we’re in a phone booth,” Specter said. To conservatives at the Republican National Convention this week, John McCain’s choice of running mate Sarah...

There's something about outspoken conservative women that drives the left mad. It's a peculiar pathology I've reported on for more than 15 years, both as a witness and a target. Thus, the onset of Palin Derangement Syndrome in the media, Democratic circles and the cesspools of the blogosphere came as no surprise. They just can't help themselves. Liberals hold a special animus for constituencies they deem traitors. Minorities who identify as social and economic conservatives have left the plantation and sold out their people. Women who put an "R" by their name have abandoned their ovaries and betrayed their gender....

There's something about outspoken conservative women that drives the Left mad. It's a peculiar pathology I've reported on for more than 15 years, both as a witness and a target. Thus, the onset of Palin Derangement Syndrome in the media, Democratic circles and the cesspools of the blogosphere came as no surprise. They just can't help themselves. Liberals hold a special animus for constituencies they deem traitors. Minorities who identify as social and economic conservatives have left the plantation and sold out their people. Women who put an "R" by their name have abandoned their ovaries and betrayed their gender....

Reader Monica M. sent me a link to the Democratic Underground’s latest thread for commenters to come up with nicknames and posters to slime GOP Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — and then to “spread [them] all over the ‘net.” There are now nearly 100 filthy, hate-filled responses and counting. Among the “nicer” entries: “Cruella,” “Gidget,” “Governor Jesus Camp,” “VPILF,” “Fertilla the Huntress,” “Iditabroad,” and “KILLER PYSCHO FUNDIE BITCH FROM HELL!!” The link should have come with a blood pressure warning. These people make Palin-bashing prenatal care expert Alan Colmes look like a saint. Peer with me further into the liberal...

We noted the nutroots’ deepening Palin Derangement Syndrome over the weekend, topped by a diarist at the Daily Kos who’s been spreading disgusting, bottom-of-the-barrel rumors — picked up by the excitable and shameless Andrew Sullivan — about Gov. Sarah Palin’s youngest child and attacking one of Palin’s daughters as the mother of Trig. The Free Republic fights back with photos of a very pregnant Gov. Palin in late February. I linked to an April blog post from an airline passenger who met the pregnant governor on a flight from Fairbanks. It is unbelievably surreal that this dirtbag Kossack rumor has...

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Exposed. [F]ormer Joyce Foundation board member Barack Obama has secured yet another faux Second Amendment supporter in “lifelong Republican” Tony Dean, a long-time host of hunting and fishing television shows in South Dakota. Dean told the Dallas News he’s switching parties to head a Sportsmen for Obama group. A “lifelong Republican” that is “switching parties to head a Sportsmen for Obama group”? This is an interesting claim, given that Dean was mentioned by the Rapid City Journal in 2003 as a “possible Democratic candidate for Congress” who endorsed Democrat Senator Tim Johnson for reelection just a year earlier. Dean’s efforts...

Fox News Channel isn't always getting fair and balanced treatment from protesters at the Democratic National Convention this week in Denver. In at least two instances this week, Fox News -- which is often accused of conservative leanings despite its "Fair and Balanced" claim -- was under siege by DNC protesters. On Sunday, Fox reporter Griff Jenkins was doing a live shot of what he described as a 1,000-person antiwar protest march, when things went awry. In the shot, which is still getting heavy play on YouTube.com, Jenkins attempts to ask some of the marchers what they were protesting. He...

In this exclusive Pajamas TV video… Michelle Malkin is under attack by self-described anarchists yelling “Kill Michelle Malkin” in front of the Denver Mint. (NOTE: We are providing more or less raw footage here for timeliness. The Malkin incident does not appear for several minutes; please be patient. Pajamas Media will provide a more carefully edited high definition version of this incident soon.)

Watch this video and you will be convinced that there is no bigger thug on the planet than Alex Jones. You can clearly see in this VIDEO Alex Jones stirring up a mob who scream "KILL MICHELLE MALKIN!!!" This is a Pajamas Media TV video that starts off on a humorous note about the loons trying to levitate the Denver Mint. However at about the 2:45 mark things get ugly. Very ugly with Jones' ugly face contorted with hate as he stirs up the crowd. This could very easily have erupted into violence. So where were the Denver police?...

After they surrounded Michelle and the shouts of “kill Michelle Malkin” started, it looked like it would be desirable to intervene, so I moved between them. Miss Alex didn’t like it. He shouted at me; when that wasn’t fun, he shoulder butted me and screamed at me to keep my hands off him. When we moved away, he blindsided me with what felt like an elbow across the kidneys. If you watch the video, you’ll see that throughout, his camera guy was more or less up in my face.....

In this exclusive Pajamas TV video… Michelle Malkin is under attack by self-described anarchists yelling “Kill Michelle Malkin” in front of the Denver Mint...

There’s much more to the story of Obama’s amended campaign finance reports than what Obama and the Obamedia will tell you. I will fill you in on what’s missing in a moment. What we have here, essentially, is Obama using a non-profit group called Citizens Services Inc. as a front to funnel payments to ACORN for campaign advance work. Obama officials say it’s no big deal. Nothing to see here. Move along. But where there’s left-wing laundering smoke, there’s fire. CSI has been the subject of a little-noticed complaint to the FEC by a Democrat who smelled something rotten going...

My syndicated column today delves into the Democrat Party platform and exposes how untold amounts of taxpayer funding would be steered to militant, George Soros-backed left-wing groups. Welcome to Barack Obama’s “Social Investment Fund Network.” Follow the money. That goes for both presidential candidates who carry the Soros taint. Ugh. --snip-- The Democrat Party platform is like a bag of pork rinds. You never know what high-fat liberal government morsel you’re gonna get. Buried in the 94-page document is a noble-sounding proposal to create a “Social Investment Fund Network.” The program would provide federal money to “social entrepreneurs and leading...

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

Well, I have a headache after listening to the new rap song, “Kill Bill O’Reilly.” How out of date are the rappers who composed this masterpiece? They saw fit to include me in their broadside despite the fact that I quit the show 10 months ago.

Michelle Malkin notes that unhinged Leftists are blaming her "hate" for the murder of the Arkansas Democratic Party chairman, and that this isn't the first time they have done this sort of thing. What does this have to do with jihad? Everything. Just as Leftists consistently try to portray conservatives as purveying "hate," so also do jihadists and their allies insist that any honest discussion of the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism is "hateful." The advocates of the "Fairness Doctrine," which would restore the hegemony of the politically correct Left over the airwaves, are numerous. And so also are the...

Bitter Half Alert: Here she goes again. But don’t you dare breathe a negative word about what she says on the campaign trail, because she’s just a “civilian” whom you should lay off of–and if you don’t you’re a racist, wife-beating brute! MichelleO, MichelleO, MichelleO: Michelle Obama mixed a story about how her husband, the Democratic presidential candidate asked her out, with a solemn assessment of U.S. economic and social conditions during a visit to the Denver area Wednesday. Obama spoke before a crowd of about 150 that paid from $1,000 to $10,000 apiece at a private fundraising dinner at...

Texas' Defending the American Dream summit will include topics for bloggers. Move over, Netroots Nation: The conservatives are coming. As an estimated 3,000 people, mostly liberal bloggers and online activists, convene in Austin next week, the Texas chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a grassroots organization that champions limited government and free markets, has added for the first time a new-media emphasis to its traditional Defending the American Dream state summit. "We're not trying to go toe-to-toe with Netroots," said Peggy Venable, Texas director of Americans for Prosperity, noting that the conservative meeting might be one-tenth the size of the Netroots...

They did it! High school students fighting anti-military bigotry in the Bay Area collected 13,600 signatures and submitted them to save the JROTC program in San Francisco. (I blogged about their signature-gathering efforts last month here.) Keep the counterinsurgency going.

July 09, 2008, 0:00 a.m. La Raza Facts15 things you should know. By Michelle Malkin Only in America could critics of a group called “The Race� be labeled racists. Such is the triumph of left-wing identity chauvinists, whose aggressive activists and supine abettors have succeeded in redefining all opposition as “hate.� Both Barack Obama and John McCain will speak this week in San Diego at the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza, the Latino organization whose name is Spanish for, yes, “The Race.� Can you imagine Obama and McCain paying homage to a group of white...

Telethon Breaks Records, Troops to Receive Largest Care Package Delivery in History Written by Melanie Morgan    Friday, 27 June 2008 The telethon exceeded my wildest expectations. I thought that if we were really lucky, really good, caught some major breaks -we might raise $400,000- tops. Instead, the final tally on the electronic tote board was $1,055,719. In reality, the total far exceeds the final number. The response was so overwhelming that our website could not keep up with the orders. When all is said and done, I am guessing that Move America Forward will have collected about  1.2...

Free Republic Friends Move America Forward and Michelle Malkin have teamed together to host the first ever Internet telethon for our troops.Entitled, From the Frontlines, the eight-hour extravaganza will be V-cast live on UStream.The goal is to send the most number of care packages at one time to our troops fighting the war on terror.The all-star line-up of guests includes Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Jackie Mason, Ann Coulter as well as veterans and Gold Star parents including Marcus Luttrell and Joe and Jan Johnson.Michelle Malkin wrote about From the Frontlines today:I’ll be in beautiful Mountain View, CA all...

Yet another U.S. Marine, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, had charges dropped Tuesday in the so-called Haditha massacre — bringing the total number of Marines who've been cleared or won case dismissals in the Iraq War incident to seven. "Undue command influence" on the prosecution led to the outcome in Chessani's case. Bottom line: That's zero for seven for military prosecutors, with one trial left to go. I repeat: Haditha prosecution goes 0-7. But you won't see that headline in the same Armageddon-sized font the New York Times used repeatedly when the story first broke. The Times, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.,...

The Internet firestorm over the Associated Press’s heavy-handed attempt to bully bloggers over fair use article excerpts has been absolutely schadenfreude-licious. Now, it’s time to turn the tables. If your blog or blog commenters have ever been quoted by the AP, listen up: It’s time to prepare a bill and demand payment. First, a quick recap: AP showered a left-wing site with cease-and-desist letters, prompting many political and tech sites to boycott AP content. The latest uproar involves the AP’s pricing scheme charging bloggers $2.50/word and then scaling for excerpt usage. Here’s a screenshot of the media giant’s web usage...

June 11, 2008, 0:00 a.m. D’OH-bama’s Mortgage MessThis is change? By Michelle Malkin If you’re going to promise “new politics,� it would probably be wise to eschew the same old Beltway cronies and insiders who have served presidential nominees of yore. And if you’re going to attack political opponents for playing “textbook Washington games,� it would probably be best not to play them yourself. If you do, you’ll end up tongue-tied in front of the cameras, hung by your own holier-than-thou rhetoric and faced once again with the decision to throw another bad choice under the bus. Yes, Barack...

Hillary’s giving her concession speech today at noon. Her campaign will run the full statement on her website. You’ll be able to find it everywhere else on TV and the Internet, too. But if you view it at hillaryclinton.com, you’ll get something extra special: A bombardment of donation requests. She’s buried in debt–now at $30 million– and begging for cash. Today, Hillary puts her nice mask on...

EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT! Written by Melanie Morgan    Thursday, 05 June 2008 The rest of the country is now being notified in press releases and emails what I have been hinting at on this website for the past few days.The impossibly funny, smart, warm and intellectually driven Ann Coulter is going to join us in the live broadcast "From the Frontlines" on June 26th at HotAir.com presented by Move America Forward, UStream.tv and Kithbridge, Inc.Liberals HATE Ann Coulter. Conservatives LOVE Ann Coulter. Most folks, though, don't know a side of her that I do. Ann is unstintingly generous in giving support to...

<p>Sen. Barack Obama issued a statement this afternoon after a video tape emerged showing Father Michael Pfleger 'speechifying' from the pulpit of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.</p> <p>In the statement Obama said he was "deeply disappointed" in Pfleger after his sermon was captured on videotape showing the priest mocking Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and white people from the pulpit of Trinity, the home church of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Sen. Obama.</p>

I’ve been a fan of Dunkin’ Donuts for years. Their Munchkins are heaven. Their coffee is better and cheaper than Starbucks. And the company’s management has taken a brave and lonely stand in support of immigration enforcement — refusing to hire illegal aliens and blowing the whistle on applicants with bogus Social Security numbers. So it was with some dismay that I learned last week that Dunkin’ Donuts spokeswoman Rachael Ray, the ubiquitous TV hostess, posed for one of the company’s ads in what appeared to be a black-and-white keffiyeh. The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of...

Reader A.F. e-mails the chart of the day. He writes: “Michelle, I work peripherally for the insurance industry and get the industry’s magazine National Underwriter. The May 8 issue contains a cover story titled: “Workers Comp for Illegal Aliens Sparks Debate Among the States.” A box within the text describes which states already provide WC for illegal aliens: “CA, FL, NV, NY, TX and UT expressly include illegal aliens in the WC coverage” —- UTAH??? So you can come to the US, work illegally, complain of headaches caused by a little slip and fall and you can go on drinking...

Does Dunkin’ Donuts really think its customers could mistake Rachael Ray for a terrorist sympathizer? The Canton-based company has abruptly canceled an ad in which the domestic diva wears a scarf that looks like a keffiyeh, a traditional headdress worn by Arab men. more stories like this Some observers, including ultra-conservative Fox News commentator Michelle Malkin, were so incensed by the ad that there was even talk of a Dunkin’ Donuts boycott. ‘‘The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad,’’ Malkin yowls in her syndicated column. ‘‘Popularized by...

All it takes is one gaffe to taint a Republican for life. The political establishment never let Dan Quayle live down his fateful misspelling of “potatoe.” The New York Times distorted and misreported the first President Bush’s questions about new scanner technology at a grocers’ convention to brand him permanently as out of touch. But what about Barack Obama? The guy’s a perpetual gaffe machine. Let us count the ways, large and small, that his tongue has betrayed him throughout the campaign: Last May, he claimed that tornadoes in Kansas killed a whopping 10,000 people: “In case you missed it,...

The good news: Republican senators went on record against the Feinstein/Craig illegal alien farmworker amendment today in a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid. The bad news: There were only 10 of them willing to put their names on the letter: [Image of letter included on site.]Sen. Inhofe wants you to sign the No Amnesty letter. You can do so here. The text: Dear Majority Leader Reid: We write to express disappointment that the Senate Appropriations Committee chose to include in the War Supplemental more than 100 pages of immigration language that would grant legal status to more than one...

You know what I have to say about Barack Obama calling the Tennessee GOP “low-class” and “unacceptable” on Good Morning America because of its ad answering Michelle Obama’s lack of pride in her country? Barack, sweetie, your conversation with ABC News’s Robin Roberts insisting that your wife’s public remarks on the campaign trail be exempt from public criticism doesn’t help my children. The proud Obamas claim they want to talk about the “issues,” rather than “distractions.” But when the candidate puts his bitter half on stage and his chief public surrogate, what comes out of her mouth is an issue....

All week long, you and I have been blasting the bereft Beltway GOP leadership for their empty sloganeering and Obama-esque change obsession. Now, the NRCC is hearing it directly on its website. Reader Fritz e-mails that the comments section in the NRCC blog post by chairman Tom Cole is sizzling hot with aggravated grass-roots conservative feedback. Go check it out. A sample: This is not the message I am looking to support. The message of the Replican Part should be fundumentally different than the Democrats. We don’t need to “fix” the government. We need the Federal Government to do wnat...

Oh, dear Lord. The hapless Republican establishment has gone and made a public embarrassment of itself again. Can your hearts take much more of this? Mine can’t: Hoping to get things moving in a positive direction, House Republicans will on Wednesday begin rolling out their own policy agenda, trying to showcase their differences with Democrats on issues such as health care, the economy, energy and national security. In a memo to be sent to Republican members today, the leadership hints at a new slogan building on the change message that has already been shown to have political resonance with a...

John McCain kicks off his “climate change tour” in Portland today. The Associated Press regurgitates the McCain emphasis on how he will push “free-market principles” to reduce global warming, which he is convinced is real and primarily man-made. (Update: Allahpundit’s got the new accompanying campaign ad.) Take this with a gi-normous grain of salt, my friends: In remarks prepared for delivery Monday at a Portland, Ore., wind turbine manufacturer, the presidential contender says expanded nuclear power must be considered to reduce carbon-fuel emissions. He also sets a goal that by 2050, the country will reduce carbon emissions to a level...

Reader Edgar spots a news article in El Universal about McCain Hispanic outreach advisor Juan “bloc, not a nation” Hernandez. He’s hard at work raising money for McCain, most recently for Cinco de Mayo campaign events. And he must be undoubtedly thrilled, of course, with his friend’s decision to speak to their fellow open-borders radicals at La Raza/The Race. Here’s the Spanish version of the article: Amigo de Fox pide dinero para McCainAmigo de Fox pide dinero para McCainJuan Hernández, un antiguo miembro de la administración del presidente Vicente Fox, dedica la mayor parte de su tiempo a recaudar fondos...

What does that mean for all of us tax-paying angry renters and honorable homeowners who have paid their loans on time?

I got hooked on Starbucks in Seattle more than a decade ago. It was the social thing to do. It became an occupational necessity, then an unbreakable habit. I put up with the “corporate social responsibility” mumbo-jumbo, which the company leavened with an occasional bone to conservatives. As I’ve confessed to you before, I’m not a morning person–and those caramel macchiatos have powered me through many an a.m. The taste and the buzz outweighed the conservative guilt. Over the past weeks, however, Starbucks has left an increasingly bad taste. David Boaz wrote of the company’s ridiculous policy barring gift card...

I’ve written before about organ transplants for illegal aliens–and been attacked by the usual socialist suspects as cruel, heartless, and racist for questioning the wisdom of US public policy that indiscriminately allocates scarce health resources at taxpayer expense to illegal immigrants. The open-borders entitlement mentality has only grown deeper since the last time this issue went national with the case of Jessica Santillan. The ideologues who believe that America should be the medical welcome mat to the world have prevailed.

Sharia in the schools: Monitoring the American madrassa By Michelle Malkin  •  April 11, 2008 09:56 AM Katharine Kersten’s excellent investigative work on the Minnesota taxpayer-funded Islamic school, TIZA, has led to a state probe of the institution. It has also shed light again on the spread of sharia in U.S. secondary public schools. You’ll remember the heated battle in San Diego over Muslim prayers in a public charter school. You may recall the jihadi crossword puzzle discovered by parents in Johnston County, NC. In Contra Costa (CA) County, school officials allowed Islam indoctrination lessons that subjected public school students to...

For those of you in the Baylor University area, tonight is your chance to ask Juan Hernandez about his radical, open-borders agenda and his role in the McCain campaign. The event is free and open to the public. Bring your video camera: Dr. Juan Hernandez, author of The New American Pioneers, will speak at 6 p.m. Thursday in Kayser Auditorium on Mexican immigration. His lecture will be based on his notes, “Why are We Afraid of Mexican Immigrants?”Hernandez, a member of former Mexican President Vicente Fox’s cabinet, will be the final speaker for The Academy for Leader Development and Civic...

There are major new developments today in the case of a supposed beating of a student from Athens Middle School. Charges are being filed against 13 year old Melanie Bowers by Athens ISD through the Henderson County District Attorney's office for filing a false report, said AISD officials today. Bowers claimed earlier this week that she was beaten and threatened - with killing and rape, no less - by a group of students at Athens ISD last Friday, for creating a protest sign saying, "If you love our nation, stop illegal immigration." After Melanie's accusations, administrators reviewed school survellience videotape...

LAKELAND, Fla. - You can hear the girls yelling and threatening the 16-year-old as the punches are thrown. On March 30 Victoria Lindsay endured several beatings, girls hitting her over and over again in the head, knocking her unconscious, then attacking again as she comes to. Eight teenagers have been arrested after filming the beating and threatening to post the video on the Internet (video: MyFoxTampaBay), sheriff's officials said. "She just didn't deserve to be beat down like a dog," said Patrick Lindsay, the victim's father. "When you see your daughter, who's not striking back to defend herself, and someone...

Absolut-ely Ridiculous Rick Moran Take a look at this map that Absolut Vodka is using in its latest campaign in Mexico and the US: Now I have an open mind about a lot of things. But somehow, giving California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, and about 4 other states to Mexico because they don't like a treaty they signed after losing a war 160 years ago seems a little too much in the way of good neighborliness if you ask me. The word is "reconquista." The open borders crowd tells us that this is a myth, that the issue of...

The latest Internet outrage is a vodka maker's ad showing a pre-1848 North America. Not too long ago, Janet Murguia, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza, blasted some television commentators (mentioning Pat Buchanan and CNN's Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck by name) for demonizing Latino immigrants, legal and illegal alike, during the current heated immigration debate. At La Raza's Web site, www.wecanstopthehate.org, among the "code words" used to smear Latinos is "La Reconquista" -- the supposed reconquest of territory that once belonged to Mexico that was sold to the United States at gunpoint following the Mexican...

MM’s (Michelle Malkin's) point about Obama adopting a cretin as his “spiritual guru” is well taken, but as loathsome as the good reverend is, I’m actually on Powers’s side on this one. The guilt-by-association game has gotten tiresome, with Josh Marshall’s attempt to hold McCain responsible for every objectionable word uttered by a conservative being the most imbecilic example. We all play it, me included, but I used to play the “every borderline joke by a liberal is a screaming outrage” game too and that’s also grown tedious. If Obama cut ties with Wright now, would you think any more...

IVAW nutball update: One membership terminated, another indefinitely suspended By Michelle Malkin  •  March 12, 2008 12:53 PM The Iraq Veterans Against the War zealot who threatened to “waste” pro-military activists has had his membership revoked.The Iraq Veterans Against the War zealot who threatened to bomb the Gathering of Eagles and who issued an assassination threat against me has had his membership suspended.An IVAW official also issues an apology: While this blog is not primarily an official blog, and often veers into the personal, I would like to put my official hat on and make the following statement on behalf of Iraq...