Free Republic

Popping up on Facebook tonight, was an acquaintance flogging his blog. What was fascinating was what the liberals and netroots seem to think about how we on the Right do business. Consider it, in many ways, a guided tour through a Leftie's mindset. Included is the assumption that the Left can organize via social networks, but apparentely we cannot. As an EXTRA bonus, he even throws up a link to a group of blogs fighting "climate change" It shows me, how much has changed, and how far Blue America has gone from those of us in Red America. And what's...

'I AM a pessimist by nature, which is why I have spent my life as a journalist in stead of trying to be a leader, which requires optimism." So wrote Robert Novak, who died Tuesday, in his 2007 autobiography, "The Prince of Darkness." He surely anticipated the problems now facing President Obama and Democratic congressional leaders, optimists all. Not that Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are the only optimists who have been flummoxed by the obviously spontaneous outpouring of opposition to Democratic health care bills. Among those optimists are almost all of the Washington press corps and a large...

PITTSBURGH -- A group of Republicans, looking to recoup the party's clout, is borrowing a page from liberal Democrats by beefing up Internet efforts to energize the grass roots. The conservative Americans for Prosperity has further embraced Internet activism to energize its 700,000 members and point them to dozens of town-hall meetings with lawmakers over the past weeks, leaving Democrats on the defensive on a signature issue: overhauling health care. Americans for Prosperity held their conference Right Online here last weekend. It centered on ramping up the use of Facebook, Twitter and other online megaphones to rally conservative opposition to...

Representative Eric Massa (D- NY) addressed an intimate group of Net Roots activists during their annual Net Roots Nation gathering in Pittsburgh this weekend. Mr. Massa reiterated his support for a single payer health care bill. He discussed the risks he takes for wanting to support such a measure in his "right wing Republican district." According to Swing State Project, Mr. Massa won his 2008 race by two percentage points. The voting pattern index (PVI) is a Republican +5 seat. The National Republican Congressional Committee has the upstate New York congressman in their sights for 2010 along with 69 other...

Jake Sherman reports from Pittsburgh on the Netroots convention. It wasn’t as raucous of a reception as some Democrats are getting these days. But one man wanted to make sure former president Bill Clinton heard his gripe. During the opening ceremony for the Netroots Nation convention, a gentleman in the middle of a large convention hall room stood up and scolded Clinton for his don’t ask, don’t tell policy. Clinton clarified his stance, but not without a subtle jab at conservative Republicans staging opposition at health care town halls across the country. “You ought to go to one of those...

Former President Bill Clinton will be the keynote speaker Thursday at the Netroots Nation convention being held at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center this week. Netroots Nation is a group of liberal bloggers who use the Internet and grassroots activism to promote their causes and candidates. In June, the President met with bloggers to discuss a range of topics, from the environment to health care to the role of today's new progressive era. "At a time when we're all working together to make sure we get the change we voted for, President Clinton's message is spot-on. After all, holding...

In a tweet yesterday, Amanda Carpenter alerted us to another example of the close relationship between Democrats and leftwing bloggers intent on destroying Governor Palin: "Anti-Palin blogger cites close ties with "Dem leadership in AK" while angling for a Netroots scholarship." The Anti-Palin blogger is Shannyn Moore, and here's what she wrote: " I am in contact daily with Democratic leadership in Juneau."

We often hear that the Left owns the Net. Like much of what you hear, this is not strictly true. There are no lack of right-of-center websites of all types ranging from personal blogs to influential portals and webzines. (You're reading one of those.) If the total sites of both right and left were comprehensively counted and compared -- probably an impossibility at this point -- the number of sites on our end would likely equal or even surpass those of the left. It would be more accurate to say that the Left uses the Net better. As the late...

A number of interesting observations have percolated throughout the Interweb in the aftermath of the 2008 election - arguments about the "youth vote", the "center-right versus center-left," pushing aside social conservative issues, etc. But one of the most thought-provoking topics receiving attention is the issue of the presence (or lack thereof) of the Right in the online "Web 2.0" universe. As a technology geek by trade, this topic is near and dear to my heart. Much has been made of the aforementioned "youth vote" in the post-election analysis, and within that discussion are implications that the youth were energized by...

A Democrat is poised to take the reins of power in Washington, D.C., and Fresno resident Jim Robinson is feeling a sense of deja vu. It was President Bill Clinton's 1992 election that sparked Robinson's political activism, driving him to create a Web site that made him a grass-roots leader among conservatives before Clinton's term was over. This year, as Barack Obama prepares to sweep into office on another tide of Democratic votes, Robinson and denizens of that Web site, freerepublic.com, are preparing to do battle again. "We'll double and redouble our efforts to fight for what is right," Robinson...

CALL TO ACTION! "FREEPING FOR JESUS": THE VP DEBATE by Kevinole Oct 02, 2008 at 05:51:27 PM PDT We organized a Freep List for the first Obama vs. McCondescending-Asshole debate. As far as I know, this had never been done before. We did a great job and I learned a lot that I could use in making this and future freep list diaries more effective. I fully expect "Mighty Joe" Biden to crush Sarah "I-Shot-Bullwinkle" Palin like a grape. One thing I will not take for granted, however, is the industriousness of the right-wing spin machine. They will be out...

Actually, I don't think the right has played as dirty as this. A Times article by Michael Luo this morning unveils a new netroots enterprise, Accountable America, the unabashed purpose of which is to terrify conservatives from giving campaign money to Republican causes and Republican candidates. It's actually ingenuous. You get a list of past Republican donors and send each of them one, two, many e-mails with the explicit warning that contributing to conservative campaigns may be dangerous to the donor's health. Or, as Luo puts it, "The warning letter is intended as a first step, alerting donors who might...

One thing that hasn't received much attention in conservative and Republicans circles is the ongoing conversation on the left about the possibility of Nuremberg-style war-crimes trials for members of the Bush administration should a Democratic president take office. I'm not exaggerating or introducing the Nazi analogy myself; they actually use the phrase "Nuremberg-style" when they discuss "war-crimes tribunals." And they are quite serious (although the more moderate of them prefer a "truth commission.") At the Netroots Nation gathering in Austin, Texas last month — that is the successor to YearlyKos — Dahlia Lithwick, of the Washington-Post-owned website Slate, did an...

Last week, we published Babba Zee's Anti-Obama Blogs Shut Down by Google, Obamabots. Thurday, Blogger locked our original (and still quite robust) site, DBKP at Blogger for being a spam blog. One would think Blogger would have a system in place before shutting down blogs with any kind of Google Page Rank. After all, your average spam site doesn't acquire much of a page rank. But, apparently, one would be wrong. Our original site is PR-5. Were Obama supporters behind this latest round of blog shutdowns, as they were last month? In Obama's Netroots Supporters Continue "Blog Burning", Confederate Yankee...

The online activists are angry with Barack Obama. But only a bit IT WAS summer and it was Austin, where keeping things weird is a popular civic pastime. But for the 2,000 bloggers and readers at last weekend’s Netroots Nation, the mood was more wonkish than wild. The “netroots”—the online version of “grassroots” political activists—spent hours in panels on policy and technology, and kept up running analyses via blogs and Twitter. They allowed themselves to be plied with margaritas of an evening, but made it back for a morning question session with Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of...

The Austin American-Statesman caved to pressure from the Daily Kos-Netroots Nation and pulled an article from the newspaper's website that poked fun at the liberal convention being held in Austin last weekend.The article, entitled Gore's Surprise Visit Highlights Netroots Conference was published on the front page of Sunday's paper.It was written by feature writer, Patrick Beach--meaning the article was not a straight news piece (think Dana Milbank.)Greg Mitchell, a writer for Editor & Publisher who blogs at the Daily Kos attended the conference as a panel speaker.He brought attention to the article by posting about it the Daily Kos. Mitchell...

Two years ago we here at DUmmie FUnnies documented the first annual KOmmie KOnvention (held in Las Vegas), "YearlyKos"--AKA "Blogolapalooza," because politicans like Mark Warner wined and dined the prog bloggers with chocolate fountains and ice sculptures at a Stratosphere party, in order to gain their support. Well, this year we travel to Austin, Texas, for the YearlyKos, now called, "Netroots Nation." There are MULTITUDINOUS THREADS on this in KOmmieland--you can go there and use the tag, "netroots nation 2008" to find them all. There's even a separate Netroots Nation website, with agenda, speakers, registration info, etc. There are...

With a registration fee of about $500 it was clear that no riff-raff need apply. Discussions with attendees put that in context and explained the need for so much big-money sponsorship. The attendees were largely hand-picked, with their entry and expenses underwritten by various groups in the form of paid 'scholarships' to enable them to attend. Naturally, that meant that there was a selection process in play where scholarships were directed to the most influential and most loyal partisans, giving them the opportunity to make contacts and take advantage of the extensive learning opportunities offered at the conference. Netroots Nation...

So House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is about 40-odd minutes into her "Ask the Speaker" session Saturday at the Netroots Nation confab here in Austin,TX and about to field a question about energy and the environment, when she says she's got to call a friend. Offstage is heard the voice of Al Gore. No, wait he's actually here and the Netrootsters in the airline hangar sized hall greeted him with a nearly a minute long standing O. It was like a surprise guest showing up to jam at a Bridge School Benefit Concert. -- if you're a political geek, which we...

Al Gore steals the show at Netroots By Lilly Rockwell | Saturday, July 19, 2008, 11:01 AM Former Vice President Al Gore stole the show from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s fireside policy chat at the Netroots Nation conference in Austin on Saturday. Pelosi spent 45 minutes talking about abortion rights, efforts to bring the troops back from Iraq and why she didn’t think the Senate version of the FISA bill was appropriate. Some questions seemed to take her off guard, such as when one audience member asked about care packages being sent to troops, and if Congress should pass a...