Free Republic

African-Americans are extremely supportive of President Obama, but their enthusiasm appears to have dramatically dropped from earlier this year, according to a new national poll. The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey, released Tuesday, also indicates that Obama's presidency appears to have made blacks more optimistic about race relations, but less than one in five believe the new president has ushered in a new era of race relations in the country. More than nine in 10 blacks questioned in the poll approve of the job Obama's doing in the White House, far higher than 42 percent of whites who approve of...

Opinionated talk is big business on cable news networks when the sun goes down. During the day, though, it's the opposite. MSNBC is shuffling its daytime lineup early next year because its strategy of spreading personality-driven programming throughout the schedule isn't working. The new approach will emphasize a fast-paced review of the day's big stories as they break.

THE TERRY ANDERSON SHOW "Articulating the popular rage!" Sundays - 9 PM Pacific Time KRLA - 870 AM - L.A. --KDWN - 720 - Las Vegas KFNX - 1100 AM - Phoenix -- KCBQ - 1170 AM - San Diego "If You Ain't Mad, You Ain't Payin' Attention!" Call-In Number - (866) 870-5752 Listen Online via KRLA or on the RBN Network at http://www.theterryandersonshow.com/

The close relationship that once existed between Moscow and Pyongyang is a relic of the Cold War. In fact, there is reason to believe that the two neighbors now share little in common. Yet decades ago, the Soviets exercised tremendous influence over the North Korean regime, anecdotally evidenced by Kim Il-sung's fateful request to Josef Stalin asking to invade the South in 1950. Stalin, after much consternation, finally gave his approval.1 By deferring to Stalin, Kim Il-sung sought continued Soviet support, which he received for roughly 40 years until the breakup of the Soviet Union. In the early 1990s, however,...

Why Celebrity Op-Eds Suck Pretty much anything Bono or Sean Penn write is a festival of crap that would never be tolerated from another contributor. Even James Franco sounds like a moron in today's Wall Street Journal. Here's why: Celebrities sell newspapers: which apparently makes it fine to abandon your journalistic standards and give them tacit copy approval to get their name on the cover. Here's what one copy editor, who wanted complete anonymity because everyone gets all angry where celebs are concerned, said of working on a rambling diatribe by a famous columnist for a British newspaper. When it...

With the announcement of Guantanamo detainees being brought to NYC for trial, the news has shifted to that subject. I believe this is an intentional effort to distract the public from Health Care, Cap and Trade, and Global Warming bills. Public opinion clearly is against those actions by congress. Obama is trying to divert attention away from those subjects rather than have them be exposed to the light of day.

The Obama Record After 10 Months10.2%........Unemployment Rate & Rising (Up 42% from Inauguration Day)17.5%........Total Underemployment + Unemployment Rate (Worst in 27 Years) $787...........Billion “Stimulus” (95% Pork Barrel Spending, Waste & Corruption) $700+.........Billion TARP Bank Bailout (Crony Capitalism)$1.6+..........Trillion 2009 Budget Deficit (6,000+ Political Earmarks)$10+...........Trillion in additional deficit spending (Next 10 Years)15%+.........Hike in Individual Federal Income Tax Rates in 2010 (Bush Cuts Rescinded) HOSTILE...Government Takeover of General Motors & Chrysler (ZERO ROI) HOSTILE...Government Takeover of Sallie Mae (Student Loan Industry) HOSTILE...$2.4 Trillion Government Takeover of Healthcare Industry (Socialism) BOGUS......$3 Trillion Cap & Trade House Scam (Junk Science to Kill Capitalism)40+..............Radical, Anti-American, Far...

Perhaps more than any other open-source outfit, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments has put serious intellectual muscle into examining the implications of waging war in an environment where potential enemies don’t just threaten to use nuclear weapons, they actually detonate a nuclear device. While nuclear disarmament remains a noble aspiration, the world is going in the other direction, that is, more states with more nukes, says CSBA President Andrew Krepinevich in a new report, US Nuclear Forces: Meeting the Challenge of a Proliferated World. From four nuclear states in the 1960s, there are now double that number (adding...

While the stock market has picked up and the country appears to be pulling out of the recession, a majority of Americans - for the first time in the Obama presidency - says the U.S. is headed down the wrong track, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll conducted Oct. 22-25. Fifty-two percent say the country is on the wrong track compared to 36 percent who say it is headed in the right direction with 9 percent saying conditions are mixed and 3 percent undecided. While there have been pluralities saying the U.S. is on the wrong track in...

The Obama administration has insisted that the removal of Manuel Zelaya from office violated Honduran and international law and amounts to a military coup. According to one report this morning, though, the United Nations has reached an entirely different conclusion. Hondudario, translated by Google, reports that the UN’s Department of Political Affairs concluded that the removal of Zelaya from office was legal and justified

Here’s your chance to put your opinions to the test -- and win the opportunity to write a weekly column and a launching pad for your opinionating career! Start making your case. Use the entry form to send us a short opinion essay (400 words or less) pegged to a topic in the news and an additional paragraph (100 words or less) on yourself and why you should win. Entries will be judged on the basis of style, intelligence and freshness of argument, but not on whether Post editors agree or disagree with your point of view. Entry deadline: Oct....

The liberals were crazy angry while George W. Bush was president. Part of it was that for a time after 9/11, they were made completely irrelevant — when people are dying, who is going to listen to a liberal? But another part of it is that it’s much easier to hate a person than to hate a concept — like conservatism. So they were able to channel all their hate into President Bush. And they were jumping-around-pooh-flinging-biting-each-other angry. I think a number of conservatives were secretly looking forward to the Obama presidency in hopes that liberals might just calm down...

I already agreed waste, fraud and transparency should be addressed first. I mean you have to do that just to save Medicare. How does that help the uninsured. I mean do you really think the private insurance industry is going to lower premiums, or stop canceling people for no reason, or start covering people with preexisting conditions unless somebody makes them...

Several Core Constituencies Souring on Obama UTICA, New York - President Barack Obama's job approval rating is down to 42%, with a decline in approval from Democrats the leading factor. The latest Zogby Interactive poll of 4,518 likely voters conducted from August 28-31 found 48% disapprove and 42% approve of the job Obama is doing. The poll found 75% of Democrats approve of Obama's performance, a drop of 13 points among Democrats from an interactive poll done July 21-24 of this year. That same poll found 48% of all likely voters approving of Obama's job performance, and 49% disapproving. In...

Here are two poll questions about Ted Kennedy the swimmer.What is your overall feeling about Kennedy?How important is Chappaquiddick to Kennedy's legacy?(Aug. 26) He looks bad already, but I sure would like to see him look a lot worse still. The guy deserves as much respect as he gave Mary Jo on that late night in 69 when he allowed her to die instead of trying to rescue her.If obituaries were written based on Google Trends results, Chappaquiddick would be in the first paragraph of Sen. Ted Kennedy's obituary. "Chappaquiddick" and other search terms related to the car accident on...

I have yet to read an intelligent letter from the Tea Party "patriots" on the subject of health care reform in America. The Tea Party patriots use slogans, appear together in mob mentality using sound bites from the Big Three — Limbaugh, Hannity and Drudge (WLS/890 AM hate radio). Universal health care reform in America is a fact of our lives. It is going to happen and our taxes will pay for it. Our taxes pay for everything. That is how it is in a free country. That is the cost of freedom and everything else in America. Tea Partyers,...

The record U.S. budget deficit poses a serious risk to the U.S. economy, and Congress and President Barack Obama don’t seem to have a plan to deal with it. The risk is that our largest debt holders, the Chinese, seem uneasy about their holdings during a time when the annual deficit is four times larger than last year. In the past 10 months, the federal government has spent about $3 trillion while taking in about $1.74 trillion. Should the Chinese begin to sell some of their holdings, interest rates in the U.S. could increase dramatically. While the Obama administration apparently...

This week, President Barack Obama claimed his version of health care reform is "a core ethical and moral obligation," beseeching religious leaders to promote his government-run scheme. Questioning the patriotism of opponents, apparently, wasn't gaining the type of traction advocates of "reform" had hoped.

Nap time today-about 3:21 pm: Scene was an old-style Western that as a dreamer I came upon to witness. A man with a cloak was beating up on an elderly woman. At first he just punching her body, then he starting kicking her body and she crumpled to the ground. She didn't make much sound. She was gone, or near gone, but on he went. Now kicking her in the head. Then, to my shock he brought out a whip he had hidden in his cloak and started using that. There was another person witnessing the activities--This gentleman was standing...

In my personal opinion, Obama is a disaster for America. I believe future historians will describe this period as the OBAMA CATASTROPHE - the time when America collectively lost its mind and voted for a man and a group of leftists who quickly destroyed the nation in favor of socialism and income redistribution. However, if people want to save the American nation and way of life - the best and most benevolent society in human history; opposition must be passionate and RATIONAL. The entire legitimacy or birther issue is indeed passionate but definitely not rational. It has been frustrating to...

My father owned and operated a junkyard in Tucson for a number of years, and I learned a lot about the auto recycling industry helping around the office and as a delivery driver. So as a junkyard enthusiast, the “Cash For Clunkers” program naturally caught my interest lately. Though it looks to be the product of good intentions, I don’t think the legislation understands that junkyards already comprise an efficient, well developed recycling system for salvaging vehicles, with a beneficial result for the environment overall. I’m skeptical that ...

I publish history research papers by secondary students from around the world, and from time to time I get a paper submitted which includes quite a bit more opinion than historical research. The other day I got a call from a prospective teenage author saying he had noticed on my website that most of the papers seemed to be history rather than opinion, and was it alright for him to submit a paper with his opinions? I said that opinions were fine, if they were preceded and supported by a good deal of historical research for the paper, and that...

Throughout Jewish history the embattled people of Israel have developed conditions and neuroses very similar to They have eschewed uniqueness and national identity. victims of abuse. At times, they have begun to blame themselves for the hatred that they have experienced hurled against them. At other times, they have begun to assume that if they would adopt more universal ideals and become more connected to the greater whole they would cease to be persecuted. As a result of such a desire they have eschewed uniqueness and national identity for the safe anonymity of "sameness". There is nothing inherently wrong in...

The command from his father was gruff, but not unduly so: "Stand up. Put your hand over your heart." Quickly, the boy, I'd say about 7 or so, jumped up from the curb and did just that as several men, all no doubt older than his grandpa, marched by. One played the bagpipes. Another carried the American flag, slowly fluttering in the midday mountain air. All was quiet, save for the bagpipes, as the men strode by. Yet another Fourth of July parade in small-town America. Every year, we go to Show Low for a few days on either end...

Honduras views: Presidential crisis In Central America's worst crisis in a decade, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was sent into exile on Sunday amid a dispute over his proposals to change the constitution. Some Hondurans share their thoughts on the deposed leader with the BBC's Stephen Gibbs in Tegucigalpa: ARGENTINA DOMINGUEZ, Retired President Zelaya deceived us. He talked about democracy but then got too close to [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez. What hurts me most is that four years ago, I voted for him. But look at what he has done. We have become a haven for drug-runners. We have some of...

One of President Obama's favorite words is "unsustainable." It also happens to be the perfect description of his standing with the American people. Polls consistently find he is personally more popular than his major policies. That situation is unsustainable - something has to give. The first law of politics says the two must eventually get in sync. Bet that Obama's popularity will give. In part that's because, even if he wanted to, he can't undo the big policies the public doesn't like, especially his adding to the deficit and his aggressive push to get government more involved in private industry....

Observers across the political spectrum have marveled at Barack Obama's ability to maintain a high job approval rating even as the public grows skeptical about some of his key policy initiatives. There's a feeling, among Republicans at least, that sooner or later he’s going to reach a tipping point between his personal popularity and the unpopularity of his proposals, and that his job approval rating will suffer. That moment will come when Obama has to actually stand behind specific proposals -- when he has to put his name on a health care plan that will lead to the rationing of...

All you need is an email address and a few minutes to give ideas to the President. Apparently he has run out of office space for more Czars and Blue Ribbon Panels to tell him what the US needs.

At the height of the campaign to free Soviet Jewry in the 1970s, Yossi Klein Halevi, today a contributing editor of The New Republic, in those days a young Jewish activist, wrote an article criticizing those American Jewish leaders who were wavering in their support for the Jackson Amendment - legislation linking US trade benefits to Soviet Jewish emigration. He characterized Sen. Henry Jackson, sponsor of that bill, as "the only Jewish leader left in America." Halevi's column came to mind recently when I heard the news that eight Long Island University basketball players, at least three of them Christians,...

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Perhaps this is a tipping point for Twitter - conservative icon Governor Sarah Palin is now tweeting. Under the moniker @AKGovSarahPalin (not very snappy but there are, by my reckoning, already 32 Sarah Palin twitter accounts) the 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate has plunged into the social networking maelstrom... ...In the 14 hours or so since she's signed up she (or whichever staffer is tweeting for her) has sent three tweets. But there's certainly an appetite out there for all things Palin - in that time she's already gained 2,012 followers. While the first tweet reads ominously corporate (declaring this is...

On his 100th day in office, Barack Obama enjoys high job approval ratings, no matter what poll you consult. But if a new survey by the New York Times is accurate, the president and some of his policies are significantly less popular with white Americans than with black Americans, and his sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are.

For the past 20 years, the U.S. has maintained a Minimum Legal Drinking Age of 21 (MLDA21), with little public debate about the wisdom of this policy. Recently, however, more than 100 college and university presidents signed the Amethyst Initiative, a public statement calling for "an informed and dispassionate public debate over the effects of the 21-year-old drinking age." SNIP Our research compares traffic fatality rates in states before and after they changed their MLDA from 18 to 21. In contrast to all earlier work, however, we examined separately the impact in states that adopted an MLDA21 on their own...

Pundits escalate attacks against Obama Carla Marinucci,Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writers Thursday, April 9, 2009 PRINT E-MAIL SHARE COMMENTS (1905) FONT | SIZE: It took fewer than 100 days for conservative critics to start lobbing the F-bomb at President Obama. "F" as in "fascist." Take Glenn Beck, the bombastic Fox News host, who in recent weeks has repeatedly used the term - along with references to Mussolini and pictures of Hitler and Lenin - to describe Obama's efforts to revive struggling banks and automakers. The American Spectator, a conservative publication, earlier this month ran an essay on Obama titled "Il...

Dennis Herrera is running for re-election as San Francisco's city attorney and loudly rumored to be eyeing the mayor's office down the road. So a few weeks ago, he invited about a dozen influential folks to a local restaurant for drinks (on his campaign's tab) and some face time. Those folks were local bloggers. Their questions didn't rock him on his heels initially. Instead, Herrera was quizzed about his favorite movie trilogy ("The Godfather") and what he'd write on a cardboard sign if he were homeless ("Wanna have fun?"). Soon the crowd turned serious and interrogated him about more typical...

It seems like everybody is beating up on greed these days. In the wake of the AIG bonus scandal, pompous members of Congress, the Obama administration and the media are disparaging the very concept. It's time someone stands up for greed because without it, there would be no United States of America.

<p>HAS the world turned upside down? America, the capital of capitalism, is pondering nationalizing a handful of banks. Meanwhile, Canada, whose banking system had long been notorious for its stodgy practices and government coddling, is now being celebrated for those very qualities.</p>

I am working on a project to enable people to get more involved in the political process with the hope that we can start making a difference. To that end I would like to get opinions on what are the top three issues of importance to each of you. Please give me your top three issues. Mine are: 1. Taxes 2. Immigration 3. Government Accountability* * This includes everything from the role of the federal government to having Holder and Rangel dragged off to the cells they should be in. Thanks in advance.

Previously I compiled a list of the Ten Manliest Firearms. I noted that variations on the list were certainly acceptable, but still ran into a bunch of grief from non-men who were unable to read, nor to grasp that real men don't care if other real men disagree with them. Still, there are a LOT of guns out there, so I figured it was time to compile another list. You should own all of these guns before Zero takes office, and then buy more until he wets his pants and blubbers like the wuss he is. And if you don't...

Aging Grammy award-winning singer and Academy award-winning actress Cher recently told CNSNews.com that “living under Republican rule almost ‘killed’ her, and she does not understand why anyone would want to be a Republican.”[sic] The multi millionaire, much married, and largely irrelevant, vacuous singer/actress, who offered this unoriginal cheap shot against Bush and his party—so vogue among Hollywood celebs—has not done so badly under Republican and Democrat administrations over the last five decades; therefore no one was certain why she offered this commentary. When asked by Stoos Views during a telephone interview why she supported Obama in the last election,...

"Don't worry son, you'll get used to it." http://crosshairs.archangelsandwitticism.com/2009/02/13/still-looking-for-a-breath-of-fresh-air.aspx

Brave New Pedagogues by: Malcolm A. Kline, February 11, 2009 Academics pride themselves on dreaming up the cutting edge ideas that govern us. That might not be a good thing. They frequently do so without any grave concern about the evidence behind their theories or any regard for the ethical problems inherent in adopting them. Thus, the Ivory Tower is a bastion of support for embryonic stem cell research even though thus far, it has been an abysmal failure and interfering with the creative process of birth is something that you will have to explain to the creator someday. “Stanford...

I submitted the following to BuzzDash to see if anyone else was curious to know more about out new President. Below is the question and after the question is the email I got back from BuzzDash. "Is it important to you to know how many names Pres Obama has used?" Unfortunately, we were unable to post your suggestion to BuzzDash. In selecting buzzbites for the site, we look for those most likely to reflect the interests and breadth of opinions of users in the given topic area. We also check for duplicate questions and inappropriate content to ensure the best...

How refreshing, then, that this presidential campaign season has given us not one but two political husbands to speculate about. First gentleman manqué Clinton is now out of the running, and we know more than we ever wanted to know about him anyway. The other is would-be second gentleman Todd Palin.

(snip)This week the House will be voting on a two-year, $825 billion economic stimulus package. This is on top of vast sums already being spent in the financial bailout packages. The program is immense. Will it work? The idea is to jump-start "aggregate demand," according to traditional Keynesian precepts. Milton Friedman, on the other hand, taught us that government spending and tax handouts do not stimulate demand, because every dollar doled out by government must be first taken in by taxes, borrowing or other spending cuts. The net effect on aggregate demand is zero.(snip)

On Obama's agenda, according to his White House website, is the goal to "encourage diversity in media ownership." Obama elaborates on the site that his aim is to "encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation's spectrum." The plan apparently aligns with longstanding Democratic suggestions to resurrect the "Fairness Doctrine." The policy was abandoned in 1987 under President Reagan when there were 75 radio talk shows in the U.S. Reagan opposed the policy because it required...

I got a solicitation in the mail to order the New York Times so I don't miss "history in the making"...

Here’s your chance to have your voice heard and participate in the poll that is likely to be the most talked about of 2009.We’re calling this survey “What Americans Really Want … Really” because it is the first poll to allow average people the chance to prioritize what really matters to them. This survey tackles every important area of life: keeping a job, what you want for your family and the future, defining the American Dream, maintaining quality of life. There are questions on religion, on health, on retirement. It’s going to take about nine minutes of your time –...

"Jan. 20, 2009, will be a historic day. Barack Obama (Columbia, Harvard Law) will take the oath of office as his wife, Michelle (Princeton, Harvard Law), looks on proudly. Nearby, his foreign policy advisers will stand beaming, including perhaps Hillary Clinton (Wellesley, Yale Law), Jim Steinberg (Harvard, Yale Law) and Susan Rice (Stanford, Oxford D. Phil.). The domestic policy team will be there, too, including Jason Furman (Harvard, Harvard Ph.D.), Austan Goolsbee (Yale, M.I.T. Ph.D.), Blair Levin (Yale, Yale Law), Peter Orszag (Princeton, London School of Economics Ph.D.) and, of course, the White House Counsel Greg Craig (Harvard, Yale Law)....

Freep this poll. Who did you really pull the lever for? http://www.misterpoll.com/polls/366171