Free Republic

FREEP this poll -- it's on the front page (middle) of the DailyPennsylvanian.com website. At issue is whether the University of Pennsylvania should set aside "women-only" hours at the gym to allow female Muslim students to exercise without their traditional burkas on. This policy was recently started at Harvard and may come to Penn. Related post: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1977204/posts

"...Actor Sean Penn's days of writing for the San Francisco Chronicle may be over: The actor now calls the publication an "increasingly lamebrain paper." Penn offered the critique in a letter published Tuesday, written in response to a tongue-in-cheek article that focused on celebrity interest in Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. It listed a number of potential matchups between celebrities and dictators or other authoritarian figures. ...Penn objected to the characterization, saying Chavez is a democratically elected leader..."

Editor - From reading The Chronicle's banner-line propaganda, which teases the "star envy" piece within ("A modest proposal for celebs on the skids," Thursday), I could only hope this great city was more clever than its increasingly lame-brain paper. In its unequivocal naming of Chavez as dictator on A1, either "Pop Culture" man Peter Hartlaub or his equally biased Chronicle editor, doesn't quite understand that Venezuela's President Chavez was democratically elected, and that dictators don't lose constitutional referendums. The Chronicle should take comfort that the New York Times generally does no better than them here. Yet, in the paper's attack...

Here's more Clinton campaign Kremlinology because, well, it's just so much fun. The following is total speculation, based not on any secret info I have but instead on simple pattern recognition from campaigns past. Here is what is going on inside the campaign: 1.) Kill the Idiot Who Came Up With This Strategy. Clinton campaign chief Mark Penn is not a shy personality. He's ruffled mountains of feathers the wrong way. Now Hillary's poll numbers are bombing and the long knives are out. I'd be more sympathetic to Penn if Hillary's messaging and strategy had not been so bloody awful....

Actor-director Sean Penn issued a nonendorsement endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich on Friday in a speech to nearly 400 San Francisco State University students, urging his audience not to fall into the trap of voting for someone only because they could win. "We've got Iowa coming up; New Hampshire on its ass," said Penn. "Do we sell out for electability?" Penn, who spoke from a low wooden stage in the Creative Arts Building in front of a "Kucinich for President" banner, made it clear from the start that he was not issuing a traditional endorsement, a political tradition...

<p>From NBC's Domenico Montanaro Sean Penn will endorse Kucinich this afternoon at a press conference in San Francisco, a source close to the Hollywood actor said. He will also be speaking on "the Constitution, the media and Dennis Kucinich," the source said. Expect a political speech.</p>

Last week, my hometown paper, The Atlanta Journal & Constitution, ran an online story entitled, "Clinton Pollster Predicts Defection of GOP Women." Depending solely on his own "internal" polling, Mr. Mark Penn - Public Relations guru extraordinaire, and Hillary's campaign strategist -- says that a full 24% of Republican women will punch their ballots for Hillary based on the "emotional" appeal of electing the first woman President. Clearly, Mr. Penn is either purposefully spinning or indulging in a rather perverted, nearly delusional form of magical thinking. We Republican women are far, far too smart to fall for Hillary Clinton's ruse....

Horowitz plans week-long war against rise of radical Islam By David M. Brown TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, October 21, 2007 David Horowitz minces no words to evoke a stark image. Asked what threat radical Islamic terrorism poses to the United States, the conservative writer and activist sums up his view: "One dirty nuclear bomb can ruin your day."

Actor-turned-director Sean Penn refrained from smoking during his return to the spotlight at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday, but could have used something to calm his nerves as he repeatedly lashed out at media for distracting him during a news conference. The intense movie star sucked on ice cubes and swore as he met with dozens of reporters to discuss his riveting new film, "Into The Wild," featuring a tour de force performance by newcomer Emile Hirsch.

<p>I am allowing myself to drop you a little note in reaction to your trip to Venezuela. I am writing to you because I like you very much as an actor and I even shared some of the political causes you espouse, such as your anti Iraq stand from the start. There are two acting moments that I will cherish from your career. The first one is your excellent and touching movie with Susan Sarandon, "Dead Man Walking", one of the very few movies I got the sound track from (I do not like sound tracks in general and I really, really need to like a given movie to get the CD, not that it has much to do with your acting there anyway).</p>

Sean Penn has experienced backlash for talking openly about his political beliefs, but sees such discussion as more respectable than promoting movies. "There's baggage attached to coming out publicly on stuff, but there's baggage - in my view, more damaging baggage - to goin' and (appearing) ... on Jay Leno's show, philosophizing about 'Uncle Buck' or whatever you're hawkin'," the Oscar-winning actor tells Esquire magazine in its September issue, on newsstands Wednesday. Penn, 46, has bitterly criticized President Bush, toured Iraq to observe the war there and helped rescue workers with door-to-door searches for survivors after Hurricane Katrina swamped New...

Penn and Teller make fools of the moonbat crowd, by getting HUNDREDS at an Erth Day Fest to sign a petition banning "Dihydrogen Monoxide" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi3erdgVVTw It shows how most of the moonbat crowd is ignorant, uninformed, and will support ANYTHING as long as it "feels good"...

Sean Penn Praised by Venezuela's Chavez Aug 2 09:20 AM US/Eastern By IAN JAMES Associated Press Writer CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has praised Sean Penn for his critical stance against the war in Iraq, saying the two chatted by phone and soon plan to meet in person. Chavez said Penn traveled to Venezuela this week wanting to learn more about the situation in the country and walked around some of Caracas' poor barrios on his own. "Welcome to Venezuela, Mr. Penn. What drives him is consciousness, the search for new paths," Chavez said Wednesday in a...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief strategist is being accused of illegal eavesdropping in a civil lawsuit that alleges he and his polling firm monitored the personal e-mails of a former associate who started a rival company. Mitchell E. Markel, a former vice president at polling firm Penn, Schoen & Berland, claims in the suit that the firm began monitoring all messages sent from his personal Blackberry device nearly a month after he had resigned and become president of his new business. The suit claims that the founder of the firm, Mark Penn, who is Clinton's strategist and...

...Eight years later, it is Clinton who is running for president, and Penn, 53, is her chief strategist. While not her campaign manager in name, Penn controls the main elements of her campaign, most important her attempt to define herself to an electorate seemingly ready for a Democratic president but possibly still suffering from Clinton fatigue. In the four months since Clinton officially became a candidate, Penn has consolidated his power, according to advisers close to the campaign, taking increasing control of the operation. Armed with voluminous data that he collects through his private polling firm, Penn has become involved...

Would it surprise you to learn that one of those prominent Hollywood communist Jews who sided with Germany until the breaking of that Hitler-Stalin Pact was none other than Leo Penn, the late father of Sean Penn. Amazing? Yes, but true. You don't believe history repeats itself? Now it's Sean Penn's turn to relive and recommit the sins of his father, who never repented of his Communist Party activities – activities that included support for and appeasement of Hitler's Germany at the very time the concentration camps were incinerating his Jewish brothers and sisters in Europe. Penn spoke at a...

If only that he would just shut up and act, he'd be "moron neutral" and intellectually-friendly.... From the San Francisco Chronicle: (03-24) 18:20 PDT OAKLAND -- Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn was the star attraction at a town hall meeting today in Oakland, where hundreds of people gathered to denounce the war in Iraq and call for an immediate withdrawal of American troops. Neither Penn nor Rep. Barbara Lee, the Oakland Democrat who has opposed the war since before it began four years ago, offered much in the way of specifics for ending the conflict, and they were largely preaching...

FORT LEWIS, Wash. - Sean Penn hunched alone over his coffee Monday in a Starbucks shop, a stone's throw from the DuPont overpass where supporters of Lt. Ehren Watada held their signs aloft and a much smaller number of foes counter-protested.The actor had been out there with the Iraq war protesters in the chilly fog, which dampened the air but not their spirits. Watada was inside Fort Lewis, his first day in a military courtroom for a court martial that will decide his fate for refusing to go to Iraq and for talking publicly about his reasons.Penn was about to...

Ellen Robb, who was bludgeoned to death in the kitchen of her Upper Merion home, was likely killed with a crowbar taken from her garage and wielded by her husband, authorities said yesterday. University of Pennsylvania professor Rafael Robb was ordered yesterday to stand trial on murder charges after prosecutors sketched out what they acknowledge is a wholly circumstantial case against him. They contend that Robb pummeled his wife beyond recognition Dec. 22 because he feared the financial impact of a looming divorce. But police have not found the weapon or the killer's bloody clothes. The culprit left no fingerprints,...

Our State Representatives in another brilliant move (note sarcasm) returned the same high-class clowns -- who were instrumental in the sneaky late-night pay raise debacle -- to their leadership posts. There was some opposition by legislative reformers who were laughed -- okay maybe not laughed -- but at least giggled out of the big room in Harrisburg. Our (Republican) solons reelected John Perzel as house speaker. He's the guy who defended the big pay raise saying that cow milkers and tattoo artists were more highly paid than state legislators are. There was no opposition to him. These are the people...