Free Republic

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: President Barack Obama Date: Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 12:02 PM Subject: A historic moment To: Don xxxxx Don -- Although it's Christmas Eve, I wanted to share some exciting news: The Senate just passed a historic health reform bill. In all the back and forth, it's easy to lose sight of what this incredible breakthrough really means. But consider this: This Christmas, there are millions of Americans without health insurance who risk losing everything if they get sick. There are mothers and fathers who wonder how they'll provide for their children because an illness...

The whitewashing of Ted Kennedy continued on the cover of Parade magazine, a supplement to many Sunday newspapers around the country. Dotson Rader interviewed Victoria Kennedy, the second wife of the late senator. Decades of womanizing and a woman’s death at Chappaquiddick after Kennedy left the scene of an accident weren’t really noteworthy. One large bold pull quote read "Nobody had a better sense of what was right than Teddy." "Tell that to Mary Jo Kopechne" was not a sentence that appeared in the article. The other large pull quote from Mrs. Kennedy was "He was elected to make...

In his first year in office, Barack Obama has visited more foreign countries than any other president. He's touched ground in 16 countries, easily outpacing Bill Clinton (three) and George W. Bush (eleven). It's an itinerary befitting a "citizen of the world." But there's one stop Obama won't make. He has begged off going to Berlin next week to attend ceremonies commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall. His schedule is reportedly too crowded. John F. Kennedy famously told Berliners, "Ich bin ein Berliner." On the 20th anniversary of the last century's most stirring triumph of freedom, Obama is telling...

Statement of Andy Stern, President of SEIU WASHINGTON DC--Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union, issued the following statement today regarding recent attempts of right wing extremists to silence working families by attacking progressive individuals and community organizations: "This is a moment of profound change for this country--from kitchen tables to town halls to the floor of the Senate, this nation is engaged in a vigorous and heated debate about how we rebuild our economy, solve our national healthcare crisis and restore the American Dream. "As has always happened when progressive change is in the air, the backlash...

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) says his longtime friend and colleague Max Baucus (D-Montana) is feeling the heat from the White House and fellow Democrats who want to go it alone on healthcare reform instead of reaching a bipartisan compromise. Senator Grassley is among three Republicans -- Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming) -- and three Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee attempting to draft a compromise healthcare bill in the committee chaired by Max Baucus. Grassley estimates that 45 Senate Democrats believe it is wrong that Baucus is negotiating with the three Republicans on the Finance Committee. Grassley says...

Franklin D. Roosevelt “The Economic Bill of Rights” Excerpt from 11 January 1944 message to Congress on the State of the Union It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure. This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its...

I'm slightly surprised that the White House press office gave out this image, from her 1976 Princeton yearbook, in which she quotes Norman Thomas. Norman Thomas was, of course, the leading American Socialist politician of the 20th century. Perhaps they figured it would come out eventually so they wanted to be able to say, "That's old news. We thought it was so inconsequential, we mentioned it ourselves." Or perhaps they felt that substantively didn't matter; Norman Thomas was a pretty mainstream and respected figure, as socialists went. And his quote is universal. Or perhaps they didn't notice.

We had 10 people, the Pinkos 9. This is about how it's been for the past half year or so. We need your help. My challenge is that if you live within driving distance of Washington DC you make one trip this year to Walter Reed. That is not asking too much. If all FReepers reading this who live near Washington DC do this it would help tremendously. See below for directions and details, or you can just FReepmail me. On With the AARIt was a beautiful evening; not to hot, not too cold... ok sorry, I used the Three...

Story #9: Robert Gibbs Wears Pink Tie to Match His Face RUSH: Look at Fox! Look at Gibbs' face. Look at that. They gotta be doing that on purpose. I mean, that's cool. Maybe it's breast cancer awareness. Instead of wearing a red ribbon, he's painted his face pink to go along with his pink tie. It's not the TV because when they go to a different shot, everybody looks normal. Everything else in the picture looks normal except Gibbs and his tie match. It looks like a 14th degree sunburn. Do you agree with me? Yeah. Okay.

Damn the tea bags. A top adviser to President Barack Obama takes a dim view of last week's anti-tax "tea parties," promoted by organizers in the spirit of the Boston Tea Party. "The thing that bewilders me is this president just cut taxes for 95 percent of the American people. So I think the tea bags should be directed elsewhere because he certainly understands the burden that people face," David Axelrod said Sunday. --snip-- Axelrod replied: "I think any time that you have severe economic conditions, there is always an element of disaffection that can mutate into something that's unhealthy."

LAS VEGAS — Ethan Hawke might want to avoid crossing paths with Toby Keith in the near future. The country star lit into the actor for an article Hawke wrote in the new issue of Rolling Stone about Kris Kristofferson. In it, Hawke refers to a blowup Kristofferson had with an unnamed country star back in 2003 that sounds a lot like Toby Keith. But a furious Keith, speaking backstage at the Academy of Country Music Awards, said it wasn't true, and added that Hawke did not name him in the story because he did not want to face him...

President Obama and congressional Democrats are avidly pursuing a sweeping agenda they claim is justified by the need for greater "fairness." This invites scrutiny of the various programs to verify if they do, in fact, promote fairness. "Free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice" is the standard meaning of fairness, which requires treating people similarly, perhaps not identically, but certainly not with purposeful difference. Apply this test to the tax changes proposed in President Obama's budget, and it seems clear he wants to punish higher-income earners for the benefit of others, namely lower and middle-income earners. Let's understand the pre-Obama tax...

DENVER -- William Ayers, the former Weather Underground radical whose past made him a lightning rod in the 2008 presidential campaign, said Thursday that fired Colorado professor Ward Churchill became the victim of a "witch hunt" after comparing Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi. "There's no doubt in my mind he was persecuted because of his politics," Ayers said before appearing with Churchill at a student rally on academic freedom at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Ayers, Churchill and writer-activist Derrick Jensen were to speak later at an event titled "Forbidden Education and the Rise of Neo-McCarthyism."

Chicago (AP) -- When it comes to her weight, Oprah Winfrey has always been straightforward. The talk show queen continues the honesty, saying in the January issue of "O" magazine out Tuesday that she now weighs 200 pounds and has "fallen off the wagon" when it comes to healthy living.

BERKELEY — Berkeley blogger Jane Stillwater is suing the federal government for the cost of an airplane ticket to Kuwait and the cost of 15 mocha lattes from the airport Starbucks, where she spent two sleepless days because her previously approved embed with the U.S. Army suddenly was canceled.Stillwater, a 66-year-old grandmother, embedded with the U.S. military twice last year and has gone to Iraq to hang out with troops and blog twice since her Starbucks layover. But in February she had an experience that prompted her to take the Department of Defense to small claims court.In Alameda County Superior...

“The KGB, I think, was an honorable place to work” with “worthwhile” achievements, CNN founder Ted Turner contended in an interview aired on Sunday's Meet the Press in which he blamed the U.S. for starting the battles with Vladimir Putin “by putting the Star Wars system in Czechoslovakia and Poland” and, when host Tom Brokaw recalled that Leonid Brezhnev reacted to Jimmy Carter's outreach by invading Afghanistan, Turner retorted with moral equivalence: “Well, we invaded Afghanistan, too, and it's a lot further -- at least it's on the border of the Soviet Union.”

Rick Gale, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin, resigned Tuesday from the union post amid mounting criticism over reports that he made a racial slur against President-elect Barack Obama. Gale, a lieutenant with the West Allis Fire Department, also resigned from all public and government boards he served on, according to his resignation letter, which was included in a union statement announcing the resignation. In the letter, Gale apologized for using a "single racially charged word in connection with our President-Elect." "The word has no business in my vocabulary and I should not have used it - not...

A seismic shift, a watershed moment, an electoral landslide or the dawn of a new era. No matter what the turn of phrase, Nov. 4, 2008, will go down in the history books as the beginning of the end of the 30-year political reign of the ultra-right and its vicious pro-corporate agenda, and the end of a beginning of new politics in the United States of America. Convinced by the power of one man’s arguments for hope, unity and change, his program and example, a 52 percent majority of voters rejected the old politics of fear, racism and red-baiting and...

No, Barack, Medical Care is Not a 'Right'by Dr. Lee Hieb (more by this author) Posted 10/08/2008 ET Updated 10/08/2008 ET At last night’s presidential debate, Barack Obama led the charge for government run health care by declaring in no uncertain terms that health care is a “right”. I suppose he thinks Tom and the boys accidentally left that one out of the Constitution. Or maybe it is an extension (in his mind) of the right to life. But let’s think about this a minute. When our American form of government was created to form “a more perfect union” by...

First time in weeks as Western officials suggest Kim Jong Il has been sick SEOUL, South Korea - North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has made his first public appearance in more than a month, a state-run news agency said from Pyongyang on Saturday amid speculation about his health. Kim watched a university soccer game held to mark the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the university named after his late father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, the Korean Central News Agency reported. The 66-year-old leader had not been seen in public since mid-August, missing two key occasions —...

Cleveland nun to close one night of Democratic convention with prayer By Dennis Sadowski Catholic News Service WASHINGTON – St. Joseph Sister Catherine Pinkerton of Cleveland is not usually one to seek the spotlight, but she will take center stage at the Democratic National Convention Aug. 27 when she gives the benediction to close the party’s third day of business. Sister Catherine, 86, a lobbyist for Network, a national Catholic social justice lobby, will close the convention on the night that Sen. Barack Obama is expected to formally become the party’s nominee for president. The invitation to lead the prayer...

HONOLULU (AP) _ At key moments in his adolescence, Barack Obama could not turn to a father he hardly knew. Instead, he looked to a left-leaning black journalist and poet for advice on living in a world of black and white. Frank Marshall Davis had his opinions. He once argued that the public schools of his youth prepared neither blacks nor whites for "life in a multiracial, democratic nation." He called hypocrisy "a national trait of American whites." Advocating civil rights amid segregation, Davis wrote in 1949: "I refuse to settle for anything less than all the rights which are...

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama arrived Saturday in Afghanistan on the first stop of his tour of the Middle East and Europe, aimed at boosting the U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful's foreign policy credentials, his campaign confirmed. The U.S. senator from Illinois also plans to visit Iraq, although details of the trip have have not been made public for security reasons. The fight in Afghanistan has become a more pressing issue on the political radar. Three times as many coalition soldiers and other military personnel have died in July in Afghanistan than in Iraq. On Sunday, nine U.S. soldiers...

 

Mayhill Fowler has more from Obama's remarks at a San Francisco fundraiser Sunday, and they include an attempt to explain the resentment in small-town Pennsylvania that won't be appreciated by some of the people whose votes Obama's seeking: You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them...And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising...

[Obama friend and associate, William/Bill Ayers, from his own red-communist-star-headed website, calls out Hannity and 'others' to debate communism vs capitalism] April 6, 2008: Imperialism. I’m against it, and if Sean Hannity and others were honest, this is the ground they would fight me on. Capitalism played its role historically and is exhausted as a force for progress: built on exploitation, theft, conquest, war, and racism, capitalism and imperialism must be defeated and a world revolution—a revolution against war and racism and materialism, a revolution based on human solidarity and love, cooperation and the common good —must win. We begin...

Barack Obama threatens to drive political cartographers crazy. By attracting young people and African-Americans, he believes he can turn red states blue and upend our relatively stable political map. Obama may well win the November election on a wave of Democratic turnout and enthusiasm, but he will likely find that states don’t change their political stripes very easily. The 2000 and 2004 elections were remarkably similar. Forty-seven states voted for the same party in both elections. Only New Hampshire, which switched from Republican in 2000 to Democrat in 2004, and Iowa and New Mexico, which moved in the other direction,...

As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president. After the 1972 presidential election, I stood clear of calls to impeach President Richard M. Nixon for his misconduct during the campaign. I thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be seen as an expression of personal vengeance toward the president who had defeated me. Today I have made a different choice. Of course, there seems to be little bipartisan support for impeachment. The...

NEW YORK - Norman Mailer, the pugnacious prince of American letters who for decades reigned as the country's literary conscience and provocateur with such books as "The Naked and the Dead" and "The Executioner's Song," has died at the age of 84. Mailer died Saturday of acute renal failure at Mount Sinai Hospital, J. Michael Lennon, the author's literary executor and biographer, said. "He was a great American voice," said a tearful Joan Didion, author of "The Year of Magical Thinking" and other works, struggling for words upon learning of Mailer's death. From his classic debut novel to such masterworks...

"Devolites Davis, a 10-year legislative veteran who's married to U.S. Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, R-11th, is a one-term senator ho previously served six years in the House of Delegates... ...Devolites Davis describes herself as an independent, a moderate who can best represent a centrist constituency. At a forum Thursday night before Equality Fairfax, a gay-rights organization, she called herself a "RINO" -- Republican in Name Only -- a derogatory term used by members of the GOP's conservative wing.... Perhaps the biggest difference between her and Petersen, she says, is the issue of guns, which she hopes will resonate in...

Noted Duke University law professor Erwin Chemerinsky signed a contract to be the dean at the University of California-Irvine's new law school, but was dumped, he said, when the university's chancellor told him he was "too politically controversial." Chemerinsky, a celebrated constitutional law scholar, said Wednesday that Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake flew to Durham from Washington to rescind the job offer face to face. The two met Tuesday at the Sheraton hotel near the Raleigh-Durham airport. "He thought it would be a bloody fight with the Board of Regents," Chemerinsky said. The professor said he was offered the dean's position...

Montclair resident Barbara Webster, a self-employed bookkeeper representing Montclair Campaign for Peace and Justice, was one of five anti-war protesters arrested yesterday in Newark, for staging a peaceful sit-in in the Gateway Center lobby where US Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez have offices. Webster, 64, tells Baristanet the protest is part of a nationwide effort to stop further funding of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Our goal was to camp out in the senator's office until he signed the pledge we delivered last week, or until the office closed and they called the police to get us out....

RENO, Nev. - Sen. Barack Obama vowed Thursday to restore environmental protections the Bush administration has rolled back through executive orders, especially at the Environmental Protection Agency. Obama said the EPA has been "demoralized. [Snip] Making his third appearance in Nevada, Obama said much of the Bush administration's weakening of environmental regulations has been accomplished through administrative orders without congressional action. "That means President Obama can reverse them by executive order," Obama told reporters after a speech to about 4,000 at a downtown Reno park on an island in the middle of the Truckee River. [Snip] The first-term senator also...

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) -- Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined a broad economic vision Tuesday, saying it's time to replace an "on your own" society with one based on shared responsibility and prosperity. The Democratic senator said what the Bush administration touts as an "ownership society" really is an "on your own" society that has widened the gap between rich and poor. "I prefer a 'we're all in it together' society," she said. "I believe our government can once again work for all Americans. It can promote the great American tradition of opportunity for all and special privileges for none."...

US filmmaker Michael Moore has challenged Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson for a debate over health care issues. Both of them have been taking a dig at each other ever since Thompson wrote in the National Review on May 2, an article on the Treasury Department's investigation into whether Moore violated the US trade embargo against Cuba by seeking free treatment for 9/11 responders there. Moore has now blasted Thompson in a letter over his fondness for Cuban-made Montecristo cigars. "While I will leave it up to the conservatives to debate your hypocrisy and the Treasury Department to determine whether...

Jane Fonda has a big question You could have the best answer.

HAVANA -- Hundreds of thousands of cheering workers marched through Cuba's Revolution Plaza today, but Fidel Castro was nowhere to be seen. The place where Mr. Castro would have watched the festivities -- a raised platform under a towering statue of Cuban colonial independence hero Jose Marti -- was instead occupied by his brother Raul. Mr. Castro has attended the annual International Workers' Day march for decades, but the 80-year-old communist leader has not been seen in public since emergency intestinal surgery forced him to step down temporarily nine months ago and temporarily cede his duties to his 75-year-old brother....

Rosie Sees Only Evil in US, Not Iran, Speaks on 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Posted by Justin McCarthy on March 29, 2007 - 14:34. The co-hosts of "The View" again discussed the Iranian British hostage situation on the March 29 edition. Rosie O?Donnell trusted the Iranians more than the British and Americans, and the discussion evolved into more Rosie rants against alleged Bush administration tyranny and for the first time on "The View," Rosie ranted on her September 11 conspiracy theories. Rosie?s rants were too much even for fringe liberal Joy Behar. Token non-liberal Elisabeth Hasselbeck was far more assertive than...

Starting soon.

... Now that plan is in chaos. Milorad Dodik, the premier of the Republika Srpska, the Serb part of Bosnia, wants the same right to self-determination as that exercised by Montenegro last year, and possibly by Kosovo soon. The latter analogy is a powerful one. If a province of Serbia can decide its own future, he argues, why not his fief? ...

... Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said that U.S. troops must defend themselves in Iraq but that the president needs congressional approval for any program that could "escalate this conflict" with Iran. Reid said Bush should be engaged in direct diplomacy with Iran and other countries in the region to avoid a widening conflict, rather than "sending battle carrier groups" to sit off the Iranian coast. ...

I love It's a Wonderful Life because it teaches us that family, friendship, and virtue are the true definitions of wealth. In 1947, however, the FBI considered this anti-consumerist message as subversive Communist propaganda. According to Professor John Noakes of Franklin and Marshall College, the FBI thought Life smeared American values such as wealth and free enterprise while glorifying anti-American values such as the triumph of the common man. The FBI specifically detested the way Mr. Potter was portrayed: The casting of Lionel Barrymore as a "scrooge-type" resulted in the loathsome Mr. Potter becoming the most hated person in the...

If anyone else is watching Monday Night Football, you all know what I am talking about. Such cheap hype with this guy! I can't believe ESPN is now singing his praises...yeesh. Just scary.

Here is another tidbit of information that has also been conveniently overlooked by our one party media.From Wikipedia glowing entry on our hero: Harry ReidHarry Mason Reid (born December 2, 1939) is the senior United States Senator from Nevada and a member of the Democratic Party, for which he presently serves as Senate Minority Leader. He will become the first Mormon Senate Majority Leader in 2007, after the Democrats won control of the United States Senate in the 2006 Congressional Elections.Early life, education, and careerReid is a converted member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is...

November, 7th, 2006 5 Good Reasons to Vote Today 1. IT'S A NATIONAL REFERENDUM. Although candidates' names will be on the ballot today, this election is NOT about this candidate or that candidate. Make no mistake about it: This election is nothing less than a National Referendum on George W. Bush and his War. Don't waste your time trying to learn about who the schlump is that's running for office. You know they're all pretty much the same, a few are better than others, but... please. They is who they is. THIS election is not about them. It's a simple...

First vanity post - did a search on "Sarandon" and didn't see anything on this. Mr. Inspectorette and I were astonished to see Susan Sarandon in a new Macy's commercial on our local Portland station. If it's not her, she's got an identical twin. Has anyone else seen this?

Socialism is best because under socialism. No one has to worry about being poor or starving to death. No one is poor, unemployed, discriminated, everyone is equal reguardless or race or creed. Today such ideas are condemned as evil. Any attempt to protest against slavery and genocide and human rights violations are met with the cries of COMMUNISM! By the religious right and then they conjure up stories about Stalin, Gulags, tortue, police state etc. So therefore we must stick with the current system of sweat shop slavery, poverty and racism while rich people who already have all they will...

Call any Tech Support line, or your bank for that matter. Do you get a fellow American on the other end? Or do you get someone in India that can't help you and just gives you the run around because they don't know any better (which doesn't matter because you can't understand them anyway!). This is not only happening in the Call Center field, but in Technology, Animation and other Media and so forth. This takes away millions of jobs from Americans and at the same time, we have millions of people coming from India who are getting grants to...