Free Republic

President Obama yesterday rolled out the red carpet -- and handed out doctors' white coats as well, just so nobody missed his hard-sell health-care message. In a heavy-handed attempt at reviving support for health-care reform, the White House orchestrated a massive photo op to buttress its claim that front-line physicians support Obama. A sea of 150 white-coated doctors, all enthusiastically supportive of the president and representing all 50 states, looked as if they were at a costume party as they posed in the Rose Garden before hearing Obama's pitch for the Democratic overhaul bills moving through Congress.

Ah, Kansas, the home of hard working, god-fearing, regular average Americans. You would never know that if you read Thomas Frank's bestselling book "What's the Matter With Kansas?" Frank paints the picture of the plains state as a land of conservative morons who self abuse themselves by following evil Republicans, who use trickery to create a backlash effect to past liberal doctrines. As a Kansan who read Frank's book cover to cover, and had been besmirched by the demeaning description of Kansas conservatives therein, my preliminary critique of his book was that it was of the same quality as what...

Some parents are concerned about a speech President Barack Obama plans to make to students across the country on Tuesday. The White House says the speech is mainly intended to be motivational, telling children about the benefits of education and inspiring them to be good students.

What could go wrong? Seriously, Tapper’s being a tiny bit paranoid about this in my opinion, but don’t let me stand in the way of a good hand-wringing about Obama starting his own nascent propaganda bureau. Besides, JT’s honest enough to wink at how much the media slobbers over The One: Read the TV pool report: “Your Pool was not allowed to go over and shoot POTUS with the team shooting hoops. We protested loudly.”Now we know why: Obama White House officials decided to do their own media report on the visit, complete with cuts, interviews, and chyrons identifying who’s...

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary ____________________________________________ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 11, 2009 President Obama Launches Office of Public Engagement: A New Name, Mission for White House Liaison Office - Also unveils Citizens’ Briefing Book with ideas from Americans across the country - WASHINGTON - President Obama today announced a new name and a new mission for the White House office charged with dealing most closely with the American people. The Office of Public Liaison is now the Office of Public Engagement. OPE, along with the Office of...

Says “Not Amused” That President of the United States Was “Used for Propaganda Purposes by Anti-American Socialist Dictator” --------- Washington, Apr 22 - U.S. Congressman Mike Pence gave the following statement today at the House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “Thank you for your service to the country in this post and over many years. I want to raise an issue with you that has come up in this hearing before. And I want to raise it with great respect to you and to the President of the United States of America that you serve....

It is very important that we force the media to hear and see us. Before Rush, before FOX, before the internet, the left was successful at making a caricature out of conservatives and Republicans. They painted the conservatives as whacko people who are missing teeth that go to militia meetings and then go home to sleep with their daughters and beat their wives. We saw how they dealt with those that don't get with the program (Ruby Ridge, Waco). They don't understand the founding forefather's intent and have no intention of upholding this nation's charter with its people, the United...

Part I: Non-ContradictionChapter X: Wyatt’s TorchSynopsisDagny and Hank visit the county seat and discover that the Twentieth Century Motor Company is tied up in litigation with two owners vying in court for possession. Mark Yonts of the People’s Mortgage Company of Rome, Wisconsin, an S&L known for easy credit, had sold the company to a concern in South Dakota and had used it again as collateral for a loan from a bank in Illinois. When his S&L collapsed, he disappeared after stripping the factory of its assets. All records are gone due to a courthouse fire. They visit Mayor Bascom...

Economic Recovery: The ink on the latest bank bailout plan hadn't even dried before it was being panned on both the left and right. But if it's so bad, why did stocks rally so impressively after it was announced?Of course, one day's run-up can run down just as fast. But we've learned over the years to respect the market in ways we don't respect the pundits. Markets, after all, represent the collective wisdom of thousands of people and institutions around the world with trillions of dollars at stake. And, collectively, markets seem relieved at the Treasury plan. After Treasury Secretary...

“Let's take a look at the top 1 percent, the truly "evil" in the Obama-Pelosi-Reid worldview. According to the IRS, they earn about 20 percent of the income in America, but pay 40 percent of the income tax. The top 5 percent pay 60 percent of the income tax. The top 10 percent pay 70 percent of the income tax.”

The NEFA Foundation has obtained a newly-released video recording of a November 20, 2008 suicide truck bombing attack on a joint-U.S.-Afghan military base in the southeastern Afghan province of Khost. The video shows footage of the bomber—identified as \"Qari Abu Omar”, a “patient man with experience in jihad”—as he assists in the preparation of nearly 3,000kg of explosives, his farewell More.. to the camera, and the subsequent blast itself.

The Palestinian terrorists in Gaza are expert at manipulating the news media to their point of view. Already, the top media outlets have filled television screens with human interest stories of Palestinian women and children being blown to bits by the overpowering and relentless Israeli Defense Forces. Story after story appears with frantic Palestinian women crying out that their lives are disrupted by these terrible bombing raids, that there is no food to feed their families, that their husbands are missing. And while they are talking, there is chaos in the background of bombed out buildings and B-roll of children...

His loss would be disastrous for the media and political establishment. CLEVELAND—If Barack Obama wins the election, it will be historic. And if he loses, it will be pretty historic, too: It would mark the biggest collective error in the history of the media and political establishment An Obama loss would mean the majority of pundits, reporters and analysts were wrong. Pollsters would have to find a new line of work, since Obama has been ahead in all 159 polls taken in the last six weeks. The massive crowds that have regularly turned out to see Obama would turn out...

There has been a lot of speculation that Barack Obama might win the election due to his better "ground game" and superior campaign organization. I had the chance to view that organization up close this month when I canvassed for him. I'm not sure I learned much about his chances, but I learned a lot about myself and about this election.

Best part starts about 1:20 in!!! This really is a must see video....

As a glorious preview of improvements to political freedoms in an Obama administration, his campaign directed the third phase for the Current Truth Squads' assault on counterrevolutionary holdouts: Legal Stormtruthers. A group of high-ranking Missouri apparatchiks - including St. Louis sheriffs and top prosecutors - are threatening to target anyone they determine is contradicting the Current Truth™ about their chosen candidate for President. "This is the radical change we've been waiting for, and there's more where that came from," commented the local Truth Squad Standartenfuehrer on condition of anonymity. . Frankly, we were a bit underwhelmed by the Party's earlier...

The campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., likes to herald the independence of its new running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Officials of the Alaskan Independence Party say that Palin was once so independent, she was once a member of their party, which, since the 1970s, has been pushing for a legal vote for Alaskans to decide whether or not residents of the 49th state can secede from the United States. And while McCain's motto -- as seen in a new TV ad -- is "Country First," the AIP's motto is the exact opposite -- "Alaska First -- Alaska Always."

The crimes of georgian's army in S. Ossetia.

Over the last seven years, the lunatic fringe in control of the Republican Party -- the people who believe in torture but don't believe in evolution -- have hijacked our democracy, aided and abetted by the news media. The heart of the problem is not the bias of Fox News or the blowhards on AM talk radio but a mainstream media that has completely internalized how the right frames all political debate. The right-wing message has become a part of the news media's DNA. The latest confirmation came with this week's announcement that Tony Snow, formerly a host at Fox...

Turn on the lights the party's just beginning.

Nicely illustrated with pages like this: Democrats make sure we share our toys, just like mommy does. Democrats make sure we are always safe, just like mommy does. Democrats make sure children can go to school, just like mommy does.

All God's Children (Mark Walton in Manila, Philipines) Smokey Mountain in Manila, Philipines is a community built on a trash dump where over 25,000 people subsists "among methane fumes scavenging hope and survival from droppings of garbage truck." For many children living in Smokey Mountain, the way out is death. Yet, for most Filipinos in Manila, artificial contraception is not a choice since 80% are Roman Catholic. For the orthodox, users of contraception are considered sinners "if they know it to be wrong, and understand it to be wrong." Natural birth control through the rhythm method (avoiding sex during period...

A recent opinion poll conducted by Yury Levada’s Research Center showed that 30 percent of Russians believe that the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency is a terrorist organization. Almost one-third of the polled Russian people therefore agreed with Iranian officials who ascribed USA’s CIA and Armed Forces to terrorist organizations. Nevertheless, 32 percent of Russian citizens are certain that the CIA has nothing in common with terrorism. In the meantime, up to 70 percent of Russians condemn the intention of the US administration to conduct pinpoint strikes on the camps of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and nuclear objects of Iran. Only...

DEFINITION: Swiftboating; Speaking TRUTH in the face of Democrat Propoganda The Idiots at Kos have a huge thread running on the exposure of the "SCHIP" family by Free Republic members, that Rush mentioned today, and it's utterly HILARIOUS! They are freaking out that we would DARE to question thier "Facts"... "UPDATE #2 Whiskeyfire has a very informative blog on this too (hat tip nyseer courtesy of Atrios) As the day goes on, bigger and bigger smear merchants are picking this up (including The Weekly Standard). All are (of course) listing Free Republic as the mother source. This limits any culpability...

269 reply's, most bashing America and the Administration, and not a SINGLE LINK to a Reliable FACT that backs up these numbers... Welcome to the world of LEFTIST PROPOGANDA MEANWHILE, the documented and PROVABLE deaths are: Documented civilian deaths from violence 73,713 – 80,333 http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/ Can someone explain to me why fallacies like this are allowed, and even REINFORCED by so many on the left? A Couple of KOS'rs attemted to procvide the FACTS, but were largely ignored..... The postings on this do provide a glimpse into the insane lunatics that have taken control of the Democratic Party.

VENICE (Reuters) - A new film about the real-life rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers who also murdered her family stunned the Venice festival, with shocking images that left some viewers in tears. "Redacted", by U.S. director Brian De Palma, is one of at least eight American films on the war in Iraq due for release in the next few months and the first of two movies on the conflict screening in Venice's main competition. Inspired by one of the most serious crimes committed by American soldiers in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, it is...

Fortunately, I missed last week’s episode of the Fox network show, “So, You Think You Can Dance?” If I had seen it, I might have damaged my TV set. According to Newsbusters, the show featured a dance judge wearing Marine Dress Blues with upside-down Marine emblems on the sleeves and anti-war dances by the contestants. Video at Weblogging. The moonbat judge had absolutely no idea–no, none at all–that wearing Marine insignias upside-down would offend anyone.-SNIP-But the problem didn’t stop with her. Adding to the perfect storm of controversy on Wednesday night’s show was Dance’s other Emmy-nominated choreographer, Wade Robson. He...

Morning Edition, July 3, 2007 · President Bush's decision to commute I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence proves that "this administration is corrupt to the core," said Ambassador Joseph Wilson, the former diplomat whose wife was at the center of the CIA leak investigation that sparked the Libby case. In denouncing the Bush administration, Wilson told NPR, "I would only hope that Americans now realize, with this subversion of our system of justice and the rule of law in this country, just exactly how corrupt they are." After Wilson wrote skeptically about U.S. claims that Iraq was shopping for enriched...

(CNSNews.com) - Charging that "right-wing talk reigns supreme on America's airwaves," two liberal groups on Thursday called for increased government regulation and greater diversity of commercial radio station owners to "close the gap" between the amount of conservative and "progressive" talk. An analyst with a conservative media watchdog group responded by calling the organizations' recommendations an example of "amazing liberal hypocrisy." "There's very little free speech and free choice in a market system that pushes one-sided information 90 percent of the time," said John Halpin, a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress (CAP) and one of the authors...

Memo to Dems on Iraq: The Post-Veto Strategy President Bush today reiterated his insistence that he will veto the current Iraq supplemental spending bill. There is a decent chance this is a poker-style bluff - an attempt to stop the House and Senate's success so far in moving through a bill that ends the war. (Snip) Karl Rove understands that the veto will make Bush the one "cutting off funds to the troops" - the attack the White House and the Republican machine have used to berate Democrats. This was, after all, one of the big reasons Democrats attached binding...

Living in a “red” state appears to be more hazardous to the health of millions of American children, according to startling data contained in a major new book, “Homeland Insecurity… American Children at Risk” available free to parents, policymakers and other concerned Americans. The factors weighed in the “Homeland Insecurity” ranking includes such diverse indicators as inadequate pre-natal care, lack of health care insurance coverage, early death, child abuse, hunger and teen incarceration. Based on a diverse range of 11 child-related statistical measures, nine of the 10 top states with the best outcomes for children today are “blue” states (Wisconsin,...

Deep inside the heart of the "Green Zone", the heavily fortified administrative compound in Baghdad, lies one of the most carefully guarded secrets of the war in Iraq. It is a cell from a small and anonymous British Army unit that goes by the deliberately meaningless name of the Joint Support Group (JSG), and it has proved to be one of the Coalition's most effective and deadly weapons in the fight against terror. Its members - servicemen and women of all ranks recruited from all three of the Armed Forces - are trained to turn hardened terrorists into coalition spies...

In today's Independent, Patrick Cockburn writes: There are growing suspicions in Iraq that the official story of the battle outside Najaf between a messianic Iraqi cult and the Iraqi security forces supported by the US, in which 263 people were killed and 210 wounded, is a fabrication. The heavy casualties may be evidence of an unpremeditated massacre. A picture is beginning to emerge of a clash between an Iraqi Shia tribe on a pilgrimage to Najaf and an Iraqi army checkpoint that led the US to intervene with devastating effect. The involvement of Ahmed al-Hassani (also known as Abu Kamar),...

A major journalistic scandal was finally acknowledged during the long news hole leading up to the New Year's celebrations when the headlines were consumed by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's execution and the funeral of former U.S. President Gerald Ford. It was revealed last week that in April 2006 The New York Times Magazine published a long cover story that hinged on a blatant lie. The facts of the case came to light in November through the efforts of a pro-life Web site, LifeSiteNews.com. At first, The Times editors stonewalled over the facts, then they covered up the reporter's...

Did anyone see last night's episode? My daughter likes it but I don't usually watch. The liberals are fighting back, trying to indoctrinate the sheeple that illegals aren't doing anyone any harm, shouldn't face any illegal action, not even deportation. The illegals were good people with whom anyone could identify, and were generally portrayed in a totally sympathetic light.

I have decided to start an intermittent thread to document the rantings of the TRULY insane liberals of the left, from Yahoo's financial boards! (These nuts think they can sway the opinions of the folks there!) I wish I could call these The Yahoo Funnies, but these are ANYTHING but funny.... These people would utterly astound and frighten most sane Americans, and they compromise the base of the "Netroots", typing away from the dank darkness of mommy's basement.... Most of these comments are Drive-By Sloganeering, with no attempt to explain or defend it, but it is repeated THOUSANDS of times...

(2006-09-08) — Top Senate Democrats, outraged over inaccuracies in the upcoming ABC mini-series The Path to 9/11, today said that in addition to yanking the network’s broadcast license, if the show airs Democrats might also withhold from ABC News the daily distribution of Democrat talking points. A spokesman for Disney-owned ABC News said that while the network could weather the revocation of its broadcast license, thanks to the proliferation of cable and satellite TV, the loss of the Democrat talking points would force the news division to hire dozens of new reporters to fill the void in its newscasts. Meanwhile,...

Residents in the Tech Terrace neighborhood and other parts of Lubbock woke up to what they call an unpleasant surprise. Overnight, an anonymous person threw flyers with Nazi-like propaganda in the yards of several homes. NewsChannel 11's Suleika Acosta brings us this story from Tech Terrace.Dozens of residents woke up Wednesday morning with plastic bags in their front yards. Inside the bags are two flyers rolled up in a rubber band with some rocks. We spoke with one long-time resident of Tech Terrace who says throwing this propaganda in her yard is unacceptable.Early Wednesday morning when residents woke up to get...

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The health-care industry is worried sick over "Sicko." Few details have emerged about the 2007 documentary from Michael Moore, the filmmaker who ripped apart Detroit automakers with "Roger and Me" and now has his sights set on the $1.5 trillion pharmaceutical and health-care industry. But it's still enough to mobilize health-care trade groups who are trying to discredit the film. No balance from Moore "A review of America's health-care system should be balanced, thoughtful and well-researched to pin down what works and what needs to be improved," said Ken Johnson, senior VP for the Pharmaceutical Research...

Speechless When it comes to media bias, I'm a hard guy to surprise. That the Washington Post often sees the world in topsy-turvy terms, I take as a given. Nevertheless, the exchange between Howard Kurtz and Post reporter Tom Ricks, on yesterday's Reliable Sources, leaves me speechless: Tom Ricks, you've covered a number of military conflicts, including Iraq, as I just mentioned. Is civilian casualties increasingly going to be a major media issue? In conflicts where you don't have two standing armies shooting at each other? THOMAS RICKS, REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I think it will be. But I think...

Liberal rewrites of American history have gone too far in Michigan. The proposed history curriculum for Michigan high schools has been sent back by Superintendent Michael Flanagan for rewrites. Flanagan had admitted that the proposed curriculum could be viewed as having a “biased flavor” and that people might see it as “an indoctrination piece.” He went as far as to say, “What we’ve got to get across is we’re not trying to propagandize our kids.” Mr. Flanagan is not alone in this thinking. State Board President Kathleen Straus told the Detroit News, “I think there’s a lot that we could...

Message: 8 Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 14:22:56 -0400 From: "Annette Jones-Wilson" Subject: [Artmobile] FW: Join Us: Oil-free Day of Action in Baltimore To: Message-ID: <000e01c696f2$0da5cea0$5602a8c0@james66ffe83b1> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" We're hosting a National Day of Action Next Wednesday, June 28th, to expose Republican oil-corruption and tell Congress we want an "oil-free" future now. Can you join us? Click Here Campaign for an Oil Free Congress Dear MoveOn member, We launched the campaign for an "Oil-free" Congress together, because it's time to move toward a clean energy future. But Republicans' addiction to oil money is holding us back. Next Wednesday, June...

The ties that bind 17 suspects? ANALYSIS | `They represent the broad strata of our community,' the RCMP says. Jun. 4, 2006. 07:15 AM SURYA BHATTACHARYA, NASREEN GULAMHUSEIN AND HEBA ALY STAFF REPORTERS In investigators' offices, an intricate graph plotting the links between the 17 men and teens charged with being members of a homegrown terrorist cell covers at least one wall. And still, says a source, it is difficult to find a common denominator.

NEW DELHI, May 8 (UPI) -- China and India have submitted a joint bid to acquire a stake in a Colombian oil venture for roughly $800 million, an Indian official said Friday. The China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., or Sinopec, and ONGC Videsh Ltd., or OVL, the overseas arm of Indian state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp., offered a joint bid to acquire a stake in the Ominex de Colombia -- a subsidiary of the Texas-based Ominex Resources Inc. "Ominex de Colombia owns a 50 percent stake in oilfields in Colombia. The remaining stake is held by the Colombian national...

WASHINGTON - As gasoline prices have spiked above $3 a gallon throughout the country, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that the public’s view of President Bush’s job, the economy and the nation’s direction have continued to decline. But with the midterm elections just six months away, the biggest drop in the survey — 11 points in one month — is in the approval rating of Congress, which is locked in a bitter debate over what do about these gas prices, immigration, Iraq and a host of other issues. “You have never seen such a sour mood in...

Former NY Times Reporter: '93 Pulitzer Should Be Revoked By Sherrie Gossett CNSNews.com Staff Writer March 22, 2006 Washington (CNSNews.com) - Castigating the press for "journalistic crimes" committed during its reporting on the Balkans wars of the 1990s, retired New York Times reporter David Binder claims the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting awarded to both the Times and New York's Newsday "should, in all fairness and honesty, be revoked." Binder was speaking at a press conference for the release of a new book criticizing the war reporting. Binder wrote the foreword to the book by Peter Brock, titled "Media...

"In point of fact, the entire hue and cry about “free speech” is a red herring, aimed at concealing the deeply anti-democratic character of the cartoons and the political forces behind them. There has been no attempt to censor any of the publications in Europe or the US that have printed the cartoons, nor does the denunciation of them as a political provocation imply support for censorship—no more than would the denunciation of racist anti-African-American cartoons or anti-Semitic caricatures."

Hundreds of Iraqi academics and professionals have been assassinated since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to a petition to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Summary Executions from the European peace group BRussells [sic] Tribunal on Iraq ... ... This is a part of a program of cultural destruction, and it emanates from Washington ... ... The goal now, encouraged or allowed by Bush administration, and implemented by its stooges in Iraq, is to destroy the historical consciousness of the Iraqi people, as a means of further subjugating them to US imperialism and its Iraqi supporters ...

New low, despite attention over Spencer's death The death of “West Wing” star John Spencer did not spark new interest in the long-fading show when it returned last night from a nearly month-long hiatus. In it first new episode since Spencer’s death in December, “West Wing” tied a season-low with a 1.9 overnight rating among viewers 18-49 last night, 17 percent lower than the 2.3 overnight rating the show had averaged through its first nine episodes of the season. There has been much speculation over what NBC will do with the show now that Spencer, who played vice presidential candidate...