Free Republic

With all signs indicating a possible relationship between platinum recording artist and songwriter Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, there are Native Americans who are urging for Swift to use her involvement to end the use of the tomahawk chop by the team's fans. Swift attended Sunday's game between the Chiefs and the Chicago Bears at Arrowhead Stadium as a guest of Kelce, as the pop star was seated in Kelce's family suite alongside his mother, Donna. After the game, a group of Native Americans, led by Rhonda LeValdo of Not In Our Honor, voiced hope...

Mega pop star and Democratic Party activist Taylor Swift is attacking President Donald Trump over the U.S. Postal Service, claiming that the president is trying to cheat his way to victory in November by “dismantling” the beleaguered federal agency. “Trump’s calculated dismantling of USPS proves one thing clearly,” Swift tweeted Saturday. “He is WELL AWARE that we do not want him as our president. He’s chosen to blatantly cheat and put millions of Americans’ lives at risk in an effort to hold on to power.” Trump’s calculated dismantling of USPS proves one thing clearly: He is WELL AWARE that we...

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris may have put the Taylor Swift block vote in jeopardy, thanks to holding a fundraiser at Swift archrival Scooter Braun’s home in Los Angeles on Saturday night. The Swifties recoiled at the news of the fundraiser at Braun’s Brentwood home. He’s been enmeshed in a feud with the singer over ownership of her back catalog, which he acquired by buying the Big Machine Record Group, which included her early albums. The singer’s fans have since demonized him, even though he insists he gave her opportunities to acquire the catalog. Braun is a longtime supporter of...

Our national commentariat is twisted in an impossible yoga pose trying to compare anti-Bain Capital coverage to the famous 2004 “Swift Boat” ad campaign. The two situations are not close to analogous. I have a more-than-passing acquaintance with the Swift Boat ads - I helped produce them. Our liberal news media continue to fabricate and fantasize about the Swift Boat saga, which proved to be a decisive moment in the 2004 election. In the parlance of the media, the ads run by a group of veterans opposed to John Kerry were a “smear” and were “discredited.” They were neither, and...

Incensed by the negative ads that have spoiled his campaign, Newt Gingrich recently complained he’d been “Romneyboated,” an allusion to the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose ads helped derail Sen. John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004. John O’Neill, the swift-boat captain who led the anti-Kerry movement, is none too pleased with the comparison. “To me, it reflects Gingrich’s very cynical hypocrisy, which he shares with Kerry,” O’Neill tells National Review Online. That hypocrisy “is the reason why he can appear with [Nancy] Pelosi in climate-change ads and why he can take money from Freddie Mac: If you’re part...

Countering Kerry’s Orwellian HistoryFReeper Review of Swett and Ziegler, To Set the Record StraightBy Fedora I recently had the pleasure of reading Scott Swett and Tim Ziegler’s new book To Set the Record Straight: How Swift Boat Veterans, POWs and the New Media Defeated John Kerry (Foreword by John O’Neill, New American Media Publishing, 2008, 389pp, hardcover $29.95, ToSetTheRecordStraight.com). As someone whose research is given an acknowledgment by the authors, I would like here to share some of my reactions to this important book. The first chapter begins with a review of John Kerry’s role in promoting Vietnam Veterans Against...

Sen. John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid became the catalyst for an unprecedented political movement by Vietnam veterans who had long resented his false 1971 testimony that U.S. troops were routinely committing war crimes. Despite the best efforts of the Democratic Party and its media affiliates, they succeeded in reaching out to the public and turning the presidential campaign upside down. Here, for the first time, is the complete story of how - and why - they did it. During the Vietnam War, the original television networks and the leading liberal newspapers were near the peak of their formidable persuasive powers,...

This is the most important book you’ll buy this year: To Set The Record Straight, How Swift Boat Veterans, POWs and the New Media Defeated John Kerry, by Scott Swett and Tim Ziegler, with Forward by John O'Neill. Not only will you learn the inside details of the only book – Unfit For Command -- that ever decided a presidential election but, especially for those who have any doubts, you will learn about how the peoples' democracy can still work in the United States. For those inclined toward political science, the book is an important contribution to understanding how political...

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, perhaps preparing to get back into the presidential ring one day, claims he's now armed with materials that will make war record critics from his 2004 presidential campaign go running tail between legs. The 63-year-old Democratic senator told The Patriot-Ledger on Tuesday that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group of Navy servicemen who served with Kerry and criticized his record in Vietnam, will be revealed as liars. "We have put together a documented portfolio that frankly puts their lies in such a total light of absurdity and indecency, that should they ever rear their...

I’m going to turn around a witty saying attributed to Adlai Stevenson, and say, “when Democrats stop lying about us, I’ll stop telling the truth about them”. I say this because something is happening that reminds me of the attempts to smear Bush 41 for telling the truth about Michael Dukakis granting a weekend furlough to a rapist and killer (Willie Horton) when he was governor of Massachusetts. When Bush people pointed out this absurdity, he was branded a racist because Horton was black. Now the same thing is happening to a man named Sam Fox

WASHINGTON — The race to be the No. 2 House Democratic leader turned nasty Tuesday, with challenger Rep. John Murtha accusing opponents of "swift-boat style attacks" that hark back to his days being investigated in the FBI's 1980 Abscam sting. Murtha won endorsement Monday from Nancy Pelosi, who is widely expected to be the House speaker. But Murtha is opposed by some liberals who say they are not happy with the Pennsylvania lawmaker's pro-gun and anti-abortion record. Others say Pelosi took a wrong turn in backing Murtha over her current deputy Rep. Steny Hoyer because Murtha's record is marred by...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic Sen. John Kerry apologized directly to U.S. troops on Wednesday for comments about Iraq that had prompted a firestorm of criticism from Republicans and President George W. Bush. "I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform and I personally apologize to any service member, family member or American who was offended," Kerry said in a statement. Kerry said earlier in the day he was sorry for a "botched joke" about Bush that was interpreted as a slam on the U.S. military. Republicans demanded a more direct apology...

The most amazing thing about John Kerry is that anyone withhalf a brain would still take him half as seriously as he obviously takes himself. If he’s not putting his foot in his mouth, he’s attempting to extract it, as he is again this morning, trying to blame everyone but himself for his outrageous defamation of America’s fighting forces, slurring them as unproficient, shallow-minded cannon fodder. Appearing in California to ostensibly assist Phil Angelides, a Democratic candidate for governor, Kerry warmed up by suggesting George W. Bush used to live in Texas, “but now lives in a state of denial.”...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For more information contact: November 1, 2006 Virginia Davis 215-528-9368 virginiad@ricksantorum.com VETERANS RALLY AGAINST CASEY, KERRY   Philadelphia - Veterans rallied at a press conference tonight demanding that Casey denounce John Kerry's insulting comments about our troops in Iraq. Earlier this week, Kerry suggested American troops wouldn't be "stuck in Iraq" if they had done their "homework" and made "an effort to be smart" in school. The press conference was held steps away from the location where Casey intended to hold a fundraiser with Kerry before Kerry cancelled in the wake of his disparaging comments. Senator...

Kerry says he deserves 2nd chance in '08 1 hour, 29 minutes ago Sen. John Kerry says he deserves a second chance if he decides to take another crack at becoming president. The Massachusetts Democrat, who lost to President Bush in 2004, said it is a basic principle that "Americans give people a second chance. And if you learn something and prove you've learned something, maybe even more so. Now, I don't know what I'm going to do yet. We'll make that decision down the road." Ronald Reagan twice unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination for president before he got it...

SNIPIn 2004, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth started out on the margins of the presidential race. In an era of Old Media domination, they might have stayed there. When the group's founders held a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington on May 4, there was nothing in the next day's Washington Post, and the episode got scant attention elsewhere. A conservative website, FreeRepublic.com, however, covered the news conference and listed the fax numbers of Establishment news organizations, urging readers to send missives demanding to know why they were "blacking out" the event. A day later, the...

DES MOINES, Iowa --Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry lashed out Sunday against a group that bashed him during his last run at the White House. Kerry, who made a weekend appearance in northwest Iowa, said he is concerned that Swift Vote Veterans for Truth is again resorting to "the politics of fear and smear." The group, financed by Texas conservatives, ran commercials questioning his claim of being a decorated Vietnam veteran -- the centerpiece of his presidential campaign in 2004. "We're not going to give them an ounce of daylight," said Kerry, who is considering another run at the Democratic presidential...

John Kerry recently volunteered that he was prepared to “kick [the Swift Boat Veterans’] ass from one end of America to the other” and that he would “demolish” us. He ought to take a Christmas cruise to Cambodia to calm down. Maybe he could take a side trip to tour “Genghis Khan” ruins. It is a little difficult to imagine Kerry (“I voted for it before I voted against it”) kicking the most decorated living serviceman, Bud Day, a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, or our salty commander, Adm. Roy Hoffman, anywhere. Perhaps Kerry had in mind using a “Rice...

[Poetry and flowery garbage edited out]...My point in reminding us of these lingering wounds of war that refuse to be healed is to ask that we take reasoned care to protect ourselves from the ultimate affliction of war -- that we should let it make us so insensitive to verbal venom that Americans begin, self-destructively, to hate and mistrust one another. That happened to us, tragically, in the bitterly prolonged Vietnam conflict. Americans mistrusted, protested, hated and insulted other Americans for simply disagreeing with them. [Coop note: Who did that, Jimmy?] Today, our self-appointed jihadist enemies could do the United...

 LA Times article:"Swift Boat" Veterans Set Sights on Rep. Murtha Is Vets For The Truth the same group as the Swift Boat Veterans? No. But that didn't stop an article in Sunday's Los Angeles Times from trumpeting the erroneous headline: "'Swift Boat' Veterans Set Sights on Rep. Murtha." [EXCERPTS:]Two years after a cadre of veterans helped sink the presidential campaign of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), they have found a new target in the old steel country of southwestern Pennsylvania: Democratic Rep. John P. Murtha.In a fight that organizers say will feature rallies, TV ads and an aggressive Internet...