What? Altura got banned? What is this silliness?
Good question MM. We are all wondering the same thing! More thought police BS.
I'm an infrequent visitor to the Sunday morning thread these days as I no longer have internet at home so check in when I'm at the office like this p.m.
I too was curious as to why Altura was no longer here on FR so I went and looked at her past postings. First, she had been a Romney supporter since Sarah declined to run and made no bones about it here on FR, defending him frequently and with some enthusiasm, even admitting she voted for him in the Texas primary. Second she joined the TBL anti-Freepers and also made known her affiliation with that group here on FR.
Now I don't like Romney as our candidate, have been tearing up Romney mailings I get in the mail (lots of them!), but will vote for him rather than leaving my ballot blank or voting for our former Governor Gary Johnson. And my vote for him will be for ABO not for many of the reasons Altura gave in her admiration for him. But even if I was as enthusiastic for him as she is, I wouldn't flaunt it here on FR, even in response to those who egged her on. JimRob's opinions on Romney are well known and repeated here frequently, but he has been generous in allowing some contrary discussion. However, you are not going to get anywhere but a zot here on FR by challenging those continually, and by her admitting her membership on TBL (and it took some courage to admit it on FR), she was on the road to expulsion.
I was around in 2007 for the famous Giuliani "bug zapper" thread (18,400+ posts, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1821435/posts) and gave myself an FR timeout after seeing so many leave, most from zotting, and more than a few from ousting after disagreement with one or more of FR's "purity" members. Now having just looked at TBL for the first time, reading some posts and seeing how vitriolic past members are over there toward FR, it is easy to see why FR would zot someone would go over there and then come back over here and tell how sweetness and light it is over there and how bad it is over here. She couldn't have it both ways and finally the totality of her disappointment/disagreement or whatever it was got her banned.
(If interested, you can see Altura's posts at the link: http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:altura/index?tab=comments;brevity=full;options=no-change)