Free Republic

[‘I said, are you doing this because I’m a black man in America? Are you doing this because you’re a white police officer and I am a black man?” - Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. recounting a conversation with his arresting officer in Cambridge.] - italics So what if the cop had been BLACK? What if Sgt. James Crowley happened to be one of Cambridge’s 41 black police officers rather than bearing as he does the affliction of whiteness? If a black police sergeant responded to the call of a possible breaking and entering, and asked Gates for some form...

It’s starting to look like the baptism/murder scene from “The Godfather” at Greater Media Inc. In December the company terminated outspoken, highly-visible WBT-AM/Charlotte afternoon drive host Jeff Katz for undisclosed reasons. This past Thursday, Greater Media hit WTKK-FM/Boston afternoon driver Jay Severin with an unpaid, open-ended suspension for anti-Hispanic remarks – including recent comments tying the spread of Swine Flu to illegal immigrants from Mexico. A suspension without pay is often a kiss on the cheek on the way to termination. If Severin does return to the job, it can’t possibly be the same anything-goes show. Are these moves somehow...

Leave it to a Massachusetts politician to get taxes completely wrong. U.S. Rep. Bill Delahunt is soon expected to reintroduce the Streamlined Sales Tax (SST) bill, a federal mandate for collecting local sales taxes on interstate purchases. You buy organic Oreos from Oregon or moose meat from Montana, and Massachusetts sales taxes would track you across the Internet. Supporters argue it’s unfair to make traditional “brick-and-mortar” businesses collect our state’s 5 percent (for the moment) sales tax while a shop next door can sell the same item online tax-free. They’re right. Every business should be treated the same. What’s wrong...

Janet Napolitano was right. There were hatemongers at the Tea Party rallies on Tax Day. They called themselves “reporters.” The Department of Homeland Security released a pre-emptive “assessment report” on the dangers of “right-wing extremists” just a week before the tax protest rallies. According to DHS, these potentially include pro-lifers, supporters of border security and that notoriously unstable group - U.S. military veterans. And I can report that there were, in fact, quite a few vets at our Tea Party at Long Wharf. But other than their crazy notion that spending our kids into an $11 trillion hole is wrong,...

How I became a terrorist: Friday morning I found out that Bill Ayers was scheduled to appear at Boston College the following Monday - yesterday. When a listener to my talk show tipped me off, I didn’t believe it. And because BC was being so careful not to promote it, it took me several Google searches to confirm the details. Yes, the unrepentant founder of the Weather Underground terrorist organization that bombed a dozen American targets, advocated murder and whose members killed at least two police officers, among others, was invited to speak on the campus of a Catholic university....

Boston Herald columnists and WTKK-FM talk radio stars Margery Eagan and Michael Graham have a slight disagreement today over Graham’s successful effort to get Boston College to reverse its decision to invite 1960s radical terrorist William Ayers to speak on-campus. Graham is under fire by Boston progressives for his anti-Ayers activism: And that’s when the Angry Left turned their sights on me.I attacked “free speech.” I was a talk radio hypocrite, only supporting controversial opinions from the right. My favorite is the blogger bemoaning “a verbal terrorist assault by right-wing yakker Michael Graham.”That’s right - the guy who founded a...

“In any other area of American life, this track record would get a man run out of town. In Washington, he’s hailed as a sage whose history of willful error will be forgotten faster than taxpayers can write a check for $200 billion.” - The Wall Street Journal on Rep. Barney Frank, Sept. 9, 2008 The only thing more painful than watching 180 billion tax dollars swirl down the AIG drainpipe is listening to Barney Frank bloviate about it. I don’t know The World’s Most Expensive Legislator personally, but I hear he’s quite a cut-up at cocktail parties. However, as...

Conservative WTKK yakker Michael Graham was handcuffed and arrested early this morning, the latest Boston radio personality to have a run-in with the law. Graham, 45, was arrested around 5:30 a.m. in Framingham and charged with failure to stop for a red light and operating a vehicle after his driver’s license had been revoked, said Lt. Paul Shastany.

First Tim Geithner. Now Tom Daschle? Who’s Obama’s next cabinet pick - Wesley Snipes? Dianne Wilkerson? Not to upset the loyal O-Bots out there, but the last guy from Chicago to have this much income tax trouble was Al Capone. And at last report, he still had an outside shot at getting Commerce secretary. President Obama pledged to change Washington, and he has. Before Obama, tax cheats used to lose jobs. Conservative academic Victor Davis Hanson calls the choice of Daschle the “Rezkozation” of the Obama administration. Tony Rezko, you may recall, was the bagman who bankrolled part of Obama’s...

First Tim Geithner. Now Tom Daschle? Who’s Obama’s next cabinet pick - Wesley Snipes? Dianne Wilkerson? Not to upset the loyal O-Bots out there, but the last guy from Chicago to have this much income tax trouble was Al Capone. And at last report, he still had an outside shot at getting Commerce secretary. President Obama pledged to change Washington, and he has. Before Obama, tax cheats used to lose jobs. Conservative academic Victor Davis Hanson calls the choice of Daschle the “Rezkozation” of the Obama administration. Tony Rezko, you may recall, was the bagman who bankrolled part of Obama’s...

Looking for this week’s classic American tale? Forget the rise of Barack Obama. It’s the fall of Flight 1549. There, lined up on the wings of a sinking plane like kids patiently waiting for the school bus, was the real America. Not to name any names, but there are those who believe American society is broken, that our national soul needs healing, that our citizens lack the character to even set our own thermostats. But I believe that the nation this unnamed person will be sworn in to govern on Tuesday is a much better place than many of his...

have a dream for Sen. Barack Obama. I have a dream that one day, for just 24 hours, he could be Sarah Palin. OK, maybe that’s less of a dream and more a plot point from a bad Lindsay Lohan movie (redundancy alert!). But imagine the Democratic nominee’s day as Barack Palin Obama: He wake up and reaches for a secret cigarette and a copy of The New York Times [NYT]. Instead of the usual partisan puff pieces (“Obama Health Care Plan Pledges Miraculous Healings For All”), the Times is running exposes about his family. Does his spouse have extremist...

Poor Barack Obama. With friends like these . . . No, wait, not those friends: the Rev. Wright, Williams Ayers and gang. I mean friends whom Obama will actually admit having, like “Scrappy Joe” Biden and Gen. Colin Powell. Both were talking up an Obama presidency over the weekend, but I wouldn’t call the results “Mission Accomplished.” Sen. Biden (D-Amtrak) is not exactly known for his rhetoric. He recently told supporters that Obama’s highest priority “is a three-letter word: Jobs! J-O-B-S.” He followed up that math lesson with this prediction at an Oregon fund-raiser: “It will not be six months...

Frank Rich of the NYTimes. Why is this man lying? Reading the New York Times and expecting the truth is like going to a brothel and expecting to find true love.  Reading NYTimes columnist Frank Rich and expecting anything other than dishonest, partisan hyperventilating is even dumber. But when it comes to a serious issue like allegations of death threats against Sen. Obama, I'd like to think that Rich or his NYTimes editors might have some sense of journalistic responsibility.That's how much of a Pollyanna I am.In his column today, Rich writes about fears of assassination attempts against Sen. Obama and the decision of...

The headline on the Boston Globe-Democrat’s editorial page, “Wasilla Made Rape Victims Pay,” says it all. All wrong. The Globe-Democrat yesterday asserted as fact that “during her tenure as mayor of Wasilla, the town started charging rape victims or their insurers for rape kits.” But the truth is that there is no record of a rape victim ever being charged for a rape kit by Wasilla; there’s no evidence Mayor Palin knew about the policy or took any action on it either way; and no record of a victim’s insurance company being charged by the town. How does an alleged...

“I want [Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae] to help with affordable housing, to help low-income families get loans and to help clean up this subprime mess. Otherwise, why should they exist?” - Rep. Barney Frank, earlier this month. The Subprime Panic of ’08 and its $1 trillion (and rising!) price tag is too big to blame on any one man. But if we had to, it would be Newton’s own Rep. Barney Frank. As Winston Churchill might have put it, never before has one man done so much that was so wrong, or shafted so many on behalf of so...

Let’s start with the obvious and inarguable: Of course Sen. Barack Obama’s comment about “lipstick on a pig” was a reference to Supergirl Sarah Palin. You know it, I know it and the partisan crowd that literally rose to their feet and cheered when they heard it know it. And it’s nothing new. Democrats shot the lipstick line at Gov. Palin on their official Web site last week with a posting entitled “McCain’s Selection of Palin is Lipstick on a Pig” - accompanied by what I’m sure was intended to be a flattering photo of the Alaska outdoorswoman. And -...

Front-runner unplugged Media Infatuation with him backfires Michael Graham By Michael Graham Tuesday, September 9, 2008 - I have one piece of advice for the struggling Obama campaign: Fire MSNBC. They’re killing your campaign. By all accounts the Democrats had a successful national convention in Denver. Their nominee’s speech at the ObamaDome was well received. At one point last week, Sen. Barack Obama had an 8-point lead in the polls. Click to learn more... Today, he’s losing by 4. If you only count likely voters, Obama is down by 10. And he has his fawning friends in the media to...

Sarah Palin’s one cool customer Millions of mothers can relate to Palin By Michael Graham Tuesday, September 2, 2008 ST. PAUL, Minn. - And you thought the Clinton-Obama convention was a soap opera. Enter stage (far) right: The Sarah Palin Chronicles. John McCain’s VP choice was already the fastest-breaking curveball American politics had seen in a generation before this Reuters report: “The 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is pregnant, Palin said on Monday in an announcement intended to knock down rumors by liberal bloggers that Palin faked her own pregnancy to cover up for her child.”...

Amazing interview Michael talks with Jon Voight re; new movie An American Carol, Vietnam War, McCain Campaign/prisoner of war, Enemies around the World, Angelina Jolie, Cindy McCain.