Free Republic

A member of the Charlottesville School Board is proposing that a framed picture of President Barack Obama be placed in all of the city’s public schools, as well as the division’s central office. None of Juandiego Wade’s colleagues was quick to jump on board with his proposal at Thursday’s meeting, nor did any members dismiss it. Wade insisted that if the proposal were approved, he’d raise the money for the pictures and frames — which he believes can be obtained for free or very little money — through a private fundraising campaign. “It would be no cost to the school...

Artist Shepard Fairey, whose iconic HOPE campaign poster of Barack Obama was a global sensation, is back with a new image that both questions and deifies the President. Appearing on the cover of the Aug. 20 Rolling Stone, the portrait depicts Obama with a brow knit in determination, surrounded by a halo of stars. "Will he take bold action or compromise too easily?" asks a headline enshrining the President's head. Fairey said it wasn't meant to be a halo. Rather, the picture he worked from showed Obama standing in front of the presidential seal, he said. "It's one thing to...

(snip) "I think you could say that it is a short-term improvement in the economy. And I'll be glad to give him credit for that. But the question that I think we should be asking are the long term consequences of this unprecedented debts and deficits — are they beneficial to the country? And I think the answer is no." (snip)

If Barack Obama disappoints his supporters, they will have only themselves to blame. In January 2007 Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, said he was running for president to revive “our national soul”. He was not alone in taking an expansive view of presidential responsibilities. With the exception of Ron Paul, all the serious candidates waxed grandiloquent about their aims. John McCain said he modelled himself on Teddy Roosevelt, a man who “nourished the soul of a great nation”. Hillary Clinton lamented that America had no goals, and offered to supply some. And let us not forget the man...

On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog, but someone in the liberal media just informed me that the president of the U.S. is a black man. And as such cannot be criticized or joked about by conservatives. Obama is off limits! They can make all kinds of rude and crude jokes about George Bush, even comparing him in thousands of crude cartoons over the past eight years as a chimp, but man. If you were to follow suit comparing today's president to a smirking chimp you would be crucified! And Sarah Palin's family and children? Open season! Even...

I don't get to the lower level of Washington's Union Station much, but today I passed through and saw "My Obama Shop" — that's the actual name of an entire store devoted to all things Obama. My phone takes lousy pictures, but a blogger at Cato has a photo. Obviously there's a market for this sort of thing (I'm assuming it's not a government-owned business, at least for now) is a way there never would be for "My Bob Dole Shop" or "My John McCain Shop," but it's still kind of creepy. In fact, the very fact that there is...

Students create an Obaminoes mural Mural helped students learn new math skills Sy Becker WESTFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) - Students at Westfield's Franklin Avenue Elementary School are in a class all by themselves. Honors were given on Tuesday for these boys and girls who spent two months completing a mural of President Barack Obama. A mural called "Obaminoes" was made from 2,420 dominoes. 22News followed the students progress every step of the way. "We were the only elementary school to do this and to have a piece of artwork of our 44th president, the only African American president. It means a...

. In 1798, during the Quasi-war with France, Congress, with President John Adams’s support, passed the Sedition Act. Outraged by attacks on her husband, Abigail Adams supported the act, which was opposed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, among others. “Let us not establish a tyranny,” wrote an alarmed Alexander Hamilton to an ally in Congress. Indeed, the Sedition Act, an obvious violation of the First Amendment, made a permanent blot on Adams’s presidency. Here is part of its text: “If any person shall write, print, utter or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered or...

(snip) And as the White House holds a bipartisan summit on immigration Thursday, Republicans are warning that Obama needs to offer a specific plan or risk seeing the issue die this Congress. “He needs to really lead on that,” said Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), who was a member of a bipartisan group that unsuccessfully pushed an immigration bill in 2007. “I think it’s very, very important that he give a clear signal on where he is on an issue with that level of specificity.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), another supporter of the 2007 bill, said President George W. Bush ran...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama plans to throw out the ceremonial first pitch before the Major League Baseball All-Star game at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on July 14. The White House said on Tuesday that MLB's focus on community service matches with Obama's service initiative this summer, known as United We Serve.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — You can't call John McCain a sore loser. Seven months after Barack Obama defeated him in the U.S. presidential election, the Republican senator from Arizona said Sunday he thinks his former Senate colleague is making things happen in the White House. "I think he's done well," McCain said on the CBS program "Face the Nation." "He has achieved literally every one of his legislative accomplishments," McCain noted in reference to the economic stimulus package and other measures passed by Congress in recent months. However, McCain said, the same partisan divisions remain in Congress despite Obama's campaign pledges...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. John McCain says his opponent in last year's presidential campaign, Barack Obama, has "done well" in his first five months in the White House. The Arizona Republican says that using a legislative scorecard to judge the presidency so far, Obama has achieved all his legislative goals.

If the Republican Party is trying to lose the 2012 presidential elections, they must be getting an early start. First, there was South Carolina GOP activist Rusty DePass, who said that an escaped gorilla from a zoo was an ancestor to First Lady Michelle Obama. Now an aide to Republican State Senator Diane Black mistakenly sent an e-mail with a picture of all the U.S. presidents. Of course, President Obama’s “picture” was a black background with only two white eyes. Maybe it’s a bit old fashion to say this in today’s political climate where disrespecting the president has become the...

STATE-RUN MEDIAWhat do you think of ABC teaming up with White House for its news? - It's a socially responsible move by the network - It's a good way to get people interested in how government works - Another example of Obama being open and transparent - Obama has become "too big to fail," so the media need to support him in every way possible - It's just a promotional gimmick by ABC to try to improve ratings - Like Rush says, what do you expect from the state-run media? It's just blatant now - Like Farah says, the media...

PARIS (AP) — People gawked and cameras clicked as the Obamas cut a wide figure through the French capital even while confined to a presidential motorcade. It was more personal for the few kept not so distant — the restaurant owner who "saw God," the chauffeur reveling in a "magnificent mission."

Newsweek editor Evan Thomas brought adulation over President Obama’s Cairo speech to a whole new level on Friday, declaring on MSNBC: "I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God." Thomas, appearing on Hardball with Chris Matthews, was reacting to a preceding monologue in which Matthews praised Obama’s speech: "I think the President's speech yesterday was the reason we Americans elected him. It was grand. It was positive. Hopeful...But what I liked about the President's speech in Cairo was that it showed a complete humility...The question now is whether the...

Just when you thought the propaganda from the NY Slimes could not get more loathsome and preposterous.

He was tall and stunningly good looking, a guy who could appear pensive and serious one moment and then, with smoke from an unfiltered cigarette swirling around his face, morph into the hippest looking dude this side of James Dean. Which is why budding photographer Lisa Jack knew the moment she saw Barack Obama walk into the campus snack shop at Los Angeles' Occidental College in 1980 that she had to get the freshman in front of a camera. "I was doing portraits of fellow students, the cool people on campus," Jack, a slender, 49-year-old bundle of energy, recalled this...

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