Free Republic

In a rare example of political unity, both the Romney and the Obama campaigns have expressed concern to the Commission on Presidential Debates about how the moderator of the Tuesday town hall has publicly described her role, TIME has learned. While an early October memorandum of understanding between the Obama and Romney campaigns and the bipartisan commission sponsoring the debates suggests CNN‘s Candy Crowley would play a limited role in the Tuesday night session, Crowley, who is not a party to that agreement, has done a series of interviews on her network in which she has suggested she will assume...

“How come the debt problem wasn’t a problem before Obama?” Bill Maher asked on his HBO program “Real Time” this Friday. “It was not mentioned by anyone on the right. Bush never paid for anything.” “Isn’t it also true that when Bush was president he didn’t pay for anything and that was okay because he was white? He had good credit. Suddenly when President Blackenstein gets in office, he has no credit at all. He’s got to pay everything with cash,” Maher said. “It’s not because he’s black. It’s not that you’re black, we just don’t know you,” Maher joked....

(AP) DETROIT — When DC Comics decided to blow up its fabled universe and create a brave, diverse future, Geoff Johns drew from the past for a new character: his own background as an Arab-American. The company's chief creative officer and writer of the re-launched "Green Lantern" series dreamed up Simon Baz, DC's most prominent Arab-American superhero and the first to wear a Green Lantern ring. The character and creator share Lebanese ancestry and hail from the Detroit area, which boasts one of the largest and oldest Arab communities in the United States.

The Phantom Stranger #0 is published today – I mentioned it earlier, but there was one point I wanted to highlight separately.The comic does not mention Judas or Jesus by name. But it is very clear who is meant to be who. Middle Eastern characters two thousand years ago, Judas’ suicide, the thirty pieces of silver, his appeal to be forgiven as “he” would forgive, it’s a blatant as it can be without actually naming names.And while we know about the thirty pieces of silver round his neck, and how that becomes a motivating for for him in The Phantom...

Simon Baz is a Lebanese American hero from Dearborn, Michigan Meet the new Green Lantern, a Muslim-American who wears an Arabic tattoo on the same arm as his power ring. DC Comics is introducing its newest superhero in “Green Lantern #0” Wednesday — and Simon Baz is likely to be turning comic book fans’ heads faster than a speeding bullet. “In general, when you think about Arabs and Muslims in main roles in pop culture, they’re always the villains,” said Linda Sarsour, executive director of the Arab American Association of New York. “We're always the hijackers. We're always the bad...

The General Lee – Bo and Luke Duke’s vehicle of choice from ‘The Dukes of Hazzard‘ – is a classic and instantly recognizable Hollywood car. But it’s about to get a little less recognizable as Warner Bros., the studio that owns the theatrical, DVD and licensing rights to ‘The Dukes of Hazzard,’ has decided to remove the confederate flag from all future versions of the car. The news has reportedly been floating around the hobby community over the past few days as ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ collectors became aware of a new regulation. A collector on HobbyTalk.com was told by a...

The notion that liberals are smarter than conservatives is familiar to anyone who has spent time on a college campus. The College Democrats are said to be ugly, smug and intellectual; the College Republicans, pretty, belligerent and dumb. There's enough truth in both stereotypes that the vast majority of college students opt not to join either club. But are liberals actually smarter? A libertarian (and, as such, nonpartisan) researcher, Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics and Political Science, has just written a paper that is set to be published in March by the journal Social Psychology Quarterly. The...

(Reuters) - Time magazine and CNN said on Thursday they were reinstating journalist Fareed Zakaria after suspending him last week for plagiarism. Time said in a statement that it believed Zakaria made an "unintentional error" in what was an "isolated incident" in a recent column on gun control for the magazine that he took from another writer. "We look forward to having Fareed's thoughtful and important voice back in the magazine with his next column in the issue that comes out on September 7," Time said in a statement. Cable news channel CNN said that after a thorough internal review...

Influence is neutral. By itself it means having a profound effect on something, but that something can be good or bad. Therefore, I can’t argue with Time Magazine’s list of The 20 Most Influential Americans of All Time that happens to include the person who has most influenced the destruction of humanity, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. I have to agree with Time’s assessment that she is one of the most influential Americans of all time because her negative influence has been responsible for the deaths of millions, far exceeding that of Hitler’s influence in World War II, whom we...

Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., responded to George Lopez's profanity-filled tirade against him by telling the comedian to come meet with him. "Get some guts, come down here and meet me face to face. Let's see how you act then," Arpaio, known as "America's Toughest Sheriff," told ABC affiliate KNXV. Lopez has no comment regarding Arpaio's invitation, according to his publicist. Lopez's attack on Arapio was part of the comedian's "It's not me, it's you" standup comedy show on HBO Saturday night. The rant came after Lopez joked that Mitt Romney is Latino but won't admit it. Lopez's...

Anderson Cooper has some news to share. "The fact is, I'm gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn't be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud," the CNN anchor wrote Monday in an open letter to his longtime friend Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Beast. The host of Anderson Cooper: 360, 45, also says that he has waited until now to announce the fact because, "As long as a journalist shows fairness and honesty in his or her work, their private life shouldn't matter." Cooper, who also hosts his own syndicated talk daytime show Anderson, addressed...

You need not use the left's absurdly low and usually ridiculous standards surrounding what is and isn't racism when it comes to Barack Obama to be taken aback by crybaby Bill Maher's blog post yesterday: Also because the idea that the blame for our government’s dysfunction is equally shared by the parties just is a giant, steaming mound of horseshit and anyone who has paid attention to politics over the last 20 years knows it. Or as I like to call it, “The Rise of the Party of the Apes.” Maher then went on to single out black Republican Congressman...

The producers behind HBO's "Game of Thrones" would've been better off had they simple said what is likely the truth, that they hate George W. Bush and impaled his prosthetic head on a pole for the kind of childish shits and giggles the Secret Service might want to look into. Instead, they offer absurd explanations that, in my opinion, only prove what sniveling weasals (sic) they really are:

Barack Obama keeps desperately pounding the entertainment industry's ATMs in Hollywood and Manhattan, while our manufacturers of make-believe have absolutely refused to expel their vicious hatred of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. You wonder if, on any level, Obama is upset or chagrined or even embarrassed. Two examples have shown their ugly heads -- one of them severed. HBO -- with Bill Maher as the face of their political analysis is a global leader in burning Bush-Cheney hatred -- expressed surprise and embarrassment when it was discovered their violence-drenched series "Game of Thrones" included a scene with a model...

Green Lantern: the homosexualized hero DC Comics falls down before the powerful gay agenda in American cultureBy Julio Severo Green Lantern, hero of comics, has no choice: he will be gay. By the DC Comics bosses’ decision, the hero has to adapt himself to the predominant trends in the American media, whose goal has been to portrait homosexuals in a positive and nice way. Besides, the homosexual way attracts immediate and infallible acclamation from the shamelessly pro-sodomy American media. But the hero doesn’t need to get anguished about his fate. Because he is fiction, he doesn’t have feelings, and...

The Man of Steel? Lois Lane's lover? DC Comics has jumped the shark - maybe. But the DC Comics co-publisher appears to be contemplating changing the sexual orientation of an "established character:" One question asked at the DC panel today at the Kapow comic convention in London, was about DC co-publisher Dan DiDio's interview with The Advocate. Specifically over the decision not to change any character's sexual orientation when relaunching the DC Universe. At the time Dan stated they would introduce new LGBT characters rather than switch orientation, but the question asked why DC would switch race, size, age,...

WASHINGTON -- I first heard it two, perhaps two and a half years ago. A sage sitting in his New York City office pronounced it. Said the sage to me: "This is going to be the dirtiest presidential campaign in history." I would pass on my prescient friend's name, but he is a gentleman of high profile. It would be best if he were to continue his life unmolested by the Living Saint in the White House, whom a benighted majority of Americanos deposited there in 2009. Now, roughly six months from Election Day, I fear my friend was right....

Time magazine is out with its latest cover, one that’s sure to get its fair share of attention. Headlined “Are You Mom Enough?”, it features a blonde, skinny jean-wearing woman — and a preschool-age boy unmistakably latched on to her breast.The cover goes with the magazine’s feature story on “attachment parenting” — a philosophy designed to foster a secure bond to the child. Co-sleeping, or the “family bed,” and breastfeeding well past babyhood are sometimes the hallmarks of attachment parenting. The mother pictured on the cover is Jamie Lynne Grumet of Los Angeles and her 3-year-old son. “I don’t consider...

Does this cover go too far? (Photo: Time.com)The headline reads, "Are You Mom enough?" But if that wasn't enough to fan the flames of the Mommy Wars, there's the photo that goes with it: A pretty young woman wearing skinny jeans and a tank top, nursing her nearly 4-year-old son. It's meant to illustrate a story about Dr. William Sears and attachment parenting but, given that there's more to that movement than extended breastfeeding, it seems as if Time magazine was going for sensationalism and shock value. It's working. >>Warning: pic at the link<<

How very open-minded and reasonable it was of Bill Maher to deliver this little riff on the Santorums' decision to homeschool their children (h/t NewsBusters):CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Let’s not even get into his use of the term “madrassa,” which refers to an Islamic seminary that teaches mostly Islamic subjects. Suffice it to say anyone concerned about brainwashing should worry less about Rick Santorum’s children and more about subjugated women and children in the Middle East.Instead, let’s focus on the “comedian’s” own appalling lack of knowledge. What Bill Maher doesn’t know about homeschooling could fill a book he’d...