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Palin denounces her critics as cowardsFriday, November 07, 2008 | 8:14 PM ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called her critics cowards and jerks Friday for deriding her anonymously and insisted she never asked for the expensive wardrobe purchased for her use on the presidential campaign. "I never asked for anything more than a Diet Dr. Pepper once in a while," Palin said... **SNIP** "Those are the RNC's clothes. They're not my clothes. I never forced anybody to buy anything," she said. Republican Party lawyers are still trying to determine exactly what clothing was purchased for Palin at such...

ABC’s Kate Snow reports: A longtime aide to Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is lashing back at anonymous critics within the McCain-Palin presidential campaign, telling ABCNews they are attacking the former vice presidential candidate with distortions. Meg Stapleton offers an explanation of some of the more stinging criticisms that have come out in recent days since the McCain-Palin defeat.

A unanimously negative media response to the political slapstick movie American Carol reinforces my theory that humor -- and satire in particular -- is an accurate litmus test of one's political and ideological convictions, even if one insists on having no convictions at all. If you want to check your friends' politics, take them to see this conservative comedy and watch the reaction. Committed liberals won't laugh at conservative humor and vice versa. If they don't agree on the joke's basic philosophical premise, the sting will miss the spot and the joker will be shrugged off as a pathetic fool...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Legal Newsline)-A Wall Street Journal opinion article that claimed California Attorney General Jerry Brown had waged "war on the suburbs" continues to reverberate around rural and suburban towns in California. Critics of Brown's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow urban sprawl have another target, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who rekindled the debate when he signed pro-environmental bills earlier this month. Editors at the Sun-Herald in rural Colusa, Calif., which lies 90 minutes north of Sacramento, became the latest to rebuke the Republican governor for acting too much like the Democratic attorney general. "In his zeal to battle...

The American Idol candidate September 10, 2008 By Roger Ebert I think I might be able to explain some of Sara Palin's appeal. She's the "American Idol" candidate. Consider. What defines an "American Idol" finalist? They're good-looking, work well on television, have a sunny personality, are fierce competitors, and so talented, why, they're darned near the real thing. There's a reason "American Idol" gets such high ratings. People identify with the contestants. They think, Hey, that could almost be me up there on that show! My feeling is, I don't want to be up there. I want a vice president...

** EXCERPT ** ST. PAUL, MINN. (AP) - Republican presidential nominee John McCain began his final drive for the White House on Thursday with a boost from running mate Sarah Palin while Democratic opponent Joe Biden declared her family "off limits" and suggested that some news media coverage of her had been sexist. Palin and her husband, Todd, announced this week that their 17-year-old unmarried daughter was pregnant and would be marrying her boyfriend, saying they were making a private matter public because of Internet rumors. Biden said the Democratic campaign was not attacking Palin over her family. "It is...

Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection By ETHAN BRONNER JERUSALEM — A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days. If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus...“This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This...

Lisa Miller defends Hillary Clinton against critics of her marriage in the latest from Newsweek. Although admitting that Hillary has brought the focus onto the marriage herself because of the nature of her claims to “experience”, Miller scolds people for speculating on the nature of the relationship. However, Miller doesn’t explain how to separate that from the nature of Hillary’s experience: Cindy McCain is a grown-up woman who has suffered her share of personal and marital setbacks—including an addiction to prescription painkillers that she hid from her husband—but she knows that what America wants in a First Marriage is something...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's elections were supposed to usher in democracy after eight years of military rule, but for Talat Hussain life doesn't look much different. Every time his TV station tries to air shows critical of President Pervez Musharraf, the screen goes black. Pakistan's main opposition parties announced they would form a coalition government to bring civilian rule after voters delivered a crushing blow to the pro-Musharraf ruling party in Feb. 18 parliamentary polls. Two days after the vote, Aaj, the privately owned station where Hussain is news director, was knocked off the air. Its signal has been jammed...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - An e-mail sent by local immigration officials to their agency head the day after the city adopted an ID program for illegal immigrants suggests that the timing of a raid soon thereafter was not coincidental, the city's mayor said. Regional Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers told agency Director Julie Myers in a June 5 e-mail that New Haven's Board of Aldermen had voted 25-1 the previous night to make the city the nation's first to offer illegal immigrants ID cards. City officials said the cards would help immigrants better integrate into mainstream culture by allowing them...

On the Paul Harvey Radio Show a few minutes ago, it was reported that in Uganda, a number of actors pretending to be bank robbers, were filming a movie in front of a bank recently. Apparently the Ugandan police then showed up, unaware that this was a movie set, and opened fire on the actors, killing 2 and wounding 3 more. Further complicating the tragedy, was the Freerepublic revelation that the police officers turned out to actually be, in reality, movie critics pretending to be policemen. This is playing to the fears of Hollywood that their actor-activists who show up...

People for whom indignation is a way of life — and there seem to be an increasing number of such people — repeatedly have outbursts of outrage whenever the police fire a lot of shots at some criminal. People who have never fired a gun in their lives, and have never had a split second in which to make a decision that could mean life or death for themselves or others, are often nevertheless convinced that the police used excessive force. As someone who once taught pistol shooting in the Marine Corps, it has never seemed strange to me that...

The Number Of Professional Music, Dance And Movie Reviewers Is Shrinking. Are They Missed? When Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert sat across from each other in a semi-darkened theater and discussed movies it was more than a handy way to figure out how to spend your movie bucks. It was an education. Their conversations were often more entertaining than the movies. Anyone who cared to listen learned a new language. The fact that a movie's future might depend on whether it got the most magical of critical endorsements — "Two thumbs up" — illustrated the power of their opinions. Looking...

WASHINGTON - Even some critics of President Bush's Iraq war policies are conceding there is evidence of recent improvements from a military standpoint. But Bush supporters and critics alike agree that these have not been matched by any noticeable progress on the political front. Despite U.S. pressure, Iraq's parliament went on vacation for a month after failing to pass either legislation to share the nation's oil wealth or to reconcile differences among the factions. And nearly all Sunni representatives in the government have quit, undermining the legitimacy of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite. Still, there have been signs of...

San Joaquin Valley dairies should keep cows in enclosed barns and use special waste collectors to reduce air pollution, say critics of existing dairy air standards. The Fresno Healthy Dairy Commission, an advocacy group including doctors, business and religious leaders, says dairies cause harmful emissions in Fresno County, which has some of the nation's worst air pollution. The group said Friday a proposed county dairy ordinance needs tougher air quality regulations. The commission cited recommendations for enclosing dairy barns and cattle waste in a report it requested from the California Institute for Rural Studies, based at the University of California,...

WASHINGTON - The fragile coalition that produced this week's immigration deal risks being picked apart by forces across the political spectrum as the measure begins moving through Congress. Lawmakers want to revise key elements, such as letting millions of illegal immigrants stay in the U.S., favoring skills and education over families and setting out the terms of a new temporary worker program. Any one of the changes has the potential to sink the whole measure, which was unveiled with fanfare Thursday but was still being drafted late Friday. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who helped negotiate the compromise, called it "very...

SACRAMENTO - Despite continuing opposition from environmentalists, a $1 billion liquefied natural gas facility proposed for off the Malibu coast could win key state approvals as early as next week. To be built by Australian energy giant BHP Billiton and anchored about 14 miles offshore, the floating facility would become California's first such plant. The 214-foot-high terminal would accept liquefied natural gas from tankers, convert it into natural gas and pipe it to a facility in Oxnard. "The facility we're proposing is absolutely the most environmental facility out there," said Renee Klimczak, president of BHP's liquefied natural gas division. "That's...

KEYPORT, Wash. - Critics of a Navy plan to use dolphins and sea lions to guard waters off the coast of a major submarine base say the ocean is too cold for the plan to work. Other critics who showed up at a public open house Tuesday questioned the use of live animals rather than sophisticated technology at Hood Canal, home of the West Coast Trident submarine base. The animals are trained to alert a handler when they detect anyone in the water. The handler, in a small boat, then places a strobe light on the nose of the animal,...

ABC News' Teddy Davis reports: In the forthcoming issue of Texas Monthly, former Bush Strategist Matthew Dowd writes that President Bush's "gut-level bond" with the American people "may be lost" and that "wholesale change" is needed in Iraq."Sending a small contingent of troops is likely going to be seen as not helpful," Dowd writes. "He'd be much better off with the public if he said, 'This is a mess, we made mistakes, and the only way to fix it is a wholesale change.' And that could mean either a serious increase in troop strength or withdrawal."

Lazarus Revisited Devout Christians believe Jesus of Nazareth raised Lazarus - brother of Mary and Martha of Bethany - from the grave – four days after his death and burial. One pious tradition has it that Lazarus subsequently wandered with a small band of early Christian followers to Marseilles, became the first Bishop of Provence, and was martyred by the Romans. Others say he remained in the holy land, lived a quiet and examplary life, and was buried as a saint in Constantinople. Ah, but “Biblical people” were real people : motivated by the same petty things we are –...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking on just about every major interest group in California in his audacious effort to bring universal health care to the nation's biggest state: unions, small business, doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, conservatives. Whether the former Hollywood action hero can prevail and get it passed — or get it passed in still-recognizable form — is far from clear. "I think it's very difficult in its present form," said Bill Carrick, a Democratic strategist. "He's got universal Republican opposition to it and the stakeholders are all going to get hit with a tax — doctors,...

It happens to everyone who loves movies: You're in a conversation at a bar, or at a wedding, or online, and someone begins rhapsodizing about one of their favorite movies and you can't help but say, "Uh, that movie sucks. It's totally overrated." How two perfectly well-balanced individuals can have such drastically different views of the same film is one of the great wonders of being a film fanatic. It happens to us at Premiere all the time, enough so that sometimes we find ourselves questioning who we work with (boy, did it get ugly here when Love, Actually came...

To understate the case, my last column, "America, Not Keith Ellison, Decides What Book a Congressman Takes His Oath on," seems to have touched a national nerve. It has caused a national discussion -- actually, more hate-filled attacks on me than civil discussion -- and has been covered by just about all major American news media. To their credit, CNN and Fox News both gave me ample time (in television terms anyway) to express my views on two of each network's major shows: "Paula Zahn Now" and Headline News on CNN, and "Hannity & Colmes" and "Your World with Neil...

Who says critics don't matter anymore? The new trailer for Paramount's upcoming numskull comedy "Jackass: Number Two" is full of quotes from reviews of the first movie. There's just one tiny twist: The studio uses the vitriolic reviews attacking the first film ("A disgusting, repulsive, grotesque spectacle" says an aghast Richard Roeper) to promote the new picture. With a sly, leering note of triumph, the narrator intones: "Unfortunately for them, we just made 'Number Two.' " All in all, it's been a rotten tomato of a summer for America's embattled film critics. "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" broke...

The Hizbullah and Hamas provocations against Israel once again demonstrate how terrorists exploit human rights and the media in their attacks on democracies. By hiding behind their own civilians the Islamic radicals issue a challenge to democracies: Either violate your own morality by coming after us and inevitably killing some innocent civilians, or maintain your morality and leave us with a free hand to target your innocent civilians. This challenge presents democracies such as Israel with a lose-lose option, and the terrorists with a win-win option. There is one variable that could change this dynamic and present democracies with a...

Reprinted from NewsMax.com Hit or Miss: Grading U.S. Missile Defense Dave Eberhart, NewsMaxFriday, July 7, 2006 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- On July 5, just hours after the provocative North Korean test-launch of seven missiles, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stated that the threat remained clear and present. The communist country's launch included a missile capable of hitting the U.S. Northwest. Critics charge that U.S. missile defense remains a long way from being a reliable sentinel against that clear and present danger. Bryan Whitman, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) revealed after the North Korean launches, "Each and every...

NEW YORK - The sweeping immigration bills in Congress would add many thousands of beds to the patchwork network of detention facilities that hold illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers — places that critics say are over-costly and under-regulated. Already, activists say, far too many nonthreatening people are held for too long in demoralizing conditions. "I'm not against homeland security," said Edward Neepaye, a pastor and human-rights campaigner from Liberia who was detained in New Jersey for four months. "But the greatest nation on earth must come up with a remedy that accords immigrants some respect, rather than throwing them in jail...

War chieftains Look for some new combatant commanders to be named later this year. Army Gen. Bantz Craddock, who now heads U.S. Southern Command in Miami, is slated to move to Europe to be the next supreme allied commander of NATO. He would replace Marine Gen. James Jones, whose term is expiring. Gen. Craddock, a one-time senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, will be replaced at SouthCom by Vice Adm. James Stavridis, a former warship commander who now serves as Mr. Rumsfeld's top military aide. Sending Gen. Craddock to Brussels restores to one of its officers what...

There was a show presented here in Indianapolis called The Pillowman and if you read the letter presented below you will understand what is was about. I saw this letter and was just so stunned by it's content that I did not know how to respond, so I thought I should post it here at the FR and get some feedback. There is a lot to this story, I may not have all the information I should, but this letter says a lot. BTW - "NUVO" is local liberal "arts" newspaper that caters to the "in" crowd around Indianapolis. ************...

PALOMINAS — Another group has formed out of frustration regarding U.S. immigration policy, and the Palominas Trading Post on Highway 92 provided the arena for its political venting Saturday. The new group, S.O.S. Borders, is described as a more moderate organization by co-director Kimberly Fletcher. It has a philosophy based on common-sense need for border security, she said. Fletcher’s group organized the rally at which leaders and participants in many already well-known organizations such as the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, American Border Patrol, the new-but-growing Mothers Against Illegal Aliens organization, Eagle Forum and Desert Visions spoke. The rally was called...

As their month-long border deployment draws to an end, leaders of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps say their efforts have brought more attention to the illegal immigration issue and more supporters to their border security movement. Critics are less generous in their assessment, and the U.S. Border Patrol is maintaining its neutral position ----

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Does Hollywood get religion right when it makes movies? The answers are almost as diverse as the cinematic fare coming to mall multiplexes. "Some people do their homework and get it right; other people exploit it," said Paulist Father Frank Desiderio, head of Paulist Productions and overseer of the Humanitas Prize. "If you mean the studios, then no they don't," said Barbara Nicolosi, who runs the Act One screenwriting program for Christians who aspire to a Hollywood career. "Studios are not in the habit of hiring people of faith to either write, direct or be in any...

A renowned psychiatrist from UC Irvine was duped into squandering at least $1.3 million of his family's fortune on a Nigeria Internet scam, according to a lawsuit recently filed by his son. The son, also an Orange County doctor, said his father — Dr. Louis A. Gottschalk — gave as much as $3 million over a 10-year period in response to an Internet plea that promised the doctor a generous cut of a huge sum of cash trapped in African bank accounts in exchange for money advances. The court documents, filed last month in Orange County Superior Court, allege Gottschalk...

SAN JOSE — At a pivotal point for keeping his job, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told the divided GOP faithful Friday that he will continue to battle for reform of education, state spending, troubled pension systems and political boundary redistricting. "We will continue to fight for recovery," Schwarzenegger said. The governor also reminded Republicans that he reversed the car tax, overhauled workers' compensation, stopped illegal immigrants from getting driver's licenses and avoided tax hikes. But he also had a warning for the GOP. "Republicans must begin to change our outlook," he said. "We cannot just fight, we must build. We...

It was ages ago — namely, September of 2001 — when the president of the United States went before Congress and a nation still in shock to ask for the full panoply of wartime powers. Remember? "We will direct every resource at our command," the president vowed, "every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every weapon of war — to the destruction and to the defeat of the global terror network." Every tool of intelligence. That phrase tends to be forgotten in the current hubbub over whether the president has...

RALEIGH, N.C. - With guaranteed federal loans and insurance protection promised to the first power companies to build a new wave of nuclear plants, the race is on for construction of up to 10 stations between Maryland and Mississippi. At least two utilities plan to announce their intended sites within a few weeks. And some communities appear enthusiastic about luring the jobs and tax dollars the plants would bring. One South Carolina county looking to land a proposed Duke Energy Corp. plant has even offered a 50 percent break on property taxes. But even with the nuclear power industry in...

The would-be president is messing with ire January 13, 2006 Fans-turned-critics say Hillary Clinton is sacrificing principle in the hunt for votes, writes Anne Summers. It is still more than two years before the major parties in the United States decide upon their candidates for the 2008 presidential elections, and it is widely assumed that the Democratic Party candidate will be the junior senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton. You might expect the political conversation among Democrats to be along the lines of "Is Hillary electable?" (given the preponderance of red states on the American political map) but many...

The same environmental groups that lobby and sue the government over protecting air, water and human health also are collecting federal grant money for research and technical work, documents show. More than 2,200 nonprofit groups have received grants from the Environmental Protection Agency over the past decade, including some of the Bush administration's toughest critics on environmental policy. "It may be confusing to the public that with the right hand we're accepting government money and with the left hand sometimes we're beating up the government," said Charles Miller, communications director for Environmental Defense. The group has received more than $1.8...

Prepare your mind and body for a trip into the Twilight Zone. Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives said yesterday that the Democrats will offer no unified position on Iraq in 2006. Despite claims by Democrats and the media that the Bush administration has no plan, Pelosi said that differing opinions within her party regarding Iraq are “a sign of strength.” In comments made to the Washington Post, Pelosi told reporters and editors that Democrats “should not seek a unified position on an exit strategy in Iraq, calling the war a matter of individual...

Military recruiters visited Tucson-area high schools more than 1,300 times in the 2004-05 school year, but, contrary to critics' charges, did not appear to target poor or minority students, according to an analysis by the Arizona Daily Star of recruiter activity at 21 schools. Community support for the military seemed a bigger driving factor in where recruiters go, with high schools in conservative suburbs such Oro Valley, Marana and Vail drawing more military visits than those in many other parts of the city. For example, Ironwood Ridge High School in Oro Valley, one of the most heavily Anglo and well-off...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 1, 2005 – Wouldn't the United States be better off if it simply left the terrorists alone and brought its troops home from Iraq? Wouldn't that stop the violence there? Don't we need more troops to do the job there? And why is just one Iraqi battalion capable of independent operations? Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responded today to these and other questions he often gets about operations in Iraq during a session at the National Defense University at Fort McNair here. To those who question if the American people would be...

President Bush characterized some of the Iraq War critics as “deeply irresponsible” for making “false charges” regarding the decision to go to war. Bush pointed out that prior to going to war he got broad bi-partisan support from congress—including many who are now his most persistent critics. Bush’s attempt to reply to his critics was immediately denounced by Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.). “The president is trying to stifle our freedom of speech with his fear and smear tactics,” said Kerry. “It is unfair to hold us to our earlier actions and statements. Times change. Minds change.” Kerry characterized Bush’s position...

Judge Samuel Alito's Supreme Court nomination will likely hinge on the issue of abortion, but with more than a month before the battle begins in earnest, Alito's critics are still trying to broaden their assault. "Roe v. Wade will still be the fulcrum on which this nomination turns," said Calvin Jillson, political science professor at Southern Methodist University. "But opponents can't afford to appear monomaniacal on abortion access."

VP Dick Cheney joined the White House attack on critics of the Iraq war Wednesday night when he told a conservative group that senators who had suggested that the Bush administration manipulated prewar intelligence were making "one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city." Mr. Cheney, who was the administration's toughest, most persistent advocate for the war in Iraq, depicted the senators as hypocrites swayed by antiwar sentiment and their own political ambitions. "Some of the most irresponsible comments have, of course, come from politicians who actually voted in favor of authorizing force against Saddam...

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: "As most of you know, I have spent a lot of years in public service, and first came to work in Washington, D.C. back in the late 1960s. I know what it's like to operate in a highly charged political environment, in which the players on all sides of an issue feel passionately and speak forcefully. In such an environment people sometimes lose their cool, and yet in Washington you can ordinarily rely on some basic measure of truthfulness and good faith in the conduct of political debate. But in the last several weeks we have seen...

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush is firing a parting shot at Iraq war critics as he heads to Asia with hopes of improving his image on the world stage. Bush was stopping in Alaska and speaking to troops at Elmendorf Air Force Base during a refueling stop for Air Force One on the first leg of an eight-day journey to Japan, South Korea, China and Mongolia. He was expected to defend himself against Democrats' criticism that he manipulated intelligence and misled the American people about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction as he sought grounds to go to war...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Nov. 11) - Critics have dubbed it "Bald Ego," "Murky's Turkey" and "Incontinental Airlines," but Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski finally has the sleek executive jet he says he and other state officials need. The $2.6 million Westwind aircraft, equipped with a leather sofa, burgundy carpeting and a flush toilet, arrived this week in Anchorage and will replace a no-frills turboprop used by previous Alaska governors for official business. Critics say Murkowski's jet is unusable in much of rural Alaska, where runways are too short and made of gravel or nonexistent. Murkowski press secretary Becky Hultberg defended the purchase,...

UNDER THE COVERS, CONSERVATIVE-STYLE By Azi Paybarah Two new books for the kiddies are hitting stores—one that will help get them laid, and another to turn those one-night-stand spawn into good little conservatives. First up is the long-awaited The O'Reilly Factor for Kids. Those with strong visual imaginations will doubtless be pleased to learn that O'Reilly (as he frequently refers to himself) didn't get laid until he was twenty. But it's about the children, and O'Reilly gives spin-free lessons about teenage sex, drugs, and what kind of junior high school girls turns him on. The Long Island native spills the...

Is the Orleans Levee Board doing its job? Critics allege corruption, charge the board with wasteful spending By Lisa Myers & the NBC Investigative Unit NBC News Updated: 11:52 a.m. ET Sept. 15, 2005 Lisa Myers Senior investigative correspondent The unveiling of the Mardi Gras Fountain was celebrated this year in typical New Orleans style. The cost of $2.4 million was paid by the Orleans Levee Board, the state agency whose main job is to protect the levees surrounding New Orleans — the same levees that failed after Katrina hit. "They misspent the money," says Billy Nungesser, a former top...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20, 2005 – The successful parliamentary elections in Afghanistan Sept. 18 have proven wrong all critics of U.S. efforts in that country, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in a Pentagon news briefing today. Critics of the war in Afghanistan were not just wrong, they were harmful because they made the cause seem hopeless, Rumsfeld said. The millions of Afghan citizens who turned out to vote proved them wrong, and terrorists weren't able to affect the elections, he said. "Terrorists have done everything in their power to try to intimidate the millions of Afghan voters and the literally thousands...