Free Republic

(Reason #)8. A right-wing blogosphere that is almost universally dominated by raging hate speech (see: Hot Air, Free Republic, Ace of Spades, etc.)

Yesterday, the White House announced that it was removing Alma Thomas’ plagiaristic piece “Watusi (Hard Edge)” from its walls. The White House announced that the painting was moved “because it didn’t fit the space right.” The Washington Post pointed out that posters at FreeRepublic.com had examined the similarity between “Watusi (Hard Edge)” and Henri Matisse’s “The Snail” (1953), ignoring the fact that Big Hollywood actually broke the story. The Washington Post covered for the White House, explaining, “Stephens’s explanation makes sense because it is inconceivable that the White House’s art experts would imagine Thomas’s painting was fraudulent or a copy...

Yesterday, the NYT ran a story about the White House acquiring art. It included a slide show of a dozen artworks. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/arts/design/07borrow.html?_r=1 This Freeper took a look and found one abstract work he admired:"Watusi (Hard Edge)," by Alma Thomas, a longtime Washington resident who is an African-American painter. Photo: Gift of Vincent Melzac/Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. As I admired it, I thought it reminiscent, even derivative of a favorite artwork of mine by Matisse. I recall seeing that one decades ago at the Tate Gallery in London. A giant collage (about ten feet tall) from late in Matisse's life,...

A painting by the artist Alma W. Thomas, which had been selected to go on Michelle Obama's wall in her East Wing office, will no longer be mounted. "The reason why it was moved was because it didn't fit the space right," Semonti Stephens, the first lady's deputy press secretary, said of "Watusi (Hard Edge)," which had been borrowed from the Hirshhorn Museum. Stephens noted that the Obamas still "have a piece of [Thomas's] work in the residence. So they appreciate the artist's work." A Thomas artwork titled "Sky Light," also on loan from the Hirshhorn, hangs in the family's...

.SNIPARTnews has reported that the White House has quietly de-listed a painting by Alma W. Thomas that it chose last month, among some 45 pieces borrowed from several Washington museums, to decorate the private White House residence and the West and East Wings. Titled, “Watusi (Hard Edge)” from 1963, the work takes a Matisse collage and, as Holland Cotter wrote in The New York Times, praising the selection, “shifts the pieces around, cools the colors down, and adds a title that refers to a Chubby Checker song.” “But through copying Matisse,” Mr. Cotter added, “she began to work out a...

<p>Every so often, actual breaking news is so absurd that parody is the only answer. After news of President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize broke on Friday, the website, FreeRepublic.com was deluged by its members with Breaking News! parody posts.</p> <p>The faux headlines kept me giggling all day, and a few have already made it into my inbox via e-mails gone viral. Sometimes, ya just have to laugh.</p>

Larry King Live featured a long session with Ann Coulter and Kiki McLean Wednesday night.During the interview, King asked Coulter about the recent Saturday Night Live skit about Obama running through a check list of his failures as president and whether this was the beginning of a trend of media criticism of Obama.Ann said Michelle Obama would turn on Obama before Saturday Night Live would and that the skit was good fun.She then noted that websites like Free Republic were criticizing CNN for fact-checking the comedy skit.Check this link later for CNN's transcript of the show.

<p>Those who read the New York Times's coverage of the unsuccessful results of Barack and Michelle Obama's attempt to seal the 2016 Summer Olympics bid for Chicago on Friday afternoon ('For Obama, an Unsuccessful Campaign") might want to read it again.</p>

Silky, straight hair has long been considered by many black women to be their crowning glory. So what if getting that look meant enduring the itchy burning that's a hallmark of many chemical straighteners. Or a pricey dependence on "creamy crack," as relaxers are sometimes jokingly called. Getting "good hair" often means transforming one's tightly coiled roots; but it is also more freighted, for many African-American women, and some men, than simply a choice about grooming. Straightening hair has been perceived as a way to be more acceptable to certain relatives, as well as to the white establishment. "If your...

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3179840 As some of you may have noticed, recently the Republican Party has begun cracking down on the "birthers", realizing that openly supporting the most crazy members of your party is, well, problematic for appealing to non-crazy people. This, of course, leads to even more crazy, as they turn on their leaders for hiding the "truth". It's a drat shame to let all this crazy go to waste, when properly cultivated and raised it could be so much more. So welcome to the first FreeRepublic Infiltration Contest! We're going to infiltrate freerepublic as agents provocateur. This can take several forms;...

...The site is a venerable and storied Web forum for American arch-conservatives. Funded by member donations, it was founded in 1996 as an anti-Clinton grandstand, and soon became a place where members could post news stories and discuss them -- though "discussion" might be the wrong word. More often, it's a kind of pantomime, where the name of the game is to cheer the good guy and boo the bad guy every time he creeps on stage...

<p>We are making a difference, maybe too much of a difference. We have been attacked by every blogger who wants to see his name in lights. Yet they can't even spell his name right.</p> <p>If you believe that Jim Robinson is a radical nutjob, if you believe all the bloggers jumping on the anti-Free Republic bandwaggon, please do not contribute to the fundraiser.</p>

The runner-up, Jim Thompson, the owner of the right wing website Free Republic, which has moderated comments, meaning a grown up is supposed to read them and delete the crazier ones. But Thompson‘s folks waited as long as three days removing a comment thread devoted to the racist rage of a disturbing large number of his posters, possibly some of the same people who had previously conducted polls on the site on how best to topple the freely elected government of the United States. After President Obama‘s daughter appeared in a t-shirt with a peace sign on it at the...

Jim Thompson, the creator and owner of Free Republic should be a bit upset with Crissie. At least Kieth Olbermann knows the real name of the owner of this site!From the re-write: The writer has a point," wrote site owner Jim Robinson sarcastically. "We should steer clear of Obama's children. They can't help it if their old man is an American-hating Marxist pig." "I agree Jim," wrote commenter, by the nickname NoobRep. "The kids didn't pick their commie pinko pansy of a father. Nor did they choose to be put into the spotlight... ***** One poster by the name of...

"To entertain her daughter, Michelle Obama loves to make monkey sounds." Photo caption of Michelle Obama speaking to her daughter Malia posted on The Free Republic. Disclaimer on The Free Republic: "Free Republic does not advocate or condone racism, violence, rebellion, secession, or an overthrow of the government. " For those of you who have argued vociferously with me that we are living in a "post-racial America" rather than an America in which Jim Crow is on steroids, you apparently have not read the daily diet of racism that the readers and bloggers on this site consume and then regurgitate....

We do not share this information to encourage people to engage in criminal acts against certain people or groups. There are other ways to handle them if one feels they need to, although it will depend on how one prefers to approach a situation. Some of the information may be very useful in a trial if any of the groups and/or individuals we are documenting are being sued or charged with a crime. We do recognize however that going to law enforcement is not a favorable approach for some people as law enforcement has had a history of oppression (and...

<p>If you tell the lie often enough people will believe it. The libs are going to tag this on us and who will stand in their way besides talk radio?</p>

The murder over the weekend of Dr. George Tiller, one of a handful of physicians who performed late-term abortion, is an absolute tragedy. As Kristen wrote yesterday, many are in mourning and angry over this disgusting and hate-filled act. This was an act of political aggression against a doctor who helped people who were in absolutely desperate circumstances: Anti-choice activists often cast late-term abortions as the murder of a viable baby at the whim of a woman who doesn't wish to be inconvenienced, carried out by a doctor who looks at her and sees only cartoon dollar signs. They're egged...

(Note: this report is a paraphrase based on memory, not tape. Any inaccuracies will be corrected down thread by me or other FReepers.)Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly responded on The Factor tonight to criticisms of his attacks last night on Free Republic and Hot Air by the sites' respective founders, Jim Robinson and Michelle Malkin. The segment last night was on reaction by right and left wing websites on the Judge Sotomayor nomination to the Supreme Court. Free Republic was singled out for an obnoxious comment about Sotomayor being diabetic. Hot Air was singled out for an impolitic strongly...

FOX News' Bill O'Reilly has been attacking the liberal blog Daily Kos, and liberal blogs in general, over some extreme comments left by some of our visitors. It's interesting therefore that O'Reilly's own Web site contains some of the most hideous hate you've ever seen. Over the next few hours, we'll be documenting some of that hate. And you'll be interested to know that while O'Reilly holds others responsible for the words strangers leave on their Web sites, on O'Reilly's Web site, he's not responsible at all for the hate and threats his readers leave behind. And I quote O'Reilly's...

Re: Your on-air bashing of Free Republic So, you think that because one poster on FR comments that a diabetic supreme court nominee might not live to a ripe old age that all 350,000 of us are insensitive right-wing loons? Got news for you pal. The owner of Free Republic (namely me) is diabetic and I've already lost one leg due to this despicable disease and the other leg looks like it's ready to fall off any day now. My sister died of complications brought on by juvenile diabetes at the tender age 43. I've out-lived her in years, but...

Anyone else just catch O'Reilly slur of Free Republic He quotes a post says that bama's nominee has diabetes and may not live as long as other recent judges on the SC He sure does like to bash FR!!

Taking aim at the way news is spread across the Internet, The Associated Press said on Monday that Web sites that used the work of news organizations must obtain permission and share revenue with them, and that it would take legal action against those that did not. A.P. executives said they were concerned about a variety of news forums around the Web, including major search engines like Google and Yahoo and aggregators like the Drudge Report that link to news articles, smaller sites that sometimes reproduce articles whole, and companies that sell packaged news feeds. They said they did not...

Freerepublic.com is going to get shut down by the Secret Service for threatening President Obama's life. If it doesn't happen because of a flimsy proviso in the post discussed here, then we live in a still more dangerous world.

I was listening to Bill O'Reilly's Radio Factor this afternoon, when lovely Freeper Ann Coulter came on the air for her book promotion interview (Guilty, by Ann Coulter). I was listening to the back-and-forth between the two when Ann interjected a plug for the Free Republic. We Freepers "get it" when it comes to the political stuff her books deal with, insists our brilliant Annie. I didn't realize till much later that she kept injecting her point about Free Republic till she got it through O'Reilly's subtle avoidances. Coulter was sticking it in O'Reilly's eye for her fellow members of...

Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported an important effect of the 2008 presidential campaign: For the first time, traffic at left-leaning political Web sites overtook traffic at right-leaning competitors. The Drudge Report and Free Republic had the largest number of unique visitors in September 2007, but in September 2008, that honor went to the Huffington Post. Political strategists have been analyzing the impact of the Internet on American political communication since at least the mid-1990s.

A Democrat is poised to take the reins of power in Washington, D.C., and Fresno resident Jim Robinson is feeling a sense of deja vu. It was President Bill Clinton's 1992 election that sparked Robinson's political activism, driving him to create a Web site that made him a grass-roots leader among conservatives before Clinton's term was over. This year, as Barack Obama prepares to sweep into office on another tide of Democratic votes, Robinson and denizens of that Web site, freerepublic.com, are preparing to do battle again. "We'll double and redouble our efforts to fight for what is right," Robinson...

A Democrat is poised to take the reins of power in Washington, D.C., and Fresno resident Jim Robinson is feeling a sense of déjà vu. It was President Clinton's 1992 election that sparked Robinson's political activism, driving him to create a Web site that made him a grass-roots leader among conservatives before Clinton's term was over. This year, as Barack Obama prepares to sweep into office on another tide of Democratic votes, Robinson and denizens of that Web site, freerepublic.com, are preparing to do battle again. "We'll double and redouble our efforts to fight for what is right," Robinson says....

It certainly seems as though the right wing of the blogosphere will be kept quite busy over the next three-and-a-half weeks -- so little time, and so many Obama scandals to investigate!Over at National Review Online's blog, The Corner, Mark Hemmingway suspects -- based on, um, nothing -- that Tony Rezko may be telling the feds about nefarious dealings with a bank where Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias once worked. And we care because? Because Giannoulias has connections to Barack Obama! Hemmingway concludes: "Maybe there's nothing there, but it's worth looking into right?" Um, right. At American Thinker, Jack Cashill has another bombshell: he...

PBS is learning a hard lesson about conducting online polls relating to hot-button political issues. In early September, following coverage of Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin on the television program NOW, the broadcaster launched an online poll asking viewers whether or not she was qualified for the office. A massive campaign to influence the poll soon ensued, with groups from both the right and the left vying to tip the scales for or against Palin. Blogs ratcheted up interest, with those on the right questioning the impartiality of PBS. A common theme: Why wasn't there a similar PBS poll...

(snip) Free Republic: It's not the prettiest site you'll ever visit, but if your news tastes run to the conservative side of things, you may quickly get accustomed to Free Republic's sharp daily aggregation of news and commentary on all the hot-button conservative stories and issues of the day. You can post your opinions in the site's active forums, too. (snip)

Much of Barack Obama's political success can be traced to a database listing contact information for millions of people, a tool that has proved invaluable in raising record sums of money and organizing a national volunteer network. Now Obama's presidential campaign is increasingly using the list to beat back media messages it does not like, calling on supporters to flood radio and television stations when those opposed to him run anti-Obama ads or appear on talk shows. It did so as recently as Monday night, when it orchestrated a massive stream of complaints on the phone lines of Tribune Co.-owned...

I'd like to welcome the Obama media and supporters who are visiting FreeRepublic.com thanks to the publication by the Obama campaign of Unfit for Publication.FreeRepublic.com is the most popular conservative news analysis and activism site on the web. It is the third most popular political website overall according to Hitwise.com. Not bad considering FreeRepublic.com has no advertising budget, relies solely on donations and is not promoted in the media like the two more popular sites on Hitwise: Huffington Post and Politico.FreeRepublic.com has been around for twelve years and, along with the Drudge Report, has helped revolutionize politics on the Internet.Over...

As you know, I call Washington, DC everyday (every weekday) and I even started to do a radio show each Friday to share with folks the responses that I get. This week I called Senator Obama's office about the Global Poverty Act, and all 23 of the cosponsors- some of them 2 and 3 times. Well, on Thursday, my focus changed. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives held a vote on weather or not they would stay and debate the energy issue, or go on their scheduled vacations. In this vote, 17 Democrats sided with ALL the Republicans and voted...

The Media Mob has learned that a team of Hollywood insiders is currently working on a screen adaptation of Truth And Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power—the 2005 book by former CBS News producer Mary Mapes, in which she defends the 60 Minutes II story by Dan Rather about President George W. Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard, which ran on CBS in September 2004 and eventually led to her ouster from the network. Who would want to turn "Rathergate" into a feature-length film? According to sources familiar with the situation, Producer Mikkel Bondesen,...

While all the military services are concerned about operational security and compromising the mission, each branch has its own rules for servicemembers who want to sound off in the blogosphere. Army An April 2007 operational security policy mandated that soldier blogs get "eyes on" by a blogger’s immediate supervisor and OPSEC officer before publication. The policy also covered (but was not limited to) "letters, resumes, articles for publication, electronic mail, Web site postings, discussion in Internet information forums, discussion in Internet message boards or other forms of dissemination or documentation." The free-speech firestorm was fast and furious, and the Army...

SHE is known to be a brilliant war reporter, one of America's hottest TV journalists. But it was not her reporting that made her page one news for New York's tabloids. Sexy Lara Logan who had been reporting from dangerous Baghdad has been labelled a homewrecker for her tryst with an Aussie newsman and the husband of a US embassy worker. According to the New York Post, the 60 Minutes reporter and former swimsuit model apparently courted two men which led to a brawl. One of her lovers, MrJoe Burkett is an American civilian contractor. He reportedly brawled in a...

Beckwith responds to The Washington Post. The first thing I have to say about "An Attack That Came Out of the Ether," published by The Washington Post on June 28th, is that at NO time was I ever contacted by this woman, Danielle Allen.  I spoke to two male Post reporters, who spoke to me over the phone for a period of months.  The first contact was in the fall of 2007.  They told me they were trying to track down the source of emails they considered negative to the Obamamessiah. Allen obsesses about the "Muslim" Obama stories, but steers...

The Washington Post published an article today in the Style section about researcher Danielle Allen's efforts to track down who is behind allegations that presumed Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Hussein Obama (Illinois) is a Muslim. Allen is an Obama supporter who works for the Institute for Advanced Study.The article was written by Matthew Mosk. A curious choice for The Post considering Mosk's involvement in the nefarious MD4Bush scandal in which Mosk claimed to have been given access to a Free Republic poster's account to expose a Maryland GOP government appointee who was alleged to have commented on rumors that...

Interviewed by Hugh Hewitt today, Mark Steyn said that posts from FreeRepublic were introduced into evidence in the Canadian proceeding against him.

Wednesday night, people will be gathering with candles, signs, flowers, and photos. Many will be there to protest the war and remember those killed in the line of duty. Beginning at 7 p.m., the candlelight vigil will honor the sacrifice of American military personnel killed in Iraq. Personal accounts written by veterans and members of military families affected by the war will be read on the steps leading up to the State Capitol. Members of MoveOn.org and CREDO Action are holding the candlelight vigil. And in San Marcos, another peaceful protest. A "Circle of Peace" is scheduled for 5 p.m....

"One blog, Free Republic.com, posted a report that said Frost attended a private school where tuition was $20,000 a year, that the family lives in an area where one home recently sold for nearly $500,000, and that a photo and "shows what appears to be a recent remodeling job with granite counter tops and glass-front cabinets.""

I’ve been catching up on the GOP debate. Thank God for TiVo. After a half dozen of these, I just can’t stomach any more of the Tancredo, Hunter, Brownback triumverate. *Bub-boop!* Tonight, of course, marked the first debate for Fred Thompson. He fit right in. Which is hardly a complement. He was shaky with his talking points — visibly straining to remember the script about “Islamic fascism”. He looked vaguely dyspeptic when he was speaking, and more or less catatonic when it wasn’t his turn. The top lighting gave the bags under his eyes an uncanny resemblance to steamer trunks....

This morning, while researching stories following icwhatudo's article about the Frost family and S-CHIP, I noted a curious edit in Michelle Malkin's syndicated column in the New York Post. The credit given to posters at FreeRepublic.com for breaking the story was edited from the Post's version of the column. A check of other outlets publishing Malkin's column today showed that the Free Republic mention was not edited out by her other publishers. The syndicated version:After 12-year-old Graeme Frost delivered the Democrat radio address, which was penned for him by Senate staffers, conservatives on the FreeRepublic.com forum and across the Internet...

ABC News' Rick Klein Reports: With debate raging in Washington over children's health insurance, congressional Democrats found a new way to make their case for an expansion last weekend: Rather than have a senator or a congressman respond to President Bush's weekly radio address, they decided to have a child who was helped by the program speak directly to the public. But the 12-year-old boy whom Democrats chose as their poster child is now at the center of a firestorm in Washington and beyond. Conservative bloggers who uncovered some details of the family's finances are blasting the family, calling the...

So sometimes you have to put your right foot forward Your turn. Michael Trujillo, LtCol, USMC (Retired): "I have always been a fan of yours, but I would like to take this opportunity to disagree with you. Understandably, you took exception to [Ted] Nugent's behavior. Now you know what the right feels when entertainers from the left spew the same kind of venom at President Bush. . . . When's the last time you wrote a column on the classless behavior from the left? Lord knows you've had ample opportunity." Sir: I understand where you're coming from. No doubt I've...

Congressman Harold Ford rips free republic on Sean Hannity show. Congressman says "FR posts nasty things about blacks, hispanics, and women"

Is there any chance of the Republicans catching up to the Democrats online in 2008? From any angle, the picture looks rosy if you're a Democrat and bleak if you're a Republican. -- According to Hitwise.com, which tracks the surfing behavior of 10 million Americans across 1 million sites, online interest in the Democrats is way ahead of the Republicans. For example, for the week ended Aug. 4, the Democrats drew a whopping 66 percent of all the traffic to candidate websites. -- In terms of donations online, the Democratic field reports raising more than $28 million, versus about $9.4...

The Honorable Harold Ford, Jr. Chairman Democratic Leadership Council 600 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, Suite 400 Washington, D.C. 20003 Dear Rep. Ford, I appeared with you on the O’Reilly Factor on July 31, 2007, in my capacity as spokesman for FreeRepublic.com to discuss politics on the Internet. The host, Bill O’Reilly, falsely accused FreeRepublic.com of having the following comments on its site: "Homosexuals are dogs," "I hate blacks," "Hillary Clinton should be assassinated," and "A stray bullet should kill her." To be blunt, those comments were made up by the O’Reilly Factor. The O’Reilly Factor was not able to provide documentation...

<p>You've got a tough job up there in the clouds riding herd over the folks. Apparently you're having problems with the folks speaking out against the America hating left. But that's ok. Just keep your eyes closed, ears plugged and your jaws flapping. Eventually the folks will tune you out and we'll all be better off for it.</p>