Free Republic

Protesters blockade Rep. Ackerman's houseboatBY JANIE LORBER | janie.lorber @newsday.com 9:31 AM EDT, July 9, 2008 WASHINGTON - A flotilla of peace protesters in canoes and rafts attempted to blockade the houseboat of Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Jamaica Estates) early Wednesday morning in reaction to legislation he submitted that would impose sanctions on Iran. The Queens Democrat emerged from his home on the Potomac River smiling and clapping after the demonstrators, known as Code Pink, had been chanting for nearly 30 minutes. They want Ackerman to withdraw the legislation because they believe it symbolizes the first step on a path to...

Being a truly advanced white person means being able to speak with authority about pretty much any field of conversation- especially politics. In order for white people to streamline the process of knowing everything, all human beings can be neatly filed into one of two categories: People I Agree With, and People Who are Just Like Adolf Hitler. Comparing people to Hitler is an easy way for white people to get a strong point across to the less enlightened, or the insufficiently white. Everyone knows who Adolf Hitler was. And everyone knows that Hitler was very, very bad. Therefore, if...

SAN FRANCISCO: Reagan has his highways. Lincoln has his memorial. Washington has the capital, and a state, too. But President George W. Bush may soon be the sole president to have a memorial named after him that you can contribute to from the bathroom. prize-winning water-treatment plant on the shoreline to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. Not surprisingly, those Republicans in a city that voted 83 percent Democratic in 2004 are not thrilled with the idea

Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love, to feel a little hand slipping into hers - and a voice calling her Mummy.

I nominate Congressman Robert Wexler as the craziest man in a not very sane Congress: Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), one of the most vocal opponents of the Bush administration on Capitol Hill, said Scott McClellan's book and testimony justify the beginning of impeachment hearings against Vice President Dick Cheney. During questioning of McClellan, Wexler asked the former White House press secretary if he believed Bush authorized the leaking of Valerie Plame Wilson's name. When McClellan said no, Wexler said this meant that Cheney must have been the source of the leak, meaning Cheney was seeking to retaliate against the wife...

BERKELEY - A day after UC Berkeley claimed victory in its battle to build a sports training facility, the university changed its stance on removing tree sitters and decided to bring down those who don't put up a fight, a campus spokesman said late Thursday. About 5:15 p.m. Thursday an arborist in a cherry picker removed a man in his 20s who came out of the tree "very quietly," said university spokesman Dan Mogulof. The man was arrested on suspicion trespassing and could face other charges as well, Mogulof said. The man, whose name was not released, was the second...

A runaway metaphor is not the worst sin in the world. But if former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig really is a potential national security adviser under President Obama, he's doing his potential future boss no favors when he talks like this: Richard Danzig, who served as Navy Secretary under President Clinton and is tipped to become National Security Adviser in an Obama White House, told a major foreign policy conference in Washington that the future of US strategy in the war on terrorism should follow a lesson from the pages of Winnie the Pooh, which can be shortened to: if...

As soon as I saw the title of this DUmmie THREAD, "LAW SCHOOL TO ORGANIZE BUSH WAR CRIMES TRIAL," I just knew that leftwing lunacy would come to the surface in full bloom. I was not disappointed. Yeah, let's put the EVIL Bush regime on trial for torturing prisoners with air conditioning and overfeeding them with orange glaze chicken. Such brutality must not go unpunished. Meanwhile have you noticed not a peep from the DUmmies about Al Quaeda terrorists sawing people's heads off on camera nor flying planes into buildings. Oops! I forgot. The latter was really orchestrated by...

U.S. troops serving in Iraq may be getting more letters during mail call, but they won't be care packages — one group is sending them letters and DVDs claiming 9/11 was an “inside job” and that they should rethink why they’re fighting. Mark Dice, founder of The Resistance, which he calls a media watchdog group, says that the U.S. government was responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and that the armed forces should know it. “People want the facts. The Marines are hungry for the truth — what got them there [in Iraq], why are they risking their lives...

Guns aren't welcome in Toronto May 30, 2008 04:30 AM Re:Targeting the good guys Letters, May 29 It is interesting to note that letters criticizing Toronto City Council for closing down city-run shooting ranges were sent from Mississauga, Halifax, Wellesley, Ont., Pickering and Peterborough. I supported shutting down the shooting ranges because I believe it is hypocritical for city council to call for a total ban on handguns, while supporting and in fact subsidizing gun culture at city-run facilities – especially when recreation programs to keep kids away from the draw of a street culture that too often includes weapons...

John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, has escaped an attempted citizen's arrest as he appeared at the Hay Festival. The former ambassador - a key advisor to President George W Bush who argued strongly in favour of invading Iraq - had been giving a talk on international relations to more than 600 people at the literary festival. Mr Monbiot was blocked by two heavily-built security guards at the end of the one-and-a-half hour appearance, before he could serve a "charge sheet" on him. After being released by the guards the columnist - a fierce critic of...

Of course Democrats in Congress support the troops. But that doesn't mean they have to tolerate being in the same building with them. From a letter an enraged Fortney Hillman "Pete" Stark, Jr. (D-CA) recently sent to the Secretary of Defense: Dear Secretary Gates: Yesterday, while voting on the war supplemental spending bill in the House of Representatives, I couldn’t help but notice a contingent of approximately 20 flag rank Army officers sitting in the House Gallery watching the debate and vote for a couple of hours. I was looking from below so I thought they were Army, but there...

Long-time Minneapolis peace activist Ed Felien will be in court this afternoon pushing for President Bush to be arrested and investigated for war crimes when he comes here in August for the GOP convention. Felien filed a motion in Hennepin County District Court asking Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman to begin investigating Bush and charge him with war crimes. The president "has fraudulently represented a war against Iraq as essential for our national interests when in reality the war only benefits his private interests. With his Saudi friends he has cornered the supply of oil and raised prices. And through...

You just knew it was coming: At the request of the Swiss government, an ethics panel has weighed in on the "dignity" of plants and opined that the arbitrary killing of flora is morally wrong. This is no hoax. The concept of what could be called "plant rights" is being seriously debated. A few years ago the Swiss added to their national constitution a provision requiring "account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms." No one knew exactly what it meant, so they asked the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology...

Sen. John McCain this weekend slammed Sen. Obama for his relationship with Rev. Wright, and noted some new comments surfacing about Obama's former pastor. Hear Rev. Wright in his own words: Wright: U.S. government lied about Pearl Harbor, AIDS Wright: U.S. Is a Terrorist Nation Wright: U.S. the Same as al-Qaida

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) warned Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on Thursday “not to put a shine on recent events” in Iraq when they testify before Congress next week. “I hope we don’t hear any glorification of what happened in Basra,” said Pelosi, referring to a recent military offensive against Shiite militants in the city led by the Iraqi government and supported by U.S. forces. Although powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr agreed to a ceasefire after six days of fighting, Pelosi wondered why the U.S. was caught off guard by the offensive and questioned how the ceasefire...

CHICAGO (Associated Press) -- Six Iraq war protesters disrupted an Easter Mass on Sunday, shouting and squirting fake blood on themselves and parishioners in a packed auditorium. Three men and three women startled the crowd during Cardinal Francis George's homily, yelling "Even the Pope calls for peace" as they were removed from the Mass by security guards and ushers.

About 50 members of the Students for a Democratic Society club at Shaker Heights High School poured out of Terminal Tower and joined another 30 students already at the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument. Thursday's protest against the war was the first for the "new" SDS in Cleveland. This is not your grandfather's SDS from the '60s - but it kind of looked like it. Josh Davidson, a leader of the Shaker Heights SDS, said students are drawn to the SDS for one reason: "The war is the focal point, definitely the focal point," he said. The group was reconstituted in...

We have a spy in the midst of the left-wing anti-American protests all over DC today who sent us these pictures. Can't wait for the rain to start and ruin all their paper mache to melt. Shouldn't polar bears be pro-war since we're supposedly killing them at record rates? We assume by War Profiteers they mean Michael Moore... Pauly Shore was apparently there trying to relive his Bio-Dome glory days. These people are the leisure class, living off their parents money, trust fund babies with nothing better to do and a lifetime spent without an original thought in their heads....

TACOMA, Wash. – Local military families are being advised to avoid the Tacoma Mall March 15 as local groups plan to protest the Iraq War. The group "World Can't Wait" is organizing protests at a recruiting station near the mall to mark the fifth anniversary of the war. But warnings to stay away have been going out to military families for days now - including one from Fort Lewis seeking to prevent a clash between protestors and military families. Maggie Loveless, a spokesperson for the World Can't Wait, says this is going to be a big, non violent protest designed...

The speakers had just finished lamenting recent acts of vandalism at military recruiting centers and had opened the floor to questions at the National Press Club when peace activist Tighe Barry jumped up, took off his shirt and revealed the pink military tunic he was wearing underneath. "This is what I think of the Marine Corps!" he yelled. "The Marine Corps needs to be the peace corps!" Incensed, Kevin L. Martin rushed to the microphone. "Let me tell you something, dammit!" he hollered. "I'm a Navy veteran of seven years, and . . . you are a joke, sir! Please...

A novelist's revenge on Tony Blair In 'The Ghost,' a (familiar) recently retired British PM is rumoured to be a CIA agent MARK STEYN | March 6, 2008 | If ever there was a solid Tony Blair voting bloc it was surely the massed ranks of British novelists. They loathed Thatcher ("Mrs. Torture," as the pre-fatwa Salman Rushdie used to call her), yet "old Labour," with its knuckle-dragging union bosses and old-school class warfare, wasn't entirely their bag, either. Solution: Tony Blair's Third Way. He was "New Labour," just like Bill Clinton was New Democrat. It was all the rage...

Emboldened by this week's show of support by the Berkeley City Council, anti-war protesters on Thursday cranked up their noisy effort to throw the U.S. Marine Corps recruiters out of town, but in the pounding rain it was hard to tell who won the figurative battle of wills. On one hand, the protesters mustered one of their biggest crowds yet - 40 people - to yell "Drive out the Bush regime" and other slogans outside the Marines' recruiting station on Shattuck Avenue. Hundreds of motorists honked in support as they passed. On the other hand, there was nobody working at...

...A liberal advocacy group plans to spend $8.5 million in a drive to ensure that President Bush's public approval doesn't improve as his days in the White House come to an end. ...Americans United for Change plans to undertake a yearlong campaign, spending the bulk of the money on advertising, to keep public attention on what the group says are the Bush administration's failures, including the war in Iraq, the response to Hurricane Katrina and the current mortgage crisis... ...In selling the plan to fundraisers, the group has argued that support for President Reagan was at a low of 42...

Insisting he's “not a conspiracy theorist,” Bill Maher, on the Friday night season debut of his HBO show, suggested that because Republicans prefer to run against Hillary Clinton than Barack Obama they engineered her victory in New Hampshire's Democratic primary.

The rest of the world gets uneasy every four years as Americans start to pick their next president. We don't have a vote. But we do have to live with the results. As the tenure of George W. Bush illustrates – this is not always pleasant. With the so-called Iowa caucuses out of the way, the murky U.S. political scene has become marginally clearer. Most Canadians would be hard-pressed to name all of the presidential candidates. We now know, thanks to an arcane and not particularly fair voting system in one of America's smallest states, which names we will never...

The website The Black Commentator defined the loony left by calling for the end of the Thanksgiving holiday, since it's apparently an event for white supremacists. This is more about the Internet than the mainstream media, but remember that liberal blacks the news producers treat as sensible pundits -- like Julian Bond of the hallowed NAACP and Julianne Malveaux, the woman who hoped on PBS that Clarence Thomas would die young -- are on this website's board. Here's just a snippet of their anti-Thanksgiving rant: Nobody celebrates Thanksgiving quite like Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. It is reserved by history and the...

(That's one of Cindy Sheehan's sycophants who travels with her, holding the flag upside down)(It was no accident. They've all got them upside down.)

While on the House floor, Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), took the SCHIP debate to a new low. He said, “You don't have money to fund the war or children. But you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the President's amusement.� So not only is Stark accusing President Bush of waging a war for "amusement," but he's accusing American troops of "blowing up innocent people." Pete Stark should apologize immediately to our troops, and President...

Congresswoman Diane Watson (D-CA) responded to questions regarding impeachment at a Town Hall on Iraq hosted by California Assembly Majority Leader Karen Bass and the People’s Council Sunday, October 14th in Los Angeles, California. She spoke to an audience of approximately 150 comprised mainly of anti-war activists from local organizations. The audience responded angrily when Watson responded to a call for the impeachment of President Bush by saying, "We simply don't have the votes." After the audience reacted with groans and boos and at least one cry of "At least do something!" Watson went on to say, "Right now, Speaker...

An anti-war group consisting of veterans from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan is launching an ad Tuesday that attacks popular conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The group, VoteVets.org, is spending $60,000 on the ad, which will air on Fox News and CNN. In addition, a radio version of the ad will run during Limbaugh’s show in Washington, D.C., and Palm Beach, Fla., the group said. At issue is Limbaugh’s controversial “phony soldiers” remark that was made during a broadcast last week in response to a caller who criticized soldiers who spoke out against the war in Iraq. While...

HUNTINGTON BEACH – For the past two months, a team of anti-Bush activists has targeted City Hall. Members of Huntington Beach Impeach can be seen every other Monday, rallying on Main Street and Yorktown Avenue and then getting in line to speak at that night's City Council meeting. Their cause: to add Surf City to a list of 87 cities nationwide that endorse the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. No cities in Orange County have signed an impeachment resolution despite similar efforts by other activists throughout the county, in Anaheim, Irvine, Laguna Beach and...

Peace Movement Picks Up Steam: Iraq Mortatorium and October 27 The Iraq Moratorium is about to begin. Initiated by antiwar activists from several groups around the country, it calls for local, decentralized, personal action or statements against the ongoing war and occupation of Iraq on the 3rd Friday of every month. This Friday, Sept. 21st, is the first of what promises to be a growing movement in the coming months. United for Peace and Justice is enthusiastically supporting this effort. The delegates at our National Assembly a few months ago agreed: It is critically important to offer as many opportunities...

Chris Matthews might as well have chanted "No Blood For Oil" throughout the Monday edition of MSNBC's "Hardball" as he sounded like an anti-war protestor as he charged that U.S. servicemen and women were spilling blood for Big Oil, as he questioned: "Are we fighting for the American oil companies for Mobil and Exxon? And they are making these enormous profits because of access to oil over there...Should we put Exxon signs up over Arlington Cemetery and Mobil signs up there, like they have at baseball stadiums?" Pivoting off a David Shuster report that claimed Alan Greenspan "provided evidence"...

Two days after bringing thousands of protesters to the U.S. Capitol, Iraq war opponents will begin a "week of action" today that starts with sending activists to area high schools and military recruiting centers and marching through a congressional building. Dozens of war opponents, including some who were among the 192 arrested Saturday, spent yesterday training for this week, which will be "the most intense week" of planned actions since the Iraq conflict began, said Brian Becker, national coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition, which organized Saturday's rally and march and many of the other large antiwar events across the country....

THIS is the face of the anti-war Left!I took this from the Navy Memorial side of the counterprotest today, 15 September 2007, Washington, DC. More left-wing insanity: The enemy: the Code Pinkos, trying their best to stir us up. The veterans who have turned their backs on their brothers and sisters. This "Free Palestine" character stood out. Accompanying the conspiracy nutjobs... http://photos-b.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v112/196/104/662887830/n662887830_199561_7230.jpg". Hugo Chavez fan. Don't know if he was an illegal or not. And the coup de gross:She just couldn't keep her mouth closed as well.

There is no mistaking the influence of MoveOn.org, with its 3.2 million members and powerful fund-raising apparatus, within the Democratic Party. This liberal activist group has come to occupy a prominent seat at the table among the party elite, so much so that Republicans leaped at a chance to hold Democrats and their presidential candidates responsible for MoveOn’s positions after it ran an advertisement attacking the credibility of Gen. David H. Petraeus. MoveOn, which has raised tens of millions of dollars for Democratic candidates since its inception in 1998, clearly enjoys friendly relations with Democratic Party officials. Its leaders have...

For lunch in her modest apartment, Madeline Nelson tossed a salad made with shaved carrots and lettuce she dug out of a Whole Foods dumpster. She flavored the dressing with miso powder she found in a trash bag on a curb in Chinatown. She baked bread made with yeast plucked from the garbage of a Middle Eastern grocery. Nelson, 51, is a former corporate executive who can afford to dine at upscale restaurants. But she prefers turning garbage into gourmet meals without spending a cent. On this afternoon, she thawed a slab of pate that she found three days before...

I used to think that communism could only be imposed upon America from abroad because few citizens of this free country would have the desire or the will to engage in the brutal activities necessary to accomplish the political cleansing for such a collectivist regime to assume and maintain power. I was wrong. As evidence I urge you to read the THREAD posted by DUmmie Oregonian titled, "I'm really struggling with my hatred of Republicans...Anyone else?" Yes, DUmmie Oregonian would love nothing more than to be able to travel the country in a roving Chekhist squad and administer "liquidation"...

Ed Schultz is the Fargo-based left-wing radio talk show host who was at one time a Republican. He touts himself as providing straight talk from the heartland. Over the weekend he was at the bar of the venerable Shoreham Hotel in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota when a visitor (who thought he was still a Republican) introduced him to her cousin visiting from California, a prominent businessman and Republican. Before long Schultz was, by his own account, in a shoving match with him. Why? The Fargo Forum explains: "The conversation went sour when Nagle said he respects Joe Lieberman, the Independent Democratic...

... Meanwhile, a motley crew of antiwar groups, including Iraq Veterans Against The War, CODEPINK, ANSWER, and MoveOn.org, are organizing a week of demonstrations in Washington beginning September 15. The "mobilization" will be kicked off with a "Die-In," sponsored primarily by ANSWER and Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). As they explain, "IVAW is asking that participants in the Die-In/Funeral select the name of one of the almost 4,000 soldiers who have been killed in Iraq. You can select a family member, friend or someone from your city, town or state. Please bring a photograph of that person and a...

9/11 conspiracy theorists multiplyMany Americans suspect U.S. government involvement or complicity By Michael Powell Updated: 7:11 a.m. PT Sept 8, 2006 NEW YORK - He felt no shiver of doubt in those first terrible hours. **SNIP** "To me, the report read as a cartoon." White-haired and courtly, Griffin sits on a couch in a hotel lobby in Manhattan, unspooling words in that reasonable Presbyterian minister's voice. **SNIP** Thomas Eager, a professor of materials science at MIT, has studied the collapse of the twin towers. "At first, I thought it was amazing that the buildings would come down in their own...

It wasn’t long ago that most conspiracy theories came from conservatives. The right, after all gave our country the John Birch Society. But these days, liberals have a virtual monopoly on loony ideas -- and they seem to be getting crazier all the time. For example, in case you haven’t noticed, the United States is sliding into fascism. Well, not sliding, actually. We’re being driven into fascism. By you-know-who. “Beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society,� Naomi Wolf wrote this year in Britain’s Guardian newspaper. “There is essentially...

Apparently the Moonbats have gotten an agreement from Virginia RINO, Tom Davis, to attend (and speak at) a Moonbat Town Hall Meeting in Burke, VA on Thursday, August 23rd from 2:00 until 3:00 pm. The Moonbats hosting this event call themselves "Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq." At this meeting they intend to ask questions of Davis, "regarding the Iraq war and Rep. Davis' rubberstamping of Bush's Iraq policies despite stating many times that he is against the war." Best news of all is that they have invited you Virginians who may be interested, to attend the meeting! So, if...

There was a lot of competition in the category of Rove Derangement Syndrome last week inspired by the resignation of Karl Rove from the White House. Many of the entrants in the RDS contest were chronicled by NewsBusters associate editor Noel Sheppard last Tuesday. He declared the winner in the highly competitive RDS contest to be Joe Garofoli, a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. However, I respectfully beg to disagree. Just a few days later, on Friday, Garofoli's colleague on the Chronicle, columnist Mark Morford, submitted what I believe to be by far the winning RDS rant.  Morford begins...

In a letter to the FCC, Ralph Nader, the world's most visible consumer advocate, has requested an investigation into the advertising practices of General Motors with regard to several radio personalities. The letter from Nader was prompted by an Automotive News article entitled, "Puff Piece. Rush Limbaugh is one of the radio personalities GM is working with to talk up its vehicles" (sub. req.). The article goes on to detail how the General has supplied DJs, broadcasters and Limbaugh with test vehicles, private meetings and VIP tours of GM facilities. Nader contests that this type of promotion may be against...

The price of crude oil is down some 8 percent since August 1. What the oil patch and every oil trader knows, one of the quickest ways to turn around this tumble is the drama of a good old fashioned hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico wending its way toward the Texas and Louisiana coasts. And Shazam! Here comes Hurricane Dean! Hurricane Dean's every little ripple will be reported by the oil industry flacks and their willing mouthpieces in the media. The crescendo of ominous events will be forecast and analyzed, all with a unanimity of purpose leading to higher...

Heathrow protesters 'may stage bomb hoax' By David Millward, Transport Correspondent Last Updated: 7:38pm BST 13/08/2007 A hard core of anarchist demonstrators are drawing up plans to bring Heathrow to a standstill using an array of tactics including disguising themselves as ordinary holidaymakers to cause havoc in the airport terminals The Daily Telegraph has learned that protesters are smuggling smart clothes into the "climate camp" in an attempt to sidestep police and security staff and get into the terminals and office buildings. Protestors against a third runway at Heathrow set up camp There are also fears they could be planning...

Marghi Dutton is 90 and losing her eyesight, but nothing was going to stop her from trekking to midspan of the Golden Gate Bridge on Sunday with the anti-war group Code Pink: Women for Peace. She joined a crowd of about 100 demonstrators dressed in hot pink hats, shirts and scarves and fought the wind to raise her sign: "Impeach Bush and Cheney!" "My arms are aching, but I'm getting energy from the drivers - so many are honking in support," she said. Code Pink, a national grassroots peace movement inspired by Bay Area women, organized the protest to call...