Free Republic

He kind of looks like the barber from 'Coming To America':

Not even a million dollars could convince Lady Gaga to perform at last summer's Republican National Convention. The snub by the pop star is included in a lawsuit filed by a powerful Republican nonprofit fundraising organization, American Action Network, against a vendor whose job was to stage entertainment just outside the doors to the GOP's convention in August. Documents filed with the lawsuit show that other entertainers also said "no thanks" to appearing at the GOP convention including Dolly Parton and the rapper Pitbull, who Republicans hoped to feature at an event for the Hispanic Leadership Network. Many entertainers, including...

AUSTIN – You know America is changing when leftists have even infiltrated Texas schools. According to the website txcscopereview.com, a lesson plan for 6th graders in government schools reads as follows: Notice socialist/communist nations use symbolism on their flags representing various aspects of their economic system. Imagine a new socialist nation is creating a flag and you have been put in charge of creating a flag. Use symbolism to represent aspects of socialism/communism on your flag. What kind of symbolism/colors would you use?

Even before President Barack Obama took the oath of office to begin his second term, much of the political world was already jumping ahead. And for legions of South Florida voters, there's only one person they'd like to see raise her right hand four years from now to become the nation's 45th president: Hillary Rodham Clinton. "If she runs, she has my vote," said Myra Lieberman, 57, of Weston, a kindergarten teacher. "All my contemporaries are also supporters of her." Lee Grossman, who lives west of Boynton Beach, also counts herself a Clinton backer.

Jeb Bush in 2016? (CNN) -- For all of our post-2012 election talk about the changing culture, the changing demographics and, perhaps, a changing party, preliminary thoughts out of D.C. about the 2016 election have us headed toward not much change at all: Clinton vs Bush ... again. I am as intrigued by the prospects of these two juggernauts, Jeb and Hillary, locking ideological horns as I am repulsed by the thought of half of my life being dominated by two family names. One, Clinton, has risen from the ashes after the White House. The other name, Bush, is so...

Writing in the National Catholic Reporter in early August, Nicholas Cafardi made the provocative assertion that between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, the president is the more pro-life candidate. A significant part of the Duquesne law professor’s argument is that Obama favors “support for vulnerable pregnant women and alternatives to abortion [which] will make abortions much less likely, since most abortions are economic.” A few weeks later, just thirty-four days before the election, that argument became even stronger. On October 3, researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine published a study with profound implications for policy making in the...

One of the highlights of the 2012 Olympics will undoubtedly be diving. There’s been some stiff competition this year, especially in the preliminary rounds, and all the athletes have been killing themselves trying to look as graceful as possible while tumbling through the air. How do we know? There’s something on each diver’s face that just reads, “This stunt is kind of difficult to do.” These competitors may look like elegant swans from a distance, but when the camera gets right up close for those slow-motion instant replays, not one of them is capable of hiding the pain in their...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Former Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden entered Pakistan across the Afghan border during the early months of U.S. attacks on Afghanistan, then spent nine years on the run in Pakistan living in several safe houses and fathering four children. Testimony from bin Laden's youngest wife -- the 29-year-old Yemenite Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah -- before a joint investigation team in Pakistan reveals the Al Qaeda kingpin fled over the border into Pakistan early in 2002, just after the U.S. launched attacks on Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan.

At least one comes to mind, Dan. Guess who? Turns out that oft-flogged figure from liberals of 98 percent of American women using contraception is too low, at least according to former CBS News anchor Dan Rather, who's now working at something or someplace called HDNet. (video clip after page break) Appearing on last night's Rachel Maddow show, Rather claimed that use of birth control is virtually universal. Whether this conclusion is based on Rather's reporting, first-hand knowledge or some combination thereof was left unstated. Fans of unintentional humor who were watching weren't disappointed -- RATHER: I still can't believe...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama will ask Congress on Friday for greater power to shrink the federal government, and his first idea is merging six sprawling trade and commerce agencies whose overlapping programs can be baffling to businesses, a senior administration official told The Associated Press. Obama will call on Congress to give him a type of reorganizational power last held by a president when Ronald Reagan was in office. The Obama version would be a so-called consolidation authority allowing him to propose mergers that promise to save money and help consumers. The deal would entitle him to an...

Idiot Obama voter explains how land and water should all be free.. even says in ancient africa electricity was FREE!

There is a potential presidential candidate whom almost every Republican wants. This person would not only galvanize the GOP base, but attract large numbers of independents and centrists as well. He would smash President Obama in 2012 and probably win by a landslide. He is Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. More than Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich - or any other possible “first-tier” candidate - the House Budget Committee chairman would be the most formidable challenger. He is smart, articulate and principled. He has name recognition.

Ben Shapiro plans to release audio from interviews he conducted for his just-released book, Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV, a little at a time in a strategy learned from Andrew Breitbart’s ACORN exposes. The strategy seems to be working pretty well; after debuting with Hot Air and Townhall yesterday, Ben gets the Hollywood Reporter to release a couple of juicy quotes on tape today from television producer Susan Harris (Golden Girls, Soap), legendary TV executive Fred Silverman, and even COPS creator John Langley, who says he prefers to choose segments based...

E.J. Dionne seems perfectly comfortable with the fact that he doesn’t understand economics—as long as the Washington Post continues to allow him to interpret economic events in a manner that comports with his political predispositions. Dionne sees GM’s recent good fortune as evidence of the propriety of government “step[ping] in when the market fails.” Dionne, like others before him, stands slack-jawed, in awe, ready and willing to buy the Brooklyn Bridge, donning narrow blinders and viewing just a narrow sliver of the world, oblivious to the fact that related events are transpiring in the other 359 degrees that surround him....

It’s time for all of us to take responsibility for helping create a climate of violence and hate I am guilty — guilty of seeing a connection between the rabble-rousing rhetoric of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and others as a catalyst for the actions of a twisted Arizona man. Guilty of sensing the tragic and outrageous events in Tucson as some kind of clarion call. Guilty of hoping the tone of political discussion in this country might in some way be softened by the senseless murders and injuries caused by a man with a gun. Guilty of thinking to myself...

Chancellor Angela Merkel called for calm Friday after riot police used what critics called "Rambo" tactics to disperse thousands of opponents of a contentious rail project. [snip] The seven-billion-euro (9.5-billion-dollar) Stuttgart 21 project aims to make the city and the surrounding region part of a 1,500-kilometre (930-mile), high-speed rail route across the continent. Opponents say most people are against the project, that it will go massively over budget and will ultimately fail to speed up rail traffic. They say that the money would be better spent on other parts of Germany's rail network. Locals in the wealthy city of Stuttgart...

The White House can repeat these “jobs saved or created” numbers as often as it wants; it won’t make them true. Consider this Business Week report on a study released today by the Council Of Economic Advisers: The report says the stimulus has “saved or created” about 3 million jobs, and is moving toward a goal of 3.5 million jobs by the end of the year, according to an administration official speaking on condition of anonymity before the report’s release today. As it turns out, when you unpack the numbers, you find that Romer and her team didn’t actually count...

The assertion is getting louder: President Obama is a socialist, a wealth-redistributing wolf in Democrat's clothing gnawing at America's entrepreneurial spirit. It's easy to buy "Obama is a socialist" bumper stickers on the Internet. Political commentator Dick Morris said, in a column circulated on GOPUSA.com, that conservatives are "enraged at Barack Obama's socialism and radicalism." Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich titled his new book "To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine."

With the announcement of Elena Kagan as nominee for the open seat on the Supreme Court, comments both sound and foolish are sure to flood the media. In the prior category is the observation that Ms. Kagan is a brilliant legal scholar with a superb record of service in the federal government and as a law school dean. In the foolish category, we are already hearing a replay of an attack critics used against her when she was being considered for her current position as solicitor general. That attack goes something like this: During her time as dean of Harvard...

Almost all Broadway plays and musicals lost money at the box office last week, with some of the biggest declines occurring at theaters near a car that was found to contain a bomb on Saturday evening. The ensuing evacuation of Times Square could have been a factor in some of the declines, theater industry executives acknowledged, but they said they had no data to confirm such a correlation. The car with the bomb was found on West 45th Street, just west of Seventh Avenue and right outside the Minskoff Theater, where “The Lion King” is playing.