Free Republic

About 18 months ago, I announced that I was pretending to run for the presidency. Frankly, the day-to-day responsibilities of work, church and family have prevented me from taking a very active part in my own faux campaign. However, I did manage to participate in last night's televised debate, moderated by former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw. This morning, I reviewed the video and published transcripts on the internet and found that most, if not all, of my contribution to this civic forum had been mysteriously deleted. So, as a public service, I here provide a transcript of the questions...

A World War II veteran, closer now to 90 years than 80, told me he once had a dream that he died and was reunited with his fellow soldiers who had perished between Normandy and the Ardennes. They were all as he remembered them, young men. He, however, in the dream appeared as he does today -- well advanced in years. They didn't know him at first, he being now decades their senior. It disturbed him to see himself that way, and to be seen by them an old man.

John Edwards Drops Out, Endorses McCain by Scott Ott for ScrappleFace · 1 Comment (2008-01-30) — Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards today quit the race for the Democrat presidential nomination, and immediately endorsed Republican frontrunner Sen. John McCain. “As the presidential field narrows,” Sen. Edwards will reportedly say at an afternoon news conference, “I just didn’t feel there would be room in the race for two white males who favor leniency for illegal aliens, who opposed Bush’s tax cuts for the rich, who fight man-made global warming, who support limits on so-called free speech in political campaigns, who have...

All right, I know a great satire site when I read it. Scott Ott must have contracted with the Hillary Clinton campaign for this argument, right? Only a true satirist or a complete idiot would go after a campaign opponent for his academic record -- in kindergarten! Claiming that Barack Obama didn't tell the truth when he said that his presidential run wasn't the result of some long-held plan, Hillary dug up the evidence after checking the Crayola signatures (via Best of the Web): In third grade, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled 'I Want To Be a President.' His...

ACLU Defends Limbaugh, Sharpton Demands Reid Apology (2007-10-04) — The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) today offered free legal services to defend talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, whose civil rights, the ACLU contends, “are in jeopardy from powerful officials in the U.S. government.” “This is not just an issue of simple slander,” said an unnamed ACLU spokesman, “This is a coordinated campaign at the highest levels of government specifically targeting a private citizen, attempting to use the power of government to squelch his freedom of speech, distort his words, destroy his career and smear anyone associated with him.” The ACLU...

(2007-04-26) — White House sources say President George Bush has given Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi a list of administration officials who would make good targets for Congressional probes as part of Mr. Bush’s strategy to keep Democrats preoccupied with investigations and thus distracted from implementing their legislative agenda. The news of the Bush strategy comes as Congressional committees have called for additional testimony from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over the pre-Iraq War claim that Saddam Hussein sought uranium from Niger, and from Justice Department deputy Monica Goodling, over claims that the Bush administration fired eight political...

(2007-03-28) — President George Bush will issue a rare veto in a nationally-televised speech within the next week according to the text of the address leaked to reporters today. The following are excerpts from a draft of the president’s TV script. PRESIDENT BUSH: My fellow Americans, in this folder on my desk is legislation that would pull our troops out of Iraq by March 2008, leaving that budding democracy to be ruled under Sharia law which treats goats better than it treats women, leaving this cradle of freedom in the care of men who have made slaughtering civilians an article...

(2007-01-10) — Republicans in Congress, in a last ditch effort to provide economic justice to America’s working poor, today introduced a bill that would raise the national minimum hourly wage from $5.15 to $84.25. The bill, offered just hours before the Democrat-led House attempted to raise the rate to $7.25, is roughly based on the what Congressmen earn for working 40 hours per week for 50 weeks per year, although the actual working part is optional in Congress. Under the terms of the GOP-sponsored measure, the minimum wage would also track Congressional pay, which typically includes an annual cost-of-living-it-up increase....

(2006-10-10) — Even as President George Bush insisted that the U.S. would continue to pursue diplomacy in the North Korean nuclear crisis, he added today that every option is still on the table, including the possibility of “bombing them back to the food age.” “It breaks my compassionate conservative heart that Kim Jong-Il’s people are starving while he’s blowing millions of dollars on weapons of mass destruction,” said Mr. Bush. “If it weren’t for U.S. and United Nations food aid, he’d have a massive famine on his hands.” The president suggested that a carefully executed bombing campaign, or a Special...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s private letter to U.S. President George Bush proposing ‘new solutions‘ was also inadvertently emailed to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s ‘buddy list’, and so reached several major American news organizations yesterday. It’s the first time since the 1979 revolution, that an Iranian leader has initiated direct contact with the President of the United States. Below is a translation of the letter: To: George Bush, president of the Great Satan, puppet of Zionists Fr: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of peaceful Islamic Republic of Iran Re: Recent tensions Sorry it’s been so long. It hardly seems like 26 years since we held...

(2006-03-31) — A team of scientists today ended a 10-year study on the so-called “power of prayer” by concluding that God cannot be manipulated by humans, not even by scientists with a $2.4 million research grant. The scientists also noted that their work was “sabotaged by religious zealots” secretly praying for study subjects who were supposed to receive no prayer. The allegations came at a news conference where researchers announced their findings that intercessory prayer by two Roman Catholic religious communities and a group from the Missouri-based Unity church failed to produce better results for patients recovering from heart surgery....

A spokesman for the Children’s Television Workshop (CTW), producers of Sesame Street, today said that global riots in response to Danish editorial cartoons connecting the prophet Mohammad with terrorism have nothing to do with the teachings of Islam, but are the “natural legacy of a generation raised on violent cartoons like Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner.” “If you expose children, even peaceful Muslim children, to thousands of hours of Looney Toons, you produce a generation of desensitized brutes,” according to the unnamed CTW spokesman. “They can’t comprehend the real impact of their violent acts, because animated victims of firebombings,...

Robertson: Ignorant Remarks Caused by God’s WrathBy Scott Ott, Editor-in-Chief, ScrappleFace.com News Fairly Unbalanced. We Report. You Decipher. (2006-01-06) — Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, who yesterday told viewers that God’s wrath spurred Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s massive stroke, today said his own “ignorant remarks are another manifestation of God’s anger.”The popular TV personality said God punished Mr. Sharon, 77, for dividing the land that God gave to the Israelites, and that Mr. Robertson’s own periodic claims to know the Lord’s motivation behind specific events are part of God’s judgment on the American church.“If Christians would read the Bible,...

September 23, 2005 Poll: Most Americans Not In Iraqby Scott Ott (2005-09-23) -- Hours after a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll revealed that fewer than half of respondents believe the U.S. can win the war in Iraq, a second survey showed that more than 99 percent of Americans are not in Iraq, and almost as many form opinions about the war based exclusively on what they learn from CNN, USA Today and other news organizations. Of the 818 Americans telephoned by pollsters, according to an unnamed Gallup spokesman, roughly zero percent are currently stationed in Iraq, where about 150,000 U.S. troops...

The White House communications team scrambled this morning to explain how President George Bush accidentally delivered a rejected draft speech in New Orleans last night on national TV. White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett said he still does not know how the text of an address he had personally rejected as "too DNC" wound up in the president's hands last night. Many Republicans reacted in shock as all of America heard Mr. Bush promising a series of federal interventions and taxpayer-cash infusions that they said will accelerate the growth of the budget deficit, postpone the administration's commitment to tax cuts...

(2005-09-02) -- President George Bush issued new orders today designed to deal with hurricane victims trapped in New Orleans and the gangs of looters roaming the city's streets. "I've directed FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers to take two immediate actions," said Mr. Bush as he stepped off Marine One after his helicopter tour of the ravaged region. "Our plan is simple, and can be expressed in just nine words: Rescue the refugees, then fill it to the brim." The president explained that he had great compassion for those stranded at the increasingly unsanitary New Orleans convention center without...

Fears increased today among hundreds of thousands of refugees from the hurricane-ravaged gulf coast as they faced a Labor Day weekend with little hope of an eloquent speech from President George Bush. As today's New York Times editorial indicated, the president "gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom". Instead, the president devoted his first major post-Katrina address to laying out what the federal government is actually doing to help with disaster recovery. One New Orleans man, currently living in the 'Plaza...

(2005-08-04) -- Encouraged by their close loss in this week's special election for a vacant House seat in Ohio, the Democrat National Committee (DNC) has mapped a 50-state "virtual victory" strategy for 2006 and 2008. "It feels so good to almost win," said DNC chairman Howard Dean. "We now believe we can rally our base around the hope of down-to-the-wire losses in traditionally Republican districts coast-to-coast." While the concept of virtual victory is familiar to the party that nearly won the presidency in 2000 and 2004, this is the first time the DNC will stake millions of dollars on advertising...

(2005-07-16) -- With hopes for a second Supreme Court vacancy crushed by Chief Justice William Rehnquist's plans to serve until three years after his own death, the White House has narrowed the search for a nominee to replace the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor to a short list of conservative conjoined twins. "President Bush is eager to pack the court with right-wing ideologues," said an unnamed White House source. "Since we only get to nominate one right now, we think we can make a strong case for replacing O'Connor with conjoined twins. It's one set of DNA, so technically that's one...

Many Republicans probably voted for George Bush dozens, if not hundreds, of times in 2004, according to Democrat party Chairman Howard Dean, "by taking advantage of the fact that Democrat poll workers have difficulty distinguishing individuals from among a crowd of white Christians." "Thanks to their pale skin, round eyes and khaki trousers, Republicans just blend in," said Mr. Dean. "So they vote, get in the back of the line and vote again. And because they've never made an honest living in their lives, they could do that all day long." The party chief announced that the Democrat National Committee...

Republican Senators, who yesterday confirmed President Bush's appointment of Judge Janice Rogers Brown to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, today expressed shock at learning that the California Supreme Court justice is black. The revelation comes in same week that Democrat party Chairman Dr. Howard Dean released his research showing that Republicans, and especially their leaders, "all look the same" because they're "white Christians". "I'm concerned about how this is going to play with the white base," said an unnamed Republican Senator upon learning of Judge Brown's non-mainstream race. "I feel betrayed by President Bush, who has now managed to...

News reports of terrorist bombings in Iraq were marred Sunday by shocking graphic images of Iraqi "insurgents" voting by the millions in their first free democratic election. Despite reporters' hopes that a well-orchestrated barrage of mortar attacks and suicide bombings would put down the so-called 'freedom insurgency', hastily-formed battalions of rebels swarmed polling places to cast their ballots -- shattering the status quo and striking fear into the hearts of the leaders of the existing terror regime. Hopes for a return to the stability of tyranny waned as rank upon rank of Iraqi men and women filed out of precinct...

2004-10-11) -- Democrat presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry today announced the details of his plan to completely eliminate the nuisance of terrorism. "I have a plan," said Mr. Kerry, "to create a do-not-terrorize list that Americans could sign up for on the internet. And if any terrorist would flout the law and attack someone whose name is on the list, he and his terror cell would be slammed with a $1,000 fine for each person killed and $500 for each injured survivor." Mr. Kerry, who is also a U.S. senator, announced the plan after receiving international acclaim for telling The...

I've been looking for a genuinely humorous, intelligent satire site with a conservative bent for a while. I usually read The Onion, but have been put off lately by it's rabid liberalism (they underwent some changes in staff and received some investment from East Coast newsmedia companies which has seriously shifted their political views to the Left). To my pleasant surprise, I stumbled on a site that's a conservative alternative and just as funny. A lot of satire done with a political edge is so bitter that it doesn't strike me as funny. But ScrappleFace has done a good job....