Free Republic

Andrew Stiles contributed to these explanations.What is Truthy?“Truthy” is a research project being conducted by the University of Indiana. Proponents claim this is an apolitical study of how information spreads online through the social media platform Twitter.What is Twitter?Twitter is a social media platform that allows users to post hot takes and/or anonymous insults on the Internet.What is the Internet?The Internet is a cultural phenomenon that allows people to earn money by typing words on a computer regardless of talent or expertise. For example, you are reading this “explanatory” post on the Internet. Weird, huh?Yeah, that is weird. Told you.What is...

The federal government is spending nearly $1 million to create an online database that will track “misinformation” and hate speech on Twitter. ... “This service could mitigate the diffusion of false and misleading ideas, detect hate speech and subversive propaganda [?], and assist in the preservation of open debate,” the grant said. ... “Truthy” claims to be non-partisan. However, the project’s lead investigator Filippo Menczer proclaims his support for numerous progressive advocacy groups, including President Barack Obama’s Organizing for Action, Moveon.org, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Amnesty International, and True Majority. ... The government-funded researchers hope that the public will use...

Almost every sector of American society greeted yesterday's signing of a historic health care law as a major step toward guaranteeing affordable health insurance for all. Labor unions, health care professionals, small business owners, retirees, students, and ordinary people from throughout the country applauded President Obama and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for having the tenacity to push through what's being called the most sweeping health care legislation since the establishment of Medicare in the 1960s. We join with those who hail this legislation both as a measure that will save lives now and begin curbing the insurance...

From the (Vermont) Burlington Free Press: Peace activist Cindy Sheehan cancels Vermont visitJuly 28, 20Peace activist Cindy Sheehan has canceled her visit to Vermont because she plans a trip to Jordan for peace talks there, organizers announced today.Sheehan was to have attended a rally Sunday at Montpelier's Unitarian Church.The rally will still be held, with Vermont organizers planning to address renewed efforts to end the war in Iraq and pursue impeachment of the Bush administration.The event is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. and is free and public. It’s sort of like Ike saying he would go to Korea.Only different.

Among those at the Boise rally was Melanie House, 27, of Simi Valley. Her husband, John, a Navy corpsman, died along with 30 Marines in a January helicopter crash near Iraq's border with Jordan. House said she had signed up through the liberal group MoveOn.org to host a vigil supporting Sheehan last week, and that group leaders recruited her to take a more prominent role in opposing the war. Another liberal group, TrueMajority, founded by Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's ice cream company, paid for House to fly to Boise. Today, she is expected to arrive in Crawford...

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) - Hundreds of candlelight vigils calling for an end to the war in Iraq lit up the night Wednesday, part of a national effort spurred by one mother's anti-war demonstration near President Bush's ranch. The vigils were urged by Cindy Sheehan, who has become the icon of the anti-war movement since she started a protest Aug. 6 in memory of her son Casey, who died in Iraq last year. Sheehan says she will remain outside the president's ranch until he meets with her and other grieving families, or until his monthlong vacation there ends. Bush has said...

The movement to bring the troops home has a new, powerful voice in Cindy Sheehan. She's the mother of Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq, and her vigil outside President Bush's ranch has become an international symbol for the effort to end the war. This week, let's show the world that there's a huge number of people across America who want this war ended. Here's how you can keep the momentum building! http://www.moveonpac.org/event/cindyvigils/ MoveOn, TrueMajority and Democracy for America have teamed up to organize nationwide "Vigils for Cindy Sheehan" (and for all military families and Gold Star...

....TrueMajority, an antiwar group founded by Ben Cohen -- one of the creators of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream -- hired Fenton Communications, a Washington public relations firm that has worked intermittently with Sheehan over the past year to coordinate media coverage. With this help, Sheehan has courted coverage from the traveling White House press corps with a news conference. A schedule of when relatives of other military casualties in Iraq are expected to join Sheehan in Crawford was distributed to reporters. Her team coordinated an antiwar rally attended by hundreds in Crawford yesterday. Sheehan also launched a television ad...

WASHINGTON - A year ago, an activist group from the Seattle area gave Howard Dean (news - web sites) a thin, golden statue of a backbone. The Oscar-like award honored the former Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont governor for standing up against the Iraq (news - web sites) war and other Bush administration policies. Now, as Dean settles into his new role as head of the Democratic Party, that golden spine has come to represent, for many liberal Democrats, Dean's potential to develop a tougher, take-no-prisoners attitude among the party faithful. "There's no gut-check required for Dean. Dean just needs...

There is a lot of bad news coming out of this election, and we won't burden you with more of what you already know. Bush's reelection and Republican gains in both houses will make the struggle for justice and peace in our country harder over the next four years. Yep, we've got a lot of work ahead of us. Maybe it's the lack of sleep talking, but we here at TrueMajority still have hope for our future. Why? Because TrueMajority members had a front-row seat to the beginnings of a revolution in American politics. It's just in the beginning phases,...

1. Attack World Hunger and Poverty as if Our Life Depends on It: It Does. Anchor our foreign policy in the compassion for the poor that unites all the world's religions. Reduce the debts of impoverished countries. Shift foreign aid from buying weapons to feeding people. 2. Champion the Rights of Every Child, Woman and Man. Make America stand for justice, not expediency. Stop turning a blind eye to governments that abuse their own people. Ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. If punishing a foreign tyrant means,...