Free Republic

History serving “a social aim,” rather than chronicling the past in a detached manner, is what readers get in A People’s History of the United States. With any luck, “The People Speak,” the History Channel documentary based on the book that premieres this Sunday, will be, like so many Hollywood productions, unfaithful to the original. Given A People’s History of the United States’ infidelity to facts, this might be the only chance viewers have of seeing anything resembling an accurate retelling of history.Through Zinn’s looking-glass, Maoist China, site of history’s bloodiest state-sponsored killings, transforms into “the closest thing, in the...

The United States is about to lose a key arms-control tool from the closing days of the Cold War -- the right to station American observers in Russia to count the long-range missiles leaving its assembly line. The end of full-time, on-site access will likely ignite complaints in Congress, with insiders from both parties arguing over whether the George W. Bush or the Obama administration is responsible.

The White House's top communications aide is stepping down at the end of the month and will be replaced by her deputy.

Jane Fonda Says Sex Is Better Than Ever At 71... Despite Her Metal Hip [Pic in URL] By BEN TODD 10th November 2009 She might not be offering workout tips in a leotard now, but Jane Fonda still has a pointer for ladies keen to stay young - an active love life. At 71, the fitness guru who recently had spinal surgery and boasts an artificial knee and titanium hip said her looks are partly down to having the best sex of her life. Miss Fonda, who became a Hollywood sex symbol in the 1968 film Barbarella, said: 'How do...

I have discussed with Freepers over the last 4 months that I am back in school earning my Masters degree. Today my head about exploded when not only my professor but people (grown adults) said Communism was a fear on paper but never a real threat to the U.S. Let me give you direct quotes taken from today's lecture. "Exactly where does communism fit in today's classroom, newspapers, and television sets? It doesn't, only the right wing fringe in this country wants you to believe that is the case, where is the proof? America feared communism based on it being...

Tenured Radical Goes Global Malcolm A. Kline, October 16, 2009 A professor whom Accuracy in Academia has covered extensively is getting ready to take his act on the road. “Juan Cole, the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, produces a steady stream of writings that downplays the threat radical Islam poses to America and the West,” Jonathan Schanzer writes in The American Thinker. “His opinions are at odds with the beliefs of most Americans.” “Now, through a project designed to foster an understanding of America in the Arab world, he appears to be at...

President Obama recently shifted authority for approving sales to China of missile and space technology from the White House to the Commerce Department -- a move critics say will loosen export controls and potentially benefit Chinese missile development. The president issued a little-noticed "presidential determination" Sept. 29 that delegated authority for determining whether missile and space exports should be approved for China to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.

... [W]e have come together to put forward proposals that address legitimate concerns among Democrats and Republicans and the other constituencies with stakes in this legislation. We’re looking for a new beginning, informed by the work of our colleagues and legislation that is already before Congress. First, we agree that climate change is real and threatens our economy and national security. That is why we are advocating aggressive reductions in our emissions of the carbon gases that cause climate change. We will minimize the impact on major emitters through a market-based system that will provide both flexibility and time for...

Barack Obama has demanded the Pentagon conduct a radical review of US nuclear weapons doctrine to prepare the way for deep cuts in the country's arsenal, the Guardian can reveal. Obama has rejected the Pentagon's first draft of the "nuclear posture review" as being too timid, and has called for a range of more far-reaching options consistent with his goal of eventually abolishing nuclear weapons altogether, according to European officials.

Print Headline: "Patriots or Pinheads? Tea Party movement must contain its extremes" ... For its critics, the tea party was a rabble-rousing mob of right-wing hotheads and religious nuts who lack the education to know the difference between a communist and a Nazi – but who are sure that our black president is both. The truth is surely closer to what Byron York of The Washington Examiner said he saw – a wide variety of people espousing different points of view, united in their fear of the future and bedrock belief that Washington is not to be trusted.

Rep. Loretta Sanchez Among Lawmakers In Spotlight For Taxpayer-Funded Trips The Garden Grove congresswoman has made 20 overseas excursions since 2006, touching down on every continent. Critics say more transparency is needed on government-sponsored travel. By Richard Simon September 13, 2009 Reporting from Washington - At a time when congressional travel is coming under new scrutiny, Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) has the distinction of taking more trips at taxpayer expense than anyone else in the California delegation. In the last 3 1/2 years, she visited the South Pole, snorkeled at Australia's Great Barrier Reef and joined world leaders at...

U.S. actor George Clooney plays a New Age hippie soldier trained for psychic, peaceful combat in a comedy set during the war in Iraq. "The Men Who Stare at Goats" is based on a book by Jon Ronson about a secret unit created by the U.S. army in 1979 which, the author said, believed troops could become invisible, walk through walls and kill goats just by staring at them. Ewan McGregor plays a reporter who stumbles across a member of the unit as he prepares to enter Iraq, and he and Clooney's character Lyn Cassady go on an ill-fated journey...

I’m a Glenn Beck fan. I know that he’s become Fox News Channel’s most notorious gadfly, and that he accused Barack Obama of hating White people and regularly sheds tears on his television show, but that’s why I like him. America needs to hear voices like Glenn Beck, because if he weren’t on the air, he might do something really dangerous, like run for office, or actually create policy and that’s 100 times worse than anything he’s said on the air. Beck’s show is replete with calls for taking over or taking back the government from the evil czars that...

A mysterious YouTube member named, conveniently, “megwhitmanonvanjones,” has uploaded a May 2009 San Francisco Chronicle video of 2010 GOP California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, in which the former CEO of eBay and former adviser to Mitt Romney and John McCain gushes about suddenly controversial green jobs czar Van Jones. "There’s a guy over in Oakland, I think his name is Van Jones. And he and I were on a cruise last summer in the Arctic, on climate change. And I got to know him very well. And a lot of the work he’s doing to enfranchise broader communities I’m a...

TNR has a profile of Barack Obama's favorite conservative pundit, David Brooks. The thing to know about Brooks is that he's a nearly man. He wanted to be an Ivy League scholar, but had to settle for the University of Chicago. He wanted to be a hardnosed political reporter but ended up a more sedate political commentator instead. He spent his life like a sort of Dickensian figure with his nose pressed against the window, studying the lives of the people he wanted to be. People like David Axelrod: whose career Brooks kept a close eye on after he graduated...

Anyone unfamiliar with her can click below for Michelle Malkin's story: http://michellemalkin.com/2009/08/28/race-baiter-democrat-rep-diane-watson-praises-cuban-health-system-castro-guevara-who-kicked-out-the-wealthy/ With Lou Gosset Jr, and Dionne Warwick.The Dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks trifecta of Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee and Watson.

On a Sunday evening in August four summers ago the NBC Nightly News devoted its “In Depth” segment to how Cindy Sheehan was “single-handedly bringing the Iraq debate to Mr. Bush’s doorstep” with her protest in Crawford, Texas. But Sunday night this year, after Sheehan departed Martha's Vineyard without earning any network media coverage as President Barack Obama's wrapped up his vacation there, NBC's Ron Allen began a story: “Hours before President Obama's vacation ended, he treated his girls to ice cream and candy -- the kind of family time the President said he had in mind for the week...

Conservatives in America are playing with fire by inciting violence against the country's first black president "Does the sun ever shine during a Democratic administration?" asked Jon Stewart on a recent edition of The Daily Show, in a nod to the rightwing hysteria over the current White House incumbent. "With Obama in office now, when babies laugh do you hear only the sound of kittens drowning?" Stewart is a comedian, but this is no laughing matter. The lies perpetrated against Obama – that he is a foreigner, a Marxist, a Nazi, a racist, intent on interning the elderly and euthanising...

This morning Geraldo Rivera had a small tantrum on the Fox Morning Show as he tried to defend Obamacare to the rest of the guests who weren't having any of it. I was surprised and disappointed to hear Rivera say that he believes in Obamacare and that opposition to it in town hall meetings is being organized by Obama-hating professional right-wing goons. He then raised eyebrows by offering that Obamacare is disintegrating before the Dems' eyes (despite the Libs' bussing-in violent union thugs, whom Obama describes as "grass roots supporters" of Obama).

It has now become an annual ritual, as predictable as an eclipse: Frank Lindh and Marilyn Walker come out before the media to extol the virtues of their son, Suleyman al-Faris, also known as Abdul Hamid. Don’t recognize the names? Perhaps you may remember him by his real name — John Walker Lindh (”Jihad Johnny”), the American Taliban. This year is no exception, and Frank Lindh and Marilyn Walker want to talk again to anyone who’ll listen, in an effort to get their son out of federal prison. This year, the story has been picked up by Amy Goodman and...

Colin Powell appeared on CNN's Larry King Show on Tuesday evening. In the wake of his endorsement of Barack Obama, some conservatives have suggested that he leave the Republican Party. Powell's response to King was defiant, "I decide what party I am going to be in." He then offered advice to the Republican Party for improving its electoral prospects. When one takes to the national airwaves and asserts his allegiance and offers his wisdom to the Party, this assumes both political and moral standing. There must be a perception in the audience of good faith that has been earned and...

In reaction to a propaganda video of the Taliban holding an American soldier hostage in Afghanistan, on Monday’s CBS Early Show, terrorism analyst Jere Van Dyk argued: “What they [the Taliban] are saying is that ‘we can treat American soldiers, we can treat prisoners, better than Americans are treating them.’” Van Dyk went on: “…that’s a signal there. He’s wearing nice clothes, he’s being fed, he has a cup of tea there… what they are saying is that ‘we will protect to the death… a guest in our home.’

When the US President is openly being compared to Miikhail Gorbachev, it's time to reevaluate national policy toward historic enemies. Russia may now have a parliament, an elected President, and a free-market economy, but its global aspirations remain the same. President Obama's response in the face of Russia's saber rattling is to offer unilateral strategic concessions. Let's review recent events: o Russia invades Georgia with no compelling American response. o Russia threatens nuclear war with Poland due to the inclusion of Poland in the new US missile defense shield. o Russia cuts off Ukraine's electricity as penalty for Ukrainian support...

Stateline, Nev. - Former Vice President Dan Quayle gives President Obama high marks for surrounding himself with quality advisers on national security and the economy. But he says the verdict is still out on whether his Democratic administration will govern as liberally as he campaigned. "I think his biggest challenge is to tame the left wing of his party," Quayle said in an interview with The Associated Press at Lake Tahoe. "I guess we'll find out how `left' Obama really is because he's going to have to make some very tough decisions where he is either going to have to...

(CNSNews.com) – Vice President Joe Biden told people attending an AARP town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported health care plan becomes law the nation will go bankrupt and that the only way to avoid that fate is for the government to spend more money. “And folks look, AARP knows and the people with me here today know, the president knows, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable,” Biden said at the event on Thursday in Alexandria, Va. “It’s totally unacceptable. And it’s completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have...

RESIGNATION: Daughter's ex-fiance says governor also missed family time. BY SEAN COCKERAM Levi Johnston, the former fiance of Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol, on Thursday joined the crowd offering up potential reasons for Palin's decision to step down. Johnston met with reporters to say that he heard her musing about a better life, one in which she could spend more time at home, reduce her stress, and accept the lucrative offers coming her way. Back in December, a month after her election defeat as John McCain's running mate, Johnston said that Palin "had talked about how nice it would be...

Note: The following text is a quote: HE BRIEFING ROOM THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary __________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release July 7, 2009 REMARKS BY PRESIDENT OBAMA IN MEETING WITH OPPOSITION LEADERS Ritz Carlton Moscow, Russia 6:14 P.M. (Local) PRESIDENT OBAMA: (In progress) -- not simply tolerate dissenting voices but also to respect and recognize dissenting voices. This is one of the elements, along with an independent media and adherence to the rule of law that has helped to solidify our own government during some very difficult times. I said in my remarks recently that the fact that...

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Here we go again. Controversial filmmaker Michael Moore is going offer his solution to societal ills through one of his documentaries. If Moore's past movies are any indication of the coverage he will get, it is sure to be a media hit. Already, Huffington Post blogger and MSNBC daytime anchor Carlos Watson is praising praised Moore's early promotion of the flick. "Michael Moore, the filmmaker, is back and this time he was taking aim at Wall Street," Watson said on June 15. "[H]e did a very funny thing, Sarah, this weekend when you showed his documentary in some of the...

NKorea May Come Off Terror List: White House Wednesday, June 25, 2008 10:50 PM WASHINGTON -- The White House said Wednesday that it could move to take North Korea off a terrorism blacklist "quite soon" after - and if - the North delivers an accounting of its nuclear programs. Washington hoped the secretive Stalinist nation would provide its long overdue "declaration" as early as Thursday, although a senior US official has already said that an inventory of Pyongyang's atomic arsenal will come later. Asked how quickly a full accounting would trigger removal from the US list of state sponsors of...

Geraldo is on his show as we write ... and he has plastered Rush Limbaugh in a "very disgusting" image, of his eyes squinted, fat face bulging, and is portraying Rush in a very negative light. This disgusting display of "fair and balanced" news reporting has just made up my mind ... "no more Geraldo for me", ever again ... even if he is on my favorite show, Bill O'Reilly. I will NEVER WATCH HIM AGAIN ! Geraldo just "USED ANN COULTER", and turned her words around, as if she was bragging about Sonia Sotomayor, which she DID NO SUCH...

Levi Johnston says his relations are improving with Bristol Palin, daughter of former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The 19-year-old Johnston tells GQ magazine that the Palins aren't "lying when they say that things are better." Johnston fathered a child with Bristol, the 18-year-old daughter of Alaska governor. But since the couple broke off their engagement, he has complained in national interviews that the Palins were limiting his access to his son Tripp, born Dec. 27. Johnston also claims in the GQ article that Sarah Palin's husband, Todd Palin, offered to buy Bristol a new car if she broke...

An Open Letter to New York Republicans: As I read the news about the recent advances of marriage equality across our country, I think it is easy for many to get distracted by the politics and rhetoric on this issue and lose sight of what is really at its heart: the equality of freedom. No matter how politically charged the discussions about marriage equality may get, the question is really a simple one: Do the rights and privileges we offer citizens include everyone in our country, or only some of us? I believe that allowing gays and lesbians the freedom...

For a while now we've been mildly fascinated by Meghan McCain. When she first popped up in the public consciousness through her "work" on her father's failed presidential campaign, there was something sort of endearing about her. We wanted to like her. But as we've become more and more exposed to her with the passage of time we've come to find her, well, pretty grating, intolerably insufferable, the complete and total embodiment of everything wrong with a whiny-*ss generation of privilege that wants, no expects, everything to just fall right into their precious little laps without having to do sh*t...

She is a troll.....

I don’t know what to say about this that I didn’t already say when she asked The One a stupid question about Israeli nukes at his February presser, so refresh your memory. Grandstanding hack then, grandstanding hack now. In fairness to the left, as much as she prides herself on being a liberal, I think denial about Iran’s intentions is a minority position even on their side. The only question here, really, is whether she earnestly doubts that Iranian nuclear weapons would pose a threat or whether she recognizes that they would but is willing to tolerate them anyway in...

<p>I only ask because of a couple of Joe Biden items today.</p> <p>In the first, the LA Times's Top of the Ticket notes that the Vice President has nothing at all on his schedule this weekend.</p> <p>In the second, Stephen Hayes of the Weely Standard picks up on an anecdote from Eleanor Clift on Newsweek about remarks Biden made at the Gridiron dinner in which he appeared to blow the gaffe on his predecessor Dick Cheney's undisclosed location.</p>

(CNN) — The always-outspoken Roberta McCain — mother of Sen. John McCain — took a swipe at Rush Limbaugh Wednesday, saying the popular conservative radio host "does not represent the Republican Party that I belong to". "I belong to the Republican Party," McCain, 97, said during an appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. "What he represents of the Republican Party has nothing to do with my side of it. I don't know what the man means, I don't know what he's talking about." McCain also praised Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele for labeling Limbaugh an "entertainer" earlier...

I love that my Nana talked smack about Rush on Jay Leno...

Let's all set aside Meghan McCain's politics for a moment. She's the best chance the Republicans have of re-growing their party, a dose of political Menoxidil that they refuse to take. Meghan, though, is fiercely, unabashedly...well, Meghan! Her Twitter feed is replete with the kinds of details that any 20-something (or more, or less) young woman would relate to. At turns funny, foul-mouthed, and even trivial, Meghan McCain is being herself. Her blog at The Daily Beast covers a different, but similarly broad, spectrum. I first became aware of Meg's writing when she blogged about her hyper-odd dating experiences. She's...

Bristol Palin's new abstinence campaign shines a light on the Republican Party's unhealthy attitude about sex and desire. BY MEGHAN MCCAIN The first time I ever heard about oral sex was during the Lewinsky scandal. Mostly, I remember being confused by President Clinton’s response—“it depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is”. When it comes to sex, politicians face all sorts of double standards: who is allowed to have sex with whom, what constitutes sex, and whether it’s appropriate, to name a few. Candie’s Foundation’s announcement that they were partnering with Bristol Palin to promote an abstinence-only campaign has caused...

It comes at about the 5:50 mark. Cliff May asks Stewart whether Truman's use of the atomic bomb was a war crime, Stewart ruminates and then responds with an unequivocal "yes." He's certainly not the only American who would take that view, but it's a useful reminder that the most vocal and popular criticism of the Bush administration's war on terror policies comes from people who, if they were being as honest as Stewart, would also judge Lincoln (suspension of habeas), FDR (internment), and Truman (use of nuclear weapons) as war criminals or tyrants or worse. Stewart repeats the charge...

Meghan McCain writes that she was disappointed in Arlen Specter’s decision to bolt the GOP. No matter what some Republicans say, he’s exactly what the party needs. The frenzy over Sen. Arlen Specter's decision to switch parties has only just begun. As usual whenever there is major political news, my email inbox exploded with reader reactions. One in particular stood out: “You are not a new face for the Republican Party. You are the problem with the Republican Party. If you'd like to be a feel-good liberal, there's a party for you. Do like Specter and stop wrecking the GOP....

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano rejected calls to close the U.S.-Mexico border in response to the swine flu outbreak, saying the costs to both countries at this point outweigh the medical benefits. "That's something that always can be considered," Napolitano told NBC's "Today" show Tuesday, before adding that the virus has already spread to several states across the United States. "You have to look at what the costs of that are. We literally have thousands of trucks and lots of commerce that cross that border. We have food products and other things that have to go across that border. So...

SEEKONK, Mass. -- Shane Murphy, the second-in-command aboard the American merchant ship seized by pirates, lashed out at Rush Limbaugh for the talk show host's racial characterization in discussing the rescue of the ship's captain by the Navy. In commenting on the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips by the Navy Seals who shot and killed the three Somali pirates who were holding him captive, Limbaugh generated controversy when he called the pirates "black teenagers." "There you have it, three teenagers shot on the high seas at the order of President Obama," said Limbaugh according to a transcript of an April...

The Republican base is behaving like a guy who just got dumped by his wife.If conservatives don't want to be seen as bitter people who cling to their guns and religion and anti-immigrant sentiments, they should stop being bitter and clinging to their guns, religion and anti-immigrant sentiments. It's been a week now, and I still don't know what those "tea bag" protests were about. I saw signs protesting abortion, illegal immigrants, the bank bailout and that gay guy who's going to win "American Idol." But it wasn't tax day that made them crazy; it was election day. Because that's...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Actress Ashley Judd and TV personality Jeff Corwin are urging Congress to spend $7 billion a year to help safeguard America's wildlife from the impact of global warming. Judd is a longtime environmental activist. The actress told a House subcommittee on Thursday that climate legislation should not just address the causes of global warming, but also the effects already being seen on the ground. Judd says evidence of global warming is already being felt on her farm in Tennessee.

They break the law, damn it. They are criminals, and they need to be treated as such. If they get sick, let them suffer like dogs. If children who have been socialized and brought up as Americans in our public schools want an affordable college education, tough oats. This riff-raff of undesirable "illegal aliens" needs to head south of the border and the sooner the better. Thus runs the tenor of anti-immigrant (and specifically anti-Mexican immigrant) discourse these days in our country. Undocumented workers come to the United States precisely because they can get a job. If there were no...

So by now we're pretty much all familiar with Ms. California's response to Perez Hilton's question at the Miss USA Pageant the other night, she just doesn't believe in "opposite marriage," (no offense to the gays) This ain't cool with Miley, and she's going to let the world know.mileycyrus: I'm sad that people use god and religion as an excuse 2 hate, discriminate and deny gays and lesbians equality under the law Later when Perez Hilton asked her to make a specific stand Miley replied with: 'I believe everyone has the right to be happy, that's all i'm saying' Mock...