Free Republic

Reminder: download "The Tea Party Anthem" to play at your 4th of July Tea Party. http://bit.ly/zMYfG Hear "The American TEa Party Anthem" here: http://bit.ly/6mfvC

AP: President Barack Obama says he's never believed that affirmative action is as much of an issue as it's been made out to be. He says it hasn't been as "potent a force for racial progress" as its supporters have said, and that it hasn't been as bad for white students or job applicants as its critics say. In an Associated Press interview Thursday, Obama said affirmative action can be made an "afterthought" when problems such as malnutrition, poverty and substandard schools are dealt with, and "everybody has a level playing field." President Barack Obama said Thursday the Supreme Court...

AN OPEN INVITATION TO ATTEND THE 9-12 TAXPAYER MARCH IN WASHINGTON D.C. To: Patriots, Friends and Citizens…lend me your ears On behalf of Grassfire and ResistNet members, I would like to extend an invitation for you to join with us for our March in Washington on September 12th. Our Mission is to present a unified voice of concern over the current administration’s policies regarding taxation, our economy, foreign and domestic policy, as well as our individual constitutional rights as American citizens. I encourage you to explore the Grassfire.org and Resistnet.com web sites to gain a better understanding of our forum....

A remarkably candid assessment from one of the most respected opinion leaders on the right. Said Charles Krauthammer last night on Fox News: Now, as to Palin, I agree entirely with what Mara said. She is—she has star power without any doubt. She has an extremely devoted following. But she is not a serious candidate for the presidency. She had to go home and study and spend a lot of time on issues in which she was not adept last year, and she hasn't. She has to stop speaking in clichés and platitudes. It won't work. It could work for...

We knew this was coming .... For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, non-confrontational access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and — at first — even the paper’s own reporters and editors. It's the speed at which the newspapers are prostituting themselves that's a little surprising. I'm surprised that the NY Times didn't think of it first. Or perhaps they did but the memo didn't get distributed to the press. I'll forward this to Maurice Jones at the Virginian Pilot to see if he also sees a...

Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was cancelling plans for an exclusive "salon" at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors. The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and...

One of Farrah Fawcett’s most poignant and outstanding films was "The Burning Bed." This film about spouse abuse brought increased attention to domestic violence and remains part of Fawcett's legacy. According to one writer who has recently examined the issue of domestic violence in relationship to the film The Burning Bed, Fawcett’s portrayal of the abused spouse made a decided contribution to public awareness and understanding of the problem. Fawcett introduced the notion of the film to director Robert Greenwald. The film was based on the true story of Francine Hughes in a story written by Faith McNulty called The...

A Los Angeles federal judge has tentatively thrown out the convictions of a Missouri mother for her role in a MySpace hoax directed at a 13-year-old neighbor girl who ended up committing suicide. In his ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge George Wu has acquitted Lori Drew of misdemeanor counts of accessing computers without authorization. Wu says his ruling will become final when he issues it in writing. Drew was convicted in a trial, but the judge says that if she is to be found guilty of illegally accessing computers, anyone who has ever violated the social networking site's terms of...

New Rasmussen poll released earlier this week reveals that 57 percent of Americans believe gun sales have skyrocketed in this country over the past several months because of fears that the government – now under control of the Obama administration and a Democrat Congress – will move to restrict gun rights. Since just before last November’s election that put Barack Obama in the White House and has now finally put Far Left Democrat Al Franken in the U.S. Senate from Minnesota – giving Democrats a 60-seat filibuster-proof majority in the upper house – American citizens have been flocking to gun...

General Motors can survive bankruptcy far more easily than it can survive President Barack Obama's ambitious fuel economy standards, which mandate that all new vehicles average 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. The actual Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) results will depend on the mixture of fuel-thrifty and fuel-thirsty vehicles consumers choose to buy from each manufacturer -- not on what producers hope to sell. That means only those companies most successful in selling the smallest cars with the smallest engines will, in the future, be allowed to sell the more profitable larger pickups and SUVs and more powerful luxury...

An Appointment With Reform by: Brittany Fortier, July 02, 2009 Is there a doctor in the house? There were plenty in attendance for the CATO Institute Conference on Health Care Reform held on June 17, 2009, and they were all prepared to discuss the Obama administration’s plan to set up a government-run health care “option” that would “compete” with the private sector. Cato Institute President Edward H. Crane expressed his disagreement with a New York Times article saying that a doctor shortage is “an obstacle to Obama goals.” “When I see the word ‘shortage,’ I know it is a nonmarket...

AP article. Posting link only. http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/jul/02/ca-california-budget-070209/?california&zIndex=125886

<p>Harlem, especially the Apollo, is the media's unofficial spot to get Black America's reaction to Michael Jackson's death. Matt Harvey dropped by last Friday and listened in on a conversation that was full of adoration and, yes, angry conjecture.</p>

UN General Assembly vying for leadership over global economic crisis, despite objections from the West Video at site

Joe the Plumber is hitting the streets to speak at tea parties and help citizens take America back this Independence Day weekend. He told WND his suspicions about the next president came true, but Obama isn't the only person he blames. "I don't go around talking about President Obama too often because it tends to draw a line for people. I blame Congress ultimately for everything that is going badly," he said. "Obama just got in there. But that being said, I don't care for how he is conducting our foreign affairs. It worries me. He's also pushing a lot...

SAN DIEGO — Herbert G. Klein, the former Nixon aide whose 52 years with Copley Newspapers and active role in civic affairs made him a San Diego icon, died Thursday. Mr. Klein, who lived in La Jolla, was 91. Mr. Klein was the first White House director of communications, in Richard Nixon's embattled administration, until he resigned in July 1973, 13 months before the Watergate scandal forced the president himself to step down. He first tasted the world of politics as a reporter covering Nixon's 1946 congressional campaign. That association with Nixon eventually led him to the White House. Mr....

If you need another reason to hate Harvard University, here's a good one: the elite politically correct school that has more money than God was the ninth-biggest donor to Senator-elect Al Franken's 2008 campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Harvard gave $21,900 to the Franken campaign.

To summarize baseball legend Reggie Jackson: nobody boos a nobody. That is definitely true in the case of Governor Sarah Palin. I don’t think I am going out on a limb here when I speculate that individuals who repeatedly attack her anonymously view her as a threat. And that includes members of the media hell-bent tearing down young Republican up-and-comers as well as some in Governor Palin’s own party — a party desperately in need of redefining — who are motivated, for whatever reason, to try and crush their rivals. The most recent and grossly unfair attack came from Vanity...

(06-28) 04:00 PDT Brussels, Belgium -- SNIPPET: "Like many spy tales in fiction and reality, "Background to Danger" begins in a train station." SNIPPET: "Fast-forward six decades into a transformed landscape. Europe has erased internal borders. Instead of fighting Nazis or Communists, spy agencies use satellites and wiretaps to track Islamic terrorists who conspire on the Internet. But one thing has not changed much. Trains, stations and the gritty neighborhoods that surround them are often the backdrop to danger." SNIPPET: "In a train station, after all, you never know who might be listening."

California has a $26 billion budget deficit and is now issuing IOU's to creditors. If you thought they would be working hard to solve the budget crisis, you would be wrong. They are debating Cow Tails. Unbelievable. Video here.