Free Republic

The Hamlet Men "Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all" -- Hamlet IN THE END it was not through the application of money, the calling in of favors, or the deft manipulation of the rules and regulations of the Democratic Party that raised John Kerry to become that Party's candidate for President of the United States. It was because he was, in all senses, the perfect man for the job. Kerry was the single politician who reflected the deep soul of the what the Democratic Party had become; the standard bearer for the resurgent Left, exemplified by Hollywood and...

This morning's Washington Times reports the astonishing--to me, anyway--news that last week's massive pro-illegal immigrant demonstration in Los Angeles was organized by International A.N.S.W.E.R. We've written about International A.N.S.W.E.R. a number of times; for example, here. It is a Communist organization and a front for the Workers World Party. The Workers World Party has been around for quite a while. It is one of the last unapologetically Stalinist organizations in the world; it supported the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. More recently, the WWP and ANSWER have supported dictators like Saddam Hussein and North Korea's Kim Il Jong. These...

By Robert Niles: Two stories this morning about large news organizations plagiarizing independent online media: The first, related by King Kaufman at Salon regards an ESPN radio host ripping off a comedy bit from a sports blogger in Michigan. Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story reports the second and (literally) more serious example. In Huffington Post, she writes that one of her investigative reports found its way into an Associated Press story, which did not attribute the information to her or to Raw Story. Alexandrovna writes: "We contacted an AP senior editor and ombudsmen both and both admitted to having had...

American Illegals Marching On Mexico City David Kessel March 28, 2006 (The Americas Press Agency, March 29, 2006) - Thousands of Americans residents in Mexico marched on Mexico City; and hundreds more marched on other Latin American capitals to protest what they perceive to be the unfair treatment they have been receiving in those countries.“We cannot work here”, complained John Smith, a resident of Tijuana. “They tell me: “Mexico is supposed to be for Mexicans.” “I have applied for many jobs here, at restaurants, and also at factories. I have run out of my savings and explained to them...

TechWeb.com (03/24/2006 3:04 PM EST) Microsoft employees writing to an anonymous blog are calling for the heads of high-level company executives -- including Steve Ballmer and Jim Allchin -- after the double delay debacle this week when the Redmond, Wash. developer shoved its two most profitable products into 2007. On the Mini-Microsoft blog, which is maintained by someone who identifies himself as a Microsoft employee and goes by the nickname "Who da'Punk," an entry tagged "Vista 2007. Fire the leadership now!" has accumulated over 325 comments from in- and outsiders. The blog was a response to the Tuesday announcement that...

The Federal Election Commission last night released proposed new rules that leave almost all Internet political activity unregulated except for the purchase of campaign ads on Web sites. "My key goal in this rule-making has been to make sure that the commission establish clear rules to exempt individuals who engage in online politics from campaign finance laws," said Chairman Michael E. Toner, a Republican. "We tried to craft a regulation that would allow the maximum amount of freedom for people as possible," said Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub, a Democrat. Most bloggers, individual Web users, and such Web sites as Drudge...

Virus Alert! McCain-Feingold is set to infect the Internet. By Bradley A. Smith For two years, campaign-finance reformers fought in the courts to force the Federal Election Commission to regulate the Internet more heavily. They won, and legislation is in the works. Two bills are before Congress, H.R. 4900 and H.R. 1606. The “reform community” is strongly backing the former, and, to garner support for it, is claiming that it offers more than adequate protections. It doesn’t. Before McCain-Feingold, or “BCRA,” federal campaign law regulated “expenditures” and “contributions” made “in connection with” federal elections or “for the purpose of influencing”...

OJR's Q & A with Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, founder of the successful political blog, which is home to a large, active corps of readers and posters. Markos Moulitsas Zúniga is the founder of DailyKos, rated by Technorati as the most-linked-to political blog on the Web. With MyDD.com founder Jerome Armstrong, he is the co-author of "Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics," a sharp rebuke of politics-as-usual within the Democratic party. He spoke via phone with OJR about the book, his website and independent Web publishing. An edited transcript of that interview follows. OJR: What the...

A reader e-mails Andrew Sullivan: "I believe that if you compare the conduct of the Iraq war by the Bush administration with the record of Lincoln during the Civil War and Roosevelt during World War 2, the record will show that Bush is doing a better job than either Lincoln or Roosevelt. Check out 'Battle Cry of Freedom' by James McPherson, a history of the Civil War era. Lincoln faced continuous vilification by the Democrats and did not think until late in the campaign that he would win re-election. The Union military during the Civil War lost dozens of major...

Mar. 20, 2006 Hi, Actually, it is not so much pessimism but rather realism that pushed me to write that last post. I think most people here, including the political elites realize that a civil war is something unthinkable that will tear the country apart. However, like in Yugoslavia, the sect or ethnic group that really caused the partitioning and break up of the country was non-other but that which most wanted to keep it one, namely the Serbs. By their brutality, cruelty and ethnic genocide, they destroyed any basis for coexistence between the various ethnic constituents of the old...

Oscar-winner George Clooney may make politically provocative films like "Syriana." But he doesn't write politically provocative blogs. So imagine his ire when Arianna Huffington used some of his recent answers to political questions in a way that makes it look as if he wrote one for her Huffington Post blog site.

Terri's Day challenges the nation to unify Kevin Fobbs March 13, 2006 Terri's Day — A Celebration of the Culture of Life honoring Terri Schiavo with a day of remembrance challenges each and every one of us to stop for a moment and ask ourselves a question, do we respect ourselves, our families, our lives? And if we are faced with the question of the possible certainty of death, does anyone truly know, or even have the faintest clue about, our wishes? That is the greatest good, the greatest legacy that Terri Schiavo's death and an annual "Terri's Day" can...

A top city leader admits the FBI has been looking through records and asking lots of questions. City Finance and Housing Director, Robert Lipscomb, confirmed that the FBI is looking into the HARP program. The program helps low income families repair or replace their homes. Lipscomb says the FBI's investigation also involves a conflict of interest. This past summer, Eyewitness News did its own investigation into a possible conflict of interest at the HARP program. Reporter Jeni DiPrizio had some questions about Councilman Rickey Peete's grandmother getting a new house on your dime. Peete’s grandmother, Lizzie Jones, was one...

For up-to-date info visit Michael J Totten's website: http://www.michaeltotten.com Other related posts: Michael J. Totten: Kurdistan. Iraq Without a Gun; Dream City of the Kurds; Massive Reconstruction Southern Kurdistan, The Most pro-American Place In The World Read these articles belowLockdown, February 17, 2006 http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001058.htmlNorthern Iraq: A Photo Gallery, February 18, 2006  http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001059.html“Our Jerusalem”, February 20, 2006 http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001060.htmlThe Safest City in Iraq, February 21, 2006 http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001061.htmlThe Utah of the Middle East, February 22, 2006 The Kurd Way. Lockdown, February 17, 2006 http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001058.html ERBIL, IRAQ – A Western journalist I met in Erbil, who has been in Iraq for some time, told...

"I am so tired of Muslims of blaming 'culture' not the 'religion' for any trouble inside Muslim countries. If you need an example of the falsehood of that statement - look at India and Pakistan. The people are ethnically identical, speak the same languages and eat the same foods. (In fact they were the same country until Muslims demanded they get their own country). Today Pakistan is a military dictatorship and has been for most of its 50 plus year life. Its only claims to fame are killing journalists, operating jihadi camps, beating up women who try to run marathons,...

Points, the Sunday viewpoints section edited by Rod Dreher, had an excellent series of articles and short takes on a wide range of subjects. It quotes Republican Senator Chuck Hagel from Nebraska as saying: "This party that sometimes I don’t recognize anymore has presided over the largest growth of government in the history of the country and maybe even the history of man." I second Chuck Hagel’s concerns about the spending excesses of the Administration and Congress.

Every walk of life and field of endeavor generates its own insiders' lingo. Those of us in the MSM — that's the superannuated, archaic mainstream media — have our own jargon, of which the first sentence of an article is the lede, the early edition is the bulldog and the guys working into the wee hours make up the lobster shift. Some of our special vocabulary is being stolen from us by the denizens of the world of Web logs. Above the fold — the top half of a standard-size newspaper page, where the major stories begin — now, in...

Time for the last post By Trevor Butterworth Published: February 17 2006 14:01 | Last updated: February 17 2006 21:54 On a winter-cold morning last autumn, before the leaves could summon up the energy to burn and fall, the barbarians entered the gate. A group of feisty young writers, known only to millions of readers by their blog names - Gawker, Gizmodo, Wonkette and Defamer - were in a soigne studio in New York’s Chelsea district to be photographed for the February issue of Vanity Fair magazine. ADVERTISEMENT They represented the cream of Gawker Media - a mini-empire of clever,...

Muslims are hypocrites! NOT! It seems fitting to start a blog that will most likely deal a lot with religion and politics with a topic that spans both. One comment one reads and hears a lot in right-wing commentary on 'the Cartoon Wars' are 'Muslims are such hypocrites!' I'd like to take exception. Devout Muslims, like devout Jews or devout Christians of any confession, take seriously their belief that their religion is true, a reflection of the one, existing God and grounded in His decisive self-revelation, the Qu'ran. I, too, believe that my religion--Orthodox Christianity--is true and grounded in...

People are making a living, or a decent chunk of one, by blogging. Some are warbloggers in the Middle East, like Michael Totten, who blogs from Beirut, with occasional sidetrips to Egypt, Turkey, and Iraq, or Michael Yon, who served as a war correspondent via blog, or Bill Roggio, who embedded himself for a while with a U.S. combat unit in Iraq. Back here in the States, there are plenty of people making money the older-fashioned way, without being shot at. Andrew Sullivan has moved in-house at Time for a presumably pretty penny, Josh Marshall is running a blog-collective, and...