Free Republic

In his October 29, 2006 article about the Dixie Chicks documentary Shut Up & Sing, Boston Globe writer Damon Smith’s two opening paragraphs contained a big, fat whopper born of leftist urban legend. He wrote: Just weeks after 9/11, Ari Fleischer, then White House press secretary, warned Americans to ‘watch what they say.’ Beyond alarming civil-rights advocates, who recoiled from the ominous tone of his words, Fleischer's admonition was a reminder that, in some quarters at least, any voice of dissent could be construed as anti-patriotic, regardless of content or context. Just ask Bill Maher -- or the Dixie Chicks…”...

HEY, DIXIE CHICKS: THIS IS *NOT* A FREE SPEECH ISSUE! Shut Up And Post [...]Now, to answer your dumb question; YES, I believe in Free Speech. The Dixie Chicks expressed their free speech. Members of Free Republic.com (such as myself), the film’s apparent villain and the target of a laughable and feeble smear campaign by a Dixie Chicks’ media flack, express our free speech. The former fans of the Chicks expressed their free speech. Laura Ingraham expressed her free speech when she created the phrase “Shut Up & Sing.” Toby Keith expressed his free speech about Natalie Maines. And...

NEW YORK--Politics makes artists stupid. Take "My Name Is Rachel Corrie," the one-woman play cobbled together from the diaries, emails and miscellaneous scribblings of the 23-year-old left-wing activist who was run over by an Israeli Army bulldozer in 2003 while protesting the demolition of a Palestinian house in the Gaza Strip. Co-written and directed by Alan Rickman, one of England's best actors, "Rachel Corrie" just opened off-Broadway after a successful London run. It's an ill-crafted piece of goopy give-peace-a-chance agitprop--yet it's being performed to cheers and tears before admiring crowds of theater-savvy New Yorkers who, like Mr. Rickman himself, ought...

Radio talk show host and bestselling author Laura Ingraham shot back publicly Monday at an Oprah Winfrey show producer who invited her to make pre-recorded comments on videotape regarding the Dixie Chicks on the popular daytime talk show. Ingraham is the author of the 2003 New York Times bestseller Shut Up & Sing: How Elites from Hollywood, Politics, and the UN are Subverting America, which has just come out in paperback. The title of Ingraham's book is aimed primarily at the we're-not-country-anymore country trio the Dixie Chicks, who are among the bestselling female groups of all time. However, the Chicks...

CABLE NEWS RACE MON., AUG. 14, 2006 VIEWERS FOXNEWS O'REILLY 2,059,000 FNX BRIT HUME 1,614,000 FNC HANNITY/COLMES 1,496,000 FNC GRETA 1,485,000 FNC SHEP SMITH 1,179,000 CNN LARRY KING 805,000 CNN COOPER 798,000 CNN DOBBS 678,000 CNN ZAHN 669,000 MSNBC HARDBALL 456,000 MSNBC INVESTIGATES 451,000MSNBC OLBERMANN 363,000CNNHN GLENN BECK 354,000 CNNHN NANCY GRACE 335,000

True Believers Blogger L.N. Smithee points to another example of religion masquerading as science. This time it involves "global warming." Smithee reproduces a newspaper ad for Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" that features the following text (ellipses in original, boldface ours): "An Inconvenient Truth" is already one of the top ten documentaries of all time.It has a chance to become a phenomenon.There are people in Washington today hoping that never happens, so they can dismiss this as a fringe issue. If you care . . . you can't let them.You need to take your friends and family, and make them see it.It...

by L.N. Smithee July 18, 2006 Although it is far from the overwhelming box office success of Michael Moore's factually-challenged "documentary" Fahrenheit 9/11, Al Gore and producer Laurie David's glorified campaign ad/PowerPoint presentation An Inconvenient Truth is a hit...for a documentary. This is not surprising, because few documentaries have the backing that this one does: it stars a nationally known figure in former Vice President Al Gore (who, remember, got the majority of votes cast nationwide in the 2000 election), is co-produced by a well-known celebrity spouse (Laurie David, wife of professional schlemiel Larry David and a quasi-environmentalist who loves...

The writer-director of "Kabbalah," an Off-Off-Broadway religious satire in which cast members strip naked, yesterday blasted female lead Emily Stern as a "Jewish-American princess" for abruptly quitting the show, and called her famous father, Sirius Satellite Radio jock Howard Stern, "a psycho." Israeli-born stage maven Tuvia Tenenbom, who runs the Jewish Theater of New York, told me he canceled the run when the 22-year-old actress - who played Madonna in the show - bowed out after six weeks at the Triad Theater on W. 73rd St. because a couple of Howard Stern fan sites exposed her celebrity parentage.

Crawford, the home of President George W. Bush, is a sun-scorched hole of a backwater Texas town -- a single dreary railroad crossing surrounded on all sides by roasted earth the color of dried dog s---. There are scattered clumps of trees and brush, but all the foliage seems bent from the sun's rays and ready at any moment to burst into flames. The moaning cattle along the lonely roads sound like they're begging for their lives. The downtown streets are empty. Just as the earth is home to natural bridges, this place is a natural dead end -- the...

Washington Post writer Dan Froomkin, in what is termed "Special to WashingtonPost.com," authored an article headlined "Another Poll Finds Bush Sinking," and outlines the latest approval numbers for President Bush. Froomkin linked several sources (Wall Street Journal, Harris, Gallup polls, etc.) to detail just how bad everything is going for Bush. As I was reading Froomkin's rundown, I got the idea that he was enjoying Bush's troubles a little too much to be objective. But the numbers don't lie, and they are bad numbers. Then Froomkin stopped making reference to the polls, and started writing for himself. This is what...

(LNSB, July 25, 2005) A bestselling author said in an interview on the July 21, 2005 edition of the Laura Ingraham radio show that major motion picture studios have in the past rejected his popular novels for development into films because of studio executives’ leftward leanings and because they are frightened of violent reaction from Muslims. Suspense novelist Vince Flynn (Memorial Day, Executive Power, Term Limits, and the upcoming Consent to Kill), in response to a listener’s question of when one of his books would be made into a motion picture, said there has been a lot of interest in...

From the article "Anita Hill's After Story" in the July 2005 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine:[Anita Hill's] moment in the news may not be over yet. An appointment to the Supreme Court is for life, so Thomas's position is safe. With Chief Justice William Rehnquist possibly stepping down after the session ends in late June, however, court watchers wonder who might replace him. When previously asked about federal judicial appointments, Bush has said he would select judges like Thomas and Antonin Scalia, indicating a preference for such conservatives. That leads people to wonder whether Thomas might get the nod...

WARNING: This thread contains spoilers. Back in 2004, singer Linda Ronstadt, who was romantically linked in the seventies with Democratic then-California Governor Jerry Brown but had never previously displayed any signs of traditional celebrity political activism, began ending her concerts by dedicating the song "Desperado" to Michael Moore, the blame-America-first filmmaker/author. When she did so at the Aladdin hotel in Las Vegas, a mini-riot ensued, and she and her band was escorted from the premises shortly afterward by the hotel's miffed manager. Less than a week later, Ronstadt was interviewed before an upcoming concert in San Diego about whether she...

Minutes ago on the 11:00 news: Ana Ayala, the woman who says she found a finger in her Wendy's chili, has been arrested at her Las Vegas home. What is known is that she will be charged with Grand Theft. The San Jose Police have scheduled a press conference tomorrow morning.

Tonight on 60 Minutes, Andy Rooney's monologue was on the coverage of the death of Pope John Paul II. Rooney had newspapers from all over the globe strewn across his desk with essentially the same photograph of the Pontiff lying in state. He prattled on about the different angles of the pictures -- how some of them shot from the side, some from the bottom, how he only wore the red cape now that he had died, and was wearing brown shoes. He commented on how similar the Swiss language looked like German on the printed page. He mentioned how...

CALLER: Quick comment. I'm not understanding why a blood relative wouldn't make this decision and not a non-blood relative. My question is, if this happened 15 years ago, and this gentleman and his wife decided between them that they would pull the tube and let each other die if they were in this kind of a situation, what took him eight years to make that decision and why didn't he make it in those first eight years and has now had another seven years tacked on?KING: Michael doesn't want to respond (UNINTELLIGIBLE). George [Felos], you want to respond? FELOS: Sure....

QUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | MEETUP | C-LOG | ISSUES townhall.comPrinter-friendly versionReligious discrimination at the University of GeorgiaMike S. Adams (back to web version) | Send November 9, 2004Author’s note: The president of the University of Georgia is also named Mike Adams. We are not related.Dear President Adams (phone # 706.542.1214):I was recently informed about a possible case of religious discrimination against a (now former) cheerleading coach at the University of Georgia (UGA). Before I ask you a few questions about that case, I have several preliminary questions regarding the gay “safe zone” at UGA. My...

What will we do if George W. Bush is re-elected in three weeks? Dog Bites doesn't know, but surely Google must. We searched for the phrase "If Bush wins, I'm ...." From the 450 or so hits that were returned, here's what we learned: "if Bush wins I'm going to be living with some very unhappy Brazilians." "If Bush wins I'm gonna get drunk, drive over to the states and drop a great big dump in the middle of the peace bridge." "If Bush wins, I'm going to attempt to bring down the US government and replace it with a...

This letter appeared in the Letters To The Editor column in the Duluth News-Tribune Tuesday, October 5, 2004: Bush, Rumsfeld trying to reinstate military draft If you are a parent of or are close to someone between the ages of 18 and 26, please consider the following: There is pending legislation in the House and Senate (companion bills: HR163 and S89) to implement a renewal of the military draft as soon as next June. The Bush administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed now, while the public's attention is on the elections. Information can be found in detail...

Pictures of former Beatle George Harrison were taken from his sister's car Sunday while she was donating memorabilia to the Clinton Presidential Library. Lou Harrison says someone shattered a window of her car and stole a briefcase containing photos of her and brother and the lyrics to a number of her brother's songs. "(The items are) precious to me obviously because I don't have my brother in person any more," she told CBS News Affiliate KTHV-TV of Little Rock. George Harrison died of cancer, at the age of 58, in November 2001. Lou Harrison says she had driven from her...