Free Republic

AUSTIN — Kinky Friedman is considering entering the campaign for Texas governor in 2010 as a Democrat. Friedman said the Democratic party, which hasn't won a statewide election in more than a dozen years, could use a nontraditional approach to connect with voters. "I consider myself a Democrat in the mold of JFK, (former Texas Gov.) Ann Richards and (journalist) Molly Ivins," Friedman said. During his campaign for Texas governor last year as an independent, Friedman couldn't overcome the financial and logistical clout of the two major parties, which he compared to the Crips and Bloods street gangs. Friedman, an...

Molly Ivins, whose biting columns mixed liberal populism with an irreverent Texas wit, died at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at her home in Austin after an up-and-down battle with breast cancer she had waged for seven years. She was 62. Ms. Ivins, the Star-Telegram’s political columnist for nine years ending in 2001, had written for the New York Times, the Dallas Times-Herald and Time magazine and had long been a sought-after pundit on the television talk-show circuit to provide a Texas slant on issues ranging from President Bush’s pedigree to the culture wars rooted in the 1960s. "She was magical in...

AUSTIN - Nationally syndicated columnist Molly Ivins has been hospitalized in her recurring battle with breast cancer. "I think she's tough as a metal boot," her brother, Andy Ivins, said Friday after a visit with her at Seton Medical Center in Austin. Andy Ivins said his sister was admitted to Seton on Thursday. She spent Friday morning with longtime colleagues and friends, and was "sleeping peacefully" when he arrived later in the day. A self-described leftist agitator, Ivins, 62, completed a round of radiation treatment in August, but the cancer "came back with a vengeance," and has spread through her...

AUSTIN, Texas - Liberal Texas columnist Molly Ivins has been hospitalized in her ongoing battle with breast cancer, her assistant said Frida

Don't celebrate yet, Democrats October 26, 2006 Stunning coincidence. The verdict in the long-running trial of Saddam Hussein in Iraq is now due two days before our congressional elections in November. Astounding. How ineffable. Sometimes you know the Republicans have just lost the rag completely. Last week, Dick Cheney said to Rush Limbaugh regarding the Iraqi government, "If you look at the general, overall situation, they're doing remarkably well." The vice president also acknowledged there's some concern because the war wasn't over "instantaneously." We have now been in Iraq just one month shy of the entire time it took us...

Serenaded by Joe Ely and Garrison Keillor and saluted by characters spanning the globe of liberal politics, Molly Ivins raised money Sunday night for her beloved Texas Observer. Over dinner with about 800 fans at the Capitol Marriott, the liberal columnist and former Observer co-editor sported a wispy mohawk of regrowing hair, reflecting her looking-good battle against recurrent breast cancer. She was hailed by 18 speakers. They were led off by Keillor, the Minnesota radio man, who, with Ely, sang "Today I Started Loving You Again" and "Waltz Across Texas." Keillor said, "It's good to be in a roomful of...

Dear desperate Democrats, Here’s what we do. We run Bill Moyers for president. I am serious as a stroke about this. It’s simple, cheap and effective, and it will move the entire spectrum of political discussion in this country. Moyers is the only public figure who can take the entire discussion and shove it toward moral clarity just by being there. The poor man who is currently our president has reached such a point of befuddlement that he thinks stem-cell research is the same as taking human lives, but that 40,000 dead Iraqi civilians are progress toward democracy. Bill Moyers...

by Mark Finkelstein July 26, 2006 - 14:00 All those millions the taxpayers have lavished on the Public Broadcasting System over the years haven't been for naught. They've achieved at least one significant thing: given Bill Moyers a base from which to launch a presidential campaign. At least in the mind of Molly Ivins. The headline of her latest column says it all: Run Bill Moyers For President, Seriously While Molly doesn't expect Moyers to win the election or even the nomination, she believes his candidacy would have a salubrious effect on other Democratic contenders. Here's the essence of her...

In his 2006 State of the Union address—between thanking outgoing Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor for her service and heralding his wife's Helping America's Youth Initiative—President Bush slipped in a call for a ban on "human-animal hybrids." It's probably a phrase that brings thoughts of centaurs, fauns and harpies to some minds. But, despite the President's stern disapproval of mixed-species clones, we may soon find food products derived from them not just in our research labs, but on our kitchen tables within the next year.A Dutch biotechnology company called Pharming has genetically engineered cows, outfitting females with a human...

In a recent piece on liberal media bias, Michael Barone relayed a relevant encounter: I remember a conversation I had with a broadcast news executive many years ago. "Doesn't the fact that 90 percent of your people are Democrats affect your work product?" I asked. "Oh, no, no," he said. "Our people are professional. They have standards of objectivity and professionalism, so that their own views don't affect the news." "So what you're saying," I said, "is that your work product would be identical if 90 percent of your people were Republicans." He quickly replied, "No, then it would be...

Molly Ivins, battling breast cancer afresh, sounds as feisty as ever. The South Austin resident continues writing her left-of-center column, raising money for the journal where she forged her tart take on politics and, of course, cheerfully gigging Republicans such as the well-coifed governor of Texas. Ivins, 61, tongue-in-cheeked that Gov. Rick Perry's trip to Iraq this week will slow anti-American insurgents. "The mere sight of his hair will do a world of good," she said. She chatted with two visitors to her home office in Travis Heights without donning her wig of reddish-blond locks; her pate was nearly bald....

Of course the jokes are flying all over Texas -- what's the fine for shooting a lawyer? -- and so forth. Dick-Cheney-shooting-Harry-Whittington is fraught, as they say, with irony. It's not as though the ground in Texas is littered with liberal Republicans. I think the vice president winged the only one we've got. Not that I accuse Harry Whittington of being an actual liberal -- only by Texas Republican standards, and that sets the bar about the height of a matchbook. Nevertheless, Whittington is seriously civilized, particularly on the issues of crime, punishment and prisons. He served on both the...

AUSTIN, Texas (Creators Syndicate) -- Several great minds were asked to help think up interview questions for George W. Bush. I liked, "Are you the worst president since James Buchanan, or have you never heard of him?" Sorry about the snarkiness quotient, but is there anything these folks can't screw up -- and then refuse to own up to? Iraq is the most difficult to judge because it's so far away. I can find no indication -- from hours of electricity available to amount of oil being pumped to number of dead people -- that hints at any improvement. On...

AUSTIN, Texas (Creators Syndicate) -- I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president. Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

You've probably heard about the UMass student who claimed that Department of Homeland Security agents visited him after he checked out Mao's Little Red Book from the library. Well, he has now admitted that he made the story up.

Uh-oh. Now we are in trouble. Doesn’t take much to read the tea leaves on the Harriet Miers nomination. First, it’s Bunker Time at the White House. Miers’ chief qualification for this job is loyalty to George W. Bush and the team. What the nomination means in larger terms for both law and society is the fifth vote on the court to overturn Roe v. Wade. Aside from that bothersome little matter, the Miers appointment is like that of John Roberts — could’ve been worse. Not as bad as Edith Jones, not as bad as Priscilla Owen — and you...

AUSTIN, Texas -- Like many of you who love New Orleans, I find myself taking short mental walks there today, turning a familiar corner, glimpsing a favorite scene, square or vista. And worrying about the beloved friends and the city, and how they are now. To use a fine Southern word, it's tacky to start playing the blame game before the dead are even counted. It is not too soon, however, to make a point that needs to be hammered home again and again, and that is that government policies have real consequences in people's lives. This is not "just...

What's that familiar reek in the air? By Molly Ivins AUSTIN - As the judge in the Judith Miller-Matt Cooper case said, it just gets "curiouser and curiouser." For starters, Miller of The New York Times, who never wrote a word about Valerie Plame, is in prison, while Robert Novak, who broke the story and printed the name, may be weekending at his posh house on Fenwick Island, Del. Meanwhile, a truly phenomenal case study in the art of spin has been launched on behalf of Karl Rove, a.k.a. Bush's brain, now that we know he was Cooper's source on...

Crow eaten here: This is a horror. In a column (Opinion, June 29) I asserted that more Iraqis (civilians) had now been killed in this war than had been killed by Saddam Hussein over his 24-year rule. Wrong. Really, really wrong. The only problem is figuring out by how large a factor I was wrong. I had been keeping an eye on civilian deaths in Iraq for a couple of months, waiting for the most conservative estimates to creep over 20,000, which I had fixed in my mind as the number of Iraqi civilians Saddam had killed. ------------------------------------------------------- There have...

I cannot post from Alternet but Drudge has picked this up so you can get it there. Molly Ivins eats crow over her claims that more civilian deaths have occured since US liberated Iraq than under Saddam''s benevolent care.She was abit off on her math ....New Math? the crow eating begins towards the bottom of the column. Its funny