Free Republic

We often hear that the Left owns the Net. Like much of what you hear, this is not strictly true. There are no lack of right-of-center websites of all types ranging from personal blogs to influential portals and webzines. (You're reading one of those.) If the total sites of both right and left were comprehensively counted and compared -- probably an impossibility at this point -- the number of sites on our end would likely equal or even surpass those of the left. It would be more accurate to say that the Left uses the Net better. As the late...

A number of interesting observations have percolated throughout the Interweb in the aftermath of the 2008 election - arguments about the "youth vote", the "center-right versus center-left," pushing aside social conservative issues, etc. But one of the most thought-provoking topics receiving attention is the issue of the presence (or lack thereof) of the Right in the online "Web 2.0" universe. As a technology geek by trade, this topic is near and dear to my heart. Much has been made of the aforementioned "youth vote" in the post-election analysis, and within that discussion are implications that the youth were energized by...

A Democrat is poised to take the reins of power in Washington, D.C., and Fresno resident Jim Robinson is feeling a sense of deja vu. It was President Bill Clinton's 1992 election that sparked Robinson's political activism, driving him to create a Web site that made him a grass-roots leader among conservatives before Clinton's term was over. This year, as Barack Obama prepares to sweep into office on another tide of Democratic votes, Robinson and denizens of that Web site, freerepublic.com, are preparing to do battle again. "We'll double and redouble our efforts to fight for what is right," Robinson...

CALL TO ACTION! "FREEPING FOR JESUS": THE VP DEBATE by Kevinole Oct 02, 2008 at 05:51:27 PM PDT We organized a Freep List for the first Obama vs. McCondescending-Asshole debate. As far as I know, this had never been done before. We did a great job and I learned a lot that I could use in making this and future freep list diaries more effective. I fully expect "Mighty Joe" Biden to crush Sarah "I-Shot-Bullwinkle" Palin like a grape. One thing I will not take for granted, however, is the industriousness of the right-wing spin machine. They will be out...

Actually, I don't think the right has played as dirty as this. A Times article by Michael Luo this morning unveils a new netroots enterprise, Accountable America, the unabashed purpose of which is to terrify conservatives from giving campaign money to Republican causes and Republican candidates. It's actually ingenuous. You get a list of past Republican donors and send each of them one, two, many e-mails with the explicit warning that contributing to conservative campaigns may be dangerous to the donor's health. Or, as Luo puts it, "The warning letter is intended as a first step, alerting donors who might...

One thing that hasn't received much attention in conservative and Republicans circles is the ongoing conversation on the left about the possibility of Nuremberg-style war-crimes trials for members of the Bush administration should a Democratic president take office. I'm not exaggerating or introducing the Nazi analogy myself; they actually use the phrase "Nuremberg-style" when they discuss "war-crimes tribunals." And they are quite serious (although the more moderate of them prefer a "truth commission.") At the Netroots Nation gathering in Austin, Texas last month — that is the successor to YearlyKos — Dahlia Lithwick, of the Washington-Post-owned website Slate, did an...

Last week, we published Babba Zee's Anti-Obama Blogs Shut Down by Google, Obamabots. Thurday, Blogger locked our original (and still quite robust) site, DBKP at Blogger for being a spam blog. One would think Blogger would have a system in place before shutting down blogs with any kind of Google Page Rank. After all, your average spam site doesn't acquire much of a page rank. But, apparently, one would be wrong. Our original site is PR-5. Were Obama supporters behind this latest round of blog shutdowns, as they were last month? In Obama's Netroots Supporters Continue "Blog Burning", Confederate Yankee...

The online activists are angry with Barack Obama. But only a bit IT WAS summer and it was Austin, where keeping things weird is a popular civic pastime. But for the 2,000 bloggers and readers at last weekend’s Netroots Nation, the mood was more wonkish than wild. The “netroots”—the online version of “grassroots” political activists—spent hours in panels on policy and technology, and kept up running analyses via blogs and Twitter. They allowed themselves to be plied with margaritas of an evening, but made it back for a morning question session with Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of...

The Austin American-Statesman caved to pressure from the Daily Kos-Netroots Nation and pulled an article from the newspaper's website that poked fun at the liberal convention being held in Austin last weekend.The article, entitled Gore's Surprise Visit Highlights Netroots Conference was published on the front page of Sunday's paper.It was written by feature writer, Patrick Beach--meaning the article was not a straight news piece (think Dana Milbank.)Greg Mitchell, a writer for Editor & Publisher who blogs at the Daily Kos attended the conference as a panel speaker.He brought attention to the article by posting about it the Daily Kos. Mitchell...

Two years ago we here at DUmmie FUnnies documented the first annual KOmmie KOnvention (held in Las Vegas), "YearlyKos"--AKA "Blogolapalooza," because politicans like Mark Warner wined and dined the prog bloggers with chocolate fountains and ice sculptures at a Stratosphere party, in order to gain their support. Well, this year we travel to Austin, Texas, for the YearlyKos, now called, "Netroots Nation." There are MULTITUDINOUS THREADS on this in KOmmieland--you can go there and use the tag, "netroots nation 2008" to find them all. There's even a separate Netroots Nation website, with agenda, speakers, registration info, etc. There are...

With a registration fee of about $500 it was clear that no riff-raff need apply. Discussions with attendees put that in context and explained the need for so much big-money sponsorship. The attendees were largely hand-picked, with their entry and expenses underwritten by various groups in the form of paid 'scholarships' to enable them to attend. Naturally, that meant that there was a selection process in play where scholarships were directed to the most influential and most loyal partisans, giving them the opportunity to make contacts and take advantage of the extensive learning opportunities offered at the conference. Netroots Nation...

So House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is about 40-odd minutes into her "Ask the Speaker" session Saturday at the Netroots Nation confab here in Austin,TX and about to field a question about energy and the environment, when she says she's got to call a friend. Offstage is heard the voice of Al Gore. No, wait he's actually here and the Netrootsters in the airline hangar sized hall greeted him with a nearly a minute long standing O. It was like a surprise guest showing up to jam at a Bridge School Benefit Concert. -- if you're a political geek, which we...

Al Gore steals the show at Netroots By Lilly Rockwell | Saturday, July 19, 2008, 11:01 AM Former Vice President Al Gore stole the show from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s fireside policy chat at the Netroots Nation conference in Austin on Saturday. Pelosi spent 45 minutes talking about abortion rights, efforts to bring the troops back from Iraq and why she didn’t think the Senate version of the FISA bill was appropriate. Some questions seemed to take her off guard, such as when one audience member asked about care packages being sent to troops, and if Congress should pass a...

With the general election a long way off and much of the general public still tuning out the presidential race, you'd think the online activist corps that have injected unprecedented amounts of cash to fuel this campaign season might want to take a few weeks off. You'd be wrong.

When former Sen. John Edwards dropped out of the presidential race, the progressive Netroots took their affections to Barack Obama, defending him against attack from Hillary Rodham Clinton and others. But with his support of a government surveillance bill that offers retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies — a bill that he vowed last year to filibuster — the honeymoon has ended. Disappointed over his position on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the online activists feel jilted and betrayed and have taken to questioning his progressive credentials. One prominent blogger, Atrios, has even given him the moniker “Wanker of the Day.”...

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama's ascendancy comes with a popular affirmation: "Yes we can." Maybe it should be "Yes we click," as his presidential campaign takes online politics to new levels. Obama became the front-runner for the Democratic nomination this month after a string of primary and caucus victories, and his inspirational appeal and effective campaign organization are getting most of the credit for his stunning success. But there is another major factor: smart use of new technology, from record-breaking fundraising to Facebook widgets attracting new supporters and mass texting to keep his backers connected. While every candidate in this year's...

By and large, the online left hates Obama. It's one of the underreported ironies of this political season. Obama has more in common with the netroots than Hillary. He's to the left of her on the war, on corporate issues, on social welfare issues – even on life issues Obama appears to the left of Hillary. But the online left does not like him. There are a few reasons for this. For one, Obama is no Ned Lamont. He's a dazzling, rising star of the left, but unlike Lamont, Obama is not a product of the online left. He has,...

The official presidential portrait of John Fitzgerald Kennedy tells quite a story. His pensive expression, curled shoulders and folded arms are not mere emblems of the physical ailments he so manfully absorbed; they help cut the figure of a northeastern liberal -- a Democrat -- who through inspired oratory and steely resolve faced down Soviet communism. This, at a time when many were resigned to the inevitability of its expansion. But Kennedy -- historic though his presidency was, and beatified though it has become -- in his time was not breaking the mould of the Democratic party in the United...

If there is a phrase more closely associated with both Hillary and Bill Clinton than "the politics of personal destruction," it does not come to mind. All the others -- "It's the economy, stupid," for instance -- belong to one or the other, but "the politics of personal destruction" is a phrase both Clintons have used repeatedly -- so much so, it seems, that for Hillary it has lost all meaning. When, for instance, Gen. David Petraeus was slimed as "General Betray Us," Hillary Clinton looked the other way. This was the politics of personal expediency. The swipe at Petraeus...

The biggest news yesterday came before General David Petraeus or Ambassador Ryan Crocker uttered a single word in the hearings on progress in Iraq.And it came in the form of a newspaper ad, paid for by MoveOn.org. The ad, which accused Petraeus of "cooking the books for the White House", was roundly condemned by Republicans who time and again in the hearings held up the ad in the New York Times and called on Democrats to condemn it. The statement from RNC spokesman Mike Duncan was typical of the rhetoric: "Will Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the rest of the...