Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) - White House hopeful Barack Obama on Thursday urged that copyright rules be waived so that video from Democratic presidential debates is publicly available ``for free and without restriction.'' In a letter to Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, the Illinois senator said he supports an effort by a bipartisan coalition of academics, bloggers and Internet activists who have asked the Democratic and Republican parties to make the video available. Presidential debates are often underwritten by television networks who have a copyright to video of the debates. Those networks typically work out arrangements with news organizations for use...

due to a threat.

The Secret Service said Thursday that Democratic Sen. Barack Obama was being placed under its protection, the earliest ever for a presidential candidate. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff authorized Obama's protection after consultations with the bipartisan congressional advisory committee, according to Chertoff spokesman Russ Knocke and the Secret Service. Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren would not provide details of what led to the extra security, but said, ``I'm not aware it was based on any threat.'' Department of Homeland Security officials said there were no known threats. Obama's rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, has a Secret Service detail...

Last month, Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton likened the Catholic Church in Los Angeles to "an ugly old political attack dog" and suggested that the state legislature reexamine its tax-exempt status for property. Why? ... Meanwhile, presidential candidate Barack Obama made an appearance at South-Central Los Angeles' First AME Church last Sunday (4/29/07). According to the Times, Obama addressed the congregation and "drew a sustained ovation when he rebuked the Bush administration." The paper covered the event with over 1,100 words and a very generous photo. (See an image of the article here.) In addition, KTLA5 television in Los...

Maybe the guy who mocks liberals needs his own song Rush Limbaugh is the master of the preemptive strike. Sometimes when Limbaugh says something controversial, he'll immediately launch into a bit about how the "drive-by media" will misinterpret his remarks. A few days after the Virginia Tech shootings, Limbaugh said the killer "had to be a liberal . . . it's a liberal that committed this act." He added, "Now the drive-bys will read on a Web site that I'm attacking liberalism by comparing this guy to them." That's the move. Before the "mainstream" media can jump on Limbaugh, he...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- At the cost of losing 160-thousand friends, Barack Obama's presidential campaign has taken control of the My-Space page listed under his name on the popular social networking site. For more than two years, the page has been run by Obama supporter Joe Anthony. But the Illinois Democrat's campaign eventually became concerned about an outsider controlling the content and responses going out under Obama's name and asked Anthony to turn it over.

Republican Rudy Giuliani once derided Hollywood in his Senate bid against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Today, as he pursues the presidency, he's collecting checks from actors Adam Sandler and Kelsey Grammer, and Paramount studio chief Brad Grey. The entertainment industry has always been a wealth of cash for political candidates—a whopping $27.5 million in the 2004 election cycle—and Democrats traditionally have been the top draw. In the last election, $7 out of every $10 from the industry went to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Yet, the latest campaign finance reports show Republicans making some inroads, not only with...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Is MySpace always mine or can it belong to someone else? At the cost of losing 160,000 friends, Democrat Barack Obama's presidential campaign has taken over control of the MySpace page listed under his name on the popular social networking site. For the past two and a half years, the page has been run by an Obama supporter from Los Angeles named Joe Anthony. At first, that arrangement was fine with the Obama team, which worked with Anthony on the content and even had the password to make changes themselves. But as the site exploded in popularity...

Appearing on the first day of Larry King's 50th anniversary week, Oprah said she still endorses Barack Obama as her candidate for president. King posed the question of whether a black man can be elected president. Oprah said, "I believe he can . . . I do believe that it's possible." Saying that she had never endorsed a candidate before, she told King that what made her do so now is because "I know him personally; I think that what he stands for, what he has proven that he can stand for, was worth me going out on a limb...

[I]n 1984, [Wright] traveled to Cuba to teach Christians about the value of nonviolent protest and to Libya to visit Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, along with the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Mr. Wright said his visits implied no endorsement of their views. ---snip--- On the Sunday after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Mr. Wright said the attacks were a consequence of violent American policies. Four years later he wrote that the attacks had proved that “people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just ‘disappeared’ as the Great White West went on its merry way...

Soon it will be time for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to face a moment of truth and decide whether he is going to lead the anti-war movement or cave in under administration pressure. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) move toward an accommodation with the White House over funding for the war in Iraq, they are also moving toward a civil war within their own party. If Pelosi and Reid agree to give Bush a new bill providing funding for the war without a deadline for troop withdrawal, they will redeem their party’s...

He is pastor of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ and the man who led Barack Obama "from skeptic to self-described Christian," reports the New York Times. And he has some ideas and history many Americans will find troubling: In 1984, he traveled to Cuba to teach Christians about the value of nonviolent protest and to Libya to visit Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, along with the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Mr. Wright said his visits implied no endorsement of their views. . . . Mr. Wright preached black liberation theology, which interprets the Bible as the story of the...

Poll after poll shows dissatisfaction with President Bush and an "enthusiasm gap" working against Republicans heading into next year's elections, yet the top Republican presidential candidates are running even with or ahead of the top Democrats in head-to-head matchups. "A major cautionary note for the Democrats at this point in the election cycle is the disparity between Americans' partisan preferences for the next president in the abstract and their preferences between specific candidates being offered up to the voters," the Gallup Poll said in a analysis. In a Quinnipiac University Poll released last week, former New York Mayor Rudolph W....

It is well-known that George Soros, the hedge-fund manager, major Democratic Party donor and anti-Israel crusader, has been a generous contributor to Barack Obama. But relatively few people realize that a loophole in McCain-Feingold allowed Soros his family members to be particularly generous in support of Obama's Senatorial campaign. Because Obama was running against Blair Hull in the primary and then Jack Ryan in the general (both multi-millionaires), Obama could, and did, receive especially large donations from individuals, to so-called "millionaires exception." Normally individuals are limited to giving $2300 to candidates in federal elections, but when candidates are running against...

As the co-founder of Def Jam Recordings and the so-called C.E.O. of hip-hop, do you think the outrage over Don Imus’s prickly language and his firing might broaden into a crusade against song lyrics? It already has broadened to lyrics. It’s been that way since 1983. They’ve been yelling at me from Run-D.M.C. and the Beastie Boys till now. What do you make of Barack Obama, who recently said that rap musicians should reform their lyrics? What we need to reform is the conditions that create these lyrics. Obama needs to reform the conditions of poverty. I wish he really...

...Obama's speech at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs last week was pure John Kennedy, without a trace of John Mearsheimer. It had a deliberate New Frontier feel, including some Kennedy-era references ("we were Berliners") and even the Cold War-era notion that the United States is the "leader of the free world." No one speaks of the "free world" these days, and Obama's insistence that we not "cede our claim of leadership in world affairs" will sound like an anachronistic conceit to many Europeans, who even in the 1990s complained about the bullying "hyperpower." In Moscow and Beijing it will...

"Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill, right, receives a prayer from Rev. John Hunter, at the First AME Church in Los Angeles, Calif., Sunday, April 29, 2007."

Twenty years ago at Trinity, Mr. Obama, then a community organizer in poor Chicago neighborhoods, found the African-American community he had sought all his life, along with professional credibility as a community organizer and an education in how to inspire followers. He had sampled various faiths but adopted none until he met Mr. Wright, a dynamic pastor who preached Afrocentric theology, dabbled in radical politics and delivered music-and-profanity-spiked sermons.

Twenty years ago at Trinity, Mr. Obama, then a community organizer in poor Chicago neighborhoods, found the African-American community he had sought all his life, along with professional credibility as a community organizer and an education in how to inspire followers. He had sampled various faiths but adopted none until he met Mr. Wright, a dynamic pastor who preached Afrocentric theology, dabbled in radical politics and delivered music-and-profanity-spiked sermons. Few of those at Mr. Wright’s tribute in March knew of the pressures that Mr. Obama’s presidential run was placing on the relationship between the pastor and his star congregant. Mr....

Opening shot Has any son in history done more to redeem his father's reputation than George W. Bush? Think about it. What was the biggest lingering question about Bush I's presidency? Why, that he did not go into Baghdad and "finish the job" when he had the chance during the triumph of the Gulf War. Now that we've seen all that "finishing the job" entails -- at least in the current administration's hands -- what once seemed "wouldn't be prudent" timidity now comes off as strategic statesmanship bordering on genius. I wonder if George pere has ever bothered to thank...