Free Republic

Anyone who thinks to diverge even slightly from this now officially accepted view, to be held by everyone everywhere in the world on pain of excommunication, is a racist. We know this because of the recent experiences of children’s author Anthony Horowitz, who briefly committed heresy over the weekend when he dared to suggest that Elba was perhaps too “street” to play a suave, Eton-educated, Senior-Service-trained, half-Swiss, half-Scots secret agent.

ABC News' Sunlen Miller Reports: Senator Barack Obama told reporters in St. Louis today that he has fallen off the wagon and smoked cigarettes in the last few months. The presumptive Democratic nominee has been open about his smoking past: Once a heavy smoker, he publicly gave up the habit, per his wife’s request, to run for president. Since quitting, Obama has indicated in the past that he has “fallen off the wagon” but before today was not specific about how recent his smoking was. “Months,” Obama said of the last time he has smoked. Obama regularly chews Nicorette while...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani hasn't done a lot of grocery shopping lately — at least based on his answers about the cost of milk and bread. Campaigning in Alabama on Tuesday, the former New York City mayor portrayed himself as a fiscal conservative and an aggressive fighter of terrorism who has a lot in common with the Deep South state. But when asked about more mundane matters — like the price of some basic staples — Giuliani had trouble with a reporter's question."A gallon of milk is probably about a $1.50, a loaf of bread...

Washington -- If women face a "glass ceiling'' preventing success in business or politics, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco has had to deal with what she and other women call a "marble ceiling'' in the august, historic halls of Congress. But if predictions are right and Democrats make a net gain of at least 15 House seats in midterm elections today, House Minority Leader Pelosi will smash through that ceiling by being elected the first woman speaker of the House early next January. For women, that would mean another barrier broken and yet another entree into the inner circles...

WE'LL LEAVE the lawyer jokes and wisecracks about a trigger-happy foreign policy to talk-show comics. But Vice President Dick Cheney's accidental shooting of an attorney buddy on a quail hunt has a serious side beyond the birdshot injuries. The incident took nearly 24 hours to be made public, and then only when the ranch owner hosting the hunt poured out her chatty, impressionistic account in a phone call to a local Corpus Christi, Texas, newspaper. Using this uncontradicted account, the vice president swung his shotgun to follow a quail and accidentally shot a hunting pal in the face and chest...