Free Republic

Although he didn’t have politics in mind, marketing provocateur Seth Godin wrote on his blog: How can we get large groups of people to value our craft and buy from us again? … In terms of educating the masses to differentiate yourself, the market is broken. Fixing this is almost always a losing battle. Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean the market cares any longer. … It’s extremely difficult to repair the market. Politics get mass-marketed, and niche-marketed, and permission-marketed. But what’s the product? Is it a politician, an ideology, a vision for the future, a body of...

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. Decrying the lack of "choice and competition" in the U.S. memoir market, President Obama today backed a House bill to create a "single-writer public option" autobiography to serve the needs of an estimated 47 million Americans who can't afford Sarah Palin's $28.99 hardcover "Going Rogue." Although the Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost of the measure at $1.7 trillion over 10 years, the president said it would "not add a single dime to the deficit" because funding would come from a 55 percent tax on sales of "Going Rogue" as well as on...

Examiner Columnist | 6/30/09 5:55 AM News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, announced today she may sue her potential future colleagues for racial bias over yesterday's 5-4 ruling that overturned her own decision in the New Haven fire fighters discrimination lawsuit. The Supreme Court ruled in Ricci v. DeStefano Monday that an employer could not throw out the results of a promotion exam simply for fear of a lawsuit from racial minorities who fared poorly on the test. Sotomayor accused the high court's "Constitutional literalists" of bias and an "abject lack...

(2009-06-12) — Since Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor appears in a newly-released video claiming she got into Princeton and Yale, despite substandard test scores, because of her ethnic and economic heritage, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced today that it would alter the confirmation hearing process to avoid “the risk of anti-diversity”. “Most Senators are white males from a higher socioeconomic class than the judge,” said Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy. “Naturally, we’re somewhat prejudiced against a Latina woman, even a wise one. So, as chairman, I’m going to allow some leeway in the accuracy of her answers, limit uncomfortable follow-up...

Examiner Columnist | 6/8/09 5:14 PM News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. Riding the wave of Muslim approval after his historic speech from Cairo last week, President Barack Obama will reportedly travel to a major secular capital next week in an effort to "hit the reset button on relations with the Atheist World." "The president knows how it feels to be marginalized," said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, "So he won't be going there to lecture the Atheist World on morality or to try to impose American values on them, like the U.S. has done so often in...

Last week, President-elect Barack Obama's call for a delay in the Digital TV transition, long scheduled for February, sent tech and telecom firms into a tizzy. Both Verizon and the Consumer Electronics Association have been pushing back hard against any postponement of the move from analog to digital broadcasting, while AT&T has joined the Consumers Union and several prominent Democratic legislators in supporting the call to give the troubled transition more time. Among those with a vested interest in the debate over a DTV delay is Clearwire, which has been racing to deploy its 4G WiMAX networks ahead of competitors...

Obama on Short List of Obama VP Picks by Scott Ott for ScrappleFace · 15 Comments (2008-08-12) — While Democrat presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama allegedly vacations in Hawaii with family, sources close to his campaign said he’s actually spending the time in long meetings with the man some claim leads the race to become his running mate — Barack Obama. Sources said Sen. Obama quickly moved to the top of his own VP short list because the most important attribute of a vice president is his ability to step in as commander in chief should the president become incapacitated....

Hillary Defends Against 'Swiftboating' on Bosnia by Scott Ott for ScrappleFace · No Comments (2008-03-25) — After a CBS News video appeared on YouTube contradicting former First Lady Hillary Clinton’s account of her 1996 landing in Bosnia “under sniper fire”, a spokesman for Sen. Clinton’s presidential campaign said unnamed critics were trying to “swiftboat” her “in a fashion reminiscent of what they did to John Kerry in 2004.” [Click to View CBS Video] Sen. Kerry, a professional Vietnam war veteran, faced relentless questions during his own White House bid that were sparked by fellow swiftboat crewman who alleged that his...

Rove Quits White House to Run Hillary Campaign by Scott Ott (2007-08-13) — Karl Rove, the chief adviser to George Bush since 1993, in a new interview with the Wall Street Journal, said he would resign from the Bush administration effective August 31, to spend more time with family and to head up the presidential campaign of Democrat front runner Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY. Mr. Rove called the move “a cold calculated decision to remain in charge of the U.S. government indefinitely.” “I crave power,” Mr. Rove told the Journal, “and I can’t get my fix working for a lame...

(2005-09-02) -- President George Bush issued new orders today designed to deal with hurricane victims trapped in New Orleans and the gangs of looters roaming the city's streets. "I've directed FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers to take two immediate actions," said Mr. Bush as he stepped off Marine One after his helicopter tour of the ravaged region. "Our plan is simple, and can be expressed in just nine words: Rescue the refugees, then fill it to the brim." The president explained that he had great compassion for those stranded at the increasingly unsanitary New Orleans convention center without...