Free Republic

It was pitched as a classic grudge match between the left and right of network television. And when Daily Show host Jon Stewart entered the 'lions den' of Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, the results did not disappoint. Despite trying to maintain his comedic detachment, Stewart lost his temper during the 15 minute interview as the two TV heavyweights battled over perceived liberal biased in the mainstream media. The conversation started jovially, with Mr Wallace joking to Stewart: 'After months of evasion, disconnected phone numbers and press agents saying 'who are you again' it appears he has run out...

A member of the local school board told me, “In the 21st century they’ll have to be able to work in groups, so we may as well teach them how to do it.” He was so confident in his pronouncement, and seemed to think there was nothing else to say. His confidence had the opposite effect on me. I heard nothing but sophistry in that little comment; and I realized, with some regret, I had to write an article explaining why Cooperative Learning is just another tawdry gimmick. First, let’s stand back and ask: did something happen in the universe,...

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Four hundred rabbis will publish a letter on Thursday calling on Fox News to sanction host Glenn Beck for repeated use of Nazi and Holocaust imagery and for airing attacks on World War Two survivor George Soros. In an open letter to Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of News Corp, which owns Fox, the rabbis also demand an apology from Fox News chief Roger Ailes for characterizing Beck's Jewish critics as nothing more than "left-wing rabbis." The letter will appear as an advertisement in the News Corp-owned Wall Street Journal on Thursday for which the rabbis spent more...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) recommended constitutional amendments to the 2011 ELCA Churchwide Assembly regarding a 3-year cycle for churchwide assemblies, council membership, eliminating program committees and strengthening interrelationships. . . . David D. Swartling, ELCA secretary, said a committee of the "Living Into the Future Together: Renewing the Ecology of the ELCA" task force, proposed the four constitutional amendments on structure and governance. The council adopted the amendments and sent them to the 2011 Churchwide Assembly, which must approve amendments to the ELCA Constitution, Bylaws and Continuing Resolutions. The council...

Television comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert drew tens of thousands of people to the National Mall on Saturday, promising to skewer partisan politics three days before contentious U.S. elections. The Comedy Central hosts' "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" started off as part slapstick comedy show and part outdoor festival concert. Stewart opened the festivities by declaring that "10 million" people showed up, representing all ethnic groups in America. "It is a perfect demographic sampling of the American people," said Stewart, who hosted U.S. President Barack Obama on his show on Wednesday. "As you know, if you have too...

One of the great myths of the left is that socialism is a movement of the people, the working classes, or the poor. In fact -- as Frederick Hayek pointed out long ago -- all socialist movements are the creation of intellectual elites, liberally pollinated by millionaires. Karl Marx was the kept intellectual of factory owner Frederick Engels; Bill Ayers, a leader of the terrorist cult called the Weatherman, was a scion of the American upper class; Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, is a multi-millionairess; Michael Moore, leftwing propagandist, is a multi-millionaire who has profited handsomely from the...

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's nomination process was so controlled that the White House even approved her clothes, she told Yalies when she appeared at her 30th Yale Law School reunion on Saturday. Sotomayor described her grueling nomination process privately when she spoke to 1,800 alumni, students and faculty, the New Haven Register reports.

~EXCERPT~ SAN FRANCISCO – Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s big fundraiser here got off to a great start on Friday night. And then, well, the air went a bit out of the balloon. Kicking off the party at the Orpheum Theater was Sam Malone, a.k.a. Ted Danson, the “Cheers” actor, who introduced Mrs. Clinton with the sort of adjectives that dazzled Diane Chambers, Rebecca Howe, and umpteen other ladies of Boston. “Warm,” “wonderful,” “beautiful,” and “intelligent,” Mr. Danson said of the candidate – who, dare I say, from the mezzanine of the theater, was radiant in full blush and wide smile....

Marianne Pernold was called by Clinton's campaign ahead of time to go to the coffee shop in Ft. Smith New Hampshire (older woman-democrat). She was invited by Terry Norelli of Hillary's campaign. Questioner thinks that Hillary was sincere because the question was personal. Marianne says that immediately after the crying, Hillary resumed the political face. "Marianne Pernold tells 630 WMAL's Chris Core she truly believes that Senator Hillary Clinton's emotional response to her question at a meeting in New Hampshire was genuine. Pernold asked Clinton how she managed to keep going during the rough campaign, and Clinton's somewhat-teary response has...

A couple of yahoos interrupted Hillary Clinton’s speech tonight in Salem by waving big signs and chanting “Iron my shirts!” Clinton asked that the lights be turned on, apparently to see them better and declared. “Oh the remnants of sexism, alive and well tonight,” to applause. She then talked about breaking glass ceilings, before joking as the pair were hustled out: “If there’s anybody in the audience who wants to learn to iron his own shirt, we can talk about that.” We followed.to ask what the heck they were thinking. Nick Gemelli, who is 21, and born at least a...

The anti-war phonies By JOHN BRUHNS I CAME HOME from Iraq in February 2004 and since then have fought tooth and nail for an end to the war.I did so because I believe the war is immoral and illegal. I aligned myself with some high- profile lobbying organizations who I believed would have the most significant impact on ending the war. In doing so, I detached myself from the people of this country who are honestly committed to ending the war.I traded my convictions for "special interest" groups who sometimes seem to be in place simply to smear those who...

I only saw a little of the Republican presidential debate last night, which featured video questions sent in through YouTube selected by CNN. There’s a lot of griping this morning about how the debate was an embarrassment and a bad night for the GOP in general because CNN chose questions that were either defiantly peculiar, beneath contempt, or freakish. I wonder if there’s a little oversensitivity at work here, because the great surprise of the first YouTube debate in September, featuring Democrats, was how substantive it was and how it forced the Democratic field to engage for the first time...

Context, people, context: This is the inevitable M.O. every time bloggers and commentators on the right have challenged the Absolute Moral Authority of the Democrat poster child du jour. It happened with Cindy Sheehan. And the military recruiter-bashing thugs at Santa Cruz. And MoveOn.org. And the phony soldier saga. Crush Rush is just the tip of the iceberg. Just ask the mom-and-pop Cafe Press owners who got those cease-and-desist letters from MoveOn.org’s lawyers for daring to defend Gen. David Petraeus.

The top three Democratic presidential candidates participated in a forum Monday on the connection between their religious faith and political positions. The unusual gathering, broadcast live by CNN, was co-hosted by Sojourners, a Christian social justice network. The Rev. Jim Wallis, editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine, and an organizer of the forum, has been telling Democrats not to cede religion to Republicans. He has spoken at several Democratic Party retreats, teaching Democrats how to speak about faith. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, John Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois mentioned faith in a generic way, baptizing their liberal politics...

"President Bush, center, is greeted by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, left, and Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu upon his arrival in New Orleans, La."

The GOP Should Dump Its Litmus Test By Michael Reagan FrontPageMagazine.com | February 16, 2007 The philosopher Diogenes is said to have wandered around ancient Greece holding a lantern and seeking to find an honest man. My fellow Republicans, sans lanterns, are now wandering around the political landscape seeking to find the perfect Republican presidential candidate. I don’t know if Diogenes ever found that honest man, but I do know that those Republicans are never going to find the perfect candidate, simply because he does not exist. Some Republicans insist that the only perfect candidate would be a clone of...

Here are the three leading candidates for president in the Republican party, a party based in the South and in the interior, rural in nature, and backed in large part by social conservatives: the senior senator from Arizona, a congenital maverick with friends in the press and a habit of dissing the base of his party; the former governor of deep-blue Massachusetts, son of a Michigan governor, a Mormon who looks, sounds, and comes across as a city boy; and the former mayor of New York, the Big Apple itself, ethnic and Catholic, pro-choice and pro-gun control, married three times,...

McCain faces fight for the right David Reinhard Portland Oregonian February 12, 2007 When successful Republican presidential candidates talk about their base, they're usually talking about the GOP's social conservatives. When Arizona Sen. John McCain talks about his base, he's referring to the mainstream media. Which helps explain two things. One, why McCain was not a successful Republican presidential candidate eight years ago. Two, why he's taken steps over the last few years to get right with the religious right. Will it work? As Democrats cogitate over Barack Obama's challenge to front-runner Hillary Clinton, will the new McCain complicate matters...

I told you so. For all you “pink dog” Republicans who thought she walked on water and voted accordingly for “Princess Pollyanna” and got suckered in by her cutesy little schoolgirl, milk-and-cookies demeanor, you got exactly what you deserved. The big, bad wolf just took off the little pretty sheep costume. I tried to tell you she was nothing more than a venomous snake with a maternal smile but apparently, few heeded my advice, as she was coronated instead of elected. I have more respect and trust for a far left wing Democrat than any of these pusillanimous so-called “moderate”...

JOHN Sununu has reason to be irritated and concerned. Last week, television stations in his home state of New Hampshire began showing advertisements attacking the senator, nearly two full years before he is up for re-election next November.Sununu's crime was to play a part in preventing the US Senate from debating a resolution that would have expressed disapproval of President George Bush's plan to deploy five more brigades of troops to Iraq. The senator, who like the rest of his Republican colleagues has long been a reliable supporter of the president, faces a key test: repudiate his past backing for...