Free Republic

(Reuters) - Presidential hopeful Herman Cain's quirky "smoking ad" may have mystified many Americans, but according to a new Reuters/Ipsos online poll, it has drawn a sharp line between Republicans who identify with the Tea Party and those who don't. The ad, which shows Cain's chief of staff Mark Block puffing on a cigarette for no apparent reason, created enormous Internet buzz this week.Six in 10 of those who strongly identify with the conservative Tea Party movement said they loved or liked the ad.An almost equal percentage of people who self-identified as mainstream Republicans either disliked or hated it.

Yesenia Sanchez didn't worry about her noncitizen status -- until she turned 16 and couldn't get a driver's license. Now 20 and attending college, Sanchez fears she won't find a job when she graduates. She doesn't have a Social Security number. Like other young people nationwide, she's pinned her hopes on the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act -- also called the DREAM Act. The proposal before Congress would give undocumented youth an opportunity to become legal U.S. residents. Sanchez is one of thousands of young people who've come out of the shadows to lobby for the bill...

I was flipping around the radio dial one afternoon when I heard a familiar voice. The last time I heard that voice was to the accompaniment of a leering grin and towels snapping in a locker room. "Gotcha!" the voice had been saying. Snap! "Gotcha good, didn't I, queer?" Snap! "That'll teach you to mess with Mike." Mike was the terror of my high school locker room. Snapping towels at young boys' private parts. Getting freshmen in a headlock and rubbing their faces in his armpits. Calling all the boys "queers!" and "wimps!" He was a class act then. Now...