Free Republic

Michelle Obama is taking a swing at former President Trump’s claims of “massive” turnout at his 2017 inauguration, saying “there weren’t that many people there.” The former first lady makes the dig at Trump in “Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast,” debuting Tuesday on Audible. A preview clip from the podcast was shared with People magazine on Monday. Describing her feelings while leaving the White House for the last time with then-President Obama, she said, “You walk through the Capitol, you wave goodbye, you get on Marine One, and you take your last flight flying over the Capitol.” “Where there weren’t...

While many in the nation celebrated when Donald Trump took the oath of office, Michelle Obama, mostly known for her portrayal as the school lunch-killing wife of Barack Obama, apparently was brought to tears after the inauguration when her family took off from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. “I cried for 30 minutes straight — uncontrollable sobbing — because that’s how much we were holding it together for eight years,” Obama says in a clip from her new podcast, which I have no intention of ever listening to, and I’m sure you never will either. “We were leaving the home...

Neeson explained that he made the initial comments to The Independent after the journalist asked how he tapped into vengeful feelings for his new movie, Cold Pursuit. “The topic of our film is revenge, it’s a dark comedy too, but its base is revenge. The lady journalist was asking me, how do you tap into that? “I remembered an incident nearly 40 years ago when a very dear friend of mine was brutally raped and I was out of the country and when I came back she told me about this. “I had never felt this feeling before, which was...

I was surfing the cable channels one afternoon when I landed on an old black and white movie about a young man in his late twenties who agreed to go out on a blind date. The guy was very handsome and his prospective date was top model material. Their date started with a walk on the beach, followed by a formal diner, and then a movie. At the end of the first evening he dropped her off at her place and went home. A few days later they would repeat the process. On the third date they retreated to her...

NEW DELHI, India (AP) -An Indian runner who won a silver medal in the women's 800 meters at the Asian Games failed a gender test and was stripped of the medal. Shanti Sounderajan, 25, took the gender test in Doha, Qatar, after placing second. The Indian Olympic Association said Monday it has been told by the Olympic Council of Asia that the 25-year-old runner was disqualified. "IOA has asked the Athletic Federation of India to return the medal as desired by the Olympic Council of Asia,'' the Indian Olympic group said. The IOA also asked its medical commission to inquire...

In his highly anticipated memoir, former Gov. James E. McGreevey writes of his deep love for the man who ended his political career, the destruction of his second marriage and the events that forced him into his stunning admission on national television that he is gay. In "The Confession," the former governor also touches on New Jersey's sometimes seamy political landscape, where cash, cronyism and a handful of powerful men intersect. But the 384-page book focuses mostly on McGreevey's secret life, from his frequent sexual encounters with men at highway rest stops to his infatuation with Golan Cipel, the Israeli...

'COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF' SUTHERLAND: BUSH WILL DESTROY OUR LIVES Choking back tears, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF star Donald Sutherland warned this week: President Bush "will destroy our lives!" The star of the new ABC drama, which follows the first woman President of the United States, lashed out at the real White House during a dramatic sit down interview with the BBC. Sutherland ripped Bush and his administration for the war and Hurricane Katrina fallout. "They were inept. The were inadequate to the task, and they lied," Sutherland charged. "And they were insulting, and they were vindictive. And they were heartless. They did not care. They...

DENVER - Former CBS anchor man Dan Rather choked up several times as he addressed the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) convention. More than 800 investigative reporters, editors and producers from around the world listened to the keynote address Saturday afternoon. "I stand before you as a reporter who got lucky," Rather said. But he also said he is a reporter "with scars and still open wounds, some of them self inflicted" - an apparent reference to the National Guard document scandal that led to his premature departure from the anchor chair at the CBS Evening News. Rather answered questions...

The nursing home that Aaron Broussard has been on TV crying about his friend's mother who drowned, was ask to leave by bus and the owner of the nursing home refused to leave. The county came by to pick them up in a bus and the owner refused the offer.

Thursday, September 15, 2005 IN KATRINA'S WAKEPolitician caught in tearful lieParish prez fabricates claim about feds leaving coworker's mom to die Posted: September 15, 20052:06 p.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com The president of a Louisiana parish tearfully told a national TV audience the heartbreaking story of a coworker whose mother was left to die in a flooded nursing home days after Hurricane Katrina immobilized New Orleans – but, as it turns out, the story isn't true. The blog WuzzaDem.com uncovered the truth-stretching rhetoric of Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard's account he shared on "Meet the Press" Sept. 4 as he emotionally...

WASHINGTON - The Jefferson Parish president's emotional retelling of a mother's desperate calls from a New Orleans nursing home included details that conflict with the timeline of the tragedy. The story, of a colleague's mother begging her son for rescue as flood waters rose after Hurricane Katrina, came to prominence on Sunday, Sept. 4, when Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish in New Orleans, was interviewed by Tim Russert on NBC's Meet the Press. (MSNBC is a Microsoft-NBC joint venture.) New details and interviews with the son whose mother died in the flood show that the tragedy unfolded from Saturday...

Two weeks ago, I wrote about a Louisiana official, Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, who appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert. My comments were that he was unhinged and I opined that he lacked the guts and fortitude it takes to deliver as a leader. I took quite a bit of heat from those on the left as they consider him a hero. Turns out I was too easy on him; he's a liar as well. Broussard delivered one of the most offensive and ridiculous unchallenged tirades I've seen. Tim Russert looked like a fool for not...

Like children who bawl anew as they recount and embellish a scrape, pols will often weep at their own false stories. Bill Clinton was often emotionally moved by his own lies. Howard Dean, needing a good lie to punctuate a speech on the dangers of requiring parental consent for abortion, made up a story about counseling an "incest" victim looking for an abortion. This generated in him the appropriate level of indignation to wow a NARAL audience during his presidential campaign. Two-bit huckster Aaron Broussard joins this procession of pols. The Jefferson Parish President's crying jag on Meet the Press...

Guests: Governor Rick Perry, (R-Texas); Dr. Ivor van Heerden, Director, LSU Hurricane Center; Aaron Broussard, President, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; Tom Friedman, The New York Times; Maureen Dowd, The New York Times; David Brooks, The New York Times Moderator/Panelist: Tim Russert - NBC News

Sob Stories: Read 'Em Too Close And Weep It seemed for a moment over the weekend that the blogosphere had claimed one more victory over the mainstream media, but reaction to Aaron Broussard’s return to NBC’s “Meet the Press” shows a deep split of opinion over his comments – and the role bloggers have played. You remember Broussard, the president of New Orleans’ Jefferson Parish, from his September 4th appearance on the same show. His weeping tale of the death of a colleague’s mother was among the more emotional punctuations in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and seemed to encapsulate...

Tim Russert had a chance to fess up to his viewers on Sunday and let them know that his "Meet the Press" show was used for political propaganda by Jefferson (La.) Parish President Aaron Broussard on September 4 when Broussard embellished a story about a mother of an employee that perished in the flood waters of Hurricane Katrina. Russert failed. Instead, he tried to lay a trap for the Louisiana politician. The story of the first mess is here, but let's review Broussard's unfounded claims about an elderly woman's death in the floodwaters of Katrina: Broussard's accusation was that a...

It was one of the most iconic, most agonizing, most rebroadcast moments of TV coverage after Hurricane Katrina. Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Sept. 4, Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard sobbed as he told of a colleague's mother begging her son, day after maddening day, to be rescued: "The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything," said Broussard, justifiably upset by the slow federal response. "His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, `Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?' And he...

Jefferson Parish President, Aaron Broussard, meet Tim Russert, Meet the Press and the American public once again. On Sunday's popular news-information program, Broussard engaged in hand to hand combat with the King of Surprise and Interrogation, Tim Russert. To be nice, it was brutal and bloody. Somebody should have told Broussard that his stock around the state and even in his own parish has made a nosedive since Hurricane Katrina and Meet The Press. To think that he would once again allow himself to be abused, make wild allegations, become emotional fodder, be the joke of the town is strong...

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather said Monday that there is a climate of fear running through newsrooms stronger than he has ever seen in his more than four-decade career. Rather famously tangled with President Nixon and his aides during the Watergate years while Rather was a hard-charging White House correspondent. Addressing the Fordham University School of Law in Manhattan, occasionally forcing back tears, he said that in the intervening years, politicians "of every persuasion" had gotten better at applying pressure on the conglomerates that own the broadcast networks. He called it a "new journalism...

A YOUNG Saudi man who had a sex-change operation is fighting to save the fortune he inherited from his father. Relatives insist that, under Islamic law, as a woman he is entitled to only half as much. The man, whose story has riveted the public in the ultra-conservative kingdom, has been identified only as Ahmad, even though he now lives as a woman. Ahmad's relatives accuse him of deception and have asked a court to divide his father's estate again. "Even as a child I felt that I was not a normal boy ... I preferred to be with girls...