Free Republic

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- From county chairmen to national party luminaries, veteran Republicans across the country are accusing tea party lawmakers of staining the GOP with their refusal to bend in the budget impasse in Washington.

Most Americans disapprove of the way Obama is handling his job, the poll suggests, with 53 percent unhappy with his performance and 37 percent approving of it.

Maj. Nidal Hasan and many of his victims in the Fort Hood shooting seem to want the same thing—his death. But while survivors and relatives of the dead view lethal injection as justice, the Army psychiatrist appears to see it as something else—martyrdom. …

Several hundred extremists shouting “Kill the gays” attacked gay activists and clashed with police on Wednesday in a bid to disrupt the first ever pride event in staunchly conservative Montenegro, which is seeking to improve its human rights record as it bids to join the European Union. Angry assailants threw rocks, bottles, glasses and various other objects—including chairs from local cafés—at several dozen flag-waving gay activists who shouted back “Kiss the gays.” A shower of stones and bottles also landed on special police securing the gathering in the coastal town of Budva. Police then intervened to push the attackers away...

LEFTIST PLANT INFILTRATES HOUSTON PRO-ZIMMERMAN RALLY– Liberal Media runs with it A photo from the Houston pro-Zimmerman counter-rally of the NBPP anti-Zimmerman rally picked up by the AP shows a woman holding a sign that read, “Racist & Proud.” That looked incongruent with the other reports from the pro-Zimmerman side. The Houston Chronicle identified her as Renee Vaughan: One woman in the Zimmerman group held a sign that said, “We’re racist & proud.” Austin resident Renee Vaughan echoed the sign’s ugly sentiments by yelling, “We’re racist. We’re proud. We’re better because we’re white,” at the Martin group as they passed,...

After George Zimmerman was found not guilty of all charges on Saturday evening, an Associated Press reporter, Cristina Silva, tweeted this out from her verified twitter account: "So we can all kill teenagers now? Just checking."

Five years and 50 years. As President Barack Obama revisits Berlin, he can't escape those anniversaries and the inevitable comparisons to history and personal achievement. His 26-hour whirlwind visit to the German capital caps three days of international summitry for the president and marks his return to a place where he once summoned a throng of 200,000 to share his ambitious vision for American leadership. That was 2008, when Obama was running for president and those who supported him at home and abroad saw the young mixed-race American as a unifying and transformational figure who signified hope and change. Five...

NBA veteran center Jason Collins, the first active athlete in one of the four U.S. major professional sports leagues to come out as being gay, marched Saturday for nearly three miles in Boston's gay pride parade with U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III, his onetime roommate at Stanford University. The parade also featured former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank — the first sitting member of Congress to enter into a same-sex marriage — who also represented Massachusetts' 4th Congressional District before Kennedy. U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate seeking the seat once held by John Kerry, who stepped down...

From the time they are born, we put our boys in blue beanies and our girls in pink ones. It’s a societal norm, an expectation even, that you just are what you are born—a boy or a girl. From early on, we divide toys and activities by very distinct gender lines, with superheroes and trucks and muck on one side and princesses and dolls and all things frilly on the other. Many children land, enthusiastically, on the expected side. Others dabble in both “girl” and “boy” things. But what if your kid, even from an early age, mostly showed interest...

The US stock market went into a temporary tailspin after hackers broke into the Twitter account of the Associated Press and announced that two bombs had exploded at the White House, injuring Barack Obama. “Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured,” said the fake “alert” from one of America’s most trusted news sources, briefly fooling some news outlets and sending the Dow Jones plunging 145 points in the space of two minutes — or 1 per cent. The benchmark S&P 500 index also fell nearly 1 percent in the space of three minutes as the...

CAIR Claims Victory Over AP Stylebook’s Restrictions on Word 'Islamist' April 5, 2013 By Elizabeth Harrington (CNSNews.com) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) praised the Associated Press (AP) for revising its stylebook to forbid the use of the word “Islamist,” if it is used to describe Islamic militants or extremists. In a press release on Friday, CAIR said revising the term is a "step in the right direction,” and that they helped influence the AP’s decision. “Late last year, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) approached AP about modifying the reference, which had been added to its influential...

Rather than focusing on the real issues here, the AP is doing everything in its power to avoid pointing out the relationship between radical Islamists and terrorism. Similar to the Benghazi terror attack, in which the media found every possible angle to focus on other than the link between Islamic extremists and the attacks. They pointed to Mitt Romney for his statements, they pointed to Newsweek’s ‘Muslim Rage’ cover, at the author, Ayaan Ali Hirsi, and they pointed it at an obscure film that was at that time unknown to the general public. The relationship between radical Islam and terrorism...

The Associated Press, the largest news-gathering outlet in the world, will no longer use the term "illegal immigrant." The news came in the form of a blog entry authored by Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll on Tuesday afternoon, explaining that the decision is part of the company's on-going attempt to rid their Stylebook of labels."The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term 'illegal immigrant' or the use of 'illegal' to describe a person. Instead, it tells users that 'illegal' should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating to a country illegally," Carroll wrote. The company's...

The Obama administration is postponing an award for an Egyptian activist who was subjected to a "virginity test" after protesting in Cairo´s Tahrir Square. The State Department had said Samira Ibrahim would be among recipients of an International Women of Courage award presented by Secretary of State John Kerry and first lady Michelle Obama on Friday. Now the State Department says she won´t be honored Friday because of anti-American and anti-Semitic comments on her Twitter account. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Thursday officials will first study the tweets, which include support for attacks against U.S. diplomatic

It appears as though the days of civility and integrity in journalism are long gone. On March 1, National Journal’s Ron Fournier, formerly the Washington bureau chief at the Associated Press, took to Twitter to express his dissatisfaction with government sequestration, suggesting that President Obama: Can handle Bin laden, not Boehner? He may be POTUS, but Obama incapable of “a Jedi mind meld.” Fournier continued his violent rhetoric in a follow-up tweet, suggesting that, “Bin Laden didn’t compromise. Handled him pretty well.”

After overwrought pressure from the usual gay "anti-defamation" lobbyists, the Associated Press has caved in and made another new statement approving the use of "his husband" and "her wife" in news stories. as if they've taken a stand for neutrality, instead of rewriting the gender dictionary. "Victory!" was the headline on several gay websites as AP issued a new entry in its AP Stylebook Online, and is scheduled to appear in the 2013 print and mobile additions: husband, wife Regardless of sexual orientation, husband or wife is acceptable in all references to individuals in any legally recognized marriage. Spouse or...

...Are black people supporting Obama mainly because he's black? If race is just one factor in blacks' support of Obama, does that make them racist? Can blacks' support for Obama be compared with white voters who may favor his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, because he's white? ...Stacey Dash, who also has Mexican heritage, is best known for the 1995 film "Clueless" and the recent cable-TV drama "Single Ladies." On Twitter, she was called "jigaboo," "traitor," "house nigger" and worse after posting, "Vote for Romney. The only choice for your future." ...Twitter users are by no means representative of America, and...

About four in 10 U.S. adults believe that President Obama's healthcare reform law will create "death panels" to decide patients' fitness for care, according to a new Associated Press-GfK survey. Support for the widely challenged claim has remained steady since 2010, when 39 percent believed "death panels" would result from the healthcare law. Today, 41 percent say the same is true. Overall, most people believe the law will go into effect in spite of Republican pledges to repeal it. About seven in 10 adults said the law will be implemented with some changes, while 11 percent believe it will be...

WASHINGTON (AP) — ‘‘2016: Obama’s America,’’ a new conservative film exploring the roots of President Barack Obama’s political views, took in $6.2 million to make it one of the highest-grossing movies of last weekend. The film, written and narrated by conservative scholar Dinesh D'Souza, argues that Obama was heavily influenced by what D'Souza calls the ‘‘anti-colonial’’ beliefs of his father, Barack Obama Sr., a Kenyan academic who was largely absent from the president’s life.

(CBS/AP) -- President Obama weighed in on Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin's controversial comments about "legitimate rape" Wednesday, mocking Akin by saying he "somehow missed science class." "The interesting thing here is that this is an individual who sits on the House Committee on Science and Technology but somehow missed science class," Mr. Obama said at a fundraiser in New York City Wednesday night. "But it's representative of a desire to go backwards instead of forwards. And fights that we thought were settled twenty, thirty years ago."

WASHINGTON—In his debut as Mitt Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan promised "America's comeback team" won't duck tough budget issues, although the man standing next to him has kept his head low so far. Romney vowed the duo would "preserve" Medicare, an eye-popping claim considering Ryan wants to transform the program from the ground up. Not all the rhetoric fit neatly with reality or with the record when Romney introduced his Republican vice presidential choice to the nation Saturday. A look at some of the claims by the Wisconsin congressman and Romney, and how they compare with the facts. ROMNEY: "Unlike...

Former SS member and German Nobel literature laureate Guenter Grass labeled Israel a threat to world peace in a poem published Wednesday that drew sharp rebukes at home and from Israel. Not only does the AP leaves the SS factoid out of the headline; they don't mention it until the near bottom of their article.........talk about burying the lede. The AP didn't mention the fact that Guenter Grass was a member of "the Waffen-SS, the combat arm of the Nazis' paramilitary organization" until the very end of the article (as were the comments in defense of the tiny Jewish state)....

"I'm going to have to find another way to do this - the AP's been getting away with this” There is a better way, Rush, and here it is. 1 - During the Founding era, and up to the founding of the AP in the middle of the Nineteenth Century, NOBODY THOUGHT JOURNALISM WAS OBJECTIVE. Newspapers were about the opinions of their printers, just lile the EIB Network is about the opinion of Rush Limbaugh. Jefferson famously asserted that advertisements were the only truths to be relied on in newspapers. 2. The telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore was first...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The president just couldn't say no: Mick Jagger held out a mic almost by way of command, and soon Barack Obama was belting out the blues with the best of them. The East Room of the White House was transformed into an intimate blues club on Tuesday night for a concert featuring blues all-stars of the past, present and future - and the president himself.

Headlines only

The Supreme Court's conservative majority made it harder for people to band together to sue the nation's largest businesses in the two most far-reaching rulings of the term the justices are wrapping up on Monday. The two cases putting new limits on class-action lawsuits were among more than a dozen in which the justices divided 5-4 along familiar ideological lines, with the winning side determined by the vote of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Women made up one-third of the nine-member court for the first time ever this year, but missing from the court's docket was a case that could be called...

President Barack Obama is pivoting from diplomacy on the world stage to the intimate and delicate domestic task of acting as healer-in-chief to a devastated community. The president travels to tornado-wrecked Joplin, Mo., on Sunday, a day after returning from a six-day European tour of Ireland, England, France and Poland. After days of focusing on the U.S. relationship with the rest of the world, he'll turn to an even more critical connection: his own, with the American people. The president will visit with survivors and family members of the worst tornado in decades, a monster storm that tore through Joplin...

EGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Former President Manuel Zelaya has arrived in Honduras, ending a long political crisis caused by his ouster in a military-backed coup almost two years ago. Zelaya's flight from Nicaragua landed on Saturday at Tegucigalpa's airport where he was greet by thousands of supporters who had set up a tent camp nearby. Zelaya's comeback paves the way for Honduras to re-enter the international community, which rejected the June 2009 coup that forced him from office and out of the country.

The Associated Press says it will change the formula for determining the fees it collects from U.S. newspapers to capture the growing number of readers online and on digital devices. The new formula, which goes into effect in 2012, will be based on the size of a newspaper's print and digital audiences. . . .

TULSA, Okla. (AP) - Dozens of ultra-conservatives plan to gather in Bartlesville Monday night to protest the Legislature's plan to focus more on the economy than on social issues. The more conservative Republicans, including tea party members, want lawmakers to focus on abortion restrictions, immigration and fewer regulations on firearms. Republican leaders who will direct the agenda want to concentrate first on improving Oklahoma's struggling economy. Charlie Meadows, with the Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee, said Monday he expects up to 200 protesters. Meadows says Monday's gathering at the Bartlesville Community Center is a way to send a message to...

How much did the left show its keister on O’Donnell’s alleged gaffe? So much so that the AP/WaPo story on the subject was almost completely rewritten last night, and without an official correction. After the break I will have screen caps and a cut and paste of the text of the article, but let’s start with just the first paragraph. Before: WILMINGTON, Del. — Republican Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell of Delaware on Tuesday questioned whether the U.S. Constitution calls for a separation of church and state, appearing to disagree or not know that the First Amendment bars the government from...

GROZNY, Russia – Islamic insurgents attacked Chechnya's parliament Tuesday in a brazen suicide raid that left six people dead and 17 wounded, defying Kremlin claims of stability in the volatile southern region.

TOLEDO, Ohio — A report says a Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Ohio dressed up in a German SS uniform to participate in Nazi reenactments. Excerpted per FR posting rules.

WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked legislation that would have repealed the law banning gays from serving openly in the military. The partisan vote was a defeat for Senate Democrats and gay rights advocates, who saw the bill as their last chance before November's elections to overturn the law known as "don't ask, don't tell." With the 56-43 vote, Democrats fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance the legislation. It also would have authorized $726 billion in defense spending including a pay raise for troops.

A judge on Tuesday sentenced former Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez to three years in prison for taking a bribe and attempted extortion, saying he had to be held accountable for his actions despite all his good deeds. Hartford Superior Court Judge Julia Dewey said Perez also must serve three years of probation after the jail time.

NEW YORK (AP) -- A defense lawyer says a student accused of cutting a Muslim taxi driver's neck in New York City has post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic alcoholism. A Manhattan judge said Monday he'll decide at arraignment whether to grant bail for Michael Enright, of Brewster, N.Y.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, President Barack Obama's controversial former pastor, accused people who wrongly believe Obama is Muslim of catering to political enemies during a fiery speech Sunday in Arkansas. In his sermon at New Millennium Church in Little Rock, Wright criticized supporters of the Iraq war and defended former state Court of Appeals Judge Wendell Griffen for speaking out against it. Griffen serves as the church's pastor. Wright's only reference to Obama came when he compared Griffen's opponents to those who incorrectly think Obama is Muslim....

<p>AP Orders Staff: ‘Stop Using the Phrase “Ground Zero Mosque”’ By Alana Goodman Created 08/19/2010 - 16:10 In an unusual move, the Associated Press has publicly released an advisory memo [1] to its reporters on how to cover of the Ground Zero mosque story - and the first rule is that journalists must immediately stop calling it the "Ground Zero mosque" story.</p>

COBLESKILL, N.Y. (AP) -- The mayor of an upstate New York village resigned Tuesday because he was secretly recorded using a racial slur that mocked President Barack Obama's campaign slogan. Mark Nadeau told a meeting filled with protesters that he was not a racist and was stepping down as Cobleskill mayor because the controversy was hurting his family.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama plans fundraisers for fellow Democrats in Republican-controlled Texas, but his party's nominee for governor said Tuesday he would not join the event scheduled in the city that he used to run. Former Houston Mayor Bill White told The Associated Press that he couldn't block Obama from supporting his campaign .. also suggested that Obama's visit opens the door for Republican Gov. Rick Perry to continue running against Washington insiders — an unwelcomed distraction in the Democrats' best chance to win the governorship in years. ... White is hardly the first candidate to ditch an Obama...

Congress: Charlie Rangel's world The AP takes a long look at the personal side of Charlie Rangel and his relationship with other members of Congress: "His wife, Alma, warns him not to be naive about the glad-handling. 'You know,' she tells him, 'they're putting you on.' ... 'She says it's unseemly,' Rangel says of his wife's advice. 'I say, 'Suppose it's not real. As long as they keep saying these things until I die, what difference does it make?' But he admits, 'It's still painful. It's times like this when I have to reinforce the facts: I'm alive, I'm well,...

The doctors finally let Rosaria Vandenberg go home. For the first time in months, she was able to touch her 2-year-old daughter who had been afraid of the tubes and machines in the hospital. The little girl climbed up onto her mother's bed, surrounded by family photos, toys and the comfort of home. They shared one last tender moment together before Vandenberg slipped back into unconsciousness.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A Boy Scouts chapter in Philadelphia may have ousted just one gay scout in the decade since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the organization's right to ban gays, but that doesn't mean untold others haven't been shut out, a city lawyer told jurors Tuesday......

WASHINGTON - Sales of previously occupied homes dipped 2.2 percent in May, suggesting that a boost from government home-buying incentives is winding down earlier than expected.

There are glimmers of hope for Democrats battling to retain control of Congress in this fall's elections, with the party holding a slender edge in public trust for shepherding the economy and small gains in those saying their finances are healthy, according to a new poll. The reeling economy remains the American public's top concern, according to an Associated Press-GfK Poll conducted earlier this month, making public attitudes about it crucial for both parties' hopes in November. The good news for Democrats: By a slim margin (47% to 42%), people trust them more than Republicans to guide the economy. And...

Amidst the general public discontent with ObamaCare, the Associated Press is spinning that it is not repeal that is favored but merely a bunch of revisions. Left unsaid is if all these revisions are necessary, why did Congress pass such a flawed bill in the first place? Let the AP spin cycle begin: WASHINGTON — Toss it or fix it?Anxious backers of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law are starting to see a flicker of hope.While polls show Americans remain sharply divided over the Democrats' landmark legislation, they aren't clamoring for its repeal. Really? A few paragraphs later AP...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Conservative lawyers and academics are voicing support for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, praise that could soften criticism from the right and provide cover for any Republican senators inclined to vote for her nomination. The essence of their take on Kagan, the former Harvard Law School dean who now serves as solicitor general, is that she clearly has the smarts to be a justice and has shown an ability to work with all sides on thorny issues.

How much stupid can you squeeze into one liberal’s head? Three weeks ago American veterans won their long hard court battle to save their memorial cross honoring American soldiers killed in World War I. The case went to the Supreme Court and was finally won by a slim 5 to 4 majority. Anthony Kennedy wrote: “Here one Latin cross in the desert evokes far more than religion. It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies are compounded if the fallen are forgotten.” This week we heard the...

...Beaverton Middle School teacher Jason Levin's group wants to infiltrate the Tea Party to discredit the organization. But since Levin's name has been associated with the "Crash the Tea Party" Web site, he has been harassed by people who say they belong to that group. Levin told KATU-TV that his phone has been ringing around the clock and his answering machine is recording threats...

Aha! ...Aha! Aha! Aha!Associated Press writer Jesse Washington has investigated the March 20 incident in Washington, D.C. at which members of the Tea Party supposedly hurled the N-word at black Congressmen. Well, no recording of that word being used could be found but that hasn't stopped Washington from blaming the Tea Partiers...for posting the "wrong" video of that incident on YouTube. I kid you not: Three Democratic congressmen — all black — say they heard racial slurs as they walked through thousands of angry protesters outside the U.S. Capitol. A white lawmaker says he heard the epithets too. Conservative activists...