Free Republic

Predictably, Nancy Pelosi applauded Rep. Bobby Rush when he donned a hoodie on the floor of the House to show his solidarity with the likes of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and the Black Panthers, in their calls for George Zimmerman’s head on a platter. Meanwhile, back in Chicago’s 1st congressional district, home to Mr. Rush, during one recent Thursday night, 13 people were shot, two of them fatally. I understand that the shooters all wore hoodies. I trust that Mrs. Pelosi can provide Bobby Rush with an alibi. In the meantime, in the NCAA basketball tournament, the Final Four consisted...

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Thursday that the 2012 election will be a "fun debate" over two competing visions for the nation, referring to Mitt Romney as the Republican "front-runner" who has backed policies that would undermine middle-class families. At a fundraiser held at a Washington hotel, Obama told supporters that his administration had spent the past three years "cleaning up after some of that mess, and I don't want to have to do it again."

The Most Rev. John D'Arcy, Bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, in a statement which may be found here, asks, "What is wrong with the text of this play [The Vagina Monologues]? It distorts the beautiful gift of human sexuality, clouding its richness so it becomes merely the seeking of pleasure. Sexuality in the Catholic tradition is always related to the gift of self to another. 'Sexuality is an enrichment of the whole person — body, emotions and soul — and it manifests its inmost meaning in leading the person to the gift of self in love.' (Familiaris Consortio, Pope John...

Californians must love $4 gas, enroute to $5. And a stubbornly high unemployment rate. Now, if only the Golden state could become the official ATM for Campaign Obama. So the overworked guy wouldn't have to deal with any real issues, citizens or media on his regular trips to the left coast. He could just fly his 747 into LA or San Francisco, tie up traffic, squeeze $35G's out of awed supporters for the same predictable fundraiser speech (change is hard, there's more to do) and head out to milk Western boosters elsewhere. Oh, wait! He's already doing that every couple...

Check out this amazing image from Rick Perry's ad, instructing voters to believe in... Mitt Romney??? I was arguing on FR that Perry always seems to attack Romney's rivals, but never Romney. Apparently, Romney learned from McCain that to win the primary, you have to get a tool to attack your enemies FOR you. But I figured before making the assertion that Perry doesn't attack Romney, I'd better confirm what 1,000 bloggers have previously complained about. I did quickly find an ad from Perry attacking Romney, but was amazed at what I found. The video ends with the question, "Change...

Obama is certainly the most arrogant president in American history. This clip from the end of the entire 60 Minutes Obama interview didn't make it on air.

As conservatives look over the field of candidates we have been provided this election cycle, one thing becomes abundantly clear: most of these candidates will lose to Obama in 2012. But Rick Perry is the only guy that can show why he is the one you want to have a beer with while Obama is the one upset that the price of arugula is has risen at Wholefoods. If you’re reading this, you may not care who the most likable presidential candidate is, but the voters who decide elections do. The simple truth is that Perry is likable, Romney and...

Rick Perry may be stuck near the bottom of the polls among those vying to become the Republican nominee for president, but he might still enjoy a second act, according to veteran journalist Cokie Roberts. “He’s got the resources and nobody else does,” she said during a press conference before the “A Conversation with a Legend” fundraiser for the MD Anderson fundraiser in San Antonio Tuesday. “If we do see Newt Gingrich self-destruct, which I think is highly likely, and Romney continue to sit there at 23, 25 percent, then people will start looking around again. Roberts, a political commentator...

DERRY — Texas Gov. Rick Perry may be dropping in the polls, but some New Hampshire voters are confident he'll still be a viable candidate in the presidential primary Jan. 10... Voters who listened to Perry speak at the Greater Salem Chamber of Commerce event last night said they were impressed with what they heard. The voters, who came from across the state, also said they think Perry can weather the criticism his candidacy has received and still play a vital role in the first-in-the-nation primary. Those in the crowd included Salem Selectman Michael Lyons and Salem Budget Committee member...

Colin Powell on Sunday blamed the media as well as the Tea Party for the divisive political tone in Washington. Not surprisingly, neither the class warfare stoked by President Obama and his Party nor the resulting Occupy Wall Street movement was mentioned during this seven minute interview with Christiane Amanpour on ABC's This Week (video follows with transcript and commentary): CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: What about this tone in the country right now? It's still very divisive. It's still very sort of brash, some say poisonous. I mean, you can barely get anything done on Capitol Hill, just behind me there....

First Thoughts: Romney's Clear Path By NBC’s Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Brooke Brower *** Romney’s clear path: After Herman Cain’s defiant news conference on Tuesday and after Rick Perry’s brain freeze at Wednesday night’s CNBC debate, Mitt Romney’s path to the GOP presidential nomination is now WIDE open. In fact, not since Bob Dole in 1996 has a candidate been such a clear front-runner right before the primaries and caucuses begin. The ’96 comparison is also instructive: Dole still lost New Hampshire to Pat Buchanan. What this all means: While Romney looks to be on his way...

Numerous preemptive obituaries are being written for Governor Rick Perry’s campaign. These efforts are premature because they fail to understand and appreciate the fickle winds of political fortune. Governor Perry has substantial political assets that make him a potent candidate and that will give him another chance to prove himself to Republican voters. Each candidate brings their own set of positives and negatives to the game: Mitt Romney has money to burn, establishment support, business experience, and passable debating skills. He also has a record far to the left of the majority of Republicans, a history of changing his position...

In an exclusive interview with ABC’s Jake Tapper, Obama essentially said that, if he could redo the first few years of his presidency, he wouldn’t have made a single decision differently. “I guarantee it’s going to be a close election [in 2012] because the economy is not where it wants to be and, even though I believe all the choices we’ve made have been the right ones, we’re still going through difficult circumstances,” the president said. Sheesh. More power to a person for confidence and conviction, but no doubts? No second guesses? No mistakes to regret or amend? Must be...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Drawing a bright line with congressional Republicans, President Barack Obama is proposing $1.5 trillion in new tax revenue as part of his long-term deficit reduction plan, according to senior administration officials. The president on Monday will announce a proposal that includes repeal of Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers, nearly $250 billion in reductions in Medicare spending, $330 billion in cuts in other mandatory benefit programs, and savings of $1 trillion from the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, the officials said. The plan includes no changes in Social Security and does not include an...

Just days after the Labor Department announced zero job growth for the month of August, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D.-Fla.), the chair of the Democratic National Committee, said that the economy is “continuing on the upswing" and that every economist "worth their salt" acknowledges that this is the result of the economic stimulus signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2009. When Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February of that year, the national unemployment rate was 8.2 percent. As the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week, the national unemployment rate was 9.1 percent this...

Dear Glenn, Even the mainstream media is starting to notice that Newt Gingrich is making a comeback. Check out this article in US News and World Report labeling Newt the next 'comeback kid.' "The big-thinking Republican, his supporters, and presidential political experts sense that Gingrich...is on the way back. The reason for the emerging Newt 2.0? His effective performance in the last debate that inspired supporters to boost online donations after he assailed the deficit "super committee" while spelling out detailed solutions to fixing the economy." This article is more evidence that our campaign's strategy is working. While other candidates...

Hurricane Irene, at this moment, is ravaging the East Coast and will continue to do so for the next few days. It is a hurricane, a natural disaster; it was created by the weather on earth. It has been that way for thousands of years. The previous paragraph was common sense. Unless, that is, you are a liberal. In that case you might, as unbelievable as it may sound, blame Republicans for causing a storm. Don't believe me? Take a look for yourself: liberals are actually blaming a hurricane on Republicans. Take this one, for example, which states outright that...

Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate and perennial third-party presidential candidate, announced last month that he would work to find a Democrat to challenge President Barack Obama in 2012. Nader now says that a primary challenge is a near certainty. “What [Obama] did this week is just going to energize that effort,” Nader promised in an interview with The Daily Caller. “I would guess that the chances of there being a challenge to Obama in the primary are almost 100 percent.” The only question, he said, is the stature of that opponent and whether it will be either “an ex-senator or...

We’ve seen a lot of advancements in automotive design and technology in the past 14 years, so what’s to come in the next 14 years? We’ve all heard of autonomous cars in the making, and we’ve seen the evolution of hybrids, electrics, navigation, Bluetooth connectivity, and advanced safety features that are capable of stopping a vehicle in its tracks. Imajerk17 asks us to look into the future to 2025, and debate what things automotive will be phased out in the cars of the future. He thinks steering wheels will be phased out and may possibly be replaced with a joystick,...

Obama : "You have 80% of the American people who support a balanced approach. 80% of the American people support an approach that includes revenues and includes cuts. So the notion that somehow the American people aren't sold is not the problem. The problem is members of Congress are dug in ideologically."

President Obama on Friday pointed to polls to argue that his proposal of a "balanced approach" on a debt deal - one that includes revenue increases as well as spending cuts - is what the American people want. "My Republican friends have said that they're not willing to do revenues, and they have repeated that on several occasions," he told reporters at a news conference in Washington. "My hope, though, is that they're listening not just to lobbyists or special interests here in Washington, but they're also listening to the American people. Because it turns out, poll after poll, many...

Still more hubris from the Manchurian Moonbat at a fundraiser in Philly: "And, Philadelphia, I know there are some of you who are frustrated because we haven't gotten everything done that we said we were going to do in two and a half years. It's only been two and a half years. I got five and a half years more to go." America would not survive another 5 1/2 years of deliberately profligate spending, treasonous foreign policy, and packing the judiciary top to bottom with ultra-radical screwballs. Fortunately, this is becoming clear to most Americans even through the wall...

Of the early potential Democratic contenders, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley says he supports gay marriage but stopped short of making a major push for the legislation earlier in the year, while Virginia Sen. Mark Warner is opposed. Hillary Clinton, if she runs, would still have her commitment to civil unions but not gay marriage from the 2008 race hanging over her — and at least until the end of next year, when she’s said she’ll be done at the State Department, she won’t be able to make any new comments on the issue. “It gives him an authenticity and a...

A YouTube video of Minister Louis Farrakhan taking President Obama to task over the war in Afghanistan and the bombing of Libya is making its way around the web. In the video, Farrakhan admonishes the president for turning into someone else. Farrakhan says, "We voted for our brother Barack, a beautiful human being with a sweet heart and now he's an assassin. They turned him into them."

It was about three weeks ago that Jerome Corsi, author of "Where's the Birth Certificate? The Case That Barack Obama Is Not Eligible to Be President," called me with some disturbing news. In response to the success of his book (No. 1 at Amazon in pre-release stage) and the elevation of the eligibility issue because of Donald Trump's big megaphone, his sources in Hawaii were telling him that Barack Obama was about to release a fraudulent birth certificate. Corsi urged that WND report the story. But because of the nature of the warnings, I didn't think it would be meaningful....

Obama predicts: 'American people will feel that I deserve a second term' By Michael O'Brien - 04/15/11 02:59 PM ET President Obama said Friday that he's convinced that voters will come to see him as the candidate best prepared to serve as president by next fall's elections. The president said he thinks that he can make the case for a second term, though he acknowledged that the state of the economy could be his biggest hurdle to clear in winning reelection. "I think the economy's going to continue to improve, and I think I'm going to be able to make...

President Barack Obama is lining up donors, courting independents and targeting battleground states for presidential travel. Looks like a real campaign. Did anyone believe Obama when he told Diane Sawyer less than a year ago that he’d rather be a good one-term president than a mediocre two-termer? No. And here’s why: Reelection is critical to presidential greatness. And Obama clearly fashions himself a prospective great. Should Obama win reelection next year, Americans would make not only his day but history as well: It would be the first time in 200 years — since Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe...

"Democrats have long fought for fiscal responsibility as a top priority of this Congress. We won't go into the history right now, but it is well known that President Clinton took us out of a period of deficit into his last five budgets being in surplus or in balance," Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi said on the floor today.

Where’s the separation of church and state when you need it? According to Nancy Pelosi, there may be no such concept, since government offices have “biblical power to cure� illnesses. Pelosi made this remark while responding to the budget cuts proposed by Republicans in Congress that include the NIH, as CNS News reports today: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said the House Republicans’ proposed cut to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget would hurt biomedical research’s “biblical power to cure.�Pelosi, speaking at a press conference on Capitol Hill celebrating the first anniversary of...

"And then somebody -- I don't remember who it was -- turned and said, 'You know what? What about Gibbs' tie? What about Gibbs' tie? That might look good.' And, frankly, Robert didn't want to give it up because he thought he looked really good in the tie. But eventually he was willing to take one for the gipper, and so he took off his tie, and I put it on. And that's the tie that I wore at the national convention."

Outspoken former Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean apparently isn't planning to celebrate Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday February 6, around which there are coast-to-coast events planned. Instead, the former Vermont governor is shrugging his shoulders, asking what all the fuss is about? At a media roundtable today, Dean suggested that Reagan had little impact other than stopping the social progression begun under FDR and seemed to dismiss the Gipper's efforts to crush communism, giving the last Soviet premier, Mikhail Gorbachev credit for ending the Cold War, a statement sure to draw sneers from Reagan fans and even historians. While Reagan is...

Well. We've just seen, the fruits of our corrupt, lame, spineless and wimpy "Republicans" idea of how to deal with democrats: Surrender. Abject surrender. How deeply disappointing this month has been.

<p>If Barack Obama wins reelection in 2012, as is now more likely than not, historians will mark his comeback as beginning on December 6, the day of the Great Tax-Cut Deal of 2010.</p> <p>Obama had a bad November. Admittedly shellacked in the midterm election, he fled the scene to Asia and various unsuccessful meetings, only to return to a sad-sack, lame-duck Congress with ghostly dozens of defeated Democrats wandering the halls.</p>

For two years we watched Barack Obama undercut the left wing of his party at every turn, with a disdain so palpable his minions could not resist insulting leftists in the most juvenile terms. For two years we watched the First Black President facilitate the greatest transfer of wealth in human history – $12 to $14 trillion – to Wall Street, and we watched as he put the U.S. war machine back on the offensive in the world. For two years we heard Obama say over and over again that he had no intention of taking targeted action to help...

Nancy Pelosi is getting the first test of her might under the new Democratic reality as she scrambles to extinguish a rebellion against her power to appoint lieutenants to top party posts. Realizing they don’t have the votes to knock the defeated speaker from the top perch in party leadership, moderate Blue Dog Democrats have set their sights a little lower, targeting liberal Pelosi enforcers George Miller (D-Calif.), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), all of whom hold influential jobs because Pelosi has installed them. Pelosi has already faced down challenges to her authority from a diverse set of...

The steep challenge confronting Republicans as they try to restrain entitlement spending came into focus on Sunday’s Meet the Press. As Sen. Jim DeMint made clear in his guest appearance, merely cutting the growth of future entitlements is going to be a long-term challenge, requiring a long-term strategy. DeMint was asked by host David Gregory about Republican pledges to cut spending. Would those pledges include reductions in entitlement spending? DeMint began his answer by praising Rep. Paul Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future,” which outlines massive changes — and massive reductions — in entitlement spending over the coming decades. But then,...

Imagine if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were a Republican. Imagine that the Republicans, including many moderates, just lost more than 60 House seats in the worst rout a party has experienced since 1938. Yet the hard-core conservative speaker - of whom, polls show, a majority of voters have a decidedly unfavorable opinion - decides to run for the step-down position of minority leader. You know that folks in San Francisco would deride that Republican leader and her minions as self-destructive ideologues (also known as nut-jobs). But then, your average San Francisco Democrat sees Pelosi not as a liberal, but as...

Good stuff. Say, I wonder where his new show will end up in the MSNBC schedule. Primetime is locked up, so I’m thinking they’ll either dump Schultz and plug Teacups in at 6 p.m. or else get rid of the 7 p.m. re-run of “Hardball” and give him an hour there. Imagine it: Schultz, Grayson, and Olby, back to back to back. Imagine it. In other news, MSNBC actually re-runs “Hardball.” Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) said Democratic leaders should have been more aggressive and shut Republicans out of the negotiating process, arguing it would have helped them in Tuesday’s midterm...

An angry electorate… More divided than during the Bush years… Marked by nasty ads and commentary, over-the-top rhetoric, and even violence. These are just some of the ways that political observers have described American voters and the 2010 mid-term elections. Without a doubt, many election contests were bitterly fought and divisive. Now comes the hard work of legislating and governing. It won’t be easy for either side, but if there is one thing the new Congress and President Obama ought to agree on, it’s that gun violence victims deserve their support, their leadership, and their determination. And that should be...

Senate candidate Carly Fiorina is in the lead in the California race. This comes as even FoxNews has projected the race for incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer. Fiorina appears to have a solid chance of winning this race, as she is leading in heavily Republican areas with many precincts yet to be counted. Boxer is winning in San Francisco and Los Angeles, as can be expected but they appear to not be as wide as could be expected. According to Politico Fiorina has opened a .7% lead statewide over Boxer.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is having a heck of a time trying to get re-elected, in part, he says, because people don't want to know that he prevented a worldwide depression.

Obama: Republicans Will Have to Learn to Get Along With Me Published October 13, 2010 | FoxNews.com President Obama reveals in a magazine article that he is weighing what to do if Republicans win the House majority next month, and has come up with a novel approach: Make the GOP work with him. In a seeming twist on the post-1994 midterm calculation made by President Bill Clinton -- when Republicans pummeled Democrats in the congressional election -- Obama said he thinks Republicans will have to move in his direction no matter the outcome of the Nov. 2 vote. "It may...

The momentum is with us. We are out there to dispel many of the misrepresentations that have been going out there for nearly two years by the Republicans and the special interests, the oil industry, the health insurance industry, the banks and their allies. We're out there. Our members are great articulate spokespersons for their point of view into their districts. And district by district we feel very confident about the election. And we believe that six weeks from today, six weeks from Wednesday of this week we will have no regrets but instead we will have a great Democratic...

What is it called when someone has paranoid delusions that someone with paranoid delusions is out to get him? Whatever it is, Bill Maher has it in spades. This guy is seriously paranoid about paranoid Christians – or as he calls them, “nativist bedwetters” who wave signs on Tax Day and offer burnt sacrifices, I gather, to the most “Evil Dingbat,” Sarah Palin. On Monday’s Tonight Show, Maher snarked about the dreaded Sunday School teachers, organists, moms in jumpers, and little girls in patent leather shoes who “control the national dialogue” and “perpetuate mass delusion” – through electromagnetic microwaves, I...

WASHINGTON - The Democratic left still smarts over President Obama's failure to deliver on some of its key issues, but has made no serious move to challenge him in 2012. Even the loudest critics among them think putting up a primary candidate would just split the party and strengthen the Republican who runs against him or her. "There is beginning to be some chatter about running a candidate from the left, but nobody wants to think that way," said Peter Daou, a liberal blogger and ex-digital media adviser to Hillary Clinton's campaign. The left's grievance list is long. They believe...

I really like Glenn Beck. Though I have never met him in person, I have often watched his television programs and thought it would be so nice to have that kind of a guy as a friend. I imagine that he is far too busy and way too inaccessible for that to become a reality, but I do genuinely like the man. He is insightful, articulate, funny, and seems to want some great things for his family and our nation. I do think that sometimes he has one or two conspiracy theories that may not be fully justified - we...

Have you ever known people who pass the time of day by arguing with themselves? Barbara Boxer almost gets to that level in this video clip from the San Francisco Chronicle and Debra Saunders, who can’t quite believe that Boxer’s delusion is so detailed. Boxer talks at length about how then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice failed to provide an answer to her during a Senate hearing on how many troops had been killed in action in Iraq. Boxer took a lot of heat from her remarking on Rice’s childless status as a way to criticize the Bush administration for going...

This is a radical break from journalistic convention, I realize, but today I'd like to give credit where it's due — specifically, to President Obama. Quiet as it's kept, he's on a genuine winning streak. It's hard to remember that the inauguration was just 19 months ago. Expectations of the new president were absurdly high. If Obama had done backflips across the Potomac River, when he reached the other side he'd have faced probing questions about why it was taking him so long to cure cancer, solve the Arab-Israeli conflict and usher in an age of universal peace and prosperity....

VP Biden brushed aside suggestions that Dems will suffer big midterm losses, vowing that the party will "shock the heck out of everybody." On ABC News' "This Week," Biden dismissed prevailing wisdom that Democrats, 17 months into Obama's transformative presidency, would suffer at the hands of salivating Republicans. Biden said he was "confident when people look at what has happened since we've taken office we're going to be in great shape." Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium.

President Obama ranks 15th out of 44 in a poll of the best and worst presidents while former President George W. Bush earns a place in the bottom five, according to the Siena College Research Institute's recent survey of 238 presidential scholars released Thursday. Obama secured a top ten place in two skill set categories, communication ability (7th) and ability to compromise (10th), and in two personality trait categories, imagination (6th) and intelligence (8th). Background, described as family, education, and experience, proved his lowest score at 32nd. This is the 5th time the institute has conducted the survey of U.S....