Free Republic

In a mostly serious, spot on analysis of New York Times reporting on the Tucson shootings, P.J. O'Rourke wonders if the kind of liberalism promoted by the Times and others hasn't outlived its usefulness in our political debates. Writing in The Weekly Standard, O'Rourke excoriates several Times writers for their obvious biases before getting to the meat of his critique: A reaction so disproportionate and immaterial to a news story by a news organization is indicative of trouble in the body politic​-​trouble almost as severe as that which the Times claims the Giffords shooting indicates. I worry that in the...

(PhysOrg.com) -- A software developer has created a "chatbot" program for Twitter to automatically detect set phrases associated with arguments put forward by those skeptical of anthropogenic global warming, and to send automated replies of set phrases debunking their arguments. Nigel Leck’s creation is @AI_AGW (also known as Turing Test), and the script searches the Twitter site for hundreds of phrases he believes tend to be used by those who think global warming is not occurring, or who think it is occurring but is not anthropogenic or entirely anthropogenic. When the script finds one of the phrases it then "tweets"...

Clinton Heckled in Blue New York, Says Half of Republicans Need Psychiatric Help http://www.theblaze.com/stories/clinton-heckled-in-blue-new-york-says-half-of-republicans-need-psychiatric-help/

There is an anti-Obama billboard comparing President Obama to Fidel Castro in Gladewater, TX. The billboard has pictures of Obama and Castro with the word "Change" over their heads and "Vote Obama" under their portraits. Off to the right side the text reads "Coming Our Way". Someone poured gasoline at the base and started a fire. The billboard is at the top of a 30-foot-pipe and was undamaged. KTBB AM600 reported: GLADEWATER- Fire investigators are looking for the person who they say tried to set an Anti-Obama billboard on fire. KETK reports it happened Sunday morning on Highway 80 in...

Nancy Pelosi had some choice words for the American public yesterday: Shut up. If you’ve got an opinion about the N.Y. mosque controversy, better keep it to yourself or you could end up under investigation in the House Star Chamber. Pelosi says she wants to know how opposition to the mosque is being “ginned up.” She wants to know who’s funding this anger. She wants to know what the hell is wrong with the 61 percent of Americans who evidently disagree with her views. (Her disingenuous view being that this is a “zoning issue” only and all the national controversy...

Former USDA official Shirley Sherrod, who claims she was falsely smeared as a racist while she herself falsely smears Republicans and Fox News as racists, said this morning that she would like to see BigGovernment.com, the website that made her famous, shut down for the good of the country.CNN's American Morning reported on Sherrod's demand:She said if Breitbart's site were shut down, "That would be a great thing, because I don't see how that advances us in this country ... at a time when we should be trying to look at how we can make space for all of us...

If you were in the presence of a man having a heart attack, how would you respond? As he clutched his chest in desperation and pain, would you call 911? Would you try to save him from dying? Of course you would. But if that man was Rush Limbaugh, and you were Sarah Spitz, a producer for National Public Radio, that isn’t what you’d do at all. In a post to the list-serv Journolist, an online meeting place for liberal journalists, Spitz wrote that she would “Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out” as Limbaugh writhed...

Un-friggen-real, does he even understand how obnoxious and offensive this sounds ?

Abortion isn't very funny, as comedian Jimmy Kimmel is learning... ...the youth pro-life activist group Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust was holding a Face the Truth event...on Hollywood Boulevard... ...showing the public the reality of abortion via large graphic photos of aborted babies. While the pro-life protest was under way, a film crew showed up to tape a stunt across the street for "Jimmy Kimmel Live"... ...the crew quickly became aggravated by the gory aborted baby-photos and turned two of the hot spotlights on Survivor Ryan Bueler. ...a cameramen states several times he has turned the spotlight on Bueler and...

The NAACP has passed a resolution that condemns what it feels is rampant racism in the Tea Party movement. Members passed the measure on Tuesday at the organization's 101st annual convention in Kansas City, Missouri. Tea Party activists have swiftly denounced the action as unfounded and unfair.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is being urged to monitor "hate speech" on talk radio and cable broadcast networks. A coalition of more than 30 organizations argue in a letter to the FCC that the Internet has made it harder for the public to separate the facts from bigotry masquerading as news. The groups also charge that syndicated radio and cable television programs "masquerading as news" use hate as a profit model.

Is the Obama Administration preparing the ground for a Ministry of Truthiness? The President's latest wide-ranging speech at Hampton University made a halt at a very strange outpost, before moving on to education. Obama, it seems, is vexed by the idea of conspiracy theories. Apparently people aren't thinking the right thoughts. Obama's internet Yoda, Professor Cass Sunstein*, is also besotted with the idea. Two years ago, Sunstein proposed what you might call an 'active government solution' to conspiracies. The best way to counter conspiracy theories, Sunstein and co-author Adrian Vermeule argued, is with the "cognitive infiltration of extremist groups". This...

Liberals are portraying the Tea Party movement as fostering violence and sedition. During a recent appearance on NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show," Time columnist Joe Klein said that much of the heated political rhetoric, "especially the [statements] coming from people like Glenn Beck and to a certain extent Sarah Palin, rub right up close to being seditious." Of course, sedition is a crime. It is the revolt or inciting of revolt against the authority of the government. Mr. Klein's message was clear: Conservative critics of President Obama are committing treason, especially the Tea Partiers who express their disapproval through rallies...

Democrats, including Rep. Betty McCollum, launched into an assault on incivility Tuesday, saying incendiary words from members of Congress were inflaming tensions that could provoke another incident of Oklahoma City-style domestic terrorism."When Members of Congress compare health-care legislation to ‘government tyranny,’ ‘socialism,’ or ‘totalitarianism’ — in the hopes of scoring political points — it's like pouring gas on the fire of extremism," McCollum said. McCollum's St. Paul office was one of a few that received an envelope containing gasoline-soaked tatters of an American flag and a letter that called her things not fit for print in this or any publication....

...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...

Terrorism, American style M.B. WHISLER Webster's New World Dictionary describes terrorism as "the act of terrorizing; use of force or threats to demoralize, intimidate, and subjugate, especially such use as a political weapon or policy." What is going on in the land of the free and the land of "In God We Trust"? America is becoming an unsafe country as a result of the combative tea party organizers who are filled with hate, rage and violence. How can we have people organizing to hate others in America? Who are these tea party organizers? Could they be the ill KKK's hiding...

House Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) says the "negative atmosphere" created by the tea party movement has influenced the retirement decisions of some House Democrats (but not Bart Stupak): “Do I think that [the] negative atmosphere that’s been created by the Tea Party and by others certainly goes into the thinking of members? I think it does. I think you have to honestly point out that it does,” Hoyer added. “I don’t think that was the determining factor with respect to Mr. Stupak, because again, he was in very good shape in the polls. It wasn’t a question...

The mercury is running high, all right, and it has nothing to do with the weather. Public displays of political anger have been a staple of the American scene for the last eight months or so, but in recent days a handful directed at members of Congress have gone a bit further than noisy, sign-carrying assembly to window-smashing, spitting, threatening faxes and phone calls, even a cut propane line on a barbecue grill. ..." VARYING DEGREES OF RAGE - The Weathermen, including Bill Ayers, second from right, during the Days of Rage in 1969, and anti-health reform protesters in Washington...

Well, I finally saw my first LIVE Tea Party yesterday. It was going on at the corner of University and Oakland Park in Sunrise where I was heading to do some couponing activities at WalMart. My first observation was that it seemed a lot more exciting in person than just watching a Tea Party on YouTube. Even though they were just making an appearance with the Gasden Flag and signs such as "Remember November," their mere presence served as a great reminder to folks driving by. I also knew it would drive the DUmmie types even CRAZIER than they...

Here is a devastating video showing the hypocrisy of Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters, who has been particularly critical of Tea Party Protesters in recent days. The latest "Naked Emperor News" expose video shows clips of Waters criticizing Tea Party Protests juxtaposed with clips of Waters speaking at the Left-wing Antiwar Protest in Washington back in 2007. The behavior of the Leftist protesters was unspeakable, with the video even showing protesters saying "F**K the US" repeatedly. Maxine Waters was a featured speaker at the protest, praising Code Pink and others for what they were doing.

The Democrat-media complex has been pushing the idea that patriotic nonviolent resistance and opposition to ObamaCare and President Obama’s drive to turn America into a full-blown socialist state somehow constitutes “hate.” Leftists keep trying to invent new incidents supposedly showing how their political adversaries in the Tea Party movement are sinister racists. They claim –in the absence of proof– that black Democratic lawmakers were called the N-word as they walked to the U.S. Capitol building to vote on ObamaCare. They claim –in the absence of proof– that an anti-gay epithet was hurled at Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), an openly gay...

The war between the left and right has been ratcheted up this past weekend. Although a philosophical war of words, to the committed Alinsky left it is nonetheless a deadly serious war. The progressive movement has long been known for its intolerance of opposing philosophies and its propensity for violence to attain its goals. As Noel Sheppard notes, at the 2008 Republican Convention leftist demonstrators hospitalized conventioneers with bricks thrown through bus windows and sandbags dropped from overpasses onto passing cars. The progressive media looked the other way. Following the passage of ObamaCare, much media frenzy has surrounded incidents where...

When activists break the law protesting Republican policies, it is because lefties care so much. But when conservatives act likewise, it's because they are loudmouths and louts. So TV tells me. During an interview last week with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., NBC's Ann Curry observed that former GOP running mate Sarah Palin, who was about to stump for McCain over the weekend, had told supporters "don't retreat, instead - reload" and posted on her Facebook page "a map highlighting weak Democratic districts that conservatives should target with a crosshair symbol. "Considering these threats, these concerns that we've been hearing about,...

This past week several big companies, including Caterpillar, Verizon, and AT&T, announced that ObamaCare would cost them millions of dollars this year. To pay for it they variously suggested layoffs and benefits reductions. Analysts suggest that the total first-quarter hit to S&P 500 firms will be $4.5 billion. Well, Democrats can't stand to have their precious economy-destroying healthcare program criticized in its very first week, so they've announced an "investigation" into the claims. Late yesterday, the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation sent letters to the CEOs of AT&T, Caterpillar, Deere & Co, and Verizon asking them to appear for...

This part got me: MATTHEWS: Well, I have to tell you, I don`t know how you fan the flames when you — when you say you don`t like something. And by the way, Congressman Stupak, I`ve got to ask you a question. I know this is rhetorical. But you know, when Bush got his way on a number of issues — forget the war. The parties agreed on that for a while there. He got a huge tax cut for the wealthy. I didn`t see the Democrats burning down the barns and sending hate mail, and you know, throwing rocks...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The No. 2 Senate Democrat accused Republicans on Wednesday of refusing to accept the finality of health care changes, a day after President Barack Obama signed the most sweeping medical system remake since Medicare. "This is a political exercise for too many on the other side of the aisle," said Sen. Dick Durbin. "We're going to tell our people back home, 'It's time to govern. It's time to lead.' "

When former President George W. Bush addresses the Economic Club of Grand Rapids in June, will he be riding a wave of nostalgia? New York Times columnist Stanley Fish points to a few signs that Bush's image rehab has begun. One literally is a sign -- a billboard in Minnesota with an image of a smiling, waving Bush and a message that reads, "Miss Me Yet?" He also notes a Newsweek cover story that vindicates Bush's Iraq policy, "Mission Accomplished" and everything. Fish writes that Bush nostalgia, if it indeed exists, is the result both of Bush's relative silence since...

As a black proud Tea Party patriot, I am extremely offended by MSNBC TV show host Dylan Ratigan's baseless accusation that the Tea Party Movement (my white brother and sister fellow patriots) embraces Nazis and racists. Ratigan's attack epitomizes the liberal media's commitment to protect Obama and his radical agenda at all costs. They have a genuine disdain for freedom, capitalism and We The People. No tactic is too low. Ratigan's rant:While interviewing (really badgering) Mark Williams of the Tea Party Express, outrageously Ratigan attempted to portray the bus tour as a far right hate group supportive of the killing...

Number of "Patriot" Groups, Militias Surges by 244% in Past Year MONTGOMERY, Ala., March 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The number of extremist groups in the United States exploded in 2009 as militias and other groups steeped in wild, antigovernment conspiracy theories exploited populist anger across the country and infiltrated the mainstream, according to a report issued today by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Antigovernment "Patriot" groups – militias and other extremist organizations that see the federal government as their enemy – came roaring back to life over the past year after more than a decade out of the limelight. The...

Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) called for the removal of the White House's top counterterrorism official Tuesday, intensifying Republican criticism of the administration's handling of the attempted terrorist attack on Christmas Day. Bond said John Brennan, a special assistant to the president for counterterrorism, needs to resign because of the politcal role he has played. Brennan "needs to go," Bond told the National Review Online, a position spokeswoman Shana Marchio confirmed. "Our problem now is that we have to wonder whether we can trust Brennan after he has been a mouthpiece for the political arm that I thought only came out...

Obama's top counterterrorism aide John Brennan has come out and claimed that Americans who criticize Obama's anti-terror policies serve the goals of al-Qaeda. Writing an opinion piece in USA Today that can only be described as being all at once hyper-defensive, angry and whining, John Brennan clearly wanted to pen a defiant defense of Obama's thus-far inadequate, anti-terror policies. However, what emerged instead was an almost paranoid harangue which not only stretched the bounds of reason, but, more importantly, also called his fellow Americans, essentially, abettors of al-Qaeda's goals of killing Americans and destroying the US homeland. This is the...

In a brief op-ed in USA Today, White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan charges that critics who question the Obama administration's decision to grant Miranda rights to accused Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab are "serv[ing] the goals of al Qaeda." "Too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points," Brennan writes. "Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda."

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism adviser said Sunday that lawmakers and others are using national security to score political points and defended the handling of the suspect in the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner. Deputy national security adviser John Brennan complained that politicians, many of them Republicans, were unfairly criticizing the administration for partisan purposes and second-guessing the case with a ``500-mile screwdriver'' that reaches from Washington to the scene of the abortive attack in Detroit. Brennan said he had personally briefed top Republican lawmakers on Christmas night about the arrest of accused bomber Umar...

The new year begins even worse than the last one ended. Only this time it isn't a debate about health care showing how lousy and mean partisan politics have become in America, it is the debate over the war on terrorism. As usual it starts with a has-been like Dick Cheney acting as if that war is some party issue, as if the country is somehow more vulnerable to fanatics because Democrats have the White House and the Congress, as if all those who hate America and want to kill Americans see this tremendous opening to do that because Barack...

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) today took shots at those who are not supporting the health care legislation. During a floor speech, he excoriated Senate GOP members for up holding the pending health care bill and accused their supporters of being birthers and fanatics in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups.

Democrats are debating the tactic of labeling Republicans the “party of no.” Senior strategists in the party argue the label at best has outlived its usefulness, and at worst will do nothing to win new Democratic votes in the 2010 elections. “The Democrats are making an enormous mistake when they say the Republicans are the party of no,” said Paul Begala, the veteran Democratic strategist who worked in President Bill Clinton’s White House. Democrats began describing the GOP as the party of no after every House Republican voted against the $787 billion economic stimulus bill in February. The label has...

Can’t stand a member of Congress and desperately want him or her out of office? There’s a blog for that. For many members, there are blogs or websites solely dedicated to making them look bad, designed to highlight all their foibles and offer news and commentary aimed at portraying them as unfavorably as possible. With names like Where’s Eric Cantor?, MyCongressmanIsNuts.com, and Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, these hater websites are proliferating on the Internet, providing aggrieved constituents and local activists with the opportunity to vent, usually anonymously, and offer an unvarnished partisan take on an incumbent’s performance. For the most part,...

Websites should be obliged to remove "false rumors" while libel laws should be altered to make it easier to sue for spreading such "rumors," argued Cass Sunstein, Obama's regulatory czar. In his recently released book, "On Rumors," Sunstein specifically cited as a primary example of "absurd" and "hateful" remarks, reports by "right-wing websites" alleging an association between President Obama and Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers. He also singled out radio talker Sean Hannity for "attacking" Obama regarding the president's "alleged associations."

THERE ARE SERIOUS problems with the administration of the U.S. census. Americans have good reason to be wary of the stranger’s knock on the door. Unfortunately, anything critics say about the federal census can and will be used against them in the court of left-wing opinion. First, the disturbing news about the government’s most recent census travails: According to a new General Accounting Office report, botched fingerprinting by ill-trained employees led to the hiring of some 36,000 census workers with insufficient background checks. “More than 200” of those workers may have had serious criminal records, according to the GAO. The...

Krauthammer on Special Report responding to the White House's new war on Foxnews,...(Video)

Newcomers to political activism may be surprised to learn that this summer was not the first time the Left had used lies and distortions to smear its opponents as racist. As David Horowitz pointed out Monday, this is the Left's defining modus operandi and has been for a generation: as he writes, "the left’s chief political contribution to American politics is witch-hunts." Another chief contribution would be the myths that undergird those witch-hunts. On the health-care front, we've seen MSNBC talker Ed Schultz lie to transform protest signs into death threats (even though the correct wording was on the...

There was a time, not so long ago, when the term "Internet Freedom" actually meant what it implied: a cyberspace free from over-zealous legislators and bureaucrats.... Those days are now gone; the presumption of online liberty is giving way to a presumption of regulation. A massive assault on real Internet freedom has been gathering steam for years and has finally come to a head. Ironically, victory for those who carry the banner of "Internet Freedom" would mean nothing less than the death of that freedom.... Here is the reality: Because of the steps being taken in Washington right now, real...

Strangers to dissent, liberals try to stifle it By: Michael Barone Senior Political AnalystSeptember 20, 2009 It is an interesting phenomenon that the response of the left half of our political spectrum to criticism and argument is often to try to shut it down. Thus President Obama in his Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress told us to stop "bickering," as if principled objections to major changes in public policy were just childish obstinacy, and chastised his critics for telling "lies," employing "scare tactics" and playing "games." Unlike his predecessor, he sought to use the prestige of...

Per Drudge

An embedded CNN reporter who traveled with the Tea Party Express from Sacramento to Washington DC STILL doesn't get it as he reports about guns (gasp!) and patriots protesting in the DC12 Rally.

By PUMA Pundit on September 2, 2009 Remember, the Dept. of Education expects your kids to read books on the life of Barack Obama before the monumental speech on September 8th, well here’s a look at two of the books that shall be used: The first book is aptly titled: Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope and here is the description, direct from the Publisher’s Website: Ever since Barack Obama was young, Hope has lived inside him. From the beaches of Hawaii to the streets of Chicago, from the jungles of Indonesia to the plains of Kenya, he...

In this video at Representative Jim Moran’s (D-VA) town hall meeting on ObamaCare held at South Lakes High School in Reston, VA, many people were left outside when the school filled to capacity. School security officer Wesley Cheeks, Jr. did not like a protester’s anti-ObamaCare poster which used one of the viral "Joker" graphics. Officer Cheeks told some town hall protesters to put away their signs or he’ll "charge them with trespassing or whatever he wants." Then, when a protester said to Officer Cheeks, "This used to be America!" his response was: “It ain’t no more, OK?” Pro-Obama Cop to...

A “Larger Truth” brought to you by the same nutroots liars who now insist that eight years of Bush = Hitler rhetoric was fringe stuff that shouldn’t be used to tar the entire left. I suppose if you can believe that quoting the Boston Globe amounts to “stalking,” you can believe that fears of socialized medicine are really all about resegregating buses. Funny thing about this: The whole thing happens so fast, and the perpetrator’s angle of view is so acute, that it looks like he never even saw what was on the poster. As McCaskill herself — to her...

Living in liberal Los Angeles, I am surrounded by people -- and bumper stickers -- I do not agree with. One of the more popular liberal bumper stickers of the last decade tells us "Dissent is Patriotic." Now, as it happens, it is impossible to truly disagree with that phrase, not because it is self-evidently true, but because it is self-evidently meaningless. As are most left-wing bumper stickers. For example, another popular liberal bumper sticker proclaims, "War Is not the Answer." It, too, is completely meaningless. If the question is, "What is the square root of 8?" war is not...

DISSENT IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF PATRIOTI… No, wait, that bumper sticker expired January 20th. -snip- "The right-wing extremist Republican base is back!" warns the Democratic National Committee. These right-wing extremists have been given their marching orders by their masters: -snip- Senator Barbara Boxer has denounced dissenters from Obama's health care proposals as too "well-dressed" to be genuine. -snip- Thankfully, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has seen through the "manufactured anger" -snip- Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, added her own distinctive wrinkle to the Brooks Brothers menswear. She disdained the anti-Obamacare protests as fake grassroots. "I think...