Free Republic

Liberals keep finding new ways to demonstrate their civility and class. NYU graduate student Matthew Epler fashioned polling data for the Republican candidates during the 2012 primary into sex toys called butt plugs – for a telecommunications class. He decided to market his creations, which met with the winking approval of left-wing outlets. The plugs represent the polling data of Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Mitt Romney, rotated around a 3D axis.

Last week, Rush Limbaugh made some divisive comments on his radio show about a young Sandra Fluke who was advocating for government paid birth control. After making these comments, there was outcry all over America calling Rush Limbaugh a misogynist. Soon after, President Barack Obama called Sandra Fluke to console her and to let her know that “her parents should be proud.” Rush Limbaugh has since apologized to Ms. Fluke but she rejected his apology. I believe it is disgusting and self-centered that anyone would ask the government to pay for their birth control. In no way does our government...

Kirsten Powers may be the last honest liberal/progressive/democrat left in America: "Yes, it’s true. Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Matt Taibbi, and Ed Schultz have been waging it for years with their misogynist outbursts. There have been boycotts by people on the left who are outraged that these guys still have jobs. Oh, wait. Sorry, that never happened." -- Kirsten Powers

Today's liberals would have you believe they occupy the moral high ground on every political and cultural issue. But have you ever taken inventory of their double standards? The left's inconsistency in applying their principles based on the party affiliation of those they're judging, gives fuller meaning to the concept of moral relativism. The only thing that's consistent is their reliable inconsistency, whether in the area of economic, social or national defense issues. Let's consider just a few examples: -- When "bimbo eruptions" threatened to derail Bill Clinton's campaign, his hit squad, the commander in chief of which was Hillary...

Herman Cain is under attack, so why aren’t the Hollyweirdos flocking to his aid? Why won’t Alec Baldwin stop pimping Capital One credit cards long enough to help a brotha out? Back when Obama was questioned about his elementary-school transcripts, Hollyweird utopians were outraged. How DARE they question his grades? Don’t they know he’s, like, the smartest guy ever? How racist! Please share this article by using the link below. When you cut and paste an article, Taki's Magazine misses out on traffic, and our writers don't get paid for their work. Email editors@takimag.com to buy additional rights. http://takimag.com/article/blame_it_on_cain#ixzz1dFVSSP1z

When it comes to sex, the media apply different standards to Republicans and Democrats. Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton allegedly trolled for women, using state troopers as his procurers. As president, Clinton engaged in oral sex with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office. He lied about it under oath and was impeached, though later acquitted by the U.S. Senate. Other sexual accusations tainted Clinton, including one that he raped one Juanita Broaddrick. That "everybody lies about sex" and "it was just sex" and didn't affect his public responsibilities, were just two of the exculpatory statements from Clinton's Democratic defenders. James Carville...

Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer offers the second part of his series of essays on the Left in Norway. In this installment, he examines the left-wing community in Norway and its sympathy for various terrorist organizations. Part 1 is available here. The terrorist supporters of the Left by The Observer This is the second essay in a three-part series in which I take a look at left-wing media bias in Norway, the Norwegian Left’s fraternizing with militant organizations abroad, and undemocratic elements within the Muslim community in Norway. In the first instalment, ‘Left-wing media bias in Norway’, I looked at...

What does it take to make a lefty go all Chuck Norris? A war-on-terrorism success during a Dem presidency, of course. On his MSNBC show tonight, Cenk Uygur, of all people, regretted that more Americans weren't chanting "USA, USA!" View video here.

We’re five months removed from Comedy Central host Jon Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity,” but with an upcoming appearance for “Special Report” host Bret Baier on “The Daily Show,” Fox News Channel’s Charles Krauthammer had a suggestion for his colleague. On the FoxNews.com airing of “Special Report Online” from Wednesday night, Krauthammer wanted Baier to point out that Stewart’s October 2010 rally in Washington, D.C. had unseated conservative rallies of that nature in terms a lack of racial diversity. “You know whenever there’s a gathering of Republicans or conservatives, the press always makes a point of saying how white the...

Chris Brown could be in trouble with the law once again following an alleged violent outburst at ABC’s “Good Morning America” studios. Brown, 21, reportedly became enraged Tuesday and smashed a huge plate glass window window after being asked questions about his 2009 domestic violence conviction following the brutal assault of his former girlfriend, pop singer Rihanna.

The national leader of a black rights organization labeled by some as a hate group will speak at a Jacksonville church today in hopes of creating bonds between the black Muslims and Christians....posted using frpa

Quixicated emphases in color and/or bold appear below within some paragraphs. The headings in bold are in the original. Some extra paragraphing also injected.].... Every time I hear someone claim to be an “ex-Catholic”, a sense of sadness comes over me.  In just about every case, people leave the Catholic Faith due to a lack of understanding.  What unmitigated balderdash! What a cop-out! What a brazen distortion of reality! Far from "just about every case," probably a major chunk of such folks were heavily well trained in the hallowed halls of the Institution. Many were instructors--even Catechism instructors for...

Surprising but true: A few of my very best friends are touchy-feely, "can't-we-all-just-get-along" classic American liberals. That's because I choose friends not based on politics, but character. Tolerance, kindness and a healthy sense of humor trump party affiliation almost every time.

Democrats and Double Standards If Martha Coakley were a Republican, she would have been Quayled. By Mona Charen Oh, how different the world would look if Martha Coakley were a Republican! As it is, she gets the sort of gentle rebukes the press reserves for Democrats. Her campaign was too “lackadaisical,” we are told. She was “overconfident,” and too “buttoned down.” Reading and watching the MSM, you wouldn’t know that Coakley is a walking minefield. There is now, and there has always been, a completely different set of rules for Republicans. If a Republican candidate in such a high-profile contest...

Schools Secretary Ed Balls has been accused of refusing to ban Islamic schools from smacking children for fear of upsetting Muslim 'sensitivities'. Mr Balls was last week urged to close a legal loophole which gives teachers in Britain's estimated 1,600 schools associated with mosques the right to smack children - even though it is banned in other schools. He refused, prompting claims that he is allowing an alleged 'culture of physical abuse' in some of the mosque schools - or madrasahs - go unchecked.

Here’s the latest from guest blogger Loud Lion: I feel that there is nothing wrong with a double standard. I am OK with the fact that Congress has a much better health plan that I do. I have no problem that people in my office get paid more than me. Do I wish I got paid as much as the named partner? Hell yeah; who wouldn’t? But that desire, that wish and want, is what drives me to work better each day. I do not believe that everyone has a right to go to college. We need garbage collectors and...

I often find myself thinking that if liberals didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all. Consider the uproar from the left when Don Imus opened his silly yap about the black women on the Rutgers basketball team. Now compare that to their response when David Letterman made his smarmy cracks about Sarah Palin and the governor’s 14-year-old daughter. The liberals immediately sprang to his defense, pointing out that Letterman is nothing more than a TV personality and is therefore free to make offensive jokes without fear of censure. So what do they think Don Imus is?...

When a right-wing Christian vigilante kills, millions of fingers pull the trigger. When a left-wing Muslim vigilante kills, he kills alone. These are the instantly ossifying narratives in the Sunday shooting death of late-term abortion provider George Tiller of Kansas versus the Monday shootings of two Arkansas military recruiters. Tiller's suspected murderer, Scott Roeder, is white, Christian, anti-government and anti-abortion. The gunman in the military recruitment center attack, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, is black, a Muslim convert, anti-military and anti-American. Both crimes are despicable, cowardly acts of domestic terrorism. But the disparate treatment of the two brutal cases by both the...

The newest false meme invented by the Old Media is this claim that ex-presidents and ex-vice presidents have some sort of "tradition of silence" where it concerns commenting on those that take residence in the White House after they leave. The reason the Old Media is pushing this false claim is because Dick Cheney has been commenting on Obama's security mistakes and the Old Media wants to scold Cheney for his efforts to get the truth to the people [..] Can you remember any report by any Old Media outlet that excoriated Al Gore for his constant, wild-eyed, screaming fits...

In a nice stroke of NBC corporate synergy, radical-left MSNBC host Rachel Maddow appeared Tuesday night on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and when the topic turned to Rush Limbaugh, Maddow insisted that it’s one thing for Rush to oppose Obama’s socialist agenda before it passes, but once it becomes law, he should salute and get behind it (Snip) This is not the approach Maddow took to the Iraq war: that she opposed it, but it became government policy, so she rooted for it to succeed. Take Maddow on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on September 13, 2007. She expects...

Scott Johnson at Powerline refers to an article by Victor Davis Hanson Victor Davis Hanson adapts Plutarch to a review of notable stories of the past year in his column on the parallel lives of Democrats and Republicans. After his comparisons of Richard Fuld with Robert Rubin, Ted Stevens with Charles Rangel, Alberto Gonzales with Eric Holder, and Christopher Dodd with Trent Lott, Hanson concludes: I could go on and on with these Plutarachean examples of Parallel Lives but you get the picture. Here, the contrast is not the respective virtues of Greece and Rome. Nor is there any regret...

Ironically, presidential candidate Obama criticizes traditional American foreign policy for being moralistic. Yet, his global mindset is moralistic and legalistic. His planetary policies are grounded in a new "global neighborhood ethic" of solidarity, economic justice, and redistribution of wealth. He supports the 1995 Commission on Global Governance proclamation that the "global ethic of common rights and shared responsibilities ... would provide the moral foundation for constructing a more effective system of global governance." His platform pledges "to support reforming key global institutions -- such as the U.N. Security Council ...so they will be more reflective of 21st century realities." Such...

Alcee Hastings used to be a federal judge. Then he got impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate. Now he's a congressman from Florida. People have a right to vote for whomever they want, even one of the six federal judges in America ever to be removed by Congress. But with friends like Hastings making the case for him, Barack Obama doesn't need enemies. Participating in a panel discussion in Washington this week sponsored by the National Jewish Democratic Council (I don't even want to ask why they invited him — maybe everybody else was busy trying to...

With the Olympics coming on, what's more poignant than the image of the sprinter hopefully awaiting the official time, only to learn he missed the record by 1/100th of a second? I'm in that same heartbroken mood for the Associated Press this morning. The wire service came so close to equalling the world record for revealing the Republican party affiliation of someone finding himself sideways of the law. Check out the first sentence from this AP story of April 17th: "A Republican congressional candidate was charged Thursday with felony burglary and criminal trespass stemming from an encounter last year with...

It's hard to imagine how Detroit's liberal populace can charge hip-hop Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for perjury. After all, doesn't everyone lie about sex? I'm not certain that Kilpatrick should be charged or convicted either. Those of us who live in cities like Detroit or Los Angeles accepted that kind of political double standard long ago. Detroit clearly needs to loosen up a little -- maybe create its own ethics commission. That's what works for us. In LA, our Ethics Commission makes it unnecessary for police to investigate messy corruption scandals or other embarrassing felonies. Our Commission would issue a warning...

Honest, I'm not looking for trouble. Just hanging out on Christmas afternoon, watching the Heat vs. the Cavs on ABC, when a State Farm Insurance commercial comes on. Funny stuff. A guy on a treadmill gets so distracted by a shapely young woman on a hamstring machine that he slips and falls off. A trim man, identified by a screen graphic as Dr. Ian Smith, comes by to help him to his feet, and says this: Go on, laugh. But it's not easy getting back in shape. That's why we created the 50-Million Pound Challenge. It's a new way to...

When agriculture inspectors come calling at 7 on a Saturday evening, watch out. That's what Barbara and Steve Smith learned last Saturday evening.

(Offender will be in secure treatment for indefinite term) Waukesha, WI - A convicted sex offender whose thoughts and fantasies about children, rather than actions against them, prompted authorities to revoke his parole two years ago now faces indefinite secure commitment for treatment after a jury verdict Thursday branded him a sexual predator. The case likely will spark debate in the legal community over whether it presages a new dimension to the 13-year-old Wisconsin sexual predator law or merely highlights one of many factors already considered in determining the likelihood of sex offenders striking again.Michael Monyelle's lawyer, Steven Prifogle, said...

Washington was rocked -- ROCKED -- this week when it was revealed that Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, is a practicing heterosexual. The news came as part of a larger bombshell, as Vitter’s name was revealed to be on the client list of the so-called “D.C. Madam” (who is apparently not Nancy Pelosi, by the way, but a physical prostitute.) Vitter, obviously unfamiliar with how to react when one’s sexual identity is made public, immediately apologized and foolishly focused on the paying-for-sex aspect of the whole affair. He also used the word “sin,” which at the time that this...

Consider three criminal cases. No. 1: Christopher Newsom and his girlfriend, Channon Christian, both students at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, were carjacked while on a dinner date in January, repeatedly raped (both of them), tortured, and killed. His burned body was found near a railroad track. Hers was stuffed into a trash can. Five suspects have been charged. The crimes were interracial. No. 2: Three white Duke lacrosse players were accused in March 2006 of beating, kicking, choking, and gang-raping an African-American stripper, while pelting her with racial epithets, during a team party. No. 3: Sam Hays bumped...

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift on Friday morning complained, as many liberals have this week, that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has drained all the independence out of his office, that he's acting too much like the president's "personal lawyer." In 1993, when Janet Reno announced the mass dismissal of all 93 U.S. Attorneys, no one demanded her resignation for her lack of independence from the White House. In fact, it could be because someone else was coordinating with the White House on how to run the Justice Department, the felonious one-man Webster Hubbell. At that time, the Wall Street Journal editorial page...

Barack Obama's presidential campaign Wednesday defended two investments he made right after his election to the Senate, saying he was unaware of the stock purchases at the time and did nothing to directly aid either company in its business before the federal government. The two companies — AVI Biopharma and Skyterra Communications — were backed by some top donors to Obama's political committees. Obama purchased $5,000 in shares for AVI, which was developing a drug to treat avian flu. Two weeks after buying the stock, Obama pushed for more federal funding to fight the disease, but company officials said they...

Acceptance of a double standard has always been a sign of inferiority. To let someone behave according to one set of principles or values while demanding that you be subjected to others is to validate a claim of superiority that justifies the inconsistent and unfair behavior. A double standard can also reflect incoherent thinking, a failure to apply consistently a principle that presumably has universal validity. In the West’s struggle with Islamic jihad, doubts about the superiority of Western values have coupled with a breakdown in ethical reasoning. The result is the appeasement of jihadist aggression and the confirmation of...

SEN. BIDEN SHOCK INTERVIEW: OBAMA FIRST 'CLEAN' BLACK IN MAINSTREAM... 'I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy'...

Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) was in the news recently for saying some things that he wished he hadn't said. Presumably intending to compliment Barack Obama, Biden made some remarks that were patronizing, at best. I salute him. Why? Do I approve of making thoughtless remarks about African-Americans? Of course not. Do I think he should have thought before he spoke? You bet. But I admire him for what he didn't do. After saying something stupid and embarrassing and potentially harmful to his career, he didn't run off to a rehab center. Biden took responsibility for his actions, didn't blame them...

Pinochet tortured and murdered. His legacy is Latin America's most successful country. In the past 15 years, Chile's economy has grown at twice the regional average, and its poverty rate has been halved. It's leaving behind the developing world, where all of its neighbors remain mired. It also has a vibrant democracy... Like it or not, Mr. Pinochet had something to do with this success. To the dismay of every economic minister in Latin America, he introduced the free-market policies that produced the Chilean economic miracle -- and that not even Allende's socialist successors have dared reverse. He also accepted...

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who wants to be president, made a big mistake the other day. No, I'm not referring to his use of the term "tar baby" in front of Iowa Republicans last weekend. I'm referring to his subsequent apology.

When liberals start caterwauling about civility, it reminds me of when my kids were young. When my daughter Anna was 5 and my son, Jonathan was 4, World War III broke out in our household at least once a day. Anna’s modus operandi, as she explained it to her grandfather, was: “I hit Jonathan. He hits me. Then I tell Mommy.” In essence, that’s the liberals’ civility scam: They hit us. We hit back. Then their media lap dogs begin howling about incivility and yapping about the decline of gentility in the political debate (which, if I’m not mistaken, started...

Liberals like to claim that GW Bush is trapped in a quagmire in Iraq. However, when it comes to being captive to irrational thinking, no one can top liberals. Consider, please, the liberal position on several current issues and the quagmire such thinking produces: *Rising gasoline prices are devastating to working Americans,but protecting obscure organisms at the bottom of the food chain is of greater concern. Which is why drilling for oil & adding refining capacity are unacceptable. * Large profits are obscenely un-American, except when it comes to George Soros, Oprah Winfrey and other liberals. *Illegal aliens deserve driver’s...

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The Congress has received lots of free advice lately from Mexican government officials and illegal aliens waving Mexico's flag in mass demonstrations coast-to-coast. Most of it takes the form of bitter complaints about our actual or prospective treatment of immigrants from that country who have gotten into this one illegally — or who aspire to do so. If you think these critics are mad about US immigration policy now, imagine how upset they would be if we adopted an approach far more radical than the bill they rail against which was adopted last year by the House of Representatives —...

The Intolerance of the Intolerants By Lori Lowenthal Marcus In dozens of recent articles in media sources around the world, a Jewish human rights group is being accused of gross insensitivity. The Simon Wiesenthal Center is building a Museum of Tolerance in the center of West Jerusalem. Muslim leaders are outraged, they wail to all who will listen, because the site being excavated is on what was once the Mamilla Cemetery. They contend, and few journalists question, that Mamilla is an ancient and sacred Muslim cemetery. Who could resist such a story - the intolerance of a Jewish Museum of...

Egyptian Sandmonkey has scanned images of Egyptian newspaper Al Faqr—who published the infamous cartoons of blasphemy last October, at the height of Ramadan, with not a single squeak of outrage. (Hat tip: Solomonia.)

Rocky Mountain News   To print this page, select File then Print from your browser URL: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/speak_out/article/0,2777,DRMN_23970_4404152,00.html Speakout: Public schools given too many protections in sex abuse casesBy Suann Malone MaierJanuary 21, 2006State legislators are back in session. As a mother and a teacher, I have a suggestion for them. Every day my husband and I put our 15-year-old son Dan on the bus to his public school. Over the years, Dan's had many wonderful teachers. Most of the adults he meets at his public school, in sports and at our local church treat him with kindness. We're grateful....

MOSCOW, Dec 20 (Reuters) - He is 29 years old, bearded, exhorts his troops to fight in the name of Allah and speaks Russian with a heavy Chechen accent. Not long ago, that would have perfectly described one of Moscow's most bitter foes. But now, while his former comrades-in-arms dodge troops in the Chechen mountains, Ramzan Kadyrov is a hero of Russia, a frequent guest of President Vladimir Putin and regional leader of the pro-Kremlin political party. Kadyrov is officially deputy prime minister of Chechnya but observers say the Kremlin has made him de facto leader -- something, they add,...

The Pentagon has acknowledged five instances in which guards or interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility handled the Koran in a way that would offend some who believe it the revealed word of Allah. Three cases are said to have been deliberate and two unintentional. Amnesty International has put the United States high on the list of countries it says are guilty of prisoner and human-rights abuses because of its treatment of suspected terrorists. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers rebutted the notion of inappropriate treatment of detainees last weekend when he told Fox News Sunday...

It was as plain as black and white. It was a hate crime. When 30 black teenagers from Marine Park Middle School, most of them girls, chased five white girls from St. Edmund's off a Marine Park basketball court and across a Brooklyn street - punching, kicking, slapping, pulling hair and screaming, "honky bitches," "black power" and "white crackers" - it was a racial attack. It was about hate. Police officers who responded to the scene on March 30, at approximately 4 p.m., arrested five blacks. They were charged with simple assault. Two of the white girls were treated at...

Why do so many women insist on carrying out this war against men? Absolute gender equality isn't going to happen; we have gender equality now. Even if in a million years, men and women somehow made this unrealistic ideal happen, there will always be a sexual distinction between men and women causing some sort of inequality (if only on the level of basic physical needs). Or should I say women and men, as not to imply a male superiority? Why the hell should people go out of their way to be politically correct and use this "he/she" nonsense so a...

Betsy Hoffman's self-serving and phony warning about "McCarthyism" at CU - in the middle of what should be an impartial investigation of Ward Churchill - was disgraceful. But if the University of Colorado president needs a genuine case of discrimination at her school, here's one: CU professor Phil Mitchell's class certainly isn't as melodramatic as our man Ward Churchill's. How could it be? Surely, it's a complete riot taking one of Churchill's classes. Deciphering the feckless professor's swirling quasi-intellectual gibberish is entertaining enough as a citizen; I can't imagine how a student feels. Mitchell never refers to "actions" or "trigger...

When a friend told coach Stu Gorski in 1995 that Mount Adams School District had hired "a phenomenal wrestling coach," Gorski froze. "Tell me you didn't hire Randy Deming," he pleaded. The district had. Gorski, a football and golf coach in Whatcom County, knew Deming for years as a rival coach at nearby Blaine High School. Gorski also knew of Deming's reputation as a groper of girls who had even been charged with child molestation. When Gorski learned Deming would also be teaching girls, he warned: "You're putting him back into the fire." GORDON KING / YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC Randy Deming...