Free Republic

Tuesday marks the six month anniversary of Republican Ted Cruz’s election to the United States Senate, but rather than the traditional honeymoon, the liberal media have gone on the attack against the Tea Party hero and emerging 2016 presidential candidate and his conservative beliefs. In their own liberal grassroots circles, leftists have even gone as far to openly hope for Cruz’s death, as the Daily Kos screeched: “Give this man enough rope and a tree, please.”  When former Bill Clinton political strategist James Carville, on Sunday, actually credited Cruz for being “talented and fearless,” it marked a rare moment when...

On Election Day in South Carolina, as Republican Mark Sanford seeks to regain his old congressional seat, Mika Brzezinski did her best to stop Joe Scarborough from mentioning an ugly slur that the Chairman of the state's Democratic party had made against Republican Governor Nikki Haley. SC Dem Chairman Dick Harpootlian was caught in controversy this week as he pledged to send Haley--daughter of Indian immigrants--"back to wherever the hell she came from.” According to the Morning Joe panel, Harpootlian has apologized for that remark. But Harpootlian has never apologized for his 2012 remark, comparing Haley with Adolf Hitler's mistress...

It doesn’t matter whether you’re on the far left, far right or somewhere in the middle, there is absolutely no denying the rise of the tea party has altered America’s political landscape. And the elite media is making clear, in no uncertain terms, they despise this type of change. Last week, Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) voted against the Schumer-Toomey gun bill because her constituents were opposed to the bill. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, former lawmaker Joe Scarborough and his sidekick Mika Brzezinski lit into her: MIKA: She is defending her vote saying her office was flooded with calls from constituents...

As per his 1994 NRA questionnaire, Joe Scarborough: Opposed an assault weapons ban. Opposed expansion of background checks. Opposed limitations on magazine sizes. Today, he supports all such measures. So how would you describe his two very different sets of opinions? Why, as being "very consistent," of course--if you're Joe Scarborough. On today's Morning Joe, responding to the NRA's promulgation of the NRA questionnaire he submitted in 1994 as an aspiring Republican congressman, Scarborough did indeed claim that his positions today, despite the multiple flip-flops, are "very consistent." View the video here.

Joe Scarborough has dropped the f-word on live TV. But does he dare drop the I-word: Islam? On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough to his credit rejected the maudlin pseudo-introspection of those [including panelist Richard Haass] who would somehow blame America's failure to integrate the Tsarnaev brothers into society for their decision to bomb the Boston Marathon. Scarborough didn't hesitate to call the Tsarnaevs "evil beasts." Instead of blaming society, Scarborough blamed the brothers' "evil" and "radicalism." But Scarborough stopped short of naming the radicalism for what it is: radical Islam. View the video here.

"Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough reamed into Senate Republicans and four Democrats who voted against the passage of a bill expanding background checks. Particularly targeting Republicans, Scarborough said that the party was "moving toward extinction." "You do not ignore 90 percent of the American people on an issue of public safety," Scarborough said, citing poll numbers that consistently showed nine in 10 respondents supporting the measure. "Mark it down — this is going to be a turning point in the history of the Republican Party as well," he added. "And let those out there chattering, let them chatter away all...

Oh irony, oh hypocrisy! Joe Scarborough opened today's Morning Joe by singing the praises of NBC's Pete Williams for not jumping onto the story that other news outlets were reporting yesterday that an arrest had been made in the Boston Marathon bombing. Scarborough condemned journalists "far more interested in getting it first than getting it right." But mere minutes later, Scarborough accused former Republican congressman Chris Cox of "lying," in his role as NRA spokesman. Just one problen, as Scarborough had to admit later in the show: he had the wrong Chris Cox. Check back soon for the video.

Credit Joe Scarborough not just for devoting a significant Morning Joe segment to the Gosnell abortion-murder trial today--but for declaring that he will have a reporter covering the trial--Joe Slobodzian of the Philadelphia Inquirer--back again tomorrow and throughout the week. Ed Rendell—who was governor of Pennsylvania from 2003-10 while many of the horrors unfolded and the clinic went uninspected—was on today's Morning Joe panel. Scarborough questioned Rendell as to how this could have happened on his watch. Rendell claimed he knew nothing of the goings-on in the abortion clinic, that it was a question of bureaucratic bungling, and that he...

With his penchant for ripping Republicans rather than Democrats, Joe Scarborough likely long ago ruined his chances of winning a Republican primary. But the Morning Joe host today jokingly acknowledged how particularly tough it would now be, after Harry Reid yesterday approvingly quoted him on the Senate floor. Ever since Newton, Scarborough has been waging a daily campaign for gun control, repeatedly scourging Republicans for their opposition to President Obama's proposals. Quoth Reid: "Scarborough tears into GOP filibuster on gun bill, and I quote, 'is anybody awake in my party?'" View the video here.

Sheesh! Talk about hyper hypocrisy!  Today on Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough slammed Quentin Taratino as a "pornographer of violence." Too bad Joe didn't have even a small fraction of such moral outrage yesterday when he and the Morning Joe crew allowed Robert Redford to ramble on and on promoting his new movie "The Company You Keep" which glorified Weathermen murderers. Watch the video below the fold but the viewer will wonder at what point in Redford's long spiel that Scarborough or anyone else on his show challenges Redford on the fact that his movie gives sympathetic treatment to the murderers...

Campbell Brown appeared on today's Morning Joe to promote her campaign against violence in entertainment media. But while she made some solid suggestions, it was Joe Scarborough who took matters a quantum leap further, calling Quentin Tarantino "a pornographer of violence." In line with her op-ed in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Brown criticized President Obama, post Newtown, for focusing almost exclusively on gun control while largely ignoring the issue of violence in media. She encouraged him to pull a Sister Souljah/Nixon-to-China and use his extraordinary ties with Hollywood to bring pressure on media makers to deal with the extreme violence...

Does Mika Brzezinski see Barack Obama as the Messiah? Mika dismissed the notion, but Joe Scarborough had a very different point of view. As today's Morning Joe rolled live footage of President Obama's arrival in Tel Aviv, former Bush foreign policy advisor Dan Senor couldn't help sarcastically observing "the Messiah has returned to Israel." Mika Brzezinski feigned to dismiiss the notion, asking: "are you kidding me?" Retorted Joe Scarborough: "no, he's channeling you." View the video here.

Five days ago, this NewsBuster wrote that Harold Ford, Jr. "seems more interested in cultivating friends and avoiding offense than in saying anything interesting." On Morning Joe that day, Ford had managed to praise a trio of pols, even breaking out the old "my dear friend" line to describe one of them. When Ford employed the same shtick on today's show, Joe Scarborough eventually had enough, sarcastically asking Ford whether there's anyone he doesn't "like and respect." This morning, Ford variously praised "the great Tip O'Neill", said he has "great respect" for Patty Murray, and even professed "I like Paul...

Call her MoveOn.Mika . . . Bob Woodward has demonstrated that President Obama was not telling the truth when during the third presidential debate he flatly stated "the sequester is not something that I've proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed.” In fact, it was two Obama aides who devised the plan, and Obama himself who approved it. But when Joe Scarborough wanted to get those facts on the record this morning, Mika Brzezinski repeatedly declared that discussing Obama's failure to tell the truth was "silly." Things got heated between the co-hosts at one point as Mika cut Joe...

The trashing of Ted Cruz continues apace in the bien-pensant MSM. From the New York Times, to the Washington Post, to Politico and elsewhere, the liberal media has the new Republican Senator from Texas in its sights. Joe Scarborough is clearly camped out on the Cruz-bashing bandwagon. Earlier this month, so offended was the sensitive Scarborough by Cruz that he wouldn't deign to mention him by name. Today, not to be outdone by Frank Bruni, who called Cruz "an ornery, swaggering piece of work," Scarborough declared that Cruz acts like "a carnival barker at a Republican event." View the video...

"I'm going to get in trouble for saying this," said a prescient Joe Scarborough. Less than an hour after delivering a devastating take-down of the Obama economic record that surely pleased many conservatives, Scarborough made remarks about Marco Rubio that are bound to outrage many of the same folks. Commenting on Marco Rubio's response to the State of the Union, Scarborough declared that Rubio "is not ready to be President of the United States" and that "Republicans pushing him out there are making a big mistake." View the video here.

In just 58 seconds, Joe Scarborough has rendered an imagined response to last night's SOTU demolishing President Obama's failed economic record. Delivered on today's Morning Joe, Scarborough scalded PBO's pitiful performance on the economy. Highlights from the Hall of Shame: four million more Americans out of work today than when Barack Obama became President; average income down 5% since the end of the recession. View the video here.

Ronald Reagan: RINO? Cokie Roberts and Joe Scarborough have suggested the Gipper might be viewed that way by the modern-day Republican party, making him unelectable within GOP ranks. After Joe Scarborough said that it was Reagan who rounded up Republican support for the assault weapons ban in 1984, Roberts exclaimed "I'm not sure Reagan could get elected within the Republican party today." Scarborough concurred: "I don't know that he could." View the video here.

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" Time for Joe Scarborough to brush up on the Sermon on the Mount? On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough gloated at length over survey results indicating that the public's trust in Fox News has declined and that PBS is the only network that more people trust than distrust. But he conveniently failed to mention that Fox News remains the network that more people trust than any other . . . and that his own MSNBC trails way—way!—behind Fox...

Ted Cruz (R., Texas) has been a United States senator for only 34 days, but already he is making his mark on national politics. His conspicuous presence and aggressive tone have thrilled his conservative cheerleaders, while inducing fits of rage in liberal detractors and Joe Scarborough. In the past week alone, Cruz has tangled with veteran Democratic spin-master Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) on Meet the Press, sent a tongue-in-cheek letter to Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, introduced legislation to fully repeal Obamacare, and recorded “no” votes on major items, including Hurricane Sandy relief, raising the debt ceiling, filibuster reform, and...