Free Republic

Political blogger Andrew Sullivan has made an endorsement among this year’s ever-thinning field crop of GOP presidential contenders, and it’s none other than Ron Paul. On his Daily Beast blog “The Dish,” Sullivan writes that, initially, he had his eye on Jon Huntsman, praising for the former governor of Utah’s tax reform proposals and his experience with foreign relations (particularly where China is concerned, as well as his level-headed approach and — as Sullivan puts it — his “conservative position” when it comes to global warming. However, Sullivan has been less than enthused with what he describes as Huntsman’s “mediocre...

If you read this blog you’re probably interested in the work we do here — want to join us? The Interactive News team has immediate openings for contract and freelance positions. We’re looking for people with HTML/CSS/JavaScript or Ruby/Rails skills. These range from short-term, discrete projects to months-long contract opportunities. You’ll be embedded with the Interactive News team in the newsroom working alongside our developers on projects for NYTimes.com. While we can’t tell you the exact projects, here’s a sample of our recent work: Last March we put together an interactive ballot and live second screen dashboard for the Oscars....

If I’d told you three years ago that conservatives would be leading the left in the realm of online politics, I would have been laughed out of the room. Now we’re dominating so thoroughly that the left is running scared — literally. One of the key drivers of the left’s online dominance used to be the Netroots Nation Convention, an annual gathering of several thousand left-wing bloggers. Started in 2006, the convention provides attendees with networking opportunities and trains them to more effectively organize and mobilize “progressives” through the Internet. Realizing that conservatives had some catching up to do, and...

So the KOmmies of Daily Kos just held their annual NUtroots Nation convention this past weekend. This one was held in Minneapolis. Just think: Five years ago, NUtroots Nation was held in Las Vegas, where potential presidential candidates hosted fancy soirées for the KOmmies, complete with chocolate fountains and impressive ice sculptures. Now this year, the KOmmies are in Minneapolis, they're stuck with Obama, and no one is lining up to buy their votes. How the mighty have fallen! From chocolate fountains to lutefisk. From ice sculptures to ice fishing. And worst of all, from Obamassiah to Bush Lite....

The fallout from the Trig Palin firestorm at Wonkette forced editor Ken Layne to pull Jack Stuef's hateful piece on Sarah Palin's 3-year old son. Major companies like Papa Johns, Huggies, Bob Evans, and Nordstroms pulled their ads after a large contingent of informed citizens made their voices heard. Before the reversal, AT's Rick Moran wondered where all the protest was on the part of Layne's cronies: Where's Think Progress on this scandal? Or Digby? Or Steve Benen? Or Jane Hamsher? Or Kos? Or any other liberal blogger who can find the time to trash the right for even the...

For the last several days, Twitter has been all aflutter with stories about a supposedly horrific attack on Trig Palin by the liberal website Wonkette. After seeing the uproar on Twitter, I remember thinking to myself, “Could this column from Wonkette attacking Trig (on his third birthday) really be as bad as everyone says?” Well, I decided to take a look at the infamous column in question and I am here to tell you that, yes, the column is just God-awful and offensive to anyone who doesn’t suffer from terminal tackiness. For example, here is the first paragraph from this...

Enough already! I have had it with the sickening attacks on Trig Palin! First the partisan blogger, Wonkette, made extremely offensive, and stupid remarks about Trig. Next, the not-funny comic, CK Louis makes an obscene, gut-churning rant about Trig and his beleaguered mom, Sarah Palin. In his attempt to lampoon, he spews so much bile that the piece is unwatchable. These are bottom-of-the-barrel, dregs-of-the-earth, examples of junk media in America. There seems to be an agreed-upon rule among these hacks that it is okay to disparage a child and his disability simply because his mother is a controversial political figure....

As NewsBusters reported Thursday, the liberal website Wonkette has lost a significant number of advertisers following its disgraceful article about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's handicapped son Trig. The Daily Beast's Andrew Sullivan, who for years has claimed like so many Trig Truthers that Bristol Palin is the child's real mother, expressed disappointment Saturday that companies pulled their ads as a result of this piece: "I feel as queasy about this flexing of Palinite muscle as I do about the original, disgusting, asinine story. In some ways, I see a legitimate come-uppance for a tacky site that published a simply...

The problem with the Sarah Palin dialogue that's gone on in this country since 2008 is that people either want to smear and destroy her, or viciously attack anybody who doesn’t adore her. That’s exactly why I’ve steered clear of it. But once folks start bringing people’s special needs children into the mix… It’s time to start putting the stamp on some elitist bastards. The topic of Sarah Palin has been open season to the media, entertainment industry and club comics alike. Unlike the propped up golden family in the white house, the Hollywood establishment has deemed the doggy pile-on...

On Monday, the editor of left-leaning political satire site Wonkette wrote a piece titled "Greatest Living American: A Children’s Treasury of Trig Crap On His Birthday." The piece lampooned what's known as the "cult of Trig," the rabid fans of Sarah Palin's Down Syndrome youngest child, and accused Palin of using her now three-year-old son as a prop. Needless to say, many readers were offended by Jack Stuef's post and an online movement started to defund Wonkette by targeting its advertisers. The problem is that Wonkette has a lot of contextual ads, creating a headache for brands targeted in the...

Know what doesn't go over well with advertisers? Making fun of disabled children. On April 18, political blog Wonkette published a post titled "Greatest Living American: A Children's Treasury of Trig Crap On His Birthday" (none of which we will quote here). Trig, for those who don't remember, is Sarah Palin's youngest son, who has Down Syndrome. The initial response to this "celebration" of Trig's birthday was limited to comments getting in on the action, contributing the sort of jokes that would make Gilbert Gottfried proud. But then, according to Slate's David Weigel, conservative bloggers stumbled across it and the...

Political Discourse: Once again the hypocritical left racially attacks an African-American Republican who happens to be conservative and capitalist. Visible symbols exposing the big lie of a racist GOP must be destroyed. The age of civility, like the era of post-racial politics, is a mirage created by liberals to mute criticism of their policies by committed conservatives. Otherwise, we wouldn't see the continued abuse heaped by liberals on women and minorities who dare to be conservative, members of the Tea Party or the GOP, or all of the above. The latest example of leftist vitriol has Herman Cain, former CEO...

Sarah Palin should receive immediate Secret Service Protection if she runs for President.            Jesse Jackson got early Secret Service protection when he ran for President. Obama asked for and got early Secret Service protection  in the last election. They should do the same for Sarah Palin.  Do I think there is a great risk to her life? Yes I do. I used to worry about it a little. But now I worry about it a lot.  Top people in the Democratic Party and the media  were quick to call Palin a racist during the last election.  And that planted...

With all the talk about what Keith Olbermann’s move to Current TV means for Keith, the bigger question is what it means for Current. If you’re to believe the network’s chairman Al Gore, it means a lot. Gore gave an interview to The Wrap in which he claimed that, ever since yesterday’s announcement, people have already begun looking for the channel. After talking about Olbermann’s passion and “formidable intelligence,” Gore was asked what impact Olbermann was making on the network’s subscriber numbers. From The Wrap: “Do you think he’ll create a groundswell of people asking their cable providers to make...

How is that civility holding up? Daily Kos, the disgraced liberal website, is angry over House Republicans voting to repeal ObamaCare. So much so that they are doing away with supposed "civility" and are instead aiming to attack Republicans. In this mass forwarded email, obtained by Pundit Press, Daily Kos (and those affiliated with it) lays out its plan to attack Republicans. Daily Kos is calling the plan "Repeal This." Here is the email in its entirety below (username obscured to preserve anonymity):

the wake of the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and the shooting of more than 20 others in Tucson today, fellow Arizona Democrat Rep. Raul Grijalva denounced a political environment poisoned by "anger, hatred, and division." In a phone interview with Mother Jones, Grijalva called the assault "horrible and unbelievable and shocking….It's hard to explain and really difficult to comprehend." Grijalva—who was also the recent target of violent threats—went on to blame the polarized political climate for creating an atmosphere that fueled violence: We never entered [politics] believing that we were taking our lives in our hands...we're feeding...

The father of shot American congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has said that her political stance made her many enemies. Miss Giffords, a Democrat congresswoman, was shot in the head during a public meeting in Tucson, Arizona. A lone gunman, described by witnesses as being a white man in his late teens or early twenties, fired into a crowd gathered for a "Congress in your Corner" event outside a supermarket. Her father Spencer Giffords, 75, wept when asked if his 40-year-old daughter had any enemies. "Yeah," he told The New York Post. "The whole tea party." Miss Giffords had been named in...

Some prominent liberal bloggers wasted little time before politicizing the horrific and tragic shooting of a congresswoman in Arizona on Saturday. Almost immediately after the nation learned of the shooting of Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and several others (including a federal judge), a few prominent liberal web writers sought to blame Sarah Palin and other conservatives for the action. Linking to a map of U.S. House districts that Sarah Palin's pac wanted to "target" during the 2010 mid-term elections -- which sadly included crosshairs over Rep. Giffords' district (among others) -- DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas Tweeted, "Mission accomplished, Sarah...

Why is it that Obama says he believes in compromise, yet never does so with the Left? This is certainly a question liberals and progressives are increasingly asking, with some now taking action to oppose Obama. Obama's proposed tax cut deal (which he made privately with Republicans without even consulting Democratic leadership) has ignited a firestorm of protest from liberals and progressives who view the tax cuts as yet another serious betrayal by Obama of what he promised while campaigning. In what could be a harbinger of protest to come, some well-known leftists have signed An Open Letter to the...

In April of 2009, Huffington Post blogger and Columbia professor David Epstein wrote an editorial entitled “It’s the Abuse of Trust, Stupid.” Ironically, the same Huffington Post blogger and Columbia professor was recently arrested for having sex with his 24 year old daughter. Mr. Epstein’s editorials for the Huffington Post covered a wide range of topics from Dick Cheney and torture to Sarah Palin and the 2008 election cycle. His posts are full of leftist vitriol and sanctimonious drivel. He is a Columbia professor, after all. Mr. Epstein’s articles are good for such biting rhetoric as “so when Dick (aptly...

Comrades! Thanks to the vigilance of the People’s Kosmittee, the Democratic Peoples’ Underground Guard and other proletarian heroes, we have identified dangerous counter-revolutionary treason in our midst! It is with sadness and personal disappointment that I must denounce Barack Obama. It has come to light that “Comrade” Obama has abused his position as Leader, Premier and Party Chancellor to sell out our revolutionary aspirations in unauthorized, secretive negotiations with the enemies of the people’s democracy.

Is he going to give it all away?Are we going back to the Reagan years? Quick, are we still fighting someone in Central America? This president has spent a lot of time talking about what he inherited from the town moron, but little time actually listening to the real people who put him where he sits today. From what I can see he sits in a chair called compromise. That's the chair in which he does all the compromising while the other side agees to release funds for unemployment checks - which they had to do anyhow, or the retailers...

Good lord. Is The One starting to direct some of the same condescending nonsense he aimed at voters during the campaign back at … his own base? This sounds a bit like his now infamous stump speech about people not thinking clearly in preferring the GOP. “I know that there’s some folks who are angry about it,” he said. “They are confused about the extensions on the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and there are policy and political objections. Some people are saying, ‘Well, did we fight hard enough for our position? Did we position ourselves properly on this?’”...

Mark Mousilitas, Owner of Daily Kos, posted this screed on DAILY KOS about 30 minutes ago. Even the crazy nutroots are getting it now!! Join me in revelling as the insane realize what a failure Obama has been!! "Summer of 2009, Democratic lawmakers were swarmed by phone callers and town hall attendees by the then-nascent teabagger movement, furious at the creeping socialism of a government-run health insurance option. You see, Republicans were so worried that the government-run program would be so efficient, effective, and affordable that it would drive the private insurers out of business. And their teabagger allies rose...

Dan Rather warned today on MSNBC that a deal to extend all of the current tax hikes would create a demand for a primary challenge to Barack Obama from the Left in 2012. Big progressive contributors to the Democratic Party have already concluded that Obama won’t fight for his principles, Rather told the “Lean Forward” network, and that the Bush-era tax rates would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Actually, Rather offers a more complicated down-homish colorful metaphor, but essentially says that the Left is so shocked, shocked! that this lifetime backbencher provides no leadership that they will...

MoveOn is not happy with our President. See, they “miss” the tough-talking candidate of 2008 who was going to close Guantanamo Bay, restore our standing in the world, and, most importantly, stick it to those awful rich people who make more than $250,000 a year. Their upset has reached the point that they’ve written a letter imploring their members to ask the President not to go all wobbly moderate on them and be the progressive champion he claimed he was during the election. Dear MoveOn member, Remember Barack Obama in 2008? The guy who refused to go along with a...

Bristol Palin's head-scratching elevation to the finals of Dancing With the Stars is still triggering outraged cries of indignation and vote-rigging (and a shotgun blasted TV set), with several critics charging that Tea Partiers used fake email addresses to flood the ballot box in favor of the chief grizzly's cub. "Who knows if the process is ideal?" said the program's executive producer. . "But the voting is exactly the same" as it's always been, he added. "I wish they could take a deep breath and get some perspective." Network officials are standing by the vote results. Safeguards exist to prevent...

It's been widely reported that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel will soon leave to run for mayor of Chicago. The White House is said to be unhappy with the timing of Mayor Daley's announcement that he will not seek reelection, but they should be thrilled. Emanuel's reputation as an iron-fisted dictator has probably, on balance, been helpful to President Obama's agenda, but the progressive left, Obama's natural supporters, have been unhappy with Emanuel's willingness to cut unsavory deals with Republicans who will never support the president. The biggest problem facing Democrats in the 2010 midterms is that their...

Yesterday Maureen Dowd devoted an entire column to why her Republican sister is angry that she voted for Obama: "One of the independent voters Obama will be trying to charm over the next two years is my sister, Peggy, a formerly ardent Obamican (a Republican who changed spots to vote for Obama). Disillusioned with her beloved W. over Iraq and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and the disdain for bipartisanship, she gave her affections — and small cash infusions — to Barack Obama in 2008. Despite being a Washington native, Peggy believed that the dazzling young newcomer could change Washington....

In the ‘old days’ of the Bush administration, life in a online liberal discussion forum was great. Everybody was having a great time bashing the president and marveling at each other’s brilliance. But in the age of Obama, these once fertile fields of partisan rancor have been tainted by ideological dissent.The latest news from Democratic Underground (DU) is a perfect example of what’s happening to the left online.Earlier this year, the moderators of DU angered users of the forum after they issued a lengthy “censored list” of online behavior that would be banned and deleted from the site. Now, matters...

IN THE PAST two years, there was perhaps no more anticipated speech than the inaugural address given by President Obama in January 2009. One can still recall the excitement of a new president – a new generation taking the mantle of national leadership. Hope and change. The festivities. The symbolism. And it all took place on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday no less. Many were waiting for a "come with me to the mountaintop" speech, an inspiring oration like the one that Obama gave at Grant Park on election night or at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. It was...

By Michael D. Shear and Philip Rucker Monday, August 2, 2010; 2:33 PM Democrats in Austin are throwing a Hawaiian-style luau Wednesday, complete with "tropical fruit, deserts and side dishes." There's a "presidential potluck" in Phoenix and a "49 Candles for America" party in Des Moines. And the official Organizing for America iPad app is calling on all Americans to pull out their old 2008 campaign paraphernalia -- "YES WE CAN! YES WE WILL!" the app says -- and wear it proudly Wednesday. The reason: President Obama turns 49. In need of an enthusiasm transfusion, the president's political operation is...

Sarah Palin may be more unpopular than ever before, but if she chooses to run for the Republican nomination in the 2012 presidential race, she can at least count on bipartisan support. In fact, according to a straw poll at this year’s Netroots Nation -- the massive progressive bacchanal held last weekend in Las Vegas -- a substantial plurality of conference attendees wants the half-term Alaskan governor to be President Obama’s general election opponent. It’s not hard to figure out why: Even Obama’s harshest critics on the left almost unanimously favor him against any possible Republican challenger, and Palin’s candidacy...

Las Vegas -- Former White House green jobs "czar" Van Jones told progressive activists and bloggers today that, rather than bash President Obama for not changing the country as fast as they'd thought, they should maintain hope and help him with his agenda. "I can't stand it. President Obama volunteered to be the captain of the Titanic after it hit the iceberg," Jones said at Netroots Nation while being interviewed by journalist Ari Melber of The Nation. (Follow our live coverage here.) Jones, who resigned last year after conservatives targeted him as an extreme leftist, refrained from any Obama-slamming of...

Obama to Netroots Nation: ‘Let’s Finish What We’ve Started’ It wasn’t lost on the 2,100 liberal activists gathered in Las Vegas at Netroots Nation for the annual four-day confab that the only Obama administration official who made the trip this time was Treasury Secretary Ray LaHood—a Republican. But in a surprise video message this morning, President Barack Obama sought to rally his progressive base. “We’re moving America forward and when we’ve come this far we can’t afford to slide backward,” Obama said, “Let’s finish what we’ve started.”

LAS VEGAS -- Even before the annual Netroots Nation conference opened here Thursday, the committee responsible for electing Democratic governors issued a direct appeal to liberal activists designed to fire them up for the 2010 midterm elections. Hundreds of progressive bloggers and activists are descending on Las Vegas for a four-day event, which is the last big gathering of liberals before the November elections. Democratic officials see Netroots Nation as an opportunity to rally the party's left flank and help close the sizeable gap in enthusiasm between Democrats and emboldened Republicans. Some of the party's top operatives are scheduled to...

Europe still worships him and Washington Obamatrons remain smitten, but former supporters are turning on the President...

The left-wing blogosphere hates Elena Kagan. Really. The venom percolating up from the depths of the nutroots is getting pretty toxic. For the most part, the right-wing blogosphere is sitting back and enjoying how people like Glenn Greenwald are tripping all over themselves to attack Kagan before right-wingers get a chance to do so: Digby examines what a Kagan selection would reveal about Obama, and she particularly focuses on Kagan's relationship to Goldman Sachs... But by far the most noxious attack on Kagan is the charge that Kagan was not committed to diversity because she did not hire a single...

The D.C. Court of Appeals today issued a ruling that stated that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) does not have the authority to regulate internet traffic, thus putting a huge roadblock in front of the Net Neutrality movement. One of the centerpieces of the Nutroots’ agenda, Net Neutrality (like many liberal ideas) is a concept that sounds good and reasonable at first, but in reality is just another excuse to give the government more power. In brief, Net Neutrality is the prinicple that Internet ISPs should not discriminate on the type of traffic that it allows on its site. Again,...

<p>Two of the most popular liberal news sites are calling for violence against Republicans for obstructing the radical agenda of Barack Obama.</p> <p>CNN and Huffington Post have each published op-eds this week by regular contributors with headlines that explicitly call for Barack Obama to use violent gangland tactics against his political opponents.</p>

On Sunday, ABC’s This Week became pretty intense at one point, when president of Fox News Channel Roger Ailes and Huffington Post boss Arianna Huffington went at it over Fox News host Glenn Beck’s style of broadcasting. (transcript and video below):

The other day I received an email from a friend who had heard some false and malicious attacks against the Tea Party Express. He was concerned and wrote me to ask about it because I've been a part of the Tea Party Express since its inception last year. When I was talking to the rest of our team about this email I found out that most everyone else had been approached by someone asking them similar questions about a whole range of rumors, accusations, allegations, smears and mischaracterizations of what we at the Tea Party Express are supposedly about. Seems...

The Plain Dealer had reported that a traveling nurse named Barbara Brooks owned up to the letters. Brooks told the newspaper that Steward is her husband, and that while he denied they're still married, she reportedly said he is "making up all kinds of garbage" for fear of being targeted by "right-wing crazies."

How Republicans won the Internet By Mindy Finn and Patrick Ruffini Sunday, January 24, 2010 Scott Brown's supporters became fans of the candidate on Facebook, where they commented on his status updates and uploaded their own photos. The Republican Senate hopeful took to Twitter, using the #masen hashtag to let his followers know how the race was going. His campaign powered its field operation through targeted online ads and Web-based spreadsheets, and raised $12 million from 157,000 individual donations in the last two weeks of the race. After he won last week, his team live-streamed the election-night party in Boston...

The folks at the uber-liberal website Daily Kos are showing their political bias this evening with a new poll claiming Tuesday's special Senate election in Massachusetts is all tied up. What makes this laughable is the Real Clear Politics average -- including the DK poll -- has Republican candidate Scott Brown leading Democrat Martha Coakley by 6.2 points. Here are the most recent poll numbers: Monday, January 18 Race/Topic (Click to Sort) Poll Results Spread Massachusetts Senate - Special Election Politico/InAdv Brown 52, Coakley 43 Brown +9 Massachusetts Senate - Special Election PJM/CrossTarget (R) Brown 52, Coakley 42 Brown +10...

On November 19th, Rush Limbaugh caused a stir when he mentioned PrisonPlanet.com on his radio show and linked to them on his website, touting their article 'With Hurricanes At Thirty Year Low, Gore Turns To Photoshop'. By the end of the day, though, Limbaugh or his handlers had tried to erase all signs of the endorsement, as Paul Joseph Watson pointed out in his article Rush Limbaugh Censors Mention Of Prison Planet From His Own Archives. Watson noted "Any links to the Prison Planet.com story, which were prominently featured all over Limbaugh’s website, have also been deleted and replaced with...

More than 80 percent of Democrats say they believe Sen. Joe Lieberman should be stripped of his chairmanship in the Senate if he ends up supporting a Republican filibuster of health care reform. According to the Huffington Post, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America ordered a study a few days ago, in which they polled over 800 voters. The main question in the poll was whether Lieberman - an Independent who usually caucuses with the Democrats - should lose his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. 81 percent of Democrats responded that they...

This writer (very slightly) knew Arianna Huffington a long time ago when she was … a Newt Gingrich Acolyte. Then Newt’s political star fell and she … reinvented herself. (She wouldn’t remember me; she is perhaps the virtuoso social climber of our generation and I was — and remain — far too small a potato to be of any possible interest to her.) That was back in the days when she was launching the anti-MoveOn.org, Resignation.com, calling for Bill Clinton to resign…. Times change…. Slightly later, I happened to attend a presentation that she made in the process of reinventing...

Not sure if anyone has picked this up yet, but the editors at the Huffington Post have pulled the fake Limbaugh "slavery" quotes from a 2006 Jack Huberman article. Huberman's book was one of the original sources for the fake quotes, apparently picking them up from the wikipedia entry where they first appeared. A note at the beginning of the article now states: Editor's Note: An earlier version of this post contained quotes attributed to Rush Limbaugh, which Limbaugh has since denied making. As is our policy when a fact in a blog post is called into question, we gave...

W.H. aide blasts bloggers: 'Take off their pajamas' By Eric Zimmermann - 10/12/09 10:50 AM ET Liberal bloggers are up in arms over a reported jab from a White House adviser. The uproar began this weekend when NBC's John Harwood, after reporting on a gay rights march in Washington, relayed a dismissive quote from an anonymous administration official. "And for a sign of how seriously the White House does or doesn't take this opposition one adviser told me today those bloggers need to take off their pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and...