Free Republic

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."