Free Republic

.....On September 19, 2001, a story ran in the Hyde Park Herald containing then-State-Senator Barack Obama’s response to the 9/11 tragedy. In this piece (quoted in this article from the New Yorker, under the heading “The Speech”), Obama expresses empathy for the murderers! Not anger, not disdain, not a word of sympathy for the victims. His concern was for the murderers..... Quoting Obama in the Hyde Park Herald: "We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of...

You can edge your way out of Obama’s silly cow script by recognizing that his war is largely based on the big talk of endless, going-nowhere rhetoric. The rhetoric of lecturing an under-duress Israel, a patently useless Obama rhetoric that will never stop Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from defending his own country; the Obama rhetoric of naming the over flooding of the southern US border with illegal aliens as a ‘humanitarian crisis’, without mention that it was a crisis that originates with him; the rhetoric of throwing a safety net via executive order for the protection of all LGBTs that...

...Shonda Rhimes delivered a poignant commencement speech to Dartmouth's graduating class of 2014. And while she admitted to being so nervous she could poop (her words) and completely unqualified to give advice, the Grey's Anatomy and Scandal creator did, in fact, dish out some extremely useful information..... "When people give these kinds of speeches, they usually tell you...Dream and dream big. As a matter of fact, dream and donÂ’t stop dreaming until your dream comes true. I think thatÂ’s crap.... "Whenever you see me somewhere succeeding in one area of my life, that almost certainly means that I am failing...

Are conservatives linguistically challenged? Or are they just naïve enough to think they can win the battle of ideas with — ideas? Okay, and money. Conservatives, like liberals, will spend huge amounts of money this year to get their ideas across to voters. But what they fail to do is bundle their thoughts into a bright, shiny linguistic package that explodes in the face of their enemies when opened. The left has assembled a rich lexicon of phrases that serve either as stilettos that can be turned again and again in the guts of their opponents, or shields that obscure...

US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Russia on Tuesday against any military incursion into eastern Ukraine and likened the "nationalistic fervor" fueled by the Crimea crisis to the build-up before World War II. Any moves by Russia to march into eastern Ukraine "would be as egregious as any step that I can think of that would be taken by a country in today's world, particularly by a country like Russia, where so much is at stake," Kerry said. (SNIP) Kerry said comments from Putin about what was happening in Crimea "just didn't jive with reality or with what's happening...

Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Few events and people have had more words written about them than that day and that man. But, and I have to be honest here, I don’t get it. In fact, I’ve never gotten it. Yes, losing a president to an assassin’s bullet is a traumatic national event, something we’ve fortunately not been through again since – although there have been some close calls. And it’s the one event where everyone over the age of 55 seems to recall exactly where they were when they heard the...

Q. Did President Obama once say of Republicans: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” A: Yes. Obama made those remarks at a fundraiser in Philadelphia during the 2008 presidential campaign. He was paraphrasing a quote from the 1987 mob movie "The Untouchables."

One thing that is sure to never disappoint is the ability of liberals to wage a war of words on their opponents. The master of hateful and spiteful rhetoric is none other than President Obama and he is taking full advantage of the government shutdown to spread said rhetoric through his media lapdogs. I had the occasion to hear some of it on the radio yesterday and I listened in amazement at the way he went after the Republicans. One would think the end of the world is nigh upon us. For his part, I am sure Obama believes he...

The White House, meanwhile, has accused Republicans of holding the budget hostage, demanding ransoms and threatening to burn down the house unless they get what they want. Former Vice President Al Gore accused Republicans Friday of "political terrorism." House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California has called her GOP colleagues "legislative arsonists" in a fundraising email and TV interviews. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., likened them to "anarchists" and "fanatics." When a gunman in Tucson unloaded on Arizonans in 2011, killing six and critically wounding Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, lawmakers from both parties called for a reset in confrontational...

I have been listening to Rubio’s arguments very closely the past few months, closer than most are. I learned that Hispanics are social conservatives who oppose both abortion and gay marriage (although the GOP dropped talk about that second subject anyway, too scared of offending young adults), and that this includes the ‘undocumented’ Hispanics. OK, so if Hispanics are so against Abortion then why do they all seem to flock to Dems and especially Obama? I learned that is because our anti-immigration (aka anti-amnesty, aka anti-illegal) rhetoric is offending them. So as soon as we support amnesty they will mostly...

A U.S. attorney in Tennessee said that it's possible that some inflammatory criticism of Muslims posted on social networking sites could violate federal civil rights laws. “We need to educate people about Muslims and their civil rights, and as long as we’re here, they’re going to be protected,” U.S. attorney Bill Killian told the Tullahoma News last week. “This is also to inform the public about what federal laws are in effect and what the consequences are.” Killian, along with an FBI agent, are expected to attend a meeting Tuesday in Manchester, Tenn. hosted by a local Muslim group to...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry demanded on Friday that North Korea scrap an expected missile test and dial down its virulent rhetoric, AFP reported. As Pyongyang aimed fresh nuclear threats at Japan, Kerry urged China to step in and said the North would never be accepted as a nuclear power. Visiting Seoul to give full U.S. backing to military ally South Korea, Kerry mixed tough talk with more conciliatory comments about the prospects for a peaceful way out of a crisis that has sent inter-Korea tensions soaring. In particular, he said Washington chose to "honor" the vision of South...

WASHINGTON - If you thought President Obama's first term was one long, uninterrupted political brawl, the next four years will make that period look tame by comparison. If you need any evidence for this prediction, Obama's in-your-face, second inaugural address is Exhibit A. It was a speech tailored to make the hearts of liberal Democrats beat faster, cheering what some in the Washington news media called "Obama unbound." It was a speech that sent an unmistakable message to his party's base that this time around, it's no more Mr. Nice Guy. The gloves are off, these are my issues, and...

A judge on Thursday ordered the release of a former Marine who was detained for psychiatric evaluation after posting strident anti-government messages on Facebook. Prince George County Circuit Judge W. Allan Sharrett said at the end of a one-hour hearing that the involuntary commitment order issued by a magistrate against Brandon J. Raub was invalid because it contained no allegation or basis to hold him, according to the head of a civil liberties organization that represented the 26-year-old veteran.

Within hours of the shooting of the security guard at the Family Research Council last Wednesday, more than 20 gay organizations issued a joint statement that they “utterly reject and condemn such violence.” This is highly commendable. Unfortunately, they did not utterly reject, condemn, or even acknowledge their potential role in helping to create the toxic environment that may have contributed to the shooting. Consider how shrill gay activist rhetoric has become. In June, after Southern Baptists reaffirmed marriage as the union of one man and one woman (for conservative Christians who base their faith on the Bible, a no...

Imagine the roles were reversed. An employee of the Christian conservative Family Research Council goes over to the D.C. Center for the LGBT Community. He shouts, “It’s not you, it’s about the policy!” He shoots a security guard. The FRC leadership expresses remorse, but the media are out for blood. The story is above the fold in the major newspapers. It leads on every network news program. MSNBC runs a banner all day: Christian hate group attempts mayhem against gays. The president goes on camera to deliver remarks on tolerance and goes to the bedside of the wounded LGBT security...

After reports arose that former PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s body will be exhumed for further testing, under the assumption that perhaps he was killed by Israel via radioactive poisoning, the New York Times has picked up right where their pro-Arafat slant left off seven and half years years ago. Writing the Times’ article explaining the poisoning theory, Rick Gladstone described Arafat as “the father figure of Palestinian nationalism.” A father figure? Really? Yet as Newsbusters has shown, this language is not far removed from the praise the Times was heaping on Arafat shortly after his death. In January 2005, the...

When Carolyn Coulson was deciding how to vote in 2008, she found Barack Obama’s rhetoric “exciting,” especially when he talked about a “different kind of politics.” Then a student at Vanderbilt, she said John McCain was dull in comparison. Coulson, now 25 and a Wall Street consultant, finds no trace of that Obama today. “His rhetoric is aimed just at specific groups of people, not as someone who would bring the country together,” she said. Identity politics is something you do when you don't have the worst economy since World War II, according to David Woodard, a Clemson University political...

Valerie Jarrett Blames Fox News for Class Warfare!

It hardly took another study for people to know that political polarization in this country is deeply embedded. Still, a report issued Monday, June 4, by the Pew Research Center paints a particularly stark portrait of a nation in which the most significant divisions are no longer based on race, class or sex but on political identity. For 25 years, Pew has been conducting regular surveys assessing American values. They provide a series of historical benchmarks by which to examine the changes in what binds people and what divides them. The latest report finds considerable continuity over that quarter-century in...