Free Republic

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded to the mass shooting at a Nashville, Tennessee, elementary school by blaming Republicans for opposing gun control measures.

FBI agents raided former President Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla. on Monday night. Among the wide ranging reactions from the public, “Civil War” began trending on Twitter.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Let's go back to January 12th of this year, Tucson, Arizona, University of Arizona, this is Barack Obama at the Together We Thrive Tucson and America event. It was a campaign rally for Obama, ostensibly a memorial for Gabrielle Giffords, to pay tribute to her, and this is among the things that Obama had to say. OBAMA: At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently...

"Eligibility hitting New York airwaves Talk-radio host fielding questions for Lakin, Corsi The eligibility questions that have dogged Barack Obama since before his election in 2008 are hitting the airwaves in New York today with award-winning talk show host Steve Malberg interviewing two of the key players in the dispute. Malzberg's guests on his WOR NewsTalk Radio 710 program this afternoon will include Dr. Terry Lakin at 4 p.m. and author Jerome Corsi at 5 p.m. Malzberg is one of America's recognizable talk radio voices. He spent 24 years at WABC Radio in New York before arriving at WOR, where...

THESE are the first shocking pictures of smoking toddler Ardi Rizal - who throws tantrums if he can't puff 40 cigs a day. The Sun told on Saturday how the two-year-old got hooked after dad Mohammed gave him a fag at 18 months.

The deer-eyed and pea-brained Senator Reid found out last year that he shouldn’t lie about Rush Limbaugh in an attempt to destroy him. If you recall, Rush turned Reid’s action into a charity event that raised millions, and Reid ended up apologizing to Rush. Now the Democrats are trying again to “get” Rush, because he disagrees with Obama’s intentions to socialize our wonderful country and destroy our healthcare system. The housing and credit crisis that the Democrats caused swept Obama into office, but most of us object to his giving away our country to people who won’t work, or who...

Here is the political question of the morning: When is the term “tar baby” not a racial slur? Answer: When a liberal Democrat uses it. If you’re a Republican and those two words pass your lips, stand by for a barrage, no matter what the context. Just ask Sen. John McCain or ex-Gov. Mitt Romney or late White House spokesman Tony Snow. Over the last couple of years, they’ve all had to issue groveling apologies for mentioning the old Uncle Remus character. But that didn’t stop “outraged community leaders” from tearing into them as arrogant and out-of-touch.

While tar baby can be used as a racist attack on black people, it isn't used that way in any of these examples. John Kerry used it in the same manner as John McCain and Mitt Romney. I, for the first time, find myself coming to the defense of John Kerry. He isn't racist because of what he said here (but he is still an elitist windbag.) The fact is this: You are being played, and those playing you for a fool rely on your ignorance. Pick up a copy of "The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus" by Joel Chandler...

ORLANDO, Fla. - Walt Disney Co.'s 1946 film "Song of the South" was historic. It was Disney's first big live-action picture and produced one of the company's most famous songs _ the Oscar-winning "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah." It also carries the story line of the Splash Mountain rides at its theme parks. But the movie remains hidden in the Disney archives _ never released on video in the United States and criticized as racist for its depiction of Southern plantation blacks. The film's 60th anniversary passed last year without a whisper of official rerelease, which is unusual for Disney, but President and CEO...

'Song of the South' pits art vs. cultural sensitivity http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/Stories.aspx?section=localnews&tableId=136791&pubDate=3/31/2007 http://tinyurl.com/2w5vty BY RON MENCHACA The Post and Courier Talk of a possible re-release of the 1946 Walt Disney film 'Song of the South,' which is criticized for its plantation-era depictions of blacks as the happy servants of wealthy whites, already is sparking a debate. The film was reshown in theaters as recently as 1986, but it never was released on video in the United States. Its cultural and cinematic significance have been the subject of scholarly debate for decades, and bootlegged copies of the film are popular on the black...

The National Jewish Democratic Council, proud defender of the hate organization MoveOn.org and slinger of anti-Semitic “Jew as Christian hater” propaganda, is now falsely accusing John McCain–a strong advocate of American national defense–of using a racial slur. Not content with publishing anti-Semitic propaganda to damage Jewish-Evangelical relations, NJDC is now knowingly and willfully slandering a war hero and one of the few political figures who is known for his honesty and integrity. "Cedar Falls, Ia. - Republican presidential candidate John McCain used the term “tar baby,” which is sometimes associated with racist connotations, during a campaign stop in northern Iowa...

Cedar Falls, Iowa (AP) -- Republican presidential contender John McCain on Friday used the term "tar baby," considered by some a racial epithet, and later said he regretted it. Answering questions at a town hall meeting, the Arizona senator was discussing federal involvement in custody cases when he said, "For me to stand here and ... say I'm going to declare divorces invalid because of someone who feels they weren't treated fairly in court, we are getting into a tar baby of enormous proportions and I don't know how you get out of that." After the event, McCain told reporters:...

Where Have You Gone, Uncle Remus?November 19th, 2006 November 12th, 2006 marked the 60th anniversary of the movie Song of the South.  Perhaps this cultural milestone did not capture your attention. Perhaps you don’t even remember celebrating the 50th anniversary. There is a reason for that, and it is not your faulty memory. Disney goes to great lengths to hype every one of its Classic Movies “for a limited time, only” complete with memorabilia and trinkets and googaws and suchlike. But there has been none of that commercial celebratin’ for Song of the South. It is in limbo, or...

It has finally happened. The left is beginning to turn against New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., known far and wide as “Pinch.” It is simple to understand why: the New York Times is becoming a failing business under his stewardship, and the Left needs the NYT. Faithful readers of The American Thinker have known this for over two years, as we have chronicled the journalistic and economic decline of the New York Times Company. We started warning investors that their money was at risk before the common stock lost half its value. We slogged through to SEC...

See my original commentary at "my Iowans for Romney blog entry" ******* Boston Herald columnist, Virginia Buckingham, recently wrote a peice titled "Mitt unduly tarred with Mel’s brush". It represents a semi-apology to Romney, and, if not that, at least a well-reasoned defense of his use of the term. It’s a coincidence that Gov. Mitt Romney is taking heat for what some see as a racial slur in the same news cycle as Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic rant. But it would be a real shame if there was no distinction made by the guardians against discrimination between Romney’s common reference and...

BOSTON - Gov. Mitt Romney has apologized for referring to the troubled Big Dig construction project as a "tar baby" during a fundraiser with Iowa Republicans, saying he didn't know anyone would be offended by the term some consider a racial epithet. In a speech Saturday, Romney, a Republican considering a run for president in 2008, acknowledged he took a big political risk in taking control of the project after a fatal tunnel ceiling collapse, but said inaction would have been even worse. "The best thing politically would be to stay as far away from that tar baby as I...

Prominent black Bay Staters are outraged by Gov. Mitt Romney’s use of the words “tar baby” to describe the Big Dig as he stumped for presidential points in Iowa. “Tar baby is a totally inappropriate phrase in the 21st century. If Calvin Coolidge didn’t use it, why the hell should Mitt Romney?” railed Larry Jones, a black Republican and civil rights activist. Tar baby can refer to a sticky mess, but it also has been recognized as an epithet to humiliate black people. President Bush’s spokesman Tony Snow learned that in May when his expression, “I don’t want to hug...

For the last four decades, the predominantly black population of central Brooklyn has been represented in Washington by one of its own, a tradition that dates to the 1968 victory of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress. But now, in a district whose boundaries were drawn to strengthen black voting power, residents are locked in a wrenching, racially charged debate over a white politician's campaign for Congress. The candidacy of that politician, David Yassky — who has built a reputation as an accomplished, independent-minded councilman — has led to angry accusations of racial carpetbagging. It has also...

Those who have recently been decrying a "racist use" of the image of the Tar Baby might benefit from knowing more about the allusion and its origins. Tony Snow, now the White House press secretary, certainly found himself in the proverbial Brier Patch when he used the image to describe his predicament when facing his first meeting with the Washington press corps. The infamous Tar Baby originated as a figure in a grand scheme detailed in an African-American Brer Rabbit slave tale. These stories, in which the sly rabbit always manages to outwit those who are stronger and more powerful...

A classic "Bloom County" cartoon of the 1980s has Opus the penguin sitting on a park bench watching a host of people pointing out things about each other that they find offensive, till they all realize, "Life is offensive!" At which point they all run off screaming in horror. Opus sums up the spectacle thus: "Offensensibility." Offensensibility is something afflicting many in our society, and it's an especially volatile combination with cultural illiteracy. Just ask new White House Press Secretary Tony Snow. His first outing went well by many accounts; however, one thing he said set off the easily tripped...