Free Republic

The return of Benghazi is the latest evidence that the GOP is putting its unhinged obsessions before the good of the country. Back in March 2013, I wrote a column titled, "Why I am no longer a Republican." A more accurate (though admittedly more ponderous) title would have been, "One important reason among many that I am no longer a Republican." That important reason was the Iraq War, which I never supported and which the Bush administration and its legion of defenders in Washington and around the country justified in terms that struck me at the time as highly ideological,...

Yes, the rest of the world is watching this embarrassing debt ceiling nonsense, and it is growing dismayed. Der Spiegel has a roundup of commentary in German newspapers about the fight, and the universal message is this: The US is holding the entire world hostage, and it's the Republicans that are playing with fire.

Imagine a bargain hunter's shock and dismay when responding to an ad on Craigslist listing a bunch of possessions for sale and then receiving an email announcing that gay people, Muslims, and illegal immigrants aren't allowed to purchase the wares. Read it for yourself. Our tipster, who lives in the D.C. area, responded to an ad on Craigslist, which has been taken down, expressing interest in one of the items for sale. He received this mass email response peppered with casual racism and homophobia. I've highlighted the worst parts, but the whole thing is really amazingly awful. "i have been...

New York (CNN) -- We were at a Manhattan water park when it happened. I was with my then 3-year-old daughter, Luna, playing in a sandpit on a foul, chilly morning beneath clouds that looked like ripped paper. It was no day to be outside, but living in a city of small apartments, it was no day to be inside with a child either. A little girl approached the two of us, clearly interested in playing. But when she arrived, she addressed only Luna. Pointing a finger at me, she asked her, "Is that your baby sitter?" I've been mistaken...

DECEMBER 6--In the days after Bristol Palin was voted into the finals of “Dancing with the Stars,” viewers from across the country wrote to the Federal Communications Commission accusing the ABC show of everything from running a “payola type program” to “encouraging and promoting teen pregnancy.” Many of the complainants, whose letters were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, were upset that, as one Oregonian put it, “the top scores were voted off yet Sarah Palin’s daughter remained on.” One viewer from Pittsburgh alleged that the show’s voting system had been “fixed by extreme supporters of the Tea...

The Internet's been buzzing with talk about how members of the U.S. Tea Party movement have been getting out the vote for Bristol Palin on Dancing With the Stars. The blog Jezebel had a post about it today, complete with quotes from conservative message boards about how Bristol's supporters were exploiting ABC's email voting system to cast multiple ballots for Sarah Palin's daughter. Jezebel quoted one site, FreeRepublic.com, that urged its members to "make liberal heads explode" by voting for Bristol, "even though she is not the best dancer." Well, my liberal head is kind of exploding right now because...

"Mm, your tears are so yummy and sweet! Oh, the tears of unfathomable sadness! My-yummy!" -- Cartman, South Park Admittedly, it has been a lot of fun to watch the wailing and gnashing of teeth on the Left after the savage beating they received on election day. However, it's more than a little disturbing that almost no one on the Left seems to think they lost because they actually did a bad job. In other words, according to liberals: Obamacare, the failure of the stimulus, Obama bowing to foreign leaders, the way they handled the BP oil spill, trying to...

President Obama allowed Republicans to define the terms of the nation's political argument for the past two years and permitted them to draw battle lines the way they wanted. Neither he nor his party can let that happen again. Democrats would be foolish to turn in on themselves in a fruitless battle over whether their troubles owe to a failure to mobilize and excite their base or to win support from the political center. In fact, Democrats held onto moderate voters while losing independents. What hurt them most was this brute fact: Voters younger than 30 made up 18 percent...

...Beaverton Middle School teacher Jason Levin's group wants to infiltrate the Tea Party to discredit the organization. But since Levin's name has been associated with the "Crash the Tea Party" Web site, he has been harassed by people who say they belong to that group. Levin told KATU-TV that his phone has been ringing around the clock and his answering machine is recording threats...

House Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) says the "negative atmosphere" created by the tea party movement has influenced the retirement decisions of some House Democrats (but not Bart Stupak): “Do I think that [the] negative atmosphere that’s been created by the Tea Party and by others certainly goes into the thinking of members? I think it does. I think you have to honestly point out that it does,” Hoyer added. “I don’t think that was the determining factor with respect to Mr. Stupak, because again, he was in very good shape in the polls. It wasn’t a question...

SACRAMENTO — Sarah Palin typically generates controversy with what she says. Now the former vice presidential candidate is creating a buzz over how much she'll make at a black-tie gala she plans to headline at Cal State Stanislaus. How much she is commanding for her June 25 appearance at the $500-per-ticket affair won't be known because her contract with the CSU Stanislaus Foundation stipulates secrecy. It's the secrecy that rankles state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, who is calling for full disclosure. "The CSU should immediately disclose how much money is being diverted from students to pay Sarah Palin's exorbitant...

U.S. right-wing groups, militias surge: study 8 mins ago PHOENIX (Reuters) – The number of right-wing "Patriot" groups that see the U.S. government as their enemy more than doubled in the last year, fanned by anger over the economy and a backlash against the policies of President Barack Obama, according to a study published this week. The report by the Southern Poverty Law Center said 512 anti-government Patriot groups were active in the United States last year, a leap from 149 in 2008. The "Rage on the Right" report (www.splcenter.org) found that militias, the paramilitary arm of the Patriot movement,...

In the end, here's what the history of this attempt to reform health care comes down to: Barack Obama did everything wrong. Instead of using his vast post-electoral capital with the public to push for real reform and clean the Augean stables of the health care industry, he and his team of two-faced creeps like Rahm Emanuel took the Beltway-schmuck route and cut a backroom deal with the targeted industries — buying their acquiescence to a theoretical future of regulatory oversight in exchange for an upfront mountain of taxpayer giveaways. The Obama administration was willing to sell out every inch...

And this year's KERRI DUNN campus Fake Hate Crime award goes to...UC San Diego for getting all lathered up over a noose hung in the library. Folks, whenever you hear the word "noose" used in the same story about a supposed campus hate crime, it is a SLAM DUNK that it is a FAKE hate crime. A Columbia U professor goes BALLISTIC over a hanging noose and it turns out that SHE was the one who hung the noose in the first place. What set off this noose incident was the OUTRAGE over a Compton ghetto themed party that...

If you would like a graphic (literal and figurative) demonstration of our nation's greatest failing, sit in front of your television set and watch NBC cover an international sports event, the Winter Olympics, as if only Americans were participating. Every time the Today show's Meredith Vieira stumbles over the name of the Russian figure skater Yevgeny Plushenko (it's pronounced exactly as it's spelled, Meredith, with the accent on the second syllables) and giggles to show that it's OK to be ignorant, I think about all of the announcers from Canada and Europe who pronounce everyone's name correctly. Their employers care...

'Mexican Man' costume offends Latino shoppers, community groups By Sean Maher EMERYVILLE — A costume dubbed "Mexican Man" has offended Latino shoppers and community groups after being discovered at a Halloween chain store. The photo on the costume packaging shows a man with a thick mustache wearing a poncho and a sombrero. Oakland resident Monica Plazola said she discovered the costume last week at the Spirit Halloween store in Emeryville, which she was visiting with her two children, ages 7 and 9. "We were there at the store, with all kinds of costumes, and that was the only one identified...

Specter wants Wilson censured Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Penn.), who's looked at POTUS from both sides now, was just on the Bill Press radio show suggesting the South Carolina firebrand Joe Wilson be censured for his heckle heard round the world. Said the Republican-turned-Dem: "He apologized immediately afterward but I don't think that’s adequate... If an apology is the consequence of an outburst I think we can expect more – that’s not a sufficient penalty that’s not a sufficient price to pay.. I'm not saying the guy should be kicked out of the House… But there ought to be some rebuke,...

Editor, At the risk of sounding sexist, how did the health care debate get hijacked by an overgrown teenage girl on Facebook? Sarah Palin quit her job as governor of Alaska to become an unpaid right-wing blogger, yet still has the power to disrupt any rational discourse. Possibly related: How did someone like Palin even rise to the spotlight in the first place? Her rise was born in the waning days of the contentious Democratic primaries between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. After the controversial Democratic National Convention Rules Committee decision to split in half the delegates from Michigan and...

"Sleep deprivation, "insult slaps," water dousing and "walling," or slamming a detainee's head against a wall, were techniques used by CIA interrogators to break high-value detainees, according to an agency memo." Holder decision "promises political headaches for President Barack Obama, came after the Justice Department's ethics watchdog recommended considering prosecution of CIA employees or contractors for interrogations in Iraq and Afghanistan that went beyond approved limits." Cheney said ""The people involved deserve our gratitude. They do not deserve to be the targets of political investigations or prosecutions," he said in a statement."

After the Obama-Gates-Crowley "beer summit" at the White House ended, Ronald Walter, a black longtime professor of politics at the University of Maryland, said: "Black parents are using this as a case in point of what they have been saying all along" to their children, "Racism hasn't gone away." Children, and especially black males, "are likely to confront it" from police. (Washington Post, July 30). And on CNN, Colin Powell chimed in with his advice to black children: "When you're faced with an officer who is trying to do his job and get to the bottom of something, this is...