Free Republic

After Daily Caller blogger Matt Lewis eviscerated a harsh Reuters story on Florida senator Marco Rubio, the wire service was forced to make five corrections. Now Reuters is attempting damage control and conceding the story is regrettable: One senior staffer at Reuters described the episode to me as a "fiasco," another as a "disgrace." It was so bad, in fact, that the editors and writer involved have been asked not to talk about it. (I reached out to editors David Lindsey and Eric Walsh, but have not heard back.) The article, by David Adams, had intended to detail why Rubio...

lorida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, considered a powerful Hispanic political player and rising star in his party, has consistently said no to having vice presidential aspirations. But still, the question keeps coming up. Rubio, the popular Miami-born son of Cuban immigrants, has been seen by some inside Republican circles as a great "get" as a possible No. 2 on a hypothetical presidential ticket, and is already showing his power to influence the process. Just this week he pushed back on former House Speaker Newt Gingrich after the Republican presidential candidate ran a Spanish language radio ad labeling former Gov. Mitt...

Video

CONCORD, N.H. — President Obama is on the Democratic ballot for New Hampshire’s primary on Tuesday, despite the efforts of some Republican state legislators who argue the president doesn’t qualify as a “natural-born citizen.” “I don’t know where he was born, and I really don’t care,” said state Rep. Larry Rappaport of Colebrook, N.H., “but I think fraud is being perpetrated on the citizens of New Hampshire.” Mr. Rappaport and several GOP colleagues have been trying to get the New Hampshire secretary of state to remove Mr. Obama from the ballot. Their argument isn’t focused on the old question of...

I was thinking about writing a novel about what might happen if a man who hates America and wants to bring it down is somehow elected president. What would he do? I sketched out a few plot elements, and you can decide whether this will fly. First, the Trojan Horse president would initiate unprecedented spending, driving the debt up by more than $4 trillion just in the first three years. Much of the money would go into the pockets of political supporters and people who donate heavily to his campaigns. He would ram through an unreadable law allowing the federal...

Beck said on Monday that he could support a third-party challenge if Republicans nominate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to run for president against Barack Obama. “If I had a gun to my head, I’ll vote for Mitt Romney,” he explained. “If it’s Newt Gingrich, and there’s a third party, and it’s Ron Paul. … I might consider Ron Paul as a third party.” This position is nuts. Obviously Mr. Beck needs to generate attention for his new GBTV venture since giving up his popular Fox News platform, but promoting ideas that would lead to an Obama second term is...

JERUSALEM - Palestinian officials are reacting with dismay to Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich's statement that they are an "invented" people. The Jewish Channel on Friday released excerpts of an interview in which the former House Speaker said Palestinians were not a people because - unlike Israelis - they never had a state. "Remember, there was no Palestine as a state," Gingrich said. "It was part of the Ottoman Empire. "I think we have invented the Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs and who are historically part of the Arab community, and they had a chance to go to...

Herman Cain may not have to take a lie detector test because, as one investigator claims, he already did - and passed with flying colours. The sexual harassment scandal has shaken Cain’s campaign but has showed few signs of derailing it, as he spoke at Wednesday night's Republican debate to loud applause. In the face of the accusations, Cain said earlier this week that he was willing to take a lie detector test, but only 'if I have to.' Enter TJ Ward, a private investigator who claims to have a fool-proof method of separating the honest from the liars.

Columnists and reporters have been falling over themselves trying to analyze how the Occupy Wall Street protests compare to the tea party movement. But they’ve failed, says One Nation Back to God founder the Rev. C.L. Bryant, to treat both movements fairly. In a compelling interview with The Daily Caller’s Ginni Thomas, Rev. Bryant, who used to be a rising star on the left, laid out the differences he sees between the two movements and how the media is treating them. “It’s amazing to see that the ‘occupiers’ of Wall Street are basically white kids, and they’re dressed fairly well...

By now, you've surely heard of Herman Cain, the latest phenom in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Cain, a black businessman, has ridden the popularity among conservatives of his 9-9-9 tax plan to surge in national polls; he leads both former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in Iowa and is neck-and-neck with the erstwhile frontrunner in Florida. Some people see in Cain simply a charismatic former Godfather's Pizza CEO ("The Pizza You Can't Refuse"). I see something else: a troubling statement about the role of race in our politics. Recently, the New York Times ran a story suggesting that...

The 99ers, which more accurately are 22ers, have no coalescing message other than a desire for a central command-and-control government, whether nationally or globally. In other words, they share the kindred spirit of redistributive fairness with our puerile president. Initially we saw the Muslim Brotherhood uprising, and now, with the Wall Street Spring, Barack Obama is causing democracy to break out everywhere! First, Barack Obama said the Wall Street Occupiers express "the frustration of the American people." Then, while honoring MLK at the dedication of the new memorial in Washington, Obama channeled the late civil rights leader in support of...

(CBS/AP) PHILADELPHIA - Six former players and one current player have sued the NFL in Philadelphia over the league's handling of concussion-related injuries, the first potential class-action lawsuit of its kind. The players accuse the league of training players to hit with their heads, failing to properly treat them for concussions and trying to conceal for decades any links between football and brain injuries. The plaintiffs include two-time Super Bowl champion Jim McMahon, who has said he played through five concussions but now frequently walks around "in a daze" and forgets why he entered a room. The suit accuses the...

If Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz were a little dog, she might be a dachshund. She charges her adversary, teeth bared and yapping viciously, until realizing the other dog is larger. The realization sends her scurrying for cover, where she yelps, snarls, and whines. While this analogy may seem ridiculous, it perfectly illustrates Schultz's "confrontation" with Rep. Allen West and her political persona in general. Schultz bit Rep. West during a speech on the House floor. Well, more like she nipped him on the heel. She never mentioned West by name, yet he was obviously her target. During a rambling, platitude-laced...

Breivik was understood to have met leaders of the EDL in March last year when he came to London for the visit of Geert Wilders, the Dutch Right-wing politician. Daryl Hobson, who organises EDL demonstrations, said Breivik, who told police there were “two more cells” ready to follow him, had met members of the group. Another senior member of the EDL said Breivik had been in regular contact with its members via Facebook, and had a “hypnotic” effect on them. Scotland Yard was investigating Breivik’s claims that he began his deadly “crusade” after being recruited to a secret society in...

In his first significant public comments on the tabloid newspaper scandal that has engulfed his media empire, News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch vigorously defended the company's handling of the crisis but said it would establish an independent committee to "investigate every charge of improper conduct." In an interview, Mr. Murdoch said News Corp. has handled the crisis "extremely well in every way possible," making just "minor mistakes." News Corp. owns The Wall Street Journal. The six-year saga centers on dubious reporting tactics at the company's News of the World tabloid in the U.K., a controversy that in...

Barack Obama is today preparing to re-enter talks with Republicans as the two sides battle to reach an agreement in the ongoing debt ceiling crisis. Fuming lawmakers pointed fingers at one another and Obama on Thursday as negotiations over raising the national debt limit entered a perilous endgame. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned of economic damage, and an anxious Wall Street envisioned catastrophe if the U.S. defaulted on its obligations. In the build up to today's meeting, Moody's ratings agency yesterday said that the U.S. could lose its top credit rating in coming weeks if a stand-off between the...

4Share Change font size: A | A Vyan at Daily Kos is getting giddy in a post headlined “Could we soon see a world without Fox News?” It's apparently all over for FNC: "In less than a week the News of the World Wiretapping and Bribery Scandal has quickly metastasized into a Multi-Headed Dragon of Death for Murdoch Empire and simply lopping off one head, doesn't seem to be enough - the infection has already spread." Now that Fox-hating liberal interest groups, bloggers, and Democrat politicians are vowing to investigate, the Kosmonauts think Murdoch's "criminal enterprise" is about to collapse:...

Tonight’s big news story is President Obama pushing back against Republicans who refuse to be intimidated by him: “Don’t call my bluff,” Obama says, by passing a short-term debt limit increase, which Obama says he will veto. It is a small point, but the Obama quote that the wire services are trumpeting makes no sense. If, in fact, he is bluffing, the Republicans should by all means call his bluff. Properly, Obama should be warning the GOP that he is not bluffing. Saying “don’t call my bluff” is the opposite of what Obama presumably means, sort of like saying that...

As Alana wrote earlier today, according to the latest McClatchy-Marist poll: •Only 37 percent of registered voters approve of President Obama’s handling of the economy, his lowest rating ever. •By nearly 2-1 (61 percent v. 32 percent) voters disapprove of how he’s handling the federal budget deficit. •Fifty-eight percent of voters disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy, comprising 60 percent of independents, 31 percent of Democrats and 91 percent of Republicans. Not all the news was bleak for the president. Fifty percent of voters said they had favorable impressions of him versus 44 percent who didn’t. By 2-1, Americans...

Something is wrong with Barack Obama. We all know it. We all see it. When he speaks about America, Americans cringe. There is a strangeness to his manner, an unease when he talks about America. He appears awkward and uncomfortable. His speech seems performed and practiced yet, oddly halting. It's reminiscent of American POW's in Vietnam or Iraq reading a forced confession. His eyes, expressions, and vocal tone are disconnected from his words. The words themselves often sound American, but the delivery is clinical and detached. His attempts at patriotic sentiment ring hollow and phony. "Once again, with feeling!" is...