Free Republic

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), chair of the Democratic National Committee, said Wednesday that House Republicans are trying to impose “dictatorship” through their tactics in the debt-ceiling negotiations. She said the GOP rhetoric could “spark panic and chaos,” which she called “potentially devastating” to the economy. The chair telephoned POLITICO to express “significant disappointment in where … Republicans have allowed this debate to degenerate.” “Aren’t we at the point where the closer we get to chaos, the more concern that there should be about coming to the table and compromising with Democrats?” Wasserman Schultz asked. “This is not leadership. This...

Speaking to a crowd of union workers on Capitol Hill today, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi unloaded on Republican plans to lower the deficit through deep cuts to government services in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. Frustrations are running high in Congress with the default deadline rapidly approaching, and Pelosi spoke with a fire that suggested the endless debate over the debt ceiling is taking its toll on her patience. "This isn't just about them saying we should reduce the deficit," she said, adding: "This is an excuse. The budget deficit is an excuse for the Republicans to undermine...

When I hear today’s frequent calls for civility, I’m reminded of Rodney King’s plaintive appeal, “Can we…can we all get along?” After all, King was a thug but, when he made his statement, seemed wholly sincere. This means that most contemporary political figures who call for civility share one certain commonality with King. One of those who likely was sincere was Betty Ford, who has managed to make such a call from beyond the grave. Laid to rest this week, she had instructed two statists, Cokie Roberts and Rosalynn Carter, to send a message about conservative incivility. Writes Michael Kimmitt...

As NewsBusters previously reported, Friday's "Real Time" on HBO contained some of the most vile political talk ever broadcast on national television. In one panel segment, gay sex advice columnist Dan Savage said of Republicans, "I wish they were all f--king dead" (video follows with transcript and commentary, extreme vulgarity warning):

White House Emails Detail anti Fox Bias inside Obama White House: “I’m putting some dead fish in the fox cubby -- just cause” “[FNC Anchor] Bret Baier…is a lunatic” Washington, DC -- July 14, 2011Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has uncovered documents from the Obama Department of Treasury showing that the Obama administration, contrary to its repeated denials, attempted to exclude the Fox News Channel (FNC) from a round of interviews with Treasury’s “Executive Pay Czar” Kenneth Feinberg. The documents, which include email exchanges within the Department of the...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama says the debt ceiling should not "be used as a gun against the heads" of Americans to retain breaks for corporate jet owners or oil and gas companies. Answering questions posed to him on the social Networking site Twitter, the president cast the debate over reducing the deficit in some of the starkest language he has used so far.

Chris Christie "A Rotten Bastard," Top New Jersey Democrat Says Zeke Miller July 5, 2011, 2:07 PM So what does New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D) really think of Republican Gov. Chris Christie? "He’s a rotten prick," Sen. Sweeney said in a shocking, unfiltered interview with The Newark Star Ledger. The top Senate Democrat accused the governor of using his line-item veto powers to punish Democratic lawmakers. "Last night I couldn’t calm down," Sweeney said. "To prove a point to me — a guy who has stood side by side with him, and made tough decisions — for him...

Democrat John Binienda of Massachusetts apologizes for comparing Republican proposal that would require lobbyists to wear ID badges to Nazi tattooing of Jews during Holocaust Reuters A Massachusetts state lawmaker apologized on Thursday for a remark comparing a Republican proposal that would require lobbyists to wear ID badges to the Nazi tattooing of Jews during the Holocaust. House Republicans last week proposed a set of ethics reforms in response to the recent corruption conviction of former Massachusetts Speaker Salvatore DiMasi and an associate. Among the proposals was a plan for lobbyists to wear visible identification badges to seek access to...

There are those who love freedom of expression, as long as it’s not conservatives who are doing the expressing. Just ask Glenn Beck. On radio Tuesday, he told the stunning story of how he and his family were harassed during an outdoor movie in New York City’s Bryant Park. For those unfamiliar with Bryant Park, it hosts weekly showings of classic films during the summer months. Attendees bring blankets and picnic dinners and sprawl out on the park’s great lawn while watching the films on a giant screen. As Beck explained, he attended Monday night‘s public showing of Alfred Hitchcock’s...

Is this what the Left calls civility? The Facebook group "I hate it when I wake up and Sarah Palin is still alive" has grown to well over 3,000 members. 3,249 people to be exact. Over three thousand left-wingers wish to see Mrs. Palin die. And their group's official picture: Some of the comments underneath read: ...Don't forget about comments like these (swearing obscured):

An author of alleged “children’s books” needs to wash his mouth out with soap and find a new airline after dropping the F-bomb aboard an Atlantic Southeast Airlines flight. The Detroit News reports Brooklyn author Robert Sayegh is thinking about suing the Delta Connection carrier. According to the article, the 37-year-old, was flying from Kansas City to Newark when a flight attendant overheard him ask “What’s taking so [bleeping] long to close the overhead compartments?” The plane taxied to the runway but returned to have Sayegh forcibly removed. Sayegh told the Detroit paper he used the F-word twice. “I’m like,...

More than 24,000 e-mail messages sent to and from Sarah Palin during her tenure as Alaska's governor will be released Friday. Join The Post in digging through them. We are looking for 100 organized and dilligent readers who will work alongside Post reporters to analyze, contextualize, and research the emails. Think of it as spending some time in our newsroom. Our hope is that working together, we can efficiently find interesting information and extract new stories that will lead to further investigation. We don’t know what we’ll find, but we want you to be ready and open for the challenge....

Early Thursday afternoon, Derek Willis posted on the paper’s "Caucus" blog a request surely enticing to the paper’s online liberal readership: "Help Us Investigate the Sarah Palin E-Mail Records." Ken Shepherd at NewsBusters says enlisting newspaper readers to pore through the email trove "indirectly amounts to free oppo research for the 2012 Obama campaign." On Friday, the State of Alaska will release more than 24,000 of Sarah Palin’s e-mails covering much of her tenure as governor of Alaska. Times reporters will be in Juneau, the state capital, to begin the process of reviewing the e-mails, which we will be posting...

Someone posted an unfriendly sign on Sarah Palin’s tour bus earlier today. The villain’s message, pasted directly over the words, “We the People” on a picture of the Constitution, read, “I, The Media Whore.” Gawker has more: [the sign] was sacrilegiously placed over a monster image of the preamble to the United States Constitution for nearly 15 minutes. The bus was parked outside Fox News headquarters.

The demagoguery of Paul Ryan by the media continues. On Friday, the New York Times' resident Nobel laureate Paul Krugman called the Wisconsin Congressman a liar and a sore loser: ~snip~ If anyone is lying here, it’s Mr. Ryan himself, who has claimed that his plan would give seniors the same kind of coverage that members of Congress receive — an assertion that is completely false. And, by the way, the claim that the plan would keep Medicare as we know it intact for Americans currently 55 or older is highly dubious. True, that’s what the plan promises, but if...

MSNBC anchor David Shuster was suspended in 2008 for suggesting Hillary Clinton had "pimped out" her daughter Chelsea on the air. So how will MSNBC handle their host calling Laura Ingraham a "right-wing slut" and a "talk slut"? Will Schultz be pressed to apologize to the Catholic churchgoer and mother of two? Will the feminists at NOW and the Women's Media Center take exception? Brian Maloney at Radio Equalizer found this on Schultz's May 23 national radio show -- not on MSNBC, but the female-smearing principle is the same. Schultz was angry Ingraham would suggest it showed "tone-deafness" (both on...

Bye-bye, Ed Schultz. We'll especially miss your gigantic ego, unending rage and all-around delightful personality. Will Comcast tolerate this kind of behavior from one of its cable hosts, particularly on top of so many past antics? From yesterday's syndicated radio program: ED SCHULTZ (02:52): And what do the Republicans thinking about? They're not thinking about their next-door neighbor. They're just thinking about how much this is going to cost. President Obama is going to be visiting Joplin, Mo., on Sunday but you know what they're talking about, like this right-wing slut, what's her name?, Laura Ingraham? Yeah, she's a talk...

SADLY, OUR FRIENDS ON THE LEFT HONESTLY DON’T GET IT “Civility as we pursue it is the ability to disagree with others while respecting their sincerity and decency.” –CivilPolitics.org. Consider the following: “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 think differently than we do, it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way...

Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) would start a Senate campaign with a 7 point lead over the likely Republican nominee Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.)according to a survey by Public Policy Polling. The Democrat also enjoys a 57-31 lead over former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.).

SACRAMENTO -- Republicans are criticizing John Burton, the state Democratic Party chairman, for suggesting Gov. Jerry Brown "try shooting" a Republican to convince them to vote for taxes. In an interview with Bay Area News Group, Burton said Brown "can try shooting somebody and tell the next guy, 'You don't want that to happen to you, you better step up and vote.' ... What's Jerry going to do unless he took out a gun?" The comment, made on the eve of the state party's convention kickoff, went over the line, said Mark Standriff, communications director for the state GOP. "Is...