Free Republic

Here’s the latest from guest blogger Loud Lion: I feel that there is nothing wrong with a double standard. I am OK with the fact that Congress has a much better health plan that I do. I have no problem that people in my office get paid more than me. Do I wish I got paid as much as the named partner? Hell yeah; who wouldn’t? But that desire, that wish and want, is what drives me to work better each day. I do not believe that everyone has a right to go to college. We need garbage collectors and...

I often find myself thinking that if liberals didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all. Consider the uproar from the left when Don Imus opened his silly yap about the black women on the Rutgers basketball team. Now compare that to their response when David Letterman made his smarmy cracks about Sarah Palin and the governor’s 14-year-old daughter. The liberals immediately sprang to his defense, pointing out that Letterman is nothing more than a TV personality and is therefore free to make offensive jokes without fear of censure. So what do they think Don Imus is?...

When a right-wing Christian vigilante kills, millions of fingers pull the trigger. When a left-wing Muslim vigilante kills, he kills alone. These are the instantly ossifying narratives in the Sunday shooting death of late-term abortion provider George Tiller of Kansas versus the Monday shootings of two Arkansas military recruiters. Tiller's suspected murderer, Scott Roeder, is white, Christian, anti-government and anti-abortion. The gunman in the military recruitment center attack, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, is black, a Muslim convert, anti-military and anti-American. Both crimes are despicable, cowardly acts of domestic terrorism. But the disparate treatment of the two brutal cases by both the...

The newest false meme invented by the Old Media is this claim that ex-presidents and ex-vice presidents have some sort of "tradition of silence" where it concerns commenting on those that take residence in the White House after they leave. The reason the Old Media is pushing this false claim is because Dick Cheney has been commenting on Obama's security mistakes and the Old Media wants to scold Cheney for his efforts to get the truth to the people [..] Can you remember any report by any Old Media outlet that excoriated Al Gore for his constant, wild-eyed, screaming fits...

In a nice stroke of NBC corporate synergy, radical-left MSNBC host Rachel Maddow appeared Tuesday night on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and when the topic turned to Rush Limbaugh, Maddow insisted that it’s one thing for Rush to oppose Obama’s socialist agenda before it passes, but once it becomes law, he should salute and get behind it (Snip) This is not the approach Maddow took to the Iraq war: that she opposed it, but it became government policy, so she rooted for it to succeed. Take Maddow on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on September 13, 2007. She expects...

Scott Johnson at Powerline refers to an article by Victor Davis Hanson Victor Davis Hanson adapts Plutarch to a review of notable stories of the past year in his column on the parallel lives of Democrats and Republicans. After his comparisons of Richard Fuld with Robert Rubin, Ted Stevens with Charles Rangel, Alberto Gonzales with Eric Holder, and Christopher Dodd with Trent Lott, Hanson concludes: I could go on and on with these Plutarachean examples of Parallel Lives but you get the picture. Here, the contrast is not the respective virtues of Greece and Rome. Nor is there any regret...

Ironically, presidential candidate Obama criticizes traditional American foreign policy for being moralistic. Yet, his global mindset is moralistic and legalistic. His planetary policies are grounded in a new "global neighborhood ethic" of solidarity, economic justice, and redistribution of wealth. He supports the 1995 Commission on Global Governance proclamation that the "global ethic of common rights and shared responsibilities ... would provide the moral foundation for constructing a more effective system of global governance." His platform pledges "to support reforming key global institutions -- such as the U.N. Security Council ...so they will be more reflective of 21st century realities." Such...

Alcee Hastings used to be a federal judge. Then he got impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate. Now he's a congressman from Florida. People have a right to vote for whomever they want, even one of the six federal judges in America ever to be removed by Congress. But with friends like Hastings making the case for him, Barack Obama doesn't need enemies. Participating in a panel discussion in Washington this week sponsored by the National Jewish Democratic Council (I don't even want to ask why they invited him — maybe everybody else was busy trying to...

With the Olympics coming on, what's more poignant than the image of the sprinter hopefully awaiting the official time, only to learn he missed the record by 1/100th of a second? I'm in that same heartbroken mood for the Associated Press this morning. The wire service came so close to equalling the world record for revealing the Republican party affiliation of someone finding himself sideways of the law. Check out the first sentence from this AP story of April 17th: "A Republican congressional candidate was charged Thursday with felony burglary and criminal trespass stemming from an encounter last year with...

It's hard to imagine how Detroit's liberal populace can charge hip-hop Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for perjury. After all, doesn't everyone lie about sex? I'm not certain that Kilpatrick should be charged or convicted either. Those of us who live in cities like Detroit or Los Angeles accepted that kind of political double standard long ago. Detroit clearly needs to loosen up a little -- maybe create its own ethics commission. That's what works for us. In LA, our Ethics Commission makes it unnecessary for police to investigate messy corruption scandals or other embarrassing felonies. Our Commission would issue a warning...

Honest, I'm not looking for trouble. Just hanging out on Christmas afternoon, watching the Heat vs. the Cavs on ABC, when a State Farm Insurance commercial comes on. Funny stuff. A guy on a treadmill gets so distracted by a shapely young woman on a hamstring machine that he slips and falls off. A trim man, identified by a screen graphic as Dr. Ian Smith, comes by to help him to his feet, and says this: Go on, laugh. But it's not easy getting back in shape. That's why we created the 50-Million Pound Challenge. It's a new way to...

When agriculture inspectors come calling at 7 on a Saturday evening, watch out. That's what Barbara and Steve Smith learned last Saturday evening.

(Offender will be in secure treatment for indefinite term) Waukesha, WI - A convicted sex offender whose thoughts and fantasies about children, rather than actions against them, prompted authorities to revoke his parole two years ago now faces indefinite secure commitment for treatment after a jury verdict Thursday branded him a sexual predator. The case likely will spark debate in the legal community over whether it presages a new dimension to the 13-year-old Wisconsin sexual predator law or merely highlights one of many factors already considered in determining the likelihood of sex offenders striking again.Michael Monyelle's lawyer, Steven Prifogle, said...

Washington was rocked -- ROCKED -- this week when it was revealed that Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, is a practicing heterosexual. The news came as part of a larger bombshell, as Vitter’s name was revealed to be on the client list of the so-called “D.C. Madam” (who is apparently not Nancy Pelosi, by the way, but a physical prostitute.) Vitter, obviously unfamiliar with how to react when one’s sexual identity is made public, immediately apologized and foolishly focused on the paying-for-sex aspect of the whole affair. He also used the word “sin,” which at the time that this...

Consider three criminal cases. No. 1: Christopher Newsom and his girlfriend, Channon Christian, both students at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, were carjacked while on a dinner date in January, repeatedly raped (both of them), tortured, and killed. His burned body was found near a railroad track. Hers was stuffed into a trash can. Five suspects have been charged. The crimes were interracial. No. 2: Three white Duke lacrosse players were accused in March 2006 of beating, kicking, choking, and gang-raping an African-American stripper, while pelting her with racial epithets, during a team party. No. 3: Sam Hays bumped...

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift on Friday morning complained, as many liberals have this week, that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has drained all the independence out of his office, that he's acting too much like the president's "personal lawyer." In 1993, when Janet Reno announced the mass dismissal of all 93 U.S. Attorneys, no one demanded her resignation for her lack of independence from the White House. In fact, it could be because someone else was coordinating with the White House on how to run the Justice Department, the felonious one-man Webster Hubbell. At that time, the Wall Street Journal editorial page...

Barack Obama's presidential campaign Wednesday defended two investments he made right after his election to the Senate, saying he was unaware of the stock purchases at the time and did nothing to directly aid either company in its business before the federal government. The two companies — AVI Biopharma and Skyterra Communications — were backed by some top donors to Obama's political committees. Obama purchased $5,000 in shares for AVI, which was developing a drug to treat avian flu. Two weeks after buying the stock, Obama pushed for more federal funding to fight the disease, but company officials said they...

Acceptance of a double standard has always been a sign of inferiority. To let someone behave according to one set of principles or values while demanding that you be subjected to others is to validate a claim of superiority that justifies the inconsistent and unfair behavior. A double standard can also reflect incoherent thinking, a failure to apply consistently a principle that presumably has universal validity. In the West’s struggle with Islamic jihad, doubts about the superiority of Western values have coupled with a breakdown in ethical reasoning. The result is the appeasement of jihadist aggression and the confirmation of...

SEN. BIDEN SHOCK INTERVIEW: OBAMA FIRST 'CLEAN' BLACK IN MAINSTREAM... 'I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy'...

Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) was in the news recently for saying some things that he wished he hadn't said. Presumably intending to compliment Barack Obama, Biden made some remarks that were patronizing, at best. I salute him. Why? Do I approve of making thoughtless remarks about African-Americans? Of course not. Do I think he should have thought before he spoke? You bet. But I admire him for what he didn't do. After saying something stupid and embarrassing and potentially harmful to his career, he didn't run off to a rehab center. Biden took responsibility for his actions, didn't blame them...

Pinochet tortured and murdered. His legacy is Latin America's most successful country. In the past 15 years, Chile's economy has grown at twice the regional average, and its poverty rate has been halved. It's leaving behind the developing world, where all of its neighbors remain mired. It also has a vibrant democracy... Like it or not, Mr. Pinochet had something to do with this success. To the dismay of every economic minister in Latin America, he introduced the free-market policies that produced the Chilean economic miracle -- and that not even Allende's socialist successors have dared reverse. He also accepted...

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who wants to be president, made a big mistake the other day. No, I'm not referring to his use of the term "tar baby" in front of Iowa Republicans last weekend. I'm referring to his subsequent apology.

When liberals start caterwauling about civility, it reminds me of when my kids were young. When my daughter Anna was 5 and my son, Jonathan was 4, World War III broke out in our household at least once a day. Anna’s modus operandi, as she explained it to her grandfather, was: “I hit Jonathan. He hits me. Then I tell Mommy.” In essence, that’s the liberals’ civility scam: They hit us. We hit back. Then their media lap dogs begin howling about incivility and yapping about the decline of gentility in the political debate (which, if I’m not mistaken, started...

Liberals like to claim that GW Bush is trapped in a quagmire in Iraq. However, when it comes to being captive to irrational thinking, no one can top liberals. Consider, please, the liberal position on several current issues and the quagmire such thinking produces: *Rising gasoline prices are devastating to working Americans,but protecting obscure organisms at the bottom of the food chain is of greater concern. Which is why drilling for oil & adding refining capacity are unacceptable. * Large profits are obscenely un-American, except when it comes to George Soros, Oprah Winfrey and other liberals. *Illegal aliens deserve driver’s...

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The Congress has received lots of free advice lately from Mexican government officials and illegal aliens waving Mexico's flag in mass demonstrations coast-to-coast. Most of it takes the form of bitter complaints about our actual or prospective treatment of immigrants from that country who have gotten into this one illegally — or who aspire to do so. If you think these critics are mad about US immigration policy now, imagine how upset they would be if we adopted an approach far more radical than the bill they rail against which was adopted last year by the House of Representatives —...

The Intolerance of the Intolerants By Lori Lowenthal Marcus In dozens of recent articles in media sources around the world, a Jewish human rights group is being accused of gross insensitivity. The Simon Wiesenthal Center is building a Museum of Tolerance in the center of West Jerusalem. Muslim leaders are outraged, they wail to all who will listen, because the site being excavated is on what was once the Mamilla Cemetery. They contend, and few journalists question, that Mamilla is an ancient and sacred Muslim cemetery. Who could resist such a story - the intolerance of a Jewish Museum of...

Egyptian Sandmonkey has scanned images of Egyptian newspaper Al Faqr—who published the infamous cartoons of blasphemy last October, at the height of Ramadan, with not a single squeak of outrage. (Hat tip: Solomonia.)

Rocky Mountain News   To print this page, select File then Print from your browser URL: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/speak_out/article/0,2777,DRMN_23970_4404152,00.html Speakout: Public schools given too many protections in sex abuse casesBy Suann Malone MaierJanuary 21, 2006State legislators are back in session. As a mother and a teacher, I have a suggestion for them. Every day my husband and I put our 15-year-old son Dan on the bus to his public school. Over the years, Dan's had many wonderful teachers. Most of the adults he meets at his public school, in sports and at our local church treat him with kindness. We're grateful....

MOSCOW, Dec 20 (Reuters) - He is 29 years old, bearded, exhorts his troops to fight in the name of Allah and speaks Russian with a heavy Chechen accent. Not long ago, that would have perfectly described one of Moscow's most bitter foes. But now, while his former comrades-in-arms dodge troops in the Chechen mountains, Ramzan Kadyrov is a hero of Russia, a frequent guest of President Vladimir Putin and regional leader of the pro-Kremlin political party. Kadyrov is officially deputy prime minister of Chechnya but observers say the Kremlin has made him de facto leader -- something, they add,...

The Pentagon has acknowledged five instances in which guards or interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility handled the Koran in a way that would offend some who believe it the revealed word of Allah. Three cases are said to have been deliberate and two unintentional. Amnesty International has put the United States high on the list of countries it says are guilty of prisoner and human-rights abuses because of its treatment of suspected terrorists. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers rebutted the notion of inappropriate treatment of detainees last weekend when he told Fox News Sunday...

It was as plain as black and white. It was a hate crime. When 30 black teenagers from Marine Park Middle School, most of them girls, chased five white girls from St. Edmund's off a Marine Park basketball court and across a Brooklyn street - punching, kicking, slapping, pulling hair and screaming, "honky bitches," "black power" and "white crackers" - it was a racial attack. It was about hate. Police officers who responded to the scene on March 30, at approximately 4 p.m., arrested five blacks. They were charged with simple assault. Two of the white girls were treated at...

Why do so many women insist on carrying out this war against men? Absolute gender equality isn't going to happen; we have gender equality now. Even if in a million years, men and women somehow made this unrealistic ideal happen, there will always be a sexual distinction between men and women causing some sort of inequality (if only on the level of basic physical needs). Or should I say women and men, as not to imply a male superiority? Why the hell should people go out of their way to be politically correct and use this "he/she" nonsense so a...

Betsy Hoffman's self-serving and phony warning about "McCarthyism" at CU - in the middle of what should be an impartial investigation of Ward Churchill - was disgraceful. But if the University of Colorado president needs a genuine case of discrimination at her school, here's one: CU professor Phil Mitchell's class certainly isn't as melodramatic as our man Ward Churchill's. How could it be? Surely, it's a complete riot taking one of Churchill's classes. Deciphering the feckless professor's swirling quasi-intellectual gibberish is entertaining enough as a citizen; I can't imagine how a student feels. Mitchell never refers to "actions" or "trigger...

When a friend told coach Stu Gorski in 1995 that Mount Adams School District had hired "a phenomenal wrestling coach," Gorski froze. "Tell me you didn't hire Randy Deming," he pleaded. The district had. Gorski, a football and golf coach in Whatcom County, knew Deming for years as a rival coach at nearby Blaine High School. Gorski also knew of Deming's reputation as a groper of girls who had even been charged with child molestation. When Gorski learned Deming would also be teaching girls, he warned: "You're putting him back into the fire." GORDON KING / YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC Randy Deming...

In todays society it not an easy task to raise two daughters. The influences from the secularist culture pose a war that most people lack the enthusiasm to fight. Tolerance were told is the key to liberal utopia, and this of course is the only right way to think. Basically, all of us Jesus freaks who are too stupid to understand how the world really works, should turn a blind eye to the departing virtue of logic, and moral values. The idea that the left holds a monopoly on logic and moral values used to make me laugh. But in...

My wife and I looked in the paper today to see the latest in our favorite conservative comic strip, "Prickly City". But today it wasn't there, this explanation was offered instead: "Today's Prickly City strip does not meet the Chicago Tribune's standards of fairness. please enjoy this substitute." Here is a link to todays strip-- http://www.ucomics.com/pricklycity/

If you do a Search in Yahoo News for photos with the term "Former dictator" who do you think comes up? You get 4 pages dating back to Nov 25 2004 all of Pinochet. Saddam gets other titles - like "former president" - since Reuters, AFP and AP all know that he was duly elected. (\sarcasm off) - http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news/?ei=ISO-8859-1&c=news_photos&p=saddam

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) hit out at the West's "double-standards" amid a Cold-War-style dispute over Ukrainian elections, accusing it of fomenting "permanent revolutions" in Moscow's backyard. Putin again slammed US-led plans to press ahead with elections next month in Iraq (news - web sites) and said it was the height of hypocrisy for Western governments to criticise Russia for pursuing its interests in neighbouring former Soviet republics. "Today according to our estimates there are nine cities in Iraq where there are hostilities but they still want to carry out elections," he said, condemning...

Salam al-Marayati, the executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), represents himself and his organization as stalwart opponents of terrorism who are actively working with the FBI and California law enforcement agencies to combat it. At a joint press conference with representatives of the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department on October 14 of this year, Marayati waxed expansive and almost poetic in his glowing account of his organization’s cooperation with law enforcement agencies in the war against terrorism. MPAC has announced a “National Anti-Terrorism Campaign,” and is holding its 4th annual conference (see its poster here)...

Today, Milwaukee radio talk show host Charles Sykes tried to calm the drooling bloodlust of certain liberal activists in the Milwaukee area whose recent consuming mission has been to demand the firing of local conservative radio host Mark Belling. The anti-Belling zealots, stirred to rage by their trouncing in last week's elections, object to Belling's use of the term "wetback" to describe illegal alien voters. Belling's employer, News Talk 1130 WISN (owned by Clear Channel), took Belling's three hour talk show off the air earlier this week, but has said that the show will return. Sykes pointed out that one...

You know, I've been trying to understand the bizarre ideological inconsistencies of the past week as our blue state liberals advocate Voltaire out of one side of their mouths and Russell Means out of the other. This spectacle of us "rednecks" being pummeled by a "tag team" of Charles Darwin and Sitting Bull has been bothering me for a very long time (for years, even). It's just that the whole issue has been omnipresent over the past seven days as the coasts fume at us for both rejecting Darwin and unforgivably altering the beliefs of "indigenous" religions (all that is...

Milaukee radio talk show host Charles Sykes updated listeners this morning on the organized attacks from the left to silence Mark Belling, a Milwaukee conservative talk radio host and competitor of Sykes. Belling has been suspended for the last two days from doing his popular talk show in Milwaukee, The Mark Belling Late Afternoon Show. The suspension stems from Belling's use of the term "wetbacks" to describe illegal alien voters. The wetback slur prompted liberal groups from all over Milwaukee to demand that Belling be fired. The SILENCE BELLING MOVEMENT is being led by all the usual left wing suspects,...

On 11/9/04, Victor Huyke, editor of El Conquistador Latino News, a Hispanic newspaper located in Milwaukee, called the Charlie Sykes show to further pile on criticism of Milwaukee talk show host Mark Belling. In the course of his criticism of Belling, Mr. Huyke, who is leading the charge to have Belling fired, off-handedly remarked that the Milwaukee Latino community was not going to allow itself to be treated like a "retarded stepchild who sits in the corner." Sykes immediately called Huyke on this, pointing out that many people are offended by the use of the term "retarded." Huyke did apologize....

Confusing, isn't it? This was passed to me, but I can't understand it. Maybe you can, I'm trying to get all this political stuff straightened out in my head so I'll know how to vote come November. Right now, we have one guy saying one thing. Then the other guy says something else. Who to believe. Lemme see; have I got this straight? Clinton awards Halliburton no-bid contract in Yugoslavia - good... Bush awards Halliburton no-bid contract in Iraq - bad... Clinton spends 77 billion on war in Serbia - good... Bush spends 87 billion in Iraq - bad... Clinton...

It's common knowledge that there is a media double standard in how they treat the Dems vs. the Reps Here is the place to add your example. I'll begin. Bush was forced to release all his military records. Kerry is not. Clinton withheld his medical records. Bush released his. Millions of dollars worth of Democratic ties to 527 groups are ignored, while a couple hundred thousand worth of Republican ties to Swift Vets are front page news. Add your example here ....

washingtonpost.com Justice Dept. Rebuffs Press Request for More Bush Guard Records By Dan Froomkin Special to washingtonpost.com Friday, August 27, 2004; 11:53 AM The Justice Department has told the Associated Press that the government does not possess any records that would shed further light on the mysteries of President Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service, beyond those that have already been made public, a lawyer for the news agency said yesterday. The Associated Press filed a lawsuit two months ago, demanding access to a microfilm copy of President Bush's entire Texas Air National Guard personnel record from an archive in Austin....

Within the next 48 hours, Jews world wide will be sending email messages to the United Nations, the EU Parliament and the EU Court of Justice with the identical message that is on this email. PLEASE take a quick moment to copy the message below and paste it on to a new email that should be sent to the email addresses listed below: ecu@un.org - UnitedNations civis@europarl.eu.int - EU Parliament info@curia.eu.int - EU Court of Justice Message: The building of the Israeli fence When Israel builds a fence to keep out terrorists, the UN and EU are up in arms...

John Kerry explained his views on abortion last weekend to the Telegraph Herald of Dubuque, Iowa. "I oppose abortion, personally," he said. "I don't like abortion. I believe life does begin at conception. But I can't take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist . . . who doesn't share it." Mr. Kerry seems to be trying to re-assure voters that his personal religious beliefs on abortion will not influence his policy-making (an assertion borne out by his 100% rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America). And that's fair enough....

Look who's teaching Johnny about Islam Saudi-funded Islamic activists have final say in shaping public-school lessons on religions Posted: May 3, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Paul Sperry © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com WASHINGTON -- A top textbook consultant shaping classroom education on Islam in American public schools recently worked for a school funded and controlled by the Saudi government, which propagates a rigidly anti-Western strain of Islam, a WorldNetDaily investigation reveals. The consultant, Susan L. Douglass, has also praised Pakistan's madrassa schools as "proud symbols of learning," even after the U.S. government blamed them for fueling the rise of the Taliban...