Free Republic

What would be the scene inside the White House if Bibi Netanyahu had lost tonight: President Obama popping the bubbly as Samantha Power and John Kerry danced an Irish jig? There's no denying that the Obama admin ardently davened [prayed] for Bibi to go down. Top Obama campaign aides had been dispatched to Israel for that very purpose. Indeed, there are even allegations that the Obama admin had underwritten the effort to defeat Netanyahu. But in a classic MSM bit of hypocritical hand-wringing, on this evening's With All Due Respect, John Heilemann lamented that it was "horrible" to hear that...

HOUSTON (AP) — A Houston attorney on the National Rifle Association's board of directors is blaming the deadly Charleston church shooting on one of the victims, saying the slain pastor had opposed concealed carry legislation as a state senator that could have saved him and his fellow worshippers. Related Stories 1. NRA executive suggests slain Charleston pastor to blame for gun deaths Reuters 2. Slain Pastor Clementa Pinckney’s Mission Suited His Storied Church The Wall Street Journal 3. And The First Person To Blame The Charleston Shooting On A Lack Of Guns In Church Is... Huffington Post 4. White gunman...

Washington (CNN)Donald Trump said Hillary Clinton is blaming him for the killings in Charleston, South Carolina, an attack he returned as "pathetic" and as evidence that "politicians are just no good."... There is a video at the link. http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/19/politics/trump-clinton-pathetic-charleston/index.html

Under the leadership of Jeff Zucker, we have all witnessed CNN turn into The PornTragedy Network, a ghoulish reality show channel that grabs hold of human disasters and milks them dry. That’s bad enough, but CNN goes even further. If you are paying attention, you will see that every tragedy is also exploited by CNN into a political weapon to be used against their enemies on the Right.

A civil rights group said on Friday it was deeply disturbed by reports that a Colorado motorcycle club has distributed flyers for an anti-Ramadan barbecue, including a pig roast, this weekend "in defiance of the Islamic holiday of Ramadan." Scott Levin, regional director of the Mountain States Anti-Defamation League (ADL), said in a statement the "open bike party" was being advertised by the Colorado Springs chapter of the Infidels Motorcycle Club.

DENVER (Reuters) - A civil rights group said on Friday it was deeply disturbed by reports that a Colorado motorcycle club has distributed flyers for an anti-Ramadan barbecue, including a pig roast, this weekend "in defiance of the Islamic holiday of Ramadan." Scott Levin, regional director of the Mountain States Anti-Defamation League (ADL), said in a statement the "open bike party" was being advertised by the Colorado Springs chapter of the Infidels Motorcycle Club. "Holding an event mocking the Muslim observance of Ramadan, a holy time in the Muslim faith, is highly offensive and abhorrent. As a community, we must...

Faheem Younus, an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland, believes that films like "American Sniper," as well as Fox News, are at fault for the tragic shooting in Charleston that left nine dead. Dr. Younus responded to the news by blaming popular media for the shooting. "Stop glorifying mass murderers as heroes and it may prevent the next #CharlestonShooting #BlackLivesMatter," he wrote this afternoon: He also wrote that Fox News helped cause the shooting as well: Younus further said that Roof, the shooter, was "predictably white:"

In a disclosure that could have political implications for election campaigns, the State Department’s chief watchdog reported Thursday that worker harassment complaints have nearly tripled inside the department during the tenures of Hillary Rodham Clinton and John F. Kerry — but the department still doesn’t have mandatory training for all employees. “A significant increase in reported harassment inquiries in the Department of State over the past few fiscal years supports the need for mandatory harassment training,” the department’s inspector general warned in an oversight report that reviewed the agency’s Office of Civil Rights. The report states that formal harassment claims...

I realize we’ve been hitting the South Carolina shooting and the disgusting, racist criminal who allegedly perpetrated the murders rather often since yesterday morning. Unfortunately, nothing as serious and tragic as this can unfold in America today without immediately becoming mired in multiple levels of political muck, generally before the first facts are even verified. In this case, the process continued well into the evening and will surely roll forward in the weeks to come. One aspect of the church shooting, however, seemed to offer at least a slim ray of hope in an otherwise dismal day. A consortium of...

Economically speaking, all 237 GOP presidential candidates are selling the same Magic Beans. Everybody knows the script. Tax cuts for wealthy “job creators” bring widespread prosperity. Top off Scrooge McDuck’s bullion pool, and the benefits flow outward to everybody else. The economy surges, budget deficits melt away, and the song of the turtledove will be heard in the land. Almost needless to say, these “supply side” miracles have never actually happened in the visible world. State budget debacles in Kansas and Louisiana only signify the latest failures of right-wing dogma. Hardly anybody peddling Magic Beans actually believes in them anymore....

On Thursday's Parker-Spitzer, CNN's Kathleen Parker bizarrely and inaccurately claimed that Alexander Hamilton came to the United States illegally and drafted the Constitution: "Let's remember...a lot of Americans did come through the back door such as Alexander Hamilton. He got off the boat from the West Indies, and all he did was write the Constitution and become the first Secretary of the Treasury." Parker raised this false history during a discussion of Pedro Ramirez, Fresno State University's student body president, who was outed as an illegal immigrant by a student newspaper. After playing clips from Ramirez and his opponent during...

Brian Williams: 'I’m Sorry. I Said Things That Weren’t True' by Lisa de Moraes “I’m sorry. I said things that weren’t true. I let down my NBC colleagues and our viewers, and I’m determined to earn back their trust,” Brian Williams said this morning in a stunning apology that accompanied the network’s announcement he is returning to the air but not the NBC Nightly News anchor chair. “I will greatly miss working with the team on Nightly News, but I know the broadcast will be in excellent hands with Lester Holt as anchor. I will support him 100% as he...

NBC's Today spent much of Tuesday's show incessantly plugging an upcoming story about a book by a gay advocate which claims that President Abraham Lincoln was gay. Katie Couric, for instance, contrasted Lincoln's image of honesty with the new charge: "He's famous, of course, as 'Honest Abe,' but was former President Abraham Lincoln not completely honest when it came to his sexuality?" Ann Curry set up the eventual story: "Now to an interesting question that has surfaced about one of this country's most revered Presidents nearly 150 years later. Was Abraham Lincoln gay?" That story included those who don't buy...

It’s not new. Blackmail, extortion, and dirty pool in politics have, like disease-ridden ticks, found easy hosts for decades. J. Edgar Hoover had dirt on everyone who stepped across the line. The Mafia had dirt on him – he was a closet homosexual. All came to mind recently when Ohio Republican Congressman John Andrew Boehner, the 61st and current Speaker of the House, allowed Obama to push through the far-reaching and disastrous “CRomnibus” budget bill. The Political Insider expressed its astonishment this way: “Why, after a massive Republican landslide victory on election day, would Boehner act in such a strange...

The Democratic National Committee had a clever response to Donald Trump's announcement that he is running for president, treating a candidacy observers often view with suspicion as the most serious yet. "Today, Donald Trump became the second major Republican candidate to announce for president in two days," DNC national press secretary Holly Shulman said in a statement. "He adds some much-needed seriousness that has previously been lacking from the GOP field, and we look forward hearing more about his ideas for the nation." Compare that to the DNC's statements on other candidates. Shulman called fellow GOP candidate Rick Santorum's ideas...

In April 2009, as the political right was finding its voice in the tea party, South Carolina Republican Rep. Bob Inglis was making the case for a carbon tax. “I’m a conservative. I believe in accountability,” he said. “Global warming is not a matter of belief. It’s a matter of facts.” He added, “We don’t want to be a party of deniers.” Most of his party disagreed. A year later, Inglis was trounced in a Republican primary, his staunchly conservative record proving insufficient to overcome this heretical deviation. On the surface, it may appear that little has changed in the...

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin praised Jeb Bush on Monday, highlighting his remarks on raising children with special needs. The comments from Palin, who remains a favorite with some grassroots conservatives, come a day after Bush’s official entry to the presidential race. “It was encouraging today to hear Governor Jeb Bush speak directly to an issue that touches so many lives in these challenging times, both culturally and fiscally – raising a child with special needs,” Palin wrote on her Facebook page. “I'm glad Jeb's life was touched by God's purpose-filled children, and hope he continues with a positive message...

This month, the headlines were about a Muslim man in Boston who was accused of threatening police officers with a knife. Last month, two Muslims attacked an anti-Islamic conference in Garland, Tex. The month before, a Muslim man was charged with plotting to drive a truck bomb onto a military installation in Kansas. If you keep up with the news, you know that a small but steady stream of American Muslims, radicalized by overseas extremists, are engaging in violence here in the United States.But headlines can mislead. The main terrorist threat in the United States is not from violent Muslim...