Free Republic

Billionaire businessman Donald Trump all but confirmed he’ll run for the Republican presidential nomination during a stop Saturday at the N.C. GOP convention. Trump says he’ll make his formal announcement on June 16. “I think a lot of people are going to be very happy” with the decision, Trump told The News & Observer before a sold-out speech Saturday night. “They’re tired of watching America go down. ... It’s about making America great again. I can do it, and nobody else can do it.” He made a point of using the phrase “if I run” in his speech but voiced...

This is too good not to share. MRC’s Dan Gainor wrote for Foxnews.com on the liberal tendency to describe the Republicans with the term “clown car.” He found that since January 1, MSNBC hosts and their guests have dragged out the phrase 38 times. Hardball host Chris Matthews by far the worst repeat offender, with 29 mentions since the beginning of the year -

If you’ve ever wondered whether modern progressivism could create an argument so convoluted, contradictory and esoteric that it collapses on itself, we have an answer. And it comes at the expense of feminists who believe they can fight for “women’s rights” without running afoul of their own speech police. During “All In With Chris Hayes” on June 2, the host fostered a discussion among media representatives on the “reaction to Caitlyn Jenner” or “The Jenner Effect.” In the middle of the conversation, Michelle Goldberg, senior contributing writer for The Nation, suggested that using the word “women” in abortion language “excludes...

Will Joe Scarborough be hearing from some MSNBC suits? You can imagine Joe being called on the carpet for having, on today's Morning Joe, not-so-subtly accused his own network of "fearmongering" the issue of minority voter suppression against Republicans. During a discussion of Hillary's planned speech of today on expanding the voting calendar, Scarborough spoke of "cable news" and "cable shows" driving ratings by "fearmongering" the notion of Republicans supposedly engaged in voter suppression. So which cable news network could Scarborough have in mind? Fox News? Nope. CNN? Meh. Googling "MSNBC voter suppression" yielded 136,000 hits, including links to virtually...

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 2, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, says that same-sex “marriage” is perfectly "consistent" with Catholic Christianity. Pelosi brought her grandchildren to see her receive an award from the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, to show the young, impressionable children that "marriage equality is important." In an interview with Thomas Roberts on MSNBC, Pelosi said she took the children to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund gala because "it's really important to see what the practice of our faith is." Pelosi, who described herself as a faithful Christian and “mainstream Catholic,” said her...

he most common critique of our 2016 Presidential Hopefuls comparison grid this week has been of our amnesty rating for Ted Cruz. The Texas Senator has a mixed history on the issue, but we've given Cruz our second best rating of "Very Good". There's one thing that's crystal clear about Cruz's position on offering work permits to illegal aliens -- he passionately opposes Pres. Obama's illegal and unconstitutional amnesties. Just this week, Cruz tweeted a response to a Hillary Clinton tweet that criticized a federal appellate court's decision to uphold the temporary injunction placed on Pres. Obama's 2014 executive amnesties....

On June 2 HBO, MTV, and a host of celebrities will be joining Michael Bloomberg and other pro-gun control groups to watch participating mayors proclaim “Gun Violence Awareness Day” in their cities. Those participating will “wear orange” and MTV will “change its on-air logo — as well as several of its social media avatars — to orange in recognition of National Gun Violence Awareness Day.” According to PRNewsWire, participating celebrities–aka, “cultural influencers”–include: Julianne Moore, Russell Simmons, Sarah Silverman, Michael Stipe, Patti Smith, Aasif Mandvi,Alyssa Milano, Padma Lakshmi, John Hodgman, Amanda Peet, Perez Hilton, Melissa Joan Hart, Tiffani Thiessen, Tunde Adebimpe...

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina argued that “titles are just titles” and Hillary Clinton’s “track record” includes the collapse of the Middle East and the failed Russian reset on Wednesday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” on MSNBC. Fiorina said, “I come from a world where titles are just titles, and talk is just talk. It’s only in politics where titles and words mean a lot. In the rest of the world, it’s actually about what have you done, actions speak louder than words. People want to know are your words and your actions consistent and are they consistent over time. And so,...

That'll show 'em. MSNBC has a new show! It’s hosted by former Pennsylvania Representative Patrick Murphy (D-of course). It’s called “Taking the Hill” and this weekend it featured an appearance by everyone’s favorite former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Murphy asked Pelosi about Obama’s failing battle against ISIS, but Pelosi wasn’t interested in admitting that things aren’t going so well. Instead, she decided to highlight one of the areas where we are, apparently, making some truly “impressive advances” against our barbaric opponents. Are we bombing them back into the stone age? Not really. Are we killing them at a...

On Al Sharpton's MSNBC show today, former DNC Chairman Ed Rendell dared congressional Republicans to recall Hillary Clinton to testify about Benghazi. Calling her a "tough cookie," Rendell vowed that "Hillary will put them in short pants." Paging Camille Paglia . . . Rendell surely thought he was paying Hillary a compliment. But is this really the Hillary persona that Dems want to project: that of a woman who makes little boys out of grown men? View the video here.

Jeb Bush: wannabe Arab killer and torturer. That was the portrait of the prospective Republican presidential candidate that Joe Wilson, husband of former CIA employee Valerie Plame, has painted. Appearing on Chris Hayes's MSNBC show this evening, Wilson claimed that the "conclusion you come to," looking at his foreign policy advisers, is that Jeb's plan is "to kill all Arabs we find on the streets," and if we can't kill them, "to torture them." View the video here.

He really wants to know! "ISIS is executing homosexuals — you want to talk about gay rights?" Ted Cruz was at his Ted Cruz-iest today after a meeting with local officials in Beaumont, Texas. The senator and GOP presidential candidate faced questions from reporters about gay marriage, and responded with this, according to a report in the Washington Post. “Is there something about the left — and I am going to put the media in this category — that is obsessed with sex? “ISIS is executing homosexuals — you want to talk about gay rights? This week was a very...

'Does it count as a police chase?': MSNBC under fire for insensitive tweet mocking moment cop was DRAGGED along The news organization MSNBC landed in hot water over a provocative tweet it posted which appeared to mock a police officer who was dragged along the street by a suspect. The tweet with a video embedded in it, created a firestorm from commenters on social media and news sites. It read: 'Does it count as a police chase if you drag the cop along for the ride?' But shortly after a backlash ensued online on Saturday, the network hastily removed it...

... A new survey from Public Policy Polling finds that one-third of Republicans believe the Jade Helm 15 conspiracy theory that “the government is trying to take over Texas,” and another 28 percent of GOP voters haven’t made up their minds yet about the matter ...

Not only did The Ed Show hit a new low of 30K viewers in the 25-54 demo on Wednesday, but MSNBC had its lowest total day ratings in close to 10 years with 49K average viewers in the demo over the course of the day. The last time MSNBC saw demo ratings this low was on July 20, 2005 when it had 45K in total day. In primetime, MSNBC also came in third place with just 76K in the demo compared to 337K for Fox News and 196K for CNN.

It sure was a productive Tuesday for Ed Schultz at his federal trial where he’s being sued for breach of partnership. He managed to make a huge liar out of both himself and MSNBC President Phil Griffin.Schultz’s bid to convince jurors that he got his MSNBC show without any help from NBC sound engineer and producer Michael Queen proved rather deceitful thanks to his own electronic footprints.Worse yet, the behemoth broadcaster’s ongoing attempt to turn the courtroom into his own little TV studio may have faltered when he walked into plaintiff attorney Catfish Abbott’s trap.More evidence also emerged about just...

“Is he really the sole arbiter of what is right and just?” Referencing Barack Obama’s remarks at a recent forum aimed at addressing poverty, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough took exception to the president’s public indictment of a rival cable news network. Obama stated that Fox News Channel offers a “constant menu” of programming demonizing the poor as lazy “sponges” and “leeches.” Scarborough eviscerated Obama not only for his comments, but for the forum in which he decided to make them. “At a bipartisan summit, you decide to attack a cable news channel as the problem,” he said, “saying that [FNC...

Pobody's Nerfect. On Monday afternoon, Bloomberg Politics editor and MSNBC senior burrito correspondent Mark Halperin apologized for an interview two weeks ago in which he ham-handedly quizzed Senator and 2016 presidential hopeful Ted Cruz (R-TX) on his Cuban heritage. In the interview Halperin questioned Cruz on his Hispanic appeal, even his consumption of Cuban dishes, and offered to let Cruz welcome Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders to the race en Español. The interview flew under the radar until it was torn to shreds by San Jose Mercury-News columnist Ruben Navarrette this weekend. “As a Hispanic, I felt like I was watching...

Cable news is in trouble. The Pew Research Center reports that the median daily audience for Fox, CNN, and MSNBC is down about 11 percent since 2008. The Washington Post's Paul Farhi sees a grim future for the industry. He argues that cable news outlets are pretty much where newspapers were a decade ago: their audience is aging, their medium is being disrupted by new technologies, and the next generation of viewers is developing habits and preferences that they're poorly placed to serve. (This is probably a good moment to note that I'm a contributor to MSNBC.) The networks may still...

On Thursday night's All In with Chris Hayes, the MSNBC host continued the discussion about Pamela Geller's “Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest” in Garland, Texas, as much of America has done all week. As part of the discussion, Chris Hayes said something that might seem surprising coming from someone of his particular political bent and certainly from someone at his particular network. Hayes offered one of the best summaries of exactly why it was so important not only that Geller be permitted to hold the event, as she was, but that the reason for the necessity of such an event...