Free Republic

In the end, Carter lost to Reagan because he dithered too much, because he was just too feckless, because our enemies were running amok, and Carter was trying to make a deal with them instead of acting the way most of us thought a real American leader should act. Then, as now, the media were overwhelmingly behind the Democratic incumbent, but the real world overwhelmed them. Then, it was American hostages in Iran. Now, it is American dead in Libya. Then, it was a mob of Iranian “students” shrieking “death to America” in Tehran and taking over the American embassy...

The Obama administration is claiming that a dedicated Christian publisher of Bibles and ministry material is insufficiently religious to qualify for an exemption to the contraception mandate in the president’s health-care overhaul. According to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in the District of Columbia by Tyndale House Publishers, the company has been refused a “religious employer” exemption because the Health and Human Services Department categorically maintains that any for-profit publisher is not a “religious employer.” The Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing Tyndale, called the rule an unconstitutional and arbitrary threat to religious freedom.

This just in from the Gallup organization: Americans' distrust of the media has just hit a  new record, with six in 10 Americans saying they have "little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly." Forty percent say they have a "great deal" or a "fair amount" of trust, and I assume this is the same crowd who approve of the job Congress is doing. Where do they find these people? Gallup says the 20-point difference between positive and negative views of the media is "by far" the highest Gallup has seen since it...

HALSTEAD - Critics of a political sign in Halstead consider it out of bounds, but City Administrator J.R. Hatfield said legally, it is in bounds. Hatfield said there have been inquiries about the sign, but it "meets the criteria of city ordinance." ----------advertisement----------- On the yard of NTH Silver Recovery Service Inc., located along a southern entrance into Halstead, is a sign proclaiming: "We built this Business without Government Help" and below: "Obama can kiss my (illustration of donkey)" "I am Kevin Henderson and I approve this message," reads the bottom of the sign. Henderson is president and general manager...

This tablebelow is based on interviewing conducted Aug. 1-Sept. 16 among registered voters. I’m using this large sample period in order to get adequate sample size of some of the smaller religious groups. Jewish and Mormon voters, for example, are just about 2% of the population each, with “other non-Christian” identifiers coming in at about 3%. This expanded period of interviewing means, of course, that any shifts as a result of recent news events -- such as those in the Middle East -- would only be minimally reflected in these data. [SNIP] Protestants (basically those who identify with a Christian...

Not counting daily trackers, there were 9 State/National polls in the week after the RNC, but 37 State/National "bounce" polls in the week after the DNC. The corrupt MSM commissioned these polls to manufacture a "widespread edge" for Obama.

Saturday Night Live spoofed the infamous “Romney killed my wife” ad with its own version featuring a fired steelworker whose wife went in for heart surgery. Only when Mitt Romney stopped by the hospital, he wouldn’t even cover his mouth while sneezing. “Mitt Romney stopped by the hospital room to tell us we no longer had health insurance. As he was talking we could see he had a really bad cold, he was coughing and sneezing and everything,” said steelworker Dan Whitehead, played by Bill Hader. “And I said to him, my wife is sick, would you mind covering your...

A full day after the U.S. ambassador to Libya was brutally killed by a Muslim mob, another mob attacked Mitt Romney. While armed only with pens and notebooks, the cabal meant to inflict the same outcome on the Republican’s presidential campaign. Protecting and defending President Obama through his failures and blunders and gaffes is a full-time job for America’s mainstream press corps — and they’re getting worried. So, they attacked the GOP nominee for his reaction to the U.S. Embassy in Egypt’s statement condemning “the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.” Was that “appropriate”?...

Following the death of U.S. ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens in Benghazi, many pundits jumped to criticize Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for labeling the Obama administration’s response to the crisis “disgraceful.” On this weekend’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume said that, although Romney’s remarks were ill-timed, the media’s reaction was the real problem. “I think what he said was correct but it was clumsy,” Hume said. “And it opened him up to charges that he made a terrible mistake. We had an almost ludicrous overreaction in a lot of the media...

Looks like CAIR has adopted the strategy of Hope ’n Change: never let a good crisis go to waste. Arab governments are stepping up their demands for regulation of American media to ensure Islam gets more favorable coverage in the United States, while President Barack Obama used his weekend message to again condemn criticism of Islam and to reassure Americans worried war in the Arab region. Egypt’s Prime Minister Hisham Qandil said Sept. 15 that he expected changes in U.S. law and media practice following the release of a 14-minute anti-Islam YouTube video and a week of ongoing unrest in...

Cringe and propitiate: that's the Obama administration's response to the hucksters who have seized on a dopey YouTube trailer to enflame crowds across the Islamic world. Administration officials have deplored and condemned the video, sometimes remembering to add a mention of the right of free speech (as incumbent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did) and sometimes omitting it (see for example, Sunday's performance by U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and potential future Secretary of State Susan Rice on ABC's "This Week"). Blaming the video is convenient for the Obama administration. Blaming the video obviates questions about inadequate security at the...

The Boston Globe ran a massive 3,000 word lead article this morning trying to excuse away Elizabeth Warren's claim during her professional career to be minority and a woman of color based on supposed Native American ancestry.The story, which had the cooperation of the Warren campaign, comes just days before the first debate in Massachusetts' Senate race. Clearly, the Warren campaign is worried after even Native Americans who are Democrats criticized Warren at the DNC in Charlotte, and is attempting to put its story out there through a friendly source.The article is a masterpiece of distraction, weaving stories from...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: A rising number of stories about the disarray the Romney campaign is in. And, in fact, if you listen to the Fox News Channel, you can hear certain conservatives say the same thing. The reason these conservatives are saying that is 'cause they're not getting out of the campaign what they would do if they were campaigning. So the foreign policy crowd in the Republican Party is upset that Romney is not talking enough about that. The social issues crowd is upset that he's not talking enough about that. And the economic crowd is upset that he's...

>BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Let's go to the audio sound bites. Susan Rice, our ambassador to the UN. Jacob Tapper, ABC This Week interviewed her. He said, "What is the latest you can tell us on who these attackers were at the embassy or at the consulate in Benghazi?" That's Libya, for those of you in Rio Linda. "We're hearing that the Libyans have arrested people. They're saying that some people involved were from outside the country, that there might have even been Al Qaida ties. What's the latest information," Madam Ambassador? RICE: It was a spontaneous, not premeditated, response to...

A plurality of Americans approved of President Obama’s handling of events in the Mideast, but by a wide margin Americans had a negative reaction to the way his Republican opponent Mitt Romney has reacted to the events, according to a Pew Research Center poll. The new poll found that, of those Americans who had paid attention to the protests, riots and killing of Americans in recent days, 45% approved of Obama’s moves, while 36% disapproved. Judgments of Romney were far more negative, with only 26% approving and 48% disapproving. Romney came under fire even from Republicans last week when he...

Transparency: A former classmate has added a tantalizing question to the mysteries surrounding Barack Obama's college years. Perhaps the GOP nominee, whose tax records are demanded, should call the president's bluff. Not many students whose grades supposedly were good enough to get into Harvard Law School can say that 400 of their classmates taken randomly don't remember a single thing about him or his even being there. But Barack Obama, Columbia University class of '83, can. Student Obama spent two years at Columbia after transferring there from Occidental College in Los Angeles. And for all the impression he made on...

The detention of Nakoula Bessaly Nakoula, the California filmmaker who produced an anti-Muhammad video that enraged anti-American mobs in the Middle East, aroused a national debate on the First Amendment. On Monday’s broadcast of “The Five” on the Fox News Channel, co-panelist Eric Bolling said that act represented something else: President Barack Obama’s administration holding the Quran in higher esteem than the U.S. Constitution. “I don’t want to cut you off — can we throw the picture up of the filmmaker again, where he is all in disguise and the cops are leading him out?” Bolling said. “To me, America...

DUBAI - Iran's government will "track down" those responsible for making an amateurish film clip mocking the Prophet Mohammad, a senior official said, Iranian media reported on Monday. The video made in California and posted on YouTube portrayed the Prophet Mohammad as a womanizer and a fool. It has ignited a week of violent protests across the Muslim world. "The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns ... this inappropriate and offensive action," First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said, according to the Mehr news agency. "Certainly it will search for, track, and pursue this guilty person who ... has...

How long until some idiot in the MSM exposes their hiding place?Via Cerritos Patch: The family of the man linked to the controversial anti-Islamic film “Innocence of Muslims” left their Cerritos home amid darkness Monday morning with assistance from members of the Cerritos Sheriff’s Station.Three unmarked sheriff’s vehicles made their way into the residential cul-de-sac at about 3:40 a.m. Monday to pick up the family members of 55-year-old Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, who left the Cerritos residence just after midnight Saturdayunder the glare of a handful of news cameras.This time, the late night operation was not quite the spectacle with just...