Free Republic

Democrats and Republicans are more deeply divided along ideological lines – and partisan rage and antipathy runs much higher than at any time in the past two decades, the report by the Pew Research Center concludes.

It’s hard not to be cynical after the display of rancid partisanship that greeted the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl after five years as a Taliban-held prisoner of war.

President Obama pledged to end partisanship, but instead has exacerbated it. He recently accused House Republicans of being extortionists for opposing a raise in the debt ceiling and wanting to defund Obamacare. Dictionary.com defines extortion as "the crime of obtaining money or some other thing of value by the abuse of one's office or authority." Republicans should fling the extortion label back at the president, who wants to raise the debt ceiling, threatening to curtail many government operations if the GOP doesn't surrender. 2006, when George W. Bush was president, Sen. Obama said: "The fact that we are here today...

On Monday, September 16, 2013, a gunman entered the Washington Navy Yards and began a shooting rampage in which a dozen were killed and still more were wounded. As America watched in horror, President Barack Hussein Obama delivered a televised rant, attacking Republicans, conservatives, and of course, the law-abiding firearms owners who might have helped to stop the carnage, had they been allowed. The National Rifle Association has a practice of not talking politics on the day that such events unfold. Even though such occasions are invariably excellent examples of the need for gun ownership by the law-abiding – in...

The man they called “the Hammer,” who used Democrats as anvils, got a little satisfaction Thursday. An appeals court in Texas reversed the money-laundering conviction of Tom DeLay and told him to go and sin no more. Time and events move quickly in the modern media, and a new crime of the century arrives with the noise of every news cycle. The final acquittal of Tom DeLay, who was once the Republican majority leader in the House, is but a footnote to the news. He was once the most feared man on Capitol Hill, merciless in pursuit, and like all...

These kids capture EXACTLY the tone of the debate inside the Beltway.

Institutions Worthy of Our Parties: Should the U.S. Switch to a Parliamentary System? Efforts to curb legislative partisanship have weak track records, so maybe we should consider changing the other side of the equation in order to establish a government that can actually get things done. Rick Hasen has a really interesting paper up discussing partisan polarization and the possibility of changing the Constitution to deal with it. (And you should really read Jonathan Bernstein’s response, too.) Hasen starts off by asking whether we should be considering moving toward a more parliamentary style of government. It’s a fair question. We...

Believe me: This isn’t the first time our vaunted Senate Majority Leader has made baseless accusations with little or no evidence (via The Daily Caller): Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday he was “very comfortable” with the prospect of defending an open seat in his chamber should Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry be tapped for a Cabinet position, and slammed outgoing Republican Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, who would likely run to replace Kerry. “I saw during the campaign his plea for bipartisanship,” Reid said of Brown, who ran as a moderate and independent Republican willing to work across the aisle...

President Obama made a plea for unity at a campaign stop in Ohio on Wednesday. “I still believe that we are not as divided as our politics suggest,” he said. “I still believe that we have more in common than the pundits tell us.” He is wrong. The divisions in American society are deep and growing deeper.

......Fallows writes, “there is plenty of evidence about the things Obama and his team cannot do.”......Yet it is this conclusion that the president’s supporters, no matter how disenchanted, cannot permit themselves. It’s an election year, and unspeakable horrors await the world if Obama loses. So Fallows comes up with an ingenious premise for his book: History’s verdict on Obama’s presidency will be largely determined by whether he wins reelection in November. “Our judgment about ‘really good’ and ‘mediocre’ presidents is colored by how long they serve,” he writes. “A failure to win reelection places a ‘one-term loser’ asterisk on even...

It hardly took another study for people to know that political polarization in this country is deeply embedded. Still, a report issued Monday, June 4, by the Pew Research Center paints a particularly stark portrait of a nation in which the most significant divisions are no longer based on race, class or sex but on political identity. For 25 years, Pew has been conducting regular surveys assessing American values. They provide a series of historical benchmarks by which to examine the changes in what binds people and what divides them. The latest report finds considerable continuity over that quarter-century in...

Meet Sheldon, a feel good, pure-blood Wisconsinite who just wants to ignore the recall.

The former senator and envoy says it will likely take a major scandal to trigger a change. PORTLAND - Like most Americans, former U.S. Sen. George J. Mitchell said, he tends to look at the past through rose-tinted glasses. But even with that in mind, partisanship in Washington wasn't as bad when he was in the Senate as it is now, Mitchell said Wednesday morning. Mitchell said the structure of the political system leads to the heightened partisan atmosphere -- and that's responsible for the record low approval rate of 9 percent for Congress in a recent poll. "It's worse...

PRAIRIEVILLE- Seventh grade students at Galvez Middle School got a lesson in extreme politics they and their parents may not have expected. Their social studies teacher prefaced a lesson on political parties with a survey that asked: Are you a Republican or Democrat. "In my opinion the answers were highly skewed in order to promote one party over another," said Terry Stehlik, who's child was given the survey. *** Link to the 'survey': http://www.wbrz.com/files/Galvez_Middle_Survey.pdf

Spot the Satanic Obama 2008 logo, again rearing its ugly head?? College students may well have an agenda I would say.Send your photos as well showing a revival of support for "The One" more so then celebrating a united AMERICAN MILITARY AND INTELLIGENCE AGENCY victory, more of a hoped-for conclusion on the WOT rather than a redoubled effort to proceed even further to get more Jehadi scalps (al-Awaki, al-Zawahiri), and fully support our US military and intelligence agencies first and foremost in the process.

NASA administrator Charles Bolden announced today the four museums -- the Smithsonian Institution (Discovery), the California Science Center (Endeavour), Kennedy Space Center (Atlantis) and the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum (Enterprise) -- that will receive space shuttles for public display after the fleet retires this summer. As expected Houston, the home of human spaceflight, was snubbed. It's a shame. Houston's campaign, Bring the Shuttle Home, probably deserves some blame for being late to the game in terms of politicking for an orbiter. But I'm not sure any campaign could have saved Houston. The politics of this decision were pretty...

The split opinion of judges all over the country continue. D.C. Federal District Judge Gladys Kessler has ruled the health care law to be constitutional. In her ruling, Kessler says: First, this Court agrees with the two other district courts which have ruled that the individuals subject to § 1501’s mandate provision are either present or future participants in the national health care market. See Liberty Univ., 2010 WL 4860299, at *15 (“Nearly everyone will require health care services at some point in their lifetimes, and it is not always possible to predict when one will be afflicted by illness...

In the wake of the tragedy in Tucson, there has been a renewed focus on eliminating what is being called the "climate of hate" within our political environment. President Obama spoke to this in his meaningful memorial speech when he cautioned that we have been, "far too eager to lay blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently." While that admonition is appropriate, and while we all would do well to consider it before speaking, the truth is that our "climate of hate" isn't going anywhere for two reasons. First, passionate and sometimes...

VIDEO HERE.

There is no less racism now than pre-Obama, and there is no less partisanship; there may well be more of both. I was wrong in thinking that these things might diminish, and while having voted against him provides a bit of comfort, it provides very little. That there is now even less sanity provides no solace whatever. Caligula, a Roman emperor, was clearly nuts; he probably suffered from schizophrenia and other serious mental illnesses. However: [Those] who believe that Caligula was never mentally ill attribute his erratic behavior to being suddenly presented with immense responsibility, having had no previous experience...