Free Republic

Yet another example of the folly of assigning liberals to guard duty. Joining Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show Thursday to vent about that pesky wabbit Joe Lieberman was Fire Dog Lake blogger Jane Hamsher. Democrats wield considerable leverage over Lieberman, Hamsher opined, to keep him from joining a GOP filibuster of ObamaCare or punish him if he does -- MADDOW: ... I think you’re right to point out that other senators sort of gently expressing their disapproval of his proverbial toplessness at this point is a bigger deal than it would be in the real world, that their words...

For eight years Democrats pounded at the doors of D.C., throwing their own fecal matter around, and claiming that it was only a matter of time until Bush had them all rounded up for being unpatrotic. And like the frenzied mob at a Black Friday sale waiting for the doors to open, shoving and shoving against the glass, until the doors finally open, and the mob bursts through stomping over any store personnel in the way, Democrats have been completely unable to let go of the attack dog politics of the last 8 years and actually govern. Instead what we’ve...

<p>Republicans are trying to pass legislation in the next few weeks to kick off the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth, and the only hurdle appears to be Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), who is refusing to let the Senate vote on the bill.</p>

Alexandria Democrats Allegedly Pledging Vengeance Ms. Hughes is a federal employee who ran as an independent. An African-American non-democrat with tax lowering sensibilities drives the local Democrats bonkers. Democratics are gearing up to attack her election as improper under the Hatch Act which would go to the Obama Office of Special Counsel.

George Allen, the not-so-bright, tobacco-dipping, football-quoting Senator from Virginia, is quickly emerging as the right wing's potential answer to John McCain come 2008. Allen solidified his standing as an inside the Beltway rising star by winning the Conservative Political Action Conference's '08 straw poll on Saturday, besting McCain 22 to 20 percent. He also won the title of "America's Best Senator" from Muslims for Bush. Since we're likely to be hearing Allen's name more and more in the coming months, let's take a look back at what he thinks of the pressing issues of the day, starting with the selection...

CRAWFORD, Tex., Dec. 30 -- On most of the 365 days he has enjoyed at his secluded ranch here, President Bush's idea of paradise is to hop in his white Ford pickup truck in jeans and work boots, drive to a stand of cedars, and whack the trees to the ground.SNIPThis might strike many Washingtonians as a curious pastime. It does burn a lot of calories. But brush clearing is dusty, it is exhausting (the president goes at it in 100 degree-plus heat), and it is earsplitting, requiring earplugs to dull the chain saw's buzz.SNIPRonald Reagan chopped wood and rode...

WASHINGTON -- Senate confirmation of President Bush's choice to be U.S. ambassador to the European Union has been delayed for several weeks, and the nominee may not take his post until well into November. Bush's choice as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is serving under a recess appointment and may never be confirmed. The reason: the individual whims of two Republican senators. Freshman Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida last week temporarily blocked the confirmation of longtime Republican stalwart C. Boyden Gray to the EU for petty political reasons. Much more serious because its effect looks permanent, Sen. George Voinovich...

A lot of liberal bloggers are commenting on this picture. Apparently Bush didn’t button the top button of his shirt in the correct position. Is it just me or is it a bit hypocritical for Democrats to be commenting on people’s clothes after this:

When terrorists struck on Sept. 11, 2001, Americans came together in grief and resolve, rallying behind President Bush in an extraordinary show of national unity. But when Hurricane Katrina hit last week, the opposite occurred, with Americans dividing along sharply partisan lines in their judgment of the president's and the federal government's response. The starkly different verdicts on Bush's stewardship of the two biggest crises of his presidency underscore the deepening polarization of the electorate that has occurred on his watch. This gaping divide has left the president with no reservoir of good will among his political opponents at a...

He is paying the back tax after rules change; now Hill Country property brings scrutiny WASHINGTON - Presidential adviser Karl Rove may live in Washington. But in his heart — and for voting purposes — he remains a Texan. Which means he is not legally entitled to the homestead deduction and property tax cap he's been getting on his Washington home for the past 3 1/2 years. Last week, the District of Columbia tax collector was alerted to the problem. And Rove agreed to reimburse the District for an estimated $3,400 in back taxes, city officials said. But now some...

There have been a great number of petty and unfair attacks leveled at George W. Bush in the past five years. He's slow witted. He surrounds himself with incompetent "yes men." He's Hitler. But the pettiest and least fair to date is the charge that President Bush exercises too much. For whatever reason, liberals have developed an obsession with the president's "obsession" with physical fitness. Last month the New Republic's Jonathan Chait, writing in the Los Angeles Times, castigated President Bush for his "obsession with exercise that borders on the creepy." "Bush's insistence that the entire populace follow his example,...

MSNBC's "Hardball" host Chris Matthews suggested last night that the high point of President Bush's State of the Union Address - the emotional hug between grateful Iraqi voter Safia Taleb al-Suhail and Janet Norwood, mother of a Marine who died liberating her country - was staged by the White House. The cynical host apparently first voiced his skepticism during a commercial break. His comments were immediately seized upon by "Hardball" guest, MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan when the show returned.

Smarting over the prospect that President Bush's policy in Iraq was vindicated by Sunday's historic election, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi declined on Monday to offer any congratulations, choosing instead to insult his intelligence. Speaking of the warm reception Bush is likely to enjoy when he delivers the State of the Union Address later this week, the top House Democrat told the National Press Club: "You really don't have to have very [good] communication skills if you have a couple of hundred people who will jump to their feet when you recite the ABCs," she said. In comments on Sunday,...

Ted Kennedy's contemptible foreign policy speech deliberately timed just prior to the Iraqi election was bad enough. But Kennedy didn't just come within one state's electors of becoming president. John Kerry did, and his regrettable remarks on "Meet the Press" demonstrate how scary that is.

January 30, 2005Failed presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry whines about the Iraqi Vote on "Meet The Press"...   click here for really large version This is an email-able, copyright-ready graphic you can use in emails, on blogs, in flyers, on posters... anything that's noncommercial.

A bitter-sounding Sen. John Kerry dismissed the historic Iraqi election on Sunday, warning Americans not to "overhype" the watershed event. "No one in the United States should try to overhype this election," Kerry told NBC's "Meet the Press." The failed presidential candidate questioned the historic referendum's legitimacy, saying, "It's hard to say that something is legitimate when a whole portion of the country can't vote and doesn't vote." Kerry also pooh-poohed reports of a surprisingly high 72 percent turnout by Iraqi voters, insisting instead that the election has "gone as expected." Asked if he thought Iraq was now less of...

I was just watching CNN's coverage of the tsunami disaster and they had Patrick Leahy on commenting about it. He went to great lengths to state that the President had waited to long to make a public statement about the crisis and that our initial offer of $35 million dollars was not nearly enough. To her credit, the interviewer said that the White House was claiming that the President's critics were unwilling to give him credit for anything he did to which Leahy responded that he would give credit when credit was due.

WASHINGTON - President Bush tripped over his tongue again yesterday, inadvertently suggesting that he and his administration are plotting new ways to harm America. At a White House ceremony where he signed the $417 billion defense spending bill for the 2005 fiscal year, Bush uttered another of his celebrated malapropisms. "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we," he said. "They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." Bush's latest verbal bobble was reminiscent of a similar gaffe made by former President Jimmy Carter on Nov. 1, 1980,...

President Bush offered up a new entry for his catalog of "Bushisms" on Thursday, declaring that his administration will "never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people." Bush misspoke as he delivered a speech at the signing ceremony for a $417 billion defense spending bill. "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we," Bush said. "They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." No one in Bush's audience of military brass or Pentagon chiefs reacted. The president was working his way toward a...

Respect. That's what we offer when we honor those who've passed before us. And we witnessed this upon the passing of Ronald Reagan. Hundreds of thousands traveled to Washington for the national and state funerals and the Capitol viewing and to Simi Valley. Millions more watched worldwide. But some were unable to put aside their political differences. Now its time spotlight those deserving of public shame for their atrocious behavior. French President Jacques Chirac boycotted the state funeral even though he was already in the U.S. Democratic National Committee staffers ordered interns who lowered the American flag to half-staff to...

<p>Let's get this straight. Ronnie Reagan allowed AIDS to flourish for years after it was discovered and did next to nothing to stem its virulent, lethal tide, and wouldn't even utter the word until the end of his term, when it was too late. Ronnie Reagan denied the existence of the nation's homeless problem that he largely created, and then blamed the problem on not enough people caring to get out there and get a job as he meanwhile slashed civil services and assistance for the poor.</p>

In a column set to be published on Sunday, NEW YORK TIMES Frank Rich writes: 'During the Reagan show the O.J. Simpson impact was sometimes literally acted out: the gratuitously attenuated aerial shots of the hearse streaking on California freeways to Simi Valley carried an eerie visual echo of the Bronco chase.' On Public reation to Reagan Death, Rich claims: 'The dirty little secret of the week: The outpouring didn't live up to its hype. 'There was this kind of extraordinary outpouring not by the public but by reporters who should know better,' as Morley Safer told Larry King after...

Liberals have found a new hobby: belittling the dead. They find the term “Rest in Peace” objectionable. Counterpunch.org published a piece by Phil Gasper called "Ronald Reagan, 1911-2004: Goodbye and Good Riddance." "Ronald Reagan has finally died at age 93," Gasper wrote. "Predictably, politicians from both major parties have issued gushing tributes to this venal and vicious man, who was happy to slash workers' wages, see families thrown onto the street, support sadistic death squads and bomb other countries, if this was in the interests of the American ruling class." Political cartoonist Ted Rall, when asked about a previous statement...

Last week we paid respect to Ronald Reagan, saluting his optimism, his ability to communicate and his grandfatherly affability. But Reagan was an ideological politician. He championed ideas that helped forge a conservative era. Reagan was largely on the wrong side of history and his era is exhausted, his ideas part of our problem, not part of our solution. Consider that if Reagan was right, then Martin Luther King Jr. was wrong. Reagan called King a communist. He wanted to gut the Voting Rights Act and the civil rights laws. He pushed to give tax breaks to colleges that practiced...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - A college disc jockey who was initially fired after devoting a radio show to celebrating the death of Ronald Reagan will be reassigned to another job until he can respond to complaints about his actions, officials said Friday. Scott Hornyak, a 28-year-old undergraduate at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, was told Friday that he was fired from his paid position as business manager at KSUA-FM, a student-run station. A university spokeswoman later said the firing was premature and the decision was rescinded until Hornyak had a chance to respond to complaints about the Sunday show. "The...

June 10, 2004 Alaska School DJ Off Air for Reagan Remark ASSOCIATED PRESS FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) - A disc jockey at a university radio station who turned a Sunday radio show into a "celebration" that Ronald Reagan "was finally dead" has been suspended. The disc jockey, a University of Alaska Fairbanks undergraduate who goes by the call name "Spider Bui," said his show was a reaction to the media's positive portrayal of Reagan after his death Saturday. Managers at KSUA-FM said the show was in poor taste and was put on without permission. Neither the student nor station staff would...

I was returning home from the farewell to Ronald Reagan and switched over to WOL(the black talk radio station here in DC)which is also carried as the X-M 169 the Power. The mid-afternoon host is a leftist named Berrie McCain and he was talking with fellow Radio Host Joe Madison and they were whining about all the coverage of the death of Ronald Reagan. Joe for his part tried to stay away from the partisan politics and basically stated "That his grandmother said you are suppose to only say good things about a person in death." Which McCain in "It...

The Associated Press 6/11/04 9:39 AM CLIFTON PARK, N.Y. (AP) -- An upstate teacher could be punished for criticizing the late President Ronald Reagan to students during a moment of silence in his honor at the high school. Shenendehowa school district spokeswoman Kelly DeFiciani said once the investigation is finished, the unidentified teacher "could be subject to disciplinary action." The district is investigating whether her comments violated the district policy against staff making political endorsements at work or on school property. The teacher, who has taught in the suburban Albany district for more than 20 years, made "negative" and "inappropriate"...

Praise for the late President Ronald Reagan's sunny resonance with the common man has been rasping all week on the ears of many activists and social workers who watched in vain as homelessness exploded under his watch -- and they hope the history books remember one thing: Before Reagan, people sleeping in the street were so rare that, outside of skid rows, they were almost a curiosity. After eight years of Reaganomics - - and the slashes in low-income housing and social welfare programs that went along with it -- they were seemingly everywhere. And America had a new household...

The free rag spews forth on thursdays and I happened upon this sour grapes article on the occasion of former President reagan's death. The author went to Simi valley and slagged people there and Reagan and then claims to have met and talked to Free Republic people. Here's the tripe: Lying in StateThis bier’s for you, Gipperby Steven Mikulan The handmade banners began appearing on freeway overpasses long before the turnoff for Moorpark College. “God Bless You, Nancy and Ron,” said one. I was heading to view the late president’s casket at the Ronald Reagan Library and, like everyone else,...

This will not be popular, on this day before the state funeral in Washington for Ronald Reagan. But the fact is, he was not my favorite president, and I mean to say why. I will grant that he was charismatic, was a wonderful public speaker, that he had a healing effect at a time the nation was psychologically hurting, that he seemed to be an all-around nice guy. He also deserves applause, and thanks, for helping to end the Cold War — although I think Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin may have had more to do with it. As did...

Weepy Reagan Tribute-Free Zone June 9, 2004 BY NEIL STEINBERG SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST "That's it. While I'm sorry Reagan is dead -- though at 93, we saw that coming, didn't we? -- I'm going nuts with the tributes. It's as if he was a 16-year-old couple who drove into a tree, with the candles and the floral tributes and such. We've become a culture of babies, where every death is Princess Diana's. It's enough to sour you on the departed. Over the years, I nudged closer to a grudging respect for Reagan, but this overkill is sending me back toward being...

WASHINGTON Sometimes I feel as if I'm watching a nation mourn. And sometimes I feel as if I'm watching a paternity suit.At every opportunity, as the extraordinary procession solemnly wended its way from California to the Capitol, W. was peeping out from behind the majestic Reagan mantle, trying to claim the Gipper as his true political father.Finally, there is a flag-draped coffin and military funeral that President Bush wants to be associated with, and wants the rest of us to see."His heart belongs to Reagan," Ken Duberstein declared about Mr. Bush on CNN, in a riff on the old Cole...

DERRICK Z. JACKSON Reagan's heart of darkness By Derrick Z. Jackson | June 9, 2004 PRESIDENT Bush proclaimed: "Ronald Reagan believed that God takes the side of justice and that America has a special calling to oppose tyranny and defend freedom." In the first three days of news reports on the death of the former president, not a single major American newspaper, television station, or politician has dared to exhume this counterpoint to the Reagan's legacy: "Immoral, evil, and totally un-Christian." These were the words of Bishop Desmond Tutu, spoken on Capitol Hill at a House hearing in late 1984....

"Ray Lamb had been on the streets since 1981.....Reagan would have left out the rest of Lamb's story, the part about how he had been working and functioning up until 1981, when Reagan fired all of the country's air traffic controllers because they had launched an illegal strike. Lamb had been a controller for 17 years.......Almost since the day he left office, those who were captivated by his idea that the selfish life could be a morally upstanding one have sought to turn Reagan into an icon....

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Democrats paid tepid homage to Ronald Reagan (news - web sites), the man most political observers credit for the steady rise of the rival Republican party during the past two decades. Since Reagan's death Saturday at age 93, Democrats have been in a quandary, needing to pay at least token tribute to the late president, praised by his admirers as one of their country's greatest leaders ever. But Democrats see in Reagan the figure whose social policies contributed to an epidemic of homelessness and the decline in prowess of labor unions, and whose economic policies led to...

Some congressional Democrats will not return to Washington this week to participate in the pageantry of a state funeral for a president they bitterly opposed. It was unclear how many rank-and-file Democrats in both the House and Senate would opt to stay at home and miss the largely procedural and symbolic votes to honor the 40th president’s life. But roughly half of the House Progressive Caucus was contemplating not trekking back to Washington for a legislatively inert week, filled only with tributes to a president they often clashed with, spokesmen for the lawmakers said. But despite the indifferent responses of...

Back in Washington, staffers at the Democratic National Committee stopped a couple of interns who were lowering the flags to half mast outside their headquarters. "The interns were just doing what they thought was right," says a DNC staffer, who heard about the incident. "But somebody a bit more senior told them not to lower the flags until they absolutely had to, I guess when President Bush announced that all flags should be lowered. There was only an hour's difference. It was pretty petty, but that's how bad things have gotten around here."

Monday, June 7, 2004 NOVEMBER 9, 1989 Do you remember November 9,1989? Do you remember thousands of West Berliners waiting on their side of the wall with bottles of champagne while East Germans were breaking through? Just wondering ... but did any Democratic president ever ask the Soviet Union to tear down the wall in Berlin. The truth is that Ronald Reagan was the president who won the Cold War. Within just a few days the Democrats and their media myrmidons are going to be working full-bore to deny him that legacy. The Cold War, you see, was really World...

While some long-time critics of President Ronald Reagan stifled their inclination to criticize the dead, others launched the kind of venomous attacks that marked his long career in politics. Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy said yesterday he regretted Reagan died without ever standing trial for 1986 air strikes he ordered that killed the Libyan president's adopted daughter and 36 other people. Ronald Reagan ordered the April 15, 1986, air raid in response to a discotheque bombing in Berlin allegedly ordered by Khadafy that killed two U.S. soldiers and a Turkish woman and injured 229 people. "I express my deep regret because...

Amid all the reports of international reaction to the death of Ronald Reagan, I found the following from two of the usual suspects: "We all know Reagan's legacy, from the Iran-Contra affair to the funding of the Nicaraguan military in which over 200,000 people died. The groundwork for the move steadily to the right happened with the Reagan administration. People want to elevate him to some mythic level; they have their own reason for doing that." -Danny Glover "I express my deep regret because Reagan died before facing justice for his ugly crime that he committed in 1986 against the...

I never cared much for Ronald Reagan, the president. But I must tip my hat to Reagan, the myth.It is Reagan the myth the nation now eulogizes - that political colossus who, his supporters claim, vanquished both the Soviet Union and the liberal welfare state with the certainty of his optimism and the jaunty cock of his head. . .As for the other towering pillar of the Reagan myth - that he single-handedly slew the Soviet bear - there is little, if any, historical support. The Soviet empire was weak and its economy imploding. The scholarly consensus is that Reagan's...

In California, according to a Democratic House leadership staffer, Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi's office refused until late in the day West Coast time to prepare any remarks by the leader on the passing of the president.'A call went out mid day on the East Coast that Reagan might be in serious condition, and that party leaders should be ready. But Pelosi's people basically said that they couldn't be bothered.'Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer had to get them in line. We got the impression that they just didn't want to say anything that would be construed as supportive of a Republican.Pelosi's...

In a feigned and futile attempt to demonstrate class, John Kerry has “suspended” his campaign for president in honor of the passing of President Ronald Reagan. But that didn’t stop him from allowing hateful Leftists to post their venom on his personal blog. For the record, the comments on Kerry’s site are far less offensive than the comments on the Democrat Underground. But the fact that John Kerry is the Democrat nominee, has offered to suspend his campaign in honor of President Reagan and yet allows haters to post disgusting comments on his site is enough to make any conservative’s...

*Excerpt*"...only saw him once up close, which happened to be when he got a question he didn't like. Was it true that his staff in the 1980 debates had stolen President Carter's briefing book? (They had.) The famously genial grin turned into a rictus of senile fury: I was looking at a cruel and stupid lizard..."

Los Angeles, CA (June 5, 2004) – Screen Actors Guild (SAG) President Melissa Gilbert issued the following statement on the death of former President Ronald Reagan, who served as president of SAG from 1947 to 1952 and again from 1959 to 1960: "Ronald Reagan presided over Screen Actors Guild at one of the most challenging moments in our union's history, as the rise of television significantly impacted the compensation and working conditions for the nation's screen actors. Under his tenure, SAG grew significantly in size and influence as the Guild tackled issues ranging from runaway production, to fair compensation, to...

I've been looking through the John Kerry web log to see how Reagan's death has moved his followers. I thought that Reagan Democrats would come out of the woodwork. While there were some respectful notes, I was horrified by some of these disturbing comments: -- Reagan was a handled President. totally dependent on his aides most of whom lied to him ... He was not a great President please I lived through it -- Record unemployment, record homeless, heartless domestic policies, govt ordered farm foreclosures, factories moving to Mexico, James Watt, Iran-Contra, illegal wars and mass murder in Central America...

Any list of the great TV characters of the 1980s would have to include Bill Cosby as Dr. Cliff Huxtable on ''The Cosby Show'' (which ran from 1984-1992), Ted Danson as Sam Malone on ''Cheers'' (1982-1993), Michael J. Fox as Alex P. Keaton in ''Family Ties'' (1982-1989) -- and Ronald Reagan as the president of the United States in ''The Reagan Years'' (1981-1988). He was not only the president, he played one on TV. In politics, Reagan achieved something he never managed in show business: He became an A-list star. Forget about all those years playing second fiddle in the...

Mayor Daley scolded Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry Tuesday for making a wisecrack about the bicycle accident that scraped the face, hands and knees of President Bush. According to the Drudge Report, Kerry was having a conversation with reporters that he apparently believed was off the record when he reportedly asked, "Did the training wheels fall off?" Daley, who ripped the skin off his kneecap during a bicycle accident a few years ago, said the joke was disrespectful. "When someone falls . . . you should not wish ill upon anyone. It's not right. . . . You just don't...

<p>Democrat John Kerry joked about President Bush's weekend bicycle accident by comparing the president to a child, Internet newshound Matt Drudge reported yesterday.</p> <p>"Kerry told reporters in front of cameras, 'Did the training wheels fall off?' " Mr. Drudge reported on his Web site, www.drudgereport.com. Interviewed by The Washington Times yesterday, Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter would say only that the words Mr. Drudge reported were "off the record." Mr. Drudge said the debate among reporters over the on-camera "training wheels" remark has been "whether to treat it as on or off the record." In comments reported by the Associated Press, Mr. Kerry said, "I hope he's OK. I didn't know the president rode a bike." Mr. Bush, who is widely ridiculed by liberals and Democrats as dumb and incompetent, suffered "minor abrasions and scratches" in the accident, which came near the end of a 17-mile mountain bike ride on his Texas ranch Saturday. Mr. Kerry had his own bicycling mishap earlier this month, taking a spill while riding with Secret Service agents through Concord, Mass. Mr. Kerry fell when his bike hit a patch of sand. He was not injured.</p>