Free Republic

What kind of Twilight Zone are we living in when Democrats pretend that the mainstream media are objective journalists and Fox News is an arm of the Trump administration? People are always talking about media bias, so why am I bringing this up now? Well, because of two news alerts that popped up on my phone. First, I read that the Democratic National Committee is refusing to partner with Fox News for the 2020 primary debates. The stated reason, according to DNC Chair Tom Perez? "Recent reporting in the New Yorker on the inappropriate relationship between President Trump, his administration...

On Wednesday, Jake Tapper hosted a CNN town hall special episode with survivors and relatives of the victims of the Florida school shooting titled “Stand Up: The Students of Stoneman Douglas Demand Action.” As one might suspect, this was not exactly a fair and balanced forum for debating gun control. Pro-gun control student activists, teachers, and parents of murdered students dominated the discussion and posed most of the questions to the town hall’s five guest speakers.Florida Senator Marco Rubio and NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch were among those five who went up on stage to answer questions, but they did not...

Remember the case of the Census worker who was found hanging from a tree with the word ‘fed' scrawled across his chest? You remember - he died at the hands of right-wing commentators and anti-government tea partiers. He was killed because of an overwhelming case of right-wing paranoia. He was murdered by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachmann, and Fox News. Keep this quiet though... While the death of Bill Sparkman was a media sensation for pushing anti-conservative sentiments just a couple of months ago, it is receiving little to no coverage currently. Why? Because, as investigators have recently speculated,...

Local media is reporting that the Obama administration has taken control of access to two Ferguson, Missouri townhall meetings on the Mike Brown shooting being held Monday evening. The Department of Justice has limited attendance to Ferguson residents only and has ordered ID checks to gain entry. DOJ banned reporters. In a First Amendment irony, the meetings are being held in churches: Wellspring and Pour Lady of Guadalupe. The shooting of unarmed 18 year old black robber by white police officer Darren Wilson after a confrontation that occurred just minutes after Brown robbed a convenience store has stoked national controversy....

This weekend in Washington, DC, thousands will march to recognize the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Just prior to that historic celebration, President Obama touched on the issue of race today at a town hall meeting in New York at Binghamton University. Responding to a question about educational opportunities for minorities, Obama acknowledged the progress America has made in race since Martin Luther King, Jr.'s momentous 'I Have a Dream' speech on August 28, 1963. "Obviously we've made enormous strides -- I'm a testament to it, you're a testament to it, the diversity of this room and the...

It's been four years since protests of the president's health care agenda boiled over in town hall meetings around the country. The summer of 2009 marked the rise of the Tea Party movement and set in motion the GOP takeover of the House of Representatives the following year. Groups from all over the political spectrum are hoping to recapture some of that energy this month. 'A Boiling Point'?Before August 2009, town hall meetings — gatherings where members of Congress check in with constituents back home — used to be guaranteed snoozers. But in Michigan that month, Rep. John Dingell, a...

Many go to Washington and forget where they came from. Sen. Harkin in no way conducts himself like Grassley. And maybe that is one reason that even democrats have to say that they respect Sen. Grassley, even if they don't like his policies/politics.

Union Violence: An African-American is beaten up at a political rally by thugs shouting racial epithets, and after three months his assailants are charged with the moral equivalent of jaywalking. Why wasn't it a hate crime? The beating of Kenneth Gladney by people wearing the purple shirts of the Service Employees International Union outside a Missouri health care town hall meeting three months ago met all the classic definitions of a hate crime. Time was, the beating of a black man outside a protest rally, and the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators, would be headline news. Gladney was working...

We put together a little video chronicling the meetings we held. The meetings were attended by the public and many views were expressed; but even the dems concluded that the discussion should not be rushed. A longer synopsis will follow!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th9SVcF84Ew

Since early February, we’ve seen increasing numbers of militant right-wing activists attending public meetings across the country targeting Members of Congress and President Obama. Now in the August recess, the “tea-bagger” protesters and right-wing activists are showing up in larger numbers with a mission to be as disruptive as possible in the hopes of rattling Members of Congress and halting health care reform through pure spectacle and obstruction. Our response is shaped by 3 things: * Our targets are Members of Congress who must vote “yes” for this bill. Our targets are not the right-wing extremists. The targets of these...

President Obama has called for a serious and reasoned debate about his plans to overhaul the health-care system. Any such debate must include the question of whether it is constitutional for the federal government to adopt and implement the president's proposals. Consider one element known as the "individual mandate," which would require every American to have health insurance, if not through an employer then by individual purchase. This requirement would particularly affect young adults, who often choose to save the expense and go without coverage. Without the young to subsidize the old, a comprehensive national health system will not work....

What if America transcended race, and Barack Obama wasn't invited? The question comes to mind as cries of racism grow ever louder from Obama's supporters. No one should be surprised. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, liberal Democrats have to accuse their opponents of racism. Indeed, somewhat to their credit, fighting racism -- alas, even where it doesn't exist -- is one of the reasons they became liberal Democrats in the first place. And that's the great irony of the Obama presidency. It was Obama's supporters who hinted, teased, promised or prophesied that Obama would help America "transcend race." But...

Crowd estimates for tonight's health care town hall meeting vary. As the event began, a speaker said there were at least 1,000 people in attendance. An aide to U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Vestavia Hills, who hosted the meeting, estimated double that number.

Earlier today, I noted that New Hampshire’s media had taken notice that their Congressional delegation had gone missing during the August recess, rather than hold town-hall meetings to face their constituents about the health-care reform package. I joked that they had put Paul Hodes, Carol Shea-Porter, and Jean Shaheen on milk cartons, a reference to the admirable effort of milk producers to help find missing children. Green Room contributor Patrick Ishmael at AIP’s blog noted that Missourians needed to put a picture of Ike Skelton on a few milk cartons, too: The approach of Missouri represenatives to dealing with the...

Angry confrontations at health care forums nationwide have prompted U.S. Rep. Ron Kind to establish some conduct rules for his upcoming town hall meetings. “We’ve seen what’s happening in other parts of the country — some of these (town hall meetings) have turned out unruly,” said Kind spokesman Erik Olson. “Obviously, we are concerned.” The meeting rules include: Everyone will respect each other — no disruptions and no talking over others. Everyone will fill out an informational sheet before entering the facility. Those wishing to speak will receive a number that will be drawn at random for order of speakers....

SALT LAKE CITY -- People in Utah's 2nd Congressional District won't be seeing any town hall meetings on health care during the August break. Congressman Jim Matheson's spokeswoman Allison Heyrend said the congressman has opted instead to continue to use a telephone town-meeting approach. She said they've had five such meetings since the first of the year. "We had about 46,000 Utahns participate, and I would say 90 percent of the questions and the discussion was about health care," she said. Heyrend said the call-outs for the telephone meetings were based on voter registrations and involved members of all parties....

Now officially part of the mob, I attended the town hall meeting yesterday of Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) in Hagerstown.  (Included below are two brand new videos.) Maryland is as “blue” a state as you can find.  (Barack Obama got almost 700,000 more votes than John McCain in 2008).  But anger at Obamacare -- and the senators and congressman pushing it -- appears to have turned a lot of blue voters red-faced. Obama won the State of Maryland in the Presidential general election last year by over 26 points -- Obama-Biden receiving 61.9 percent of the vote to 35.5 percent...

If the Left’s standards of justice prevailed, violence at townhall meetings in St. Louis and Tampa would be prosecuted as a Democratic hate crime. In recent weeks, left-wingers have tried to blame the murder of abortionist George Tiller on Bill O’Reilly and drafted a hate crimes bill that chills free speech. However, it was Nancy Pelosi and her cohorts who created an atmosphere of fear, loathing, and intimidation that exploded into union violence against private citizens. As the Left would say, the recent violence “did not occur in a vacuum.” Congressional Democrats, faced with hemorrhaging support for nationalizing health care...

Note: The following text is a quote: Sarah Palin: A Message to Alaskans about the Stimulus Veto and the Health Care Town Halls Sarah Palin's Notes A Message to Alaskans about the Stimulus Veto and the Health Care Town Halls Today at 7:33pm Tomorrow begins an important week for Alaskans. On Monday, state lawmakers will meet to override my veto of stimulus funds. As Governor, I did my utmost to warn our legislators that accepting stimulus funds will further tie Alaska to the federal government and chip away at Alaska’s right to chart its own course. Enforcing the federal building...

IBD Exclusive Series: Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For Failure Discourse: At a town hall last week in Dallas, an elderly "mob" with "manufactured" outrage questioned AARP's support for nationalized health care, asking: "Do you work for us or do we work for you?"There were no swastika-wearing grannies at Tuesday's meeting, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might claim. Nor were they "taking their cues from talk show hosts, Internet rumor-mongers . . . and insurance rackets," as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said. But they were mad as hell at the perception that AARP was selling them out in the...