Free Republic

While CNN and MSNBC were broadcasting President Obama‘s remarks on the failed gun control compromise, Fox News’ The Five crew were discussing the media reaction to the Boston Marathon bombings. Co-host Greg Gutfeld went after media figures who he said attempted to “ascribe blame to people they already hate.” Andrea Tantaros reviewed what she sees as a history of “journalistic malpractice” after major incidents like this one, from the furor over the Sarah Palin target map after Tuscon to ABC News’ Brian Ross linking the Aurora shooter to the Tea Party. She said that there seemed to be no “repercussions”...

In the immediate aftermath of the multiple explosions that rocked the Copley Square area of Boston during this afternoon’s marathon, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof took to Twitter to say that the tragic events are a “reminder” of how Senate Republicans blocked the appointment of a new director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). “[E]xplosion is a reminder that ATF needs a director. Shame on Senate Republicans for blocking apptment,” he tweeted with a link to a Washington Post article on the Senate GOP’s threats to put a hold on President Obama‘s nomination for a...

Passing the buck in dramatic fashion on the world stage, President Barack Obama told the UN General Assembly this morning that the U.S. government was not responsible for the anti-Islam video that he once again blamed for recent attacks on U.S. embassies in the Middle East. He added that more guards at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi would not have helped save Ambassador Chris Stevens, and that the real problem was "deeper causes" such as religious intolerance. "[I]t will not be enough to put more guards in front of an Embassy; or to put statements of regret, and wait for...

Today Barack Obama blamed his four years of trillion dollar deficits on the Bush tax cuts. From the president’s Weekly Address: You see, Republicans in Congress and their nominee for President believe that the best way to create prosperity in America is to let it trickle down from the top. They believe that if our country spends trillions more on tax cuts for the wealthy, we’ll somehow create jobs – even if we have to pay for it by gutting things like education and training and by raising middle-class taxes. They’re wrong. And I know they’re wrong because we already...

Recall supporters have turned their attention from character assassination to cannibalism. With recent poll numbers suggesting they’ll lose their 15-month campaign to take down Gov. Scott Walker, the recallistas have begun to eat their own. When the blaming and hating is done — when the smoke clears and the sun dawns June 6 — Walker likely will be the last man standing. In Wisconsin, the blaming began last week when liberal Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent posted what he called an exclusive on the recall race. An “unnamed top Wisconsin Democrat” was “furious” the Democratic National Committee would not pony...

"...listen, you've got the perfect storm building. You've got all the passion around Trayvon, and what a horrible injustice that was. And it turns out you can draw a direct line back to the Koch Bros, you can draw a direct line back to to mainstream corporations..."

During an interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday, President Obama was asked if he could understand why the American people are frustrated with the lack of economic recovery. Obama responded by saying he "doesn't control the weather." "No matter how well we're steering the ship, if the boat's rocking back and forth and people are getting sick and, you know, they're being buffeted by the winds and the rain ... if you're asking, 'Are you enjoying the ride right now?' folks are  going to say, 'No.' " Obama said. "People are  going to say, 'You know what? A good captain...

I usually write songs and this is my first attempt at writing an op-ed piece. It always amazes me how most political commentators beat around the bush. Well, that’s not how you write a song so let’s just cut to the chase and get to the chorus:My song, "Obama Budget Plan" can be seen on YouTube. It indicates that President Obama’s budget plan appears to be to spend as much of our money as he wants, on anything he wants and to pay for it by just printing more money. The fact is, President Obama doesn’t really seem to have...

(CNSNews.com) - Senate Democrats are calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate possible price-fixing of gasoline by U.S. refineries because “recent reports,” according to the senators, suggest the refiners are trimming supply to keep prices high. But a federal report from November shows that refinery stockpiles started to decline in 2008, if not earlier. At a press conference on Tuesday, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced that they had sent a letter that day to the FTC, “to request the Commission begin an investigation into potential price fixing of gasoline by U.S. refiners.” “Recent...

(CNSNews.com) - Back in 2008 then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) knew where she wanted to place the blame for high gas prices. “The price of oil is at the doorstep -- 4 dollars plus per gallon for oil, is attributed to two oil men in the White House,” Pelosi said in a CNN interview on July 17th, 2008. Now that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are out of the White House, Pelosi has been silent on the issue. She has made no public comments on gas prices over the past few months. President Barack Obama...

Your average poorly informed lefty (but I repeat myself) will reliably tell you that our current fiscal straits are the result of three things: 1. Bush’s wars; 2. Bush’s tax cuts for the rich; 3. Bush’s bank bailouts. That is not true, of course: The main bank bailouts (odious as they were) have been paid back, often at a profit. The money-losing parts (and the likely money-losing parts) are the ones insisted upon by Barack Obama and his Democratic colleagues: the foreclosure-prevention programs, the endless maintenance of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, etc. The Iraq War, in its most expensive...

'Fair game' a box-office flop The movie Fair Game, about the Valerie Plame/Joseph Wilson affair, was in theaters and then it seemed to disappear. Any reason? Poor ticket sales, basically. Fair Game was a generally well-regarded movie (it got a good 79 percent favorable rating on the movie website Rotten Tomatoes) that starred big-name actors in Naomi Watts and Sean Penn. It was about CIA operative Valerie Plame (played by Watts) whose cover was blown in Bob Novak's widely read Washington Post political column. The information was allegedly leaked to Novak by White House officials to discredit her husband, Joseph...

While most normal Americans still reeled in shock in the wake of the Tucson shooting, liberals across the country were out in force blaming conservatives for it. Given how heart-rending the whole tragedy was, their reaction is truly mind-boggling. One can only wonder what kind of human beings would react in this way. To liberals' eternal shame, it turns out that the shooter was anything but a Tea Partyer and that his "conservative" credentials are rather thin indeed. In fact, the information that has emerged since then would appear to place him in the leftist camp, if anywhere in the...

While you’re reading all those HuffPo articles filled with hand-wringing sanctimony about the current state of Republican political discourse, keep in mind that according to New York Magazine, the founder of the Huffington Post filmed a role in a sci-fi fantasy film where the two heroes of the film attempt to rid the world of evil by assassinating President George W. Bush: The two soldiers’ relationship blossoms, and Butch begins to get to know his lover’s family. But after he inadvertently draws attention to their ancestral home, disaster strikes. This tragedy radicalizes the pair and they become convinced that the...

As the nation reeled from news that a gunman had shot a group of Arizona citizens including Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford, an all-too-predictable response emanated from some on the left. Despite news reports suggesting that the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, was simply insane – a devotee of Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler, who believed in mind control and “conscience dreaming,” and who was convinced he would become the treasurer of a new currency – many left-wingers sought to attribute his despicable acts to a conservative political agenda. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote, “We don’t have proof yet that this...

Our lefty friends have just come off a pretty a good century playing the blame game on conservatives for "violence." Whether it was corporate goons whacking union organizers at the Battle of the Overpass, or racist Southern cops turning the fire-hoses on civil-rights marchers, or Chicago cops attacking the "kids" in 1968, you knew who the good guys were. Somehow the story of union thugs attacking Tea Party folks, or Reverend Al Sharpton inciting anti-Korean riots, or anti-WTO anarchists vandalizing downtown Seattle didn't have quite the same resonance with the American people. So our lefty friends play the right-wing violence...

Unwilling to delay until tomorrow mistakes that could be made immediately, Democrats used 2010 to begin losing 2012. Trying to pre-emptively drain the election of its dangerous (to Democrats) meaning, all autumn Democrats described the electorate as suffering a brain cramp, an apoplexy of fear, rage, paranoia, cupidity -- something. Any explanation would suffice as long as it cast what voters were about to say as perhaps contemptible and too trivial to be taken seriously by the serious. It is amazing the ingenuity Democrats invest in concocting explanations of voter behavior that erase what voters always care about, and this...

Nancy Pelosi emerges from her bunker today to headline a New York fund raiser, a last-gasp stab at scaring up support for House Dems. And scare is in the script. Speaking in Pittsburgh yesterday, she fired up what's left of the Steelworkers' Union there by prophesizing calamity in the event of a GOP landslide. That, and laying blame -- at the feet of President Bush. And the Chamber of Commerce. "We have lost millions of jobs to outsourcing under President Bush," said Pelosi -- who then blamed her party's woes on foreign donations allegedly used to fund the pro-business chamber....

It is a ritual as predictable as the tides. With every election, we descend into sound-bite economics. Rhetorical claims grow more partisan and self-serving. We are now deep in this process. President Obama's policies either averted another Great Depression -- or have crippled the recovery. These debates confirm the dreary state of economic discourse. The right rejects the idea that sometimes government must rescue the economy from panic; the left sees salvation only in ever-larger government. The first is an invitation to anarchy; the second threatens long-term economic growth through higher taxes, regulations or budget deficits. When Obama took office...

Obama says Republicans holding recovery hostage By Caren Bohan and Alister Bull WASHINGTON | Fri Sep 10, 2010 5:07pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama accused Republicans on Friday of holding the middle class hostage and defended his efforts to stimulate the sluggish economy as he tries to reverse grim election prospects for his fellow Democrats in November. With opinion polls showing more Americans questioning his economic leadership, Obama used a rare news conference at the White House to hammer home a campaign-style message painting Republicans as obstructionist and the party for the rich. Obama has been on the...