Free Republic

On Friday’s edition of NBC’s “MTP Now,” Biden Senior Advisor and Assistant and Director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs Tom Perez responded to critics who say the Biden administration’s policies are too pro-Israel by saying that the White House hears “the concerns of our friends in Michigan, in Illinois, and across the country. And that’s why the President has called for a six-week ceasefire.” Host Kristen Welker asked, “What do you say, though, to these leaders and to these communities who say not enough is being done, that they want to see a permanent ceasefire — and...

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) blasted Democratic strategist James Carville, saying he should “shut the -‑‑‑ up” on criticisms regarding President Biden and his odds in the 2024 presidential race. In a new interview with Politico, Fetterman responded to a question about Biden’s reelection campaign by slamming Carville unprompted, saying he would use the interview as “another opportunity to tell James Carville to shut the -‑‑‑ up.” “Like I said, my man hasn’t been relevant since grunge was a thing. And I don’t know why he believes it’s helpful to say these kinds of things about an incredibly difficult circumstance with...

MSNBC political analyst Cornell Belcher said Monday on “Deadline” that Vice President Kamala Harris’ performance in office was being questioned because of sexism. Belcher said, “Looking back at it, I don’t remember Biden being in the Obama re-elect launch video at all. I don’t know if Dick Cheney be any made your re-elect videos?” Host Nicolle Wallace said, “I don’t think so.”

Borrowing a line from “The Godfather,” Dr. Anthony Fauci reacted to President Trump’s takedowns by saying that the presidential broadsides were “nothing personal, strictly business,” according to a report. Trump skewered the nation’s top infectious diseases expert Monday, telling his campaign staff that “people are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots, these people that have gotten it wrong.” Calling the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases a “nice guy,” the president also described him as a “disaster.”

The terrorist attacks on London's transportation system place recent reports of American soldiers' abuse of detainees at Guantanamo in a new perspective: They illustrate the unintended consequences of absolute prohibitions and generalizations about the treatment of prisoners. The Pentagon's own investigations reveal that incidents at Guantanamo include the chaining of a detainee to the ground in an interrogation cell, another inmate silenced with adhesive tape over his mouth, and a female interrogator pretending to smear menstrual blood on a prisoner's face. The treatment of one important prisoner — Mohamed al-Qahtani, a Saudi who has admitted being the so-called 20th hijacker...

The retirement of Justice O’Connor didn’t ignite the battle for the heart and soul of America, but it sure will kick it into high gear. The impending retirement of Chief Justice Rehnquist will shift that battle into overdrive and the political mental midgets’ pomposity into overload. [Balderdash from a pompous ass, for you sadly educated left-wing-nuts.] The first thing one must ponder on this topic is how the Supreme Court of the United States became the front line of this battle in the first place. According to one of my favorite founders Thomas Jefferson, "A free people claim their rights...

Patriotism: pa-tri-ot-ism; noun: love for or devotion to ones country Liberals don’t love America. They put up with it. Canada, France, Belgium. Now those are the countries liberals love. Whenever liberals’ patriotism is called into question they shout out absurd statements such as: “patriotism is a noble act involving dissent and struggle for what one believes is right... protesting the war is a patriotic act.” Or “patriotism is burning the flag.” And, my favorite yet, “Patriotism sometimes requires you to not be patriotic.” If liberals loved America as much as they say, one would think they would come down on...

The essence of modern liberalism is laziness. The idea of the American Dream is based on individualism and personal responsibility. If you work hard, play by the rules, and develop your God-given talents to their fullest, you will be successful in life. But Liberals do not hold to this ideal and would rather have you go through life sitting around passively waiting for something to be given to you by the government. Theirs is a principle according to which individualism is sublimated to the state and success is defined as relative comfort rather than doing the best you can do....

One simple, do-it-yourself method of examining American politics is determining what, at any given moment, liberals are screeching about. This works mainly because, as opposed to solution-minded conservatives, liberals are always screeching about something. As of this writing -- and this may change very rapidly, I realize -- they’re worried about the treatment of terrorists in Cuba. They’re not worried about the Communists in Cuba, mind you; terrorists who favor collectivism have never really concerned liberals. Amnesty International may call Gitmo a “gulag,” but, historically, liberals haven’t been able to find much to say when it comes to actual gulags...

In the course of campaigning last year, President Bush faced an unending stream of attacks for his War on Terror. His opponent, Senator John Kerry (D-MA), repeatedly denounced Iraq as “the wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place.” While many of the president's recent speeches have reminded us of our successes, and assured us that “the best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world,” the media continues unabated in its negative portrayal of the War on Terror. As evidenced by history, popular morale influences the outcomes of wars—so the...

I was listening to Rush today, and he was playing excerpts from miscellaneous Dems' reactions to President Bush's speech on Tuesday night. They are outraged - outraged, I tell you! - that the president dared to connect the events of September 11, 2001 and the war in Iraq. It's just like their purported indignation at Karl Rove's comments about liberals not supporting aggressive (read "military") responses to 9/11. Well, they have to act outraged and indignant, now, don't they?! Because they know full well that Americans will rally behind whatever is necessary to avenge 9/11 and prevent another one. They...

Democrat leaders, preparing their rebuttal to the president's speech even before he delivered it, said he should concede he made mistakes as a means to reclaiming credibility on Iraq -- as if they actually want him to have greater credibility. In the same breath they say he lied to get us into war -- an offense so grave that some of them are advocating he be impeached over it. While national Democrat politicians have long been confused over the distinction between intentional wrongs and mistakes -- thanks to Bill Clinton successfully depicting his pre-meditated transgressions as mistakes -- isn't it...

The nationalists want to make a deal with the Americans, while al Qaeda wants to fight on, the UN official told Tavernise. When the bad guys are shooting each other, it's hard to say the insurgency is worsening, but Democrats are escalating their rhetoric: Iraq is "a seemingly intractable quagmire," said Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass) at a contentious hearing Thursday. Disaster in Iraq "is a real possibility," said Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del) after announcing his intention to run for president. "There is rising concern that everything seems to be going the wrong way," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, (D-Cal). People who've...

The best defense is a good offense. Just Google this often used adage and you’ll find it is frequently applied to every conceivable walk of life…..sports, politics, medicine, business, warfare….you name it. Everyone agrees that you must go on the offense to win. Democrats have been on the offense now since the beginning of the second millennium, you know that era when the supreme court gave the presidency to W. A fair appraisal of the Democrat’s offense is simply, it stinks. In the sporting world you often hear another cliché, ‘Offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships.’ Well, the Democrat’s...

What the intrepid Norman Podhoretz so perspicuously calls "the War Against World War IV" continues apace. Its latest cause célèbre (to borrow the language of The Resistance — or is it The Insurgency?) is material-witness detentions, the target sited by (of course) the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch, dutifully sketched by (of course) the New York Times...and timed (hilariously) to emerge just as our ears are ringing from the plaintive wails of prominent Democrats demanding an apology from Karl Rove for having the audacity to suggest that the Left does not take the terrorist threat seriously enough....

The light is blinking red. Media crises and controversies seem to be reaching a tipping point. Dissatisfaction with the media ranges from disgust and outrage to general suspicion. This sensibility is spreading like a virus via the blogosphere, media watchdogs, and books written by media insiders. Factors include inappropriate influence by political figures, use of unreliable anonymous sources, use of non-existent sources, laziness, general dishonesty, corporate bean-counters, corporate influence on content, pressure to not displease advertisers, infotainment mentality, staff cutbacks, loss of morale in the newsroom, payola, lack of opportunity for enterprise reporting or the pressures of the 24-hour news...

One year ago the nation paid a fond farewell to its 40th president in a week-long tribute filled with pride, pathos and patriotism. Hundreds of thousands of Americans turned out to file past the president lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda and to line the streets of Washington to see his cortege pass. Millions more spent the week near TV sets to observe the pomp and circumstance attendant a rare state funeral. Crossing the country twice by plane, the body of Ronald Wilson Reagan went from sea to shining sea then back again with near continuous coverage of the...

I don't watch the Bill Maher show on HBO. I haven't thought much about him since he had a show on ABC and implied that the 9/11 attackers were courageous for flying hijacked planes into buildings and killing 3,000 people. At the same time, Maher said that the U.S. was cowardly for attacking terrorist bases in Afghanistan by launching cruise missiles from ships at sea. He is supposed to be a comedian but also tries to come across as someone who makes serious and thoughtful points about political issues. We had to take another look at Maher because after he...

Dean has said Republicans never made an honest living in their lives and House majority leader Tom DeLay ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence. DeLay has not been accused of any crime. Dean ''doesn't speak for me with that kind of rhetoric, and I don't think he speaks for the majority of Democrats," Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said yesterday on ABC's ''This Week." While discussing the hardship of working Americans standing in long lines to vote, Dean said Thursday, ''Republicans, I guess, can do that because a...

Sometimes our efforts to stand up for the less fortunate actually can grease their slide backward into even less fortune. That's what I thought of the verbal sucker punch with which August Wilson, the distinguished black playwright, walloped Bill Cosby, the distinguished black comedian. When Time magazine asked Wilson what he thought of Cosby's controversial criticisms of black parenting, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright was dismissive: "A billionaire attacking poor people for being poor," he said. "Bill Cosby is a clown. What do you expect? I thought it was unfair of him." I, by contrast, think Wilson is being unfair...