Free Republic

As the May 17 Pennsylvania party primaries approach, it’s clear that Trumpism has reduced what was once a powerful and moderate state Republican Party to a rotten receptacle filled with candidates fashioning themselves in his image. Many of them lack much if any previous political ties to the state, or to politics at all. snip So, and not surprisingly, most of the Trump-adoring candidates in the current GOP Senate primary have few or no real political roots in the state they claim to want to represent. Dr. Mehmet Oz got his medical degree at Penn, but is really from Turkey,...

RUSH: Grab audio sound bite number 1 — for three weeks now they have been doing this. DON LEMON: If he doesn’t do this, the Rush Limbaughs and the other conservative media will go nuts. CHRIS MATTHEWS: The (crosstalk) president of the United States is a Dittohead. He’s doing literally what Rush Limbaugh calls his people, those who “ditto” everything. JONATHAN CAPEHART: It’s about keeping Rush Limbaugh from criticizing him. HOWARD FINEMAN: …tribal chieftains like Rush Limbaugh. RUSH: Tribal chieftain? ROBERT ZIMMERMAN: Rush Limbaugh took the president on and started attacking him. JOE LOCKHART: He said he’ll sign the bill,...

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Bob Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, lives along so many fault lines of American politics that he is especially sensitive to Trump tremors, which he fears could become an earthquake by November. “I’m concerned,” he said. “Beating Donald Trump won’t be as easy as it might look.” Casey is a pro-life, pro-gun Roman Catholic in a state that Democratic consultant James Carville once described as “Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Alabama in between.” He is also an old-school Democrat and a new-school one: He's pro-union and wary of global trade; he defends Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare and same-sex...

targeting Fox’s Tantaros Spumoni 1 Tough decision: ‘Day Of Rage!!!’ or spumoni? James Foley Did you view that horrible beheading video? US President Obama waves from a golf cart in Kailua Conservatives: too wimpy to hold Obama accountable? Ferguson - Fox 1 MSNBC’s ‘lynch mob mentality’ blasted Politics / Radio / Television Glenn Beck: ditching conservatism New profile in HuffPo: ‘he is mellowing a bit’ By Brian Maloney August 22nd, 2014, 1:58 EDT Beck Glenn 3 That he was even willing to do an interview with a “progressive” publication like the Huffington Post was the first clue. But whatever his...

Glenn Beck was bashing Americans opposed to illegal immigration, decrying partisan politics, and positioning himself toward the center just as he was reportedly trying to strike a deal to get his programming on CNN.CNN's Brian Stelter reported that "the idea fizzled fast and talks aren't expected to resume." CNN and HLN are expected to lay off at least 550 more people in what is being called another "bloodbath," and Beck was reportedly trying to get on the HLN network, where he got his first break in cable television.Stelter, who is one of the best-sourced reporters in the television industry and...

In a wide-ranging interview with The Huffington Post's Howard Fineman, Glenn Beck took the opportunity to again blast conservatives critical of his decision to greet the recent wave of underage illegal immigrants with toys and hot meals. "I don't understand those who cannot see the plight of children," Beck told HuffPo. The border issue is one example. Beck took heat from fellow conservatives for his decision to distribute large amounts of relief supplies through churches and other organizations in McAllen, Texas, to undocumented children caught at the southern border. Sen. Cruz was at his side. Beck's view is that the...

Rand Paul giveth and he taketh away… Rand Paul has already told Mitch McConnell– I know this, because Rand Paul told me this. … Rand Paul wants Mitch McConnell to try to do a deal on immigration. He’s gonna try to push and help and protect the [right] flank of Mitch McConnell, if he can, on immigration. Howard Fineman is a liberal, but he is not known to fabricate conversations. MFP has obtained a copy of the McConnell-Paul plan to sell amnesty… The Distract Conservatives w/ Fake Border Security Plan Never you mind all that amnesty talk! Look at all...

HOWARD FINEMAN, HUFFINGTON POST: I think the president doesn't think in mano a mano terms. He likes to think of himself, and I know he thinks of himself, as a broad-gauged deep guy who plays a long-term game. Has allies, has a plan. Doesn't take it personally. This is the first time I've ever seen him sort of take something personally. Now there is also a school of thought --

After my animated description of President Obama's strangely listless conference call of yesterday, my wonderful wife encouraged me to be kind. So let me say something sympathetic about Donny Deutsch. Sure, he's a member of the Manhattan/Hamptons liberal axis. But I sense he's more of a old-fashioned Dem, someone, for example, who embraces American exceptionalism. So when on today's Morning Joe the adman admitted that the Obamacare failure might set back progressive government for an entire generation, it's noteworthy. Adding to liberal heartburn, Howard Fineman later said "I sort of agree with Donny" and that Obamacare could be a "huge...

Howard Fineman said he went to the Democratic Party organization big dinner this week down in Kentucky and reports the the Dem Party doen't want Ashley Judd as the candidate for the KY senate race

Did you know that one of the reasons for the federal lawsuit against Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio was Obama political campaign strategy? Don't take my word for it. This assertion has been made by the Huffington Post editorial director Howard Fineman in his story excusing negative Obama campaign strategy by claiming they are merely taking pages from the GOP playbook: Wedge Issues. The phrase is often misused. It means forcing the other party to defend an idea, policy or person in such a way that it divides the other party's base. The classic example, used for years if not decades...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: This is Howard Fineman last night on PMSNBC's The Last Word. Fineman now left Newsweek, as you know, and he's over at the Huffing and Puffington Post and they're having a discussion about Newt's debate performance last night. This was Howard Fineman's review. FINEMAN: Newt Gingrich, with this crowd and with these people here who want a fighter -- who like cockfighting, who like the hardscrabble, who like the confrontational approach -- that's what Newt Gingrich gives them. It may be shortsighted of them going down the road, but these people here in this state want to...

As we continue our Summer series of the most left-biased journalists working in the Old Media today it’s time for number seven on the list. We’ve done Cable TV, we’ve done a wire service, and we’ve done a newspaper, so now it’s time to turn our attention to the wonderful world of magazines where we find a worthy candidate in Howard Fineman of Newsweek. The venerable magazine has been around since 1933, but a bit of its long-time luster has faded of late. Not long ago the news mag tried a revamping under the guiding hand of wunderkind Editor Jon...

Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Howard Fineman react to President Obama's Oval Office Address on the oil spill. Here are the highlights of what the trio said: Olbermann: "It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days." Matthews compared Obama to Carter. Olbermann: "Nothing specific at all was said." Matthews: "No direction." Howard Fineman: "He wasn't specific enough."

June 15, 2010 MSNBC Trashes Obama's Address: Compared To Carter, "I Don't Sense Executive Command" Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Howard Fineman react to President Obama's Oval Office Address on the oil spill. Here are the highlights of what the trio said: Matthews compared Obama to Carter. Olbermann: "Nothing specific at all was said." Matthews: "No direction." Howard Fineman: "He wasn't specific enough." Olbermann "I don't think he aimed low, I don't think he aimed at all. It's startling." Howard Fineman: Obama should be acting like a "commander-in-chief." Matthews: Ludicrous that he keeps saying [Secretary of Energy] Chu has a...

Roger Ailes Is The Real Head Of The GOP Howard Fineman Newsweek Published Jan 15, 2010 I've been trying to answer this question: does the Republican Party have a "leader"? Surely it's not Michael Steele, the loose-lipped chairman of the RNC. Not Mitch McConnell, the funereal Kentuckian who heads the Senate's rejectionist GOP minority. Not Sen. John McCain; he's too busy watching his own right flank back home in Arizona. And certainly not the Bushes, elder and younger, hunkered down in Texas. As for the 2012 wannabes, none gets more than a fifth of the GOP vote in the early...

Here is video of Newsweek's Howard Fineman this weekend telling host Chris Matthews, "Of course he is," referring to President Obama being "smarter than us." Chris Matthews had asked Fineman, "Is he smarter than us?" Fineman's immediate response was "Of course he is, much smarter!" Fineman had been waxing eloquent about how "patient" Obama is, and that he is just waiting for the right time and the right way to get his agenda adopted. Just another example of the fawning, biased "mainstream media." . . . (VIDEO)

Well, at least he didn’t call him shiftless . . . On this afternoon’s Hardball, Howard Fineman twice called RNC Chairman Michael Steele “lazy,” adding “he doesn’t work that hard.” Now, I don’t in fact believe there was any racial overtone involved. I am explicitly not accusing Fineman of racism. But I mention the incident to illustrate the double standard. View video here.

If you watch MSNBC's "Hardball," you really have to scratch your head and wonder what host Chris Matthews is thinking when he opens his mouth sometimes. On the March 30 broadcast of "Hardball," Matthews, MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan and Newsweek's Howard Fineman were discussing what they perceived to be a rift between former GOP vice-presidential candidate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her running mate, former GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. based on McCain's unwillingness to commit to supporting Palin as a presidential candidate in 2012. ...more (w/video)...

I thought the most newsworthy comment of the week by an inside-the-Beltway kibbitzer was this by Howard Fineman: “Everybody’s trying to take their measure of Barack Obama, all the power players in Washington. And frankly, they think they can roll him.” Now David Broder, “dean of the Washington Press Corps” [legally-required description] has said something very similar . . . Writing in his “End of the Honeymoon” column of today, Broder observes [emphasis added]: