Mr Romney set the tone in his post-defeat address, accusing Newt Gingrich of aligning himself with President Obama in a "frontal assault on free enterprise".

BBC: South Carolina poll: Gingrich triumphs over Romney

Yet everywhere you look, free trade is under assault.

FORBES: Who Will Speak for Free Trade?

And the fact is, when standards like these have been proposed in the past, opponents have often warned that they would be an assault on business and free enterprise.

WHITEHOUSE: President Obama Addresses U.S. Chamber of Commerce

The Lib Dems, denouncing this heartless assault on the principle of free (ie, taxpayer-funded) higher education for all who can benefit from it, want the policy reversed.

ECONOMIST: The Scottish play

But background checks and assault rifle bans will not free us from our most debilitating shackle, and that is our numbness, if not addiction, to violence, particularly in film.

CNN: Despite Newtown, we crave violent movies

This superficially intriguing point, I think, must end up as an assault on all art made by free and equal human beings.

FORBES: Homer's Revenge: Epic Poetry Is Back. It's Viral. And It's Worth Billions

We knew good and well it was coming, and come it has: Twitter has begun its all-out assault on Instagram (and in turn, Facebook) by including its own set of (free) photo filters.

ENGADGET: The social filter war is officially on: Twitter adds free photo filters to Android and iPhone apps