Free Republic

Media Matters Panel: Guns Don't Kill People, Fox News Kills People Yesterday, Media Matters hosted a panel at the National Press Club where five liberal activists discussed the use of “extremist” language by the conservative media and its allegedly violent effects. “We all need to set a tone for civil national discourse,” declared Nancy M. Zirkin of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. It was a noble sentiment, though a bit ironic at an event where liberals tarred conservatives as bigots who inspire other bigots to commit acts of violence. “FOX News is really mainstreaming this sort of vigilante almost...

If ABC "news" were an honest 527 organization, this particular upcoming hour long advertisement would carry a dollar amount. I'm curious what people around me think it's worth.

Republicans hammered Barack Obama over his connection to ACORN during last year’s election, but now ACORN is taking a swing at some Democrats — with the help of liberal activists at MoveOn.org. The role reversal arises out of the groups’ anger at moderate House Democrats who opposed a housing bill that has more generous bankruptcy rules for people facing foreclosure. Next week this coalition will begin airing TV ads criticizing House Democrats who voted against the measure, which would for the first time give judges the authority to restructure home mortgages — a procedure known as a cramdown. The House...

Campaign Against Obama Health Plan Run By Notorious Conservative PR FirmBy Elana Schor - March 3, 2009, 5:55PM A new group called Conservatives for Patients Rights (CPR) is about to launch the opening salvo in the fight to sink President Obama's health care plan. CPR is running TV, radio, and web ads that attempt to stoke irrational fears of "a central national board" in charge of medical decision-making, asking Americans to envision a world where "bureaucrats decide the treatments you receive, the drugs you take, even the doctors you see." Of course, that vision has nothing to do with the...

Liberal blogger and Media Matters employee* Oliver Willis channeled his inner Ted Turner last Wednesday, while writing for his eponymous Web site.

A group of liberal bloggers said it is teaming up with organized labor and MoveOn to form a political action committee that will seek to push the Democratic Party farther to the left. Soliciting donations from their readers, the bloggers said they are planning to recruit liberal candidates for challenges against more centrist Democrats currently in Congress. The formation of the group marks another step in the evolution of the blogosphere, which has proved effective at motivating party activists to give money and time to political campaigns, especially in local races. But it also illuminates a deepening wrinkle for President...

$1 million/day since Jesus.

527 - POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS Those rules set forth in Announcement 73-84 were restated in Rev. Rul. 7421, 1974-1 C.B. 14, clarified in, Rev. Rul. 74-475, 1974-2 C.B. 22. The revenue ruling concluded, on a prospective basis, that political organizations were not exempt from federal income tax, and would be taxed on interest, dividends, and capital gains from sales of securities, less deductible expenses directly attributable to producing that income. Organizations subject to tax were required to file Form 1120. IRC 527 provides that "political organizations" are subject to tax only to the extent provided for in that section. For all...

Usually, Americans United for Change buys ads to lambaste Republicans for opposing issues backed by the liberal, union-supported issue advocacy group initially founded in 2005 to rally against President Bush's Social Security reform plan. But when three Republicans crossed the aisle over the weekend to say they will support a compromise economic recovery plan opposed by every other Senate minority Republican, Americans United for Change bought up radio time urging voters to call and thank Sens. Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and Arlen Specter for "providing the leadership we need to get the job done."

Well, that didn't take long. Hillary Clinton's former research director dished up a nasty hit-piece memo on Michael Steele hours after he was elected the GOP's first black RNC Chairman. He cites shaky resources like Think Progress, a blog for the lefty Center for American Progress for his research. This would be like me linking to comments on FreeRepublic to back up my facts. Steele's clearly got the Dems scared. And, I wonder why Hillary's old research man had oppo sitting around on Steele...? Here's a sampling of some of the disgusting comments already being posted on the Huffington Post...

Washington D.C. (AHN) - While the president tries to rally bipartisan support for passing legislation, liberal groups are striking back at one of the Republican's most influential leaders, Rush Limbaugh. The liberal group, Americans United for Change is set to launch radio ads in three states Obama won - Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nevada - that poses a new controversial question to GOP senators, asking, "Will you side with Obama or Rush Limbaugh?""Every Republican member of the House chose to take Rush Limbaugh's advice," the narrator says while playing a clip of Rush Limbaugh saying he hopes Obama "fails." "Every Republican...

Democratic strategist James Carville, using Secretary of State nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton's e-mail list, sent out an e-mail Friday trying to recruit supporters and donations for Media Matters for America, the liberal media watchdog group. With the subject line "It's happening again," Carville compares the scandal of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) and his relationship to President-elect Obama to the scandals that followed the Clintons into office and proved a distraction througout both of President Clinton's terms. Carville wrote that the Clintons "hadn't even unpacked their boxes before the right-wing noise machine started hyping phony scandals and inventing gossip." "Too...

What lessons are to be learned from recent news that conservative advocacy group, Freedom’s Watch (FW), is shutting their doors? Mistakes of 2008 must be the stepping stones upon which the future of the conservative movement is built. Here are some thoughts on the FW collapse: 1) Speak softly and carry a big stick. FW turned this concept on its head. From the onset they proclaimed themselves to be the “conservative answer” to MoveOn.org. In addition, they made public the fact they were planning to raise $200million for the 2008 cycle, falling embarrassingly short at $30million. Making public their lofty...

Freedom's Watch, a conservative political advocacy group bankrolled mainly by casino owner Sheldon Adelson that poured $30 million into this year's political races, is shutting down. Multiple sources said the board of directors, which includes former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer and former Ambassador to Italy Mel Sembler, has decided to close down rather than just scale down post-election. "There are no ifs or buts," said a Republican operative close to the situation. "The board has made the decision to shut the doors." The group had always planned a reduction after the election and up until the Thanksgiving holiday it...

What if the McCain campaign had run ads using footage of Barack Obama dancing with Ellen DeGeneres to show his coziness with celebrity? Or followed up on its Paris Hilton ad with others featuring Donald Trump and Jessica Simpson? All of that was on the drawing board of Fred Davis III, the advertising whiz that John McCain has used for almost all of his campaign media and one of the most talented conservative political operatives in America. Oh yes, he also had an Internet ad up his sleeve that would attack Obama's celebrity by associating him with Oprah. But in...

With the election in the rear view mirror, the progressive political action committee MoveOn.org wants to make sure the candidates it worked to help get into office support a truly progressive agenda.To that end, it held more than 500 "Fired Up and Ready to Go" gatherings throughout the country Thursday night. A meeting held at the Dardanelles restaurant on Monroe Street drew 15 people, all white and over 50.About 350 MoveOn.org members registered for get-togethers in 18 locations throughout Wisconsin, according to the state coordinator for MoveOn.org, Paul Otto. The local group wants to send a message to members of...

Here's part of an email that has been sent to MediaMyrmidons by the Democrat Party's MediaMatters. It would seem that now with complete Democrat control of the government apparatus in Washington the liberals want to step up their attacks on freedom of expression .. especially expression of ideas with which they do not agree. When and if the Democrats get the idiotically-named "Fairness Doctrine" implemented again it is clear that MediaMatters wants to be THE clearing house for challenges and demands for equal time on the nation's talk radio stations. This message to their followers is part of that process:...

“There simply wasn’t the donor base to support it,” McCarthy said. And there are some rather interesting reasons why not. One, the federal campaign finance law that John McCain helped write has made it increasingly difficult to fund independent campaigns legally. Thus, McCain’s own law was used against him.

It is the biggest and broadest American political force ever created -- a vast, electronically linked network of activists, neighborhood organizers and volunteers who raised record amounts of money and propelled Barack Obama to the White House. Now, as Obama turns from campaigning to governing, his advisors are struggling to harness this potent web of supporters to help him move his agenda over the next four years.But it is no simple task to convert an insurgency into a standing army.That challenge has sparked rare discord among Obama advisors who ran a highly disciplined operation with no public disagreements throughout the...

Quite recently, it struck me that it’s not that the MSM has done everything in its considerable power to spin, deny or conceal, all the unpleasant truths about ACORN, Rev. Wright, Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers and the Annenberg Challenge, that upsets me the most. The thing that truly depresses me is that millions of my fellow Americans know the truth, but simply don’t seem to care. They also don’t seem too concerned that in a 2001 radio interview, Obama declared that his problem with the Warren Court was that although it ruled in favor of Civil Rights, it was not...