Free Republic

Where to begin, where to begin... 11 fact checkers for Sarah Palin's book... and Al Gore still runs around free from any truth-testing. Topix ::: GoreBull warming : Scandal, Thy Name Is Palin : California Screaming ...and your calls! Live at 3pmE/2pmTX/NoonPCall-in number: 1-347-327-9710 Missed it live? Listen here, or download for free from iTunes.

Sarah Palin -- the Associated Press wants folks to believe -- is so pat ently unqualified as a political leader that no one, absolutely no one, could possibly take her seriously. Except, it seems, the Associated Press. Indeed, the latest example -- in which the AP sent 11 (count 'em: 11) reporters to "fact-check" Palin's new book, "Going Rogue" -- suggests that the agency is pathologically obsessed with the former Alaska governor and '08 GOP veep candidate. Gee, what on earth are they afraid of? AP didn't send 11 reporters to fact-check President Obama's two books (it didn't bother to...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US news agency the Associated Press (AP) laid off dozens of employees on Tuesday as part of a plan to reduce its global payroll by 10 percent this year, a union statement said. The News Media Guild, which covers some 1,300 AP editorial and technology unit staffers in the United States, said it did not have an exact number of layoffs because management had not yet formally notified it of the move. The Guild said it had been informed by members of more than 38 layoffs affecting Guild-covered managers, reporters, editors, photographers, and editorial assistants. It...

Last month we heard that the AP might need to make hundreds of layoffs before the end of the year. Some of those layoffs, we hear, could be coming today. A tipster tells us that the word amongst AP union members is that today could be the day for "70 or 80" layoffs. The rumors say that the layoffs will be spread across the company nationally. Although—ominously—we hear that New York staffers have been summoned to an "important meeting" this afternoon. We'll update if we learn more. In the meantime, if you have more details, email us. UPDATE: Another reporter...

I included many of The Associated Press E-mails. (1st name initial, last name @ ap.org) Please e-mail them, not to change their minds, to give them hell for spreading lies, endangering America & failing to do their jobs. They need to know, because they do not, that the majority of the public finds them disgusting and very evil. agoldman@ap.org, akennedy@ap.org, amiga@ap.org, asanner@ap.org, ataxin@ap.org, awestfeldt@ap.org, bdobbin@ap.org, bdraper@ap.org, bfouhy@ap.org, blewis@ap.org, cbabington@ap.org, cbarry@ap.org, clong@ap.org, crugaber@ap.org, cwoodward@ap.org, dbauder@ap.org, ddaniel@ap.org, despo@ap.org, dgram@ap.org, dhastings@ap.org dkdaniel@ap.org, dnephin@ap.org, esimon@ap.org, evandore@ap.org, fdemilio@ap.org, fklug@ap.org, gjohnson@ap.org, gkatz@ap.org, gmulvihill@ap.org, gwong@ap.org, hjkorea@ap.org, javersa@ap.org, jbarbassa@ap.org, jbilleaud@ap.org, jhdavis@ap.org, jheintz@ap.org, jholland@ap.org, jkuhnhenn@ap.org gdjohnson@ap.org, jsong@ap.org, kdaigle@ap.org, kgannon@ap.org,...

When Sarah Palin burst onto the national political stage there was a lot of talk about her distinctive way of talkin', you betcha. Heck, she moved to Alaska when she was too young to speak and grew up in the small town of Wasilla, but doggone it, why did she talk like someone from the movie "Fargo"? Three University of Wisconsin-Madison linguists tackled the conundrum in a research article to be published in the Journal of English Linguistics next month. The answer lies in something that happened in the 1930s. During the presidential campaign, almost every aspect of Palin's life,...

The book tour starts this week, and I look forward to it! I'm most looking forward to meeting many of you, shaking your hands, and telling you,"Thanks for loving America." I'll give you a scoop here and tell you what's on the book's Dedication Page – it's dedicated to you – Patriots – who love the U.S.A. as much as I do. Amazingly, but not surprisingly, the AP somehow nabbed a copy of the book before it was released. They're now erroneously reporting on the book's contents and are repeating many of the same things they spewed during the campaign...

The October unemployment rate has just been released and it has jumped to double digits at 10.2%, the worst rate since 1983. Any higher unemployment rate would make this the worst recession since the Great Depression. So how is the Associated Press reporting the growing unemployment numbers? "The economy is rebounding." I kid you not. This AP report by Christopher S. Rugaber was published earlier this morning before the official unemployment rate was released. Notice how AP tries to cushion the blow by speculating that it would probably just rise to 9.9% for October: WASHINGTON (AP) -- The economy is...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and other newspapers owned by the Tribune Co. plan to cut back on use of the Associated Press (AP) next week to test whether they can do without content from the US news agency. The Chicago Tribune said the plan to "utilize as little content from the Associated Press as practical" was aimed at determining whether the Tribune Co., which declared bankruptcy in December, can sever ties with the AP. The Chicago-based Tribune Co. has been looking for ways to cut costs and in October 2008 it gave the AP the...

Tribune Co., owner of The Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and several other news outlets, will not use most Associated Press content next week to test whether the financially struggling company can do without it, according to a story on the Chicago Tribune's Web site. Tribune said it will use some AP material such as sports statistics and stories it considers vital. The Chicago-based company said it is trying to determine whether severing ties with the news cooperative next fall is a viable option. The company's television stations and newspapers' online editions will not participate in the experiment. Tribune...

Administration slams what it calls a "misleading" Associated Press story alleging the government significantly overstated the number of jobs created or saved under Obama's $787B stimulus program The Obama administration on Thursday slammed a report from The Associated Press alleging the government had overstated by thousands the number of jobs it has created or saved with federal contracts under President Obama's $787 billion recovery program. The White House seized on an initial report from a government oversight board weeks ago that claimed federal contracts awarded to businesses under the recovery plan already had helped pay for more than 30,000 jobs....

This is an AP story so I will chop up an excerpted quote. Note that the organizers of this so-called grass-roots phenomenon are handing out copies of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. Fired up? ... Obama's grass-roots supporters ... drowned out.... communities ... Obama organizers ... "silent majority," ... a government run plan to compete with private insurers.... opponents of ... health care revamp ... controlled the image war ... rowdy town halls ... Obama supporters ... mobilizing.... erroneous "death panel" accusations.... Organizer Geoff Berman.... Howard Dean.... tea party protests largely organized by FreedomWorks.... Spokesman Adam Brandon said all staffers...

Pastor Lawrence Adams knows how to handle a gun after spending 25 years as a Detroit police officer, many at the department’s training academy. That experience helped Sunday evening when the retired lieutenant was confronted by a burglar at his Detroit church. When the intruder began swinging an object at him, Pastor Adams pulled a handgun and shot the man in the abdomen. Police say the pastor was not injured and is licensed to carry the handgun.

Ga. suspect in Ala. deputy death had long record COLUMBUS, Ga. -- A Georgia man had been booked into a jail 16 times in the past 11 years and was on parole from a 2007 felony drug conviction when charged with capital murder in the death of an Alabama deputy last week, the Ledger-Enquirer reported. The Columbus newspaper reported Sunday that Gregory Lance Henderson, 31, had been ordered to serve three years in prison in 2007 but was out on parole after about 15 months when arrested in the death Thursday of Lee County Deputy James Anderson, 39. The Columbus...

With cinematic flourish, the masked robbers dropped from a helicopter onto the roof of a Swedish cash depot before dawn, broke into the building through a glass pyramid, set off explosions to get to the millions inside and escaped by hoisting themselves and their haul back up on rope lines.

I feel guilty because originally I supported the decision by the Associated Press to release the photo of the young Marine that was taken as he lay dying. I lost readers over that and I do not blame them. Sarah Palin weighed in on Facebook. "Many of us join Secretary Gates in condemning the Associated Press for its heartless and selfish decision to turn its back on the wishes of a grieving family in order to exploit the tragic death of a true American hero. Lance Corporal Joshua ‘Bernie’ Bernard was a selfless young American who sacrificed everything for our...

Huffington Post exploits AP’s dying soldier photo By Michelle Malkin  •  September 4, 2009 05:06 PM What’s more shameless than the Associated Press defying the wishes of a dying soldier’s family and splashing his bloody body all over the wires?Why, the Huffington Post reprinting a massively large version of the image on its front page with an accompanying blog commentary praising the AP photographer’s work as “tasteful” — along with thousands of comments praising the decision and calling for even more bloody US troop photos to be published.***And no, I’m not done with the AP yet. Blogger Ztower points out that...

Major American Jewish groups say their relationship with Roman Catholic leaders is at risk because of a recent statement by U.S. bishops' on salvation and evangelizing. Jewish leaders say that they interpret the bishops' new document as a plan to evangelize Jews during interfaith dialogue. Jews say they can't participate in a dialogue under those conditions. The bishops had issued the declaration in June. They said that the church doesn't evangelize Jews but will invite them to the faith when it's appropriate. The Jewish protest was made Thursday by the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and rabbis

In an August 17 piece on former DNC Chair Howard Dean's appearance on a morning news show, the Associated Press did its best to downplay the high passions and anger showed by thousands of average citizens at townhall meetings across the country. Dean was heard insisting that Obama not back down from including the "public option" in any healthcare bill, saying that such a feature is "indispensable" to its success at reforming our healthcare system. After the opening paragraphs, the AP characterized the possible removal of the public option by emphasizing Republicans and downplaying the outrage seen by citizens themselves....

Series: AP's online strategy In a break with tradition, The Associated Press plans to prevent members and customers from publishing some AP content on their websites. Instead, those news organizations would link to the content on a central AP website — a move that could upend the consortium’s traditional notions of syndication. That’s one revelation from a document we obtained (labeled “AP CONFIDENTIAL — NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION”) that offers new insight into how the AP is planning to reinvent itself on the Internet. The seven-page briefing, entitled “Protect, Point, Pay — An Associated Press Plan for Reclaiming News Content Online,”...

Here’s one of the most short-sighted and self-destructive things I’ve ever seen the Associated Press do — they’re going to try to prevent search engines and blogs from even linking to their articles, unless they pay for the privilege.

A.P. Cracks Down on Unpaid Use of Articles on Web By RICHARD PEREZ-PENA Taking a new hard line that news articles should not turn up on search engines and Web sites without permission, The Associated Press said Thursday that it would add software to each article that shows what limits apply to the rights to use it, and that notifies The A.P. about how the article is used. Tom Curley, The A.P.’s president and chief executive, said the company’s position was that even minimal use of a news article online required a licensing agreement with the news organization that produced...

Steve Gilbert checks online into the background of the investigator who preposterously suggests in an illegally leaked preliminary report that there was something unethical in the creation and operation of the Palin defense fund, set up to defray the over half a million dollars in legal fees the Governor has incurred fighting off an unending series of frivolous ethics charges. Here's what he found: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DANIEL, THOMAS ANCHORAGE, AK 99507 PERKINS COIE LLP/ATTORNEY KERRY, JOHN F VIA JOHN KERRY FOR PRESIDENT INC 03/07/2004 1000.00 25971240087 DANIEL, THOMAS M ANCHORAGE, AK 99501 PERKINS COIE/ATTORNEY BEGICH, MARK VIA ALASKANS FOR BEGICH 08/14/2008...

The Honorable Governor Palin had this to say about the latest media BS: inaccurate story floating around regarding ethics violation & Legal Defense Fund. The matter is still pending and new information was just requested. Their will be a final report. Amanda Carpenter, of Human Events, responds to the Associated Press’s illegal and premature leak about Governor Palin and the most resent ethics complaint. The Associated Press claims soon-to-be former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin will be found guilty of violating her state's ethics rules, citing a report leaked to their offices from the State Personnel Board on one of the...

The way the Associated Press is fawning over Michelle Obama and her supposed sense of fashion, you would almost think they were talking about Carla Bruni who really does dress quite elegantly and oozes glamor. To add to this absurdity, the AP also went out of its way to paint the Russian First Lady as frumpy. Um, advice to AP personnel; don't expect the Russians to go out of their way to help you in your stories in that country after that gratuitous slam on the wife of their president. First let us watch the AP's Catrina Stewart act dazzled...

Mia Farrow's brother, artist Patrick Farrow, committed suicide Tuesday, June 16. As expected, on the following day the Associated Press released a wire story about the incident. But, the odd thing about the short recount of the Farrows's lives and the account of the discovery of Patrick's lifeless body is that that the AP found some reason to slip in an attack on George W. Bush into the story. Worse, the AP used the fact of a U.S. soldier's death in Iraq as a vehicle to slam the past president. What did BDS have to do with the Farrows, Patrick's...

MARION, Ark. - When Bubba the cat disappeared inside the home he shares with Cheryl and Phillip Albers, they knocked holes in walls looking for him, but he couldn't be found. Bubba's meows could be heard through the night last Monday, Cheryl Albers said, after he vanished following a visit from an air-conditioner repairman. Bubba normally hides high atop a kitchen cabinet when there is a stranger in the house that he doesn't want to meet, Albers said. He wasn't there, however, after the repairman left. Taking their cue from where they thought the meowing was coming from, the Albers...

<p>PITTSBURGH -- James Harrison plans to pass on another trip to the White House with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Harrison, the NFL Defensive Player of the Year, says he'll skip the Super Bowl champion's visit to the White House to meet President Barack Obama on Thursday, just as he did when the Steelers were honored by President George W. Bush in June 2006.</p>

Did you know that former vice president Dick Cheney is speaking out only because he is trying to protect his legacy? Well just in case you wondered about it Steven Hurst for the Associated Press wants to assure that he has read Cheney's mind and it's all settled. This is what passes for "analysis" at the AP. The AP has also decided that Cheney speaking out causes "chagrin" in a GOP trying to "rebuild the tattered party." Additionally, he AP throws out that much bandied liberal canard that Cheney is dishonoring "protocol" by speaking out because, you see, former chief...

Experts who examined a cache of long-lost photos from the 1930s Spanish Civil War say it yielded a lot of new information, but failed to solve the biggest mystery whether legendary photojournalist Robert Capa took the famous picture of a man at the instant he was killed by a bullet. Answering that question was a principal goal of curators at the New York-based International Center of Photography when they first delved into the so-called Mexican Suitcase, a collection of 4,300 frames shot by Capa, his companion Gerda Taro and close friend David "Chim" Seymour. The negatives, long believed to have...

Joe Biden’s not a loose cannon, an undisciplined, motor-mouthed gaffe-machine on wheels. Nope. He’s just “known for speaking freely.” Just ask the Associated Press. From AP’s story of today, After his flu warning, Biden takes the train home [emphasis added]: "One day after saying he wouldn’t travel in tight quarters because of the swine flu scare, Vice President Joe Biden rode a train Friday from Washington to Delaware. "Known for speaking freely, Biden told NBC’s “Today” show on Thursday that he had urged family members to avoid airplanes and subways for fear of contracting the H1N1 flu virus." Well, alright...

An Associated Press story dated April 28 takes swine flu fears to a whole other level. A report datelined Washington by Ricardo Alonsozaldivar and Eileen Sullivan examined the worst-case scenario "if the swine flu gets out of control." "Two million dead," Alonsozaldivar and Sullivan wrote. "Hospitals overwhelmed. Schools closed. Swaths of empty seats at baseball stadiums and houses of worship. An economic recovery snuffed out. We're nowhere close to what government planners say would be a worst-case scenario: a global flu pandemic. But government leaders at all levels, and major employers, have spent nearly four years planning for one in...

I am not a doctor, but I play one on the Internet. So, take the following as a prescription for what ails you. Now, if for some unexplainable reason you have been feeling queasy since November of last year, if you have felt like you want to throw up but just can't seem to get that bile to overflow, well I have a little something here that will surely cause that gag reflex to result in a healthy expulsion of bubbling acids. The Associated Press would call it a "news story," but it serves a far better purpose as syrup...

Can we not post Associated Press articles?

What have I been telling you? The Associated Press and other media institutions can always report—and do so frequently—on what the Palestinians want and what Israel “must” give them. But never ever ever on what Israel wants and what the Palestinians “must” give them to get a state and a lot more territory than they control now. I think we know by know the Palestinian side but not the Israeli side. And so for example Diaa Hadid tells us in “Palestinians: Israel must back 2-state solution,” April 9, 2009. We will never see a headline that says: “Israelis: Palestinians must...

Associated Press chairman Dean Singleton kicked off the week by telling newspaper executives that the AP is “mad as hell”—but at whom, exactly, still remains unclear. “It came off pretty combative,” the AP’s Jane Seagrave told POLITICO Friday, “but that really wasn’t our intent.” Regardless of the AP’s intent, Singleton's tough talk about those who "walk off with our work" fueled speculation that search engines (Google) or news aggregators (The Huffington Post) are now in the AP’s crosshairs. Singleton, talking of “misguided, unfounded legal theories,” even raised the possibility of litigation for those not following the rules. Seagrave, a senior...

Taking aim at the way news is spread across the Internet, The Associated Press said on Monday that Web sites that used the work of news organizations must obtain permission and share revenue with them, and that it would take legal action against those that did not. A.P. executives said they were concerned about a variety of news forums around the Web, including major search engines like Google and Yahoo and aggregators like the Drudge Report that link to news articles, smaller sites that sometimes reproduce articles whole, and companies that sell packaged news feeds. They said they did not...

Don't you love it when the Old Media dredges up some partisan hack Democrat supporter and presents them as an "expect" that is never identified as a partisan political hack? Well, you may not love it, but it sure seems to happen an awful lot. And here we see another example of that lame bias by our old friend Anne Sutton, an AP writer that is renown for her hit pieces on Governor Palin and her family. This AP piece is supposedly describing "Sarah Palin's Bad Week," in which mountains are made of molehills over and over again. Little of...

The Associated Press did a masterful job of portraying Republican Governors as perpetrating "noncompliance" for how they want to spend Obama's education stimulus money. But, even as the AP spends the top half of a story wagging fingers at those nasty Republicans for not spending Obama's generous gift the right way, buried in the story it is revealed that the fault is really with how the stimulus bill was written, not in how GOP governors wish to spend it. Ah, but it's much better to make Republicans look like bad guys than it is to blame Democrat Congressmen for writing...

Change is in the air. Not just that the inside the Beltway pundits are noticing that He is not all that He is cracked up to be. Not just that people are taking to the streets in protest. Not just that our European allies no longer are amused. Not just that the Chinese and Russians are worried that His economic policies may be too socialist. No, you know that things are changing when the normally compliant cheerleaders at AP take to mocking Him.

EXCERPT: This story provides a perfect demonstration of the corruption of the American media. What else can it be called when Al-Jazeera’s coverage of tinhorn dictators is more honest than the coverage provided by Associated Press. Just look at the difference in how the two services each covered the recent…uh…election in North Korea:....

It should be well-known that the rules applied to the Arab-Israeli conflict are different from those applied to any other place or issue in the world. Sometimes, in journalistic terms, these become so ridiculous that if one were to step back and look at things from a fresh, logical perspective the way they are dealt with should provoke laughter. Three examples. First, on March 3 there is a story entitled, “Arab homes on Jewish historical site stoke strife,” by Ben Hubbard. This is a long article about the troubles of poor Palestinians in Jerusalem. But what is the story? Some...

You shall make no covenant with them or with their gods "Inconclusive Election Puts Israel, Peace In Limbo February 9 By Karin Laub"- Headline from the APAP (Associated Press for Associated Palestinians, formerly AP) news wire. The Associated Press, which is the primary international news feed for most newspapers and other cohorts in the Mainstream Media has been just as biased in its reporting about Israel as it has about Barack and the American Democrat party. More than somewhat troubling is the fact that so many Western liberal Jews, including American academics, journalists, Hollywood types, lawyers, and politicians seem to...

Please don't confuse the Associated Press with the FACTS: You know, if the Associated Press put the same effort into reporting the news accurately as it does—in some, not all dispatches—into slandering Israel and distorting its society, it could achieve great things. The trouble is that the nonsense is predictable, following consistent lines. Among the favorite techniques are: --A ridiculous superficial even-handedness and --Depriving Israel of a reasonable motive for its actions. --Never reporting what Israelis actually think. Consider the title, Steven Gutkin and Karin Laub, “Hard-liners strengthened by Gaza war.” And the lead: “The biggest gains in the Gaza...

AP suing Shepard Fairey over altered image. See article.

NEW YORK – On buttons, posters and Web sites, the image was everywhere during last year's presidential campaign: A pensive Barack Obama looking upward, as if to the future, splashed in a Warholesque red, white and blue and underlined with the caption HOPE.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Mayor Sam Adams, who has admitted lying about a sexual relationship with a teenager, said Sunday that he would not resign. A city commissioner, Randy Leonard, told The Associated Press that Mr. Adams had left a phone message in the morning saying he had decided to remain in office. Two other commissioners told The Oregonian of Portland that Mr. Adams, the city’s first openly gay mayor, had told them the same thing. The fourth, Amanda Fritz, declined to comment. Efforts to reach Mr. Adams were unsuccessful. The Oregonian’s editorial page has called for his resignation, as...

AP's headline is "Cousins plead guilty in plot to kill US soldiers." But of course they didn't get involved in this plot because they were cousins. The Department of Homeland Security doesn't need to begin a Global War On Cousins. They did this because they wanted to wage jihad. They met the jihad recruiter at a Muslim convention. They were clearly inspired by Islamic teachings regarding the necessity to wage war against unbelievers. But since none of that is suitable for an AP headline, we get...cousins. An update on this story. "Cousins plead guilty in plot to kill US soldiers,"...

For those individuals -- such as nearly all members of the world news media -- who, in light of Israel's invasion of Gaza -- see moral equivalence between Israel and the Palestinians, here are some clarifying thoughts. First, it would be difficult nearly to the point of impossibility, to find Israeli or other Jews who celebrate the deaths of Palestinian civilians. Jews both within and outside of Israel cringe when they see pictures of dead Palestinian men, women, and children in Gaza. For thousands of years at their Passover seders, Jews have removed wine from their cups to ceremonially weep...

The sponsors of Proposition 8 asked the California Supreme Court on Friday to nullify the marriages of the estimated 18,000 same-sex couples who exchanged vows before voters approved the ballot initiative that outlawed gay unions. The Yes on 8 campaign filed a brief arguing that because the new law holds that only marriages between a man and a woman are recognized or valid in California, the state can no longer recognize the existing same-sex unions.