Free Republic

Americans' distrust in the media hit a new high this year, with 60% saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. Distrust is up from the past few years, when Americans were already more negative about the media than they had been in years prior to 2004. The record distrust in the media, based on a survey conducted Sept. 6-9, 2012, also means that negativity toward the media is at an all-time high for a presidential election year. This reflects the continuation of a pattern in which negativity increases...

It's not your grandpa's Mafia anymore. The Charbonneau Commission is conducting hearings to confront allegations that wise guys and dirty politicians are in bed together in the award of public works contracts in Montreal, QB Canada, and yesterday veteran detective Mike Amato from neigboring Ontario testified about the reach of the Italian Mafia in his province as reported by CBC News: "the veteran officer says the modern-day Mafioso is dressed in business suits, works 9-to-5 hours and holds jobs ranging from banker, to accountant to bus driver," and "Mafia-controlled legitimate businesses in his region include everything from garden centres to...

A crew of rogue Teamsters shook down major Hub convention organizers, assaulted rivals and rigged union votes in a lucrative “pay-to-play” reign — including once strong-arming the state Democratic Party by threatening to obstruct a fundraiser by Gov. Deval Patrick where President Obama spoke, officials said.

A bumper sticker is making the rounds with Joe Biden's words: Osama is Dead; GM is Alive. Apparently, that resonates with democrat voters who want to believe Obama knows a thing or two about foreign relations. Not. Ambassador Stevens is Dead...Al Qaeda is Alive. Ambassador Stevens is Dead...The Muslim Brotherhood is Alive. The above are the real truth, and any chest thumping on the part of Obama is really misplaced self-congratulatory narcissism. We all know it was our special operations forces who took out Osama. We're pretty sure that Obama did not put on a black mask, take up a...

(Being purchased for them by Penny Pritzker and wealthy Chicagoans) [ Michelle Obama's mother, Marian Robinson, has been bragging about getting to live in Hawaii next, in a $35 million beachfront mansion after leaving the White House in January 2013.  "It was fun while it lasted", Miss Marion is quoted by Chicagoans as saying, "but wait until you see the place they're buying for Michelle and Barack!" ] Part 1 of this report — HEREPart 2 of this report — HERE***************************Today has been declared “National Empty Chair Day”, in honor of Clint Eastwood’s speech on the closing night of the Republican...

The House Ethics Committee will hold a public hearing Friday on ethics allegations against Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.). The panel has been investigating for the past three years whether Waters violated House rules by attempting to secure federal help during the financial crisis for a bank in which her husband owns stock. Waters has maintained her innocence, and the ethics probe has been weighted by problems. As the committee moved toward holding a trial for Waters in late 2010, it halted its work abruptly and placed two of its lead attorneys on administrative leave. Shortly afterward, the committeeÂ’s chief counsel...

Washington, D.C. – Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) named Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA) as a Dishonorable Mention in its Most Corrupt Members of Congress report, an annual, bipartisan look at Washington’s worst. Rep. Dicks used his position as chairman of a powerful House Appropriations subcommittee to direct millions of dollars in public funds to the Puget Sound Partnership, a Washington state environmental agency headed by his son, earning him a spot in CREW’s latest report.

Breitbart News editor Joel Pollak told The Daily Caller that he thinks Attorney General Eric Holder should resign over, among other things, the Department of Justice’s collusion with left-wing advocacy group Media Matters to discredit him. Emails TheDC obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and published Tuesday show DOJ Office of Public Affairs director Tracy Schmaler, Holder’s top press defender, and Media Matters staffers working together to attack reporters covering DOJ scandals. “On the one hand, it’s a badge of honor,” Pollak said of being one of the targets of the collusion. “The cool conservatives make the Obama...

If our corrupt media believe a Republican said something inappropriate at a fundraiser about the 47% of the American people the rest of us carry, the corrupt media attempt to destroy his campaign over it. However, if a sitting president appears to openly and brazenly break the laws surrounding the solicitation of super PAC money, this very same media dutifully report but refuse to talk about it: Speaking at a fundraiser hosted by the famous rapper and singer couple Jay-Z and Beyonce, President Barack Obama made comments, seemingly in jest, asking guests to help out his campaign against Republican nominee Mitt...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional budget analysts are now estimating that nearly 6 million Americans — most of them in the middle class — will have to pay a tax penalty for not getting health insurance once President Barack Obama's health care law is fully in place.

Full title: Ground Reports from the “Depression that Shall Not Be Named” — things we notice that the corrupt media won’t report that show this is indeed a Depression On my desk, just under the computer monitor, I have a little box full of slips of scrap paper. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid because the nuns who taught me in Catholic School refused to ever waste paper. Anything that comes into my home that’s blank on one side and has outlived its usefulness is drawn and quartered and spends some time as scrap paper in that...

How can any cogent American citizen possibly even consider voting for Barack Obama now? That's what lots of conservatives and moderates are asking each other, again and again. It's completely baffling, to those who grew up with any sort of sense of what America means and what the American character traditionally has been, that anybody can look at the man's record and want more of the same. Almost the entirety of the Muslim world is now rioting against an American president who promised that his olive branches to Muslims would secure peace. Like Jimmy Carter, Obama has only shown a...

In what looks like an attempt to avoid a potentially costly and disastrous recall of its taxpayer-funded electric vehicles, Nissan has dismissed the concerns of its Leaf customers in Arizona and other hot states by claiming the apparent loss of battery capacity is “normal.” Owners of the company’s dismal selling plug-in have banded together to collectively test their vehicles and see just how “normal” their loss of “bars” on their power indicators are. Over the weekend twelve Leaf owners – led by EV advocate and Leaf owner Tony Williams – were to conduct an extended range test in Phoenix,...

For more than a year, PJ Media has been reporting on the corrupt press shop inside the Department of Justice. The unit is headed byPress Harpy Tracy Schmaler. We broke a story in July about this relationship after a PJ Media public records request revealed communications between Media Matters’ Matt Gertz and Schmaler about Fast and Furious. (More on the corrupt DOJ press shop: “ Tracy Schmaler’s (and Eric Holder’s) Trip to the Tropics ,” “ DOJ Leaks to TPM Muckraker Florida Will Be Sued Over Voter Rolls ,” “Tracy Schmaler – DOJ Shrieker in Chief.“) Tracy Schmaler Today,...

The Hatch Act’s prohibition against campaigning on the taxpayers’ dime didn’t stop Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius from making a pitch for President Obama’s reelection at a Human Rights Campaign Event in Charlotte, N.C. “Strictly speaking, what she did was against the law,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz acknowledged. “But we also need to take into consideration her intent and prior record. Secretary Sebelius is a highly respected member of this Administration with no previous criminal record. Further, it is clear that her intent was admirable. An effort to help reelect the President serves a higher purpose. The...

A Wisconsin judge has struck down the state law championed by Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public workers. Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas ruled Friday that the law violates both the state and U.S. Constitution and is null... *** It was not clear if the ruling means the law is immediately suspended.

The weird ecstasy of the media-political complex at the convention in Charlotte last month was the first sign that its attachment to President Obama, always fawning, had become morbid. In spite of the anemic economy and a real unemployment rate above 11 percent, the high priests of pontificating liberalism were giddy with euphoria. The Democrats “put on a nearly flawless convention,” Paul Begala opined, and it was soon all but incontrovertibly established that, come November, the president — beautiful, magical, and lovable as he was — would vanquish his boring opponent. The media savants sympathized with the delirium of Charlotte...

Ambassador Chris Stevens did not have a Marine detail in Benghazi, Libya. But White House Senior Advisor and Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett has a full Secret Service detail on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, according to Democratic pollster Pat Caddell. That’s the pathetic foreign policy of the Obama administration, says Caddell today in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News. “Jarrett seems to have a 24 hour, around the clock detail, with five or six agents full time,” Caddell explains. “The media has been completely uninterested. We don’t provide security for our ambassador in Libya, but she needs a full Secret Service...

The New York Times is developing a bad habit of sending its columns to the Obama administration for approval. Daniel Harper at the Weekly Standard reported yesterday on a no-no committed by then-contributing Times columnist Peter Orszag, former director of Obama's Office of Management and Budget and an Obama-care booster in an October 20, 2010 column, "Malpractice Methodology." Halper wrote in part: The latest Bob Woodward books reveals that Peter Orszag, at the time a columnist for the New York Times, sent a draft of an article to White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett for review and comments before publishing....

Please enjoy the following rants and obeservations from Facebook:If you care more about getting free nine-buck-a-month birth control than you do about fewer jobs, more unemployed, and double-priced gas over four years ago, you might be an Obama voter (and bad at math.)Russian reset worked! Muslim outreach worked! The One healed the world! Peace everywhere! Just look at our booming economy! Oceans, ice caps, enemies, humanity, they all swoon to his Hope! September 11 brought us tightly together because the moment of crisis commands human empathy and response. Liberals and conservatives know how to carry a wounded sister. The years...