Free Republic

A new version of the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) is circulating that is worse than the original. It allows mainstream, legacy and left-wing media to form exclusionary media cartels and then empowers them with extraordinary collective-bargaining power to collude with Big Tech companies. The amendments serve only to spell out in greater specificity how to exclude conservative and anti-establishment media from any alleged benefits. Specifically, the new JCPA contains a provision that allows “eligible” media companies forming a cartel to “create admission criteria for membership unrelated to the size of an eligible digital journalism provider or the views...

A Broadway star and former protegé of the legendary Lucille Ball had some rather dangerous words for President Donald Trump as she and her husband talked to reporters in West Hollywood Sunday night.A TMZ photographer asked Carole Cook, 94, what she thought of a Trump supporter unveiling a “Trump 2020” banner in the audience of “Frozen” on Broadway last week, and she revealed her thoughts on the current president of the United States.“Is that a proper venue for a Trumper to bring a banner to?” the photographer asks.“Well my answer to that is […] where’s John Wilkes Booth when you...

John Wilkes Booth was the man who pulled the trigger, capping off a coordinated plot to murder President Abraham Lincoln. But historian Terry Alford, an expert on all things Booth, says that there's much more to Booth's life. His new biography, Fortune's Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth, delves deep into his life — before Booth went down in history as the man who assassinated a president. Booth was born into a prominent family of actors. According to Alford, he had good looks and an exceptional acting range, playing both dark roles as bad guys and softer roles such...

Biden and the White House leaned into that Thursday night with an unusual prime-time address that broke no news or made any big announcements. Instead, Biden took the opportunity to elevate Trump and make it a choice between what Biden and Democrats stand for and MAGA Republican extremism, as he sees it, and their rising influence in positions of power throughout the country. The NPR Politics Podcast "I believe America is at an inflection point," the president said in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the same city where he launched his 2020 presidential campaign, "one of those moments that...

Zombie ice from the massive Greenland ice sheet will eventually raise global sea level by at least 10 inches (27 centimeters) on its own, according to a study released Monday. Zombie or doomed ice is ice that is still attached to thicker areas of ice, but is no longer getting fed by those larger glaciers. That’s because the parent glaciers are getting less replenishing snow. Meanwhile the doomed ice is melting from climate change, said study co-author William Colgan, a glaciologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. “It’s dead ice. It’s just going to melt and disappear from...

Ben Affleck tried to sell his sprawling Greek Revival “imitation” plantation — the site of his elaborate wedding to Jennifer Lopez Saturday — three years after revelations surfaced that one of his ancestors was a slave-owning Georgia sheriff. In 2015, the Hollywood actor tried to suppress details about Benjamin Cole, a relative on his mother’s side who owned several slaves in Chatham County, near his 87-acre Hampton Island property. Affleck purchased the property in 2003, according to reports. The revelations about Cole were made on PBS’s “Finding Your Roots” hosted by Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Affleck put...

“Reliable Sources,” the media-news program that has been on CNN since 1993, is the latest piece of content to go on the chopping block under the cost-cutting regime of Warner Bros. Discovery. The show, which has grown from a dusty public affairs program in its earliest days to a lean-forward show that often took on Fox News and President Donald Trump under former CNN chief Jeff Zucker, will broadcast its last episode on Sunday, August 21. Its anchor, Brian Stelter, will leave the company. “We appreciate his contributions to the network and wish him well as he embarks on new...

CNN is canceling its Sunday media affairs show Reliable Sources, and host Brian Stelter is departing the network, Stelter tells NPR. In a statement to NPR, Stelter says he's grateful for the show and his team's examination of "the media, truth and the stories that shape our world." "It was a rare privilege to lead a weekly show focused on the press at a time when it has never been more consequential," Stelter said, promising to say more on Sunday's show — its final episode. Stelter got his start blogging about cable news as a student and went on to...

CNN Chief Media Correspondent and "Reliable Sources" host Brian Stelter is set to leave the network, as the network cancels his show. Stelter said in a statement to NPR that he's grateful for the show and his team's examination of "the media, truth and the stories that shape our world."

never could stand this weird little creep...

Crime has surged in Denver, despite the city council increasing the budget to a record high of $265 million in 2022. The last weekend in July was a violent one in and around Denver, Colo. Early Saturday, a 31-year-old man was shot and killed in Northglenn, a northern suburb of the city, the first of at least six area shootings that sent at least four others to the hospital that weekend. Around 3 p.m., a man was stabbed to death on Denver’s north side. ... The weekend concluded with the late-Sunday killing of Kevin Piaskowski, who was driving home from...

An unidentified man reportedly set his car on fire and drove into a U.S. Capitol barricade before exiting his vehicle, firing a weapon indiscriminately and then shooting himself late Saturday night. U.S. Capitol police have yet to confirm the incident, which PBS first reported. There were no reported injuries aside from the driver. The man's motive in the incident is unknown. The incident reportedly lasted only a matter of moments, and officers did not have time to return fire before the man turned his weapon on himself.

Washington Post and MSNBC contributor Washington Post and MSNBC contributor Jonathan Capehart compared Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and former President Trump to Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader in "Star Wars" on Friday. Capehart and New York Times columnist David Brooks appeared on "PBS News Hour" with Judy Woodruff to discuss various topics, including Cheney's upcoming primary. Brooks called Cheney "a hero," but noted she is behind her Republican challenger by more than 22 percent and likely to lose her seat. That's when Capehart praised her as comparable to a beloved Jedi. "And, look, I keep thinking about the scene in...

- On Wednesday, Sen. Joe Manchin reached a deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. - They said The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 should help ease inflation and fight climate change. - It breaks a stalemate on President Joe Biden's agenda that lasted for nearly a year.

Ukraine has long been considered the most corrupt nation in Europe, and was widely recognized as such by American media outlets – right up until Russia invaded and suddenly Ukraine had to be “reimagined” as a paragon of democracy and a plucky underdog in the fight for freedom. Now that the Ukrainians appear likely to lose the war, however, mainstream outlets like NPR are rediscovering Ukraine’s rank corruption and reporting the truth again – but unfortunately too late to stop the tens of billions of dollars in military aid that’s been shipped off. Jimmy and America’s comedian Kurt Metzger discuss...

In 2016, American liberals threatened—half seriously—that they would move somewhere more progressive if Donald Trump won the presidential election. That spring, Spotify released a tongue-in-cheek playlist called “Moving up to Canada” with the description, “Some of you might choose Canada this November … here’s the perfect soundtrack.” Now that the Supreme Court has issued the Dobbs decision overturning Roe, thus denying women the constitutional right to an abortion, the threat is back. It seems more serious and, at any rate, is much easier to carry out, because somewhere more progressive could be just across state lines, no expatriation required. The...

President Biden travels to Israel and Saudi Arabia next week — his first trip to the Middle East since entering the White House. And while the president has been eager to criticize a range of his predecessor's policies, he is fully embracing one key pillar of Donald Trump's Middle East policy — the Abraham Accords. Those deals were brokered by the Trump White House in 2020 to normalize relations between Israel and a number of Arab countries, including Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Morocco. It was a huge rupture from recent history in which Arab nations had made it...

That taxpayers are spending even a penny on a site that’s supposed to be non-partisan is a joke when you see how NPR pushes the culture war. I used to be a passionate NPR listener, tuning in whenever I got into the car. By the early 2000s, as it became more openly anti-Israel, I went looking for other things. I found Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Prager, and all the others who develop ideas and allow political opponents to challenge them. Won over by open and intelligent discourse, I abandoned forever the carefully packaged NPR indoctrination my taxpayer dollars helped support. Still,...

On Friday’s broadcast of “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks argued that the 2022 midterm elections are ultimately going to be about the state of the economy and not abortion. Brooks stated that the lasting electoral impact of the court’s ruling and the subsequent debate on abortion will be “Limited. I mean, it’ll mobilize some voters clearly in some places.” He added, “My feel is, the election’s going to be about inflation, about the economy. 83% of the country thinks the economy’s in bad shape. That’s an unprecedented number. And so, that’s just, I think, going to be...

A debate featuring all five Republican candidates for Wyoming’s lone U.S. House seat will be open to the media, the debate’s host has announced. WyomingPBS, after first announcing Thursday’s debate in Sheridan would be closed to both the media and public, on Tuesday announced that Sheridan College had decided to allow credentialed media to cover the event in person. There was no mention of allowing members of the public to in person. The debate, which begins at 7 p.m., will be live-streamed. Terry Dugas, general manager for WyomingPBS, did not specify that it was Sheridan College’s decision to close the...