Free Republic

Months ago, the isolationism of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was so extreme that I said he might as well be President Bashar Assad's man in Washington, referring to the Syrian dictator and murderer at a time when Rand Paul was following the policy of Ron Paul of extreme non-intervention. Times have changed, or shall I say Rand Paul's calculations have changed, so his positions have changed. Now Sen. Paul mocks President Obama over the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and vows to be a super-hawk going after ISIS. I guess when it's time to raise campaign money for...

Well, right on cue, Politico arrives this morning like the cavalry with an appallingly dishonest (but expected) piece of reporting that falls right in line with what Congressional Democrats did yesterday. It is as pure a piece of coordination and left-wing propaganda as you will ever read. And this is the only kind of investigative reporting Politico ever does. Imagine if Politico poured these same resources into investigating the IRS's connections to the White House or the shaping of the IRS talking points by the State Department. But today's Politico piece is all about changing the subject. All it looks...

In a bizarre op-ed in The Charleston Gazette last week, journalism professor Christopher Swindell argued that the National Rifle Association “advocates armed rebellion against the duly elected government of the United States of America.” Stirring words, to be sure, but Swindell was hardly done — not even close. He also said that the NRA is guilty of “treason” “worthy of the firing squad.” “To support the new NRA president’s agenda of arming the populace for confrontation with the government is bloody treason,” Swindell charged in his wacky essay. After briefly playing the race card and alluding to the Civil War,...

Watching the celebration at the NRA convention over the defeat of background checks was the most nauseating experience of the day. I am not a New York gun control liberal, either. I support a shotgun for home defense, a handgun for limited conceal/carry, and an assortment of hunting rifles to balance West Virginia's exploding deer population (as evidenced by hourly collisions with cars). So, I am hardly out of the mainstream. But, the gun safety debate is B.S. This foaming at the mouth, Obamar is coming for the guns, Nanny Bloomberg is a bad billionaire, and most despicable of all,...

Peter Sagal, host of NPR's highly entertaining "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," is planning a new PBS special on the US Constitution. In an interview with Politico, Sagal explains that he will be using the show to "educate" Americans about our government's framing document . The tax-payer funded show, "Constitution USA with Peter Sagal," sounds harmless enough: … We talked to people who were basically living the Constitution whether they wanted to or not, as opposed to the usual array of pundits or activists who have opinions about it. But as Sagal reveals his personal views of the constitution, a...

72 Congressmen slam media for failing to cover Gosnell, Planned Parenthood infanticide remarks WASHINGTON, D.C., April 18, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a sternly worded letter, 72 congressman have accused the three leading mainstream media networks – ABC, NBS, and CBS – of “blatant media bias” for failing to cover two of the biggest abortion-related stories in recent years: the trial of “House of Horrors” abortionist Kermit Gosnell, and remarks made by a Planned Parenthood representative in support of infanticide. “The broadcasters’ blackout of the Planned Parenthood infanticide lobbying scandal and the Gosnell ‘House of Horrors’ murder trial are the biggest...

An article published on CNN's website makes an unproven claim that pressure cooker bombs like the ones used at the Boston Marathon terror attack are a 'signature' of 'right-wing extremists.' The article was co-written by Jennifer Roland and Peter Bergen. Bergen is the CNN ananlyst made the claim that right-wing extremists could be behind the bombing less than two hours after it took place. The article says (emphasis added) : A senior U.S. counterterrorism investigator told CNN that pressure cooker bombs have also been a signature of extreme right-wing individuals in the United States who he said tend to revel...

Predictably, the American Pravda Press immediately began conjecturing that the tragic terrorist act in Boston, at the Marathon, was possibly caused by 'right wing extremists'. Quoted Peter Bergen: ""One of the things that I'd be looking at, once the device, if it is a device, is found, what kind of explosives were used. If it, for instance, if it was hydrogen peroxide, sort of a signature of al Qaeda. If it was more conventional explosives, which are much harder to get hold of now, it might be some other kind of right wing extremists..."We've also seen other extremist groups, right...

"Esquire's Charles P. Pierce wrote in an online post on the magazine's website that we should not jump to conclusions and blame foreign terrorists, then blames it on right-wing domestic terrorists. He stated "remember that this is the official Patriots Day holiday in Massachusetts, celebrating the Battles at Lexington and Concord, and that the actual date (April 19) was of some significance to, among other people, Tim McVeigh, because he fancied himself a waterer of the tree of liberty and the like." CNN's Peter Bergen stated that the bomb type could point to right-wing domestic terrorists as well. "If it...

On the Monday broadcast of Current TV's "The War Room" network host Cenk Uygur observed Americans would not be as outraged if the Boston bomber turns out to be a "right-wing white guy" instead of a Muslim terrorist. "Now, if it's a right-wing white guy, those same exact people will turn around and say, 'Well, look, let's not over blow this. I mean it's just one crazy guy, he doesn't affect anything else. It has no other implications, let's just all calm down," Uygur said. Michael Shure, the host of "The War Room," said Cenk could be totally wrong about...

<p>Come on. Can’t even the media hacks stop the political BS for just a few hours while we pray for the people and victims of the bombings in Boston at the Marathon? Already, CNN leftist hack Wolf Blitzer is blaming ‘anti-tax’ groups or in other words the Tea Party for the explosions at the Boston Marathon. I’ll post video as soon as it comes out. Go F*ck Yourself Wolf Blitzer and CNN. Seriously!</p>

Thanks to conservative new media, the Kermit Gosnell trial is finally part of the national dialog. But before the mainstream press got around to doing their job, ten congressmen took to the floor of the House to protest the lack of media attention being paid to the horrifying story. One such congressman, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), contrasted the abortionist's trial to another ongoing narrative that the media covers obsessively: gun control. “If Dr. Gosnell had walked into a nursery and shot seven infants with an AR-15, it would be national news and the subject of presidential hand-wringing,” said Smith, a...

I firmly believe why the MSM up until recently failed to report on the trial of Dr. Gosnell is the fact that they would look hypocritical along with President Obama, who has been using the deaths of 23 innocent children at Sandy Hook Elementary to push for new gun control measures in the Congress, but the truth of the matter is that is you took all of Dr. Gosnell's victims and total them up you would come up with more than 9000 Sandy Hook Victims. The other reason for the media blackout is the fact that the trial would calling...

The gay son of Rep. Matt Salmon, Arizona Republican, told KPNX-TV in Phoenix on Sunday that both MSNBC’s “The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell” and CNN’s “Piers Morgan Live” canceled interviews with him because he refused to attack his father on the air. Matt R. Salmon, the son, said MSNBC canceled his appearance because “they had intended to be critical of him and … I was unwilling to do so.” He also said CNN “seemed very gung ho about” an interview at first, but when he said he was supportive of his father, “they seemed to lose interest.”

(CNN) -- On the evening of March 19, Tom Clements, the director of Colorado's prison system, was shot and killed when he answered the door of his home near Colorado Springs. The slaying sparked a police chase that ended a few days later in Texas, with authorities finally killing the suspect, 28-year-old Evan Ebel, in a shootout. It was soon discovered that Ebel had been part of a violent white supremacist gang during the eight years he spent in Colorado prisons. Clements was the latest victim of increasingly active violent right-wing extremists. While American politicians and the U.S. public continue...

In the book "Public Opinion", Walter Lippmann writes the following: (Page 355) It is a problem of provoking feeling in the reader, of inducing him to feel a sense of personal identification with the stories he is reading. News which does not offer this opportunity to introduce oneself into the struggle which it depicts cannot appeal to a wide audience. The audience must participate in the news, much as it participates in the drama, by personal identification. Just as everyone holds his breath when the heroine is in danger, as he helps Babe Ruth swing his bat, so in subtler...

Those who are losing an argument often resort to smearing their opponents. Mike Barnicle, who a few years back was caught plagiarizing and Al Sharpton, The Worst of Al Sharpton who a few years before that built his career by accusing an innocent man of rape have resorted to smearing those of us who think New York Mike Bloomberg should at least confine his overbearing nannyist instincts to the city that actually elected him. “Let’s get down to it, Mike Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, there’s a level of anti-semitism in this thing directed towards Bloomberg,” Barnicle said on...

In a fresh New Republic story, reporter Rebecca Dana profiles Phil Griffin, the boss of a surging MSNBC. It’s a sympathetic look at the network exec, complete with a detailed rundown of how he and others happened upon the programming identity that has captivated liberal Americans across the land. One aspect of the piece that Griffin himself must adore is its disavowal of equivalence between MSNBC and cable top dog Fox News. Here’s how Dana makes the case that these outlets are distinct: Still, MSNBC isn’t an instrument of the Democratic Party in the way that Fox is of

WASHINGTON (AP) — District of Columbia prosecutors received scores of emails from citizens upset because NBC television journalist David Gregory was not criminally charged for displaying a high-capacity ammunition magazine on his "Meet the Press" show. Prosecutors received roughly 50 emails demanding that Gregory be charged, plus more than 150 others expressing outrage in the days after officials decided to not prosecute him. The Associated Press obtained the messages through a public records request. The emails were sent by people from around the country, including some self-identified gun owners and Second Amendment supporters, who accused prosecutors of hypocritically and unevenly...

(CNN) - Question: What do George Clooney, Chaka Khan, the American Medical Association, Bon Jovi and C. Everett Koop have in common? Answer: They are among the 500 names on the National Rifle Association's absurd new "enemies list." Richard Nixon would be embarrassed to find that his once sinister form of score-keeping has been revived so promiscuously by the NRA. But there is some redeeming social value here: The list illustrates an organization that has become hermetically sealed from society at large, so caught up in conservative debates that it has forgotten how to connect with Main Street America. The...

At least two burglars broke into a house in White Plains, New York, on Saturday and headed straight for the gun safe. This address and the owner's name, registered on a permit for legally held firearms, had been published on the controversial gun map published by the Journal News on December 23. The burglars couldn't open the safe and the property owner wasn't home. But this incident has led to speculation that the map is now being used by criminals for targeted gun theft.

Brewster, N.Y. – 1/13/2013 – Today Senator Greg Ball (Patterson – R, C, I) announced that a burglary has been reported on Davis Ave. in White Plains, New York that evidently ties into The Journal News gun maps. It is reported that the burglar used The Journal News’ interactive gun map to target a home included on the map. Luckily the gun was locked up and no one was hurt.

“You come in here, brandish your little book as if I don’t know what’s in there--” “My little book? That’s the Constitution of the United States. It’s our founding document, Piers.” “I know what’s in your Constitution.” “Do you really?” That was the climax of a heated debate between Breitbart News Editor-at-Large Ben Shapiro and CNN’s Piers Morgan on live television this evening--one in which Morgan came off much the worse for wear. Shapiro began by pointing out that for weeks, Morgan had bullied guests who defend the right to bear arms by "standing on the graves of the children...

On Morning Joe, David Axelrod asks the media for help taking down Mitt Romney.

"Who is this guy?" tens of millions of American voters asked themselves last night. "This isn't the Mitt Romney the media's presented to me over the last six months?" Free of the corrupt media's corrupt filter; free of the spin, the lying fact-checkers, the gotchas, and the desperate effort to cover up any and all bad news that might hurt Obama -- by every standard, every measure, every opinion and every opinion poll, what we witnessed last night at the first presidential debate of 2012 was a commanding, dominating blow-out performance by Governor Mitt Romney. Last night the GOP contender...

Before Romney issued his statement today, an open mic capture the press coordinating questions to ask Romney, with one saying “no matter who he calls on we’re covered on the one question”. I’ve transcribed it to the best of my ability but the audio is below for verification: I’ve labeled one as the CBS News reporter as I believe it is Nancy Cordes who works for CBS News. I’ve I gotten that wrong I apologize and will correct. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: …pointing out that the Republicans… *unintelligible* …Obama…. CBS REPORTER: That’s the question. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: *unintelligible* CBS REPORTER: Yeah that’s the...

Romney on now regarding yesterday's attacks on the US. Reporters are barking like mad dogs in their rage to hurt Romney, bombarding him with questions about his strong denunciation of the attacks yesterday and Obama's craven apology to the Muslim world. 'Do you feel you were wrong when you denounced the attacks yesterday?' 'Do you feel you were unfair to President Obama in your remarks?' 'How would a President Romney have acted?' Disgusting.

“I’m frankly, fed up, with the one-sided bias,” a frustrated Newt Gingrich asserted on Sunday’s Meet the Press, citing two blatant examples. First: “Where is the outrage over overt, deliberate racism” in Vice President Joe Biden telling a black audience “if the Republicans win you will be ‘in chains’”? Second, President Obama “voted three times to protect the right of doctors to kill babies who came out of abortion still alive. That plank says tax-paid abortion at any moment, meaning partial birth abortion -- that’s a 20 percent issue,” a position which Democrats “couldn’t defend...for a day if it was...

In lieu of airing speeches from former Democratic Rep. Artur Davis, a black American; Mia Love, a black candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Utah; and Texas senatorial hopeful Ted Cruz, a Latino American, MSNBC opted to show commentary anchored by Rachel Maddow from Rev. Al Sharpton, Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, Chris Hayes and Steve Schmidt. Throughout this convention, Matthews has accused the Republicans of playing dog-whistle racist politics while on scene in Tampa. It isn’t clear, however, if Matthews will hurl accusations of racism at Davis, Love or Cruz for speeches his network failed to broadcast.

Ann Romney may not make prime time during next week's Republican National Convention. The three major television networks — NBC, ABC and CBS — are not airing prime-time coverage of the RNC on Monday, the opening night of the convention and the night that Ann Romney has been scheduled to deliver the keynote address. So in order to get Mitt's wife onto television, the campaign may have to scramble and reschedule her speech. CNN, which will cover the speech, first reported earlier this week that Ann Romney is expected to headline the kickoff. The three networks all confirmed to POLITICO...

Floyd Corkins, a volunteer for the last six months at the D.C. Center for the LGBT Community, marched into the Family Research Center with a gun and serious ammunition, denounced FRC’s policy positions, and shot a security guard in the arm before being subdued. Another hate crime, but this time against perhaps the pre-eminent pro-family organization in America. CBS gave the story 20 seconds. NBC spent 17 seconds. Imagine a volunteer for the Family Research Council marching into some gay group’s headquarters with a gun, and after shouting his opposition to the homosexual agenda, opened fire and wounded a guard...

ABC was the only broadcast network that offered a full story on the FRC office shooting on Wednesday night. They led with the story and gave it two and a half minutes. None of the network newscasts reported the breaking detail that shooter Floyd Corkins volunteered for six months at the D.C. Center for the LGBT Community, adding depth to his political motivation. On NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams gave the story just 17 seconds: “In Washington today, police say a man with a gun walked into the offices of the conservative lobbying group the Family Research Council, and opened...

<p>Actual quote: "Romney wants to let the — he said in the first 100 days, he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules. Unchain Wall Street. They’re going to put y’all back in chains. "</p>

I was appalled, although not surprised, to read the just announced list of moderators for the forthcoming presidential debates: Jim Lehrer of PBS, Candy Crowley of CNN, Bob Schieffer of CBS, and Martha Raddatz of ABC (VP debate). All liberals from liberal news organizations. Not even a token representative from Fox or the Wall Street Journal – not in the moderator seat anyway. Don’t we live in a democracy? Or is this Syria or Egypt where its new Islamist president just wrested power from the military?**snip** But there is something we can do about it even at this late date:...

The media-news site JimRomenesko.com reports on Facebook comments by Fort Myers (Fla.) News-Press reporter Mark Krzos, who summed up his disgust as he covered Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day: "Such a brave stand ... eating a g-ddamn sandwich." "I have never felt so alien in my own country as I did today while covering the restaurant’s supporters. The level of hatred, unfounded fear and misinformed people was astoundingly sad. I can’t even print some of the things people said," he claimed. Then he bashed talk radio: "It was like broken records of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and a recitation of half-truths...

2:17, fun begins at the 50 sec. mark

By Thomas Sowell, senior fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Since so many in the media cannot resist turning every tragedy into a political talking point, it was perhaps inevitable that (1) someone would try to link the shooting rampage at the "Batman" movie in Colorado to the tea party, and that (2) some would try to make it a reason to impose more gun control laws. Too many people in the media cannot seem to tell the difference between reporting the news and creating propaganda. NBC News apparently could not resist doctoring the transcript of the conversation between George Zimmerman...

Coming out of a commercial break at 8:40 AM eastern time today, during Randi Kaye’s shift on CNN, the network “unexpectedly” chose to play the refrain from the song “Stupid Girls” by the pop singer Pink going into a story about former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. The two word refrain repeated over and over as the camera panned past Ms. Kaye and faded into a picture of Palin visiting a Chic-fil-A restaurant. The host then went on to a fairly stock story about the recent Chic-fil-A brouhaha, including Palin’s visit, with no reference to the introductory tune. For the record,...

During an interview of Obama senior campaign adviser David Axelrod on Wednesday's CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose and Erica Hill bewailed the negative tone of the presidential campaign, hinting that it might turn off voters. However, the anchors let Axelrod rip Mitt Romney's recent foreign policy speech to the VFW without challenge, and failed to ask the adviser about the President's own speech to the organization. Rose set up Axelrod's tirade against Romney with a beyond softball question - on the GOP candidate's slam of Obama: "'Contemptible conduct'; 'a betrayal' -- where are we?" The veteran journalist hinted at his...

If you haven't heard about an unnamed Mitt Romney adviser discussing America's "Anglo-Saxon heritage" with a British reporter yet, you will. On Tuesday, Britain's Telegraph published the following: As the Republican presidential challenger accused Barack Obama of appeasing America's enemies in his first foreign policy speech of the US general election campaign, advisers told The Daily Telegraph that he would abandon Mr Obama’s “Left-wing” coolness towards London. In remarks that may prompt accusations of racial insensitivity, one suggested that Mr Romney was better placed to understand the depth of ties between the two countries than Mr Obama, whose father was...

Chick-Fil-A came under criticism this month after a report by the organization Equality Matters revealed that the company donated around $2 million to antigay Christian organizations in 2010. “Guilty as charged,” the fast-food chain’s president Dan Cathy said over allegations that his company is antigay (“We are very much supportive of the family—the biblical definition of the family unit.”). So. Here we are. Tumblr, listen up. We’re hoping to find a current or former employee of Chick-Fil-A who might want to spill the beans on life inside the alleged antigay company. If that’s you, or you know someone who might...

As NewsBusters previously reported, ABC's Brian Ross on Friday falsely accused a Tea Party member of being the "James" Holmes that orchestrated the movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado. "Jim" Holmes during an interview with the Daily Caller had some harsh words for his accuser saying, "What kind of idiot makes that kind of statement?” “Really, seriously, how do we take a journalist seriously when it’s pretty clear they really haven’t done any sort of check on their facts?” told the Caller's Alex Pappas: Holmes informed Pappas that ABC News didn’t contact him before Ross went on air. In fact,...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: A little statistic for you. Since the beginning of 2012 -- we're almost now to August, so we've got seven months in, pretty much seven months in. Since the start of 2012, the death count in Chicago is 274. In seven months, the death count in Chicago, 274. They have some of the strictest gun laws in the country, just as they do in Colorado. You know, all of us have certain traits that reflect upon our character, and when those characteristics, when those traits cluster in a manner that causes a person to function in a...

Since so many in the media cannot resist turning every tragedy into a political talking point, it was perhaps inevitable that (1) someone would try to link the shooting rampage at the Batman movie in Colorado to the Tea Party, and that (2) some would try to make it a reason to impose more gun control laws. Too many people in the media cannot seem to tell the difference between reporting the news and creating propaganda. NBC News apparently could not resist doctoring the transcript of the conversation between George Zimmerman and the police after the Trayvon Martin shooting. Now...

Pete Santilli RIPS into a so-called CBS journalist who intentionally ignores facts about Obama fraud investigation, and then refuses to acknowledge that he intentionally withheld important information regarding the case from the public. To listen to the full episode,

In 2008 The LA Times withheld a video that contained footage of Barack Obama celebrating with a group of Palestinians who were openly hostile towards Israel. Barack Obama reportedly even gave a toast to a former PLO operative, Rashid Khalidi, at this celebration. This was something the LA Times hid from the American public before the election. The media refused to release the video.

On paper, Thursday’s vote on a resolution finding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress is about a subset of internal Justice Department documents and whether such executive branch communications are subject to legislative oversight. In reality, as Democrats argue, and even some Republicans will admit, the vote is about much more: Targeting a top administration official who has been a long time target of the GOP’s ire. Whether it is his initial decision to try Khalid Sheikh Muhammed in federal court in New York City, or to reopen an investigation into torture during the Bush administration, or DOJ’s...

A Fortune investigation reveals that the ATF never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. How the world came to believe just the opposite is a tale of rivalry, murder, and political bloodlust. In the annals of impossible assignments, Dave Voth's ranked high. In 2009 the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives promoted Voth to lead Phoenix Group VII, one of seven new ATF groups along the Southwest border tasked with stopping guns from being trafficked into Mexico's vicious drug war. Some call it the "parade of ants"; others the "river of iron."...

As if we needed more proof that the Rancid Media is boycotting the House Hearing on Fast and Furious, Fox is the only network covering it. On CNN, a report on the bond market. On HLN, a report on today's hot weather. On MSNBC, a report on the need for another stimulus package. On NECN, a report on the Sandusky trial.