Free Republic

The Nothing-to-see-here media continue to do a grand job. Chris Matthews: We may never know if religion was a factor at Fort Hood. That's almost certainly true in your case, Chris. As for yelling "Allahu akbar" as you open fire, Michael Tomasky, one of the American lefties on the Guardian's payroll, explains it for us know-nothings: The fact that Hassan reportedly shouted the above is meant, I suppose, to imply that he was an extremist fanatic. I'm not sure that it does. My understanding is that it's something Arab people often shout before doing something or other. It's used in...

Can we get a liberal journalist to investigate that? Let's wait and see. I doubt we'll get the same kind of curiousity from liberal journalists about that.

WASHINGTON -- Bob McDonnell's decisive victory is even more impressive if one stops to acknowledge that it came in the face of incredibly daunting opposition, misleading and low-brow campaign commercials, and a "news" organization which often advocates for left-of-center candidates and causes. To win the election, McDonnell had to defeat not only the Deeds campaign, but the DNC, the White House, and The Washington Post. Lest we forget, this is not the first time this "take no prisoners" strategy was employed by the Democrats and The Washington Post against a Virginia Republican. In fact, three years ago, not only was...

Bob McDonnell won big tonight in the Virginia gubernatorial race, as did the entire Virginia Republican party. The implications of the race will be sorted out soon enough. But one big loser is the Washington Post which may unwittingly have helped the Republican, despite their best efforts to put his opponent over the top. On the last weekend in August the Post ran the first of dozens of stories about McDonnell's 1989 masters' thesis, in which he wrote, among other things, that working women were detrimental to families and that government should favor traditional marriage over gay unions. While they...

Here's a transcript of what's said: Unknown voice: "We need to change congress" Friedman: No, we don't need to change congress, excuse me. You know, people have a great misunderstanding about this. People in congress are in the business, they're trying to buy votes. They're in the business of competing with one another to get elected. The same congressman will vote for a different thing if he thinks that's politically profitable. You don't have to change congress. People have a great misconception in this way they think the way you solve things is by electing the right people. It's nice...

So tell me, how do you write a “news” story about an organization paying for a speaker when you don’t even know if the organization is paying for the speaker? Ask “journalist” Jonathan Martin. He knows all about it. You see, Jonny wrote a piss poor story the other day about how the Iowa Family Policy Center will be paying a large speaker fee if Sarah Palin comes to Iowa to keynote the IFPC’s fall funderaiser. The only problem is that Jonny has no sources confirming that any exorbitant fee is being charged or paid. In fact, he had just...

CBS4 I-Team Investigator Stephen Stock went undercover with other I-Team member to find suspect medical clinics operating in South Florida one step ahead of the law. The grainy, shaky undercover video tape shot by the CBS4 I-Team shows dozens of...........

The AP has yet again run a hit piece trying to link any scandal it can to Bush. This chart shows that he was not a bush aide.

There's been a weird talking point bubbling up that the House health-care plan makes private insurance -- sigh -- illegal. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who breathes out crazy like the rest of us exhale carbon dioxide, warns that "on the 16th page, it says whatever health care you have now, it’s going to be gone within five years." Investor's Business Daily says, "right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal." Sigh. Not really. Shadowfax does the lord's work and explains what's actually going on here. The short version is that your insurance doesn't become illegal....

Accuracy in Media (AIM), America's first independent watchdog of the news media, is giving FREE tickets to FReepers to attend AIM's 40th Anniversary Conference in Washington, DC on Friday, October 23, 2009. To get your ticket, visit www.aim.org/events and enter discount code "freerepublic" or go to: http://aim40thconference.eventbrite.com/?discount=freerepublic Speakers include Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Tony Blankley, John Fund, Andrew C. McCarthy, Cliff Kincaid, Trevor Loudon, Anita MonCrief, Hans von Spakovsky, Marc Morano, Robert Bluey, Ann McElhinney, J.P. Freire, and Don Irvine. Tickets are regularly $75 and include a buffet luncheon and morning and afternoon snacks. YOU MUST REGISTER IN ADVANCE for...

ORLANDO, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - A proposed state guideline for dealing with an influenza pandemic is causing quite a stir. The Florida Department of Health is proposing that health care providers, notably hospitals, pull the plug on the most critically-ill patients in order to treat "healthier" patients.

The New York Times (NYT) newsroom is reeling from today's announcement that the company plans to cut the staff by 100. We spoke with a Times reporter, who told us it was the timing of the layoffs that is hitting everyone the hardest. The layoffs will come at the start of December, meaning a jobless Christmas for lots of reporters. See more reactions from the newsroom > Most of the people at the Times know the paper needs to be slimmed down, but nobody expected it would come in the middle of October. The newsroom is "stunned." When we asked...

Former U.S. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin appears to have posted her CV on an internet job site. The profile featuring Mrs Palin's name and picture claims she is looking for new opportunities in the business world after having stepped down as Governor of Alaska three months ago. The 45-year-old, who is seen by many as a challenger to President Barack Obama in the 2012 election, lists her accomplishments on LinkedIn, a social networking site aimed at professionals in the business world. On the 'contact setting' portion of the site the profile claims she is interested in job inquiries and...

<p>TEL AVIV – President Obama's presidential campaign focused on "making" the news media cover certain issues while rarely communicating anything to the press unless it was "controlled," White House Communications Director Anita Dunn disclosed to the Dominican government at a videotaped conference.</p>

(HITPIECE ALERT) http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE59F5GX20091017SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc is taking its ferocious price cutting into new markets as the economy shows hints of recovery.

No, the headline is not sarcastic. No, I do not particularly care for the guy. Yes, Rush has said all other various and sundry sorts of racially inflammatory things. But there's pretty compelling evidence a couple of particularly inflammatory quotes that have been attributed to Limbaugh on CNN and at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch are things he simply never said. There's no audio file, there's no YouTube, there's no transcript -- there's no sourcing of any kind to speak of, and given that Rush is one of the most listened-to and tape-recorded people in the history of the world, you'd...

Not since 1999's "Blair Witch Project" have I seen a homemade video more filled with ghoulishness and revulsive candor. The recent footage of ACORN workers advising a "pimp" and his "prostitute" how to circumvent the law in order to set up a brothel is priceless and instructive. What does it say of our 80,000-page tax code that a crew of disheveled but determined amateurs can pick it apart so nonchalantly? The federal tax code is the magnum opus of generations of legislators, inspired by egalitarianism, but subsequently weakened by expediency, misshapened by greed, and finally bloated beyond reason by its...

Respectable news outlets aren't the only ones having trouble processing the fact that a purple-eyed partisan like Andrew Breitbart is producing impactful journalism this season. The ancient Atlantic magazine–which, strangely, appears to have morphed into a sort of Blogger's Monthly–has been furrowing its brows at Breitbart & Co. both in print and online. Regular Atlantic contributor Conor Friedersdorf, writing at The Daily Beast (and earning a high-five from Andrew Sullivan), poses the question: ACORN is just the latest example of how conservative media love to blast The New York Times for its shortcomings. So why can't they live up to...

Because conservatism is bipartisan, that's why the media chooses to rig polling based on party affiliation instead. Watch: Gallup Poll #1 . Gallup Poll #2 . Battleground Poll The numbers vary, but it's abundantly clear that conservatives outnumber liberals. But democrats out number republicans What this means is that people more readily identify with the ideals of conservatism, than they do with "the conservative party".(I put that in quotes because the republicans have been at war with conservatives for quite a few years now) It also means that people more readily identify with the democrat party than they do with...

In a meeting of New York conservative activists earlier this month, Andrew Breitbart received a raucous standing ovation for doing something many conservatives never dreamed possible. He beat The New York Times.As video upon video were released showing ACORN employees eagerly helping two conservatives (Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe) set up prostitution as a legitimate business, file false tax statements and engage in the trafficking of underage illegal immigrants, much of the major media remained silent. For conservatives, the rationale was simple: the major media were uninterested in exposing an organization linked with President Barack Obama. There may have been...

Getting clean, getting Mormon, getting talk radio -- and going to Yale, with the help of Joe Lieberman. It was 1990, the midpoint of Beck's career in FM morning radio. The morning zoo craze had peaked and the economy had stalled. Eight years after leaving Washington state with a suitcase full of skinny ties and dreams of working in Rockefeller Center, Beck was now a morning-drive journeyman with a family to feed and a reputation to save. Despite breaking quickly out of the gate at age 18, Beck did not enter the new decade within sight of the industry's front...

Having just returned form the “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” event in Washington, D.C., I was intrigued to check e-mail and discover this from a listener in West Texas: “…the Statesman finally ran a piece about ACORN.” She was referring to the Austin American-Statesman, which, up until this point had not run a single article about the ACORN scandals that are so hot in the New Media. The Statesman is a liberal newspaper in the only liberal big city in Texas, but still… Nothing about ACORN? And it’s not just one paper in Texas that’s ignoring this story; it’s...

The Fishwrap of Record has finally seen fit to tell its readers about the latest ACORN scandals (the San Bernardino tapes, which don’t get a mention, are beyond belief). True to form, the New York Times commits grievous sins of omission that whitewash the paper’s own role in deliberately covering up ACORN’s illicit activities before Election Day last November. The Times article by Scott Shane casts the ACORN stings as a purely partisan game: “Conservatives Draw Blood From Acorn, Favored Foe.”

Obviously, the "main stream" media are hard of hearing and seeing. About 2 million mad-as-hell taxpayers assembling in Washington, D.C. for the largest-ever (most well-behaved ever, most respectful ever) protest did not make it onto their radar screens (or our TV screens). They need our help. Maybe we cannot repeat an assembly of 2 million mad-as-hell taxpaying patriots in one place, but surely those who longed to go and couldn't would love to be a part of Operation "Can You Hear Us Now?" I'll bet for every one patriot who went to D.C. there are 10-20 more who wished they...

The public’s assessment of the accuracy of news stories is now at its lowest level in more than two decades of Pew Research surveys, and Americans’ views of media bias and independence now match previous lows. Just 29% of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 71% say that news stories are often inaccurate. In the initial survey in this series about the news media’s performance in 1985, 55% said news stories were accurate while 34% said they were inaccurate. That percentage had fallen sharply by the late 1990s and has remained low over the last...

Glenn Beck, the hottest right-wing voice on the air, worried aloud to his listeners the other day that powerful, sinister forces trying to destroy America might soon "shoot me in the head." But there's fear among his critics, including calmer conservatives, that the victim more likely will be one of Beck's many broadcast targets. After a summer of mob anger at town hall meetings on health care - some of which featured gun-toting protesters - and a burst of Beck-fanned hysteria over President Obama's back-to-school speech last week, the former top 40 deejay has emerged as a goofy dark prince...

In the tales about vampires, it was learned how they create the "undead" and how they can be eliminated by a stake through the heart. It would appear that in the case of Sarah Palin, the passionate left has created an undead; she keeps coming back. In Gail Collins' column, "Levi's very public revenge," she continues to sink her fangs into her constant target by using tacky images of an individual and a family situation. But, know what? She describes people and situations we meet and know every day. The fine family nonachievers who flunk out of school, the ones...

Think about that for a second. Are they a death panel? I think they are. On a day to day basis...... hourly.... they kill information. They kill A LOT of information. Whatever gets deemed too inconvenient gets omitted and ignored and suppressed. Whatever is unavoidable they propagandize and spin away to make it fit the template, or they just poo poo and down play it. They are a body which keeps rationing and rationing information that they don't approve of. Think about some of those commonly heard talking points regarding the drive bys: "If it bleeds it leads" Except when...

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...

An online backlash is building against Whole Foods Market Inc. chief executive John Mackey, thanks to his op-ed column in The Wall Street Journal knocking President Barack Obama's proposed health care bill.

Marc Cooper on the continuing nosedive of "alternative media" bastion Pacifica Radio, and what this disaster says about the "media reform" movement. "If it can't bring itself to scrutinize the squandering and trashing of the $500 million Pacifica network (the market value of its licenses), then why should we trust this movement to offer serious analysis of the rest of the media?" Indeed. Marc also highlights the unsavory role of Amy Goodman, one of the true charlatans of today's radical left. After helping foment the takeover of Pacifica by a faction of extremist wackos in the late '90s: [Goodman] struck...

The glaring duplicity in media coverage of the current chaotic "healthcare" debate is unparalleled. When a lone gunman shoots an abortionist, the nightly news incessantly recounts the event for weeks, insisting that the brutal action most certainly reflects a universal mindset among any and all who call themselves pro-life. But let the people of heartland America rise up in unprecedented numbers at Democrat "town hall" meetings and voice their sincere opposition to the attempt by Obama and the left to implement socialized "health care," and they are derided as merely a loud but insignificant "fringe." In other words, the stories...

"Gryphen" a/k/a Alaska blogger Jesse Griffin, decides apparently at random to unload on Trig Palin again: Sarah Palin has used this heartrending diminutive prop with such careless abandon, that even people who once supported her are embarrassed at her apparent disregard for the well being of this baby. Leaving behind all of the questions about Trig's parentage, the question we must now ask ourselves is how well is he currently being cared for? I believe that many people have very powerful concerns for this child. We see him trotted out when Sarah wants to make a political point, or create...

Ah, democracy! It never works better than when informed citizens gather in town hall meetings to discuss and debate the issues of the day. But, oh, democracy! It's never more damaged than when partisan zealots plot to disrupt town hall meetings in order to prevent any honest debate of the issues. And that's exactly what's happening in health care forums held across the nation by members of Congress. We've seen it in Philadelphia; Austin, Texas; Georgetown, Del.; Salisbury, Md; and other communities. Taking a page right out of a Nazi playbook, organizers bus in professional protestors and arm them with...

The whole birth certificate issue gets weirder still: "I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen. I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago...." But why are we supposed to rely on the testimony of Dr Fukino, whom I believe entirely. It is not my job as a journalist or yours as a...

Are you familiar with Saul Alinsky's rules? Take Rule 5 for example. Ridicule. So what do you see in the liberal media? Stuff like this in local media, and then you'll see stuff like this in the national media. Look like ridicule to you? Or take rule 4. Making your enemy live up to his own rules. How many times you seen liberal politicians crow about draining swamps, or culture of corruption and the media goes right along with them? How many promises has Obama broken? Haven't seen much of a showing from the media on this, have you. How...

The on-again, off-again debate over whether Barack Obama was born in the United States is, well, on again. Just a few days after an angry protester, waving a birth certificate, confronted Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) over Obama’s origins, California Rep. John Campbell took to MSNBC’s Hardball to promote his bill requiring presidential candidates to submit copies of their birth certificates. But it didn’t take long for the interview to turn to questions about whether Campbell believed Obama himself was American-born. “What is going on that so many Americans doubt the obvious, that Barack Obama is a citizen, to the point...

Alaska’s self-destructing political firecracker, Sarah Palin, generated plenty of buzz — and even more head scratching — during the July 4th weekend in my humble hometown of Wasilla, Alaska. In a surprise announcement that’s only heightened speculation about her mental status, Alaska’s first female governor announced she will be stepping down from her job with more than a year left to her term. Palin’s bombshell announcement has sent a shock wave through the nation from the Alaska Panhandle to the D.C. Beltway. Even after last Friday’s all-over-the-board announcement in front of her lavish Lake Lucille home, nobody really knows why...

Professional politicians and political journalists don't waste energy on political corpses. They reserve their energy -- positive or negative -- for viable politicians. Thus, an intriguing part of the Sarah Palin phenomenon is the intensity of response to her every word and move -- from both Republican Party and Democratic Party professionals and from the conventional media. The negative but sustained passion being expressed by the professional Washington political class against her tends to belie its almost unanimous assertion that she is washed up. I happened to be on CNN on July 3 just as the story was breaking of...

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it” Yogi Berra When Sarah Palin resigned as Alaska’s Governor, you’d have thought she confessed to having Muslim roots in three Islamic States while apologizing to the world for the atrocities committed by America. OOPS--I’m getting my stories mixed up with our president--silly me. My psychiatrist diagnosed me with multiple personalities. I was beside myself…and so was I. Unlike Sarah, the liberal press and a few conservatives could have been diagnosed with multiple personalities. The Sybil wannabes were filled with hubris as they spewed against the Palins. The newsies looked...

Yesterday, on a comment thread I reminded readers of a particular sexist trick used to disembowel female pols—the old: she’s too polarizing theme. Specifically, I mentioned Hollywood’s David (Obama) Geffen’s charge that Hillary Clinton was “incredibly polarizing.” Geffen and Obama had put their male heads together and decided the best way to beat the bi$ch was to paint her as “polarizing.” Missy Maureen Dowd was contacted and she agreed to printed Geffen’s orchestrated remarks in her column. Hillary=Polarizing now with the NYTimes imprimatur. Polarizing = Bi%ch=manipulative=shrill, and on it goes. Today, I had no sooner posted a comment on the...

White House Press Corps Spent the Fourth of July Hanging Out With Obama, Off the Record By John Cook, 12:44 PM on Thu Jul 9 2009, 1,046 views (Edit, to draft, Top, Slurp) Copy this whole post to another site Slurp cancel select site advertising consumerist deadspin defamer fleshbot gay fleshbot gawker gizmodo idolator io9 jalopnik jezebel kotaku lifehacker valleywag artists gawkershop Reporters from more than 30 television networks, newspapers, magazines, and web sites celebrated the Fourth of July with Barack Obama at the White House last weekend. Why didn't you know that? Because they were sworn to secrecy. We...

My guess is that she really doesn't know what she wants, or who she really is. It's probably dangerous to admit to a moment of empathy. I'll either get disqualified from ever becoming being a Supreme Court justice or asked to turn in my press card. But after watching reruns of Gov. Sarah Palin's resignation from the governorship, after hearing every grammatically challenged sentence and inconsistent paragraph dissected by some talk show host, I started to (blush) feel her pain. There was the frozen smile, the vulnerability, the odd grab bag of unfiltered, unedited, unintelligible un-reasons scattered across the lawn....

The network news divisions are enjoying the unprecedented coverage they’re providing President Obama, not just because they support him, but because White House specials are cheap and do well in the ratings. “Obama should change his middle name from Hussein to Nielsen,” quipped longtime TV reporter Gail Shister in a story by David Bauder of the Associated Press. It seems like a never-ending spin cycle: laudatory coverage leads to popularity, which leads to higher TV ratings, which leads to more laudatory coverage. But it’s not working anymore. Behind the glittery curtains, Obama’s polls are falling. Worse, some ink-stained wretches are...

The reason Sarah Palin resigned her post as Governor of Alaska is really no mystery. And yet we must make it one. A person can never be taken at her word. What did she mean by a “higher calling?” She’s looking for a way to make money. It must be a huge book deal. But wait, she already has a book deal. She must be getting a talk show on FOX … but FOX has said there is nothing in the works. Then NBC? Maybe taking Katie Couric’s place on CBS? Now that’s a great idea. Or maybe there’s a...

Do you think Rep. Peter King should apologize for the video in which he harshly criticized Michael Jackson? Yes, the comments have no backing, and the timing is terrible Yes, regardless of Jackson's lifestyle, many are still mourning his death No, King has a point about the excessive media coverage of Jackson Who cares? I'm sick of public figures putting their feet in their mouths

I can't stand media liberalism. From the article: ========McNamara revealed his misgivings three decades after the American defeat that some called "McNamara's war."========= Allow me to correct this. ========McNamara revealed his misgivings three decades after the American defeat that some liberal journalists called "McNamara's war."=========

TV and Obama: mutual love affair By David Bauder July 6, 2009 Reporting from New York -- Even President Obama, a gleam in his eye as he talked at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Assn. dinner two weeks ago, seemed to recognize the special relationship he's forged with TV networks in the opening months of his administration. "A few nights ago, I was up tossing and turning and trying to figure out exactly what to say," he said. "Finally, when I couldn't get back to sleep, I rolled over and asked Brian Williams what he thought." The reference to the...

What a shock that Maureen Dowd devoted her New York Times column Sunday to attack Sarah Palin. It did not so much criticize Alaska's governor for prematurely stepping down from her official duties as to finish off what sister snipers Katie Couric and Tina Fey began last fall. The assassination of Sarah Palin - by media. For those who didn't pay attention, Mrs. Palin's unexpected stratospheric rise as a national political figure threatened the media's preordained presidency of Barack Obama. In light of how the Obama machine took down Hillary Clinton, which unsettled many feminists who believed 2008 was their...

People like John McCain and others who have been part of the self-absorbed, navel-gazing and corrupt Washington environment for a quarter century no doubt resent someone not "of them." But it is indeed odd when Sarah Palin, a bright, shining light for conservatives remains the prime target of the existing machine, while Mark Sanford and other hypocritical liars are serenaded as getting a raw deal by the very public daughter of a defacto leader of the party. For some reason, Meghan McCain, writing in The Daily Beast, seems to think adulterous politicians, like South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, should be...