Free Republic

By the year 1000, the simple gospel had accumulated extensive ecclesiastical baggage. No longer was there only one mediator between God and man. The spiritually penitent had to seek the intervention of a priest — whether the priest was moral or not — by means of the confessional. And the priest, as the “representative of Christ,” assumed the right to “absolve” the sins of the sinner or — as an alternative — require acts of penance, often in the form of monetary gifts to the Church. Additionally, the priest might also require the spiritually penitent to seek the mediation of...

ABC News fabricates a report to make Joe Miller look like a loser. Yesterday, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl alleged in a now-discredited report that Alaska Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller had lost the confidence of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and was thought to be a loser by the NRSC. However, the only big problem with that report of yellow journalism was that none of it was true at all. Clearly, ABC News just fabricated the report to misrepresent that Miller was going to lose, that Lisa Murkowski had the upper hand, and that the trailing Democrat in the race,...

Jayson Blair knows his new profession — life coach — smacks some people in the face like a bad punchline. "People say, 'Wait a minute. You're a life coach?' That makes no sense,'" says Blair, the ex-journalist best known for foisting plagiarism and fabrications into the pages of The New York Times. "Then they think about my life experiences and what I've been through and they say 'Wait a minute. It does make sense.'" Blair, 33, resigned from the Times in 2003, leaving a journalistic scandal in his wake. The resulting furor led the paper's top two newsroom executives to...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Two white supremacists accused of plotting to assassinate Barack Obama are on lockdown in their Tennessee jail cell. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported Sunday that 20-year-old Daniel Cowart of Tennessee and 18-year-old Paul Schlesselman of Arkansas are under the lockdown for their protection. Obion County Sheriff Jerry Vastbinder says they were separated from other inmates at the request of federal authorities.

A source close to the Obama campaign tells The Brody File that Barack Obama and Michelle Obama approached Trinity United Church Pastor Otis Moss III a couple months ago to discuss whether Obama should remain with the church. This person tells me that Senator Obama asked pastor Moss how the controversy was affecting the church and the discussion focused in on what would be best for the church and best for Obama. The initial conversation took place after the Jeremiah Wright sermons became widespread public knowledge but before Jeremiah Wright's speech to the National Press Club. Reverend Moss knew about...

Eminent historian debunks Scottish history as largely fabricationA book by the late Hugh Trevor-Roperand due to be published five years after his death argues that Scottish history is based on myths and falsehoods Stuart MacDonald SCOTLAND’S history is weaved from a “fraudulent” fabric of “myths and falsehoods”, according to an explosive new study by one of the world’s most eminent historians. The Invention of Scotland: Myth and History, is the last book, and one of the most controversial, written by the late Hugh Trevor-Roper. Now, five years after his death, the book is to be published at one of the...

University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill was fired by the Board of Regents in July. But that didn't stop Churchill from still teaching at CU this week. According to the Boulder Daily Camera, a group of student supporters rented out a classroom at CU's Eaton Humanities Building and invited Churchill to teach. The topic? "ReVisioning American History: Colonization, Genocide and Formation of the U.S. Settler State." And it appears this isn't a one-time-only event.

Fired University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill will return to the Boulder campus next week to begin teaching an unsanctioned course that's being organized by his student supporters. University officials have distanced themselves from the planned lecture series — slated to begin Tuesday night — and say that Churchill remains terminated. The students organizing Churchill's teachings say the series is intended for those who "missed out" on his years as an American Indian studies professor and as head of the ethnic studies department at CU. Churchill's supporters can hold the classes on campus because the university allows student groups to...

[from "Weathermen" terrorist Bill Ayers]: Ward Churchill is under a sustained, orchestrated, and determined attack because of his political beliefs and statements and activities, and nothing more. No one doubts his productivity or his accomplishments. But the attack on Churchill is neither isolated nor innocent— the high school history teacher on the west side of Chicago gets the message, and so does the English literature teacher in Detroit and the math teacher in an Oakland middle school: be careful what you say; stay close to the official story; stick to the authorized text. If someone of Ward Churchill’s stature and...

University of Colorado-Boulder Chancellor G.P. “Bud” Peterson ... the university is also in the process of overhauling its faculty termination procedures following the controversial firing of CU ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill. Churchill was fired for scholarly misconduct, but is still being paid pending a full review of his actions. A faculty committee reviewing Churchill’s conduct is expected to make a recommendation to Brown in about two weeks, Peterson said. Then, Brown will make a recommendation to the school’s Board of Regents. “I don’t think he’ll have to deliberate a terribly long time” over what he’ll recommend to the board,...

A journalist working for Arabic TV news channel al-Jazeera has been arrested in Egypt for allegedly fabricating videos of police torturing suspects. Huweida Taha Metwalli was stopped on her way to Qatar and 50 video tapes were found in her luggage, the Egyptian interior ministry said. She is reportedly charged with "tarnishing Egypt's reputation and harming Egyptian national interests". Al-Jazeera said the tapes showed a "documentary reconstruction" by actors.

A longtime aide to Jimmy Carter has resigned from the Carter Center think tank, calling the former president's new book on Israel and the Arabs one-sided and filled with errors. Kenneth Stein, the Carter Center's first executive director and founder of its Middle East program, sent a letter that bluntly criticized the book to Carter and others. Stein wrote that the book, "Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid," was replete with factual errors, material copied from other sources and "simply invented segments," according to an excerpt of the letter published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Deanna Congileo, Carter's spokeswoman, said the former president...

U.S. citizens went to the polls on Tuesday to elect 435 representatives, 33 senators, and 36 governors, and the votes are nearly all counted now. Democrats took control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1994. The results from California and Washington indicate that the Democrats have actually polled more votes, despite the fact that the Republicans had done well in those states in recent years. In fact, the Iraq war was the decisive factor in the United States’ midterm congressional elections, which some Arab political analysts have called the “Iraqi congressional elections”. During the electoral campaigns,...

Professor's fate may not be decided until well into next year. The University of Colorado's efforts to fire Ward Churchill are on hold because of a dispute over whether the university has to come up with $20,000 in state funds for the professor's defense. Churchill's attorney, David Lane, said a lawsuit to get the money could be filed by next week. Meantime, there's been no progress on Churchill's appeal since August, and it could be well into 2007 before a final decision on his fate is made. CU spokeswoman Michele McKinney said the delay is outside of the administration's control....

An expert on academic freedom said Tuesday the University of Colorado should be held to a high standard of proof if it tries to punish an embattled professor on allegations of plagiarism. A faculty committee is investigating research misconduct charges against Ward Churchill, a tenured professor of ethnic studies who first came under fire for likening Sept. 11 victims to an infamous Nazi. "The burden of proof should be a very high standard," said Jonathan Knight, director of academic freedom and tenure programs for the American Association of University Professors. Churchill has confirmed that a subcommittee of the university's Standing...

Yesterday evening, I received a call from my column syndicate, Creators Syndicate. The Associated Press had phoned my editor to inform her that it would be sending a response to my column yesterday about detained AP photographer Bilal Hussein. (Funny how quickly they respond now. Where have they been the past five months? Oh, right: Busy covering up the news about Hussein's April 12 capture by the military at a Ramadi apartment with an alleged al Qaeda leader and a weapons cache.) The AP last night asked my editor to supply its corporate communications office with my newspaper client list...

IT'S bad enough that friends of Hezbollah terrorists could trick so many journalists with just a tall story and a rusty Lebanese ambulance. Worse is that some of those journalists seemed so eager to believe this ambulance was indeed wickedly blown up by an Israeli missile fired straight through the big red cross on its roof -- leaving not even a scorch mark. But worst is that even now that this hoax has been exposed, none of the countless writers and commentators who fell for it have admitted to passing on as fact the propaganda of terrorists. It is this...

The media war against Israel Early in the recent Lebanon war, the blogosphere revealed the fabrication of images by Reuters, whose reputation is now in shreds among those dwindling numbers in the western mainstream media who still acknowledge there is such a thing as the truth. Since then, the nature and scale of the various frauds perpetrated by the media during that war put those doctored Reuters pictures into the shade. The western media are no longer merely producing questionable professional practices in reporting a war. They are now active participants in it — and on the wrong side of...

International journalists discuss Lebanon war coverage; NYT bureau chief: Israel 'not interested in Lebanese deaths' A number of journalists claimed during a convention in Jerusalem Monday evening that Israel and the IDF were mostly to blame for the way the foreign media covered the Lebanon war. The panel of journalists, largely from the international media, convened to discuss their coverage of the war, at a conference arranged by the Media Line agency's Mideast Press Club. "Journalists' access to the battlefield is controlled exclusively by the IDF," said Simon McGregor-Wood, Chairman of the Foreign Press Association, and Bureau Chief of ABC...

The University of Colorado student union voted Thursday in support of firing tenured ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill. The union's legislative council voted 9-6 in favor of a resolution supporting former Interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano's recommendation to fire Churchill for plagiarism and research misconduct. The resolution will be sent to the student government's tri-executives and will go into effect if two of the three student leaders sign it. "This is not a problem that is attached to the entire ethnic studies department — just a not-so-good professor and he doesn't deserve to be employed here," ... "He takes away from...