Free Republic

An episode of the NBC sitcom "Committed,” featuring two characters who flush a Communion wafer down a toilet, has created a firestorm of protest among Catholics. During the February 22 broadcast, two non-Catholics are mistakenly given Holy Communion at a Catholic funeral Mass. As recounted by the Catholic League: "Nate, who is Jewish, and Bowie, a Protestant, don’t know what to do with the Eucharist, so they make several failed attempts to get rid of it. For example, they try slipping it into the pocket of a priest, dropping it on a tray of cheese and crackers, etc. "At one...

White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove doesn't like the liberal New York Times, and he's certainly justified. Moreover, when Rove met up with two Times editors during the heated 2004 campaign, he was not the least bit reluctant to tell the Times what he thought of its blatantly obvious bias in favor of John Kerry and his party. Rove has lots of good reasons to despise the Times. Among other things, the Gray Lady had run a shamefully slanted and misleading piece by White House reporter Elisabeth Bumiller, "A Democratic Rallying Cry: Vote Bush out of Rove's Office,"...

Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz is accusing the Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity of failing to disclose a conflict of interest during a "Hannity & Colmes" broadcast last week, where he touted the good works of his guest, BOND's Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson. But the Post reporter failed to disclose his own conflict while blasting the top Fox star. Kurtz complained in his Monday column that during the Peterson broadcast, "Hannity didn't share with viewers that he serves on the advisory board of Peterson's organization. ... Nor did he mention it on Peterson's 12 previous appearances on the program...

Dan Rather decided on Wednesday night to turn, the return of the bodies of Louisiana National Guardsmen killed in Iraq, into an opportunity to take a shot at the Bush administration for not allowing pictures of caskets arriving at military bases, a policy, he did not note, which matches that of the Clinton administration. Rather led the CBS Evening News with how "by Pentagon design, the American people have rarely been allowed to see what was seen today -- a homecoming. Flag-draped caskets of six American soldiers were flown to Louisiana where the National Guard chose to ignore Pentagon policy...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An independent report on Monday found a CBS News story about U.S. President Bush's National Guard service record was deeply flawed and came from the network's "myopic zeal" to be first with the news. CBS said it would fire four employees for their roles in the erroneous story, broadcast on Sept. 8, 2004, and would take steps to bolster its credibility. Following are some celebrated media scandals over inaccurate or fabricated stories. April 1981 -- The Washington Post relinquishes a Pulitzer Prize for a story written by Janet Cooke about "Jimmy," an 8-year-old heroin addict who...

December 17th, 1944 PARIS (Routers) Long-time critics of the Roosevelt administration declared themselves vindicated today, as the Germans began a renewed offensive yesterday in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium, opening a huge hole in the "Allied" lines and throwing back troops for miles, with previously unimaginable US casualties. Early yesterday morning, eight German armored divisions and thirteen German infantry divisions launched an all-out attack on five divisions of the United States 1st Army. Hundreds of heavy guns, howitzers and multiple-rocket launchers were fired on American positions. The 5th and 6th Panzer armies, consisting of some eleven divisions, broke through the...

the speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, has reached a dangerous new level of partisan zealotry to bolster the Republicans' control of government. For the new Congress, Mr. Hastert intends to cater to what he calls "the majority of the majority" in deciding which bills will get a vote and which won't. He has little use for the bipartisan majorities idealized in civics classes and once seen even in the House. Mr. Hastert first enunciated his approach last year in a speech. "The job of speaker is not to expedite legislation that runs counter to the wishes of the majority...

Let no one say we have not been warned. The enemies of free speech are on the march. The Kerry campaign has been moving heaven and earth to keep you from seeing the Red, White and Blue Production, “Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal.” I have seen that documentary which was produced by Marine veteran and journalist Carlton Sherwood, and my reaction is, no wonder Kerry is afraid of what will happen if the American people get to see it. It is a powerful account of decorated and wounded veterans of the Vietnam War who were deeply hurt that John...

It is funny to go around and read the various Democrat websites today and take a look at some of the news. The Los Angeles Times has a funny editorial from yesterday complaining that Dan Rather was "set up." Who did it? Dan Rather was had! It just keeps going. The story just keeps getting added to. You've got a Houston Chronicle story today on Bill Burkett and you've got a Washington Post story today on Bill Burkett. It's two different people. If you listen, if you read the Washington Post, there's an effort to rehabilitate Bill Burkett and make...

RUSH: If these documents are forgeries, if CBS has been duped, I don't care by who, they were willing -- I don't know if they're willing accomplices, but they wanted the story to be true. They're not victims here. They have been in the tank for Kerry, CBS has been the network, all those 60 Minutes shows, all those books in conjunction with their parent company, all of the lack of attention of the swift boat vets, CBS hasn't given one shred of notice to these people, or very little, and now this. It's going to be hard for them...

We need to refocus our efforts. It's time to get their attention. We've boycotted MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, the list goes on and on. Yet they still manage to get their propaganda out to the masses. And why is that??? Because their sponsors are still making money by advertising on their stations. We have to get their attention and the only way we can do that is to take away their funding. Don't bother boycotting the shows. Boycott the companies that advertise on these corrupt stations. START TODAY!

Say you're no fan of ABC, NBC or CBS and are interested in starting up your own media empire. Chances are you're going to fail – not because your news coverage or point of view is inaccurate or wrongheaded, but because there will be a huge force working against you. It’s the government. That's according to media mogul Ted Turner, founder of CNN. He says the little guy can't catch a break in today's media world. In an article for Washington Monthly’s July/August edition, Turner says his style of risk-taking and independence isn't possible in today's media world. He says...

Some reporters at a recent convention of minority journalists said they were stunned and embarrassed by the partisanship displayed at two separate speeches, with cheers for Sen. John Kerry and snickers for his opponent, President Bush. Editor and Publisher, the industry magazine, compiled comments from reporters around the country who attended last week's Unity 2004 Journalists of Color Conference in Washington, D.C., along with about 7,000 other journalists. In a column, John Temple, editor of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver was "inspired" by the meeting but said the partisanship, evidenced by the "cheering and whistling" during Kerry's speech, was...

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, unemployment numbers today... There's something screwy about this! Thirty-two thousand jobs created. But no, it's not 32,000 jobs, because I went to the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, Labor Department website because something didn't jibe here: 32,000 jobs created yet the unemployment number went down. It was 5.6%. It's now 5.5%, but the non-farm payroll job creation number is 32,000. So wait a minute! Of course everybody is, "Oh, that's horrible! Oh, my God! Why, we've run into a glitch here in June. Why, this may be -- oh, ho-ho, talking depression again," and the press...

President Bush offered up a new entry for his catalog of "Bushisms" on Thursday, declaring that his administration will "never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people." Bush misspoke as he delivered a speech at the signing ceremony for a $417 billion defense spending bill. "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we," Bush said. "They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." No one in Bush's audience of military brass or Pentagon chiefs reacted. The president was working his way toward a...

A bishop in Iraq's Chaldean church says the Western media has missed completely the story of the country's successes since the end of the Saddam regime, focusing instead on the "dark side." "The Western press has been unjust towards Iraq. It has focused only on the dark side, on terrorism, killings, car bombs, the cruel images of decapitation, said Monsignor Rabban Al Qas, Chaldaean bishop of Amadiyah in northern Iraq, according to AsiaNews. The "backward-looking press," for example, has not shown that "despite the political upheaval, the uncertainties and lack of security, schools reopened. Whether primary, high and secondary schools,...

Mark Twain said a lot of things wittier and funnier. But he never said anything more valuable than this: A man who can read - but does not, has no advantage over a man who cannot read. He'd probably also agree that a nation free to tell itself the truth -but does not, has no advantage over a dictatorship. Media coverage of Iraq these days makes me fear we have become that nation. Some comparisons, please. As North Korean troops and tanks plunged headlong into South Korea in June, 1950 the world communist press from East Berlin to Pyongyang reported...

The United States is at war, but from the way Americans are acting, you'd never know it. With every report of a terrorist bombing or ambush, while casualty lists grow by the week, Americans are recoiling in horror, as if they expect combat to be a form of pattycake where nobody, except perhaps for the bad guys, gets hurt or killed. There is a good reason for this. We simply don't understand that this is a real war, a fight to the death, and we can't seem to recognize the fact that wars are brutal things where brutality is the...

CBS News legend Dan Rather was one of the few people to get his hands on an advance copy of the hotly awaited and tightly guarded 975-page memoir My Life, by former President Bill Clinton. So what’s the verdict, Mr. Rather? "Maybe he didn’t come totally, absolutely clean with himself, but he made an effort to do it," he said, "an effort it would be difficult to find with any former President." Did Mr. Rather like the book? "I liked it more than I thought I would," he said, "more than I was prepared to like it. Who knew that...

One of my heroes passed away last week. I admired Ronald Reagan for his commitment to values and ideas that he and I shared, his political courage and his personal essence. Reagan was a true believer in the reality of the American dream and understood how best to make it happen through individual initiative and hard (and smart) work. He was no anarchist, but neither was he an acolyte of big government and bureaucracy. In his 1981 inaugural address, he declared that government wasn't the solution; it was the problem. Reagan was one of those rare American presidents who actually...