Free Republic

Dan Calabrese notices a scolding tone coming from the Associated Press in reporting its latest polling. It headlines the report by noting that “a grouchy public [is] sticking with Obama,” having seen a 54% job approval rating in its survey — but some bad numbers on the issues. Does the AP report those falling levels of support as a consequence of Barack Obama doing a poor job? No, as emphases from Dan and myself show: The public grew slightly more dispirited on a range of matters over the past month, including war and the economy, continuing the slippage that has...

My theory—call it the “Oakley effect”—is that really smart people often don’t know how to accept and react constructively to criticism. (A neuroscientist might say they “have underdeveloped neurocircuitry for integrating negatively valenced stimuli.”) This is because smart people are whizzes at problems that only need one person to figure out. Indeed, people are evaluated from kindergarten through college prep SATs on the basis of such “single solver” problems. If you are often or nearly always right with these kinds of problems, your increased confidence in your own abilities would be accompanied by an inadvertent decrease in your capacity to...

For much of the Bush administration, the media splashed stories of neoconservative conspiracies and cabals. Exposés about mostly Jewish liberals-turned-conservatives charged that they were adherents of the philosopher Leo Strauss and embraced the Platonic notion of the “noble lie.” In his Republic, Plato outlined an elaborate, ranked utopia, a good city (“Kallipolis”) run by a sort of benign natural selection. The philosopher-kings sat atop hierarchies in which occupations were assigned for the citizenry. To justify arbitrary selections, the rulers would make up “noble lies” about divine edicts, making clear that the occupations chosen for lesser folk were god-given. Once the...

SOME hardworking folks at NBC and MSNBC -- who work long hours for little pay -- are wondering, "Where in the world is Luke Russert?" One insider sniped, "He was hired last year to be the youth correspondent -- he got a great contract and was supposed to cover youth issues, blog and bring in young viewers, but he's been MIA for a while. It's like, 'Well, that's what you get for nepotism.' "

Media watchdog Brent Bozell tells Newsmax that the national media are so slanted to the left that they have been "pamphleteers for the Obama administration." Bozell, founder and president of The Media Research Center — which tracks liberal bias in the media — also said that the major TV networks have refused to call Obama a socialist or even a liberal even though he is "the most radical left-wing president in the history of the United States." See Video: Brent Bozell explains how the mainstream media supports Obama’s socialist agenda - Click Here Now|

Millions of Hispanics, mostly poor and uneducated, have immigrated to America illegally since the early 1990s. Most are Mexicans and most of them are high school dropouts.  Compared to what they might have had in a slum or impoverished rural area of Mexico or Central America, these immigrants have done well here. It has been different story for their neighbors -- middle-class Americans. For them, illegal immigration has often meant a deterioration of their neighborhoods, public schools, and their quality of life -- especially across America's Southwest. Some have watched their culture erode: It's not uncommon to see Mexican flags flying...

They’re rich, they’re famous and they’re better than you are. Why? Because they’re famous, and that means they’re entitled to it. Meritocracy is the fundamental difference between a functional free nation and a society of elite classes that don’t work, don’t accomplish anything useful-- but nevertheless rule. Meritocracy insures a system where those who can do, do. Systems of entitlement insure that those who have no useful skills or abilities tell others what to do, or collect money from them. And that is what we truly mean when we say “Free Country”, not a country without laws, but a country...

Lots of people love this movie of course. But I’m convinced it’s for the wrong reasons. Because to me “It’s a Wonderful Life” is anything but a cheery holiday tale. Sitting in that dark public high school classroom, I shuddered as the projector whirred and George Bailey’s life unspooled.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Paul Krugman, the Princeton University scholar and New York Times columnist, won the Nobel economic prize Monday for his analysis of how economies of scale can affect trade patterns and the location of economic activity. Krugman has been a harsh critic of the Bush administration and the Republican Party in The New York Times, where he writes a regular column and has a blog called "Conscience of a Liberal." He has come out forcefully against John McCain during the economic meltdown, saying the Republican candidate is "more frightening now than he was a few weeks ago" and...

<p>NEW YORK — NBC News reporter Luke Russert said he made a "dumb" misstatement on the "Today" show Wednesday when he suggested that smart people supported Barack Obama for president.</p> <p>Almost immediately, Russert took a hazing in the Web world. Wrote Tim Graham of the conservative Media Research Center on the NewsBusters blog: "Out of the mouths of young, untrained reporters come the unspoken beliefs of the liberal media."</p>

I opened the International Herald Tribune today here in Korea and read an absolutely precious letter from a Mr. Bruce Joffe of Piedmont, California (who, as far as I can tell is a professional writer of leftist letters to the editor): "How can I say this in a politically correct manner? A four-month baby needs a lot of time in the arms of its mother. Most mothers feel a similar need to be close to their baby. And a Downs Syndrome baby needs even more maternal attention. So what kind of family values is Palin exhibiting by going off on...

TOKYO - Toyota is building a $192 million plant in Japan to produce batteries for gas-electric hybrid vehicles, as it seeks to keep its lead in an intensifying race for green cars among the world's automakers. Toyota's joint venture with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic brand products, is building the plant in Shizuoka prefecture, in central Japan, Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco said Friday. He declined to give more details. The plant will produce nickel-metal hydride batteries, now in the company's hit Prius hybrid. The Nikkei, Japan's top business daily, reported Friday that Toyota was building another plant in...

"Unity is the great need of the hour. ... Not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it's the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exists in this country. I'm not talking about a budget deficit. ... I'm talking about a moral deficit. I'm talking about an empathy deficit. I'm taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother's keeper; we are our sister's keeper; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny."...

Liberal Democrats from the North haven't had much success in recent presidential elections — not Hubert Humphrey, not George McGovern, not Walter Mondale, not Mike Dukakis and not John Kerry. Democratic Southerners — Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton — have done quite a bit better. Sen. Barack Obama, of Illinois, knows this history. So why does he think he can be the first Northern liberal Democratic president since John F. Kennedy edged out Richard Nixon almost a half-century ago? First, there is no incumbent president or vice president running for the first time in over 50 years. Add...

It was the year 2000, and I was a young, hungry reporter in Chicago with a young, hungry state legislator on my speed dial -- It's not quite eight in the morning, and Barack Obama is on the phone screaming at me. He liked the story I wrote about him a couple weeks ago, but not this garbage. Months earlier, a reporter friend told me she overheard Obama call me an asshole at a political fund-raiser. Now here he is blasting me from hundreds of miles away for a story that just went online but hasn't yet hit local newsstands....

One of the annoying attributes of global-warming scolds is their inability to practice what they preach. The US Chamber of Commerce produced a very amusing video last month explaining how much in carbon emissions the UN generated by insisting on conducting endless conferences on the issue. Today, the Los Angeles Times takes a look at the travel practices of Arnold Schwarzenegger, another booster of energy-production limits, and notices the stench of hypocrisy: Like many of the Californians he represents, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger now spends more than three hours commuting because he lives so far from the office. But his ride...

Paced by Harvard University's staggering $34 billion stockpile, 76 colleges now boast endowments over $1 billion after robust returns on their investments over the past year, according to an annual study being released today. Harvard's endowment rose by nearly $6 billion over the past year, a nearly 20 percent increase. Yale University's endowment, the nation's second largest, rose to $22.5 billion, a 25 percent increase. Stanford University, Princeton University, and the University of Texas system rounded out the top five. Among colleges with endowments greater than $1 billion, the median one-year return was 21 percent. Nationally, the median return was...

Liberals around the country are smiling today at an Associated Press poll and story circulating on the web claiming that conservatives read less than liberals, non more so than former Colorado Democratic congresswoman Pat Schroeder who despite being president of the American Association of Publishers decided she felt like insulting half of her potential reading audience by dusting off an old liberal refrain: "The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple slogans: 'No, don't raise my taxes, no new taxes,' [...] It's pretty hard to write a book saying, 'No new taxes, no...

A student Republican club at the University of Vermont has folded, its undoing sealed by financial problems that included payment of a speaker's fee to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. The College Republicans took out a $7,000 loan from the Student Government Association to help pay the fee for the October 2005 speech by Gingrich. The club failed to repay the loan for more than a year, and after several warnings was decertified last month by the Student Government Association.

In a recent poll, more than 250 college and university history professors placed former President Bill Clinton as the best president of the last quarter entury, Ronald Reagan as the second best, followed by Jimmy Carter and then the first President Bush. (The current president was excluded since his term of office had not yet ended.) The survey also asked the historians to rank the recent Secretaries of State and Supreme Court justices as well as the relative threat to constitutional liberties posed by presidential actions. Dr. Tim H. Blessing, Professor of History and Political Science at Alvernia College, Reading,...

Despite having a hardscrabble farmer and an avowed socialist in their ranks, the incoming class of senators does little to shake the Senate's image as a millionaires' club. Bob Corker, senator-elect from Tennessee, boasts an estimated $64 million to $236 million fortune, according to the financial disclosure he filed to the Senate. Claire McCaskill, the senator-to-be from Missouri, has a portfolio worth roughly $13 million to $29 million. And Sheldon Whitehouse, who ousted the fifth-richest member of the Senate, Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island, is hardly hurting for cash himself: He has $4 million to $14 million parked in various...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Talk-show host Rush Limbaugh is canceling his international travel plans in the near future, saying he doesn't want to be "framed" by U.S. Customs officials after last week's incident when he was detained for more than three hours for possession of Viagra prescribed in his doctor's name. "It takes one time, and I've got red flags up, and I'm not going to put myself in the position of being framed," Limbaugh said today on his national radio broadcast. "With all this partisanship that's out there, I'm just not going to make it easy for people...

CHARLIE SHEEN, the former Hollywood “Brat Pack” actor, has been ordered by a Los Angeles court to keep at least 300ft away from Denise Richards, his estranged wife.The actress said in papers filed to the court that Sheen had been abusive and threatened to kill her. According to the New York Post, he had screamed at her: “I hope you die, bitch!” after she allegedly discovered he had been looking at internet pornography sites. Sheen, who appears in Two and a Half Men, a television comedy series, has denied the claims and the judge agreed to his request that all...

(CBS) A new CBS News poll shows that almost all Americans believe in God or some higher power and more than half pray often and consider religion an important component of their daily lives. Eighty-two percent of poll respondents said they believe in God, with nine percent saying they had faith in some sort of higher power or spirit. Doubt about the existence of God was highest in the "young" demographic as well that of political independents, those living in the West, people who live in big cities and men. Fifty-nine percent of Americans indicated that they pray often and...

I might sound a bit conceited with this statement, but to any other person an article about a new SEC rule might have seemed trivial. To me, it was a significant statement about the current American values; and I don't mean a positive statement. In their never ending campaign to create class warfare, the mainstream media, hypocritical wealthy Democrat politicians, Hollywood limousine liberals, and the left in general have regularly expressed a hatred toward corporate CEOs for their "bloated" salaries, benefits, and pensions. There's no rational reason, according to these socialists, for a man to earn in one week what...

This week's Voldemort Award goes to the New York Times for its account of a curious case of road rage in North Carolina: "The man charged with nine counts of attempted murder for driving a Jeep through a crowd at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill last Friday told the police that he deliberately rented a four-wheel-drive vehicle so he could 'run over things and keep going.' " The driver in question was Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar. Whoa, don't jump to conclusions, the Times certainly didn't. As the report continued: "According to statements taken by the police, Mr. Taheri-azar,...

The Bush administration has displayed a remarkable mastery at directing attention on issues through its own lens. Recently, for example, the White House tried to shift the national focus from the subject of alleged illegal wiretapping to a criminal investigation into who leaked the president's secret. Which raises the question: Should constitutionally protected news gathering be given a renewed boost through shield laws? The answer is — emphatically — yes. Reporter shield laws, designed to protect the confidentiality of press sources, are necessary not only to protect individual reporters, but more importantly, to protect the news gathering process and to...

LONG BEACH, Calif. (BP)--City leaders in Long Beach, Calif., have classified the Filipino Baptist Fellowship’s building as a blighted area and are forcing the congregation out in order to make way for condominiums. The path for the case was laid when the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 last summer in Kelo v. New London, Connecticut that a city’s use of eminent domain to transfer property from one private party to another may qualify as a “public use” protected by the Constitution. John Eastman, director of The Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence who is defending the church, said the case -–...

Why Jon Stewart isn't funny By Michael Kalin | March 3, 2006 THE SELECTION of Jon Stewart as the host for Sunday night's 2006 Oscars undoubtedly marks a career milestone for the aspiring king of late-night comedy. Unfortunately, however, the ascension of Stewart and ''The Daily Show" into the public eye is no laughing matter. Stewart's ever-increasing popularity among young viewers directly correlates with the declining influence of progressive thought in America. Coincidence? I think not. Let me explain.

March 02, 2006 Katrina Tape Transcripts Show Media Hack Job For those who want to see the transcripts themselves of the video conferences, the New York Times has them for the August 28th and August 29th briefings. The transcript for the 29th makes one garbled mention of the levees around New Orleans (page 6). After making the point that the storm surge would cause the greatest devastation in the Gulfport area of Mississippi, going as high as 21 feet, Max Mayfield then turns to New Orleans: MAX MAYFIELD: ... The rest of the track we have 10 to 15 feet,...

Actor and director George Clooney says he is proud to be denounced as unpatriotic for questioning US policy because he wanted to be on "the right side of history". Interviewed on BBC television about his latest films Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck, Clooney said that not only did he accept the right to be attacked for his views but he even relished them. Clooney, who has weathered attacks since opposing the 2003 Iraq invasion, said at one point that it was "frustrating" to be listed as a "traitor" on a set of playing cards, but he also accepted...

Let the campaigning begin! No, not the Oscars. That race is almost over. The next big campaign is Election 2006. And who in D.C. is enjoying the entertainment biz's largesse this election year? According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group, it's -- no surprise -- Hillary Clinton, who has taken in $213,645 so far from movie, TV and music industry sources. Second place is closely contested by two Teds: Ted Stevens, Republican chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee ($100,500), and Ted Kennedy, of the Democratic family dynasty ($94,600). Clinton has been a Hollywood favorite almost from...

"Right Turn on Sunset":Prequel to a Documentary... ...[Conservatives] don't need to be a majority in Hollywood to make a Big Difference in the entertainment influence that gets to the TV and silver screen. A healthy third of this towne will do nicely; it's just that most conservatives don't even know how many of their own red-state kind are all around, for they are all silent as lambs, for fear of losing their job, income, health insurance, children's college fund...

In trying to make sense of the Oscar nominations, it always helps to remember one thing: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences likes movies that are socially liberal but artistically conservative. And this has been the case from the beginning. So Terrence Malick ("The New World") shouldn't feel bad today, any more than King Vidor ("The Crowd") or Charlie Chaplin ("City Lights") or Spike Lee ("Do the Right Thing") should have in their respective years. If you want to be nominated for best picture, don't make the most artistically adventurous film of the year and don't push the...

Many of you have heard conservative traditionalists rant about "The Gay Agenda." But no one really knows what that agenda is. Well, I've discovered a copy, and I will summarize it for you: 8am - Protein shake 9am - Work out at the gym 10am - Rape straight men, give pornography to children, bulldoze all churches and destroy the sanctity of marriage (or what's left of it after Fox's "Married By America.") Hey, wait a minute... Some of the most important people in my life are gay men and lesbian women. And I can assure you, being gay does not...

The assumption that America's campuses are impenetrable bastions of liberalism--where left-leaning faculty predominate, progressive student activism flourishes and conservatism is fiercely marginalized--still rules the day. But in reality, since the 1970s the conservative movement has become the dominant political force on many American campuses.... "We didn't have our act together," says Joshua Holland, a fair-trade and antiwar activist.... "We tried to keep things nonhierarchical and loosely structured, but at the end of the day... we weren't getting anything done." ...At the University of North Carolina senior Jessica Polk says students have long been "sick of what the left is doing--they...

Al Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri, in videotape on Al-Jazeera, says U.S. airstrike against him in Pakistan failed.

Al-Qaida's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri called U.S. President George W. Bush a "butcher" and a "failure" in a videotape aired on Arab television Monday, his first appearance since an American airstrike that targeted him this month in Pakistan. Al-Zawahri, shown in the video wearing white robes and a white turban, said the Jan. 13 airstrike killed "innocents" and said the United States had ignored an offer from al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden for a truce. "Butcher of Washington, you are not only defeated and a liar, but also a failure. You are a curse on your own nation," he said,...

The CBC has apologized to a viewer who complained that a news graphic appeared to juxtapose the name of the prime minister-designate with the German word "heil" -- a salute usually associated with Adolf Hitler. The graphic was flashed during Tuesday night's edition of The National. It appeared beneath a shot of a Stephen Harper election sign. In an e-mail to the viewer, the executive producer of The National explained the graphic was a freeze frame of typing intended to promote the show's "campaign confidential" segment. An editor chose to capture part of the word "their" for the graphic and...

I just got done watching the Oprah interview where she tore author James Frey apart for lying in his "memoir," "A Million Little Pieces." Others joined in such as Richard Cohen and Frank Rich who DEMANDED honesty in memoir books that are supposedly non-fiction. Not too much of a problem for these folks to make such a demand on Frey since his lying "memoir" is non-political but would they make such demands on lying "memoirs" by liberals? "I, Rigoberta Menchu" leaps to mind since it is supposed to be the TRUE memoir of a Central American Indian who was oppressed...

BENNINGTON, Vermont (AP) -- A high school teacher is facing questions from administrators after giving a vocabulary quiz that included digs at President Bush and the extreme right. Bret Chenkin, a social studies and English teacher at Mount Anthony Union High School, said he gave the quiz to his students several months ago. The quiz asked students to pick the proper words to complete sentences. One example: "I wish Bush would be (coherent, eschewed) for once during a speech, but there are theories that his everyday diction charms the below-average mind, hence insuring him Republican votes." "Coherent" is the right...

The following is an update from Daily Pundit who has chronicled the UNBELIEVABLE behavior of CNN employees in the wake of the X/Cheney incident. A switch board operator who berated callers to CNN telling them "Bush and Cheney should stop lying" and that "Putting the X over Cheney's face was freedom of speach" has been fired by CNN. This has been confirmed! Visit this link to hear the tape. I just got off the phone with Laurie Goldberg, Senior Vice President for Public Relations with CNN. Her statement confirms the authenticity of the tape recording and reveals the actions CNN...

CNN'a story neglects to say that it could have been done manually, but that they had ruled that out somehow. I once was a control room operator for a live TV production and though it was over 30 years ago, I remember how I could manually reproduce what was done to Cheney. One way you switch between video sources to select the one to go out over the air to move the "wiper". It looks like a T-handled lever, like an automatic transmission lever on your car's console. Except, instead of being one handle, it's split down the middle into...

Commentary: Also, bloggers -- I want to hear from you NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - Sad to say, at the start of the holiday season, I'm a typical journalist. That means I am one of the many now reeling in the wake of the Judy Miller and Bob Woodward fiascos. And yes, I'm cringing in the corner as Maureen Dowd flexes her columnist's muscles and shamelessly bullies Miller in print. I'm waiting helplessly for columnist Robert Novak to be a mensch and finally do the right thing by going public with his role in the CIA leak investigation. I'm a typical...

It is fitting in more ways than one that Ted Koppel devotes the final program in his 26-year reign on ABC's "Nightline" to the charming sociology professor who died from Lou Gehrig's disease and inspired Mitch Albom's "Tuesdays with Morrie." The three 1995 "Nightline" shows in which Koppel talked with Morrie Schwartz about living life and coping with death were among the most memorable of his 6,500 programs. Additionally, his last show, which airs at 11:35 tonight on Channel 7, will show "Nightline" fans what they will be missing with Koppel's departure: The time to devote to one captivating story...

Warren Community College President Defends Professor’s Harassment of Young Conservative Professor Admits Radical Diatribe Student Fights Back HERNDON, VA –Young America’s Foundation exposed Warren Community College’s radical Professor John Daly, who in an email to student Rebecca Beach, vowed to intimidate those students who host conservative speakers and called for American soldiers in Iraq to murder their superiors. Instead of admonishing the professor’s intemperate attack on a student’s right of free expression, Warren Community College President William Austin said Prof. John Daly has “first amendment rights” to harass Rebecca. Furthermore, the President is trying to bully Rebecca into silence. He...

DUmmies have NO problem when Democrat politicians invoke religion. Such was the case when Bill Clinton invoked religion to try to get a gun control bill passed and later, in order to deflect attention away from getting a Lewinsky in the White House, he suddenly started attending church while carrying a King Size King James Bible around with him for all to see. However, DUmmies have a big problem with "fundamentalists" because most of them vote Republican. That is the root cause of their antipathy to "fundamentalists" as you can see in this DUmmie THREAD titled, "How should we...

The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com Only half see press as fair to BushBy Jennifer HarperTHE WASHINGTON TIMESPublished November 10, 2005 About 50 percent of Americans say the Bush administration is being treated fairly by the press, the lowest number since President Bush was elected, and an increasing percentage say the press is too critical of the president, according to the Pew Research Center.     "There has been a notable rise over the past two years in the percentage who say the press is too critical of the Bush administration," the survey released Tuesday stated.     Many stories that appear to methodically build a...

CBS REPORTER TO WHITE HOUSE: ALITO 'SLOPPY SECONDS?' Mon Oct 31 2005 11:26:56 ET CBSNEWS Chief White House correspondent John Roberts described the President’s selection of Judge Samuel Alito as “sloppy seconds” during today’s press gaggle with White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. John Roberts: “So, Scott, you said that -- or the President said, repeatedly, that Harriet Miers was the best person for the job. So does that mean that Alito is sloppy seconds, or what?” Scott McClellan: “Not at all, John.” Sloppy seconds” is described in the United Kingdom’s A Dictionary of Slang as: Noun: “A subsequent indulgence...

Liberal Elites: Why They Can't Sink America By Tim Condon October 22, 2005 Can "liberal elites" doom America and its position of world leadership? Jonathan Last has written a fascinating piece in The Weekly Standard titled "Rule America?" where he suggests that there are ominous parallels between the United States of today and a sinking, subdued Great Britain of the 1930's, dragged down by the hostility of the liberal elites of the time. In fact, go ahead and read it yourself! Go on! Do it right now, at http://www.weeklystandard.com/. (Don't continue with this article until you read Jon's piece.) And...