Free Republic

It's official: Sex therapists suck in bed. Also: Insane Idaho Senate candidates, Spitzer in the back - Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the media ... All the following Associated Press stories are true, except where they have been made completely false. Names have not been changed to protect anyone at all, unless they've been made up entirely. Caveat emptor. Gratis dictum. Nil desperandum. Ready? Allegations that third-graders hatched an elaborate plot to knock out, handcuff and stab their teacher were met with shock by neighbors and with doubt by psychiatry experts who said it...

A Los Angeles Times story about a brutal 1994 attack on rap superstar Tupac Shakur was partially based on documents that appear to have been fabricated, the reporter and editor responsible for the story said Wednesday. snip Reporter Chuck Philips and his supervisor, Deputy Managing Editor Marc Duvoisin, issued statements of apology Wednesday afternoon. The statements came after The Times took withering criticism for the Shakur article, which appeared on latimes.com last week and two days later in the paper's Calendar section. The criticism came first from The Smoking Gun website, which said the newspaper had been the victim of...

The latest fear mongering from the Church of Global Warming comes packed with a really scary photoshopped picture of the 2005 season and a scary headline: WARMING ATLANTIC WORSENS HURRICANES

Does this mean they will be reduced to reporting the actual news?

Saturday, November 17, 2007 CNN's six "undecided voters" were all Democratic operatives    UPDATES BELOW - CNN hits bottom and digs: All six debate questioners appear to be Democratic Party operatives. So much for "ordinary people, undecided voters". To paraphrase Junior Soprano, CNN is so far up the DNC's hind end, Howard Dean can taste hair gel. In a nutshell, CNN's six "undecided voters" were: A Democratic Party bigwigAn antiwar activistA Union officialAn Islamic leaderA Harry Reid stafferA radical Chicano separatist Wow. This looks "rather" like a scandal. Hot Air: ...You’d think the network’s audience might want to know who...

New York radio got the first look at its new ratings system Wednesday, creating smiles at mainstream pop and rock stations and causing at least one urban station to say it reads like a death warrant. "These numbers could put us out of business," said Vinny Brown, program director of WBLS. "And it's not just us. Listeners need to know this could threaten the future of black and Hispanic radio across the board." Overall, the October Arbitron ratings put WLTW (106.7 FM) back at No. 1. WHTZ (100.3 FM) was a close second and WCBS-FM (101.1) a strong third, ahead...

During his Monday smackdown on the Laura Ingraham radio show, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin declined to say yes or no when Laura asked him if he had ever met or interviewed Justice Clarence Thomas before he claimed the Justice was "furious all the time." Toobin declined to say yes or no, but suggested Laura should ask Thomas. In a soundbite Ingraham aired at the top of the 10 am hour on Thursday, after his hour-long interview was done, Thomas confirmed that he granted no interview to Toobin. Thomas said he "would have no clue" who Toobin was if he saw...

When presidential candidates volley numbers at each other and toward voters, the truth sometimes gets caught in the crossfire. In recent weeks, Ron Paul overstated the U.S. death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan, Rudy Giuliani overstated the impact on national crime rates of declining New York rates during his mayoral tenure, Barack Obama overstated the potential impact of an increase in voter turnout among black voters in the South, and John Edwards chose the higher of two government estimates of the number of Americans without bank accounts to emphasize a point.

Well, that is very interesting. But first we should clear the air about something. Greenspan claims that the quote was taken out of context. Greenspan called the Post -- Bob Woodward, no less -- to say that, in fact, he didn't think the White House was motivated by oil. Rather, he was. A Post story Monday explained that Greenspan had long favored Saddam Hussein's ouster because the Iraqi dictator was a threat to the Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world's oil passes every day. Hussein could have sent the price of oil way past $100 a barrel,...

If all you did was read or listen to the news headlines today you would have to conclude that Alan Greenspan must have just taken a job with moveon.org There is much more to the story about Alan Greenspan’s position on President Bush and the war in Iraq. In fact, he supported the move to take out Hussein and said he would vote GOP today. There is much more to his comments than what the media asserts in the headlines but how many people will take the time to actually watch a long interview with the former Federal Reserve Chairman...

IN THE SPRING of 1954, the US Senate convened hearings at the instigation of Senator Joseph McCarthy to press his anticommunist investigations into the Department of the Army. The hearings were broadcast live on television, and the American public was able to witness firsthand the tactics McCarthy used to intimidate his foes. At a critical moment in the hearings, a key governmental witness, Army lawyer Joseph Welch, rose to defend one of the junior Army lawyers whose career, Welch alleged, McCarthy had destroyed. Welch turned to McCarthy and memorably intoned: "Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have...

"The right wing will come at this movie. I have done something that just cannot be done. You can never say anything critical of the troops."

A front-page story in Wednesday's Free Press said "[Bob] Nardelli, Chrysler's new chief executive office and chairman, addressed more than 300 senior executives at an all-day meeting Tuesday at Hyatt Regency Dearborn." Actually, Nardelli was sick on Tuesday and didn't deliver the speech -- until Wednesday. Corrections in the print edition and online story don't explain to readers how the mistake was made.

The Honorable Harold Ford, Jr. Chairman Democratic Leadership Council 600 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, Suite 400 Washington, D.C. 20003 Dear Rep. Ford, I appeared with you on the O’Reilly Factor on July 31, 2007, in my capacity as spokesman for FreeRepublic.com to discuss politics on the Internet. The host, Bill O’Reilly, falsely accused FreeRepublic.com of having the following comments on its site: "Homosexuals are dogs," "I hate blacks," "Hillary Clinton should be assassinated," and "A stray bullet should kill her." To be blunt, those comments were made up by the O’Reilly Factor. The O’Reilly Factor was not able to provide documentation...

News agency Reuters used an image originating from the Hollywood blockbuster film Titanic as a photo of the Russian polar dive last week, Finnish tabloid Ilta-Sanomat reported Thursday Hannu Vanhanen, a photograph specialist at the University of Tampere, was quoted as saying that there was no doubt the image sent to Reuters subscribers was from the film. Reuters says the image was captured from a Russian television broadcast. Russian polar explorers took Finnish-made Mir-1 and Mir-2 deep-sea submersibles to a depth of 4,261 below the North Pole Thursday last week. Mirs were actually used to shoot footage of the RMS...

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 5 — For the last 14 months, high-tech insiders have been eating up the work of an anonymous blogger who assumed the persona of Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive and one of the world’s most famous businessmen. The mysterious writer has used his blog, the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, to lampoon Mr. Jobs and his reputation as a difficult and egotistical leader, as well as to skewer other high-tech companies, tech journalists, venture capitalists, open-source software fanatics and Silicon Valley’s overall aura of excess.

It’s hard to grasp the point of yesterday’s front page New York Times article on Chelsea Clintonby wunderkind reporter Jodi Kantor. While it’s clear that Kantor intended her piece to reveal the “real” Chelsea, she admits at the outset that the former first daughter and her parents “turned down interview requests for the article, as they have for countless others on the subject.” So, how does Kantor remedy this lack? With received wisdom and banalities, naturally. Kantor helpfully informs readers that the young Clinton has strawberry blond hair and favors tasteful pantsuits, that she graduated in 2001 from Stanford, did...

CNN hosted a YouTube debate last night where "ordinary people" could ask questions of the Democrat candidates via YouTube. Much has been made of this one with the "hillbillies" talking about Al Gore. One problem. These guys do sketch comedy and are affiliated with the liberal Salon.com. They are not "ordinary" voters. Heck, they don't even live in Tennessee anymore, but are based in L.A.CNN, you've been had.

Jennifer Hunter, the Chicago Sun-Times writer and wife of Sun-Times publisher John Cruickshank, who wrote the recent story skewered here on Newsbusters revealing a supposed "staunch Republican" from Philly who has suddenly decided to support the Democrats in 2008, has written a new piece today claiming she is being "harassed by a group of irate Republicans" because of her badly researched column. (The interviewee in her piece claimed to be a "staunch Republican" even as his cash donation records prove he almost exclusively supports Democrats) Her follow up, however, seems more like the kid caught with her hand in the...

Montville Township was tops among eight New Jersey towns included in Money magazine's best 100 places to live in the United States, weighing in at No. 13. No New Jersey town made the top 10, but six Garden State towns were in the top 50, including the Middlesex County Borough of Sayreville, which was 47th on the list. Hillsborough (23rd), River Vale (29th), Marlboro (33rd), Berkeley Heights (45th), Readington (58th) and Moorestown (78th) rounded out the Jersey selections. Moorestown had been the top choice in 2005.Middleton, WI., was the best place to live, the magazine said. Towns were ranked on...

I posted this a couple of days ago. Jennifer Hunter of the Sun Times wrote an article claiming a “staunch Republican” was switching to the Democrats. The only problem- the “staunch Republican is a big time personal injury attorney who donated thousands to Dem candidates and a mere pittance to Republicans. I emailed Ms. Hunter (admittedly a snotty missive) and she didn’t respond. I’ve read several blogs where people have claimed to email her but only one actually said she responded. Ms. Hunter is the wife of the Sun Times publisher (John Cruikshank). I have no idea how things work...

BBC admits fake winners on charity appeals   Dan Sabbagh, Media Editor of The Times, and Philippe Naughton   The BBC suspended all phone-in competitions today after admitting that it had put fake winners on air during its flagship charity appeal programmes, Children In Need, Comic Relief and Sport Relief. On each occasion, the "winning caller" heard on air was a member of the production team posing as a viewer. The World Service pop programme White Label, the TMi show on CBBC and BBC 6 Music’s Liz Kershaw Show also duped viewers in a similar way. Mark Thompson, the...

From AJR, June/July 2007 issue Justice Delayed August/September Preview » Many in the media jettisoned caution--and the presumption of innocence--in their coverage of an alleged rape by Duke lacrosse players, and were too slow to correct the record as the case unraveled. But some journalists distinguished themselves with skeptical and incisive reporting. Related reading: Naming Names By Rachel Smolkin Rachel Smolkin (rsmolkin@ajr.umd.edu) is AJR's managing editor. As Reade Seligmann choked back tears on the witness stand, the 21-year-old Duke University lacrosse player dubbed "Flustered" by teammates was poised, compelling and clearly hurting. He told of a world turned "upside down"...

Metallica singer James Hetfield was investigated by UK airport officials who believed he was a terrorist this week, it has been claimed. The star was barred entry to Luton airport on Thursday and questioned by staff who were concerned about his appearance. Fears that Hetfield might be involved in terrorism were apparently founded on his "Taliban-like beard", according to The Times. He was allowed to leave the airport after a brief interrogation, when he persuaded officials that he was a rock star. Metallica play Live Earth at Wembley Stadium in London tomorrow, before headlining the venue for their own show...

This author is the Nelson Poynter Scholar for Journalism Values It's one of the age-old debates in journalism circles. Can a journalist tell a lie to reveal the bad behavior of others? Or, put another way, when might a journalist obscure the truth of his identity in pursuit of the truth on a story? It's more than an academic exercise when a journalist chooses to use the deception tool. You'll find a very personal take on this in a recent essay in the Los Angeles Times. The writer is Ken Silverstein, who once wrote for that paper and is now...

`Suspicion' about Libby's commutation By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer 25 minutes ago The Democrat probing President Bush's decision to erase the prison sentence of a former White House aide said Sunday there is "the suspicion" the aide might have fingered others in the Bush administration if he served time. The House Judiciary Committee chairman spoke of "the general impression" that Bush last week commuted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 2 1/2 year sentence in the CIA leak case to keep Libby quiet. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has scheduled a committee hearing Wednesday on the matter. Bush contended Libby's sentence was...

Six American Presidents are viewed favorably by at least 80% of all Americans. Those esteemed six are led by the first President George Washington. The Father of our Country is viewed favorably by 94% of Americans. The sixteenth President, Abraham Lincoln, is the second most popular. The man who gave us the Gettysburg Address is viewed favorably by 92% (see Presidential favorable ratings). The next four are Thomas Jefferson (89%), Teddy Roosevelt (84%), Franklin D. Roosevelt (81%), and John F. Kennedy (80%). Five other Presidents are viewed favorably by at least 70% of Americans today—John Adams (74%), James Madison (73%),...

SANDLE, REIFF and YOUNG, P.C. 50 E Street, S.E., Suite 300 Washington DC 20003 Telephone: 202.479.XXXX FAX: 202.479.XXXX May 10, 2007 VIA E-Mail Mr. James C Robinson FreeRepublic.com PO Box 9771 Fresno, CA 93794 Re: Statement re Democratic National Committee Dear Mr Robinson: We are writing on behalf of our client, the Democratic National Committee (DNC). A post by “coffee260” on FreeRepublic.com today states that this morning, on the Quinn & Rose show on XM, co-host Quin stated that the DNC chairman, Gov. Howard Dean had called Gov Kathleen Sebelius (D-Kans) “around 5:00am on morning after a tornado destroyed the...

CNN pollster Vinod Gupta, who controls the Opinion Research polling firm, has already declared Hillary Clinton the winner of the 2008 election and contributed the first of his donations to her campaign. Anyone who thinks the CNN polls won't be rigged to favor Hillary should have their head examined. CNN hires Clinton-controlled Opinion Research Corp. for 2008 Presidential Polling - "She'll be the next President" - CNN pollster Vinod Gupta - From FECInfo.com - Gupta, Vinod 2/20/2007 $1,000.00 Omaha, NE 68127 infoUSA Inc./Chairman/CEO [Contribution] HILLARY CLINTON FOR PRESIDENT EXPLORATORY COMMITTEE INC Gupta, Vinod 2/27/2007 $10,000.00 Omaha, NE 68127 Info USA/Chairman...

HERE IS THE THREAD FOR THE STORY MIDI - THIS MAGIC MOMENT "This Magic Negro" was in the L.A. Times Not started by Limbaugh, he's the one they slime He's very good at the biting parody They chose the wrong guy this time...SeeBS will soon see SeeBS is warned...on his show they're really scorned Rush got right up in their face...they really are some disgrace "This Magic Negro"...another big faux pas The mainstream is grasping...as they are flushed they're grasping for a straw "This Magic Negro"...is that the best they've got Once more they have blown it...Limbaugh's really hot...

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday she sees her sometimes Southern accent as a virtue. "I think America is ready for a multilingual president," Clinton said during a campaign stop at a charter school in Greenville, S.C. The New York senator—who said she's been thinking about critics who've suggested that she tried to put on a fake Southern accent in Selma, Ala.—noted that she's split her life between Arkansas, Illinois and the East Coast. Clinton added a Southern lilt to her voice last week when addressing a civil rights group in New York City headed by the Rev....

Ending an investigation that clouded the tenure of former Senate majority leader Bill Frist, federal prosecutors have decided not to file insider-trading charges against the Tennessee Republican for his sales of stock in a family-owned chain of hospitals. The U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York and Securities and Exchange Commission staff sent Frist letters last week signaling that they had closed their joint, 18-month investigation. The letters essentially cleared him of wrongdoing. Frist said in a statement that he "acted properly" and that his only reason for selling stock in his trust accounts was to "eliminate the...

While the war between Israel and Hezbollah raged in Lebanon and Israel last summer, it became clear that media coverage had itself started to play an important role in determining the ultimate outcome of that war. It seemed clear that news coverage would affect the course of the conflict. And it quickly transpired that Hezbollah would become the beneficiary of the media's manipulation. A close examination of the media's role during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon comes now from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, in an analysis of the war published in a paper whose subtitle should give...

HomeU.S.BusinessWorldEntertainmentSportsTechPoliticsElectionsScienceHealthMost Popular Secondary Navigation Local News Education Religion Politics Crimes and Trials Search: All News Yahoo! News Only News Photos Video/Audio Advanced -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Religious group attacks religion in U.S. healthcare By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor Tue Apr 24, 6:11 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A coalition of religious leaders took on the Catholic Church, the U.S. Supreme Court and the Bush administration on Tuesday with a plea to take religion out of health care in the United States. ADVERTISEMENT They said last week's Supreme Court decision outlawing a certain type of abortion demonstrated that religious belief was interfering...

WASHINGTON — White House spokesman Tony Snow made a startling claim earlier this month, one that shed some light on changing perceptions about the job he's doing.During a briefing, Snow responded to a question about climate change by noting that, "We're talking about nuclear development, which is now championed by, among others, Greenpeace."Beg your pardon?"I think there's some Greenpeace people who are certainly advocates of nuclear power," Snow said.As whoppers go, that was a good one. Certainly, it was news to Greenpeace."Golly, you know, I can't believe the White House would get that wrong," said Jim Riccio, Greenpeace nuclear policy...

Editorial written by summer Whenever I start writing something I hope can be appreciated by both sides of the aisle, it seems like my hope quickly fades, because of a bad situation I can’t ignore from one side, which more often than not is the liberal side. For example, FreeRepublic.com enforces a strict policy of not allowing a news headline to be discarded; but, over at Huff Post, they literally “eat” the press. When I surfed over to Huffington Post last night, I saw a front page news headline I hadn’t seen posted anywhere else, screaming about Jeb Bush. Apparently...

I think it's photoshopped.

The Polar Bear Pic They Won't Show You h/t Instapundit - Ann Althouse calls attention to an image of Polar Bears making the rounds, again - it was allegedly taken by Dan Crosbie in 2004 and is currently number one on Yahoo's photo list. The image I have up at right also involves Dan Crosbie from the same period in 2004 during a scientific trip during which they carried rifles to run off polar bears while planting equipment in the ice - ice that was much thicker than they expected it to be. (pertinent excerpted text at bottom) But...

(Truth Alert) Though all other major news outlets, including his own network's Saturday evening newscast, pegged the number of people who attended Saturday's anti-Iraq war protest rally in Washington, DC as in the “tens of thousands,” CBS's Bob Schieffer led Sunday's Face the Nation by endorsing the exaggerated attendance claims of self-interested organizers as he reminisced about the good old days of Vietnam protests. “Yesterday in Washington,” he recalled, “was like a day from yesteryear -- the war that to many seems long ago and far away: the war in Vietnam. Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of people descended on the...

LONDON (Reuters) - Reuters named a new chief photographer for the Middle East on Thursday and said it had tightened its editing procedures after the publication last year of two photographs that had been digitally altered. The measures were among several steps announced by David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief of the global news and information agency, following an internal investigation that he said had resulted in disciplinary action. The two photos, both of Israeli military action in Lebanon during the war there last August, were taken by a freelance photographer, Adnan Hajj. Reuters ended its relationship with Hajj following an initial inquiry...

Reuters article describing Japanese TV saying that the women they had on the stage were wearing body suits.

Another search through different avenues has failed to turn up AP’s source for more than 60 reports of atrocities and murders: The AP (non-)responds and another search comes up empty.

When Real World and Reel World Collide BY STEPHEN WHITTYSome films make history. More films make it up. "The Last King of Scotland" gives an African dictator a personal physician who has an affair with one of the dictator's wives and escapes during the Entebbe crisis. "The Black Dahlia" solves a 60-year-old murder by putting two ex-boxers on the case and implicating a rich family of real-estate developers. "Hollywoodland" looks into the mysterious death of a TV star by having a determined gumshoe named Louis Simo start looking under rocks. All of these films opened this year. All of them...

A Democrat won the Ohio governorship for the first time since 1986 as Rep. Ted Strickland easily defeated Republican Ken Blackwell in one of 36 races for states' top elected office. With 10 new governors guaranteed to come out of Tuesday's elections, state governments were in for their biggest shake-up in years _ one that had a chance of being even more tumultuous if Democrats managed to reverse years of Republican dominance. Strickland's win in Ohio was based on a statistical analysis of the vote from voter interviews conducted for The Associated Press by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International....

Just announced -- Fox is dumping exist polls after determining that they are biased towards Dems 6-8+ percent. Will use just raw vote totals for rest of election.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 25 — A liberal gay rights group said Wednesday that one of its employees, acting anonymously, had created the Web site that first published copies of unusually solicitous e-mail messages to teenagers from former Representative Mark Foley, which led to his resignation. A spokesman for the group, the Human Rights Campaign, said it first learned of its employee’s role this week and immediately fired him for misusing the group’s resources. The scandal surrounding Mr. Foley, a Florida Republican, has been a burdensome distraction for members of his party in the month before the midterm elections, and some Republicans...

Pending Hastert's news conference, Fox is reporting that internal Repub polls indicate that the Foley matter is destroying any chance of the Repubs keeping the House, "and maybe the Senate as well." Breaking as we await the Hastert news congerence. Fox reports that the entire country is riveted by this matter and it has "blown away" all other issues for the upcoming mid-terms. I have a hard time believing this manufactured scandal is having this effect, but Fox seems to be shooting straight on this. Perhaps the dealy in the Hastert new conference is due to furious fighting over whether...

Finally, a Republican scandal that may stick Usually when the Republican chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children instant-messages an underage boy and asks him to get out a ruler to measure his... Well. Ahem. Let's just say: Usually when a congressman is involved in a scandal, he doesn't bring the whole party down with him. This time could be different. The Mark Foley affair is so simple and so human, it's like a Cliffs.Notes version of all the other Republican scandals: Rampant corruption. Leadership? Ha. No one cares till the klieg lights get turned on. THE...

Do scandals involving Rep. Foley and others affect your attitude toward all parties? * 2419 responses Yes. I'm fed up with both Republicans and Democrats. Both parties are equally corrupt. 29% In general, the Republican party is the most corrupt. 54% Generally, Democrats are the most corrupt party. 5.8% There are alternatives to both parties- that's why I vote independent! 3.8% Scandals pass... and it's a shame a few bad politicans give Capitol Hill a bad image. 7.4%

OK, Condi: Stop lying about the plans your administration inherited. Or rather, declassify NSPD-9 so everyone can know whether you're telling the truth. Let me explain. Bill Clinton pounced on Chris Wallace on Sunday for implying that he didn't do enough to take out Al Qaeda. In his response, he singled out plans that then-counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke and the CIA drew up at the end of the Clinton administration for attacking the jihadis in Afghanistan. Those plans, which the Bush administration inherited, were never acted upon before 9/11, despite Clarke's and CIA Director George Tenet's sense of urgency. Instead,...