Free Republic

An intern for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was ejected Wednesday from a conference held at the US Capitol Visitors Center Congressional Auditorium after behaving in a threatening manner and repeatedly violating conference rules by attempting to record conference speakers who have been the subject of death threats by Muslims. The CAIR official, Iyad Awadallah of Boca Raton, Florida, was ejected from the conference and escorted from the premises by Capitol Hill police. Awadallah showed up at the International Legal Conference on Freedom of Speech and Religion sponsored by the International Free Press Society and the Liberty Legal Project...

When Barack Obama promised to deliver "a new kind of politics" to Washington, most folk didn't picture Rahm Emanuel with a baseball bat...What is a little novel is the public and bare-knuckle way in which the Obama team is waging these campaigns...In recent weeks the Windy City gang added a new name to their list of societal offenders: the Chamber of Commerce. For the cheek of disagreeing with Democrats on climate and financial regulation, it was reported the Oval Office will neuter the business lobby. Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett warned CEOs they'd be wise to seek better protection. That was...

The source link is to the comment section at Hotair. This link is to the referenced questionaire http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32843690/ns/health-health_care/

Ill will against former Vice President Dick Cheney still runs high in some circles. So high, in fact, that when the University of Wyoming decided to name an international student center after him, Suzanne Pelican began circulating a petition against it last year. One year later, that petition has earned 150 signatures and an Associated Press story. In a story titled “Protest brews over Cheney center at Univ. of Wyo.” AP reporter Mead Gruver writes:

WASHINGTON, DC – Another sex scandal has rocked a South Carolina conservative. The trail of evidence has led reporters to erotic fiction authored by Dick Cheney. Kristin Maguire, a respected South Carolina conservative, has been discovered to be the author of hardcore erotic short fiction. Maguire was the Chair of the Board of Education for years, and appointed by Mark Sanford. Investigation has uncovered several stories written by Maguire under the pen name “Bridget Keeney.” Maguire was also a devout advocate of “abstinence only” sex education. Further investigation of websites Maguire would frequent and chat room exchanges reveal even more...

The Obama White House is abuzz with talk of witchcraft by first grandmother, 72-year-old Marian Robinson, who lives in the White House residence. A close friend of Michelle Obama says the president is furious at his mother-in-law after learning that she was practicing Santeria, an African spirit cult, in the White House. "The president is quite upset about this on two different levels. First, he is a committed Christian, no matter what his critics say about Reverend Wright. He is adamant that Sasha and Malia be raised with Christian influences. He does not want them to be involved with African...

I was reading the Chron’s piece about Sheila Jackson Lee’s town hall, when something caught my eye: One supporter, Dr. Roxana Mayer, a physician who does not live in Jackson Lee’s district, praised the reform plan for overhauling a broken system. “I don’t know what there is in the bill that creates such panic,” she said. In this video, Mayer claims to be a general practitioner, eliciting applause and even a hug from Queen Sheila: I’m not sure why, but something didn’t smell right. So my colleagues and I did a little digging, and wouldn’t you know it? Roxana Mayer...

Experts who track hate groups across the U.S. are growing increasingly concerned over violent rhetoric targeted at President Obama, especially as the debate over health care intensifies and a pattern of threats emerges.

SAO PAULO, Brazil — In one murder after another, the "Canal Livre" crime TV show had an uncanny knack for being first on the scene, gathering graphic footage of the victim. Too uncanny, say police, who are investigating the show's host, state legislator Wallace Souza, on suspicion of commissioning at least five of the murders to boost his ratings and prove his claim that Brazil's Amazon region is awash in violent crime. Police also have accused Souza of drug trafficking. "The order to execute always came from the legislator and his son, who then alerted the TV crews to get...

So what would you call it if someone picked some elderly man's name out of a phone book, then sent a mailing in his name out to people to convince them that a political cause is worth supporting? Would you call it identity theft? To a degree. A newer term might be astroturf. But what ever you call it, at the very least it is a lie. Well, leave it to Democrats to perpetrate this theft/lie to gin up support for a political cause. This is what happened in Massachusetts as uncovered by newspaperman Matthew Nadler of the Halifax-Plympton Reporter...

LAS VEGAS — Ethan Hawke might want to avoid crossing paths with Toby Keith in the near future. The country star lit into the actor for an article Hawke wrote in the new issue of Rolling Stone about Kris Kristofferson. In it, Hawke refers to a blowup Kristofferson had with an unnamed country star back in 2003 that sounds a lot like Toby Keith. But a furious Keith, speaking backstage at the Academy of Country Music Awards, said it wasn't true, and added that Hawke did not name him in the story because he did not want to face him...

In 1912 scientists thought they'd discovered the elusive missing link between human and ape. Found in a gravel pit in Piltdown, England, a set of intriguing skull and jaw fragments were later reconstructed by the British Museum into a human-like head with an ape-like jaw. In 1953 it turned out the find wasn't proof of anything—other than the skill of the still anonymous forger. The skull was a medieval human's. The jaw was an orangutan's. And the teeth were a chimp's.

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh rejected reports that he is rooting for the failure of President Obama on his syndicated radio program Tuesday. Instead, he suggested that President Obama stands to gain from an economic failure. “I am an average citizen…I have a microphone,” Mr. Limbaugh said. He argued that he has been financially fortuitous in his life and asked why he would want to see the economy fail and his capital shrink. Mr. Limbaugh also responded to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s comment on CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’ Sunday that Limbaugh “is the voice and the intellectual...

NEW YORK (AP) — You're standing in line at a deli behind two day laborers fumbling with cash and struggling with English, when the clerk begins spewing hatred. Go back to your country, he says, or go eat at Taco Bell. What would you do? Stand in uncomfortable silence, hoping simply to leave as quickly as possible? Tell the clerk to shut up? Or join in with the bigotry, kicking the men while they're down? When ABC News set up that scenario in a New Jersey deli, hiring actors to portray the clerk and laborers and hiding cameras to record...

WASHINGTON -- The decline of The New York Times continues, alas and egad. On Monday, the Times was duped by some scoundrel who sent the newspaper's Web site a rude e-mail about Caroline Kennedy. It supposedly was signed by Bertrand Delanoe, the mayor of Paris. Now the Times has had to admit: "We posted a letter that carries the name of Bertrand Delanoe, the mayor of Paris, sharply criticizing Caroline Kennedy. This letter was a fake. It should not have been published. Doing so violated both our standards and our procedures in publishing signed letters from our readers." Well, I,...

Get ready for the geek-in-chief. President-elect Barack Obama used to collect comic books, can't part with his BlackBerry, and once flashed Leonard "Mr. Spock" Nimoy the Vulcan "Live Long and Prosper" sign. That and other evidence has convinced some of Obama's nerdier fans that he'll be the first American president to show distinct signs of geekiness. And that's got them as excited as a Tribble around a Klingon. Obama is good at "repressing his inner geek, but you can tell it's there," especially when he goes into nuanced explanations of technical_matters, said Benjamin Nugent, author of the book "American Nerd:...

The mind reels at how news organizations might employ this technology in the future. Will we see holograms of reporters standing outside in hurricanes?

Mark Whitaker, head of the NBC News DC bureau, got off today's laugh line when he described Barack Obama as having "lifted himself up from the streets of Hawaii." Oh those mean streets of Hawaii. You know, the sort pictured here at the Punahou school that Obama attended from 5-12th grade. While attending Punahou, Obama lived with his grandparents. His ill grandmother has been in the news lately. But how many readers are aware that grandma Dunham was . . . a vice-president of the Bank of Hawaii? View video here.

Earlier in the week, disgraced former CBS anchor Dan Rather told attendees of Time Warner's Politics 2008 Summit that the press “has been in a defensive posture for some time,” that pressure from conservatives has led to “self-censorship” and that journalists should be “Fiercely independent and even ornery from time to time.” ... Um, this would be the same Dan Rather who exercised self-censorship in his fawning interview with Saddam Hussein in 2003 - whom he knew wouldn't hesitate to pull out his sidearm and shoot him between the eyes while the camera was rolling if he got pissed off...

Barack Obama's campaign is rolling out a number of centrist Republicans who are endorsing the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee over Republican rival John McCain - in a show of his ability to win cross-over votes. A conference call Tuesday featured former Iowa Rep. Jim Leach, former White House intelligence adviser Rita Hauser and former Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who represented his state as a Republican, but switched to become a Democrat so he could vote for Obama in the primary. Leach predicted that a lot of Republicans and independents are going to be attracted by Obama's campaign. The Obama...

Obama: concussion drove me into White House race 22 minutes ago Democrat Barack Obama joked Wednesday that the true reason he entered the White House race was concussion. "Why did I start running for president? I got hit on the head with a rock," the Illinois senator told a seven-year-old girl who questioned him on his motivation at a "town hall" meeting in Indiana. "When I woke up, I'd made my announcement and then it was too late. No, I'm teasing," Obama said to laughs.

<p>TALLAHASSEE, Fla.-A newspaper is asking John McCain's campaign why a black reporter assigned to cover a rally was singled out by security and told to leave a backstage area.</p> <p>Stephen Price, a reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat, was among four Florida capital press corps reporters behind the scenes at a Panama City rally Friday when a Secret Service agent approached and asked if he were part of the national media traveling with McCain. Price said no, and the agent told him he had to leave. Price said he then pointed out that there were other state reporters in the same area, but was still told to leave. The other reporters were white.</p>

(CNSNews.com) - Does any doting mother want to think about putting her firstborn baby in harm's way? Liberal backers of Sen. Barack Obama are banking on a "no" answer. The liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org is running a political ad featuring a new mother, bouncing baby boy on her lap, chiding John McCain about wanting to wage a "hundred-year" war in Iraq. "John McCain, when you say you would stay in Iraq for a hundred years, were you counting on Alex? Because if you were, you can't have him," the mother (actress) says with a quaver in her voice. (See video)...

British newspaper writing is famously more vigorous and readable than its American equivalent. But this comes at a price: there’s a good chance that anything you read in a British newspaper isn’t true. When I worked as a leader writer for an American ­paper I was embarrassed when I was told that it was official policy not to trust any item in any British paper except the FT. American journalists work within a stringent code of ethics. If a journalist for a major paper or TV network is found to have run a false story — perhaps because it was...

Urban legends help Obama while hurting McCain and therefore our country We recently showed [http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=1118] how the National Jewish Democratic Council cut out part of a statement by John McCain to suggest that he, like Obama, is open to unconditional discussions with terrorists and rogue governments. Half-truths, out of context statements, and blatant falsehoods are the National Jewish Democratic Council’s stock in trade, and we have exposed NJDC for this on many occasions. NJDC is therefore a Republican asset that will do Barack Obama far more harm than good in November. We must caution those who are on our side...

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...