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(Reuters) - They remembered friends who died and brave Iraqis they had met, but news on Friday that the Iraq war was ending couldn't erase questions among U.S. veterans about whether it has all been worth it.

Rep. Michele Bachmann has declined to get into the scrum with Newsweek over its cover story of the presidential candidate called "The Queen of Rage," accompanied by an unflattering photo of the Minnesota Republican, but others are calling the magazine out-of-bounds in its depiction. The National Organization for Women President Terry O'Neill said that the cover of the magazine's latest edition is "sexist" and referred to a simple test by the group's founder Gloria Steinem to explain how they determined that conclusion -- would the magazine do the same to a man. "Who has ever called a man 'The King...

Rep. Michele Bachmann has declined to get into the scrum with Newsweek over its cover story of the presidential candidate called "The Queen of Rage," accompanied by an unflattering photo of the Minnesota Republican, but others are calling the magazine out of bounds in its depiction. The National Organization for Women (NOW) President Terry O'Neill said that the cover of the magazine's latest edition is "sexist" and referred to a simple test by the group's founder Gloria Steinem to explain how they determined that conclusion -- would the magazine do the same to a man.

The president of the National Organization of Women actually rose to Rep. Michele Bachmann’s defense yesterday (didn’t see that coming!), while Newsweek editor Tina Brown tried to justify the “Crazy Eyes� cover that inspired so much conservative commentary yesterday. But one person seem disinclined to talk about the cover one way or another and that was Bachmann herself. As of yesterday afternoon, Bachmann still hadn’t seen the picture and she didn’t seem to care too much to talk about it when she could be talking about her campaign and her ideas for the country: Brown claims the cover is OK...

Listen to the pledge of allegiance that runs alongside the patriotic images, and later to the one that overlays video of previous U.S. Open winners: (VIDEO)

The White House said it is ending its long-running practice of having presidents re-enact televised speeches for news photographers following major addresses to the country, a little-known arrangement that fed suggestions of fakery when Barack Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden. After Obama's live, late-evening address from the East Room of the White House on May 1, five photographers were ushered in to shoot pictures as the president stood at the podium and re-read a few lines of his speech — a practice that news organizations have protested for years. Even though The Associated Press and other news...

“As President Obama continued his nine-minute address in front of just one main network camera, the photographers were held outside the room by staff and asked to remain completely silent. Once Obama was off the air, we were escorted in front of that teleprompter and the President then re-enacted the walk-out and first 30 seconds of the statement for us.”

Obama: No shirtless pictures By Ian Swanson - 12/28/10 04:34 PM ET The White House is taking extra steps to prevent photos of a shirtless President Obama on vacation in Hawaii. The president and his family are on a snorkeling trip in Haunama Bay State Park, and traveling press are under “explicit instructions that there will be no long lenses or other sneaky attempts to take pictures,” according to a pool report. Photos of a shirtless president on a Hawaii vacation after his win in the 2008 presidential election caused a stir two Christmases ago. Washingtonian magazine even ran a...

GROZNY, Russia – Islamic insurgents attacked Chechnya's parliament Tuesday in a brazen suicide raid that left six people dead and 17 wounded, defying Kremlin claims of stability in the volatile southern region.

Viacom networks MTV, BET and CMT are giving an hour of free air time to President Obama less than three weeks before the midterm elections. The so-called “A Conversation with President Obama” will be live and commercial-free on six Viacom networks at 4 p.m. on Thursday. The networks will not give equal time to a Republican before the election, according to a spokeswoman. MTV denies that the Obama hour of TV is political, despite the timing, weeks before the midterm elections.

Memo sent to AP staff From: Kent, Tom Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2010 11:53 AM Subject: Standards Center guidance: Planned Sept. 11 Quran burning Colleagues, As you know, a group known as the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., has announced that it intends to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11. -snip- Should the event happen on Saturday, the AP will not distribute images or audio that specifically show Qurans being burned, and will not provide detailed text descriptions of the burning.

A freelance audio operator covering a protest at the site of a proposed mosque and community center near Ground Zero has been reprimanded for his behavior. Andrea Lafferty, who was a speaker at the mosque opposition rally, first noticed the audio operator questioning a man in the crowd who was holding a sign which read, "No Sharia Here." On Andrew Brietbart's Big Journalism, Lafferty writes: He was very aggressive, disrespectful and condescending; apparently, he did not like the man's answers about Shariah and pushed the point: "Why do you feel threatened? What are you afraid of? Why can't you answer...

Democrat Bill White's campaign is encouraging Texas' arts crowd to focus on Republican Gov. Rick Perry. A supporter of the former Houston mayor is organizing independent filmmakers to show the short films they are making on behalf of his campaign, White spokesman Katy Bacon said Thursday. The films will premiere at an as-yet unscheduled White campaign event in Austin. The initiative came into the spotlight after Perry's campaign noted that a filmmaker advertised on an actors' website for a look-alike for Perry, the state's longest-serving governor who is known for his thick mane of hair. The impersonator would be cast...

If you were in the presence of a man having a heart attack, how would you respond? As he clutched his chest in desperation and pain, would you call 911? Would you try to save him from dying? Of course you would. But if that man was Rush Limbaugh, and you were Sarah Spitz, a producer for National Public Radio, that isn’t what you’d do at all. In a post to the list-serv Journolist, an online meeting place for liberal journalists, Spitz wrote that she would “Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out” as Limbaugh writhed...

It was the moment of greatest peril for then-Sen. Barack Obama’s political career. In the heat of the presidential campaign, videos surfaced of Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, angrily denouncing whites, the U.S. government and America itself. Obama had once bragged of his closeness to Wright. Now the black nationalist preacher’s rhetoric was threatening to torpedo Obama’s campaign. The crisis reached a howling pitch in mid-April, 2008, at an ABC News debate moderated by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. Gibson asked Obama why it had taken him so long – nearly a year since Wright’s remarks became public –...

The leftist group Think Progress has taken down and edited a video smearing the Tea Party movement as racist after being caught using three year old footage. The group kept in footage and images of leftist provacateurs who were caught infiltrating Tea Party rallies with racist messages.Think Progress originally released a 53 second YouTube video yesterday entitled "Tea Party Racism". That video is now blocked and was replaced this morning with an edited version that runs 50 seconds.Taken out was two short clips of a white man yelling, "Go home wetbacks." That footage turned out to have been posted to...

The British-based Reuters news agency has been stung for the second time by charges that it edited politically sensitive photos in a way that casts Israel in a bad light. But this time Reuters claims it wasn’t at fault. The news agency reacted to questions raised by an American blogger who showed that Reuters' photo service edited out knives and blood traces from pictures taken aboard the activist ship Mavi Marmara during a clash with Israeli commandos last week. Nine people were killed and scores were injured in the clash. The pictures of the fight were released by IHH, the...

The photo with the knife was published in a Turkish newspaper. They are also accused of hiding the soldier's (or a soldier's) blood by cropping it out of a photo. Both photos below.

A letter was sent to Reuters chief Tom Glocer on Monday expressing the "grave concern of the government of Israel" over the cropping of photographs taken from the Turkish Mavi Marmara ship last week by Minister of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs MK Yuli Edelstein. The photos, which were published on Sunday in the Turkish Hurriyet daily, showed images of the commandos, their fatigues stained with blood, subdued by passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara ship but excluded the knives held by the aid activists.

An American woman lost her eye yesterday during a demonstration in Jerusalem against Israel's naval raid on a Gaza aid flotilla. Maryland college student Emily Henochowicz, 21, was hit in the face by a tear gas canister shot by an Israeli border policeman and underwent surgery in a local hospital, where she is now recuperating.

The “Gaza Freedom Flotilla” set sail last week for the Hamas-controlled Gaza region, claiming to be carrying humanitarian aid. Israeli Navy ships requested late Sunday night that the activists change course from Gaza to Ashdod, where they would be able to unload their aid material, which would then be transferred over land to Gaza after undergoing security inspections.

When used correctly Photoshop has the ability to make people appear thinner and more beautiful, as well as the power to give millions an inferiority complex. It seems every image in every magazine has been Photoshopped these days, and this has led to what must be amateurs being let loose on images that are going to print... 20 Worst Photoshop Mistakes15 More Worst Photoshop Mistakes

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Michael Carl, a veteran pastor and journalist who has written on terrorism, Islam and the persecuted church for WorldNetDaily.FP: Michael Carl, welcome to Frontpage Interview.MC: Glad to have the opportunity to speak with you.FP: I would like to talk to you today about the “interfaith dialogue” that Christians are engaged in with Muslims. It doesn’t appear that Muslims have exactly the same objectives as Christians. What is happening here exactly?Carl: The problem is that Christians enter these dialogue sessions with the idea that they’re what the Muslim activists proposing them say are going to be....

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - A former senior executive at the National Security Agency was charged Thursday with lying and obstruction of justice in an investigation of leaks of classified information to a newspaper. Federal prosecutors said Thomas Drake, 52, served as a source for many articles about the NSA in an unidentified newspaper, including articles that contained classified information.</p>

...Beaverton Middle School teacher Jason Levin's group wants to infiltrate the Tea Party to discredit the organization. But since Levin's name has been associated with the "Crash the Tea Party" Web site, he has been harassed by people who say they belong to that group. Levin told KATU-TV that his phone has been ringing around the clock and his answering machine is recording threats...

American troops raked a large passenger bus with gunfire near Kandahar on Monday morning, killing and wounding civilians, and igniting angry anti-American demonstrations in a city where winning over Afghan support is pivotal to the war effort.The shooting, which killed as many as five civilians and wounded 18, occurred on the eve of the most important offensive of the war. In coming weeks thousands of American, NATO and Afghan troops are expected to try to take control of the Kandahar region, the spiritual home of the Taliban. It was the latest case in which NATO or American forces fired on...

My mother is from Bethlehem and my father is from Jerusalem. Those two important cities don’t seem to mean much to American Christians. Palestinians living under the Israeli occupation in Bethlehem and in East Jerusalem are oppressed by the Israeli government and supported by members of the U.S. Congress. This week the oppression reaches its peak as Christians of Palestinian ancestry are oppressed and denied entrance into Jerusalem to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the spot where Jesus was crucified. Israel’s right wing government insists in its propaganda that Jerusalem, under their rule, is an “Open City”...

With all the tales in the Old Media of the supposed violence committed by Tea Partiers going on since Obama’s takeover of our nation’s healthcare system, I thought it might be instructive to recall how hate-filled the unhinged left is in America today. A year ago, the good folks at Zomblog assembled a great series of photos showing the mental derangement exhibited by the human detritus at those once ubiquitous anti-war rallies that the distempered left hosted so often between the years 2003 and 2009… you know, those anti-war rallies that totally disappeared after Obama took office even as the...

A group of protestors stormed and then ransacked a Bush-Cheney headquarters building in Orlando, Fla., Tuesday, according to Local 6 News. Video Protestors Storm, Ransack Bush-Cheney Headquarters In Orlando Local 6 News reported that several people from the group of 100 Orlando protestors face possible assault charges after the group forced their way inside the Republican headquarters office. While in the building, some of the protestors drew horns and a mustache on a poster of President George W. Bush and poured piles of letters in the office, according to the report. "We told them to leave, they broke the law,"...

I wondered how long it would take after Saudi money was insinuated into Rupert Murdoch's empire before anti-Semitism hit the Fox News airwaves in the form of tug-at-your-heart, pro-Arab, mini-hit pieces against the State of Israel. It didn't take long. Did anyone notice Shepard Smith's passionate rant against Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Arabs a few days ago? I always thought Smith was just a smarmy, jock-type teeny-bopper. But he obviously knows which side his bread is buttered on, and he is fully capable of getting all lathered up over something about which he is absolutely ignorant. Today on...

Such is the nature of how we see photographs in the age of Photoshop. Thanks to Adobe and the four employees who created the piece of software, we are able to become digital artists in almost no time flat; because of this amazing democratization of technology, though, almost nothing we see on the internet is trustworthy. From a skinnier Kardashian to a prescient preview of what Brett Favre would look like in a Viking uniform, anything’s possible....

Freepers!...we're losing the image war. Photographs of the wounded at Fort Hood do not circulate among the major media. The wounded in Vietnam were commonly depicted in a way which maximized the public disgust with the war effort but the victims of jihadists are not shown in such an emotional way. The blood of civil rights demonstrators and marchers were commonly shown in the '60s and the image of the murdered and mutilated Emmett Till is a common icon to this day. But there is a lack of circulation of 9-11 pics (outside conservative media), mall shootings, Jihad victims, and...

There are 29 of 'em. And they can be handily compared with the Newsweek Obama covers (here: http://trackacrat.com/2009/10/09/5007/), which number 30, both in terms of frequency and tone of coverage. I can safely report that the findings conform to the pattern established earlier: namely, that President Bush was consistently treated like a leper, while President Obama receives the all-star treatment. Some choice Newsweek Bush covers include the wonderfully objective titles of, “Bush’s $87 Billion Mess“, “The Price of Denial“, “How Much Power Should They Have?“, “Will Bush Listen?” and the awesomely condescending “Father Knows Best.” Follow the jump for links...

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...

When George W. Bush was President, ABC and Charles Gibson, like most media members, couldn't get enough of anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan. Now that Barack Obama is in the White House, the host of "World News Tonight" is no longer interested in Sheehan, even telling WLS radio in Chicago, "Enough already." I guess she served her purpose as reported by the Washington Examiner's Byron York Thurday: In an appearance August 18 on WLS radio in Chicago, ABC News anchor Charles Gibson was asked about anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan's plans to travel to Martha's Vineyard next week, where she will protest...

I missed this yesterday at Newsbusters but Treacher, rightly aghast, tipped me to it this afternoon. Never will you see a starker example of MSNBC getting away with the sort of deception for which Fox News would be pilloried, especially in the context of race. If you missed Monday’s post about this, go watch the footage (or look at this photo) and see if you can deduce why they wouldn’t want to show the guy with the rifle from the neck up during this particular segment. For all the well-deserved heat that MSNBC’s primetime line-up has taken for its demagoguery...

In an interview last week with Julie Menin CNN anchor Campbell Brown said that the network is the only one doing journalism when compared to Fox and MSNBC. From TVNewser CNN's Campbell Brown sat down late last week with Julie Menin. And right out of the gate, Brown explained what sets CNN apart from its competitors. "CNN is the only one who's still doing journalism," said Brown, anchor of CNN's 8pmET program. "I don't mean that as a criticism of what the other guys are doing, it's just...we're comparing apples and oranges. Fox has made a choice to go in...

...snip....TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Already volatile Honduras slid toward greater instability after soldiers blocked an airport runway to keep ousted President Manuel Zelaya from returning, and protests that had remained largely peaceful yielded their first death. ...snip...Critics feared Zelaya might try to extend his rule and cement presidential power in ways similar to what his ally Chavez has done in Venezuela — though Zelaya denied that. But instead of prosecuting him or trying to defeat him at the ballot box, masked soldiers flew the president out of the country at gunpoint, and Congress installed Micheletti in his place. ...snip..."This is a...

I heard ABC News report on the radio at 2:00 PM today that made me sick. They had "sources" that stated that the "Neda" video of her being shot and dying on the street "was definitely not from an Iranian security force" and "appeared to be staged to get international attention". I guess I can't be too surprised. The liberals at ABC News are running propoganda broadcasts for Obama, so why not for the Iranian dictators? Besides, that fight for freedom in Iran is none of our business. ABC and the rest of the American left need to squelch it...

Palestinian sources reported Tuesday that former US president Jimmy Carter was the target of a thwarted assassination attempt, according to Israel Radio. Reportedly, there was a cluster of explosive devices stashed near a road he was scheduled to travel during a visit to the Gaza Strip.

At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee. Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/05/un-report-israel-gaza-negligence

MIAMI (Reuters) - Right-wing extremists in the United States are gaining new recruits by exploiting fears about the economy and the election of the first black U.S. president, the Department of Homeland Security warned in a report to law enforcement officials. The April 7 report, which Reuters and other news media obtained Tuesday, said such fears were driving a resurgence in "recruitment and radicalization activity" by white supremacist groups, antigovernment extremists and militia movements. It did not identify any by name. DHS had no specific information about pending violence and said threats had so far been "largely rhetorical." But it...

JERUSALEM (Map, News) - An American demonstrator was critically wounded Friday in a clash between protesters and Israeli troops over Israel's West Bank separation barrier. Peace activists with the International Solidarity Movement said Tristan Anderson, of the Oakland, Calif., area, was struck in the head with a tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops. The military and the Tel Aviv hospital where Anderson was taken had no details on how he was hurt. "He's in critical condition, anesthetized and on a ventilator and undergoing imaging tests," said Orly Levi, a spokeswoman at the Tel Hashomer hospital. She described Anderson's condition...

Charitable contributions at Southern California mosques are down by as much as 30% to 50% over the last few years. Blame the climate of fear. That’s what Rafe Husain, a board member for the Islamic Center of Corona Norco, is doing. “People feel tense and uncomfortable,” Husain is quoted as saying in a recent Los Angeles Times article. Just another story about the woeful recession we currently find ourselves in? Mosque-goers are feeling jittery about their dwindling 401k accounts and have decided to fork over less money to the needy? Not quite. What’s got some L.A.-area Muslims in a cold...

I don't know if Newsweek is as eager to be rid of Israel as "The State of Islam" is these days or not, but on its interactive online map of the mid east, the news mag is featuring a map of Israel labeled as "Palestinian Territory." Once you click over to the Newsweek map, holding the mouse over the tiny red shape north of Egypt will bring up a popup map showing Israel clearly labeled as "PalestinianTerritory." Here is a screen shot of the current map on Newsweek's site:

In the March 9, 2009 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, March 2), "Radical Islam is A Fact of Life. How To Live With it" Fareed Zakaria makes the case for why the West needs to adopt a more sophisticated strategy toward Radical Islam. Plus: Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman discuss the country's future in their first foreign media interview since winning in the recent election. Lastly: A review of the latest comic book inspired movie, "Watchmen."

Some Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences folks recently went over to Iran to lend their expertise in filmmaking. “I can confirm that a group of Academy members . . . are currently in Iran” on a “completely private initiative for educational and creative exchange and with no political agenda,” Academy Communications Director Leslie Unger told the AFP. According to Unger, the Tinseltown travelers include actresses Annette Bening and Alfre Woodard, screenwriter and film director Frank Pierson (writer of “Dog Day Afternoon,” producer William Horberg (“Cold Mountain”) and former Universal Pictures Chairman Tom Pollock. The team supposedly went to...

In his latest “Memo from Cairo,” New York Times correspondent Michael Slackman virtually begs the Obama administration to avoid using the word “terrorist” in reference to Hamas and Hezbollah. According to Slackman... calling these groups “terrorists” turns off the Arab world, in which people view Israel as the “real terrorist,” whereas Hamas and Hezbollah are just “trying to liberate their countries.” In turn, intimates Slackman, using a “loaded word” like “terrorist” when describing Hamas or Hezbollah makes peace impossible. Let’s leave aside for a moment that Slackman has managed to pass off his own view on the mind-numbingly dull one-man’s-terrorist-is-another-man’s-freedom-fighter...

WASHINGTON – News organizations will be allowed to photograph the homecomings of America's war dead under a new Pentagon policy, defense and congressional officials said Thursday. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has decided to allow photos of flag-draped caskets at Dover Air Force Base, Del., if the families of the fallen troops agree, the officials told The Associated Press. Gates planned to announce his decision later Thursday, they said. The current ban was put in place in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush. At least two Democratic senators have called on President Barack Obama to let news photographers attend ceremonies at...