Free Republic

On the June 3, 2009 Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, host Rachel Maddow cited a false quote attributed to Rush Limbaugh in which the radio host supposedly said he wanted to award Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin the Medal of Honor. Since Limbaugh expressed interest in becoming part owner of the St. Louis Rams in October, several MSNBC hosts have repeated that and other false quotes. Reacting to Limbaugh calling then Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor a racist, Maddow declared: “When you get called racist by the guy who says the assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr. should get the...

Moody's Investors Services on Thursday said that William Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group faces increased risk of defaulting on its loans, as it downgraded almost $1 billion of the debt for the parent company of The Denver Post. Moody's said it is concerned that the "downturn of the company advertising sales will be significantly more protracted than previously anticipated, further straining the company's liquidity profile and heightening the probability of a covenant default." The rating downgrade comes a week after E.W. Scripps announced that it is placing the Rocky Mountain News on the sales block, as well as its 50 percent...

When deer hunting season opens this weekend, Wisconsin’s poor deer hunters are going to be at even more of a disadvantage than usual in their annual attempt to match wits with highly intelligent animals. This year, deer hunters are going to be burdened by carrying heaping armloads of guns into the woods with them. Deer hunters and other gun lovers have been absolutely terrified ever since Nov. 4 that President-elect Barack Obama is going to swoop down on their homes and confiscate all their guns. In a panic, thousands of gun owners have raced to their nearest gun dealers to...

With newspapers cutting back and predictions of even worse times ahead, Rupert Murdoch said the profession may still have a bright future if it can shake free of reporters and editors who he said have forfeited the trust and loyalty of their readers. "My summary of the way some of the established media has responded to the internet is this: it's not newspapers that might become obsolete. It's some of the editors, reporters, and proprietors who are forgetting a newspaper's most precious asset: the bond with its readers," said Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive officer of News Corp. He...

NEW YORK – John McCain hung his final presidential debate performance on an Ohio plumber who campaign aides never vetted. A day after making Joseph Wurzelbacher famous, referencing him in the debate almost two dozen times as someone who would pay higher taxes under Barack Obama, McCain learned the fine print Thursday on the plumber’s not-so-tidy personal story: He owes back taxes. He is not a licensed plumber. And it turns out that Wurzelbacher makes less than $250,000 a year, which means he would receive a tax cut if Obama were elected president. McCain likes to say that he isn’t...

I know, I can't believe it either: Karl Rove, the legendary Republican strategist whose name has become synonymous with hard-ball campaign tactics, has asserted that both presidential campaigns have wandered too far from truth. "McCain has gone in his ads ... one step too far," Rove said on Fox News Sept. 14. "Sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent-truth test." In recent weeks the McCain campaign has accused Barack Obama of advocating sex education in kindergarten. (In reality, Obama voted for a bill that called for warning young children about sexual predators.) The McCain...

<p>When it comes to GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, one thing both Democrats and Republicans agree on is that she's an attactive lady. So, when watching John McCain's acceptance speech last night, when the camera panned across Ms. Palin's seat next to her husband, Todd, My jaw dropped.</p>

Don't you hate Islamic Rage Boy? 'MoBlows', writing on the Jihad Watch website, certainly does. "I just want to put my fist down his throat," he says. The 'boy' in question rose to prominence earlier this year when he was photographed at a demonstration in Srinagar, capital of Indian-administered Kashmir. Later, he was spotted waving his fist at another camera during a protest against the awarding of a knighthood to author Salman Rushdie. With his straggly beard and big shouting mouth, Rage Boy certainly looks like a threat. His scary face now appears on boxer shorts and bumper stickers, and...

By now, almost everyone in America has heard of Jena, La., because they've all heard the story of the "Jena 6." White students hanging nooses barely punished, a schoolyard fight, excessive punishment for the six black attackers, racist local officials, public outrage and protests – the outside media made sure everyone knew the basics. There's just one problem: The media got most of the basics wrong. In fact, I have never before witnessed such a disgrace in professional journalism. Myths replaced facts, and journalists abdicated their solemn duty to investigate every claim because they were seduced by a powerfully appealing...

While serving in Iraq, I was captured and tortured by an insurgent group. As they say, I have "been there, done that". After my time in the service and after seeing the true nature of this occupation, I now am speaking out against this war and this administration. Rush Limbaugh calls me and my comrades that have chosen to take this stand "phoney soldiers". I urge Rep. John Murtha, Sen. Harry Reid and all true partiots in the Congress of the United States to pass legislation removing Mr. Limbaugh from the public airwaves... by force if necessary. Pfc. Adams during...

Send in the straightjackets - Newsweek has cracked up. Of all the stories in the entire world to cover, Newsweek's website is flagging as its "Top Story" an insane piece about a woman (complete with photo) who thinks she is an ordained Catholic priest. They found her in Missouri, though had Newsweek reporter Karen Springen walked into the nearest asylum, she would have found some who think they're the pope. Springen's discovery is Jessica Rowley. Jessica thinks she's a Catholic priest because some crackpot group said they ordained her. Springen, whose contempt for the Catholic Church is rivaled only by...

I definitely lost my ability to be bothered, shocked or amazed by the depth at which some of the greatest Western news agencies and media outlets are prepared to sink in their support to the enemies of their own civilization, last year almost to the day, when Reuters and its stringers cast smoke on Lebanon, and produced some of Hezbollywood's greatest blockbusters.

CNN Explores Religious Fundamentalism By DAVID BAUDER NEW YORK (AP) - Christiane Amanpour's work on the documentary series "God's Warriors" took her directly to intersections of extreme religious and secular thinking. She watched, fascinated, as demonstrators in San Francisco accused teenagers in the fundamentalist Christian group BattleCry of intolerance in a clash of two cultures that will probably never understand each other. Understanding is what Amanpour is trying to promote in "God's Warriors," which takes up six prime-time hours on CNN this week. The series on religious fundamentalism among Christians, Muslims and Jews airs in three parts, 9 p.m. EDT...

One can get an idea of just how far severe Bush Derangement Syndrome has spread in the MSM by reading this blog posted by Charles Feldman, a CNN correspondent from 1983 to 2004. Now freed from the constraints of pretending to be unbiased in public, Feldman lets his BDS hang out for all to see in The Feldman Blog edition of August 17, Hurricane Dean: God’s Wrath For President Bush? Hurricane Dean, soon to be up graded to a full blown Category 5 hurricane, is taking aim at Texas…the state that gave us George W. Bush. In fact,this could be a...

No matter what you think of Karl Rove -- or anyone else in politics -- please keep it to yourself, or at least falrly quiet. That was the message in a note sent to staffers at the Seattle Times by Executive Editor Dave Boardman after what he called "an awkward moment at yesterday's news meeting." What happened? According to Boardman in the latest email installment of what he calls "Dave's Raves" it was this: "When word came in of Karl Rove's resignation, several people in the meeting started cheering. That sort of expression is simply not appropriate for a newsroom....As...

Terrorist Propaganda Picture of the Week. An elderly Iraqi woman shows two bullets which she says hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite Baghdad suburb of Sadr City.

<p>Two Daily Mirror journalists were arrested yesterday after attempting to plant a fake bomb on a train in what the newspaper called a "legitimate and justified journalistic experience". The reporters were arrested at Stonebridge Park depot in north-west London after railway staff noticed the men carrying fake equipment and approached them to ask what they were doing on the site before contacting the British Transport police to report the trespass.</p>

The Iraqi Ministry of the Interior announced that it has captured the Baghdad sniper known as Ali Nazar al Jubori. The name sounds eerily familiar. al Jubori....could this be the original Juba sniper? That is the claim being made. Let me remind my readers that the "Juba the Baghdad sniper" does not exist--at least, not in the heroic sense that the jihadi crowd has painted him as. He's a myth. A piece of fictional propaganda produced by terrorists. A heroic superman for the al Qaeda supporters of the world. This is not to say that there never was an al...

Hanoi (dpa) - Vietnam's most famous war-time spy Pham Xuan An, who worked as a trusted reporter for Western news agencies in Saigon by day and sent secret reports to Hanoi by night, has died at age 79, his family said Thursday. During the war, An was known as a "dean of the Vietnamese press corps," a crack reporter who brought fantastic contacts and keen political analysis to his work for news organizations including Reuters, the Christian Science Monitor and finally TIME magazine.

By unwittingly angering Muslims with his comments on Islam, Pope Benedict XVI has shown that he has yet to shake off his academic theological roots and master the global media machine with the same deftness as his predecessor. In clinging to theology and orthodoxy, the bookish Benedict has shown little regard for media management in getting his message across, unlike the communications-savvy John Paul II. Benedict railed Muslims when he quoted a 14th-century Christian emperor who said the Prophet Mohammed had brought the world only "evil and inhuman" things, portraying the Islam he founded as a religion which endorses violence,...

NEW YORK A not especially eventful press briefing at the White House today turned rancorous with NBC's David Gregory telling Press Secretary Tony Snow, "Don't point your finger at me," and Snow accusing the newsman of being "rude" and delivering Democratic talking points. Earlier, speaking to reporters, Snow, continuing the administration's media focus on the war on terror, accused "some in the Democratic Party" of saying "we shouldn't fight the war" and "we shouldn't apprehend al-Qaeda" or even "question al-Qaeda." Snow got into a tussle with Gregory after the NBC journalist told him, in a lengthy remark, that the public...

LEX 18 News ended an evening recap of yesterday’s coverage of the Comair Flight 5191 crash for the live broadcast of the prime-time Emmy Awards. The annual TV awards show opened with shots of host Conan O’Brien bouncing inside a plane before it crashed on an island in a spoof of ABC’s hit show Lost. WLEX’s president and general manager, Tim Gilbert, who was home watching the telecast with his family, was “stunned” by the intro; if station managers had known about the intro before the broadcast, Lexington viewers wouldn’t have seen it, he said. “It was a live telecast...

Feb 11, 2002Pentagon Spokesmen Say Soldiers Justified in Barring Reporter From Attack Scene By Matt KelleyAssociated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon said Monday that U.S. soldiers were justified in keeping a newspaper reporter away from the scene of a deadly U.S. missile strike in Afghanistan. The officials said they didn't know if soldiers had threatened to shoot Washington Post reporter Doug Struck, as the Post reported. "We don't know the circumstances of what happened on the spot," Defense Department spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said at a news briefing. The newspaper reported Monday that U.S. soldiers held Struck at ...

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday denied a report that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, is under investigation by the FBI in connection with a corruption probe.ABC News, citing high level Justice Department sources, said information implicating Hastert had been developed from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government.But department officials, who asked to not be identified, said the story was not accurate and that Hastert was not under investigation. "The story is wrong. Hastert is not under investigation," one official said.

The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources. The efforts include several FBI probes, a polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws. In recent weeks, dozens of employees at the CIA, the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed by agents from the FBI's Washington field office, who are investigating possible leaks that led to reports about secret CIA prisons and the NSA's warrantless domestic surveillance program, according to law enforcement and...

Harry Whittington tried to calm the furor on Friday, but we must not let him. Leaving the hospital, he expressed regret for Dick Cheney’s troubles over what he considered a simple hunting accident at a friend’s ranch. But it was so much more. It was a violation of the public’s right to know. Apologists for Dick Cheney argue that the public was informed of the accident, but it took almost 20 hours — almost an entire news cycle! The Sunday morning talk shows, deprived of what was rightfully their story, were tragically forced to discuss the National Security Agency and...

Almost 100 prisoners have died in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since August 2002, according to US group Human Rights First. The details were first aired on BBC television's Newsnight programme. Of the 98 deaths, at least 34 were suspected or confirmed homicides, the programme said. The Pentagon told Newsnight it had not seen the report but took allegations of maltreatment "very seriously" and would prosecute if necessary. The report, which is to be published on Wednesday, draws on information from Pentagon and other official US sources. Torture Human Rights First representative Deborah Pearlstein told Newsnight she was "extremely...

Our Military Remains Ever Loyal And Strong. Much Of Our National Media Does Not. Said President Eisenhower, fifty-years ago: “History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.” We Americans can sleep safely in our beds, to paraphrase George Orwell, because freedom’s defenders, our courageous military members, are neither weak nor timid. They are the most powerful, yet most compassionate, military force on the planet. Add to that: individual courage, pride and a voluntary commitment to serve our great nation, regardless of sacrifice. Here are but a few examples of America’s finest. Voices of...

In a planned move to head off the Administration's efforts to suppress the investigation of the Cheney shooting, Time and Newsweek magazine are planning to extend coverage of the shooting for as long as their creditors are willing to postpone foreclosure. In a moment of candor, Editor Mark Whitaker conceded, "As long as we have a few dollars left in the petty cash box, we can afford ink. Who needs circulation, anyway? We are doing [the generic deity]'s work...]". Writer Jonathon Alter's hard hitting piece plans to draw attention to the U.S. Navy coverup of the experimental, special powder rumored...

An FBI sweep launched in Puerto Rico to prevent a "domestic terrorist attack" is eliciting widespread outrage on the island - and as far away as New York City - with critics accusing the agency of trying to use terrorism as a guise to turn public opinion against Puerto Rico's independence movement. The Friday morning raid on the U.S. commonwealth, which targeted five private homes and one business, was launched to prevent attacks from the Boricua Popular Army, the FBI said. The special agent in charge of the San Juan Division of the FBI, Luis Fraticelli, said the searches were...

An American with ties to the Triangle is about to face an Iraqi court for allegedly conspiring with terror suspect Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. According to a high-ranking U.S. Military Officer, when Shawqi Omar was captured in his home in Baghdad, he was in possession of numerous weapons -- materials for making Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) -- and harboring Jordanian freedom fighters.

The mainstream U.S. media outlets have failed to report a major terrorist plot against the U.S. - because it would tend to support President Bush's use of NSA domestic surveillance, according to media watchdog groups. News of a planned attack masterminded by three Algerians operating out of Italy was widely reported outside the U.S., but went virtually unreported in the American media. Italian authorities recently announced that they had used wiretaps to uncover the conspiracy to conduct a series of major attacks inside the U.S. Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said the planned attacks would have targeted stadiums, ships and...

The full grovelBy Thomas LifsonJan. 1,2006 Byron Calame, public editor of the New York Times, addresses his newspaper's role in publishing leaked classified information about the NSA's surveillance program. As the Department of Justice has launched an investigation of the probably criminal leaking and possibly criminal publication of the data, interest in the matter could not be higher. Shockingly enough, his superiors stonewall him when it comes to explaining why they waited a year to publish the revelations. Moreover, their story about the actual time interval of the delay has certain inconsistencies. Usually, when those under investigation for possible criminal...

"Well, coach, the big day is almost here; you and your team are in the Super Bowl a week from now, and your opponent is mighty rugged. In fact, most experts and the odds-makers are making them the favorite, figuring you got here on a series of flukes and last-second miracles. They say you really shouldn't be in the Big Game at all. "What is your response and how in the world do you plan to win this one?" "Son, I know a lot of folks think we don't have a chance, but I have a strategy. I think we...

PRESIDENT BUSH'S response to Hurricane Katrina has been, to put it kindly, faltering. He has fallen short both rhetorically and substantively. The rhetorical failure is less important but perhaps more surprising for a politician with his strong communications skills. One of the highlights of Mr. Bush's presidency, and one of the keys to his reelection, was his ability to rally a country stunned by the Sept. 11 attacks -- perhaps most vividly in his visit to the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center. President Bill Clinton rose to an earlier challenge after the Oklahoma City bombing, using the bully...

The following exchange is from Thursday's White House Press Conference, between (P)(MS)NBC reporter David Gregory and White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan: Q Scott, does the President retain confidence in his FEMA Director and Secretary of Homeland Security? MR. McCLELLAN: And again, David, see, this is where some people want to look at the blame game issue, and finger-point. We're focused on solving problems, and we're doing everything we can -- Q What about the question? MR. McCLELLAN: We're doing everything we can in support -- Q We know all that. MR. McCLELLAN: -- of the Department of Homeland Security...

The fact that many of those suffering most in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina are poor, and black, has outraged a lot of people. Justifiably so, in the opinion of CBS News Sunday Morning Contributor Nancy Giles. Here is her commentary from Sept. 4, 2005:After meeting with Louisiana officials last week, Rev. Jesse Jackson said: "Many black people feel that their race, their property conditions and their voting patterns have been a factor in the response." He continued: "I'm not saying that myself." Then I'll say it. If the majority of the hardest hit victims of Hurricane Katrina in New...

An extraordinary story has emerged involving former Lyndon Johnson aide and now PBS commentator Bill Moyers. The story was told in The Wall Street Journal by retired federal appeals judge Laurence Silberman, who reports that when he was acting attorney general under President Ford a memo written by Moyers to the FBI came to light in the press. The memo, which dated from the 1964 campaign between President Johnson and Barry Goldwater, directed FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover to investigate the Goldwater campaign for evidence of homosexual activity. It came after Johnson aide Walter Jenkins had been arrested in a...

>>>>Let me set this up, this is the editorial that first started this fight, I will print the rest in order. Why they hate us MARK YOST This is a belated Fourth of July column (superseded by the state shutdown). The headline isn't a prelude to a column justifying why the Islamists hate Westerners so much that they're pouring into Iraq to kill our soldiers (along with innocent fellow Arabs, including Egyptian diplomats). Or defending the sleeper cells planted to blow up Madrid, London and who knows where next. Rather, it's about why most Americans, particularly soldiers, hate the media....

A USA Today Pentagon correspondent, Tom Squitieri, resigned under pressure today after the paper learned he had lifted quotes from another newspaper for a front-page story and used several other quotes, without attribution, that were cut during the editing process. In a March 28 piece on the Army falling behind in ordering armored Humvees for Iraq, Squitieri quoted Brian Hart of Bedford, Mass., whose son was killed in the war. The same quote appeared, word for word, in the Indianapolis Star in May 2004: "My son called me the week before he was killed. He said they were getting shot...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted on Fri, Mar. 25, 2005 Media are in the middle of every story — no wonder you hate us By JOE POSNANSKI Columnist You can't stand us. You really can't stand the media. No, this is not breaking news. We've all seen those studies that show people rank journalists somewhere below Enron executives. We've all watched movies in which obnoxious reporters get in the way, hound the innocent, mess up the story, get someone killed and so on. It's been a long, long time since a reporter was a hero in a movie. No journalist can work for...

Kurtz Does CNN's Damage Control: If you were worrying that WaPo's conflicted Howie Kurtz would bend over backwards to be tough on his own CNN bosses, you can stop now. Kurtz's article ... well, let's just say that if a p.r. agent or damage control spinner produced a piece designed to try and save CNN exec Eason Jordan's job, it would be the piece Kurtz wrote in the Post today. Why? Here are some of the blatant and subtle pro-Jordan tricks: 1) Witness Protection: Kurtz has Barney Frank recalling Jordan--after he "modified" his shocking remarks--still saying shocking things at Davos about U.S. forces "maybe knowing they were killing...

Since midsummer, the Senate Intelligence Committee has been attempting to solve the biggest mystery of the Iraq war: the disparity between the Bush Administration’s prewar assessment of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and what has actually been discovered. The committee is concentrating on the last ten years’ worth of reports by the C.I.A. Preliminary findings, one intelligence official told me, are disquieting. “The intelligence community made all kinds of errors and handled things sloppily,” he said. The problems range from a lack of quality control to different agencies’ reporting contradictory assessments at the same time. One finding, the official went...

LONDON, Jan 29 (Reuters) - The BBC apologised on Saturday for erroneously reporting that U.S.-led and Iraqi forces may be responsible for the deaths of 60 percent of Iraqi civilians killed in conflict over the last six months. The British broadcaster said on Friday in broadcasts and a news statement that its Panorama investigative show would air a report on Sunday citing "confidential" records from Iraq's health ministry to support the contention. Iraq's health minister said the BBC misinterpreted the statistics it had received and had ignored statements from the ministry clarifying the figures. "Today, the Iraqi Ministry of Health...

As the Senate Judiciary Committee voted today on the nomination of Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General, we hear a speech by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh on torture from Guantanamo to Abu Gharib to Vietnam.Hersh is the author of 'Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Gharib.' He spoke last month at the Wise Free Synagogue in New York.'The amazing thing is that we have been taken over by a cult of eight or nine neo-conservatives that have somehow grapped the government.' 'Just how and why they did it so efficiently, we will have to wait for much later...

It is rare to have books exploring the legacy of a presidential administration still in its first term. It is rarer still to have the number of insider accounts that Americans have access to in 2004. “These books appear to be painting history before our eyes,” said Charlotte Abbott, news editor of Publishers Weekly. “No one in the industry of publishing can remember a time since Watergate when so many political books have come out and the public has been interested – and a lot of those Watergate titles came out after.” One of the reporters who first exposed Watergate,...

Laurie Mylroie sent out an email about Paul O'Neill's appearance on 60 Minutes last night; she notes what appears to be a major error in Ron Suskind's book, which casts doubt on the credibility of both Suskind and O'Neill. Here is the key portion of Mylroie's email: "In his appearance this evening on '60 Minutes,' Ron Suskind, author of The Price of Loyalty, based to a large extent on information from former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill, made an astonishing, very serious misstatement. "Suskind claimed he has documents showing that preparations for the Iraq war were well underway before...

Contacts at WRAMC tell me that reporters from the NYT were ejected from the post yesterday after walking around and interviewing recovering soldiers. The Times people entered the facility unannounced, uninvited and unescorted. They were "asked" to leave when the PAO found out what they were up to. It is unlikely they will be invited back.

Journalists' killers 'not being brought to justice' Dominic Timms Tuesday January 18, 2005 The culprits responsible for killing more than 100 journalists and other media workers worldwide last year are only half as likely to be caught as London burglars, a leading international press group claimed today. The International Federation of Journalists said most of the 129 deaths of media staff in 2004 - the highest on record - resulted from either "deliberate attacks" by gunmen, corrupt officials, armed gangs and governments, or "nervous, unruly and ill-disciplined soldiering". In most cases, the IFJ added, the killers were still at large....

As many as 100 FBI agents, federal prosecutors and other department employees are likely to be asked—possibly as early as the next few weeks—to sign broadly worded statements waiving any confidentiality agreements they had with journalists about the anthrax case, Justice officials tell NEWSWEEK. The waiver statement was recently ordered by a federal judge at the urging of lawyers for bioterrorism expert Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, who has filed a lawsuit alleging that government officials leaked damaging personal information about him in an effort to connect him with the anthrax attacks.