Free Republic

Continuing a pattern of punishing unsupportive media that began during the 2008 campaign, the Obama Administration recently banned a Boston Herald reporter from the media pool covering a presidential visit as apparent retaliation for running an op-ed by Mitt Romney. The explanation by the White House Press Office's Matt Lehrich only served to make the administration sound more petty and dictatorial. He wrote to the Herald, "My point about the op-ed was not that you ran it but that it was the full front page..." This follows a string of similar incidents in recent days -- the banning of a...

The State of Illinois is still paying off billions in bills that it got from schools and social service providers last year. Arizona recently stopped paying for certain organ transplants for people in its Medicaid program. States are releasing prisoners early, more to cut expenses than to reward good behavior. And in Newark, the city laid off 13 percent of its police officers last week. While next year could be even worse, there are bigger, longer-term risks, financial analysts say. Their fear is that even when the economy recovers, the shortfalls will not disappear

CENSORS in China have banned the screening of Brokeback Mountain because they object to its homosexual content. The film is directed by the hugely popular Taiwanese director Ang Lee, whose 2000 Oscar-winning film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon helped to raise the profile of Chinese cinema internationally. But a report by the official Xinhua News Agency said that the film's "sensitive topic" of gay love meant that it could not be screened. World Trade Organisation rules require China to screen a minimum of 20 foreign films a year. Gay activists in China have regularly complained of harassment and discrimination. Last month,...