Free Republic

Removing any doubt about how she sees the world from the left, Valerie Plame Wilson, in an interview Thursday which aired Saturday night on a Washington, DC area cable channel, admired the work of the far-left Media Matters as she revealed she seeks out the group's postings for their “accuracy” and presentation of “the facts.” Carol Joynt (her blog), a former CBS News producer who as the owner of the Nathans of Georgetown restaurant every week interviews a newsmaker in front of a lunch crowd in what becomes the hour-long Q&A Cafe on NewsChannel 8, asked whether she reads “news...

All In the Family by: Bethany Stotts, December 07, 2007 .... A new report released by Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) reveals that American political nepotism extends not just through the executive branch, but throughout Congress. The report showed that of the 535 Congressional seats (Senators and Representatives), 50 Members had relatives who served as Senators, Representatives, or Governors. The ATR report identified 15 members, 13 from the House and 2 from the Senate, who gained their seats immediately following their relatives’ resignation, retirement, or death. Of these “legacy” Congressional seats: • Four seats were inherited by widows...

Sometimes chronicling media bias and hypocrisy is just too easy. You couldn't have asked for better material than what was provided Wednesday by the New York Times which ran a thousand-word-plus article discussing the alleged nepotism of Commentary’s hiring of John Podhoretz to run the magazine. I’ll grant that this type of character assassination article is typical when it comes to the liberal press’s normal gorillas-in-the-mist view of conservatism. Still, you’d think that the Times might be a little more inclined to avoid such journalism when its prestige and profits have been on a downward spiral ever since publisher Arthur...

When I went to my office Monday, July 7, 2003, Joe Wilson was not in the forefront of my mind. Frances Fragos Townsend was. She had just been named deputy national security adviser at the White House though her background was in liberal Democratic politics, including Attorney General Janet Reno's inner circle during the Clinton administration. Her appointment was a political mystery of the kind I had been exploring for forty years in my column. I wrote the Townsend column Tuesday morning because I had a busy schedule the rest of the day, including a 3 p.m. appointment with Richard...

Anyone who wonders why Congress has a job approval rating of 23 percent, seven points lower than even Bush's, need only look at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her failure to change the ethics of the Congress. Having pledged to make Congress full-time and put the lackadaisical members to work, she then announced a schedule for 2007 in which House members will have 20 weeks off (and when they work, it's Tuesday to Thursday most of the time). Now Pelosi has come up with her own version of the No Child Left Behind program by asking the Defense Department...

Anyone who wonders why Congress has a job approval rating of 23 percent, seven points lower than even Bush’s, need only look at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) failure to change the ethics of the Congress. Having pledged to make Congress full-time and put the lackadaisical members to work, she then announced a schedule for 2007 in which House members will have 20 weeks off (and when they work, it’s Tuesday to Thursday most of the time).

When Valerie Plame Wilson swore that she did not recommend or suggest her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for a fact-finding trip to Niger in 2002, Sen. Christopher Bond took note. Wilson’s words, given in testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, didn’t jibe with what Bond’s investigators had learned a few years earlier when they looked into the CIA leak matter. Now, we know why Bond was suspicious. (last paragraph) Taken in sum, the evidence in Bond’s additional views seems to definitively lay to rest the question of who suggested Joseph Wilson for the trip to...

***......I find it disturbing to hear Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton assert that she would appoint her husband as a "roaming ambassador" ("Bill of Goods," April 22). It is frightening to contemplate the paternity lawsuits against our country from every corner of the world, should such an appointment be made. Rockville Centre *** I agree with Hillary.....Bill Clinton should be sent out of the country.....under the guise of being a goodwill ambassador. Let's just get rid of him, and maybe she will follow. Staten Island *** Hillary's co-candidate has been an impeached president, a disbarred lawyer, a blatant liar on public...

VALERIE PLAME AND JOSEPH WILSON: THE BAD NEWS BOORS © by Norman Liebmann It’s time to reconsider Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame, two operatives of the maggot-infested Washington bureaucracy. The Wilsons are mid-level non-entities bobbing in a sea of Republican apathy. Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame are darlings of the liberal Guttercrats that infest Washington and worm through the rot of its agencies and commissions. The Wilsons are a couple of party animals who think of themselves as the Fred and Ginger of Georgetown. They are, in fact, the Al and Peg Bundy of mid-level bureaucracy, the Bonnie and Clyde...

Attorney General-elect Jerry Brown said Wednesday that he will appoint his wife, Anne Gust, as his unpaid special counsel, giving her a "broad mandate" in a new post that will be part of a significant reorganization of the state attorney general's office. "It will be a very important and high-level role very close to the policy and administrative processes," said Brown, who was in Washington, D.C., to attend House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi's inauguration. "It is a broad title and she certainly will have a broad mandate because her experience is very broad." This will not be the first time Brown...

On another thread the subject of neoptism of hollywoodies came up, and it seemed that it might be interesting to pool knowledge about who in Hollywood broke into the tight movie union because of their connections. Who's Whose Kid in Hollywood Nicholas Cage is Francis Ford Coppola's nephew. Anyone who saw him in Peggy Sue Got Married KNOWS he only got hired because of his uncle. He got to learn by being an apprentice in the trenches--that's a gift. Kate Hudson is Goldie Hawn's daughter.Gwennie Paltrow is the daughter of Bruce Paltrow and Blythe Danner.

Nancy Pelosi tried to snatch an early victory in the race for party whip in the summer of 1999. Her tactic was essentially a blitzkrieg, a fast sweep of the Democratic caucus that would wrap up the contest before Members left for the August Congressional recess. This was begun almost three years before the post was even to become available. But at the time, Democrats believed they had a shot at the majority, and a vacancy at whip would have resulted. At first, many of her fellow Democrats expressed annoyance that the cart was being placed before the proverbial horse....

Please, bear with me. I posted this before but didn't do a very good job of it. Forgive me. When I was a child actress at Universal, everyone knew that Sid Sheinberg was Steven Spielberg's uncle. Somehow that family connection never made the news. I would like to know if it's true. A Hollywood Story -- Sid Sheinberg, former MCA Universal President and credited for "discovering Steven Spielberg, may have been his maternal uncle. Do you wanna graduate college or do you wanna be a film director?" – Spielberg makes his choice More from this book. Following on from the...

WATERBURY -- Teachers and staff members would be blocked from working in the same school as spouses, siblings and other relatives under a strict nepotism policy being considered by the Board of Education. If the policy is approved, employees would not be assigned to the same school as relatives "whenever possible." Nor would they be hired or moved into positions where a relative can "influence employment" or access confidential information, such as their personnel files or medical records. The school system already has a nepotism policy instructing the superintendent to "make every effort" to prevent relatives from supervising or evaluating...

She's married to Sen. Chuck Schumer, but if you're suing city Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall, leave him out of it. A judge has ordered a name correction in a lawsuit filed by ex-Staten Island ferry Capt. Michael Gansas that refers to her as "Iris Weinshall-Schumer." Weinshall, a defendant in the suit, doesn't use Schumer's name. "A motion was filed to correct the caption, as part of a larger motion to dismiss this case, since the commissioner's name was wrongly stated," said Department of Transportation spokeswoman Kay Sarlin. Brooklyn Federal Judge Leo Glasser granted the city's request for the name correction,...

'MISBEGOTTEN' TIMES(NARROWNESS, MR. SULZBERGER, NOT WIDTH) PINCH'S NON-APOLOGY APOLOGY by Mia T, July 18, 2006 WAR AND TREASON AND THE NEW YORK TIMES by Mia T, December 29, 2005       inch Sulzberger scurried to the C-SPAN confessional even as the fires raged under the mammoth heap of ash and twisted steel that was once the Twin Towers and 2801 human beings. He had to make certain no one would blame The New York Times. The Times' 1996 endorsement of bill clinton1 was the problem. The endorsement, you may recall, was contingent on clinton getting a brain transplant--specifically of...

It's hard to imagine that Patrick Kennedy would have gotten elected to Congress a dozen years ago without his last name. It's equally hard to imagine that the media would be going wild about his late-night car crash and prescription drug addiction if he weren't a Kennedy. The only lingering mystery is why national news organizations didn't pounce earlier on the Rhode Island Democrat's long history of alcohol and drug abuse, depression and a series of downright embarrassing incidents.

A high-ranking official at the National Fraternal Order of Police cited the mishandling of Rep. Patrick Kennedy's (D-R.I.) car accident Thursday as just one more example of problems the Capitol Police Department is experiencing since Chief Terrance Gainer retired. Jim Pasco, executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), said the fact that no investigation was conducted after Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I) crashed his car into a security barrier at C and First Street SE was unacceptable but symptomatic of the way the Capitol Police Department is being run after Gainer's departure on April 6.Gainer retired after charges...

The original mega-thread: CIA Fires Officer For Leaking Classified Information to Media I think this is as big as rathergate.   Dana Priest's Pulitzer has just turned to dust. Not only that,  the Pulitzer's are finally dust themselves...it is up to us and others to find out, because  the Drive-By Media will ignore the story. Let's Play Connect the Dots Let’s connect some dots in the Mary McCarthy CIA leak tale, shall we? (Hat tip: WordWarp).Mary McCarthy leaks the secret CIA prisons story to Dana Priest, in what may have been a sting operation.Mary McCarthy and Joe Wilson served at the...

The local San Diego FOX-6 Channel has just broken the story tonight that the San Diego Chapter of "Kind Hearts" Charity has also had it's finances frozen for having links to terrorist organizations. Two of the 9/11 hijackers were living and taking flying lessons here in San Diego.