Free Republic

Climate change and the missing Malaysian flight are important to CNN. The Obama administration’s continued evasion of serious investigation into the 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, not so much. At least that’s what Jeff Zucker, president of CNN Worldwide, told a New York Times reporter at the Deadline Club’s annual awards dinner Monday night. “We’re not going to be shamed into [Benghazi coverage] by others who have political beliefs that want to try to have temper tantrums to shame other news organizations into covering something,” Zucker said. “If it’s of real news value, we’ll cover it.”

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Sitting in the headquarters of the Wyoming Liberty Group, Susan Gore, founder of the conservative think tank, said new national science standards for schools were a form of “coercion,” adding, “I don’t think government should have anything to do with education.” Ms. Gore, a daughter of the founder of the company that makes Gore-Tex waterproof fabric, was speaking here weeks after the Republican-controlled Legislature made Wyoming, where coal and oil are king, the first state to reject the standards, which include lessons on human impact on global warming. The pushback came despite a unanimous vote by a...

Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation," former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Hillary Clinton would make a "spectacular candidate" for president in 2016. “I think she would be a spectacular candidate on the Democratic side. Bloomberg also praised former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) and Govs. Chris Christie (R-NJ) and Scott Walker (R-WI) pointing to their "executive experience"on the potential candidates on the Republican side of the ticket.

By 2003, it was obvious that the New York Times had gone off the rails, between the firings of Jayson Blair for serial fabulism and Howell Raines for hiring him — not to mention Raines’ obsession with the Augusta National Golf Club, while a slightly larger story was unfolding in America: 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the dawn of the Global War on Terror. But the clincher was the Moose. You remember the moose, don’t you? "At a 2003 meeting to reassure hundreds of troubled and irate Times staff members that everything was under control, Sulzberger suddenly displayed a stuffed toy...

A New York City cab driver insisted Friday that it is his right, hands down, to wear a Nazi armband – even if the Taxi and Limousine Commission says otherwise. As CBS 2’s Lou Young reported Friday evening, Gabriel Diaz, 26, spoke outside of his family’s home in the Throggs Neck section of the Bronx, after he was suspended for wearing a swastika while driving the cab. “I am. I’m a National Socialist – what you guys call a Nazi. I am. I’m a believer of it,” Diaz said. Diaz was suspended for wearing the armband while driving his cab....

NEW YORK (MYFOXNY) - A New York City cab driver has been suspended for wearing a Nazi swastika armband while on duty. The Taxi and Limousine Commission confirmed to Fox 5 News on Friday that the driver had been suspended for 30 days. His name was not released.

RYE BROOK - New York Republicans have officially nominated Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino (R) as their candidate in the race for governor. Republicans wrapped up their state party convention Thursday at the Hilton Hotel in Rye Brook after nominating Astorino. Other candidates nominated include Onondaga County Comptroller Bob Antonacci for comptroller and chief of staff to former Gov. George Pataki John Cahill as attorney general. Astorino says his success in Westchester shows he can appeal to all kinds of voters in heavily Democratic New York. In his acceptance speech, Astorino called for hydraulic fracturing for natural gas and the...

Not only does Jill Abramson have to endure speculation about her departure from the Times, she also has to live with the question of what will happen to her tattoo of the signature T logo. In the spirit of solutions, the Cut asked several tattoo artists across north Brooklyn how Abramson could conceal it. “If I was her, I’d [get] a really nice tattoo from some famous artist where I had a piece of his artwork that would also work as a cover-up,” says Gavan Daly of Williamsburg’s Magic Cobra Tattoo Society. “Cover-ups suck. You are erasing a bad memory—your...

New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson was abruptly fired from the paper on Wednesday, sources familiar with the news informed POLITICO. Managing editor Dean Baquet will take over as executive editor, effective immediately. The news of her departure was met with shock throughout the newsroom. Senior editors were unexpectedly summoned to a 2 p.m. leadership meeting at the Times headquarters in New York. The news was then announced in a staff-wide meeting by publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. In his announcement, Sulzberger said Abramson’s departure was related to “an issue with management in the newsroom,” and had nothing to do...

Nicholas Wade, a British-born science reporter and editor for more than 30 years with The New York Times, is no longer with the newspaper — just days after the release of his latest book, in which he depicts blacks with roots in sub-Saharan Africa as genetically less adapted to modern life than whites and Asians. Was The New York Times uncomfortable with Wade’s science or his conclusions? It’s unclear. Neither Wade nor his former employer returned requests for comment. Wade’s last Times article appeared April 24. His Penguin Press book “A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History” arrived in...

… A while back, the Times ran a huge front page photo of young men and women dashing for a table full of food. The headline told a million readers that these were Palestinian Arabs who had been STARVED by Israel, but after international pressure Israel relented and the kids were finally allowed to eat. I noticed that these kids were laughing and so did some other observers, until the Times finally admitted (on page 36) that Israel had nothing to do with this.Muslims had been fasting for some holy day (Ramadan?) and were finally allowed to feast. But the...

De Blasio Announces Affordable Housing Plan The $41 Billion Program Will Create Units for More Than 500,000 New Yorkers By WSJ Staff Updated May 5, 2014 10:46 a.m. ET Mayor Bill de Blasio detailed a wide-ranging plan to build 200,000 new affordable housing units in New York City in 10 years, calling it a "fundamental plan to reduce income inequality." Those who benefit from the plan "won't be living doubled up with friends…they won't be living in homeless shelters," Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood. The plan would provide housing to service more...

Stop whining, Mr. President. And stop whiffing. Don’t whinge off the record with columnists and definitely don’t do it at a press conference with another world leader. It is disorienting to everybody, here at home and around the world. I empathize with you about being thin-skinned. When you hate being criticized, it’s hard to take a giant steaming plate of “you stink” every day, coming from all sides. But you convey the sense that any difference on substance is lèse-majesté. You simply proclaim what you believe as though you know it to be absolutely true, hoping we recognize the truth...

An op-ed column published in The New York Times that linked American troops coming home from war and the growth in white supremacist groups drew sharp criticism from veterans groups. Although writer Kathleen Belew stated in the piece that the "vast majority of veterans are neither violent nor mentally ill" and that those who turn violent are more likely to harm themselves than anyone else, veterans groups read the op-ed as an attack on military veterans. American Legion National Commander Daniel Dellinger described the op-ed as a "poorly researched and agenda-driven piece," and that "the New York Times should be...

It is, in a way, too bad that Cliven Bundy — the rancher who became a right-wing hero after refusing to pay fees for grazing his animals on federal land, and bringing in armed men to support his defiance — has turned out to be a crude racist. Why? Because his ranting has given conservatives an easy out, a way to dissociate themselves from his actions without facing up to the terrible wrong turn their movement has taken. For at the heart of the standoff was a perversion of the concept of freedom, which for too much of the right...

According to the country’s paper of record, people in West Virginia are just too damn dumb and racist to know that they need savior Obama’s healthcare law. They say that those that would benefit the most are so dead set in their hatred for President Obama, that they’re willing to go without healthcare coverage. Three conservative groups (even one backed by the dreaded Koch brothers) are blamed for running ads in West Virginia that has “stigmatized” the law. Obama is so unpopular in hayseed, hick town, that they’re willing to lay down and die before they’d sign up for Obamacare.

How does a thing become a person? In December 2013, the lawyer Steven Wise showed the world how, with a little legal jujitsu, an animal can transition from a thing without rights to a person with legal protections. This Op-Doc video follows Mr. Wise on his path to filing the first-ever lawsuits in the United States demanding limited “personhood” rights for certain animals, on behalf of four captive chimpanzees in New York State. Continue reading the main story Related in Opinion Dot Earth Blog: A Closer Look at ‘Nonhuman Personhood’ and Animal WelfareJULY 28, 2013 Mr. Wise (who is also...

The NYT is on an anti-human exceptionalism crusade. Other than columnist Ross Douthat, when was the last time the “paper of record” allowed arguments to be made in favor of the unique dignity of human life in its pages? I can’t recall a single time in recent years. But take actions to subvert our belief in the unique dignity of human life and the NYT is at your service! It has published columns arguing for “pea personhood,” that plants are the most “ethical” life form, and in last Sunday’s Magazine, a tribute to the Dark Mountain Projects’ push for “uncivilization.”...

(CNSNews.com) - Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy made his offensive remarks about blacks and slavery on Saturday, but it took four days for his remarks to finally appear in the New York Times. According to the April 24 New York Times article, Bundy promised to continue holding a daily news conference, even after his standoff with federal agents ended: "[O]n Saturday, it drew one reporter and one photographer, so Mr. Bundy used the time to officiate at what was in effect a town meeting with supporters, discussing, in a long, loping discourse, the prevalence of abortion, the abuses of welfare and...

Rob Astorino, the Republican candidate for governor of New York WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY, April 23, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- Rob Astorino is in his fifth year as county executive of Westchester County, New York. And he says he's the right man for the job of governor of New York State, a position currently held by Democrat Andrew Cuomo. Astorino, who was recently in Washington to solicit support and fundraising dollars from the Susan B. Anthony List, defended the right to life in an interview with LifeSiteNews. He also criticized Cuomo, who said in January that conservatives "who are right to life...