Free Republic

Tucker Carlson discusses his website The Daily Caller's shocking new exposé on the liberal media watchdog group, Media Matters for America

The trouble with situational ethics is that it leaves you with no morals and without morals it is difficult to be morally superior to anyone. This reduces liberals to whining about hypocrisy all the time by holding the other guy to his high standards and being smug about it. The irony is that in order to apply those higher standards liberals must admit that those higher standards are meaningful. If indeed adultery were nothing, they would not mention a 40-year-old affair by Henry Hyde. But cries of hypocrisy are all that is left to them. They sound a lot like...

WASHINGTON — The Constitution has seen better days. Sure, it is the nation’s founding document and sacred text. And it is the oldest written national constitution still in force anywhere in the world. But its influence is waning. In 1987, on the Constitution’s bicentennial, Time magazine calculated that “of the 170 countries that exist today, more than 160 have written charters modeled directly or indirectly on the U.S. version.” A quarter-century later, the picture looks very different. “The U.S. Constitution appears to be losing its appeal as a model for constitutional drafters elsewhere,” according to a new study by David...

The New York Times Company suffered a net loss of almost $40million in 2011, with its fourth quarter profits falling by 12.2 per cent compared to the same period in 2010. The company is grappling with sinking advertising revenue and a recent change in the top management after losing CEO Janet Robinson, who received a multimillion dollar severance package. They said it continued to add subscribers for its digital products in the fourth quarter.

Did the New York Times learn nothing about rushing to judgement and presumption of innocence from its Duke lacrosse “rape” hoax debacle? More than any other media outlet, in 2006 the Times trumpeted black stripper's Crystal Mangum's rape accusations against three white Duke lacrosse players, accusations that quickly fell apart in a mass of contradictions and shifting stories. Yet even as the case fell apart and other liberal media outlets backed away, the Times issued a now-notorious, error-riddled 5,000-word lead story by Duff Wilson, concluding that there was enough evidence against the players for Michael Nifong, the soon-to-be-disgraced-and-jailed local prosecutor,...

An auctioneer has hired experts to try to verify claims by the owner of the century old instrument that it belonged to Wallace Hartley, the leader of the vessel’s eight-man musical ensemble. If proved, it could become the most valuable Titanic artefact ever to be considered for auction. But the claim is being treated with caution as a result. Hartley and his fellow musicians earned legendary status for their decision to play on as the ship sank on its maiden voyage on April 15, 1912. They are said to have played the hymn “Nearer My God to Thee” after the...

In his Loyal Opposition blog, New York Times ed page editor Andrew Rosenthal goes after the Justice Department’s decision to prosecute former CIA officer, former Democratic Senate staffer and Huffington Post blogger John Kiriakou for leaking classified information — including the names of CIA operatives — to journalists. Rosenthal writes, That may seem simple: CIA officer, classified information disclosed, prison. But take a closer look. He’s been charged with revealing that two men accused of organizing the Sept. 11 attacks, Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, were tortured. So the man who blew the whistle on torture may go to...

In a front-page story on Tuesday discussing the documentary film, "The Third Jihad," and its use by the NYPD in training, The New York Times once again collaborates with radical Islamists to help shape the news. The article revealed the newspaper's bias, from the vaguely threatening headline – "In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims" - and by relying on those who are not simply opposed to the film, but have previously demonstrated their support of radical Islamists by both word and by association with similarly aligned groups.

A former staffer for Bay State Sen. John F. Kerry has been charged with leaking the names of CIA operatives, including one who was involved in the interrogation of terror suspects held at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, according to the U.S. Department of Justice and Kerry’s office.

I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge “facts” that are asserted by newsmakers they write about. One example mentioned recently by a reader: As cited in an Adam Liptak article on the Supreme Court, a court spokeswoman said Clarence Thomas had “misunderstood” a financial disclosure form when he failed to report his wife’s earnings from the Heritage Foundation. The reader thought it not likely that Mr. Thomas “misunderstood,” and instead that he simply chose not to report the information. Another example: on the campaign trail, Mitt Romney often says President Obama...

Andrew Rosenthal has dragged the New York Times’ reputation to a new low. I didn’t think it was possible. Andy pens an inappropriately titled column called The Loyal Opposition. Anyone familiar with the now irrelevant Forth Estate sees the irony of naming a newspaper column The Loyal Opposition, and the side-splitting frivolity for it being under the NYT banner. Most media produces propaganda and the Times has positively made an art of misinformation masking as news. That they pay Andy to mint propaganda is not surprising, though the notion that the Times is loyal or opposes authority makes Three Stooges...

Now that Ron Paul has achieved electoral respectability in the Republican primaries, the media is in high dudgeon over his extremism. Paul, according to the procurators of good taste at the New York Times, "long ago disqualified himself for the presidency" by, among other things, "peddling claptrap proposals" such as "cutting a third of the federal budget."

A White House “Alice in Wonderland” costume ball — put on by Johnny Depp and Hollywood director Tim Burton — proved to be a Mad-as-a-Hatter idea that was never made public for fear of a political backlash during hard economic times, according to a new tell-all. ...It was so over the top that “Star Wars” creator George Lucas sent the original Chewbacca to mingle with invited guests. ...the State Dining Room had also been transformed into a secretive White House Wonderland. ...“Fruit punch was served in blood vials at the bar. Burton’s own Mad Hatter, the actor Johnny Depp, presided...

A White House official told POLITICO Sunday that a Halloween party thrown for military families in 2009 was no secret and that there was no conspiracy to cover-up the role of two well-known Hollywood figures. In her new book "The Obamas," Jodi Kantor reports that the White House communications staff was concerned about the optics of the Obamas hosting a star-studded 'Alice in Wonderland'-themed Halloween party in a time of economic misery. As a result, Kantor reports, they did not highlight the role that director Tim Burton and actor Johnny Depp played at the event. Burton helped decorate the White...

It was the tea party the Obamas just couldn’t resist. A White House “Alice in Wonderland” costume ball — put on by Johnny Depp and Hollywood director Tim Burton — proved to be a Mad-as-a-Hatter idea that was never made public for fear of a political backlash during hard economic times, according to a new tell-all. “The Obamas,” by New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor, tells of the first Halloween party the first couple feted at the White House in 2009. It was so over the top that “Star Wars” creator George Lucas sent the original Chewbacca to mingle with...

It was the tea party the Obamas just couldn’t resist. A White House “Alice in Wonderland” costume ball — put on by Johnny Depp and Hollywood director Tim Burton — proved to be a Mad-as-a-Hatter idea that was never made public for fear of a political backlash during hard economic times, according to a new tell-all. “The Obamas,” by New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor, tells of the first Halloween party the first couple feted at the White House in 2009. It was so over the top that “Star Wars” creator George Lucas sent the original Chewbacca to mingle with...

The inimitable, quintessentially monikered CHARLES M. BLOW That didn't take long. As we’ve gotten around to casting votes to select a Republican presidential nominee, the antiblack rhetoric has taken center stage. You just have to love (and despise) this kind of predictability. On Sunday, Rick “The Rooster” Santorum, campaigning in Iowa, said what sounded like “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.” At first, he offered a nondenial that suggested that the comment might have been out...

So, Jennifer Epstein wites a breathless puff piece about a breathless puff piece written by Jodi Kanter about the magnificent Michelle and the God like Obamas. New York Times "reporter" gets 7 figure advance to write this drivel, after one interview with the Obamas, to come out just in time for the election season.

*snip* “She feels as if our rudder isn’t set right,” Mr. Obama confided, according to aides. Rahm Emanuel, then chief of staff, repeated the first lady’s criticisms to colleagues with indignation, according to three of them. Mr. Emanuel, in a brief interview, denied that he had grown frustrated with Mrs. Obama, but other advisers described a grim situation: a president whose agenda had hit the rocks, a first lady who disapproved of the turn the White House had taken, and a chief of staff who chafed against her influence.

Michelle Obama was privately fuming, not only at the president’s team, but also at her husband. In the days after the Democrats lost Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat in January 2010, Barack Obama was even-keeled as usual in meetings, refusing to dwell on the failure or lash out at his staff. The first lady, however, could not fathom how the White House had allowed the crucial seat, needed to help pass the president’s health care legislation and the rest of his agenda, to slip away, several current and former aides said.

The Crazy Department-Wide Emails That Everyone at NYU Is Talking About At around 3:17 on Wednesday morning, every student in NYU's Department of Social and Cultural Analysis received a bizarre "open letter" to NYU President John Sexton, from a student who claimed she'd been "forced" to do an ethnographic assignment on Occupy Wall Street. It was 2,800 words long, oddly typeset, and quickly followed up by another five equally eccentric emails. Someone sent us the full set of emails, which everyone at NYU—and elsewhere—was talking about. Want to read them?

New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor, in a book to be published Tuesday, portrays a White House where tensions developed between Mrs. Obama and former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and former press secretary and presidential adviser Robert Gibbs. Among the book's most provocative anecdotes, Kantor recounts a scene in which Gibbs, frustrated after tamping down a potential public relations crisis involving the first lady, exploded when presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett told him the first lady had concerns about the White House response to the flap. The initial commotion had been over an alleged remark by Michelle Obama...

The First Lady reportedly believed that Mr Emmanuel's willingness to cut backroom deals during the battle over health care reform was tainting Barack Obama's image as a new kind of American leader. The Obamas paints a picture of a presidential inner circle divided between Mrs Obama's idealistic belief in what the administration could achieve and the grittier pragmatism of Mr Emmanuel. The book, written by New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor, claims that the chief of staff refused to allow the president's wife into high-level morning meetings, leading a brooding Mrs Obama to berate other senior advisers by email. She...

ON Friday the United States Supreme Court will meet to decide whether to hear Bluman v. F.E.C., a First Amendment challenge to a federal law that prohibits noncitizens living in the United States (but who don’t have green cards) from making contributions to American political candidates or from spending money on independent speech to influence elections. The lead plaintiff, Benjamin Bluman, is a Canadian lawyer who lawfully lives in New York City. He is legally prohibited from paying for leaflets he planned to distribute urging the re-election of President Obama. The case raises fundamental questions about the scope of the...

The New York Times Co said it will sell 16 regional newspapers spread across the U.S. Southeast and California to Halifax Media Holdings for $143 million in cash as it looks to cut costs and focus on its most important papers and their websites. *SNIP* *SNIP* "I think that it's toward the low end of what we expected. I was expecting $150-$200 million," Evercore Partners analyst Douglas Arthur told Reuters. "What it implies is that margins on regional newspapers were not as high as we thought, but the underlying profitability of the main New York Times is higher." The analyst,...

After a lifetime of studying the left, I have concluded that leftism is a form of moral poison. It causes otherwise decent and kind people who take it into their systems to say and/or do cruel and sometimes evil things. While not specifically about the left, a major new scholarly book, "Pathological Altruism" (Oxford University Press​), explores this phenomenon of people wanting to do good things yet ending up doing bad. It applies to The New York Times​ foreign affairs columnist Thomas L. Friedman, who has a deep altruistic urge to bring peace to the Middle East. But because he...

I do not begrudge Robinson her golden parachute, as she helped turn arund the paper’s fortunes, quickly repaying the $250 million bailout they took from Mexican monopolist billionaire Carlos Slim, and selling off noncore assets (Granted, the paper’s failure would not have bothered me much, either). But given that the paper finds it scandalous that Mitt Romney continues to profit from Bain Capital because the firm (gasp) turns some companies around by right-sizing them, some derisive laughter at the NYT’s expense is in order.

Janet Robinson, who will step down as chief executive of the New York Times Co on December 31, will receive an exit package in excess of $15 million, according to people familiar with the situation. In addition to a $4.5 million consulting fee, the Times Co will pay Robinson $10.9 million in pension benefits that she accrued over 28 years of service, they said. According to a regulatory filing, Times Co's policy previously stipulated that Robinson, 61, would not be eligible for full pension benefits until she was 63 and had been with the company for 30 years. But people...

Prime minister "respectfully declines" to pen an op-ed piece for 'NYT' citing newspapers negative spin on Netanyahu government. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is refusing to pen an op-ed piece for The New York Times, signaling the degree to which he is fed up with the influential newspaper’s editorial policy on Israel. In a letter to the Times obtained by The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, Netanyahu’s senior adviser Ron Dermer – in response to the paper’s request that Netanyahu write an op-ed – wrote that the prime minister would “respectfully decline.” Dermer made clear that this had much to do with...

The race for the Republican nomination may be coming down to Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, but in the contest for the Iowa caucuses, their high-profile battle might still turn out to be a sideshow. The national party has spent the last two weeks resigning itself to a choice between the former speaker and the former Massachusetts governor. But Iowa Republicans may end up choosing between Gingrich and Representative Ron Paul. In every post-Thanksgiving poll but one, Paul has been neck and neck for second place in Iowa. In most of them, he has lagged well behind the soaring speaker,...

Gingrich's opinion on electromagnetic pulse events is well-informed. The Times' is not.Writing in the New York Times, William J. Broad portrays GOP presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich as a loon for his view that an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is one of the most dangerous threats we face as a nation: Newt Gingrich, the Republican presidential hopeful, wants you to know that as commander in chief he is ready to confront one of the most nightmarish of doomsday scenarios: a nuclear blast high above the United States that would instantly throw the nation into a dark age.In debates and speeches, interviews and...

What does the term “anchor baby” mean? If you were to look it up in the American Heritage Dictionary, you would find a new definition since last week. The term was among some 10,000 new words and phrases in the fifth edition of the dictionary, published in November. It was defined as: “A child born to a noncitizen mother in a country that grants automatic citizenship to children born on its soil, especially such a child born to parents seeking to secure eventual citizenship for themselves and often other members of their family.” But when Steve Kleinedler, the executive editor...

he pro-train constituency has not been derailed by a state report this month that found the cost of the bullet train tripling to $98 billion for a project that would not be finished until 2033, by news that Republicans in Congress are close to eliminating federal high-speed rail financing this year, by opposition from California farmers and landowners upset about tracks tearing through their communities or by questions about how much the state or private businesses will be able to contribute. The project has been mocked by editorial boards across the country — “Somebody please stop this train,” The Washington...

The New York Police Department has foiled an alleged terror plot targeting law enforcement and soldiers returning from the battlefield. The New York Times reported that 27-year-old Jose Pimentel was acting as a 'lone wolf' and was taken into custody Saturday. He allegedly was inspired by Al-Qaida, although his citizenship was not immediately known.

The Wall Street Journal remains the No. 1 newspaper in the U.S with average weekday circulation of 2.1 million, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Gannett Co.'s USA Today ranks second with 1.8 million, and The New York Times is third with 1.2 million on average from Monday to Friday. The latest figures, covering the six months that ended Sept. 30, were released Tuesday. The Times' circulation grew after it started charging online fees or requiring a print subscription for full access to its website and mobile services. That began just before the start of the latest circulation reporting...

New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and several other states don’t have reciprocity arrangements that allow someone like Todd to pay an armed courtesy call. That’s because New York officials can deny concealed-carry permits on a case-by-case basis, whereas many other states — South Dakota, for example — don’t put much stock in such scrutiny. H.R. 822, now in the House Judiciary Committee, makes a mockery of our diverse values and strategies for public safety. If it were enacted, off to New York the South Dakotan tourist could go, 9-millimeter Glock in tow. That’s not liberty. More like lunacy.

This extreme legislation, the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011, would obliterate state and local eligibility rules for concealed weapons and the state’s discretion to decide whether to honor another’s permits. At least 36 states now set a minimum age of 21 for carrying concealed guns, and 35 states require some sort of gun-safety training. Thirty-eight states prohibit people convicted of certain violent crimes like misdemeanor assault or sex crimes from carrying concealed weapons. The act would override those rules, requiring states with tight restrictions, like New York and California, to allow people with permits from states with lax laws...

Image: Daniel Goodman / Business Insider The New York Times reports on a poll done by a Fordham University political science professor that reveals what some have long suspected: Occupy Wall St. is mainly made up of (very) disgruntled Obama supporters. Check out these numbers.

Journalism: Is the New York Times a news organization or a front for left-wing activists? Reporter Natasha Lennard was filmed leading an Occupy Wall Street panel, offering radicals tips on keeping their identities secret. Openly. In a video that appeared on BigGovernment.com, Lennard, a Times freelance reporter who was arrested with 700 other leftists for shutting down the Brooklyn Bridge this month, revealed herself to be within the actual leadership of the Occupy Wall Street protest movement. Along with four other "comrades," she addressed a roomful of people at a bookstore in Manhattan, officiously advising the fractious movement on how...

There is new demigoddess in the pantheon of Liberal martyrs who advanced political objectives while earning their daily bread pretending to journalistic objectivity, and subsequently lost their jobs when outed: Natasha Lennard. Lennard is a British free-lancer who blogged for the New York Times and contributed to its coverage of the dramatic October 1st Brooklyn Bridge arrests of 700 Occupy Wall Street protesters. OWS seems to be elevating a number of these Leftist heroes and heroines to the highest altars. [quote] The police said it was the marchers’ choice that led to the enforcement action. “Protesters who used the Brooklyn...

Investigative reporter Susan Bradford has filed a small-claims court lawsuit in Virginia against The Huffington Post and The New York Times, alleging that the publishers plagiarized her work on the Jack Abramoff scandal in 2008. The civil suit was filed September 1 in Fairfax County, Va., a close-in suburban county near Washington, D.C. Bradford told The Daily Caller that she entered into a verbal agreement with Nico Pitney, Politics Editor of The Huffington Post, for payment of $12,000 in exchange for a series of seven articles about the scandal. She alleges that she submitted the articles and that HuffPo rejected...

Every day in the Middle East, terrible things happen. The lies and distortions of truth help ensure things don’t get better. Every day in the Middle East, terrible things happen. The worst are the acts of violence and oppression. The second worst are the lies and distortions of truth that help ensure things don’t get better. Every day in the West, the lies are echoed and amplified, and new ones invented. This not only helps ensure things don’t get better in the Middle East, it guarantees they will get worse in the West. There is an ancient Navaho proverb that...

In the midst of a deteriorating advertising climate, The New York Times plans to eliminate up to 20 newsroom positions and seek additional savings in the business units, the company said Thursday. The reductions, described by the New York Times Company as a rebalancing, were announced to employees on Thursday morning. The company will seek volunteers for buyouts in The Times newsroom, Jill Abramson, the paper’s executive editor, said in a memo to the staff, adding that no newsroom employee would be laid off. She said there would be “fewer than 20” buyouts. The Times will also seek to cut...

The New York Times Co. expects its third-quarter advertising revenue to slide eight percent, twice the decline it had previously forecast, as economic conditions have been "getting more difficult even since the second quarter," CEO Janet Robinson said Wednesday. "We're seeing that advertisers are less frequently committing upfront because of the uncertainty in their business," Robinson told analysts Wednesday at a conference in New York. The New York Times Co. had expected to see a drop similar to the four-percent decline it had in the second quarter, Robinson said. The company now expects print ad revenue to slide 10 percent...

Here's your final exam question in Middle Eastern studies: A mass of Coptic Christians marches through Cairo to protest the military government's failure to protect them from Muslim radicals. They are attacked by stone-throwing, club-wielding rowdies. Armed forces security personnel intervene, and the Copts fight it out with the soldiers, with two dozen dead and scores injured on both sides. Who is to blame? The full credit answer is: Benjamin Netanyahu, for building apartments in Jerusalem. If that's not what you wrote, don't blame me if you can't get a job at the New York Times. Rarely in the course...

The paper's Jerusalem bureau paid barely minimal attention to the recent killing of an Israeli man and his one-year-old son by stone-throwing Palessinians who attacked their car -- with one huge stone smashing through the windshield and hitting the driver. ... Like most Western reporters, Kershner assumes that a logical peace treaty must divide Jerusalem, with Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem remaining in Israel and Arab neighborhoods becoming part of Palestine. But neither she nor her colleagues have ever checked with Arab residents of Jerusalem about what their real preference might be. Had they done so, they would have found...

The New York Times have just pissed its neuroscientific pants in public and is now running round the streets announcing the fact in an op-ed that could as easily been titled 'Smell my wee!' The piece is written by Martin Lindström, famous for writing the 'neuromarketing' best-seller Buyology, but infamous for not making any of his data or studies public. In fact, despite constantly mentioning the astounding conclusions from numerous brain imaging studies he was run, not one has appeared in the scientific literature. But even without knowing about the reliability data or the quality of the analysis, it's easy...

by John HillStand With ArizonaHow significant was Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn's ruling upholding key sections of Alabama's H.B. 56 immigration law? Well, just ask the New York Times, which flipped out over it in their lead editorial: A federal judge has upheld most of Alabama’s new immigration law, the nation’s harshest and most radical attempt to harness a state’s power to find and punish illegal immigrants. The consequences for Alabamans will be serious — not just for the undocumented, but for their blameless citizen children, for those who are mistaken for unauthorized immigrants and for farmers and other business owners...

(VIDEO AT LINK) President Obama and Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Solyndra plant in May. The second part is here. The third part is here. From Green Beat: Troubled solar panel maker Solyndra announced the company will close its first factory to save $60 million in operating expenses, and will lay off 40 workers just seven weeks after opening their second plant, a $733 million facility. The company’s CEO Brian Harrison said the new facility is more cost-efficient than the old one, according to the New York Times, which first reported the story. The company has fallen on hard times, in...

If anyone wonders what is wrong with America today, check out Solyndra. Its principal players were well-connected politically — they knew the White House like the back of their grubby little paws — but they did not know jack about business. In the 19th century, Solyndra would have failed an no one would have noticed. In the 21st century, taxpayers rewarded Solyndra with a half-billion dollars. Most people know the tawdry deals of a billionaire raising money for Barack Obama who upon election feverishly worked to get the billionaire’s company a guaranteed loan. But what is really eye-opening is how...