Free Republic

Nearly seven years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the war on terror in this city has evolved into a quiet struggle against a phantom foe.

BUT WILL THEY RESPECT HIM IN THE MORNING?July 23, 2008 Back before the Republican Party was saddled with John McCain as its nominee, The New York Times called him "the only Republican who promises to end the George Bush style of governing from and on behalf of a small, angry fringe." The paper praised him for "working across the aisle to develop sound bipartisan legislation" and predicted that he would appeal to "a broader range of Americans than the rest of the Republican field." At the same time, the Times denounced "the real" Rudy Giuliani as "a narrow, obsessively secretive,...

First, they can't even understand what the hell the Messiah is proposing. Furthermore, it is not completely clear what he is promising. [snip] “What we’re trying to do,” said one of the advisers, David Cutler, in explaining the gap between Mr. Obama’s words and his intent, “is find a way to talk to people in a way they understand.” Try English, moron. See, socialists have a hard time explaining these "complicated" policies to the little people because the have to dodge, hedge, and deflect, lest someone figure out that the policy is an utter boondoggle designed to take away our...

NYT REJECTS MCCAIN'S EDITORIAL; SHOULD 'MIRROR' OBAMA Mon Jul 21 2008 12:00:25 ET An editorial written by Republican presidential hopeful McCain has been rejected by the NEW YORK TIMES -- less than a week after the paper published an essay written by Obama, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. The paper's decision to refuse McCain's direct rebuttal to Obama's 'My Plan for Iraq' has ignited explosive charges of media bias in top Republican circles. 'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece,' NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley explained in an email late Friday...

THE OLD GRAY B*TCH: CENSORSHIP AT THE NEW YORK TIMES Published July 22nd, 2008 The New York Times, which last week printed an op-ed piece by Senator Obama on the Iraq War, has rejected an article on the same subject by Senator John McCain. Says editorial page editor, David Shipley, “It would be terrific to have an article from Sen. McCain that mirrors Sen. Obama’s piece.” (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/07/mccain-oped-not.html) As our Black brethren might say, “Say what???” Since the “paper of record,” “the old, gray lady,” has now become a senile, old, corrupt, censorial b*tch determined to dictate rather than report and...

FOR months, our political punditry foresaw one, and only one, prospective gender contest looming in the general election: between the first serious female presidential candidate and the Republican male “warrior.” But those who were dreading a plebiscite on sexual politics shouldn’t celebrate just yet. Hillary Clinton may be out of the race, but a Barack Obama versus John McCain match-up still has the makings of an epic American gender showdown. The reason is a gender ethic that has guided American politics since the age of Andrew Jackson. The sentiment was succinctly expressed in a massive marble statue that stood on...

New York Times: Senator Obama, for his part, will not be cast as the avenging hero in “The Rescue” any time soon — and not because of the color of his skin or his lack of military experience. He doesn’t seem to want the role. You don’t see him crouching in a duck blind or posing in camouflage duds or engaging in anything more gladiatorial than a game of pick-up basketball. If Mr. Obama’s candidacy seeks to move beyond race, it also moves beyond gender. A 20-minute campaign Web documentary showcased a President Obama who would exude “a real sensitivity”...

The reporter who wrote the hit piece on Fox News explains that he had a tough past and was plagued by crack and alcohol abuse.

And only Only 32% of whites think Obama is "Very Patriotic" versus 77% for McCain. Another little gem. Guess which race will not vote for a black guy? Hmmmm.

French media loses big court case proving Palestinian propaganda false, New York Times ignores shocking story… Why? France TV 2 has lost a major court case in France that makes the lie to a major piece of Palestinian propaganda. In 2000 an incident occurred in the Palestinian areas that has since been used as propaganda for the Palestinian cause all across the world and the New York Times has repeatedly been a willing host for this propaganda. Now, however, it has been proven that France 2 perpetrated a lie that has given succor to terrorism. And where is the New...

A year ago today, the New York Times said we should surrender even if that led to genocide in Iraq. Today marks the first anniversary of the New York Times's endorsement of genocide in Iraq. In a horrific editorial, "The Road Home," the editorial board of the Times decided to hell with the 24 million people of Iraq. It is an evil editorial. I cannot think of another description. It is one thing to disagree, it is another thing to openly advocate a policy that you predict will lead to holocaust. Wrote the Times: "A majority of Americans reached these...

Don Surber reminded us yesterday that it was the one year anniversary of The New York Times startling editorial endorsing surrender in Iraq even if it led to genocide. Nice group of writers, huh? Of course, Barack Obama felt the same way last year and said so. He was for genocide in Iraq before he was against it. But, fortunately they did not get their way. . . .

WHY, INDEED? "French media loses big court case proving Palestinian propaganda false, New York Times ignores shocking story... Why?" Because it opens the door to suggestions that this wasn't an aberration, but the norm in Mideast coverage? # # # Also see related videos at YouTube: "Green Helmet Guy" in Qana (Aug 2006) Dead Children Used as Props in Lebanon (Aug 2006) Pallywood (Mar 2006)

Times climb - again! Man scales paper's headquarters to protest Al Qaeda BY WIL CRUZ and JILL COFFEY DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS Updated Wednesday, July 9th 2008, 4:34 AM Taggart for NewsDavid Malone keeps climbing after hanging a banner on the Times building early Wednesday morning. Another climber with a cause has gone up the side of The New York Times Building in midtown.But unlike the two men who made it to the top of the 52-story structure June 5, David Malone only made it to about the 11th floor early this morning.Malone called the Daily News and acknowledged...

The Pinocchios of the Left By Burt Prelutsky There are good lies and there are bad lies, and not just on a golf course. Good lies are those that make me laugh. For instance, the NBA recently held its pre-draft camp in Orlando, Florida, and they discovered that the one thing these college prospects had in common, aside of course from a reluctance to play defense, was that a large number of them have been lying about their height. Memphis center Joey Dorsey, Memphis guard Derrick Pose and Duke guard DeMarcus Johnson, weren’t really 6-9, 6-4 and 6-4, as advertised,...

Like most working journalists, whenever I type seven letters — Fox News — a series of alarms begins to whoop in my head: Danger. Warning. Much mayhem ahead.

At one time, Limbaugh did his program from a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper he dubbed, with tongue-in-cheek grandiosity, the Excellence in Broadcasting Building. These days, he mostly broadcasts out of a studio in Palm Beach, Fla., which he calls the Southern Command, and describes on the air as a “heavily fortified bunker.” In fact, Limbaugh’s show emanates from a nondescript office building on a boulevard lined with tall palms. There isn’t even a security guard in the lobby. The elevator opens directly onto a pristine anteroom furnished in corporate glass and leather. An American flag stands in the corner. Only...

Why would the New York Times divulge information that could prove harmful to the national security of the United States? Because, so consumed is the paper by its hatred of President Bush, that the Times actually wants America to lose. Such is the considered opinion Jim Pinkerton expressed on yesterday's Fox News Watch. The case in point was an article the Times published on June 30, 2008, Amid U.S. Policy Disputes, Qaeda Grows in Pakistan, which quoted from a "highly-classified Pentagon order" describing internal disputes at the Pentagon over plans to capture Osama Bin Laden and defeat al Qaeda. JIM...

WASHINGTON: In a makeshift prison in the north of Poland, Al Qaeda's engineer of mass murder faced off against his Central Intelligence Agency interrogator. It was 18 months after the 9/11 attacks, and the invasion of Iraq was giving Muslim extremists new motives for havoc. If anyone knew about the next plot, it was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. The interrogator, Deuce Martinez, a soft-spoken analyst who spoke no Arabic, had turned down a CIA offer to be trained in waterboarding. He chose to leave the infliction of pain and panic to others, the gung-ho paramilitary types whom the more cerebral interrogators...

SOURCES: BUSH ANGER AT COMING NEW YORK TIMES STORY DETAILING HUNT FOR BIN LADEN... The newspaper is planning to expose a 'highly classified Pentagon order' authorizing Special Operations forces to hunt al-Qaida leader in mountains of Pakistan... DEVELOPING....

When a distinguished American military commander accuses the United States of committing war crimes in its handling of detainees, you know that we need a new way forward. “There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes,” Antonio Taguba, the retired major general who investigated abuses in Iraq, declares in a powerful new report on American torture from Physicians for Human Rights. “The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.” The first step of accountability isn’t prosecutions. Rather, we...

There’s a distracting occupational quirk among New York Times writers who file stories on Iraq. See if you can spot it in these examples pulled from the past year or so. The parade was a response to one held last year in Ramadi by the Mujahedeen Shura Council, an insurgent group linked to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown Sunni insurgent group that American intelligence officials say has foreign leadership. –October 24, 2007 . . . in search of 200 insurgents with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the largely homegrown Sunni insurgent group that American intelligence says is foreign led and...

The New York Times published an article Monday about the anger some Vietnam veterans feel over the vessel they used to serve on, Swift Boat, now being synonymous with "the nastiest of campaign smears." In dredging up this issue, Times' writer Kate Zernike not only misrepresented many of the facts surrounding the claims made by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, but also completely ignored the mainstream media's role in turning the name of this patrol craft into a political pejorative. In fact, something the Times conveniently chose not to share with its readers was how one of its own...

THE NEW YORK TIMES AND OIL SUPPLY TRUTH July 3rd, 2008 The New York Times, long a bastion of pessimistic liberalism, which is redundant, was peddling its negative petroleum wares and scares soon after 9/11: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9401E2DC123FF937A25753C1A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=4. The Times has never retracted its fearmongering view that the only recourse for America’s oil woes is to curb our insatiable lust for oil, in effect to cut back on our industrial production and lifestyle, to conserve ourselves into Third World status since there just ain’t no more oil to be had because of our limited “proven reserves.” That’s poppycock. Whether the Commissioner of...

"I have said consistently that I believe the Second Amendment is an individual right." -- Barack Obama, June 26, 2008 "In some ways, the Supreme Court term that just ended seems muddled: disturbing, highly conservative rulings on subjects like voting rights and gun control . . . In another sharp break with its traditions, the court struck down parts of the District of Columbia’s gun-control law. After seven decades of holding that the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms is tied to raising a militia, the court reversed itself and ruled that it confers on individuals the right to keep...

For the next hour I sat behind the glass panel of the control booth and watched Limbaugh at work in front of the “golden E.I.B. microphone.” Unlike Howard Stern or Don Imus, he has no sidekicks with him in the room. He does, however, keep up a running conversation with an unheard voice. I always assumed that this was just imaginary radio shtick. Now I saw that the voice was attached to a human interlocutor, Snerdly, who banters with and occasionally badgers Limbaugh via an internal talk-back circuit. After the broadcast, Limbaugh waved me into the studio and offered me...

MCCAIN: PUMP THIS!by Ann CoulterJuly 2, 2008 Well, I guess we're all pretty relieved we didn't drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge back in 2002. What a disaster that would have been. The vote on ANWR was almost entirely along partisan lines, with all Republicans, except a handful of "moderates," voting for drilling, and all Democrats, except a handful of sane Democrats like Zell Miller, voting against drilling. John McCain opposed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge because he polled soccer moms and found out they were against drilling. They thought it sounded too much like going to...

I’ve been pretty amused by all the hand-wringing about the treatment of terrorist detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Those of us who have risked our lives in the covert service of our country have seen the enemy up close and know him well enough. We don’t worry if he’s not given the same treatment the LA cops would give a Rodeo Drive purse snatcher. We also know how those who come after us must have their identities protected, or their lives will likely be lost. On the occasions that I sat handcuffed to a chair having...

SOURCES: BUSH ANGER AT COMING NEW YORK TIMES STORY DETAILING HUNT FOR BIN LADEN... The newspaper planning to expose internal debate surrounding 'highly classified Pentagon order'; Special Operations forces hunt al-Qaida leader in mountains of Pakistan... DEVELOPING.... Thats the Story from drudge, OMG if the Times is gonna report this... Good GOD.... This is Huge. ( yea and Series) This is NOT a good thing for national Security and I am just a housewife. Even I can see and call a Traitor, a Traitor, but the Editor and the signing off authority that Prints this, to bee seen by the...

Just as it once did with the dangers of Stalinism and Hitlerism, the New York Times is doing its best to whitewash the threat of Islam. Just imagine the world picture of somebody whose primary — or even (God forbid!) sole — source of news is the New York Times. In particular, imagine that person’s image of Islam — and of the problems and issues surrounding the growing presence of Islam in the West today. At the Times — as at other important news organizations — the slant on Islam has been shaped almost exclusively by apologists like Karen Armstrong...

MSM's Downsizing Bloodbath May Give Alternative Media a Boost Downsizing BloodbathWhat the newspaper industry's unprecedented wave of layoffs says about American journalism -- and what it means for newspaper readers and bloggers By DAVID PAULIN The downsizing bloodbath in America's newspaper industry is different from earlier waves of layoffs over the years. This time top editors and reporters are being let go at the most prestigious newspapers. What does all this say about American journalism? And what will it mean for newspaper readers and bloggers? First, consider the financially troubled New York Times. Layoffs are being threatened there -- something...

The Hunt for American al Qaeda The United States is turning up the heat in the hunt for the California boy turned al Qaeda operative, Adam Gadahn, who has been charged with treason and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan. If caught and convicted, Gadahn could face the death penalty. The State Department along with the Department of Diplomatic Security announced the beginning of a publicity campaign in Afghanistan urging locals to provide any information on Gadahn's whereabouts, with a reward if the information leads to his capture. Radio advertisements with information concerning the $1 million reward have...

In an astonishing stroke of irony, the New York Times has outed the name of the CIA operative who interrogated 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, over the objections of CIA Director Michael V. Hayden and a lawyer representing the operative. Agency officials and legal counsel told the Times that publishing the agent's name would "invade his privacy and put him at risk of retaliation from terrorists or harassment from critics of the agency." In an Editor's Note linked from the story on KSM's interrogation, the Times defended its decision by stating that "other government employees" had been "named publicly in...

Too bad, because an otherwise fascinating story about the scramble to build a counterterror apparatus after 9/11, the merits of coercive vs. non-coercive interrogation, and the stings that nailed Abu Zubaydah and KSM is going to be submerged in a debate over their decision to publish the lead interrogator’s name against his wishes and those of CIA chief Michael Hayden. Here’s the obligatory editor’s note justifying the decision. Quote: "After discussion with agency officials and a lawyer for [the interrogrator], the newspaper declined the request, noting that [the interrogator] had never worked under cover and that others involved in the...

"All the news that's fit to print." Remember that slogan? It used to...most likely still does...grace the masthead of the New York Times. Little did fools like me suspect that the word "all" wasn't to be the universe, modified only by "fitness" [as in decency, respect for victims, etc.] ...no...no....NO! It turns out the word "Fit" is the universe...as in propaganda...political correctness...yes, even cultural suicide, the word "all" simply describes what's "fit"...not "news". Take one of the more recent examples. In "Paper Cuts", the Times' book blog, Alan Dershowitz'new "novel" [you'll pardon me if I've already forgotten its title] is...

A Careful, Exacting Indictment   By Jon Kyl NationalLedger.com | Tuesday, June 17, 2008 The following is one of the first reviews of the new book Party of Defeat, a meticulously footnoted tour de force examining how "Radicals Undermined America's War on Terror Before and After 9/11." Its author could hardly be more qualified. Sen. Jon Kyl, the junior senator from Arizona, serves as Senate Minority Whip, the second-ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate. Among his many assignments, Sen. Kyl sits on the subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security; and the subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law....

It turns out that Hugo Chávez is an adaptable man. The Venezuelan president, who has championed — and almost certainly helped arm — Colombia’s FARC rebels, called last week for the rebels to lay down their weapons and unconditionally surrender their hostages. We suspect this change of heart has been driven more by self-interest than conviction. Mr. Chávez is increasingly unpopular at home and increasingly isolated abroad, especially as evidence has mounted of his meddling in Colombia. The change nevertheless is welcome and well timed. The FARC, which long ago chose drug trafficking over liberation, has been under assault from...

sent a copy of this to their Public Editor, Mr. Clark Hoyt, a man I would not usually write to, as he’s best known for publicly attacking one of his own columnists for the sin of being a right winger. But, as he is their public editor, he should be sent a copy. The article in question was written by an obnoxious reporter, Jodi Kantor, who stepped aside as the Times’ Arts Editor after coming into controversy. More recently, she was pilloried by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright for misrepresenting his comments about Barack Obama in an interview he gave to...

Network news is old news as far as politics is concerned. According Gerald Seib, an assistant managing editor and the executive Washington editor of The Wall Street Journal, ABC’s “World News,” the “CBS Evening News” and the “NBC Nightly News” just aren’t important in the grand scheme of Washington politics, and that’s part of the changing culture of the news media. “This is a shakeout period for the press in general and the Washington press in particular,” Seib explained. “There’s an interesting passage in the book, also interesting, which bears this point – which is – we talked to Elliott...

At least they're open about it: the New York Times disdains Supreme Court justices who hew to the principles upon which this country was founded. The Times's admission came in the course of an editorial calling on Obama and Clinton to put aside their bickering and focus on beating John McCain. That is vital, in the Times's view, given McCain's pledge to nominate Supreme Court justices in the mold of John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Writes the Times [emphasis added]: Mr. McCain predictably criticized liberal judges, vowed strict adherence to the Founders’ views and promised to appoint more judges in...

It took more time than it should have, but on Tuesday Barack Obama firmly rejected the racism and paranoia of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., and he made it clear that the preacher does not represent him, his politics or his campaign. Senator Obama has had to struggle to explain this relationship ever since a video surfaced of Mr. Wright damning the United States from his pulpit. Last month, Mr. Obama delivered a speech in which he said he disapproved of Mr. Wright’s racially charged comments but said that the pastor still played an important role in...

Standard & Poor's on Tuesday cut its long-term ratings on New York Times Co. to one level above junk because of declining newspaper ad revenue. S&P lowered its corporate credit rating and senior unsecured debt rating for the newspaper publisher to BBB- from BBB.

Ukraine's Pursuit of Genocide Designation Upsets Russians Who Say Others Died, Too MOSCOW -- Relations between Russia and Ukraine, bedeviled by disputes over natural gas supplies and NATO expansion, have lately been roiled by one of the great tragedies of Soviet history: the famine of 1932-33, which left millions dead from starvation and related diseases. Ukraine is seeking international recognition of the famine, which Ukrainians call Holodomor -- or death by hunger -- as an act of genocide. When Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin forced peasants off their homesteads and into collective farms, special military units requisitioned grain and other food...

New York Times reporter Michael Luo wrung his hands Thursday about a potentially racially divisive ad from the North Carolina Republican party that linked two Democrats running for governor to Sen. Barack Obama and his hate-mongering former pastor Jeremiah Wright. Despite objections from Senator John McCain, the North Carolina Republican Party is planning to roll out a television advertisement on Monday attacking two Democrats who are running for governor by linking them to Senator Barack Obama and playing a clip of his former pastor excoriating the United States. The release of the commercial, which Republican officials in North Carolina said...

The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it. Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election. If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get...

The New York Times Company, the parent of The New York Times, posted a $335,000 loss in the first quarter — one of the worst periods the company and the newspaper industry have seen — falling far short of both analysts’ expectations and its $23.9 million profit in the quarter a year earlier. The company did break even on a per-share basis, compared with the average analyst forecast of earnings of 14 cents, down from 17 cents in the first quarter of 2007. The company’s main source of revenue, newspaper advertising in print and online, fell 10.6 percent, the sharpest...

WASHINGTON — Alberto R. Gonzales, like many others recently unemployed, has discovered how difficult it can be to find a new job. Mr. Gonzales, the former attorney general, who was forced to resign last year, has been unable to interest law firms in adding his name to their roster, Washington lawyers and his associates said in recent interviews. He has, through friends, put out inquiries, they said, and has not found any takers. What makes Mr. Gonzales’s case extraordinary is that former attorneys general, the government’s chief lawyer, are typically highly sought. A longtime loyalist to George W. Bush dating...

ABC’s April 11 “World News with Charles Gibson” is showing they finally get it – ethanol production and high energy costs are causing food shortages worldwide. “[P]rices are rising across Africa, pushed up by the cost of oil and demand for biofuels,” ABC correspondent Jim Sciutto said. “Those biofuels are in fact a large part of the equation,” ABC correspondent David Muir added. “Many farmers around the world, who once grew wheat and rice, now grow corn and sugar cane instead, to produce ethanol a more lucrative market.”

Africa's leading thug, Zimbabwe's Mugabe, gives every sign of resorting to whatever it takes to hold on to power in that tortured country.

Sometime, within the next twelve to eighteen months, the average circulation of the weekday edition of the New York Times will drop below one million. This event marks the continuing decline in the fortunes of what had been the U.S. newspaper of record as the New York Times' average circulation has been well above this level for decades. "Hey, Pinch happens."