Free Republic

"Last night at the Republican debate, some of the hopefuls, they hope to get your job, they defended the practice of waterboarding which is a practice you banned in 2009. Herman Cain said, quote, 'I don't see that as torture.' Michele Bachmann said that it's, quote, 'very effective.' So I'm wondering if you think that they're uninformed, out of touch, or irresponsible?" CNN's White House correspondent Dan Lothian asked President Obama in Hawaii.

NBC is to announce on Monday morning that it has hired Chelsea Clinton to become a full-time special correspondent for NBC News.Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg News Chelsea Clinton will be a special correspondent for NBC News. The appointment is immediate. Ms. Clinton will show up at the news division offices on Monday morning, said Steve Capus, president of NBC News, and will begin work on stories that NBC expects to use as part of its “Making a Difference” series, which runs on “NBC Nightly News.” Ms. Clinton has been a national figure since her father won the presidency in 1992, but...

Vice President Joe Biden’s office has asked the U.S. Senate Press Gallery to investigate conservative journalist Jason Mattera’s tactics during a recent interview, a process that could result in his press credentials being revoked, The Daily Caller has learned. Mattera, the editor of Human Events and a widely known video ambush interviewer, caught Biden by surprise after asking if he would pose together for a joint picture. While embracing the vice president for the photo, Mattera asked Biden if he “regret[s] using a rape reference to describe Republican opposition to the president’s bill.” Because none of those parties are answering...

CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson has been doggedly covering the ATF and DOJ scandal surrounding the gunwalking “Fast and Furious” case. And now she’s coming out with some juicy details about her attempts to get information from the DOJ and the White House regarding the case. On Laura Ingraham’s radio show Tuesday, Attkisson said she was “screamed” and “cussed” at by the White House while trying to get information last Friday, and that a DOJ spokesperson “yelled” at her while she was trying to get clarification on the case. And she named names. Ingraham: So they were literally screaming at you?...

The Fast and Furious scandal, in which the Justice Department knowingly gave Mexican criminal gangs thousands of guns, just keeps escalating. The latest development centers around whether or not Attorney General Eric Holder lied to Congress about having knowledge of the controversial gun trafficking operation. Recently released documents say Holder was briefed about the operation long before he told the Judiciary Committee he was first aware of what was going on. (Holder now claims he misunderstood the question was being asked.) What's more, CBS News investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson -- who's been covering the scandal from the beginning -- says...

One of CNN's most popular citizen reporters was fired from his substitute teaching job after school officials unearthed evidence that he used to be a gay porn star. They didn't have to dig deep. Shawn Loftis ditched his porn career in the spring of 2010 to focus on teaching, but he is still widely known by his X-rated alias, Collin O'Neal, the Miami New Times reported. His hard-core performances won him several awards, and a Wikipedia page lists his porn accolades and some of the videos he's appeared in.

Minutes after President Obama urged Americans this morning to tweet their support for a Democratic debt-ceiling bill, a New York Times reporter prompted the White House to organize the effort with a special Twitter hashtag. Hashtags use the “#” symbol to mark keywords or topics on Twitter. They often help drive messages by linking similar messages together in a common theme. At 10:55 a.m. the Times’s Jennifer Preston suggested that administration officials might create a hashtag, so tweeting Democrats could jointly target Republicans who are now trying to pass their own debt ceiling plan. Preston tweeted to a White House...

This morning, the Daily Caller published a story I was inclined to leave to others: Michele Bachmann suffers from severe migraines. But now the Bachmann camp has suddenly invited a whole lot more scrutiny to the story. At an event today, ABC News reporter Brian Ross tried to ask her about her condition, and according to another reporter on the scene, Time’s Michael Crowley, Bachmann’s handlers got pretty rough and aggressive with Ross: "Ross dashed after Bachmann, repeatedly asking whether she had ever missed a House vote due to a migraine. She ignored him. Ross pursued her into a parking...

ALTUS, Okla. – After a little over 30-minutes in executive session Thursday afternoon, the Altus City Council accepted the resignation of embattled City Manager Mike Nettles.

Ahead of next year's presidential election, the White House has launched a concerted effort to leap over national media and reach out to local journalists in hopes of receiving more favorable coverage. But that effort may have backfired a bit yesterday, when President Obama was caught on camera testily reprimanding a Texas reporter for apparently not giving him sufficient time to answer questions.

When President Obama speaks, don't interrupt. That's what the president told a Texas reporter after a brief but contentious interview in which he was challenged about his unpopularity in the state. "Let me finish my answers next time we do an interview, all right?" he told WFAA News 8 reporter Brad Watson. During the interview, one of four that Obama held with Texas media in the White House on Monday, the president argued that even though the Lone Star state was historically Republican, his election meant that the politics there was changing. "We lost by a few percentage points in...

Over the weekend, FR broke the story about the newspaper pool reporter who was detained in a closet for a total of about two hours so he could not talk to attendees at a Joe Biden fundraiser. Other sites picked up the story, it went super-viral on the 'net, and now has become so big ABC and FOX both covered the story. At ABC, WNT covered the story with Jake Tapper last night, and this morning, this little jewel ran on GMA. The FR-inspired story also ran in traditional newspapers, such as the NY Post, NY Daily News, Times of...

The Wisconsin protesters are getting restless and angrier as the chants of “Fox News lies” grew louder and louder around reporter Mike Tobin. As some of the protesters eagerly tried to block the camera shot, the picture then switched away from Tobin out on the street to inside the Capitol building. Tobin’s voiceover continued as he exclaimed “a guy just hit me.” Tobin said he has received much heckling, and that a teacher even told him she hates him because it made her feel good. The “utter lack of civility and harassment of reporters,” as anchor Gregg Jarrett described it,...

Los Angeles reporter Serene Branson has given her first interview since the Grammy night live report that catapulted the KCBS-TV journalist into YouTube fame. “My head was definitely pounding and I was very uncomfortable and I knew something wasn’t right,” Branson told KCBS anchor Pat Harvey Thursday night. “I was terrified and confused. Confused. What had just happened? At that point they sat me down, then my right cheek went numb. My right hand went numb and I lost some sensation in my arm.” The live report, where Branson become visibly confused and had trouble speaking clearly, led many to...

One of the most memorable performances from Sunday night's Grammy broadcast was also one of the most terrifying: Serene Branson, an Emmy-nominated CBS entertainment reporter began speaking gibberish during the network's post-Grammy newscast. However, after initial fears that Branson may have suffered a stroke on-air, she is reportedly doing OK. "She was examined by paramedics on scene immediately after her broadcast. Her vital signs were normal. She was not hospitalized," the CBS affiliate that employs Branson said in a statement posted late Monday on its website. "As a precautionary measure, a colleague gave her a ride home. And while Serene...

At first glance, the video is funny, just another in the long line of on-air bloopers from news reporters. However, it now appears that KCBS in Los Angeles’ Serene Branson may have suffered something far more serious than a live TV mistake. Shortly after the bizarre moment in the night’s broadcast where she seemed to be unable to speak coherently, Branson was hospitalized with some speculating that she may have had a stroke. In the video, Branson is attempting to cover the Grammys when her words just turn to gibberish and she tries and fails to correct herself. After the...

The Daily Caller has learned CNBC reporter Matt Nesto will not have his contract renewed, which is up at the beginning of 2011. Were Nesto’s politics a factor in the network’s decision not to bring him back? Nesto, known for his market research in appearances on the network throughout the broadcast day, is generally a low-key actor.

He had earlier dismissed Twitter as a forum for ‘glib comment’. And Tory councillor Gareth Compton might now be wishing he had given somewhat more thought to his own posts on the social networking website. For after an ‘ill-conceived attempt at humour’ in which he allegedly called for a Muslim journalist to be stoned to death, Mr Compton has been arrested and bailed, suspended from his party, accused of ‘incitement to murder’ and branded a racist. The 38-year-old barrister had been reacting to a radio show ­featuring newspaper columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown discussing David Cameron’s visit to China. Mrs Alibhai-Brown, 60,...

CBS television network anchor Lesley Stahl is up in arms over Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood – known to Jews as Shiloach, and home to the City of David archaeological excavations. The reporter from the long-running Sunday evening “60 Minutes” program narrated a segment this week on the City of David, produced by Shachar Bar-On. During the segment, Stahl worked hard to cast aspersions on the validity of the archaeological findings in the City of David excavations and the unity of the city, and to delegitimize the presence of Jewish families in the area. The Jewish families are in houses bought by...

How a new report on HIV infection in the Big Apple scared a health reporter into getting tested and having a frank discussion with her "boo." By Tomika Anderson My longtime lover and I were driving through Harlem when we passed a billboard that made me want to slam on the brakes and pull the car over. On it were two women -- one black and one Latina -- their pretty, youthful faces in lights. But under their pictures was a statistic that sucker-punched me: 93.4 percent. As in, 93.4 of all new HIV cases among women in NYC occur...