Free Republic

"The Washington Post, New York Times, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, LA Times, it's all oriented toward two things: advancing the Democrat Party and whoever runs it -- in this case, Barack Obama -- and at the same time defeating, embarrassing, and humiliating the Republicans and conservatives." "Obama is running to be reelected by the dumbest among us. That's who he's aiming at here. That's how he looks at the 99%. The dumbest, the most uninformed, and that's why he's perfectly willing to campaign on a socialist agenda." "You need to be suspicious of virtually everything you hear and...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Everybody's reporting that Obama's caving on this mandate that the Catholic services provide abortion and all. There's not a cave here! There may be an accommodation, but there's no big cave-in here. It's still the government mandating this stuff happen. They're just changing the provider. It's not done by the church. He says he gave them a way out of it by mandating the insurance companies do it, but that's not the point here. Great to have you. It's Friday. Let's go to! JOHNNY DONOVAN: Live from the Left Coast at our satellite studios in Los Angeles,...

The White House and the media were ecstatic about Friday's BLS unemployment report, which showed the national jobless rate dropping to 8.3 percent, as the US economy added 243,000 jobs.  These should be welcome results for all Americans, CBO's harrowing 2012 economic projections notwithstanding.  Although the headlines were uniformly positive, reality isn't quite as cheery.  Leftist Paul Krugman notes that long-term unemployment remains historically persistent, the U-6 "real" unemployment rate still floats above 15 percent, and -- most distressingly -- the labor force continues to contract.  Zero Hedge documented Friday's flat-out bad news (emphasis his):   A month ago, we...

In December a Federal District Judge, Marco Hernandez, ruled against blogger Crystal Cox who was being sued for defamation by attorney Kevin Padrick, whom Cox accused of corruption on her blog. The ruling declared that as a blogger, Cox was not a journalist and cannot claim the protections afforded to mainstream reporters and news. I happen to agree with his decision, but the case raises the question about what actually defines a journalist. Considering what the mainstream media represents today, the line between genuine reportage and political advocacy has been completely blurred. In the past, many famous and well-respected journalists...

Congressional support for controversial online piracy legislation eroded dramatically on Wednesday in the face of an unprecedented online protest supported by tech titans such as Google, Wikipedia and Facebook. Several key senators withdrew their support from the Senate's Protect IP Act (PIPA), including Tea Party favorite Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), an elected member of his party's leadership. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who leads the Senate GOP's campaign team, said the legislation should be put on hold, while Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a sponsor and the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, retreated from the...

"I don't have lobbyists running my campaign. I don't have lobbyists tied to my..." [then a reporter takes Romney to task].

New photographs obtained exclusively by BigGovernment.com reveal that Barack Obama appeared and marched with members of the New Black Panther Party as he campaigned for president in Selma, Alabama in March 2007. The photographs, captured from a Flickr photo-sharing account before it was scrubbed, are the latest evidence of the mainstream media’s failure to examine Obama’s extremist ties and radical roots.

According to the survey, which was released Monday, 28 percent of Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP say they support Perry as their party's presidential nominee, with Romney at 21 percent. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is at ten percent, with Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who's making his third bid for the White House, former Godfather's Pizza CEO and radio talk show host Herman Cain, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, all at seven percent. The poll indicates that Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is at four percent, with former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania at three...

Barack Obama has gone to Congress asking for more money to spend. The President, in a rambling and tedious exercise mixing blame with demands, made quite a few dubious statements in laying out the case for Congress to vote for the plan which as yet does not exist. Much like Obamacare, Congress must ultimately vote for the bill to know what is in it. At one point Mr. Obama made a major gaffe; he identified Abraham Lincoln as the founder of the Republican Party. Lincoln did not join the Republicans until 1856, over two years after the party was founded....

In an interview with CNN, First Lady Michelle Obama thanks the media for their "support" and "kindness." CNN reporter: "How's the family ready for this [the election]? It's going to be quite vicious, isn't it? How do you prepare for that?" First Lady Michelle Obama: "You know, it's … we're ready, you know. Our children, you know, could care less about what we're doing. We work hard to do that. Fortunately, we have help from the media. I have to say this: I'm very grateful for the support and kindness that we've gotten. People have respected their privacy and in...

Listen to the pledge of allegiance that runs alongside the patriotic images, and later to the one that overlays video of previous U.S. Open winners: (VIDEO)

Media Manipulation? The Majority of American Media Outlets Fail to Report the Yemeni Passenger Was Shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ as He Attempted to Storm the Cockpit Door – Video Examples of Newscasts From Around the Country

Drugged, Raped, and Pregnant? Too bad -- Republicans are Pushing to Limit Rape and Incest Cases Eligible for Government Abortion Funding Rape is only really rape if it involves force, according to the new House Republican majority as it now moves to change abortion law. For years, federal laws restricting the use of government funds to pay for abortions have included exemptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, with another exemption covering pregnancies that could endanger the life of the mother. But the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," contains a provision that would rewrite the rules to drastically...

NO JOKE: NYT MONDAY: Jon Stewart 'modern-day equivalent of Edward R. Murrow'... Developing... "WHAT A JOKE!!!"

(CNSNews.com) - American journalism is in "grave peril," FCC Commissioner Michael Copps says, and to bolster "traditional media," he said the Federal Communications Commission should conduct a "public value test" of every commercial broadcast station at relicensing time. In a speech at the Columbia University School of Journalism in New York on Thursday, Copps also said station relicensing should happen every four years instead of the current eight. "If a station passes the Public Value Test, it of course keeps the license it has earned to use the people’s airwaves," Copps said. "If not, it goes on probation for a...

Michael Fell of Culver City, Calif., holds up a sign reading ‘STOP SPENDING MONEY’ as he speaks at a tea party rally in Irvine, Calif., Thursday, April 15, 2010. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. State Department recently asked a New York Times reporter who has criticized the tea party movement to discuss the the tea party and its role in the midterm election with foreign reporters who are covering next week's contests.Kate Zernike, who spoke at the Foreign Press Center in Washington on Friday, Oct. 22, has authored a book that is critical of the conservative grassroots movement....

Liberals tend to prefer Thomas Jefferson’s vision of religious liberty to the one actually enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, so here’s one for them, from his bill for religious freedom in Virginia: “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.” NPR has fired Juan Williams for the sin of confessing that he sometimes feels fear when he sees a Muslim in obvious religious garb seated near him on an airplane. Williams made his confession on Fox News, a private network. Those who...

A new poll released by Gallup shows that American distrust in the mass media has reached a record high. This is the fourth straight year that a majority of respondents have said that they have little or no trust in the media, but the 57% who say that this year is a new record for the poll. According to the poll, 48% of respondents say the media is too liberal, 15% say it is too conservative and 33% say it is “just right.” You can see how the responses have changed over the years here: (snip to picture of chart)...

Earlier this summer, two government agencies considered proposals that would lead to more government involvement in the media. The Federal Communications Commission looked into "net neutrality" proposals while the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) put forth a list of potential policy recommendations to support the "reinvention" of journalism. This "reinvention" includes ideas like creating a journalism equivalent of AmeriCorps, giving tax credits to news organizations, handing out "news vouchers" to citizens, increasing funding for public radio and television and increasing postal subsidies for newspapers. This would be paid for in part by a new tax on electronics...

This could confirm what many suspected all along - the corporate heads at General Electric (NYSE:GE) would try to use their media holdings to portray President Barack Obama and his administration in a positive light in order to gain a corporate advantage. That's how former CNBC reporter and current Fox Business Network senior correspondent Charlie Gasparino explains it in his forthcoming book, "Bought and Paid For: The Unholy Alliance Between Barack Obama and Wall Street." According to Gasparino, GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt had "helped his company feast off of the subsidies of Obamanomics," including the green energy initiatives and health...

JOEL SILVER stands on the Warner Brothers lot and points to the remnants of a house where he filmed parts of four “Lethal Weapon” movies. “We blasted a toilet out of that window,” he says, smiling proudly. “Over there, we drove a car straight into the living room.” Ah, the glory days. Behind Mr. Silver, the flamboyant producer of some of the biggest action hits of the last 30 years, is the modest set for one of his current films, an R-rated comedy with no stars, almost no budget and — for now — no title. Not that Mr. Silver...

Tens of thousands of Glenn Beck fans and Tea Party supporters are expected to descend on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., Saturday for an event the conservative talk show host has promoted as a celebration of America's "heroes and heritage." But as is usually the case with the histrionic Fox News Channel host and national radio personality, his actions have not come without controversy. A countermarch is being planned at a different location in Washington to protest Beck's decision to schedule his event on the same site and on the 47th anniversary of civil rights hero Martin Luther King...

In the hours after Sen. John McCain announced his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate in the last presidential race, members of an online forum called Journolist struggled to make sense of the pick. Many of them were liberal reporters, and in some cases their comments reflected a journalist’s instinct to figure out the meaning of a story. But in many other exchanges, the Journolisters clearly had another, more partisan goal in mind: to formulate the most effective talking points in order to defeat Palin and McCain and help elect Barack Obama president. The tone...

This isn’t intended as a criticism of Chris Matthews or his statement about Sarah Palin; in fact, he’s exactly correct in this analysis. If Palin decides to run for President and scores big in Iowa, survives in New Hampshire, and can go big in South Carolina, she will have a strong lead for the Republican nomination. Actually, that’s not exactly news, since that’s also the strategy for Mike Huckabee and Tim Pawlenty (who is spending three days in Iowa), and anyone else seeking the Republican nomination. Matthews is also not wrong about what will happen if Palin manages to do...

The Democratic Party is moving faster and more aggressively than in previous election years to dig up unflattering details about Republican challengers. In House races from New Jersey to Ohio to California, Democratic operatives are seizing on evidence of GOP candidates' unpaid income taxes, property tax breaks and ties to financial firms that received taxpayer bailout money. In recent weeks, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has circulated information to local reporters about Republican candidates in close races. Among the claims: -- That Jim Renacci of Ohio once owed nearly $1.4 million in unpaid state taxes. -- That David Harmer of...

"Three months ago, Andrew Breitbart offered a $100,000 reward for anyone who could produce evidence of racial slurs being hurled at Rep. John Lewis and Rep. Andre Carson on March 20, 2010. Finally, three months later, the Congressional Black Caucus has responded to Breitbart's $100,000 Challenge." Watch the video.

Last night, MSNBC aired a Chris Matthews special, labeled a documentary, called The Rise of the New Right. I decided to take a quick break from my radical right wing extremist acts like bitterly clinging to my guns and my Bible, whilst fiendishly drawing devil horns on Obama photos, to watch it. I know. Apparently, I’m a glutton for punishment. However, while absolutely infuriating, it was simultaneously hilarious and almost took my mind off the distressing shortage of windmills in this country. Almost immediately, two things became rather apparent. Firstly, MSNBC’s NewSpeak definition of “documentary” is evidently “blatant fallacies and...

The first response to publicist Maria Sliwa's e-mail queries to news organizations about whether they would like to receive a review copy of ``The Manchurian President: Barack Obama's Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists'' came back from a reporter at the Christian Science Monitor. The answer was ``no.'' But it wasn't just ``no.'' The reporter called the book by journalist-author-WABC radio host Aaron Klein and researcher Brenda J. Elliott - at the time embargoed and thus unread - a name for toilet paper I'd rather not print. Reflexively, Sliwa hit the delete button (thus losing the reporter's name...

Helen Thomas retired today, leaving behind a 50+ year career in the White House Press Corps in disgrace. Her retirement comes after remarks made last week in which she said that the Jews should all get out of Israel and go back to Poland and Germany. For most Conservatives, Helen’s statement last week did not come as much of a shock. Her frequent anti-Semitic questions and unabashed liberalism have been evident for years to anyone who bothered to pay attention, and was most famously called out by the late Bush Press Secretary Tony Snow, in which after a particularly biased...

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is being urged to monitor "hate speech" on talk radio and cable broadcast networks. A coalition of more than 30 organizations argue in a letter to the FCC that the Internet has made it harder for the public to separate the facts from bigotry masquerading as news. The groups also charge that syndicated radio and cable television programs "masquerading as news" use hate as a profit model.

Is there anything a journalist cannot or will not twist to bring the topic back to how life would be so much better if only not for that awful George W. Bush? On Tuesday's CBS Evening News, with the help of the Washington Post's Sally Quinn, Sharyl Attkisson managed to blame news, that Al and Tipper Gore are separating, on how they never got over being denied the presidency despite winning the popular vote in 2000. If only Bush hadn't taken it from them. Attkisson recalled “it's been ten years since that oddly public passionate kiss at the Democratic...

A year ago today, print journalism in Mid-Michigan changed drastically. The Flint Journal, Saginaw News and the Bay City Times started printing three days a week instead of seven. The papers have since added one more day, but some longtime readers want more. There is always one constant with change: some simply don't like it. "I'm kinda old school," said one man. The three newspapers shifted their focus to online content when deciding to reduce printing days. Colette Weier is a Flint Journal reader. "I remember having the Flint Journal since I was able to read. It's always been a...

The Marxist in the White House has already taken big steps toward nationalizing the banking, insurance, automobile, and healthcare industries. Federal foot-dragging over protecting the coast from the Gulf oil spill could be motivated by a desire to have as many oil-coated pelicans as possible on the evening news as a prelude to nationalization of the energy sector. What else would be at the top of a communist's list of takeovers if not the very media that installed him in power? Mark Tapscott reports on the Federal Trade Commission's working paper on "reinventing journalism," an initiative intended to transform the...

INSKEEP: A male student standing nearby says feel free to talk. I'm not a Jamiati, not one of the conservatives. Fasal tells a story then about the day when boys and girls played a game of truth or dare. Conservative students grabbed two players and beat them. Ms. FASAL: (Foreign language spoken) Unidentified Woman #2: After that incident, she has been very careful. INSKEEP: What do you want to do when you graduate? Unidentified Woman #2: (Foreign language spoken) Ms. FASAL: (Foreign language spoken) INSKEEP: She's not sure - maybe teach, maybe go into the media. For now, getting through...

This whole fiasco boils down to three parts: 1.) Tea Party-backed Rand Paul needs to win the Senate seat, not engage in philospohical debates - at least not now. Do that later after the seat is won (which it will be). Why will it be won, regardless of the hit job on Rand Paul? Because most people saw the establishment media pouncing on him simultaneously like a well organized machine - from both the left and the right - and they know that they were out to get him. 2.) Rand Paul himself has said that he is personally against...

The use of a state-run media to prop up the State* has always been a hallmark of Marxist regimes. The Obama administration regime is only the latest in a long line of those who use the state to spread lies and falsehoods that are so obviously contradictions of the truth that they become almost laughable, at least at first. Eventually, the lie is repeated so often that the majority of people begin to believe it to be the truth. That process has started in regards to Obama’s lackluster response to the British Petroleum (BP) oil spill in the Gulf of...

Unsurprisingly, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham bowed deeply to New Yorker editor David Remnick and his new book on their agreed-upon hero, Barack Obama: "envy gives way to admiration" of Remnick’s skills, he wrote in his "Top of the Week" commentary in the magazine. Meacham hyped the notion that when asked about the "racial component of the opposition," Obama told Remnick "I tend to be fairly forgiving about the anxiety that people feel about change."

Let me see if I get this right... The AP article says that the Heritage Foundation, Nixon and the GOP were for the individual mandate in the past. They say that the GOP was for the mandate as an alternative to HillaryCare in 1994. They then bring up Mitt Romney recently being for the individual mandate. First of all, I didn't see a run down of just how many in the GOP supported the individual mandate in 1994. Secondly, they don't show how many of them are still in office after that. Third, to not list who in the GOP...

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, Karl Rove, was called the architect by President George W. Bush, the architect of Bush's successful reelection campaign. A critical bestselling book about Rove used the nickname "Bush's brain," and described Rove as the co-president. In the Washington Post, reporters Peter Baker and Michael Fletcher describe Rove as, quote, "the primary author of President Bush's two successful national campaigns and perhaps the most influential and controversial presidential strategist of his generation," unquote. Karl Rove ran George W. Bush's campaigns beginning with his run for governor of Texas. Rove served as senior...

Words matter. They speak volumes about issues. So when individuals or groups try to change the words associated with a heated political issue, take note and take care. The folks at National Public Radio understand the power of words. Managing Editor David Sweeney announced yesterday that the station would no longer refer to people in the abortion debate as "pro-choice" and "pro-life." Instead, the station will say "abortion rights advocates" and "abortion rights opponents," according to a memo circulated to NPR staff. In making this change, NPR is shifting the terms of the debate to make it more friendly to...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama has nominated the sister of National Public Radio legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg (TOH'-ten-burgh) for a federal judgeship. Obama on Wednesday tapped Amy Totenberg for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. She has been in private practice and has served as an arbitrator in Atlanta since 2000.

According to Toyota, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, ABC's report on potential acceleration problems shows the tachometer at 6,000 RPM when evidence of the vehicle shows it is in park. ABC has replaced the video (never a good sign). Further, this story involves a manipulation of the electronics in question. Toyota's counter offensive came on the same day an out of control Prius was stopped with help from police on a San Diego freeway. Whether or not Toyota product has rapid acceleration problems is becoming the "Elvis sightings" equivalent of the automotive industry. As such, it could be...

About a week before the 2008 election, Tom Brokaw sat in front of Charlie Rose on PBS stating we really don’t know much about Barack Obama. The two then exchanged back and forth all the things the mainstream media failed to ask Obama or dig up as we headed into the election just a few days later. This was the sad assessment of the state of the media and its bias leading into election day. The mainstream media failed to report on Obama’s college days, his birth certificate, his drug use, his associations with Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Frank Marshall...

AVLON: Well, the theme of this conference, below the podium and in the seminar rooms, is 'saving freedom,' and that's certainly how the participants view this. They believe themselves to be saving freedom, fighting against socialism...while they can build a bridge to independents on the issue of fiscal conservatism...if you try to extend that and then say it's a fight against socialism, which is the general consensus right now, that seems like a bridge too far. This is a group of people, when they say 'saving freedom,' they're confusing, at heart, losing an election with living under tyranny. That's a...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- As bad as the government's jobs readings numbers have been during the Great Recession, we'll soon find out the real situation likely was worse. Much worse. Job losses during the recession may have been underestimated by close to a million jobs. So instead of employers cutting just over 7 million jobs from their payrolls since the economic downturn began in December 2007, it's expected that the Labor Department's new estimate will be a loss of 8 million jobs. "It's an enormous understatement of the severity of the crisis," said Heidi Shierholz, labor economist with the Economic...

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather called on President Barack Obama to form a White House commission to help save the press Tuesday night in an impassioned speech at the Aspen Institute. “I personally encourage the president to establish a White House commission on public media,” the legendary newsman said. Such a commission on media reform, Rather said, ought to make recommendations on saving journalism jobs and creating new business models to keep news organizations alive. At stake, he argued, is the very survival of American democracy.

Anita Dunn may be gone from the White House but her successor feels the same way she did about Fox News. From TVNewser The White House has a new communications director -- Dan Pfeiffer -- but the message is the same when it comes to Fox News Channel. During a video interview today with The New York Times' The Caucus blog, Pfeiffer was clear about the White House position on Fox News: "I have the same view of Fox that Anita [Dunn] had, which is that Fox is not a traditional news organization. They have a point of view. That...

Independent voters in Massachusetts are an unpredictable breed and downright ornery when times are bad. On Tuesday, they will determine who will be the state’s next US senator in a race too close to call, capturing the nation’s attention because the fate of a national health care overhaul hangs in the balance. Termed unenrolled voters because they are not affiliated with a party, independents constitute a majority of the registered voters in the state. Republicans, outnumbered by Democrats by more than 3 to 1, need to capture a huge majority of independents and a slice of moderate and conservative Democrats...

Reality intrudes... on the Democrat-media bubble. Adam Nagourney in The New York Times: As Mr. Obama prepares to come here on Sunday to campaign for the party’s beleaguered Senate candidate, Martha Coakley, Democrats across the country are starting to wonder aloud if they misjudged the electorate over the last year, with profound ramifications for the midterm elections this year and, potentially, for Mr. Obama’s presidency. Pity the poor Democrats. It's so easy to "misjudge" when you read The New York Times and The Boston Globe.

RUSH: America's Truth Detector and the Doctor of Democracy. Yes, ladies and gentlemen. I'm checking the e-mail during the break: "Are you gonna talk about the Fruit of Kaboom Bomber?" That's what we're going to call the guy. Yeah we're going to call about the Fruit of Kaboom Bomber and Obama and all of this stuff. But everybody is curious about my medical circumstances last week and I wanted to thank everybody involved in treating me and all of you for the tremendous response I got from all of you. The whole thing was actually an upper as it turned...