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This incredible revelation came to light in a letter Monday from Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thompson to a number of news organizations. It was a response to a NY Times article by David Carr entitled “Under Murdoch, Tilting Rightward at the Journal.” Carr's somewhat snarky article accused the Journal of tainting its reputation as “one of the crown jewels of journalism” into a more mundane conservative newspaper and that it was assuming a pro-business, anti government stance. The Times accusing the Journal of sullying its reputation with biased journalism??? What chutzpah! The Journal’s response was quoted in Editor...

... [U]nder Mr. Murdoch’s leadership, the [WSJ] is no longer anchored by those deep dives into the boardrooms of American business with quaint stippled portraits, opting instead for a much broader template of breaking general interest news articles with a particular interest in politics and big splashy photos. [...] But there are growing indications that Mr. Murdoch, a lifelong conservative, doesn’t just want to cover politics, he wants to play them as well. A little over a year ago, Robert Thomson, The Journal’s top editor, picked Gerard Baker, a columnist for The Times of London, as his deputy managing editor....

I apologize for posting my own article on here, but I thought you all would enjoy reading it. Via Conservatives4Palin comes this article at the Wall Street Journal (of all places), about Arizona Senator (and the GOP’s presidential nominee last year) John McCain’s appearance on MSNBC’s “Meet the Press” earlier today. The article is yet another prime example of how the media purposefully distort comments made by conservatives, to manufacture controversies meant to weaken the entire conservative movement. The WSJ’s Stephen Power writes that McCain first praised his former running mate Sarah Palin, after which he proceeded to insult her...

A new record high in the price of gold and fresh speculation of an increase in Australian interest next week are pushing the dollar lower, with the euro making another attempt to break over $1.50. Spot gold touched a fresh record high of $1180.10 per troy ounce and, at 0730 GMT, was trading at $1177.85, up $7.55 from the New York close. “In the runup to Thanksgiving it would appear the desire to lock in profit is still not greater than that to accumulate new long positions,” said Barclays Capital in a research note.

"Magic Mirror on the Wall, who is the fairest one of all?" was uttered by the wicked Queen in the 1937 Walt Disney animated movie 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.' Do you remember that poignant little snippet from the movie that became a childhood classic for generations? The nation did not necessarily embrace the evil Queen as a hero but some were on the edge of their seats wondering if the truth or the continued lie would ever come out. The question which many have speculated over was whether or not this movie's focus on the dark side of...

Honduras, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya says he has pulled out of a deal struck to end the country's political crisis. Speaking to local radio Friday, Zelaya said the deal with the interim government led by President Roberto Micheletti was off as far as he was concerned, The Wall Street Journal reported. "This deal is dead. The other side has failed to uphold their end," Zelaya reportedly said. Under the terms of the deal, a government of national unity would be created and the Honduran Congress would be allowed to determine if Zelaya could return to...

David Checketts, an investor and owner of sports teams, approached me in late May about investing in the St. Louis Rams football franchise. As a football fan, I was intrigued. I invited him to my home where we discussed it further. Even after informing him that some people might try to make an issue of my participation, Mr. Checketts said he didn't much care. I accepted his offer.

<p>NEW YORK (AP) - The Wall Street Journal has surpassed USA Today as the top-selling daily newspaper in the United States.</p> <p>The Audit Bureau of Circulations won't be releasing its latest figures until Oct. 26, but the Journal said Wednesday that it gained about 12,000 subscribers in the April-September period, compared with a year earlier. That puts its average Monday-Friday circulation at 2.02 million.</p>

According to circulation records released Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal, the paper has surpassed USA Today for the top spot. It reports the average number of copies sold in the April to September period reached 2.02 million, up about 12,000 from the same period the year before. Wall Street Journal Becomes Top-Selling Newspaper

Jan. 20, 2010 When American diplomats sat down for the first in a series of face-to-face talks with their Iranian counterparts last October in Geneva, few would have predicted that what began as a negotiation over Tehran's nuclear programs would wind up in a stunning demand by the Security Council that Israel give up its atomic weapons. Yet that's just what the U.N. body did this morning, in a resolution that was as striking for the way member states voted as it was for its substance. All 10 nonpermanent members voted for the resolution, along with permanent members Russia, China...

Yesterday, Rep. Mark Kirk offered a great illustration of the relationship between ACORN and SEIU. A part of that chart is worthy of a further look: The relatively unknown story of how SEIU and ACORN took their act from Illinois Southward to mess with Texas and allegedly threatened to kill one man’s business because he wouldn’t toe the union line. Most people know that unions haven’t done as well in the South as in industrialized (and economically troubled) Northern states such as Illinois and Michigan. So, in 2006 SEIU decided it would bring its brand of “justice for janitors” to...

Washington, DC -- The Wall St. Journal is the latest mainstream media outlet to confirm what pro-life advocates have been saying for months. It has acknowledged that the House version of the government-run health care plan allows for taxpayer financing of abortions.

Palin Wins: If she's dim and Obama is brilliant, how did he lose the argument to her? By JAMES TARANTO The first we heard about Sarah Palin's "death panels" comment was in a conversation last Friday with an acquaintance who was appalled by it. Our interlocutor is not a Democratic partisan but a high-minded centrist who deplores extremist rhetoric whatever the source. We don't even know if he has a position on ObamaCare. From his description, it sounded to us as though Palin really had gone too far. A week later, it is clear that she has won the debate....

Business is being reshaped around the world. China was miffed by the outcome of what we last year called the corporate "deal of the century." But shareholder interests prevailed. How often will that be said in the future? Politics, that ugly dynamic when mixed with business, was already back in play last week as Rio Tinto, an Australian mining giant at the heart of the controversy, saw four of its Chinese executives arrested in Shanghai on spying charges. China says the busts are not retribution for the cancelled deal between Rio and a state-owned company, which received angry press in...

This story about investing in gold (hat tip NG) that appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal's Personal Journal section is ground-breaking in many ways, the most important of which is that it paints today's financial advisers as being just about the dumbest guys in the room. You can get the entire front page of the Personal Journal in .pdf form here(http://online.wsj.com/documents/print/WSJ_-D001-20090709.pdf). Fortunately, the article itself is in the free area of the online Journal. Why is this ground-breaking? First, it's in the Personal Journal section, not the Money & Investing section and, while they've had similar...

Stan Liebowitz took on this question in a study he headed and he summarized his results today in the Wall Street Journal. He makes this simple conclusion: more than anything no or negative equity caused the burgeoning foreclosure crisis.

Nassim Taleb is an unlikely choice to play the Jimmy Stewart role in a 21st-century remake of the Depression-era classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington [1]. But the tale of a naive do-gooder who tries to remind a corrupt political class of its obligations was re-enacted this week when Taleb attended the Wall Street Journal's Future of Finance conference in Washington, D.C. A French- and Arabic-speaking former options trader with a taste for obscure Greek philosophers and the ambition to be seen as a literary figure, Taleb has grown famous for his book The Black Swan [2], which has sold...

http://www.examiner.com/x-2782-DC-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m3d7-Wall-Street-Journal-lapses-into-newspeak-when-it-comes-to-guns SNIP "U.S. law-enforcement officials have seen a spike in heavy-caliber rifles heading to Mexico. A World News article Saturday incorrectly quoted William D. Newell of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives describing a spike in machine guns. "Machine gun" is a technical term for a classification of a firearm that doesn't describe the type of weapon he was referring to." This correction was printed on page 2 of the Wall Street Journal on March 5, 2009, and made me feel like I had slipped into an Orwellian world of “newspeak.” You know, the language being promoted...

An article in Friday’s Wall Street Journal says exactly what so many in the media have thought, but what so few have been willing to say. “Barack Obama has turned fearmongering into an art form, “ the Journal opined. “He has repeatedly raised the specter of another Great Depression.” “…In his remarks, every gloomy statistic on the economy becomes a harbinger of doom. As he tells it, today’s economy is the worst since the Great Depression. Without his Recovery and Reinvestment Act, he says, the economy will fall back into that abyss and may never recover.” “This fearmongering...

January 21, 2009 # Note: The following text is a quote: http://knoxville.fbi.gov/pressrel/2009/kx012109.htm Suspicious White Powder Letters Postmarked from Knoxville Received in New York and Massachusetts On Wednesday January 21, approximately 13 powder-laden envelopes were received at the office of the Wall Street Journal in New York City. The letters reportedly bear a Knoxville, Tennessee postmark. New York City Police Department's Emergency Services Unit and the FBI responded to the scene and are testing the letters to determine whether they contain a hazardous substance. An additional letter was also received today at Harvard Law School addressed to Alan Dershowitz. This letter...

Remember Wade Sanders? He was one of the "band of brothers"--Swift Boat veterans who supported John Kerry's presidential campaign and appeared onstage at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Sanders was one of Kerry's nastiest surrogates. In August 2004, he likened the president to a "trapped animal." In September, he compared Karl Rove and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth chief John O'Neill to Josef Goebbels. He repeatedly referred to the president and his men as "chicken hawks," an especially nasty term because it is slang for a child molester as well as a derisive term for a nonveteran who favors a...

New York Giants star receiver Plaxico Burress is facing a mandatory 3½ years in prison and the end of his football career. His crime? Not having a license, which New York City never would have issued him, for the exercise of his constitutional right to bear arms. ...And then there is the issue of the permitting process for residents. In 40 states, including Connecticut, law-abiding adults are issued permits once they pass a fingerprint-based background check and a safety class. In New Jersey, carry permits are virtually never issued. In New York City, carry permits are issued, but to applicants...

Left to their own devices, most Americans can work these differences out in politics much as they do in their everyday lives, as untidy as these solutions may be. Unfortunately, when the courts short-circuit this process, they do three things corrosive to our politics. First, they act as dishonest referees, imposing one set of preferences over another. Second, they cheat the American people of an honest political contest, where candidates need to persuade the people of their views to put them into effect. Ed Whelan, a former Justice Department official who now runs the D.C.-based Ethics and Public Policy Center,...

Here is the article from Bloomberg.

All eyes are on Tuesday. For the GOP, the real question is Wednesday. That's the day the party will survey the damage of the 2008 election, and have to decide what it wants to be. Even if John McCain pulls out a win, the Grand Old Party will be in trouble. Contrary to recent liberal pronouncements, the conservative movement is not dead. But the GOP response to Tuesday will determine how long it remains on life support. The GOP's problems are a result of a failure of action, not of philosophy. Everything, including this election, shows we remain a center-right...

The most basic explanation for why Barack Obama may win next Tuesday is that voters want economic deliverance. The standard fix for this in politics everywhere is to crowbar the old party out and patch in the other one. It is true as well that the historic nature of the nation's first African-American candidacy would play a big role. Push past the historic candidacy, however, and one sees something even larger at stake in this vote. One sees what Joe (The Plumber) Wurzelbacher saw. The real "change" being put to a vote for the American people in 2008 is not...

The abuse being heaped on Sarah Palin is such a cheap shot. The complaint against the Alaska governor, at its most basic, is that she doesn't qualify for admission to the national political fraternity. Boy, that's rich. Behold the shabby frat house that says it's above her pay grade. (snip) The stoning of Sarah Palin has exposed enough cultural fissures in American politics to occupy strategists full-time until 2012. We now see there is a left-to-right elite centered in New York, Washington, Hollywood and Silicon Valley who hand down judgments of the nation's mortals from their perch atop the Bell...

The proposed U.S. financial bailout scheme is a dreadful mistake that could plunge the country into an economic abyss for years and will only reward the people who brought the financial system to the brink of disaster, says famed investor Jim Rogers. "It's the wrong approach," Mr. Rogers said yesterday while huffing through a lengthy morning workout on an exercise bike in a downtown Toronto hotel. "This has never worked in history. Other approaches have worked, which they're ignoring. Part of the problem is these guys don't know any history. "All they know is, Goldman Sachs is on the phone...

If Barack Obama loses the presidential election, it may well be the result of a public perception that he is detached and elitist -- a politician whose expressions of empathy for hard-working Americans stem more from abstract solidarity than a real connection to the lives of millions of citizens. Suggestions that Sen. Obama has failed to relate to working- and middle-class voters in swing states have dogged his campaign for months. His choice of Sen. Joseph Biden as his running mate only marginally corrects the problem. While Obama supporters attempt to dismiss the charges about their candidate's perceived hauteur, they...

I understand the rough and tumble of politics. But Barack Obama -- the supposedly postpartisan, postracial candidate of hope and change -- has gone where few modern candidates have gone before. Mr. Obama's campaign is now trafficking in prejudice of its own making. And in doing so, it is playing with political dynamite. What kind of potential president would let his campaign knowingly extract two incomplete, out-of-context lines from two radio parodies and build a framework of hate around them in order to exploit racial tensions? The segregationists of the 1950s and 1960s were famous for such vile fear-mongering. Here's...

Note: Brian Fitzpatrick contributed to this articleThis past Tuesday (Sept. 9), The Wall Street Journal allowed a homosexual activist to criticize GOP “gay-bashing” on the top of its op-ed page – but didn’t let readers know the author has a dog in the fight. In his lengthy article, “The GOP Should Kiss Gay-Bashing Goodbye,” James Kirchick is identified simply as “assistant editor of The New Republic.” But Mr. Kirchick is not just another opinion writer. Kirchick was named the 2007 Journalist of the Year by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA). In 2006, he won the NLGJA’s Excellence...

The exploding interest in Sen. John McCain's campaign, fueled in part by the addition of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to the ticket, has his staff scrambling to expand events. A loosely organized and sometimes ad hoc approach to campaigning has been part of Sen. McCain's political persona. But after he announced his running mate two weeks ago, thousands have been attending the rallies that have replaced Sen. McCain's intimate town-hall meetings. The campaign is expanding the number of Pennsylvania offices to 30 from 14, and its Ohio offices to more than 35 from 18. The formerly lean McCain campaign and...

** EXCERPT ** "Sarah Palin is in the crucible of national politics. Just as sunlight through a magnifying glass becomes concentrated to a burning intensity, so too will the media's focus either destroy Mrs. Palin or strengthen her to a tempered resolve. Her Wednesday evening speech is David's stone flung at the liberal establishment's Goliath. If she delivers, we will soon be speaking of 'Palinism' politics and the era of the 'Palinites.'" -- Jim Sever "I don't think the lower 48 media pack will faze Governor Palin one bit. Sparring with them will be a piece of cake for someone...

Things are supposed to be looking rosy for Democrats this November. But in case Barack Obama loses the Presidency, an excuse is all ready to go: America's too racist to elect a black man. Not even, in his Vice Presidential pick Joe Biden's inimitable description, one so "articulate and bright and clean." This narrative has gained traction with the Democratic Presidential candidate's recent setbacks in the polls. We hear it from the convention crowd in Denver and liberals in the press. The older, poorer, white, often Hillary voter who sounds ambivalent about the Obama coronation is an enticing scapegoat.

Springfield, Ill. -- Barack Obama used his first joint appearance with his vice presidential nominee, Sen. Joseph Biden, to push a more populist economic message, emphasizing his running mate's blue-collar roots and painting Republican Sen. John McCain as out of touch. (Text of Speech) "This working class kid from Scranton and Wilmington has always been a friend to the underdog," Sen. Obama said of Sen. Biden, of Delaware, to the 35,000 people gathered outside the Old State Capital, the same site where he declared his candidacy 19 months ago. The two men plan to take a tour of economically-stressed...

The editorial page of the Wall Street Journal has long been an indispensable voice of conservatism. As President Bush said in 2003 in awarding the Medal of Freedom to editorial page editor Robert L. Bartley shortly before his death, he—and by extension his editorial page—has been "a champion of free markets, individual liberty and the values necessary for a free society." But there is one area in which the editorial page's policy diverges strikingly from conservative orthodoxy, and that is on the matter of immigration. To varying degrees, the paper's editorialists have inveighed in favor of a more flexible attitude...

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...

Excerpt - The Wall Street Journal's Web site, WSJ.com, will keep a significant portion of its content behind its paid-subscription wall, News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said Thursday. Speculation that News Corp. would make WSJ.com a completely free site had been rife in recent months, since Mr. Murdoch had signaled he was contemplating lifting the subscription wall. Mr. Murdoch had indicated that lifting the pay wall could broaden the Journal's online audience and boost its Web advertising revenue, offsetting any loss in subscription revenues. ~ snip ~

Excerpt - Murdoch's Dow opens Web Journal to some free access LONDON, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Dow Jones & Co has begun opening access to previously paid-for online Wall Street Journal content just weeks after the $5.6 billion buyout by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp (NWSa.N: Quote, Profile, Research). An item in the Wall Street Journal Europe newspaper on Thursday said the company has rolled out a new Web site offering free access to all its editorials and opinion columns. Core news content remains a subscription service. The move represents one of the first tangible signs of how Murdoch is putting...

Mitt Romney loves data and lusts after process. In a recent cover profile in The Weekly Standard by the magazine's Fred Barnes, Mr. Romney is portrayed as the man who would be the CEO of America. Says Mr. Barnes, quoting Mr. Romney, a Harvard M.B.A.: "His idea of the perfect deal is not when one side wins but when 'you find a new alternative that everybody agrees is the right way to go. That doesn't always happen.' " Indeed. Mr. Barnes says Mr. Romney's "approach to government is not ideological." A Romney adviser is quoted as saying of his candidate:...

Excerpt - Washington - A Pakistani businessman suspected of playing a role in the 2002 brutal killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl died earlier this year, shortly after being interrogated by US and Pakistani intelligence, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Pearl, a Karachi-based correspondent for the Journal, was kidnapped on January 23 2002, and killed execution-style shortly after. The newspaper said Karachi businessman Saud Memon became a key suspect in the case because he owned a nursery where Pearl had been held captive. Citing an unnamed senior US law enforcement official, the report said Memon was interrogated by...

Rupert Murdoch, who is set to complete his $5 billion takeover of Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones, says he wants to move the newspaper beyond its financial core and target mainstream competitors such as the New York Times. Speaking at a conference in San Francisco on Wednesday night, the News Corp. chief said: “We have a lot of plans and a lot of ideas that need to be refined. But I want to improve it in every way – in what it does now in finance to start with, but I also want to add more national and international...

Justin Logan is a foreign policy analyst a member of the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy. Former White House chief of staff Andrew Card famously remarked that the reason the White House ramped up the case for the Iraq War in September was that "from a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." To judge from recent developments, Americans may look back on August 2007 as the month the country again turned toward war—with Iran. The same network of think-tank analysts, media outlets, and government officials who brayed for war in Iraq have set their...

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — A top Democratic fundraiser wanted as a fugitive in California turned himself in Friday to face a grand theft charge. A judge in San Mateo County Superior Court ordered Norman Hsu handcuffed and held on $2 million bond. A bail hearing was scheduled for Sept. 5, at which the judge will consider reducing his bail to $1 million. Hsu appeared in court here Friday following reports that he had skipped his sentencing on a 1991 grand theft charge. In the ensuing years, he became a top donor to numerous Democratic candidates, including presidential contenders Hillary Rodham...

When children get lost in a mall, they're supposed to find a "low-risk adult" to help them. Guidelines issued by police departments and child-safety groups often encourage them to look for "a pregnant woman," "a mother pushing a stroller" or "a grandmother." The implied message: Men, even dads pushing strollers, are "high-risk." Are we teaching children that men are out to hurt them? The answer, on many fronts, is yes. Child advocate John Walsh advises parents to never hire a male babysitter. Airlines are placing unaccompanied minors with female passengers rather than male passengers. Soccer leagues are telling male coaches...

LONDON (Reuters) - News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch has said he might make the Wall Street Journal's Web site free, a shift that could compel Britain's Pearson to do the same with the online version of its Financial Times. Numis Securities analyst Lorna Tilbian said any move by Murdoch to make wsj.com free has to put pressure on Pearson, while Dresdner Kleinwort's Usman Ghazi estimates a potential hit of up to six percent on earnings per share. "You can resist if you don't want growth," Tilbian said. Wsj.com is one of the Web's most successful subscription businesses with a $99...

In reference to the liberal New York Times' publisher, the new owner of the Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch, said in a recent interview reported by Editor and Publisher, "I won’t meddle any more than Arthur Sulzberger does…. I just think The Journal needs a little more urgency.� According to the report, there may be some changes at the venerable newspaper under its pending new leadership. "We have lots of decisions to make,� Murdoch said. "How much should we really spend developing the Saturday paper? What should we do digitally? Should we remain subscription-based on the Web, or should we...

The sale of the Wall Street Journal isn’t the end of the world.Help, the sky is falling! So say the pro-regulation media agitators at Free Press, which fired off what is sure to be the first of many hysteria-ridden press releases about Rupert Murdoch’s successful acquisition of the Wall Street Journal and its parent company, Dow Jones & Co. “This takeover is bad news for anyone who cares about quality journalism and a healthy democracy,” argued Robert W. McChesney, president of Free Press. “Giving any single company—let alone one controlled by Rupert Murdoch—this much media power is unconscionable.” The argument...

Many on the left regard Rupert Murdoch, architect of the rise of Fox News Channel, as the anti-Christ. More accurately, Murdoch deserves the title of the anti-Pinch. Murdoch's successful bid to take over Dow Jones & Company, publisher of Wall Street Journal, is a nightmare-come-true for Pinch Sulzberger, the hereditary occupant of the chairman of the board's and publisher's office at the New York Times. Poor Pinch. Murdoch is everything that he is not. Conservative, smart, and wildly successful in the media business. As a result, Pinch faces serious challenges as a family member, business leader and corporate strategist....

Excerpt - Rupert Murdoch's courtship of the Bancroft family appears to have triumphed, with enough shares pledged to make News Corp. the owner of the newspaper whose Web site you are now reading. Readers are naturally asking how this will change the journalism we practice. Our sincere answer is that we intend to stand for the same principles and standards we have for more than a hundred years. The Bancrofts have been wonderful stewards of The Wall Street Journal for a century, and we are grateful for the support they have provided for our brand of independent journalism. They are...