Free Republic

When Barack Obama promised to deliver "a new kind of politics" to Washington, most folk didn't picture Rahm Emanuel with a baseball bat...What is a little novel is the public and bare-knuckle way in which the Obama team is waging these campaigns...In recent weeks the Windy City gang added a new name to their list of societal offenders: the Chamber of Commerce. For the cheek of disagreeing with Democrats on climate and financial regulation, it was reported the Oval Office will neuter the business lobby. Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett warned CEOs they'd be wise to seek better protection. That was...

I was reading the Chron’s piece about Sheila Jackson Lee’s town hall, when something caught my eye: One supporter, Dr. Roxana Mayer, a physician who does not live in Jackson Lee’s district, praised the reform plan for overhauling a broken system. “I don’t know what there is in the bill that creates such panic,” she said. In this video, Mayer claims to be a general practitioner, eliciting applause and even a hug from Queen Sheila: I’m not sure why, but something didn’t smell right. So my colleagues and I did a little digging, and wouldn’t you know it? Roxana Mayer...

Back in 2008, New York Times correspondent David S. Rohde, along with Afghan reporter Taki Luden, were abducted in Pakistan by the Taliban. Because they felt it might adversely affect hostage rescue efforts, the Times requested a news black-out. The Associated Press and other news agencies respected the request and only broke the story recently, after Rohde and Luden had scaled a wall and made their escape. It would be nothing other than a story with a happy ending, except that the Times has time and again ignored the government’s requests that it not report the specific ways in which...

Author’s note: On May 24th, the start of the Memorial Day weekend, I sent the protest reproduced below to the Pulitzer Prize Committee. If Boycott NYT readers also find this award outrageous, the Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism is Nicholas Lemann (lemann@columbia.edu). The address: Columbia School of Journalism, 2950 Broadway, NY, NY 10027. My journalistic colleagues (and there really are some good ones though most are even older than me!) characterize the Pulitzer Committee as “stubborn as mules and dumber than rocks.” The reason: the committee never acknowledges a mistake or rescinds an award, no matter how egregious...

When Dublin university student Shane Fitzgerald posted a poetic but phony quote on Wikipedia, he was testing how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news. His report card: Wikipedia passed. Journalism flunked. The sociology major's obituary-friendly quote-which he added to the Wikipedia page of Maurice Jarre hours after the French composer's death March 28-flew straight on to dozens of U.S. blogs and newspaper Web sites in Britain, Australia and India. They used the fabricated material, Fitzgerald said, even though administrators at the free online encyclopedia twice caught the quote's lack of...

Recently a 'Community activist' (AKA Pain in the A**) in the city of Boston named Sadiki Cambone, brought a set of pictures purporting to be of our service men raping Iraqi women to the Boston City Council. Much like John Kerry this Sadiki Cambone throws aroundhis service in the militaryto prove his alleged patriotism, all the while undermining our troops at every opportunity. The Boston Glob(e) published these pictures as being genuine without bothering to verify them.As it turns out the pictures actually come from a fetish porn site of men in camouflage having sex with porn actress. On todays...

The Boston Globe today tried to distance itself from its admitted error in publishing pornographic photos fraudulently depicting the rape of Iraqi women by American GIs by blaming the city councilor who distributed the pictures at a press conference. In an editorial, the paper admitted for the first time the photos were "bogus" and "appeared" to be taken from a porn site, but in a separate article, the Globe's ombudsman claims she still has failed to discover the source of the photos and still has not confirmed or denied their veracity to readers. The photographs – uncovered by WorldNetDaily as...

<p>THE RECENT actions of Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner were reckless and inflammatory. With no regard for truth or consequences, Turner unveiled graphic photographs at a Tuesday press conference, suggesting that the images portrayed the rape of Iraqi women by US soldiers. The display was an all-time low for a member of the City Council. Turner, now in his third term, used twisted logic to justify the photo array. While stopping short of claiming authenticity, Turner argued that "the American people have a right and responsibility to see the pictures" in light of recent revelations regarding abuse of Iraqi prisoners.</p>

As you may have heard, the Boston Globe published, as real, fake pictures purporting to show American soldiers in Iraq gang-raping Iraqi women. The pictures were actually from a porn website and were staged (not to make any political point, needless to add). The pictures were handed to the Globe by a Boston city councilman, of the Green Party, and a rabble-rouser from the Nation of Islam (the American "Black Muslim" group). The Globe published this lame retraction: "Editor's note: A photograph on page B2 yesterday did not meet Globe standards for publication. The photo portrayed Boston City Councilor Chuck...

The New York Times Co. said last night that it is notifying federal authorities of its plans to shut down the Boston Globe, raising the possibility that New England's most storied newspaper could cease to exist within weeks. After down-to-the-wire negotiations did not produce millions of dollars in union concessions, the Times Co. said that it will file today a required 60-day notice of the planned shutdown under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification law. The move could amount to a negotiating ploy to extract further concessions from the Globe's unions, since the notice does not require the Times Co....

To all you silly-billies at the Globe - enough already with the groveling. Self-pity is not good box office. Stop weeping into your brandy Alexanders and start looking for a job - a real job. And no, I won’t be at your “Solidarity” rally today at Faneuil Hall. But I can imagine the signs - “In Barney Frank We Trust,” “Viva Fidel, Hugo y Teddy!” and of course, “Hands Off My Trust Fund.” Outside, bowtied bumkissers will be chanting in unison, “Hey hey ho ho, Globe-a-phobia’s got to go.” The Globe union is running buses up from Morrissey Boulevard, a...

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. -- A Justice Department attorney said U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., should be immune from a defamation lawsuit filed by a former Marine from western Pennsylvania. Murtha Essentially, Murtha's attorney said the lawsuit filed in September by Justin Sharratt, of Canonsburg, should be dismissed for the same reasons that a federal appeals court struck down a similar suit by Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, of Meriden, Conn., last week. The court ruled that Murtha couldn't be sued because he was acting within the scope of his employment when he accused Wuterich's squad of killing innocent civilians "in cold blood"...

On April 21, the Business and Media Institute's Dan Gainor testified before the House Judiciary Committee's Courts and Competition Policy in a hearing on "A New Age for Newspapers." As MRC's Tim Graham wrote on April 22, the hearing was spurred by the steady drumbeat of newspaper closings around the country, and calls from some Democrat lawmakers to bail out and subsidize the newspaper business. While others testified on newsprint business models and the impact of the Internet, Gainor's statement to the subcommittee highlighted liberal bias as a major factor in the industry's decline. "The concept of a journalist as...

According to a report in the New York Post the venerable New York Times is much worse off financially than anyone predicted.

Beyonce has officially been cleared of all bad singing charges -- the atrocious supposed "board mix" of her performance on "The Today Show" last year was altered after all. Just as Mathew Knowles told us, the audio clip that many people believed was leaked from "Today" was indeed a fake. In fact, TMZ found the person behind the prank who was surprised it went as far as it did, saying, "It's a little bit crazy. No one in their right mind would sound like that, and no one would cheer for someone singing like that." Apparently, the dude never went...

Retired military analysts are reacting with outrage that the Pulitzer committee awarded one of its prestigious prizes for a story discredited by an independent investigation, special correspondent Rowan Scarborough reports.

Barney Frank's Rental ReversalApril 21, 2009 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Now, we've got a couple Barney Frank spites here. He's always good for a couple sound bites. We thought about getting a Barney Frank translator in here but that would sorta destroy it. I mean, I can do it myself but sometimes it's better to leave Barney Frank un-translated. He was on Tavis Smiley's show, PBS, last night, and Smiley said, "What did you do today relative to low-income housing?" FRANK: One of the causes of the terrible crisis we had over the last few years, which has given us today's...

When new information about Americans who had cooperated with the Soviet KGB began to emerge in the 1990s, no individual case generated as much controversy as that of the journalist I.F. Stone, who had long been installed in the pantheon of left-wing heroes as a symbol of rectitude and a teller of truth to power before his death in 1989.

In 1912 scientists thought they'd discovered the elusive missing link between human and ape. Found in a gravel pit in Piltdown, England, a set of intriguing skull and jaw fragments were later reconstructed by the British Museum into a human-like head with an ape-like jaw. In 1953 it turned out the find wasn't proof of anything—other than the skill of the still anonymous forger. The skull was a medieval human's. The jaw was an orangutan's. And the teeth were a chimp's.

The number of ex-Guantanamo detainees who have gone back to terrorism is much larger than the government is letting on. A senior intelligence official, who has access to some of the country's top secrets, tells HUMAN EVENTS that some Pentagon analysts actually believe 102 former enemy combatants have returned to terror -- not 61 as publicly reported by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). That would mean that of 520 terrorists released from the Guantanamo Bay prison, nearly 20 percent returned to the practice of killing to achieve their radical view of Islam. The number is gaining importance in light of...

Playboy Magazine got its undies in a bundle over the nation wide Tea Party protests held last Friday that were inspired by CNBC's Rick Santelli's free market rant of February 19. As Noel Sheppard noted on March 1, the skin mag published a piece claiming that Santelli was part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to protest Obama's socialist policies. It turns out, however, that the story has been proven false and in response Playboy has mysteriously removed the piece that first raised the question of the grand conspiracy. Happily, the facts have won over on Playboy forcing it to pull...

Senator: Demise of newspapers helps GOP @ 3:12 pm by Hill Staff Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said on Friday that the demise of daily newspapers is helping the Republican Party. Coburn, responding to a question from an attendee about media bias at the Conservative Political Action Conference, said, “The daily newspaper will die.” Coburn added that advances in technology, such as the Internet, Twitter, text messaging, and YouTube, are helping Republicans get their message out because policymakers don’t need to rely on daily newspapers as much as they used to. The conservative senator, who agreed with the assertion that the...

DENVER – Questions about the future of the Rocky Mountain News had become so common, the newspaper's staff put up a handwritten paper sign on the news desk that said, "We don't know." On Thursday, someone wrote over it in heavy black marker: "Now we know." Colorado's oldest newspaper, which launched in Denver in 1859, printed its last edition Friday, leaving The Denver Post as the only daily newspaper in town. Since 2001, the News has shared business operations with The Denver Post in a joint operating agreement between Scripps and The Post's owner, MediaNews Group Inc.

Crisis in the US newspaper industry By Max Deveson BBC News, Washington. If the economic crisis goes on much longer, will there be any newspapers left in the US to write about it? The Chronicle's owners are set to decide whether to shut down the paper America's newspaper industry has been badly hit by the downturn, and a number of titles face closure. The latest casualty is the venerable San Francisco Chronicle, whose owners on Wednesday announced they were planning to cut a "significant" number of jobs to meet cost-cutting targets, and that if the targets are not met, then...

Introduction: ...At the outset of a book chapter describing the 2001 analysis from this project (Paterson, 2005), I asked if media convergence and the migration of news consumers to the Internet democratise information flow - as conventional wisdom suggests - or simply disguise a steady reduction in information diversity. Here I seek to approach the problem more definitively. The hypothesis of reduction of information diversity saw preliminary support from my 1999 and 2001 data, and other academic and industry reports. And so I pose the following hypothesis for testing through longitudinal analysis: In the last five years, international news flow...

A couple of years ago, when speaking to a local group, I mentioned that The Chronicle was losing money. A couple in the back of the room rudely applauded. How thrilled those two must have felt when - if - they learned of Chronicle Publisher Frank Vega's announcement Tuesday that the Hearst Corp. will implement "significant" workforce cuts. If the cuts don't pay off, then the Hearst Corp. will "offer the newspaper for sale or close it altogether." Bloggers and e-mailers are crowing. If The Chronicle is shuttered, they'll be dancing a jig. Many conservatives feel a warm glow at...

WASHINGTON - Alcalde & Fay partner Vicki Iseman has settled her $27 million defamation lawsuit against The New York Times and several of its reporters. Iseman, a Washington lobbyist, sued the Times over a story published last February during the presidential campaign season that she claimed inaccurately depicted her as having an affair with Republican candidate Sen. John McCain. Iseman says, "I am pleased that The New York Times on behalf of its reporters, editors and company has issued a retraction and clarification." Iseman’s statement continues, "The New York Times, its reporters and editors, should and must be held accountable...

Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award Deadline for Entries: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 Accuracy in Media is currently accepting nominations for the annual Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award, in the Blogger/Online Journalist category. Criteria: Bloggers who have done investigative reporting on issues or stories that have been misreported or ignored by the mainstream press. Preference will be given to entries that have produced results, such as a correction, attention from other blogs or websites, mainstream media coverage, grassroots campaigns, or increased public awareness. Entries must meet the highest standards of factual accuracy, and works under consideration should have been...

Among Democrats, there are two views as to how to pull this off now. The popular view is the one that looks to Bush making mistakes and, perhaps, to an economic downturn that will make swing voters long for the days of Democratic prosperity under Clinton.

Experts are questioning the National Park Service report that 1.8 million people attended the inauguration of President Obama. An estimate using satellite imagery produced Wednesday by intelligence publishing company Jane’s Information Group counted between 1.3 million and 1.7 million in and around the Mall and parade route. Clark McPhail, an expert in crowd counting and professor emeritus at the University of Illinois, said that 1.5 million people spread from the west lawn of the Capitol to the far end of the reflecting pool would have a consistent density equivalent to packing nearly 2,000 people on a basketball court. Maggie Daniels,...

Not west's action or inaction but Arab media incite the Muslim street   The way they report the news not the news as it happens     The "power" of the Arab street You must have heard that before, the Arab street is angry, Muslims are upset, it came to the point that not only European leaders like that of France & others take it so much into consideration because of it's large Muslim population, but it even influences major international bodies like EU, UN and other international forums including political "human rights organizations", to act "accordingly", another aspect of the Islamic inquisition,...

WHEREAS: National television news has failed to tell the truth or perform the function of providing truthful and valid information to the American public; WHEREAS: National television news has failed to inform the American public about vital facts concerning the presidential election and the candidacy of President Barack Hussein Obama; WHEREAS: National television has failed to inform the American public about vital public policy and political questions, specifically, the activities of the Federal Reserve Bank; monetary inflation; national economic policy; and subsidies to corporations and banks; WHEREAS: National television has lied to the American public about the Iraqi War: I...

The AP buried the information after the fifth paragraph, where it would not get picked up by tomorrow’s World News sections in your local newspaper, but they have independent confirmation that Hamas terrorists were firing from the UN school that got hit by Israeli tank fire yesterday. Israel’s military said its shelling at the school - the deadliest single episode since Israeli ground forces invaded Gaza on Saturday after a week of air bombardment - was a response to mortar fire from within the school and said Hamas militants were using civilians as cover. Two residents of the area who...

The Boston Globe said today it will offer buy-outs to all newsroom employees by the end of the month in an effort to cut as many as 50 jobs. In a memo to employees, Globe Editor Martin Baron said, "Our industry is facing unprecedented financial pressures, most recently because of economic conditions that are the worst in many decades. We have had to adjust before to a difficult financial picture, and we now must do it again." Both union and management employees will be eligible for the buy-outs. If too few agree to leave voluntarily, Baron said, the company will...

An obligatory link on a day when she’s ripping “pathetic” smearmongering bloggers in the pages of Esquire and the Trig Truther-in-chief is poised to win Best Blog. She serves: [I]s your paper really still pursuing the sensational lie that I am not Trig’s mother? Is it true you have a reporter still bothering my state office, my very busy doctor (who’s already set the record straight for you), and the school district, in pursuit of your ridiculous conspiracy?…Come on Mr. Doyle and Mr. Dougherty, I so desperately want to have even a tiny bit of faith in the ADN. And...

Now that Barack Obama is assuming the presidency, partisan criticism is suddenly passé. Really, it's all just so churlish, so "yesterday." Just ask Chris Matthews. In the course of cheerleading the MSNBC coverage of Hillary Clinton's confirmation hearing today, Matthews suggested that the media shouldn't cover the Republican National Committee's criticism of Clinton. The comments came during the Hardball host's chat with Newsweek's Jonathan Alter. A few minutes earlier, Matthews had assured us that those who had the privilege of knowing Hillary personally were aware of what a "wonderful" person she is. Then it was time to attack Republicans for...

Vanity Fair editors estimated that McCain's fierce saffron shirt dress with the popped collar, diamond earrings, four-strand pearl necklace, white Chanel watch and strappy shoes totaled up to $313,100. _______________________________________________________ I say do not watse your time reading the lie at the link just provided for verification of the original lie.

H/t Kimberly M. Did the Code Pink members who interrupted John McCain's speech last night use MSNBC press badges to get into the hall? Not according to Code Pink itself, which claims the two women "obtained passes to the convention from disaffected Republicans." Right. There is another much more intriguing explanation out there. According to Shay at Booker Rising, which describes itself a newsite for black moderates and black conservatives [emphasis added]: "I took the shuttle bus back to Minneapolis, and I overheard a convention organizer named Phil telling a convention delegate that the protesters on Wednesday night got through...

September 2, 2008, 10:32 pm Alaska Party Official Says Palin Was Not a Member By The New York Times The chairwoman of an Alaskan political party that advocates a vote on the state’s secession from the union said Tuesday that she had been mistaken when she said Gov. Sarah Palin was a member of the group. A front-page story in The New York Times on Tuesday and articles in other news media reported that Ms. Palin was a member of the Alaska Independence Party for two years in the 1990’s. The information in the Times article was based on a...

Wednesday, August 13, 2008 Obama creates the illusion of Republicans for Obama: scrapes barrel with 2 unknown GOP discards & a NY lib with dodgy friends Democrats for McCain including many of the millions who form part of the Just Say No Deal/ PUMA/ and NoBama coalitions are providing a solid block of support for John McCain. Not to be outdone Obama today, with great media fanfare, announced his Republicans for Obama group. This is another desperate attempt to reassure Democrat super-delegates that Obama is commanding broad support across the country, especially from Republicans who Obama argues would never rally...

A trio of Republicans have defected from their party's likely presidential nominee and kicked off an effort to garner support for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. The group, called Republicans for Obama, is led by two moderate Republicans -- James Leach, a former U.S. representative from Iowa, and Lincoln Chafee, a former U.S. senator from Rhode Island -- along with Rita Hauser, a prominent fund-raiser for President George W. Bush. Their reasons for crossing party lines are diverse, ranging from the war in Iraq to overspending in Washington, and signal unhappiness not just with the candidacy of Republican Sen. John...

Over the past couple years, we’ve noticed a suspicious number of ticket camera editorials by the Orlando Sentinel. After looking more closely, we noticed that nearly every editorial in the Sentinel was strongly in favor of installing ticket cameras. Furthermore, we noticed that nearly every pro-camera article was written by one member of the Sentinel’s Editorial Board, George Diaz.This seemed odd, so we decided to look into it further.After some quick research, we discovered that George Diaz appeared at a symposium held by The National Campaign To Stop Red Light Running in late 2007.As we covered on this blog previously,...

New York Times publishes correction... 48 years late US Navy Airforce Major John McCain lying on a bed in a Hanoi hospital No one can accuse The New York Times of papering over its mistakes. America's most famous newspaper today issued a formal correction to a review of a Broadway production of West Side Story published no less than 48 years ago. In a further sign of just how seriously the newspaper takes its role as a newspaper of record, the "Gray Lady" also confessed that it had wrongly described John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, as a "former fighter...

LOS ANGELES - Local water director Xavier Alvarez was sentenced to three years' probation and fined $5,000 in federal court Monday morning for falsely claiming he was awarded the Medal of Honor. MP3 Audio: Alvarez Medal of Honor claimBefore he was sentenced, Alvarez told Judge R. Gary Klausner that he was "very remorseful" for his false claims of military valor. "I'd like to apologize to everyone in this whole nation," said Alvarez, who represents south Pomona Xavier Alvarez. (Staff photo) on the Three Valleys Municipal Water District board. As part of Alvarez's terms of probation, the court recommended he perform...

Quote: In a handout picture released on the news website of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, four long and medium range missiles rise into the air after being test-fired at an undisclosed location in the Iranian desert on July 9, 2008. Iran today test-fired a missile it said is capable of reaching Israel, angering the United States amid growing fears that the standoff over the contested Iranian nuclear drive could lead to war. G**** Images Hahaha nice Photoshop work If you dont have real pictures fake it

As news spread across the world of Iran’s provocative missile tests, so did an image of four missiles heading skyward in unison. Unfortunately, it appeared to contain one too many missiles, a point that had not emerged before the photo appeared on the front pages of The Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times, The Chicago Tribune and several other newspapers as well as on BBC News, MSNBC, Yahoo! News, NYTimes.com and many other major news Web sites.

At least one of the photographs released today by Iran and published by an unquestioning Western media has been Photoshopped:

Who read Free Republic? Apparently the U.S. Secret Service does!This past weekend, I posted an article alerting the Secret Service that members of the terrorist supporting group Code Pink were using fake presses to gain access to events headlined by Secret Service protectees like presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (AZ).This morning, McCain spoke at the LULAC convention in Washington, D.C. Usually when he speaks at an event in D.C., McCain can expect to have his speech disrupted by Code Pink activists who rush the stage and heckle him from the audience and the press section.That didn't happen today....

How does the pro-terrorist group Code Pink infiltrate closed events where the U.S. Secret Service is in charge of security? One way is with fake press credentials made by a diarist at the Daily Kos.Code Pink has made a habit of infiltrating events and getting close to officials under the protection of the U.S. Secret Service.Yesterday Code Pink member Desiree Farooz rushed the stage and came dangerously close to President Bush at Monticello. The weekend before she rushed John McCain. Last fall she got close enough to Condoleeza Rice to place her hands around the Secrtary of State's head.At the...

First, here is a link to my post yesterday about this article: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2039487/posts To Whom It May Concern: When I first heard that Findlay, OH been chosen for an article by such a prestigious paper like the Washington Post, I was glad for our community to get the exposure. Then I read with disgust the article by Eli Saslow in our local paper. It is obvious to me that Mr. Saslow came to our city with an agenda - one to show how only unenlightened, racists believing wild and untrue stories about the candidate could possibly be against Obama. He...