Free Republic

When Sen. Al Franken, Minnesota Democrat, was a comedian, he was never that funny. Take the title of his book "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot" - that's some high-quality humor there. Clever, daring and yet so second grade. But when Minnesotans elected him to the Senate, Mr. Franken promised that those days were behind him and that he would work hard to win over his colleagues. So far, his presence in the Senate is making it a less civil place. If the old Mr. Franken were to write a book about it, the title might be "Al Franken...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Washington Times says it will publish its last Sunday edition this weekend. The newspaper made the announcement Monday, saying it will produce Monday through Friday editions that focus on its "distinctive news and opinion content." The new print edition will be sold for $1 at retail outlets and newspaper boxes in the Washington area. The current weekday edition is 50 cents and Sunday's paper costs $1.

A skeptical public repeatedly has been told that questions about purported global warming are closed. "I think everybody is clear on the science. I think scientists are clear on the science ... I think that this notion that there's some debate ... on the science is kind of silly," said President Obama's Press Secretary Robert Gibbs when asked Monday about the president's response to the controversy. The flack was talking smack. Contrary to the whitewash job conducted by propagandists, there are 450 academic peer-reviewed journal articles questioning the importance of man-made global warming. The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine...

There's plenty of cause to be skeptical of climate-change theology because global-warming advocates are secretive about their data. If climate-change research were all on the up-and-up, there would be no reason to hide it. So far, the spotlight has been on Britain's University of East Anglia and its refusal to release surface temperature data, which is by far the most comprehensive long-term data available on the subject kept anywhere in the world. In an effort to pooh-pooh the cover-up, global-warming activists are trying to reassure a curious public that this isn't a concern because some other data sources purportedly show...

There's plenty of cause to be skeptical of climate-change theology because global-warming advocates are secretive about their data. If climate-change research were all on the up-and-up, there would be no reason to hide it. So far, the spotlight has been on Britain's University of East Anglia and its refusal to release surface temperature data, which is by far the most comprehensive long-term data available on the subject kept anywhere in the world. In an effort to pooh-pooh the cover-up, global-warming activists are trying to reassure a curious public that this isn't a concern because some other data sources purportedly show...

WARNING: This editorial includes discussion of topics that are sexually graphic. . . . . The Obama administration is stonewalling serious inquiries about sexual filth propagated by a senior presidential appointee who is responsible for promoting and implementing federal education policy. Democrats clearly are terrified of ruffling the feathers of their activist homosexual supporters, who are an influential part of the Democratic party's base. This scandal, however, is not merely about homosexual behavior; it is about promoting sex between children and adults - and it's time for President Obama to make clear that abetting such illegal perversion has no place...

The media is trying to keep this story in the closet, but it's important not to wink at all the serious problems surrounding President Obama's controversial "safe schools czar," Kevin Jennings. Mr. Jennings is the moral malefactor who gave a speech about how he merely advised a 15-year-old high-school sophomore who was having sex with an older man that, "I hope you knew to use a condom." He knew the boy had met the adult in a bus-station restroom. Mr. Jennings also expressed admiration for Harry Hay, a notorious and extremely prominent supporter of the North American Man Boy Love...

The media is trying to keep this story in the closet, but it's important not to wink at all the serious problems surrounding President Obama's controversial "safe schools czar," Kevin Jennings. Mr. Jennings is the moral malefactor who gave a speech about how he merely advised a 15-year-old high-school sophomore who was having sex with an older man that, "I hope you knew to use a condom." He knew the boy had met the adult in a bus-station restroom. Mr. Jennings also expressed admiration for Harry Hay, a notorious and extremely prominent supporter of the North American Man Boy Love...

A tale of destroyed documents, fraud, conspiracy and the misuse of millions of government dollars would seem to have all the juicy ingredients of a scandal that journalists would kill to cover. However, the mainstream media apparently doesn't think that Climategate is news. ABC News hasn't deemed the story newsworthy. Neither has CBS nor NBC. If Americans only got their news from the networks, they would not know about the global-warming fraud or would merely think there was a simple misunderstanding about what scientists meant in some vague e-mails Never mind that two major universities have at least temporarily removed...

A tale of destroyed documents, fraud, conspiracy and the misuse of millions of government dollars would seem to have all the juicy ingredients of a scandal that journalists would kill to cover. However, the mainstream media apparently doesn't think that Climategate is news. ABC News hasn't deemed the story newsworthy. Neither has CBS nor NBC. If Americans only got their news from the networks, they would not know about the global-warming fraud or would merely think there was a simple misunderstanding about what scientists meant in some vague e-mails Never mind that two major universities have at least temporarily removed...

In the wake of a top management shakeup, the Washington Times plans to lay off about 40 percent of its staff and make other changes as it battles falling circulation and advertising revenue. The reorganization will include laying of about 40 percent of the newspaper's staff of 370 people, according to Don Meyer, principal of Rubin Meyer Communications, which is handling communications for the company. The Washington Times will also expand its relationship with United Press International, including sharing online sales, the Times said in a statement issued Wednesday. “We have developed plans to secure our position and advance our...

Acting Publisher Jonathan Slevin on Wednesday announced plans for a "new" Washington Times that will focus more narrowly on its core areas of coverage while operating with a deeply reduced work force. "We will focus on our strengths -- exclusives, in-depth reporting, politics, enterprise stories, geostrategic and national news, plus cultural reporting based on traditional values," Mr. Slevin said at a meeting of the newspaper's editorial and support staff who were warned to expect "significant staff reductions" within 60 days. All employees were handed letters advising them that at least 40 percent of the workforce will be laid off in...

One of the defenses offered by the media and those caught in Climategate has been that no matter how obvious the e-mails seem, there is a complicated context that means only academics can fully grasp what the e-mails meant. For example, CNN quibbled that, "there's very little context" in the leaked e-mails. We checked into what academics outside the cabal of global-warming advocates have been saying, and their view of the cover-up ranges anywhere from it being "disappointing" to "highly disturbing." Some professional researchers are shocked, while others are not. . . .

Jonathan Slevin, acting publisher and president of the Washington Times, outlined a new plan for the beleaguered newspaper and spoke of "significant staff reductions" at a meeting this afternoon. Staff are receiving notices at the meeting, but it's unclear who will be laid off at this time. However, management is putting the number at around 40 percent, according to sources. A release went out after the meeting began that outlines some of the changes taking place in the first quarter of 2010. The news operation, according to the release, will focus on what it considers core strengths—“exclusive reporting and in-depth...

Investigating academic fraud by global-warming theocracyThe Obama administration might think Climategate is a nonevent, but on Monday, Pennsylvania State University announced it was launching an investigation into the academic conduct of Michael Mann, director of the school's Earth System Science Center. Yesterday, it was announced that Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, would step aside while his university conducts an investigation. With so much fraud being exposed in the academic community that studies and promotes global-warming theories, an example has to be made of someone. There are dozens of researchers at...

The Obama administration might think Climategate is a nonevent, but on Monday, Pennsylvania State University announced it was launching an investigation into the academic conduct of Michael Mann, director of the school's Earth System Science Center. Yesterday, it was announced that Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, would step aside while his university conducts an investigation. With so much fraud being exposed in the academic community that studies and promotes global-warming theories, an example has to be made of someone. There are dozens of researchers at other institutions involved in this...

President Obama's climate czar, Carol M. Browner, claims that Climategate is not important and that global warming is settled science. "[The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has] been studying this issue for a very long time and agree this problem is real," she said last week, six days after the scandal first broke about fudged global-warming research. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs repeated the claim yesterday. This obtuseness exposes the Obama administration's complicity in aiding and abetting the fraud involved to stir up climate-change hysteria. Responsibility for continuing to perpetuate this scandal goes all the way to the top....

The climate-gate revelations have exposed an unprecedented coordinated attempt by academics to distort research for political ends. Anyone interested in accurate science should be appalled at the manipulation of data "to hide the decline [in temperature]" and deletion of e-mail exchanges and data so as not to reveal information that would support global-warming skeptics. These hacks are not just guilty of bad science. In the United Kingdom, deleting e-mail messages to prevent their disclosure from a Freedom of Information Act request is a crime. The leaked e-mails indicate that the people at the CRU can't even figure out how their...

Scientific progress depends on accurate and complete data. It also relies on replication. The past couple of days have uncovered some shocking revelations about the baloney practices that pass as sound science about climate change. It was announced Thursday afternoon that computer hackers had obtained 160 megabytes of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in England. Those e-mails involved communication among many scientific researchers and policy advocates with similar ideological positions all across the world. Those purported authorities were brazenly discussing the destruction and hiding of data that did not support global-warming...

Most of the media hate Sarah Palin. Given the hyperfocused offensive targeted at her, the simple conclusion is that the left-wing establishment views the former Alaska governor as the greatest threat to the current Democratic monopoly on power in Washington. Certainly Mrs. Palin's book tour is generating a lot of enthusiasm across the country, with thousands of admirers flocking to each stop. The book itself, "Going Rogue," was locked in at No. 1 on best-seller lists for weeks before it was officially available for sale. Mrs. Palin's appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" attracted the largest audience the program has...

With the resignation of executive editor John Solomon the Washington Times is now in full survival mode. From FishbowlDC Following the resignation of Washington Times Executive Editor John Solomon this evening, TWT Managing Editor David Jones addressed his staff via the below memo. Jones says that the newsroom will carry on "business as usual" but sources tell FishbowlDC that Times staff is expressing panic and fearing the worst.

For those who are wondering why an army base of all places is, effectively, a gun-free zone.

Time after time, public murder sprees occur in "gun-free zones" - public places where citizens are not legally able to carry guns. The list is long, including massacres at Virginia Tech and Columbine High School along with many less deadly attacks. Last week's slaughter at Fort Hood Army base in Texas was no different - except that one man bears responsibility for the ugly reality that the men and women charged with defending America were deliberately left defenseless when a terrorist opened fire. Among President Clinton's first acts upon taking office in 1993 was to disarm U.S. soldiers on military...

Things seem to be going from bad to worse at the Washington Times. And the continued operation of the newspaper, which is owned by Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, seems to be in serious doubt. There's already been plenty of speculation that the paper might fold or go online-only. Sources at the Times said they fear major changes and that the Moon family feud that's driving the paper's turmoil could lead to the Times shutting down in the coming months -- with some suggesting that Preston Moon, the reverend's son who serves as chairman of News World Communications, the...

D.C. sniper John Allen Muhammad is scheduled to die by lethal injection tonight. Do you believe in the death penalty?

Unemployment has reached 10.2 percent. That doesn't include unemployed workers who have abandoned their job search or accepted part-time work. Those two groups would push the unemployment rate to a staggering 17.5 percent. With the Bureau of Labor Statistics Household Survey showing that 3.8 million jobs have been lost since January, no one but President Obama believes that this year's massive increase in government spending has created or saved 640,239 jobs and the economy would have been even worse without the "stimulus" package. Yet this same administration promised at the end of February that with the stimulus, unemployment this year...

Mr. Holder and Miss Schmaler, however, are not the only powerful Obama administration officials who want to redefine one of our society's central institutions. Cass Sunstein, Mr. Obama's powerful "regulatory czar," is equally out of touch. In a new edition of his book "Nudge," coauthored with Richard Thaler, the authors call marriage an "anachronism" and its benefits "surprisingly low." The book goes on to complain that marriage, "produce* unnecessary polarization. ... the most obvious difficulty is that religious organizations insist that they should be permitted to define marriage as they like, while same-sex couples insist that they should be able...

Paying for the president's government health care takeover with gargantuan cuts in Medicare isn't so popular with doctors. A third of them already refuse to take new Medicare patients because the program pays less than their costs. Other doctors participate only because they can make up Medicare losses by boosting prices for privately insured patients. The Democrats' health care takeover plan, which covers more people with Medicare by lower reimbursements further, would only make problems worse. To placate the medical establishment's opposition to spending cuts in the health care takeover bill, the Democratic leadership in the Senate put up another...

For a decade, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been forbidden by Congress from doing research on gun-control issues. Such piddling hurdles as federal law don't matter to the Obama administration. With a wave of a hand, the CDC has simply redefined gun-control research so the ban no longer applies. They're not researching guns; they're researching alcohol sales and their impact on gun violence, or researching how teens carrying guns affect the rates of non-gun injuries. "These particular grants do not address gun control; rather they deal with the surrounding web of circumstances," wrote National Institutes of Health...

The only safe thing that can be said about President Obama's "safe schools czar," Kevin Jennings, is that he's completely inappropriate for an important White House appointment. Mr. Jennings has a long, troubling history, but the list just got a little longer with the information that he's a long-time member of the extremist homosexual organization ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). On Oct. 11, 2008, Jeff Davis, Mr. Jennings "partner" of 15 years, described their first meetings: "The first few interactions were challenging for both of us. He was a member of Act Up. Act Up! So it's like...

Fifty-three Republican congressmen yesterday demanded that President Obama fire his embattled "safe schools czar," Kevin Jennings. Mr. Jennings' bizarre sexual agenda for American grade schools is one reason the president should dump this dangerous radical. Mr. Jennings wrote the foreword to a 1998 book titled, "Queering Elementary Education." The book he endorsed was a collection of essays by different authors who supported teaching young children about homosexuality. Mr. Jennings' foreword explains why he thinks it is important to start educating children about homosexuality as early as activist-educators can get away with doing so. "Ask any elementary-school teachers you know and...

Fifty-three Republican congressmen yesterday demanded that President Obama fire his embattled "safe schools czar," Kevin Jennings. Mr. Jennings' bizarre sexual agenda for American grade schools is one reason the president should dump this dangerous radical. Mr. Jennings wrote the foreword to a 1998 book titled, "Queering Elementary Education." The book he endorsed was a collection of essays by different authors who supported teaching young children about homosexuality. Mr. Jennings' foreword explains why he thinks it is important to start educating children about homosexuality as early as activist-educators can get away with doing so. "Ask any elementary-school teachers you know and...

The $787 billion stimulus package isn't working as promised. Despite what some Obama administration officials are daring to claim, job creation continues to decline. On Sept. 24, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. enthused, "In my wildest dreams, I never thought [the stimulus] would work this well." The pricey stimulus was sold to the public by claiming it would "create or save" millions of jobs. It's not obvious how the vice president squares this irrational exuberance with the new job numbers released on Friday by the Department of Labor. In August, there were 2.4 million new job openings, which is...

Let's face it. Fox News runs stories that the Obama administration would rather ignore - from the sleaziness and corruption in the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) to the bizarre views and actions of senior presidential appointees such as Van Jones and Kevin Jennings. Last weekend, the Obama administration declared war. "We're going to treat [Fox News] the way we would treat an opponent," said Anita Dunn, White House communications director. She claimed, "We don't need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave." The administration has begun using a government blog to...

Kevin Jennings hasn't come clean. There are still many unanswered questions about how he handled a high-school sophomore who he said confessed to a homosexual relationship with an older man. On Friday, Brewster came forward and gave a statement to Media Matters, a group with clear partisan ties to Democrats, in which the former student corrected Mr. Jennings' statement of his age and denied any sexual relationship. That, CNN and the Obama administration claim, is the end of the controversy. Hardly. . . . .

Kevin Jennings hasn't come clean. There are still many unanswered questions about how he handled a high-school sophomore who he said confessed to a homosexual relationship with an older man. On Friday, Brewster came forward and gave a statement to Media Matters, a group with clear partisan ties to Democrats, in which the former student corrected Mr. Jennings' statement of his age and denied any sexual relationship. That, CNN and the Obama administration claim, is the end of the controversy. Hardly. The new information creates as many questions as it answers. . . .

When President Obama addressed Congress last month he made a promise. "There are also those who claim that our [health care] reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false - the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally." Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican, yelled, "You lie," which made that section of the president's speech a part of every newscast. Illegal immigrants technically are not covered in the bill. However, the health care bill that the Senate Finance Committee likely will pass today does not contain any mechanism to keep illegals from receiving...

The Obama administration isn't adequately vetting important presidential appointees. When it was exposed that former "green jobs czar" Van Jones believed in crazy conspiracies about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, it was questionable whether anyone had even bothered to Google individuals before they received presidential appointments. In that case, the White House strategy was to refuse to answer questions and hope interest faded away. That approach worked for most of the media, which carried water for President Obama's scandal-plagued pick. Stonewalling scandal is not what Americans were expecting from an administration that promised to usher in an "unprecedented level...

The Obama administration isn't adequately vetting important presidential appointees. When it was exposed that former "green jobs czar" Van Jones believed in crazy conspiracies about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, it was questionable whether anyone had even bothered to Google individuals before they received presidential appointments. In that case, the White House strategy was to refuse to answer questions and hope interest faded away. That approach worked for most of the media, which carried water for President Obama's scandal-plagued pick. Stonewalling scandal is not what Americans were expecting from an administration that promised to usher in an "unprecedented level...

Five years ago, Kevin Jennings - who now is President Obama's "safe schools czar" - threatened to sue another teacher who called him "unethical" in a Washington Times news article for ignoring a legal requirement to report a student's homosexual relations with an "older man." Mr. Jennings' lawyer wrote a letter stating that there was "no factual basis whatsoever for [the] claim" and that he was not "aware of any sexual victimization of any student, or that he declined to report any sexual victimization at any time." But if you are trying to cover something up, you should not be...

When Republican Rep. Mark Foley was caught chasing congressional pages, he got exactly what was coming to him. In a blizzard of coverage (1,400 stories, according to Google news), Mr. Foley's creepy behavior was examined from every possible angle. Nobody wanted to hear that the congressman's stupid and objectionable behavior was confined to e-mails and text messages. His immediate resignation didn't quiet the furor. When two years of investigations found no crime, the results got barely a peep. Whether the press feeding frenzy around Mr. Foley's disgrace was justified or not, the explosion of coverage was certainly understandable, even predictable....

A teacher was told by a 15-year-old high school sophomore that he was having homosexual sex with an "older man." At the very least, statutory rape occurred. Fox News reported that the teacher violated a state law requiring that he report the abuse. That former teacher, Kevin Jennings, is President Obama's "safe school czar." It's getting hard to keep track of all of this president's problematic appointments. Clearly, the process for vetting White House employees has broken down. In this one case in which Mr. Jennings had a real chance to protect a young boy from a sexual predator, he...

A teacher was told by a 15-year-old high school sophomore that he was having homosexual sex with an "older man." At the very least, statutory rape occurred. Fox News reported that the teacher violated a state law requiring that he report the abuse. That former teacher, Kevin Jennings, is President Obama's "safe school czar."-SNIP-In this one case in which Mr. Jennings had a real chance to protect a young boy from a sexual predator, he not only failed to do what the law required but actually encouraged the relationship.  In 2000, Mr. Jennings gave a talk to the Iowa...

The Washington Times has launched TheConservatives.com, a Web site with technology that allows activists to talk up to ideological and party leaders and interact in innovative ways. TheConservatives.com - run by The Washington Times with contributions from the Heritage Foundation and other organizations - is a tool to "reinvent the right" and help move the public discourse. "TheConservatives.com creates a cutting-edge new marriage between the social publishing world of bloggers and the social networking world of Twitter, YouTube and the like," said John Solomon, executive editor and vice president for content of The Times. "Most opinion sites today enable thought-leaders...

In his Sept. 9 address to Congress on health care, President Obama assured the nation, "These are the facts. Nobody disputes them." The brazenness of the president's claim that nobody disputes his policy spin is over the top. Such a hardened position means that anybody raising objections against such a consensus is either a liar or an idiot. Ironically, with all the outrage over South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson's yelling "You lie" during the president's speech, there has been precious little said about Mr. Obama constantly claiming that Republicans are lying. The president pointedly went after former Alaska Gov....

Politicians are putting pressure on private-sector opponents Government coercion is becoming standard operating procedure in the nation's capital. The White House threatened financial institutions with ruin by selectively enforcing regulations unless they agreed to take government bailout money. Similar threats were used to force financial institutions to let the government own part of their stock. Those same institutions were forced to take losses on the bonds they held in General Motors and Chrysler. It was only a matter of time until similar intimidating behavior was employed in the health care debate.

The major TV networks don't even let revenue get in the way of their biased coverage in favor of President Obama's agenda. ABC and NBC in particular seem afraid of a simple 30-second advertisement. Both networks have refused to run an ad proposed for national telecast by the League of American Voters, a nonprofit group with 15,000 members. The supposedly offensive ad makes the simple claim that the proposed government-run health care program would ration medical care. ABC won't run the ad because it says it is "partisan." NBC won't run it because that network says it questions the ad's...

Increased regulations undermine competitiveness Some breathed a sigh of relief that a new health care bill introduced by Sen. Max Baucus does not include government insurance. This solace is premature. The Montana Democrat's bill proposes new regulations that would doom the private insurance industry.

Some breathed a sigh of relief that a new health care bill introduced by Sen. Max Baucus does not include government insurance. This solace is premature. The Montana Democrat's bill proposes new regulations that would doom the private insurance industry. . . .

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said last week, "The Recovery Act has played a significant role in changing the trajectory of our economy and changing the conversation about the economy in this country." In lock step with the Obama administration, the media dutifully reports that job losses are getting smaller each month. This rosy outlook depends on a selective use of government data. In reality, the unemployment rate is rising. The Bureau of Labor Statistics Household Survey data offer the broadest and most accurate short-term measure of the job market. They show that from February through August, the economy...