Free Republic

Liberal Web Site Lies: Claims Santorum's Wife Had Abortion The liberal, pro-abortion web site Jezebel, which recently named as its woman of the year an abortion practitioner who injured a woman in a botched abortion, is now making false claims that Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum's wife had an abortion. http://www.lifenews.com/2012/01/06/liberal-web-site-lies-claims-santorums-wife-had-abortion/

New independent circulation numbers show a sharp decline in readership of Politico and other left-leaning news websites, an ominous trend for the suburban Virginia-based news outlet and its peers as Americans head into an election year. Recently published and publicly available Web traffic data indicates that “unique visitor” traffic to politico.com in November 2011 was 15 percent lower than in the previous month, and 31 percent lower than in November 2010. The data, from Compete, Inc., also show an overall two-year decline. Political websites gain and lose readers throughout election cycles, with presidential election years trending higher in unique Web...

Here’s a blast from the past. Remember Eason Jordan? Every conservative political blogger worth his/her salt knows and remembers who he is. Former CNN head Eason Jordan is the disgraced journalist who admitted in a 2003 New York Times op-ed piece titled “The News We Kept to Ourselves” that he deliberately and intentionally whitewashed Saddam Hussein’s atrocities and regurgitated Hussein propaganda for a decade in exchange for access. Let me underscore that: In 2003, after the U.S.-led Coalition invasion of Iraq and the fall of Saddam Hussein, Jordan confessed that CNN had deliberately reported Baathist propaganda during the Saddam era...

In an explosive interview on MSNBC, Chris Matthews has harsh criticism for President Obama and his team of advisers.

Meanwhile, a friend of Ms Bialek, from Chicago, told the New York Post: 'She has a very infectious personality. It’s easy to see how she won [Cain] over. But the reality of her situation is -- she’s a complete gold digger. It’s all about the money.' Adding that she was from a middle-income family but lives in a posh house while running from bill collectors, the source said: 'Most of her jobs ended in termination. It’s always the employer’s fault, not hers.

US teachers unions and Hispanic activists said Wednesday that an Arizona-style immigration law upheld by a federal judge last week is creating a "humanitarian crisis" as thousands of parents keep their children home, fearing that teachers will act as immigration agents. Alabama's first Republican supermajority since Reconstruction approved this summer what many consider America's toughest immigration law. And last week, federal Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn surprised many Americans when she upheld key parts of the law – including a portion that says schools must check the immigration status of children when they enroll, as well as the status of their...

On October 1, the Washington Post published a story by reporter Stephanie McCrummen in which she noted that early in his political career, GOP presidential hopeful Rick Perry hosted lawmakers at a family hunting camp labeled near its entrance as "Niggerhead." Castle Rock attorney Mike Robinson found the report full of dubious innuendo -- so he decided to "use the same methodology she did" by investigating McCrummen and framing his findings in the most damning way possible. The result was "Washington Post Staff Writer Who Wrote Rick Perry Attack Piece Has Criminal Past," published on the conservative site RedState.com. (It's...

The Associated Press is reporting the following: "The federal government under the Bush administration ran an operation that allowed hundreds of guns to be transferred to suspected arms traffickers — the same tactic that congressional Republicans have criticized President Barack Obama's administration for using, two federal law enforcement officials said Tuesday. "When Bush, a Republican, was president, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Tucson, Ariz., used a similar enforcement tactic in a program it called Operation Wide Receiver. The fact that there were two such ATF investigations years apart in separate administrations raises the possibility that agents...

The Univision-Marco Rubio flap over whether the network tried to strong-arm the Florida Senator is widening. On Tuesday, presidential candidates Rick Perry and John Huntsman said they were boycotting an upcoming televised debate on Univision, scheduled for January 29th, because they say the network treated Rubio unethically, according to The Miami Herald. A short while later, Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney joined the boycott, Fox News Latino confirmed.

Two Republican presidential candidates, Rick Perry and John Huntsman, are boycotting a proposed Univision debate due to what they say were unethical journalistic practices in the way the Spanish-language media giant handled Sen. Marco Rubio, a vice-presidential shortlister. Other campaigns might soon join Perry and Huntsman, sources say. They made their announcement at the behest of three Florida Hispanic Republican lawmakers who noted that the senator’s office and Univision insiders said Univision publicized an embarrassing story about Rubio’s brother in law because he wouldn’t sit down for an interview on the show Al Punto, which has espoused a liberal line...

.....Drudge's editorial decisions replace Perry's message of solid, inspirational, conservatism with an inept, flagging candidate. And while Drudge doesn't exert the broad influence over the scattered media landscape that he did over a more concentrated media five or ten years ago, he still wields immense power, .... Drudge's relationship with Romney's campaign manager is seen by some Drudge-watchers as a kind of Rosetta Stone, but I've never thought he was quite that predictable. Perry could have emerged on the page as the larger-than-life cowboy political hero his campaign depicts. Instead, he's the bumbling, cartoon version of that character.

Joe McGinniss complained to lefty blog Firedoglake yesterday that almost everyone is canceling interviews in which he was to have discussed his book, The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin: Terry Gross [of NPR's Fresh Air] has declined to have me on her show. As have all other NPR shows. My fifteen seconds as part of a report on All Things Considered is all I get from NPR. I’m told they are scared of losing more federal funding if right wing Congresspeople complain that they are “promoting” my book. FYI, both Morning Joe and Keith Olbermann had me booked for...

Media: Just days before the U.S.-Colombia free trade pact heads for a vote, the Washington Post publishes a story claiming Colombia's miracle is a sham. This is a smear unworthy of the name "journalism." Topping the front page in its Sunday edition with "A case of aid gone bad in Colombia," the Post attempted to rewrite history by claiming the U.S.'s $8 billion Plan Colombia military program that broke the back of its drug cartels was really ... a waste. Pay no attention to the safety, security and economic growth that have made Colombia such an attractive partner for a...

The president of the National Organization of Women actually rose to Rep. Michele Bachmann’s defense yesterday (didn’t see that coming!), while Newsweek editor Tina Brown tried to justify the “Crazy Eyes� cover that inspired so much conservative commentary yesterday. But one person seem disinclined to talk about the cover one way or another and that was Bachmann herself. As of yesterday afternoon, Bachmann still hadn’t seen the picture and she didn’t seem to care too much to talk about it when she could be talking about her campaign and her ideas for the country: Brown claims the cover is OK...

Rep. Michele Bachmann has declined to get into the scrum with Newsweek over its cover story of the presidential candidate called "The Queen of Rage," accompanied by an unflattering photo of the Minnesota Republican, but others are calling the magazine out-of-bounds in its depiction. The National Organization for Women President Terry O'Neill said that the cover of the magazine's latest edition is "sexist" and referred to a simple test by the group's founder Gloria Steinem to explain how they determined that conclusion -- would the magazine do the same to a man. "Who has ever called a man 'The King...

Rep. Michele Bachmann has declined to get into the scrum with Newsweek over its cover story of the presidential candidate called "The Queen of Rage," accompanied by an unflattering photo of the Minnesota Republican, but others are calling the magazine out of bounds in its depiction. The National Organization for Women (NOW) President Terry O'Neill said that the cover of the magazine's latest edition is "sexist" and referred to a simple test by the group's founder Gloria Steinem to explain how they determined that conclusion -- would the magazine do the same to a man.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Pat Buchanan said that he didn't mean to slur President Barack Obama by referring to him as "your boy" during a discussion with Al Sharpton. The former GOP presidential candidate and current MSNBC analyst appeared on "Morning Joe" Wednesday to explain remarks he made on that network's Sharpton show 12 hours earlier.

When idiots of yore tossed slurs and epithets at sporting events, they had the sorry excuse of living in an America where segregation not only was common but also legislated. Impolite folks too ignorant to know better and too lazy to learn routinely wrapped themselves in bigotry, sparing no one, as was discovered by Jewish slugger Hank Greenberg and black pioneer Jackie Robinson. That was the 1930s and '40s and '50s, when many were denied civil rights and voting rights and the system was contaminated with the poisons of prejudice. What's the excuse now that we're supposed to be so...

The CNN blog just ran a lengthy interview with Tricia Erickson, who makes a variety of arguments that no believing Mormon should ever be elected President. (Link here; note that in her interview she cites language from the endowment ceremony). Erickson’s arguments...repeats the old evangelical anti-Mormon reasoning that Mormons are all basically automatons, and suggests that any Mormon politician would have a secret church-promoting agenda. It’s an argument straight out of The Manchurian Candidate (and reminiscent of the anti-Catholic arguments raised against JFK)...But what are the implications of the article’s prominent publication today — what does it say about the...

Bachmann signs "values" pledge to oppose same-sex marriage, Sharia law, pornography By Stephanie Condon Social conservative presidential candidate Michele Bachmann ups the ante in Iowa by signing a "values" pledge that other Republican presidential candidates may not support Socially-conservative GOP presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota has become the first candidate to sign a conservative Christian group's pledge to oppose same-sex marriage and uphold "core values." Bachmann's commitment to the pledge ups the ante in Iowa, where the other Republican candidates may now be pressed harder to prove their social conservative credentials. The support of groups like Family Leader,...

Democrats must be in trouble if The Daily Beast is running a headline White Supremacist Stampede, with this opening line: Add to the growing list of candidates considering a bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012 America’s most famous white-power advocate: David Duke. Ah yes, the David Duke card gets played. Duke is an anti-Semitic kook who is far more likely in recent years to be hobnobbing with anti-Israel European leftists and Islamists than with anyone associated with the Republican Party or the Tea Party movement. Yet The Daily Beast trots out a possible (inevitable?) Duke run for President...

COMMENTARY | The mainstream media is consistently manipulated by Sarah Palin. The same Sarah Palin they criticize for being dimwitted is beating the news media at their own game. The release of more than 24,000 pages of emails by the Alaska governor's office is just the latest incident Palin has orchestrated to once again keep he name in the news without committing to run in 2012. The 24,000 plus pages of emails released to the press Friday were in printed form as reported by Yahoo! News. The release of the emails was an embarrassing feeding frenzy as media outlets loaded...

President Barack Obama is pivoting from diplomacy on the world stage to the intimate and delicate domestic task of acting as healer-in-chief to a devastated community. The president travels to tornado-wrecked Joplin, Mo., on Sunday, a day after returning from a six-day European tour of Ireland, England, France and Poland. After days of focusing on the U.S. relationship with the rest of the world, he'll turn to an even more critical connection: his own, with the American people. The president will visit with survivors and family members of the worst tornado in decades, a monster storm that tore through Joplin...

At a press conference last week, someone asked Chris Christie for his views on evolution vs. creationism. "That's none of your business," the New Jersey governor barked in response. ...it says even more about the current state of the national Republican Party, where magical thinking trumps rationality, and even to acknowledge basic realities about the world we live in runs the risk of damaging one's political future. Christie is not part of the natural constituency for Darwin-denial... (but) he must constantly ask himself the question: Am I about to say something to which a white, evangelical, socially conservative, gun-owning, Obama-despising,...

The White House said it is ending its long-running practice of having presidents re-enact televised speeches for news photographers following major addresses to the country, a little-known arrangement that fed suggestions of fakery when Barack Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden. After Obama's live, late-evening address from the East Room of the White House on May 1, five photographers were ushered in to shoot pictures as the president stood at the podium and re-read a few lines of his speech — a practice that news organizations have protested for years. Even though The Associated Press and other news...

It was just a firehouse chat with the guys of Engine 54 in lower Manhattan. But President Barack Obama delivered a message he hopes will also hit home with every American in this week of national catharsis: "You're always going to have a president and an administration who's got your back." In the denouement to the daring raid that brought down Osama bin Laden, the president has in effect been reintroduced to the nation. While taking care to strike the right tone — trying to savor the success of the dramatic covert operation without appearing to gloat — Obama has...

One thinks of rats scurrying off a sinking ship. Meaning the new exodus of birthers from birtherism. Fox News now says in a blog post that it hardly pushed the birther issue at all. Wonder how folks got the idea Fox did that? Oh yeah: by watching Fox. And Rush Limbaugh says he “warned people this was a dead end.” This is the same Limbaugh who recently said there were “legitimate citizenship questions” about President Obama. Granted, some on the right were starting to distance themselves from this absurdity even before Obama finally released his long form birth certificate last...

What if the biggest mystery surrounding Col. Moammar Gadhafi had nothing to do with his long, brutal reign as the world's most eccentric and violent leader turned pariah? And what if a long-lost letter from a Catholic cardinal who knew Gadhafi's true identity was evidence that could have solved the mystery? To many Libyan people, the biggest question mark about Gadhafi does not involve his repressive and dictatorial rule, delusional statements or brazen lies. Behind closed doors, for years, they've wondered if he is Jewish. Last week the issue came out in the open, as NBC's Richard Engel reported from...

Conservative activist James O'Keefe, whose deceptively edited hidden camera videos have made him a star on the right, is out with a new video targeting National Public Radio executive Ron Schiller - and by extension NPR itself. The video purports to show Schiller speaking to a pair of men posing as representatives of a phony Muslim group called seeking to give $5 million to NPR. The men tell Schiller they are affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist political movement. It shows Schiller stating that the Republican Party and the Tea Party is "fanatically involved in people's personal lives and...

Another young product of Columbia J-school, another typical MSMer . . . Appearing on MSNBC's Daily Rundown today, NBC reporter Domenico Montanaro spoke of "the egregious Lee Atwater." What made the insult particularly . . . notorious is that it was entirely gratuitous, utterly unrelated to the subject at hand. Montanaro was reporting on the fact that Reince Priebus is the youngest RNC Chairman since Atwater. Montanaro first refers simply to "Lee Atwater," but then pauses and rephrases as "the notorious Lee Atwater." So Montanaro went out of his way to swipe at the late Atwater, who at the end...

WASHINGTON -- When President John Kennedy visited Dallas in November 1963, he was greeted by a full-page newspaper ad accusing him of being a communist fellow traveler. To his wife he observed, "Oh, you know, we're headed into nut country today." The city, according to historian William Manchester, was a "mecca" for "the Minutemen, the John Birch and Patrick Henry societies." In the hours following Kennedy's assassination, aides assumed a right-wing radical was responsible. When Robert Kennedy informed Jacqueline about Lee Harvey Oswald's leftist background, she felt sick. "He didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights,"...

EXCERPT- Knowing very well most Americans objected to the "end of life" measure in the new health care legislation due to fears it could eventually give doctors a government financial incentive or even mandate to encourage severely ill patients to make life ending decisions too prematurely, Congressman Blumenauer thumbed his nose to the masses. It must be painfully obvious to Mr. Blumenauer that Americans did not want his end-of-life measure, so the Oregon Congressman decided to run around the will of the people by bureaucratic fiat. Instead, he and his fellow Democrats eventually omitted the measure from the bill only...

UK media U.S. political reporting U.S. media attacking anyone that could challenge they're party with a cue from (I AM SURE, The Axelrod machine currently on record; as out of the WH campaigning for Obama.)

The titans of American industry were all assembled at the White House complex Wednesday. There was Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google. There was Kenneth Chenault, the chairman of American Express. And there was Barack Obama, the sometimes owner of General Motors, Chrysler, Citibank, Bank of America, AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The president's advance team handled it like a state visit. The Secret Service shut down Lafayette Square as the CEOs huddled inside Blair House -- where foreign dignitaries often stay. The U.S. Park Police were mounted, the presidential limousines were idling, and men with scary-looking weapons stood...

Like Dogs to Vomit, Media Matters Cleans Up Liberal Media Messes Just like dogs that merrily slurp vomit to the last chunk, bloggers at the Democratic party front group Media Matters for America follow behind liberal media outlets, lapping up their latest noxious dousing of conservatives. Then with a satisfied smirk, Media Matters gloats "what vomit?" when conservatives complain about being puked on by the press. The latest example of Media Matters' vomit fetish is their defense of the attempted smear of Sarah Palin during her humanitarian trip to Haiti last weekend by the Associated Press and others as a hair-obsessed...

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin traveled to Haiti this weekend as a guest of the Rev. Franklin Graham and Samaritan's Purse to spotlight the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the earthquake and cholera-stricken Caribbean (half an) island nation. Instead she has found herself embroiled in a scandal, accused of bringing a hair stylist on the trip to make herself look good for the cameras and "photo-ops.".The Associated Press transmitted a photo from Haiti of Palin captioned, "Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, center, has her hair done during a visit to a cholera treatment center set up by the NGO Samaritan's Purse...

No bargaining, no deals, no compromise — that's the hard-line stance that Republicans have staked in the days since seizing control of the House. Their prescription for the sluggish economy — lower taxes, huge spending cuts, less regulation, and repeal of the sweeping healthcare law just taking effect — excites the party's conservative base. But a long and ugly fight with President Obama and Senate Democrats, starting with next week's lame-duck session, could end up alienating the large number of Americans more interested in jobs than ideological battles. The midterm vote was "an expression of anger and impatience," said James...

AS a schoolboy in Jakarta, Barack Obama attended Muslim prayer sessions with his classmates against the wishes of his mother. The US President's former grade three teacher said that Mr Obama - who was known as "Barry" when he attended the Menteng One school in Jakarta - studied the Koran and went to classes on Islam, despite the objections of Anne Dunham, a Roman Catholic. The teacher's recollections will add to speculation about Mr Obama's links to Islam during his much-anticipated visit to Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, as part of his ten-day tour of Asia.

US women's groups Thursday were bracing for a fight over abortion rights and gender equality with the new conservative majority in Congress. "We now face an anti-choice majority and a new speaker of the House who will threaten to roll back hard-fought progress for women," said Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), the largest women's group in the United States. Republicans by Wednesday had picked up 60 seats in the 435-seat House of Representatives, well more than the 39 they needed for a majority. At least 49 of the newcomers to the House are opposed to...

There is one African-American in the current Senate: Illinois Sen. Roland Burris, who was appointed to fill out the rest of Barack Obama's term after he was elected president... All three African-American candidates are projected to lose their races: Florida's Kendrick Meek to Marco Rubio, Georgia's Michael Thurmond to Johnny Isakson and South Carolina's Alvin Greene to Jim DeMint. (All three are Democrats.)... African-Americans are better represented in the House, where there are currently 41 black members.

With little doubt about the outcome of tomorrow's elections, the speculation turns to what the reaction will be to the historic GOP victories. Will President Barack Obama shift toward the political center? Will all those shiny new Republican lawmakers keep their campaign promises to shrink government and control spending? Will those in the Tea Party movement remain engaged and involved once this battle has been won? All those answers will come in time but what we'll probably find out instantly is will the mainstream media abandon its self-assigned role of liberal cheerleader and return to honest reporting?

A panel full of liberals on Wednesday's Good Morning America attacked the "angry, white" Tea Partiers and lauded the historical importance of Jon Stewart. Daily Beast editor Tina Brown gushed over the liberal comedian as " the only trusted branch of government." Previewing the comic's rally on Washington this Saturday, the former Vanity Fair editor hyperbolically enthused, "You know, I mean, in the end, Stewart and Colbert, really are like the Huntley and Brinkley of today in the sense that people really, really trust them."

By funding numerous rightwing organisations, the mega-rich Koch brothers have duped millions into supporting big business The Tea Party movement is remarkable in two respects. It is one of the biggest exercises in false consciousness the world has seen – and the biggest Astroturf operation in history. These accomplishments are closely related. An Astroturf campaign is a fake grassroots movement: it purports to be a spontaneous uprising of concerned citizens, but in reality it is founded and funded by elite interests. Some Astroturf campaigns have no grassroots component at all. Others catalyse and direct real mobilisations. The Tea Party belongs...

"The Daily Kos, Twittergate & Obama's Birth Certificate Controversy Posted by Erica The Zapem blog has produced a video, Twittergate - The Democrats Hire A Twitter-Thug, which details how the Democrats hired Neal Rauhauser, a Daily Kos blogger, to paint the tea party movement as racist, homophobic, extremist and every other pejorative you can imagine. Rauhauser owns a company co-founded with Beth Becker called Progressive PST. Zapem says,"The evidence submitted demonstrates the systematic and deliberate provocation towards people in an attempt to elicit unfavorable responses after a series of malicious and vile attacks. The idea was to antagonize, collect and...

How much did the left show its keister on O’Donnell’s alleged gaffe? So much so that the AP/WaPo story on the subject was almost completely rewritten last night, and without an official correction. After the break I will have screen caps and a cut and paste of the text of the article, but let’s start with just the first paragraph. Before: WILMINGTON, Del. — Republican Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell of Delaware on Tuesday questioned whether the U.S. Constitution calls for a separation of church and state, appearing to disagree or not know that the First Amendment bars the government from...

GROZNY, Russia – Islamic insurgents attacked Chechnya's parliament Tuesday in a brazen suicide raid that left six people dead and 17 wounded, defying Kremlin claims of stability in the volatile southern region.

There is troubling news on this story. Johnathan and Stephanie went to visit their child today. Details are a bit sketchy at this point, but Cheyenne is reportedly losing consciousness, bleeding out of her private parts, and has not gained weight. Update from the Free Baby Cheyenne Facebook Group: “Pirra Milan EMERGENCY PROTEST AT CONCORD HOSPITAL AND DCYF’S OFFICES!!! JOHNATHAN AND STEPHANIE WERE AT A VISIT. BABY CHEYENNE WOULDN’T WAKE UP! THEY CHANGED HER DIAPER AND BLOOD WAS EVERYWHERE! SHE WAS RUSHED BY AMBULANCE TO THE HOSPITAL! THEY AREN’T ALLOWING THE PARENTS IN!!” Update (2:30 p.m.) Baby Cheyenne is currently...

In Chicago, WIND radio show host William Kelly was on a mission to get answers from current mayoral candidate and Obama’s former Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel. Despite the other reporters acting as a force to protect Rahm against Kelly’s tough questions over the stimulus bill and his residency, his persistence is highly entertaining.

When President Obama sits down for his MTV town hall this Thursday, the audience of young people who will ask him questions will have been gathered by a casting call. According to the casting call for the event from talent agency Backstage.com, first reported by National Review Online, the company requests applications for the event, asking what issues the person is “passionate about,” requiring a “short description of your political views,” and also asks for a recent photo.

Time magazine's news judgment is truly puzzling. With just weeks to go before a crucial midterm election, their cover story package is ten pages stuffed with “The Secret World of Extreme Militias.” Voters are poised to sweep a pile of Democrats out of office from coast to coast, and they're camped in Zanesville, Ohio with a right-wing militia that claims 300 members as the nation's number one news story? (Katie Couric tweeted on Wednesday that she was eagerly reading it.) Time editor Richard Stengel announced they gave new hire Barton Gellman six months in the field chasing the whisper of...