Free Republic

Welcome to the weekend and here we are still doing it the way we've always done it whether the "trolls" like it or not. Wake up and smell the coffee about certain realities the coronavirus situation and restrictions related to it likely to be tightened in the face of the numbers but the election situation perhaps giving the governors being told by Washington and people like Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci a pause... Newsdump Update: US Syria Envoy Says His Mission Ending But US Policy Will Stay The Same If Biden Is President... The Establishment policy is set...

It’s been almost 40 years now since the U.S. Air Force pulled the plug on Project Blue Book and essentially order the news media to shut up already about UFOs. And at a moment when America’s dazed free press is poised to take a knee on the canvas, De Void can’t help but wonder how one of journalism’s 20th-century giants would’ve responded to the challenges. For Edward R. Murrow, the CBS Radio lion who survived the technology transition to unmask Red-baiting demagoguery for what it was on national television, mastering a new medium was difficult. "This is an old team,”...

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised that a TV host who clownishly closes shows by throwing wadded-up balls of paper at the camera would indulge in middle school-worthy taunts about a person's weight . And yet . . . I actually was surprised when on tonight's show, Keith Olbermann unleashed a string of jibes aimed at Roger Ailes' physique. So surprised that when Olbermann first began his barrage, with a comment about Ailes doing something "between pies," I actually wondered whether I had misheard him or misunderstood his intent. But Olbermann's mean-spirited motive soon became unmistakeable. Displaying what was...

The liberal media have been screaming about federal departments or agencies sponsoring or buying news here and abroad. But they were strangely silent when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced on December 13 that the State Department would launch an Edward R. Murrow Journalism Program to influence foreign journalists. It seems that a federal program honoring an icon of the liberal media is considered an acceptable mix of journalism and state. The Rice announcement buys into the myth perpetuated by the George Clooney movie, "Good Night and Good Luck," that Murrow, a CBS journalist who became director of the U.S....

The movie "Good Night and Good Luck" enshrines with a vengeance the myth that the late Edward R. Murrow was a White Knight who came to the rescue of an America engulfed in fear and hysteria, thanks to Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and his investigations of Communist influence (in and out of government) in the United States. The fact is that, far from making "wild accusations," McCarthy really didn't know the half of it. Information from Soviet archives and the "Venona (military decripts), publicized after the fall of the Soviet Union, clearly showed that the U.S. government and many of...

The movie "Good Night and Good Luck" is a classic case of the winners writing "History" at the expense of the losers. There is no question that in the public relations battle over the issue of Communist infiltration in the United States, Edward R. Murrow won and Senator Joseph R. McCarthy lost. A skilled television performer with a wide audience can succeed in demonizing anyone, and Murrow had that advantage which far surpassed that of any United States Senator. The whole clash came to a head just as television was beginning to emerge from its infancy. With his 5 o'clock...

DANNY OCEAN DEFENDS THE RATHER NETWORK By Ann Coulter 33 minutes ago The most cosseted, self-indulgent, worthless people in the universe are worried their suffering has been downgraded. For 50 years Hollywood drama queens have churned out plays, movies, TV shows, books, poems, allegories, museum exhibits, personal testimonials, dioramas, interpretive dances, wood carvings, cave paintings, needlepoint wall hangings and scatological limericks about their victimization at the hands of a brute named Joe McCarthy. Schoolchildren who will learn nothing about George Washington, Thomas Edison or Paul Revere are forced to read chapter and verse about the black night of fascism (BNOF)...

From Clooney's website: About The Movie "Good Night, And Good Luck." takes place during the early days of broadcast journalism in 1950's America. It chronicles the real-life conflict between television newsman Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee. With a desire to report the facts and enlighten the public, Murrow, and his dedicated staff - headed by his producer Fred Friendly and Joe Wershba in the CBS newsroom - defy corporate and sponsorship pressures to examine the lies and scaremongering tactics perpetrated by McCarthy during his communist 'witch-hunts'. A very public feud develops when...

There are few facts on display in "Good Night, and Good Luck," actor George Clooney's liberal version of CBS-TV news commentator Edward R. Murrow's 1953 feud with Joe McCarthy, the fiercely anti-Communist senator from Wisconsin. The movie, which opened yesterday, presents the feud as an emotional battle of political rhetoric, with the loser, of course, being Sen. McCarthy. The real historical facts, however, are not so clear. "Good Night, and Good Luck" opens with Murrow giving a speech in the late 1950s warning about the confusion of TV news with entertainment. Cut to 1953 at the height of McCarthy's war...

"Brokeback Mountain," the story of two homosexual cowboys starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, topped 19 competitors, including George Clooney's "Good Night, and Good Luck" to win the Venice Film Festival's top award yesterday. The film has been called "groundbreaking" by homosexual activists for the amount of "gay" sex that is shown on screen. Mel Gibson fans will remember Heath Ledger as the eldest son in "The Patriot" determined to fight for independence against the British, the innocent but brave fair-haired boy-man who struggles for justice even among his fellow southern colonialists. Gyllenhaal is best known for his role as...