Free Republic

Among the worst disasters for progressivism in recent decades has been the work of Aaron Sorkin, whose impossibly articulate ratatat dialogue made it way too easy to imagine sexy technocrats saving the world. It’s great entertainment, but normalized unreasonable expectations of the flawed human beings who happen to have high IQs and impeccable credentials. As a child of the New Left, I never missed The West Wing: it was irresistible catnip for my adolescent hopes and dreams, and so much more satisfying than whatever was on the news—except for the eloquent public intellectuals on the Bill Moyers show on PBS....

Legendary trader and Just Capital co-founder Paul Tudor Jones and Accenture CEO Julie Sweet join CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box’ to break down this year’s “Just 100” list, which ranks companies based on ESG issues.

Screenwriter-director Aaron Sorkin used his Golden Globes win on Sunday as an opportunity to get on his political soapbox, quoting radical leftist Abbie Hoffman to condemn the Capitol Hill riots of January 6. Aaron Sorkin won an award for his screenplay for the Netflix movie The Trial of the Chicago 7. In his acceptance speech, the Hollywood writer, known for The West Wing and The Newsroom, quoted the late left-wing activist Abbie Hoffman, who is one of the protagonists of the historical drama. “Democracy is not something you believe in or a place to hang your hat, but it’s something...

What if the finance industry — credit card companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express; credit card processors like First Data; and banks like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo — were to effectively set new rules for the sales of guns in America? Collectively, they have more leverage over the gun industry than any lawmaker. And it wouldn’t be hard for them to take a stand. PayPal, Square, Stripe and Apple Pay announced years ago that they would not allow their services to be used for the sale of firearms.

President-elect Donald Trump’s victory has prompted Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin to pen an open letter to his daughter and his ex-wife in which he slams the Republican and vows “the battle isn’t over.” In the letter published online Wednesday by Vanity Fair, Sorkin says “hate was given hope” by Trump’s win. He calls Trump’s supporters white nationalists, sexists, racists and buffoons. …

The New York Times is declaring that disgraced private equity mogul Steven Rattner has gotten his reputation back in the Manhattan lunch circles that matter. This was probably only a matter of time given that it was the Times itself that played a leading role in his rehabilitation. It’s Andrew Ross Sorkin, naturally, who pronounces the cleansing complete, even wondering aloud if Rattner could be a Treasury secretary someday. This about a guy who just two years ago paid $16 million to settle SEC and New York lawsuits against him for taking part in a kickback scheme with public officials...

THREE weeks ago Sony Pictures Entertainment was the victim of a massive cyberattack by an outlaw group calling itself the Guardians of Peace. They breached Sony’s security and stole tens of thousands of internal documents and emails. Then they left a threat. The Guardians said they were going to make these private documents public if the studio went ahead with its planned release of “The Interview,” a comedy with Seth Rogen and James Franco in which the two are tasked by the Central Intelligence Agency to whack the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Along with NBC's David Gregory and Chuck Todd, you can now add CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin to the list of journalists (and NBC journalists) floating the idea that one of their own, The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald, has done something illegal in reference to his work with NSA leaker Edward Snowden: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvpXztqqzCcMy personal suggestion to Gregory, Todd, and Sorkin is that before they throw these kinds of baseless accusations around, they might want to clean up their own backyard. With their selectively edited videos and audio, NBC News is currently a hotbed of journalistic malpractice unlike anything I have ever seen...

People turning on HBO Sunday evening must have thought they'd accidentally switched channels to MSNBC. In the third episode of Aaron Sorkin's new drama Newsroom, those involved in the fictitious cable news network ACN all basically became MSNBC employees mercilessly attacking the Tea Party whilst comparing Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) to the late Joe McCarthy (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary): HBO's 'Newsroom' Becomes MSNBC: Trashes Tea Party, Compares Bachmann to McCarthyThe episode was done largely as a flashback. At the core was a meeting between heads of the parent company Atlantis World Media including CEO Leona Lansing played...

Never forget the torture that America has put on peoples lives....to get where she is today. So while ur poppin Ur lil fire crackers.... 4 Jul 12 Reply Retweet Favorite Unbelievable. Yet, totally believable since it is so predictable. As always, members of the bitter and hateful Left jump at the chance to slam the country that provides them the opportunity and freedom to spew their hatred. Evo Morales @Kim_tastiic if youre using #4thofJuly to make some huge historical statement about how blacks are still slaves expect an unfollow...not in the mood 2day 4 Jul 12 Reply Retweet Favorite Alyssa...

During last week's premiere of Aaron Sorkin's new HBO drama, The Newsroom, viewers were introduced to Will MacAvoy (played by Jeff Daniels), a popular news anchor with scathing opinions about the United States. Episode two continued the liberal talking points, this time portraying conservative opinions on immigration as both racist and stupid. On the July 1 HBO broadcast, MacAvoy turned to Arizona's immigration law. Somehow, instead of a qualified expert, the only people that the fictional production team are able to find to advocate for the law are a ditzy beauty queen who claims that she didn't win a pageant...

...I can remember when Bush got in for the second time, just feeling like so much of the problem about the way that politics go here is that people are improperly informed. That they didn’t know that they had been lied to, or they didn’t understand exactly to what extent they had been, and they still thought that there were weapons of mass destruction. And that was just crazy to me that people could be so under-informed. I do think that there’s a difference in America to where I’m from. There’s so much wrong with England, but I think people...

Sarah Palin and Michael Vick are two of a kind, writes screenwriter Aaron Sorkin in a mean-spirited screed on Huffington Post. “You weren’t killing that animal for food or shelter or even fashion, you were killing it for fun,” Sorkin informs Palin. “You enjoy killing animals. … I can’t make a distinction between what you get paid to do and what Michael Vick went to prison for doing.” He continues on to mock Palin for being “a phony pioneer girl,” (Sorkin’s ‘gotcha’: Palin writes Facebook notes — even though, aha!, Facebook wasn’t around when pioneering was trendy) for having make-up...

‘Social Network’ Scribe: ‘Sarah Palin’s an Idiot’ Posted By John Nolte On October 4, 2010 @ 7:02 pm You gotta love Leftist Hollywood. What a marketing plan. Three days after your multi-million dollar movie has an okay but nothing spectacular opening weekend, you send out into the world one of the film’s most recognizable faces (in asshole glasses, no less) to insult half your potential audience.

Around 7:30 this morning, noted financial columnist for the New York Times Andrew Ross Sorkin made an astounding statement that I can only paraphrase. He said that a recent Paul Krugman piece in the NYT was encouraging that the Social Security Trust Fund may actually be in better shape than generally believed and may actually have a longer expected life than the (around) 2037 forecast. When Joe Kernan and the guest at that time (Ed Yardeni) challenged him saying there's nothing in the trust fund, Ross Sorkin came back saying "well I found Krugman's piece very persuasive." The link is...

Putting Obama on Hold, in a Hint of Who’s Boss By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN December 14, 2009 President Obama didn’t exactly look thrilled as he stared at the Polycom speakerphone in front of him. “Well, I appreciate you guys calling in,” he began the meeting at the White House with Wall Street’s top brass on Monday. He was, of course, referring to the three conspicuously absent attendees who were being piped in by telephone: Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs; John J. Mack, chairman of Morgan Stanley; and Richard D. Parsons, chairman of Citigroup. Their excuse? “Inclement...

Warner Bros. has set Aaron Sorkin to write "The Challenge," a courtroom drama for George Clooney's Smoke House shingle. Clooney is producing with Smoke House partner Grant Heslov. Clooney may direct and hopes to play Navy lawyer Charles Swift in the drama about the effort by Swift and Georgetown U. law professor Neal Katyal to ensure a fair trial for Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, who'd been held at Guantanamo Bay for five years. WB and Smoke House got started on the project over the summer by optioning Jonathan Mahler book "The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight...

A charismatic Democratic outsider with a genuine shot at the presidential candidacy, yearning to be seen as a unifying force rather than simply representing the ethnic minority vote. The Establishment candidate, whose commanding lead in the polls is suddenly dwindling as the finish line approaches, opening up the prospect of a party convention where the winner will finally be decided. On the Republican side, meanwhile, the traditional right wing base of the party is suspicious of the liberal views of their ageing frontrunner who refuses to pander to the religious right. No, not the US Election 2008. Simply the plot...

Former Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson and his ex-fiancee, Joanne Herring, won a second victory at Monday's L.A. premiere of "Charlie Wilson's War." The ex-lovers - who supplied the mujahedeen with the guns they needed to chase the Russians out of Afghanistan - succeeded in detonating parts of the script that suggested Wilson and Herring had also seeded the events of 9/11. Herring, played by Julia Roberts in the Mike Nichols film, tells us she "practically choked" when she read Aaron Sorkin's original screenplay. The movie ended with a shot of the Pentagon in flames, implying that Herring and Wilson (played...

Studio 60" is over. Some news services are reporting that the sets have been struck, others are talking about the new dramas NBC has ordered to replace last May's "sure thing." But this much is known: On Monday, NBC will formally announce the end, thank God, of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." One of the most expensive hours in TV history, "Studio 60" was a goner even before it hit the airwaves. The ill-conceived drama about a comedy sketch show wasn't funny or tense, it was simply annoying. The real back story of "Studio 60" is what will remain...