Free Republic

72 Congressmen slam media for failing to cover Gosnell, Planned Parenthood infanticide remarks WASHINGTON, D.C., April 18, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a sternly worded letter, 72 congressman have accused the three leading mainstream media networks – ABC, NBS, and CBS – of “blatant media bias” for failing to cover two of the biggest abortion-related stories in recent years: the trial of “House of Horrors” abortionist Kermit Gosnell, and remarks made by a Planned Parenthood representative in support of infanticide. “The broadcasters’ blackout of the Planned Parenthood infanticide lobbying scandal and the Gosnell ‘House of Horrors’ murder trial are the biggest...

>Earlier I shared what happened when I asked an AP reporter and a Washington Post reporter about their personal Gosnell blackouts.It was so illuminating that I decided to check out a few other media outlets. I headed over to Politico. Since Washington Post reporter Sarah Kliff tried to justify her lack of coverage of the Gosnell trial by calling it a local crime story, I thought I’d add other local stories into my search. Thanks for the idea! So here’s what I found out. Politico‘s search engine pops out 165 results on Trayvon Martin (local crime story in Florida), 94...

The .300 AAC Blackout has taken the industry by storm and is considered one of the hottest new cartridges for hunting feral hogs with AR/MSR platform rifles. This versatile cartridge provides the ability to shoot subsonic ammunition for low-noise applications and supersonic ammunition for longer-range shots. Nikon has developed the all-new P-300 BLK riflescope to embrace both applications and to harness the effectiveness of this exciting new caliber. “When you look at what the .300 Blackout cartridge can do in terms of effectiveness, it really is an amazing caliber. Nikon is excited to jump into the mix and give shooters...

Another Super Bowl in the can, and the official results are in. Beyoncé was hot, the commercials, not (with the exception of Chrysler’s odes to our military and farmers, butt they weren’t technically commercials). There was a delay of game penalty called due to a temporary brown-out in the Chocolate City. And, oh yes…the Ravens won! So from the top: did you see Beyoncé shaking her considerable Behindce all over the half-time show?   Beyoncé the Super Knowles No wonder she didn’t have time to practice for the inauguration and had to lipsync! Last night’s performance was not just live,...

Lights out during the Super Bowl. President Obama fought for 4 years to have the power grid updated. The GOP resisted him for 4 years. This is America on GOP obstruction. Having the power reliability of a banana republic. When will you wake up and realize the GOP should never be allowed anywhere near the levers of power? When the lights give out during your open-heart surgery? This is serious and yes, it is political as it is about responsible governance.

Here's an encouraging update on the nationwide legal challenges to ObamaCare by religious institutions that will be forced to provide insurance coverage for such things as abortion drugs, birth control and sterilizations that violate their beliefs. This story is a week old, actually. Strangely, you haven't seen any real coverage of this development in mainstream media, perhaps because it concerns a crucial legal setback for Barack Obama and Kathleen Sebelius in a New York federal court. As is Eric Holder's style when his Justice Department is challenged, he attempts not to argue the typically weak legal issues he has but...

Here's an encouraging update on the nationwide legal challenges to ObamaCare by religious institutions that will be forced to provide insurance coverage for such things as abortion drugs, birth control and sterilizations that violate their beliefs. This story is a week old, actually. Strangely, you haven't seen any real coverage of this development in mainstream media, perhaps because it concerns a crucial legal setback for Barack Obama and Kathleen Sebelius in a New York federal court. As is Eric Holder's style when his Justice Department is challenged, he attempts not to argue the typically weak legal issues he has but...

Much of New York was plunged into darkness Monday by a superstorm that overflowed the city's historic waterfront, flooded the financial district and subway tunnels and cut power to nearly a million people. The city had shut its mass transit system, schools, the stock exchange and Broadway and ordered hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to leave home to get out of the way of the superstorm Sandy as it zeroed in on the nation's largest city. Residents spent much of the day trying to salvage normal routines, jogging and snapping pictures of the water while officials warned the worst...

For those who don't remember what a large-scale blackout is like, take a look at what happened earlier this week in India, where 670 million people lost power. The images were haunting. Miles of stalled cars, snarled because traffic lights were dark. Electric trains that didn't run. Miners trapped underground. India's blackout was caused by a host of electrical issues ranging from bad energy policy to an overburdened electrical grid. A shortage of rain for hydroelectric dams this year and a shortage of coal for factories does not help the over strapped grid and are the most likely causes for...

The Government Admits The US Power Grid Can Be Taken Out At Any Time Walter Hickey Aug. 1, 2012, 7:00 PM The Government Accountability Office just released a report backing up earlier findings: because a series of recommendations were ignored, the U.S. electric grid remains highly susceptible to cyberattacks. The grid is reliant on a number of IT systems that have known and likely unknown vulnerabilities. The result of a cyberattack on the grid could result in damage to electricity control systems, power outages, and failures in safety equipment on a scale currently unknown. GAO believes that there are still...

The excruciating heat that smothered the mid-Atlantic under triple-digit temperatures came to an end Sunday, leaving in its wake buckled roadways, kinked train tracks, withered yards and a newfound sense of what it means to be hot. A weak cold front moving into northern Maryland should make for “relatively cooler temperatures,” National Weather Service meteorologist Andy Woodcock said, which “is a joke to say the upper 80s.” “The average maximum temperature for July is supposed to be 87 or 88 degrees,” Mr. Woodcock said. “We’re going to cool down to the norm.”

<p>Triple-digit temperatures expected to feel as hot as 110 degrees have prompted excessive heat warnings across the D.C. area on Saturday and could threaten all-time highs.</p> <p>The day continued a trend in the area that hasn’t seen high temperatures lower than 95 degrees since the month began.</p>

For all the talk of incivility in the Nation's capital, the last week has restored my faith in the basic decency of the people who live there. Although the storm that hit Washington and the surrounding area June 29 has not received as much national attention as hurricanes, tornados, and other natural disasters usually do, the human toll has been high. In the Washington metro area alone, five people died in the storm and more than 20 have died subsequently from the heat, as hundreds of thousands suffered days without electrical power. But through it all, most people have behaved...

Utility crews made significant progress Tuesday restoring power to homes without electricity since Friday night’s storm, but officials in several jurisdictions announced they were canceling Independence Day celebrations as the recovery continues. Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said Tuesday morning that 75 percent of outages in Maryland had been restored, while Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell reported that power outages in Virginia had been reduced to a fraction of the 1.2 million customers left without lights and air conditioning in the wake of the storm. As of 5 p.m. Tuesday, about 13,000 of 257,000 Pepco customers in the District were still without...

WASHINGTON (AP) - In the aftermath of storms that knocked out power to millions, sweltering residents and elected officials are demanding to know why it's taking so long to restring power lines and why they're not more resilient in the first place. The answer, it turns out, is complicated: Above-ground lines are vulnerable to lashing winds and falling trees, but relocating them underground incurs huge costs - as much as $15 million per mile of buried line - and that gets passed onto consumers.

California officials responsible for the state's electric grid are scrambling to avoid blackouts in southern California this summer following news that a major nuclear power plant will be offline indefinitely. The effort to avoid a repeat of the costly power outages that plagued the state in 2000 and 2001 includes bringing old plants back online, commissioning new transmission lines and activating a multipronged emergency response system to cut power demand at peak times. "We're not forecasting blackouts, but during very hot periods, either a very hot day or an extended heat wave, there are going to be challenges in southern...

The intimidation now seems to be reaching Internet news blogs, like Townhall, yet I have heard a report on such intimidation from Joe Farah.

Don't worry, your Internet isn't running slow. Some of your favorite websites like Craigslist and Wikipedia have gone black for the next 24 hours in protest of anti-piracy legislation. If you have been trying to find the most correct answer on Wikipedia's English site about who won the Oscar for "Best Leading Lady" at the 1980 Academy Award this morning, nine times out of 10 you have realized the site isn't currently working. How about how many Harry S. Truman parks there are in the United States? Looking for an apartment for rent in the City of Hazelwood on Craigslist...

Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (you can read the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation here). The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States—the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECTIP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate—that, if passed, would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia. This will be the first time the English Wikipedia has ever staged a public protest of this nature, and it’s a...

FCC might end sports blackout ruleBy Brendan Sasso - 01/13/12 03:19 PM ET The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday issued a formal request for public comment on a proposal to end its sports blackout rule. The rule, first adopted in 1975, prohibits cable and satellite providers from carrying a sports event if the game is blacked out on local broadcast television stations. Dropping the rule would have the most effect on the National Football League, which requires broadcasters to black out games if the local team does not sell out the stadium. The rule is meant to encourage fans...

REDMOND, Wash. - The world's largest email provider, Microsoft, was struggling to restore its services Friday after outages that reportedly affected up to 365 million users worldwide. The service disruptions affected a variety of Microsoft email products including Office 365, MSN.com, Live@edu and Windows Live Hotmail. The extent of the disruption was unclear, but Microsoft confirmed problems in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. "We're rolling out a fix that we believe will resolve issues with Hotmail, SkyDrive, and our other Live properties," the company tweeted around 2:00am ET. Read more: http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/your_money/crash-affects-millions-of-microsoft-users-20110909-ncx#ixzz1XTx8HlYo

Transmitting lines were severed, causing power outage Officials were unable to say when power would be restored. More than 1.4 million San Diego Gas & Electric customers wre without power, with millions of people affected by the outage. All other service providers around the state have power. The California Independent System Operator is helping to bring power back on, an SDG&E official said. "We expect power to be out well into the night and into tomorrow in some areas," a spokesman for the utility said shortly before 5 p.m. A transmitter line between Arizona and California was severed, causing both...

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A major power outage knocked out electricity to up to 5 million people in California, Arizona and Mexico on Thursday, bringing San Diego and Tijuana to a standstill and leaving people sweltering in the late-summer heat in the surrounding desert. Two nuclear reactors were offline after losing electricity, but officials said there was no danger to the public or workers. San Diego bore the brunt of the blackout that started shortly before 4 p.m. PDT (7 p.m. EDT, 2300 GMT); most of the eighth-largest U.S. city was darkened. All outgoing flights from San Diego's Lindbergh Field...

The meteorologists at WeatherBELL Analytics believe we have an extremely dangerous situation on our hands. It is important that everyone in the potential path of this storm understand the consequences of Hurricane Irene's track. While there is still some variation in the computer models, the possibility of a devastating hurricane on Long Island and New England is very real. The European computer model has Irene north into New Jersey, New York and up the Hudson River and so even NYC is not out of the woods yet. The HWRF model is similar to the GFS model with a track over...

A nuclear power plant located in Louisa County, the epicenter of the earthquake in Virginia, has shut down. The North Anna Power Station, operated by Dominion Power, has two reactors. The plant declared an "unusual event" in the wake of the 5.9 magnitude quake, which is the lowest stage on the plant's emergency scale. As a result, the plant has been shut down. The AP reports the plant is being run off of four emergency diesel generators, which are supplying power for critical safety equipment. Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Roger Hannah says the agency was not immediately aware of any...

The decision by Bay Area Rapid Transit officials to cut off cellphone service Thursday evening – to forestall a planned protest – raises a fundamental question: Do Americans have a basic right to digital free speech or to digitally organized assembly? Because July protests against BART police shootings had turned violent, BART officials took the unusual step to protect public safety, they said. The tactic may have worked: No protests took place Thursday night at BART stations. Temporarily shutting down cell service and beefing up police patrols were "great tool[s] to utilize for this specific purpose," BART police Lt. Andy...

BART officials acknowledged this afternoon that they shut down cell phone and wireless data service in its downtown San Francisco stations to disrupt a planned protest. Their announcement sparked denunciations from civil libertarians and the apparent threat of a cyber-attack on the BART website. A statement posted on the transit agency's website said the communications blackout was ordered in the interest of public safety: "Organizers planning to disrupt BART service on August 11, 2011 stated they would use mobile devices to coordinate their disruptive activities and communicate about the location and number of BART Police," the statement reads. "A civil...

A shocking report prepared by Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency (FAAE) on information provided to them by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) states that the Obama regime has ordered a “total and complete” news blackout relating to any information regarding the near catastrophic meltdown of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant located in Nebraska. According to this report, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant suffered a “catastrophic loss of cooling” to one of its idle spent fuel rod pools on 7 June after this plant was deluged with water caused by the historic flooding of the Missouri River which resulted...

When the news was just coming out that Sarah Palin was going to speak before the CLSA. I was asking Will Sarah Palin Punk the Living Borat out of the CLSA?Well a spokesman (Jonathan Slone) has come out and put blame on Palin for the news black-out. There are other sites like Conservatives 4 Palin who are peddling the Breitbart version of Slone's remarks, but the bottom line on the story is the CLSA didn't have to say what Palin said. Period. These sites had better ask, what did Sarah say if there is no press and who will leak...

TEPCO: Rolling power cuts to last at least a year 2011/03/23 Tokyo Electric Power Co. will likely continue its rolling blackouts in the Kanto region for at least a year due to damage at two large thermal power plants, a senior company official said. The prolonged power outages through this summer and winter will deal a blow not only to residents of Tokyo and surrounding prefectures but also add to business woes.

Thursday, March 17, 2011 Govt Warns Of Massive Blackout In Tokyo Area On Bigger Power Demand TOKYO (Kyodo)--The government warned that an unpredictable massive blackout could occur in the Tokyo area from the evening through the night Thursday as power demand in the region has increased overnight due to cold temperatures. To prevent such a situation, the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry asked railway operators serving the metropolitan area to reduce the number of trains during the time frame, when the use of electricity is expected to peak for the day amid the commuter rush, as an emergency measure....

WICHITA FALLS — The electric grid operator for Texas is urging consumers and businesses are encouraged to reduce their electricity use during peak demand hours over the next few days from 6 – 9 a.m. and 4 – 8 p.m. to help reduce the risk of electricity emergencies or the need for rotating outages. “The National Weather Service is anticipating severe cold weather statewide this week, as another arctic air mass is expected to reach deep into Texas, dropping temperatures back into the teens and twenties,” said Trip Doggett, CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. "In anticipation of...

Forget all the concern about al Qaeda terrorists using explosions to take out our power grid or foreign hackers disabling it from afar - in Texas a cold front can apparently do the job. As the lights flickered and went dark across Texas on Wednesday in response to a state-mandated rolling blackout plan, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst was clearly irritated. He wasn't the only one. "This should not happen," Dewhurst told reporters on Wednesday. Dewhurst said that cold weather knocked 50 of the 550 power plants in Texas offline. That, coupled with increased demand, turned out the lights. "Lack of...

DALLAS – They are the critical care safety nets for North Texas: Parkland, Baylor, Methodist and Presbyterian Dallas. So, during Wednesday’s rolling outages, why was the power cut to these vital hospitals? Jorie Klein runs disaster management for Parkland Hospital, and is still upset that her hospital was included in the rotating outages. “We were not happy,” she said. “You can’t just go down for 15 minutes and come back up. It really does disrupt hospital care.” “We are sorry this happened. We are in a process of refining our processes, so in the unlikely event of future mandates for...

Gaza residents have been without electricity for most of the day this week due to the Palestinian Authority’s halt in fuel shipments through Israeli crossings. Unlike previous blackouts allegedly caused by limited Israeli shipments of diesel, the international community generally has remained silent. The PA in Ramallah, headed by the Fatah party, is demanding back payment of millions of dollars for electricity. The rival Hamas party, which controls Gaza, claims that most of the money wasn’t paid because it is used for operating costs of the Gaza generator

Twitter is the rage at the White House...Obama hasn't held a wide-ranging press conference since July and rarely talks to the small press pool following him around. Obama aides say it's because they don't want to craft "message events," only to have the press ask about something else that makes news and steps on their spin. Gibbs and other top administration imagemakers argue their direct-marketing strategy is not an anti-First Amendment ploy or an attempt to make the White House press corps obsolete. Instead, they say it's simply about controlling the message.

<p>RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil's two largest cities have been hit by a massive blackout that has also affected other parts of Latin America's largest nation.</p> <p>Media reports say problems at a huge hydroelectric dam are to blame for the electrial outages affecting large parts of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and other cities in several states.</p>

In an explosive interview by Dr. Laurie Roth on her syndicated West Coast radio show on August 7th, Douglas Hagmann—a respected journalist, director of the Northeast Intelligence Network and longtime private investigator, and Judi McLeod, a prolific journalist and the managing editor of Canada Free Press—the reason for the media blackout about the birth-certificate issue was nothing less than organized Mafia-like dire threats to members of the media issued not only from the heads of major TV and radio stations but also from Federal Communication Commission officials!

More info: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local-beat/Cal-ISO-Declares-Power-Emergency-64172852.html

The article at the link cites other publications like Le Monde, L'Union, and La Provence discussing the state induced media blackout - the press has been ordered not to report what appears to be record levels of violence. Police ambushes, burning cars, neighborhood fires etc.

Deployments of smart grids should be slowed until security vulnerabilities are addressed, according to some cybersecurity experts, citing tests showing that a hacker can cause a major blackout after breaking into a smart-grid system. The idea behind smart grids, a burgeoning energy sector in which even Google is playing a role, is that automated meters and two-way power consumption data can be used to improve the efficiency and reliability of an electrical system's power distribution. A washing machine in a household hooked up to a smart meter, for instance, could be set up to run only at lower-cost, off-peak hours,...

February 4, 2009 Dear Mr. Secretary: Since the Committee last convened in early November, the contraction in economic activity has deepened and broadened, while financial markets have remained under duress. The unprecedented volatility present in capital markets when the Committee last met has diminished somewhat but conditions still are exceptionally challenging. Policy efforts have begun to unlock credit for select high-quality borrowers. But the magnitude of wealth destruction, the still heightened cost of economy-wide capital and the impaired system of financial intermediation continue to cast a dark cloud over the economic outlook. Monetary and fiscal policy action now being implemented...

POSTED: 5:29 am HST January 5, 2009 UPDATED: 9:20 am HST January 5, 2009 Gabbard Wants Answers On Cause, Length Of Outage HONOLULU -- Some powerful state senators are seeking an explanation for why the power went out the day after Christmas and why it took so long to restore it. The chairman of the Senate committee on energy and environment announced Sunday he'll hold a hearing later this month to look into the power outage. Parts of Oahu were without electricity all night Dec. 26 and into the next day. On Sunday, Sen. Mike Gabbard called a news conference...

Oahu was without power overnight, possibly from a lightning strike, and Hawaiian Electric Co. officials said to expect it to last until morning. The outages, which began hitting various parts of the island at about 6:30 p.m., also affected the Kailua neighborhood where President-elect Barack Obama is staying. Mayor Mufi Hannemann said at about 10:10 p.m. that Honolulu police had talked to Obama. “He said he is fine and he and his family are going to bed,” the mayor said on KSSK. Gov. Linda Lingle advised all residents to do the same. She said Heco officials advised her that it...

HONOLULU (Reuters) - The resort and much of the island of Oahu where President-elect Barack Obama is vacationing was hit by a major blackout on Friday evening but it was not immediately clear if his compound had a backup source of electricity.

Some stuck without power powerless to fight bank fees Friday, September 19, 2008 By Margaret Harding THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH When his power returned without Internet service Monday, Tom Perry had a bit of a financial freakout. "It was kind of a panic-stricken moment there: 'Oh, no, what am I going to do?' " said Perry, whose credit-card and mortgage payment were both due that day. Perry, like many others, pays his bills online. Online banking and bill payment are pushed as the easiest and most efficient ways to handle such transactions, but a power outage such as the one central...

<p>Five years after the worst blackout in North American history, the country's largest power providers say the problems that turned out the lights on 50 million people have largely been resolved, but they fear that larger, systemic issues could soon lead to even bigger and more damaging outages.</p>

WASHINGTON -- Thousands homes and businesses are without power and Dupont Circle and Metro Center Metrorail stations are closed after a major outage in northwest D.C. on Friday. Officials said the outage was due to a failure at a substation on 10th Street. About 12,000 customers were without power at 10:30 a.m. Pepco said the outages stretches from as far north as U Street N.W. to F Street N.W., the Dupont Circle area to the west and Third Street N.W. to the east. Many downtown workers have been waiting outside on city streets because their offices are dark. Power is...

Bo (woof) In Commentary: I’ve always known that mice can’t read, but this story makes me wonder whether the same is true of cats. (A cat chasing a mouse in Tirana’s main power station caused a 72-hour blackout across parts of the Albanian capital, the electricity company said on Friday (local time). “A cat and a mouse ran into the high-voltage cables,” a company spokeswoman said, showing pictures of the electrocuted animals.) What part of the DANGER - High Voltage sign did Mittens not understand? (con't @ http://boknowsonline.com/2008/05/21/442/#more-442 )

The brand spanking new Airbus 340-600, the largest passenger airplane ever built, sat in its hangar in Toulouse, France without a single hour of airtime. Enter the Arab flight crew of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT) to conduct pre-delivery tests on the ground, such as engine runups, prior to delivery to Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi. The date was November 15, 2007. The ADAT crew taxied the A340-600 to the run-up area. Then they took all four engines to takeoff power with a virtually empty aircraft. Not having read the run-up manuals, they had no clue just how light an...