Free Republic

Jay McKinnon, a self-described Department of Homeland Security-trained document specialist, has implicated himself in the production of fraudulent Hawaii birth certificate images similar to the one endorsed as genuine by the Barack Obama campaign, and appearing on the same blog entry where the supposedly authentic document appears. The evidence of forgery and manipulation of images of official documents, triggered by Israel Insider's revelation of the collection of Hawaii birth certificate images on the Photobucket site and the detective work of independent investigative journalists and imaging professionals in the three weeks since the publication of the images, implicate the Daily Kos,...

Barack Obama extended the olive branch to Iran's leaders last Friday in a videotaped message praising a "great civilization" for "accomplishments" that "have earned the respect of the United States and the world." The death of Iranian blogger Omid-Reza Mirsayafi in Tehran's Evin prison two days earlier was, presumably, not among the accomplishments the president had in mind. Mr. Obama's solicitous message, timed to the Persian New Year's celebration of Nowruz, met a blunt response from the Islamic Republic's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei: "He insulted the Islamic Republic of Iran from the first day," he said. "If you are right...

Bloggers say they are willing to pay for DECENT and fair news. Really. So bloggers rock.

Iranian blogger Omidreza Mirsayafi died March 18 under mysterious circumstances in Tehran's notorious Evin prison. The official word is suicide, but close observers strongly suspect foul play. Mirsayafi ran a cultural blog called Rooz Negar, but in totalitarian states the cultural is the political, and a revolutionary court gave Mirsayafi two years in prison for “insulting” the Islamic Republic's leaders, and tacked on an additional six months for “publicity against the government.” Mohamed Abdel Dayem of the Committee to Protect Journalists told The Washington Times that this case illustrates how Iran “actively violates the rights of journalists and bloggers.” His...

Unintentionally hilarious. This is a look inside the "minds" of leftists, and just how "e-e-e-vil" they view people who don't agree with them. Most hilarious line: "Still, a very attractive Republican versus a DiStefano or a Blagojevic... mmaybe."

The vast new left-wing conspiracy sets its tone every morning at 8:45 a.m., when officials from more than 20 labor, environmental and other Democratic-leaning groups dial into a private conference call hosted by two left-leaning Washington organizations. The “8:45 A.M. call,” as it’s referred to by members, began three weeks ago, and it marks a new level in coordination by the White House’s allies at a time when the conservative opposition is struggling for a toe-hold and major agenda items like health care reform appear closer than ever to passage. The call has helped attempts to link the Republican Party...

The question of what makes a journalist is due for yet another round of debate, now that Congress is weighing two competing versions of a federal shield law for reporters. Last Friday, the Senate introduced its own version of the Free Flow of Information Act, a follow-up to the House's action two days before.  Both versions would provide new -- if limited -- protection against subpoenas for journalists, and both version contain a range of exceptions.  Both bills were introduced in 2007 as well, with the House version passing overwhelmingly despite a veto threat. The Senate bill was passed easily...

WASHINGTON — A group of liberal bloggers said it is teaming up with organized labor and MoveOn to form a political action committee that will seek to push the Democratic Party farther to the left. Soliciting donations from their readers, the bloggers said they are planning to recruit liberal candidates for challenges against more centrist Democrats currently in Congress. The formation of the group marks another step in the evolution of the blogosphere, which has proven effective at motivating party activists to give money and time to political campaigns, especially in local races. But it also illuminates a deepening wrinkle...

Now that the next gold rush...I mean, free-for-all for government cash (that doesn't exist) is on to expand the welfare class again, thanks to b. Hussein's pompous signature of GoFrigYourselfus today, next on the evil Zombies' agenda is the Fairness Doctrine...the outright silencing of talk radio in America. But...HARK! The evil plot (the leathery sound of Zombies rubbing their hands together maniacally should be filling your ears right about now...gee...I hope their fingers don't fall off) has many tentacles.

Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award Deadline for Entries: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 Accuracy in Media is currently accepting nominations for the annual Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award, in the Blogger/Online Journalist category. Criteria: Bloggers who have done investigative reporting on issues or stories that have been misreported or ignored by the mainstream press. Preference will be given to entries that have produced results, such as a correction, attention from other blogs or websites, mainstream media coverage, grassroots campaigns, or increased public awareness. Entries must meet the highest standards of factual accuracy, and works under consideration should have been...

Congratulations to Steve Gilbert of Sweetness & Light on being named CPAC's blog of the year. In a characteristically witty post, Steve discusses the awards ceremony to be held at CPAC's annual meeting in DC. AT readers have known of Steve's amazing talents even before he started Sweetness & Light, as we had the honor of publishing his well-researched observations before he ventured out on his own. We regularly feature links to his outstanding work. Listeners to Rush Limbaugh have also become familiar with Steve's original insights via the show.

Prof. Douglas Kmiec, Mark Shea and Thomas Peters Denver, Jan 14, 2009 / 06:02 am (CNA).- Several leading Catholic bloggers have responded to Doug Kmiec’s criticism of “right-wing Catholic bloggers” whom he characterized as “online tormenters” who personally attacked him, distorted his position, and potentially poisoned the relationship between the Holy See and the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama. Kmiec, a law professor and a prominent pro-life Catholic supporter of the pro-abortion rights President-elect Obama, had written his essay “A Tangled Web: The Election & the Blogosphere” for Commonweal Magazine. In it, he assailed the “right-wing Catholic blogosphere”...

Professor Douglas Kmiec Washington DC, Jan 13, 2009 / 11:53 am (CNA).- In his first lengthy article explaining his position after the election of President Barack Obama, Professor Douglas Kmiec is accusing “right wing Catholic bloggers" of distorting his position, attacking him personally, and potentially poisoning the relationship between the Holy See and the future administration of President Barack Obama.In the article entitled “A Tangled Web. The Election & the Blogosphere,” written for Commonweal magazine, Professor Kmiec explains that “as the author of a book whose title asked Can a Catholic Support Him? –and whose contents answered with an enthusiastic...

Three bloggers who had sued New York City after the Police Department denied them press credentials because they work for online or nontraditional news outlets were issued credentials on Friday after the police relented, the bloggers’ lawyer, Norman Siegel, said. The three men — Rafael Martínez Alequin, Ralph E. Smith and David Wallis — filed a federal lawsuit in November asserting that they were denied press credentials in 2007 “with little explanation or opportunity for appeal.” They argued that the system for issuing press credentials was “inconsistent and constitutionally flawed.” Mr. Siegel walked out of 1 Police Plaza on Friday...

So what’s has happened between 2000 and the present? A number of factors have allowed Major Avital Leibovich, head of the foreign-press department in the IDF Spokesman’s Unit, to say, “I’m surprised for the better. The coverage has been balanced on most channels, even on some outlets not known for being pro-Israel.” One big one is the creation and growth of web-based communities such as CAMERA, littlegreenfootballs.com, and honestreporting.com, which monitor coverage, share information with each other, and launch e-mail and phone-call campaigns in response to distortions.

Before we fully launch into the action-packed first week of 2009, I want to provide you with a year-end wrap-up of original blog reporting on this site and across the conservative blogosphere. Why? Well, over the weekend, a few bloggers on both the left and right perpetuated an ill-informed and self-serving myth that demands debunking. The myth is that conservative bloggers don’t do reporting.

Just by reading this online story, you are part of a groundbreaking trend. According to a new study from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released last week, the Internet has passed newspapers as the most popular source for news. Only television surpassed the Net, with about 70 percent of Americans saying they get most of their national and international news from the ubiquitous box. About 40 percent say they get most of their news from the Net, an increase of 16 percent from September 2007. Newspapers are the main source for about 35 percent. This...

The MSM newspapers are going into the crapper and it is all the fault of idiot bloggers (you know, those guys who sit around in their pajamas writing all day). The problem is that printing a hard copy of a publication packed with solid, interesting reporting isn't a guarantee of economic success in the age of instant news. Blogger Glenn Reynolds of "Instapundit" fame seems to be pleased at this. In his book, "An Army of Davids," Mr. Reynolds heralds an era in which "[m]illions of Americans who were in awe of the punditocracy now realize that anyone can do...

The Internet has surpassed newspapers as the main source for national and international news for Americans, according to a new survey. Television, however, remains the preferred medium for Americans, according to the survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Seventy percent of the 1,489 people surveyed by Pew said television is their primary source for national and international news. Forty percent said they get most of their news from the Internet, up from 24 percent in September 2007, and more than the 35 percent who cited newspapers as their main news source. Only 59...

Hint. Barack Obama is not Number 1. More . . .

"Gubbmint isn't the solution," Ronald Reagan famously said. "Gubbmint is the problem!" Well, until Al Gore invented our wonderful Internet world, there were darn few ways we common citizens could highlight just what the "problem" of government was. But, happily, we bloggers have become the modern version of our Founders plying the pamphleteer's trade. Now, via the incredible world of blogging, we can spy a government abuse and cast the harsh light of public scrutiny upon it. And we can do it in the blink of an eye. All we need is our computers and a little Internet access. But,...

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Blogger beware? State regulators are wondering whether online political activism amounts to lobbying, which could force Web-based activists to file public reports detailing their finances. In a collision of 21st century media and 1970s political reforms, the inquiry hints at a showdown over press freedoms for bloggers, whose self-published journals can shift between news reporting, opinion writing, political organizing and campaign fundraising. State officials are downplaying any possible media rights conflict, pointing out that regulators have already exempted journalistic blogging from previous guidelines for online campaign activity. But the blogosphere is taking the notion seriously. One prominent...

It is suspected that the man had traded heavily in stocks that had plummeted on the Brazilian Stock Exchange and this may have been the trigger for the shooting.

Right-wing bloggers see their chance.. Conservative groups are hardly celebrating the election of President Barack Obama, with perhaps one exception: right-wing bloggers, who see a ripe opportunity to catch up with the left.

Attention bloggers, please file your lobbyist forms... I just got out of the Public Disclosure Commission's stakeholder meeting regarding Internet lobbying. As I blogged yesterday, the PDC is asking whether Internet activities such as email or blogging qualify as lobbying. Goldy has this succinct reply: "Um ... hell, no." The purpose of today's meeting was to solicit public comment. Nancy Krier, the PDC's general counsel, ran the meeting and about a dozen folks showed up. I shared EFF's concern: that the Internet, which has become the new town square, is a forum where many citizens voice opinions about legislation and...

WASHINGTON — A powerful new lobbying force is coming to town: Barack Obama's triumphant army of 3.1 million Internet-linked donors and volunteers. In a mass e-mail thanking them, written moments before his Grant Park victory speech, Obama put them on notice. "We have a lot to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next," he wrote. Many are eager. "I'm going to be sitting at the phone, asking, 'What do you want me to do next? I'm ready,' " said volunteer Courtney Hood, 37, a mother of three from Owings,...

Just launched our new site, I know you freepers eat and that you love to write. Would you like to do a food related blog?

Obama's stealth campaign has now been exposed by the New Media as just another assault on power by the old-fashioned radical Left, beefed up with race-baiting demagoguery. As a result of constant New Media exposés, the Leftwing media are now discredited and widely distrusted, and teetering on the edge of a death spiral. The New York Times' debt securities now have junk bond status from S&P. The same ideological suicide could happen to the Democratic Party itself. The Obama campaign, with its many incestuous links to "small 'c' communists" and Islamic fascists, could end up discrediting the entire Democratic Party...

There is just one slight problem. No one is forcing Americans to listen to Rush Limbaugh or other popular conservative talk show hosts. In fact, radio is still one shining beacon of free market economics in the United States. Everyday, when Americans reach for the dial, they are confronted with dozens of choices much like when they go to buy a six-pack of beer at the local supermarket. The decision is based on tastes and Rush Limbaugh happens to be the Budweiser (or is it Bud Light these days?) of talk radio in America. Why? Limbaugh appeals to the average...

I didn’t suppose that folks on the Left would take kindly to my post yesterday, but the spasms of irrationality (not to mention obscenities) in blog posts and e-mails have surprised me. Lots of folks out there can’t read very well or engage in reasoned argument, but that doesn’t stop them from expressing their ill-formed thoughts. A representative sampling: This blogger (like many others) claims that I “pointed out that Senator Obama likely would’ve been aborted if the legal option existed.” No. I made the simple observation that, generally speaking, a pregnant college freshman living in a culture in which...

The liberal blogosphere — which usually erupts with ad hominem attacks on the messenger whenever it is subject to the mildest, even-handed criticisms — has been eerily silent since last week’s revelation that MyDD.com founder and DailyKos ally Jerome Armstrong is the subject of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation for allegedly taking money to promote a stock on a prominent online bulletin board.

"I have said before and I will repeat again: People's families are off limits," Obama said. "And people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18 and how a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn’t be a topic of our politics."

At the entrance of "The Big Tent" -- a refuge for bloggers a short walk from the Pepsi Center -- there's a signup sheet for visitors from newspapers and television and others of their ilk. "Traditional Media," it says. It's a subtle putdown, but illustrative of a larger truth: the "new media" -- the Internet journalists, the V-loggers, the satellite radio hosts -- are on the ascent at this convention. They're the ones with the swagger, the ones with the coolest parties and the wonkiest panel discussions. At "The Big Tent," funded in part by Google and progressive blog DailyKos...

Free to Blog It isn't every Tuesday that DailyKos and the Heritage Foundation find common cause, but that was the case after a Federal Election Commission ruling last week that exempts political bloggers from rules governing political organizations. The decision, great news for bloggers, also highlights the proliferation of chronic whiners that the campaign finance laws have produced. Politicians and their allies increasingly are resorting to lawsuits and regulatory complaints in an attempt to silence opponents and critics. In this case, the whining was done by a Hillary Clinton supporter who complained that a pro-Obama blog called Iowa True Blue...

Thank you to everyone who submitted great posters showing your support for John McCain! After narrowing down the field to 10 finalists, you voted for your favorite design. Congrats to Byron from Mesa, Arizona for his winning entry.

It started as a fairly predictable digital conflict, mimicking the one in the real world and displaying no shortage of “conventional” cyberwarfare: Web pages were attacked, comments were erased, and photos were vandalized. A typical prank on the Georgian Foreign Ministry’s Web site visually compared Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili with Adolf Hitler. As Russian tanks lumbered southward over mountainous Ossetian terrain, Russian netizens were seeking to dominate the digital battlefield. But sophomoric pranks and cyberattacks were only the first shots of a much wider online war in which Russian bloggers willingly enlisted as the Kremlin’s grass-roots army. For Russian netizens,...

Bloggers and web site operators may support, oppose, link to, and work cooperatively with federal political candidates. This freedom was reaffirmed when the newly re-constituted Federal Election Commission released its first two enforcement cases August 12. The Commission’s refusal to regulate blogging and internet sites is not new, but it is notable is that the pro-blogger decision was made within a week or two of the new Commission taking office. Of the scores of items on its docket, the new Commission chose to address this one first: quite likely because they wanted to send a signal to that bloggers are...

This morning, Jamal Simmons, an oft-used Obama and DNC surrogate, appeared on CNN and had a few curious, if not offensive, comments. Jim Geraghty reports: A moment ago, my NR colleague David Freddoso, author of The Case Against Barack Obama, appeared on CNN. He was followed by Obama surrogate Jamal Simmons, who dodged David Freddoso's discussion of Obama's successful effort to get all of his rivals thrown off the ballot in his first race. Simmons said he only saw "a man using means at his disposal to win an election, shocking!" Yes, but we're constantly told that Obama isn't just...

With media stocks plummeting, a noisy army of pundits is predicting the imminent extinction of print newspapers and magazines. I hope they're wrong--for two reasons. The obvious reason is self-interest: If freebie blogs and news aggregators kill off the National Post and its ilk, then I'm going to have to go back to my high school job, manning the drive-thru at McDonald's. But I have a more noble reason, too: a genuine, altruistic desire for an educated citizenry. Not to be old-fashioned, but there are certain kinds of important stories that simply cannot be covered, except by deep-pocketed traditional media...

Blogger and Brooklyn College Professor of Business Mitchell Langbert has been doing a yeoman’s job investigating the records of Senator Obama’s birth certificate. Despite the pleas from many quarters of the blogosphere, thus far his birth certificate has not been made public, except for a proven forgery on the Daily Kos site and his own campaign site Fight the Smears. At this time, there is no proof that Barack Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States, and therefore no proof of his eligibility to be president. What should be a simple matter of producing a paper document...

Blog Shut Down by 'Christian' Apologist's Threat Contact: Pastor Dustin Segers, Coalition of Concerned Bloggers, ChristianResearchNetwork.com, 336-848-7197 MEDIA ADVISORY, July 28 /Christian Newswire/ -- Pastor Dustin Segers submits the following and is available for comment: How safe are our blogs? That question was raised again when on the evening of July 26, 2008, a popular religious blog was shut down by an Internet service provider. A complaint filed by Christian author and apologist, Richard Abanes, claiming that one article on the religious opinion site, Apprising.org, had slandered him, caused the web host, IPower, to send its publisher, Ken Silva, a...

Several newspapers and The Associated Press have settled a copyright infringement lawsuit against the operator of a collection of Web sites, the news organizations announced Friday. The Police News Publishing Co., Breck Porter and six affiliated Web sites had been accused of accessing the news content of the organizations without their authorization and posting it on the Web sites, where advertising appears. The content was then archived; the archiving, publication, distribution and display of the content all violated the news organizations' copyright, according to the suit. Porter, of Galveston, was the editor of the various Web sites. In addition to...

DBKP.com was alerted yesterday to both a good news-bad news situation by Doug Ross, of DougRoss@Journal. The good news was the TimesOnline had used several of our quotes from our interview this week with David Perel, Editor-in-Chief of the National Enquirer, in a story it ran July 26 2008 on John Edwards’ run-in with the Enquirer’s reporters at the Beverly Hilton while visiting his mistress and their love child. The bad news was that the Times reporter, Sarah Baxter, in her story, Sleaze scuppers Democrat golden boy never credited DBKP as her source for the quotes, which were taken word-for-word...

For two days last week, many of the men’s bathrooms at the Westin St. Francis Hotel here were turned into women’s bathrooms. The stalls on the second floor were lined with note cards featuring nurturing messages like “You are perfect.” Nearby, women were being dusted with blush and eye shadow, or having the kinks in their necks massaged. ... Other prominent female bloggers who did not attend the BlogHer conference agreed that there are unique challenges that women in the blogosphere face. “Women get dismissed in ways that men don’t,” said Megan McArdle, an associate editor at The Atlantic Monthly...

With the general election a long way off and much of the general public still tuning out the presidential race, you'd think the online activist corps that have injected unprecedented amounts of cash to fuel this campaign season might want to take a few weeks off. You'd be wrong.

When Netroots Nation organizers were considering New Orleans as the host site of their convention devoted to the Internet as an instrument of the political left, Texas Netroots members made a convincing case that Texas is at the center of the blogging culture driving the political discussion for liberals. In an online vote conducted by Netroots Nation, a Web site for liberal bloggers to exchange ideas, the nation overwhelmingly chose Austin for this year's conference, said Vince Leibowitz, a blogger from Tyler. So on Thursday, more than 3,000 bloggers are expected to fill the Austin Convention Center for the four-day...

Fitzgerald: Why Obama makes people nervous It would be silly for Barack Obama and his advisers not to recognize that there are many people in this country who are anxious about his Muslim background, his Muslim name, and his Muslim supporters getting out the vote for someone whom, they, at least, in this country, and abroad, are convinced is deeply sympathetic to Islam and to its aims. This does not go away by declaring oneself a Christian. And it does not go away after the election, whether Obama wins -- in which case the anxiety only increases -- or if...

Texas' Defending the American Dream summit will include topics for bloggers. Move over, Netroots Nation: The conservatives are coming. As an estimated 3,000 people, mostly liberal bloggers and online activists, convene in Austin next week, the Texas chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a grassroots organization that champions limited government and free markets, has added for the first time a new-media emphasis to its traditional Defending the American Dream state summit. "We're not trying to go toe-to-toe with Netroots," said Peggy Venable, Texas director of Americans for Prosperity, noting that the conservative meeting might be one-tenth the size of the Netroots...

Col Bay is asking for help if anyone is ready or willing.

The liberal blogosphere was aflame today with new accusations that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) is trying to win the 2008 presidential election.