Free Republic

Oh, I could hear the balloon deflating all the way from the Politico headquarters.Phllloooooooopppphhtt.Last week, on the day of the highly-watched GOP presidential debate, someone gave Politico’s Mike Allen an enticing piece of catnip to put in his insidery morning email. Secret audio tape would soon be published on a conservative news site supposedly showing that Ted Cruz talks much differently to NYC moderates than Iowa evangelicals. “These leaks are designed to undermine Cruz’s authenticity,” Allen wrote.The prospect of a juicy secret recording flew around the Internet. People reported on the prospect of the audio tape, before ever hearing a...

Did you know that violent white men are never arrested for their actions? The Chicago Sun-Times' Mary Mitchell is sure of it, if you aren't. In another of her typically race baiting articles, Mitchell this time says that any time a white man is engaged in violent behavior, he is let off "to go on his merry way," never to be "held accountable" for his actions. Race monger Mitchell is sure of this, see, because she saw a traffic scuffle between two "old white guys" where no arrests were made by Chicago police. Two "old white guys" let go without...

A powerful rival to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became speaker of Iran's parliament today, clearing the way for a potential challenge against the hard-line head of state ahead of 2009 presidential elections... ...Many analysts say the differences between Larijani and Ahmadinejad have more to do with style than substance. Larijani, who won his parliamentary seat as a representative of the shrine city of Qom, hails from an elite religious family. Ahmadinejad is a blacksmith's son who fought as a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard in the Iran-Iraq war. Nonetheless European diplomats who have dealt with Larijani on the nuclear...

NEAH BAY, Wash. (AP) — An injured California gray whale was swimming out to sea Saturday after being shot with a machine gun off the western tip of Washington state, officials said. Coast Guard Petty Officer Kelly Parker said five people believed to be members of the Makah Tribe shot and harpooned the whale Saturday morning. The extent of the whale's injuries were not immediately known. Tribe members were being held by the Coast Guard but had not been charged, said Mark Oswell, a spokesman for the law enforcement arm of the National Marine Fisheries Service. A preliminary report said...

Isn't it clear by now that the U.S. and its allies are not likely to be able to wipe out Al-Qaeda or ensure that the Americans are not attacked again domestically? As the British acknowledged in July, the London attacks were just a matter of when, not if. To be sure, the terrorists can't win this war, but neither can the Americans. The most serious risk is that Al-Qaeda will sooner or later be able to attack the U.S. with a biological or nuclear weapon, not merely the conventional bombs used in London and Madrid or the suicide car bombs...

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Hundreds of chanting partisans staged dueling protest rallies at the Capitol on Tuesday, many demanding a revote in the state's closest governor's race in history. Police estimated more than 1,000 protesters massed on the Capitol lawn. A no-man's zone staffed by at least a dozen state troopers kept a larger pro-revote crowd separate from a pack of Democrat Christine Gregoire's backers. Cries of "revote" and "revote or revolt" rang out as lawmakers inside the Capitol prepared to debate a GOP motion to delay certification of the governor's election for two weeks while the courts and lawmakers deal...

December 22, 1944 BASTOGNE (Routers) A generous German offer of surrender terms was crudely rebuffed by an American general in this besieged Belgian town today, reinforcing the growing image of America as a brutish cowboy in the OK Corral, and almost certainly dooming it and its inhabitants. The town has been under attack by German artillery almost since the beginning of the latest successful German offensive six days ago, and has been surrounded by German troops for the past two days. Its only defense has been the US 101st Airborn Division, under the command of General Anthony C. McAuliffe. At...

CBS News Scandal Update. Better late than never, two-and- a-half weeks after running its hit job on Bush using forged documents, CBS News has decided, the AP reported Saturday, that it would be "inappropriate" to air so close to the presidential election a 60 Minutes story about how the Bush administration used forged documents to justify the Iraq war. That and viewers would laugh at CBS's chutzpah. And despite his role in trying to undermine the Bush candidacy, Rather will anchor CBS's debate coverage. Plus, Walter Cronkite called the scandal an "embarrassment" to CBS News and CBS's own David Letterman...

For more than a month, one of our national papers of record, The New York Times, has been examining "conservative forces in religion, politics, law, business and the media." No, that isn't made up. The quoted material comes from Times national editor Jim Roberts, announcing last month that David D. Kirkpatrick, the former media correspondent, would patrol the new beat. As with any press release, it deserves a question or two, beginning with why The Times thinks it can cover all of those conservative forces with only one reporter. The task would seem to require a legion of correspondents, but...

Posted on Sun, Mar. 31, 2002 Have you ever wondered how professional journalists cover an international sporting event? Well too bad, because I'm going to tell you. In February I spent three weeks at the Winter Olympics in Utah (``Where the Party Never Stops Until 8:30 p.m.''). I was part of the press corps swarming around Olympic events in thermal underwear, asking penetrating questions such as: (1) Who won this event? (2) How can you tell? (3) What is this event called again? As you can see by these questions, the Olympic press corps does not always have a solid...