Free Republic

Sarah Palin may or may not run for president in 2012, but she is already the overwhelming favorite in the Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck primaries. In a new Washington Post poll, Palin beats other GOP leaders on two questions: who best represents the party's core values, and who Republicans would vote for if the presidential nomination battle were held today. But she has particular appeal to the loyal followers of Limbaugh and Beck, two of the most popular conservative talk show hosts in the country.

Something struck me yesterday when I ran into some leftists I know and they're all in denial about what these hacked emails contain: These emails are everything that the left tried to say that the DSM was. There's a "there" here. But being as their media won't accept reality, most leftists won't accept it either. In the minds of the progressive media and the left, the science is still settled. It's the new dan rather. So it's all fake, so what? It's still accurate!

Accountability Journalism An Associated Press dispatch, written by Erica Werner and Richard Alonso-Zaldivar, compares the House and Senate ObamaCare bills. We'd like to compare this dispatch to the AP's dispatch earlier this week "fact checking" Sarah Palin's new book. Here goes: Number of AP reporters assigned to story: • ObamaCare bills: 2 • Palin book: 11 Number of pages in document being covered: • ObamaCare bills: 4,064 • Palin book: 432 Number of pages per AP reporter: • ObamaCare bill: 2,032 • Palin book: 39.3 On a per-page basis, that is, the AP devoted 52 times as much manpower to...

The headline on this Guardian article is pretty sanitized: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/23/climate-change-emails-uea "Climate change email hacking to be looked into by University of East Anglia" But you don't have to read very far to see that the media has zero interest in investigating the content of the emails. They want the leakers destroyed; as do the scientists.

With liberal politicans, reporters pan for gold. With conservative politicians, reporters dig for dirt. The media spotlight that has been used as soft backlighting to illuminate President Obama and other liberal darlings doubles as a tightly-focused laser beam to attack Republicans. Just look at the recent issue of Newsweek magazine with its cover photo showing former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin wearing, of all things, running shorts. If you think that would be more appropriate on the cover of a magazine about running, you'd be exactly right -- it was a photo originally intended for Runner's World.It's not exactly a dignified...

Sarah Palin is the beneficiary of the vast left-wing conspiracy. Palin is selling a book. Nothing sells books like attention. Lefties love to attack Palin. Attacks create more attention for Palin and her book. I suspect she will show as much gratitude to her critics as she has shown to the person who made her, John McCain. --snip-- I noticed Kate Snow’s report on ABC News’ website about a conference call that McCain held with his top aides. Snow quoted an aide describing the call this way: “He apologized to everyone on the call for people having to go through...

No force on Earth can stop Sarah Palin from becoming our very own "lite" version of Eva Perón -- a glamorous and tragic legend, minus the tragedy. Eventually, some clever composer will write a blockbuster musical about her life and times. Stage directions will include: "SARAH fires gun. MOOSE dies." It's futile to try to ignore Palin, however noble the effort may be. She's a phenomenon, and it hardly matters that so many people believe she augurs the final dissolution of American politics into a big, frothy bowl of mush. The republic will survive even her. Anyway, she's unlikely ever...

I would not do it. Going to war with the Associated Press is as dumb as going to war with Fox News. Sarah Palin should leave the criticism of the media to others. We like our leaders a little above the fray. From her Facebook: The book tour starts this week, and I look forward to it! I’m most looking forward to meeting many of you, shaking your hands, and telling you, “Thanks for loving America.” I’ll give you a scoop here and tell you what’s on the book’s Dedication Page -– it’s dedicated to you — Patriots -– who...

When Sarah Palin burst onto the national political stage there was a lot of talk about her distinctive way of talkin', you betcha. Heck, she moved to Alaska when she was too young to speak and grew up in the small town of Wasilla, but doggone it, why did she talk like someone from the movie "Fargo"? Three University of Wisconsin-Madison linguists tackled the conundrum in a research article to be published in the Journal of English Linguistics next month. The answer lies in something that happened in the 1930s. During the presidential campaign, almost every aspect of Palin's life,...

Sarah Palin's new book "Going Rogue" is set for release on Nov. 17 and with that will likely come a media blitz of epic proportions. However, based on the cover of the Nov. 23 issue of Newsweek, someone felt a response was warranted. The wizards of smart at Newsweek took an image from a shoot of Palin that originally appeared in Runner's World magazine for the cover and splashed the headlines, "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah?" and "She's Bad News for the GOP - and For Everybody Else, Too." ...more (with bare-legged Palin cover)...

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<p>SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Chronicle says it will become the first newspaper in the nation to print on high-quality glossy paper.</p>

Firebrand conservative commentator Ann Coulter says she hopes Sarah Palin uses her forthcoming book to get "payback" against the McCain campaign for the way it treated Palin, McCain's running mate during the 2008 presidential campaign. The Associated Press, which bought a copy of the book, reports that, in it, Palin confirms reports of tension between her aides and McCain's, and that she writes about the "jaded aura" of professional campaign aides, and how McCain's entourage limited her access to the media-- leading many to think that she was avoiding reporters. Coulter made her remark on "The Early Show" Friday --...

The Nothing-to-see-here media continue to do a grand job. Chris Matthews: We may never know if religion was a factor at Fort Hood. That's almost certainly true in your case, Chris. As for yelling "Allahu akbar" as you open fire, Michael Tomasky, one of the American lefties on the Guardian's payroll, explains it for us know-nothings: The fact that Hassan reportedly shouted the above is meant, I suppose, to imply that he was an extremist fanatic. I'm not sure that it does. My understanding is that it's something Arab people often shout before doing something or other. It's used in...

Can we get a liberal journalist to investigate that? Let's wait and see. I doubt we'll get the same kind of curiousity from liberal journalists about that.

WASHINGTON -- Bob McDonnell's decisive victory is even more impressive if one stops to acknowledge that it came in the face of incredibly daunting opposition, misleading and low-brow campaign commercials, and a "news" organization which often advocates for left-of-center candidates and causes. To win the election, McDonnell had to defeat not only the Deeds campaign, but the DNC, the White House, and The Washington Post. Lest we forget, this is not the first time this "take no prisoners" strategy was employed by the Democrats and The Washington Post against a Virginia Republican. In fact, three years ago, not only was...

Bob McDonnell won big tonight in the Virginia gubernatorial race, as did the entire Virginia Republican party. The implications of the race will be sorted out soon enough. But one big loser is the Washington Post which may unwittingly have helped the Republican, despite their best efforts to put his opponent over the top. On the last weekend in August the Post ran the first of dozens of stories about McDonnell's 1989 masters' thesis, in which he wrote, among other things, that working women were detrimental to families and that government should favor traditional marriage over gay unions. While they...

Here's a transcript of what's said: Unknown voice: "We need to change congress" Friedman: No, we don't need to change congress, excuse me. You know, people have a great misunderstanding about this. People in congress are in the business, they're trying to buy votes. They're in the business of competing with one another to get elected. The same congressman will vote for a different thing if he thinks that's politically profitable. You don't have to change congress. People have a great misconception in this way they think the way you solve things is by electing the right people. It's nice...

So tell me, how do you write a “news” story about an organization paying for a speaker when you don’t even know if the organization is paying for the speaker? Ask “journalist” Jonathan Martin. He knows all about it. You see, Jonny wrote a piss poor story the other day about how the Iowa Family Policy Center will be paying a large speaker fee if Sarah Palin comes to Iowa to keynote the IFPC’s fall funderaiser. The only problem is that Jonny has no sources confirming that any exorbitant fee is being charged or paid. In fact, he had just...

CBS4 I-Team Investigator Stephen Stock went undercover with other I-Team member to find suspect medical clinics operating in South Florida one step ahead of the law. The grainy, shaky undercover video tape shot by the CBS4 I-Team shows dozens of...........

The AP has yet again run a hit piece trying to link any scandal it can to Bush. This chart shows that he was not a bush aide.

There's been a weird talking point bubbling up that the House health-care plan makes private insurance -- sigh -- illegal. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who breathes out crazy like the rest of us exhale carbon dioxide, warns that "on the 16th page, it says whatever health care you have now, it’s going to be gone within five years." Investor's Business Daily says, "right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal." Sigh. Not really. Shadowfax does the lord's work and explains what's actually going on here. The short version is that your insurance doesn't become illegal....

Accuracy in Media (AIM), America's first independent watchdog of the news media, is giving FREE tickets to FReepers to attend AIM's 40th Anniversary Conference in Washington, DC on Friday, October 23, 2009. To get your ticket, visit www.aim.org/events and enter discount code "freerepublic" or go to: http://aim40thconference.eventbrite.com/?discount=freerepublic Speakers include Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Tony Blankley, John Fund, Andrew C. McCarthy, Cliff Kincaid, Trevor Loudon, Anita MonCrief, Hans von Spakovsky, Marc Morano, Robert Bluey, Ann McElhinney, J.P. Freire, and Don Irvine. Tickets are regularly $75 and include a buffet luncheon and morning and afternoon snacks. YOU MUST REGISTER IN ADVANCE for...

ORLANDO, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - A proposed state guideline for dealing with an influenza pandemic is causing quite a stir. The Florida Department of Health is proposing that health care providers, notably hospitals, pull the plug on the most critically-ill patients in order to treat "healthier" patients.

The New York Times (NYT) newsroom is reeling from today's announcement that the company plans to cut the staff by 100. We spoke with a Times reporter, who told us it was the timing of the layoffs that is hitting everyone the hardest. The layoffs will come at the start of December, meaning a jobless Christmas for lots of reporters. See more reactions from the newsroom > Most of the people at the Times know the paper needs to be slimmed down, but nobody expected it would come in the middle of October. The newsroom is "stunned." When we asked...

Former U.S. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin appears to have posted her CV on an internet job site. The profile featuring Mrs Palin's name and picture claims she is looking for new opportunities in the business world after having stepped down as Governor of Alaska three months ago. The 45-year-old, who is seen by many as a challenger to President Barack Obama in the 2012 election, lists her accomplishments on LinkedIn, a social networking site aimed at professionals in the business world. On the 'contact setting' portion of the site the profile claims she is interested in job inquiries and...

<p>TEL AVIV – President Obama's presidential campaign focused on "making" the news media cover certain issues while rarely communicating anything to the press unless it was "controlled," White House Communications Director Anita Dunn disclosed to the Dominican government at a videotaped conference.</p>

(HITPIECE ALERT) http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE59F5GX20091017SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc is taking its ferocious price cutting into new markets as the economy shows hints of recovery.

No, the headline is not sarcastic. No, I do not particularly care for the guy. Yes, Rush has said all other various and sundry sorts of racially inflammatory things. But there's pretty compelling evidence a couple of particularly inflammatory quotes that have been attributed to Limbaugh on CNN and at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch are things he simply never said. There's no audio file, there's no YouTube, there's no transcript -- there's no sourcing of any kind to speak of, and given that Rush is one of the most listened-to and tape-recorded people in the history of the world, you'd...

Not since 1999's "Blair Witch Project" have I seen a homemade video more filled with ghoulishness and revulsive candor. The recent footage of ACORN workers advising a "pimp" and his "prostitute" how to circumvent the law in order to set up a brothel is priceless and instructive. What does it say of our 80,000-page tax code that a crew of disheveled but determined amateurs can pick it apart so nonchalantly? The federal tax code is the magnum opus of generations of legislators, inspired by egalitarianism, but subsequently weakened by expediency, misshapened by greed, and finally bloated beyond reason by its...

Respectable news outlets aren't the only ones having trouble processing the fact that a purple-eyed partisan like Andrew Breitbart is producing impactful journalism this season. The ancient Atlantic magazine–which, strangely, appears to have morphed into a sort of Blogger's Monthly–has been furrowing its brows at Breitbart & Co. both in print and online. Regular Atlantic contributor Conor Friedersdorf, writing at The Daily Beast (and earning a high-five from Andrew Sullivan), poses the question: ACORN is just the latest example of how conservative media love to blast The New York Times for its shortcomings. So why can't they live up to...

Because conservatism is bipartisan, that's why the media chooses to rig polling based on party affiliation instead. Watch: Gallup Poll #1 . Gallup Poll #2 . Battleground Poll The numbers vary, but it's abundantly clear that conservatives outnumber liberals. But democrats out number republicans What this means is that people more readily identify with the ideals of conservatism, than they do with "the conservative party".(I put that in quotes because the republicans have been at war with conservatives for quite a few years now) It also means that people more readily identify with the democrat party than they do with...

In a meeting of New York conservative activists earlier this month, Andrew Breitbart received a raucous standing ovation for doing something many conservatives never dreamed possible. He beat The New York Times.As video upon video were released showing ACORN employees eagerly helping two conservatives (Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe) set up prostitution as a legitimate business, file false tax statements and engage in the trafficking of underage illegal immigrants, much of the major media remained silent. For conservatives, the rationale was simple: the major media were uninterested in exposing an organization linked with President Barack Obama. There may have been...

Getting clean, getting Mormon, getting talk radio -- and going to Yale, with the help of Joe Lieberman. It was 1990, the midpoint of Beck's career in FM morning radio. The morning zoo craze had peaked and the economy had stalled. Eight years after leaving Washington state with a suitcase full of skinny ties and dreams of working in Rockefeller Center, Beck was now a morning-drive journeyman with a family to feed and a reputation to save. Despite breaking quickly out of the gate at age 18, Beck did not enter the new decade within sight of the industry's front...

Having just returned form the “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” event in Washington, D.C., I was intrigued to check e-mail and discover this from a listener in West Texas: “…the Statesman finally ran a piece about ACORN.” She was referring to the Austin American-Statesman, which, up until this point had not run a single article about the ACORN scandals that are so hot in the New Media. The Statesman is a liberal newspaper in the only liberal big city in Texas, but still… Nothing about ACORN? And it’s not just one paper in Texas that’s ignoring this story; it’s...

The Fishwrap of Record has finally seen fit to tell its readers about the latest ACORN scandals (the San Bernardino tapes, which don’t get a mention, are beyond belief). True to form, the New York Times commits grievous sins of omission that whitewash the paper’s own role in deliberately covering up ACORN’s illicit activities before Election Day last November. The Times article by Scott Shane casts the ACORN stings as a purely partisan game: “Conservatives Draw Blood From Acorn, Favored Foe.”

Obviously, the "main stream" media are hard of hearing and seeing. About 2 million mad-as-hell taxpayers assembling in Washington, D.C. for the largest-ever (most well-behaved ever, most respectful ever) protest did not make it onto their radar screens (or our TV screens). They need our help. Maybe we cannot repeat an assembly of 2 million mad-as-hell taxpaying patriots in one place, but surely those who longed to go and couldn't would love to be a part of Operation "Can You Hear Us Now?" I'll bet for every one patriot who went to D.C. there are 10-20 more who wished they...

The public’s assessment of the accuracy of news stories is now at its lowest level in more than two decades of Pew Research surveys, and Americans’ views of media bias and independence now match previous lows. Just 29% of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 71% say that news stories are often inaccurate. In the initial survey in this series about the news media’s performance in 1985, 55% said news stories were accurate while 34% said they were inaccurate. That percentage had fallen sharply by the late 1990s and has remained low over the last...

Glenn Beck, the hottest right-wing voice on the air, worried aloud to his listeners the other day that powerful, sinister forces trying to destroy America might soon "shoot me in the head." But there's fear among his critics, including calmer conservatives, that the victim more likely will be one of Beck's many broadcast targets. After a summer of mob anger at town hall meetings on health care - some of which featured gun-toting protesters - and a burst of Beck-fanned hysteria over President Obama's back-to-school speech last week, the former top 40 deejay has emerged as a goofy dark prince...

In the tales about vampires, it was learned how they create the "undead" and how they can be eliminated by a stake through the heart. It would appear that in the case of Sarah Palin, the passionate left has created an undead; she keeps coming back. In Gail Collins' column, "Levi's very public revenge," she continues to sink her fangs into her constant target by using tacky images of an individual and a family situation. But, know what? She describes people and situations we meet and know every day. The fine family nonachievers who flunk out of school, the ones...

Think about that for a second. Are they a death panel? I think they are. On a day to day basis...... hourly.... they kill information. They kill A LOT of information. Whatever gets deemed too inconvenient gets omitted and ignored and suppressed. Whatever is unavoidable they propagandize and spin away to make it fit the template, or they just poo poo and down play it. They are a body which keeps rationing and rationing information that they don't approve of. Think about some of those commonly heard talking points regarding the drive bys: "If it bleeds it leads" Except when...

I feel guilty because originally I supported the decision by the Associated Press to release the photo of the young Marine that was taken as he lay dying. I lost readers over that and I do not blame them. Sarah Palin weighed in on Facebook. "Many of us join Secretary Gates in condemning the Associated Press for its heartless and selfish decision to turn its back on the wishes of a grieving family in order to exploit the tragic death of a true American hero. Lance Corporal Joshua ‘Bernie’ Bernard was a selfless young American who sacrificed everything for our...

An online backlash is building against Whole Foods Market Inc. chief executive John Mackey, thanks to his op-ed column in The Wall Street Journal knocking President Barack Obama's proposed health care bill.

Marc Cooper on the continuing nosedive of "alternative media" bastion Pacifica Radio, and what this disaster says about the "media reform" movement. "If it can't bring itself to scrutinize the squandering and trashing of the $500 million Pacifica network (the market value of its licenses), then why should we trust this movement to offer serious analysis of the rest of the media?" Indeed. Marc also highlights the unsavory role of Amy Goodman, one of the true charlatans of today's radical left. After helping foment the takeover of Pacifica by a faction of extremist wackos in the late '90s: [Goodman] struck...

The glaring duplicity in media coverage of the current chaotic "healthcare" debate is unparalleled. When a lone gunman shoots an abortionist, the nightly news incessantly recounts the event for weeks, insisting that the brutal action most certainly reflects a universal mindset among any and all who call themselves pro-life. But let the people of heartland America rise up in unprecedented numbers at Democrat "town hall" meetings and voice their sincere opposition to the attempt by Obama and the left to implement socialized "health care," and they are derided as merely a loud but insignificant "fringe." In other words, the stories...

"Gryphen" a/k/a Alaska blogger Jesse Griffin, decides apparently at random to unload on Trig Palin again: Sarah Palin has used this heartrending diminutive prop with such careless abandon, that even people who once supported her are embarrassed at her apparent disregard for the well being of this baby. Leaving behind all of the questions about Trig's parentage, the question we must now ask ourselves is how well is he currently being cared for? I believe that many people have very powerful concerns for this child. We see him trotted out when Sarah wants to make a political point, or create...

Ah, democracy! It never works better than when informed citizens gather in town hall meetings to discuss and debate the issues of the day. But, oh, democracy! It's never more damaged than when partisan zealots plot to disrupt town hall meetings in order to prevent any honest debate of the issues. And that's exactly what's happening in health care forums held across the nation by members of Congress. We've seen it in Philadelphia; Austin, Texas; Georgetown, Del.; Salisbury, Md; and other communities. Taking a page right out of a Nazi playbook, organizers bus in professional protestors and arm them with...

The whole birth certificate issue gets weirder still: "I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen. I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago...." But why are we supposed to rely on the testimony of Dr Fukino, whom I believe entirely. It is not my job as a journalist or yours as a...

Are you familiar with Saul Alinsky's rules? Take Rule 5 for example. Ridicule. So what do you see in the liberal media? Stuff like this in local media, and then you'll see stuff like this in the national media. Look like ridicule to you? Or take rule 4. Making your enemy live up to his own rules. How many times you seen liberal politicians crow about draining swamps, or culture of corruption and the media goes right along with them? How many promises has Obama broken? Haven't seen much of a showing from the media on this, have you. How...

The on-again, off-again debate over whether Barack Obama was born in the United States is, well, on again. Just a few days after an angry protester, waving a birth certificate, confronted Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) over Obama’s origins, California Rep. John Campbell took to MSNBC’s Hardball to promote his bill requiring presidential candidates to submit copies of their birth certificates. But it didn’t take long for the interview to turn to questions about whether Campbell believed Obama himself was American-born. “What is going on that so many Americans doubt the obvious, that Barack Obama is a citizen, to the point...