Free Republic

Controlling "exactly what people think" is the job of the media, MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski boldly declared Wednesday morning. While discussing President Trump's entreaties to the American people to remain skeptical of the press, Bzezinski worried that if the economy turns south, Americans may end up trusting him over the media. "And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think," Brzezinski said. "And that, that is our job." SCARBOROUGH: "Exactly. That is exactly what I hear. What Yamiche said is what I...

What are you afraid of, Mr. President? I know it must be tough dragging yourself to these glitzy fund-raisers and mingling with rich people who shower you with money and affection. Who needs an unfriendly reporter shouting an unscripted question at you, or checking to see whether any of the guests are getting government contracts? We all know Obama has an aversion to tough questions. During the campaign, he would refuse to engage with most local media, and reporters who camped out at the rope line got a stern talking-to from a campaign staffer. But using the White House press...

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. " I pulled a Benny Hill and had assumed Ben Franklin said this since it seems that virtually any "Ben Franklin Quote Site" claims he said/wrote this. However, I cannot find a citation regarding this quote. Does anyone know the history behind this quote and where it first appeared? Where exactly did Franklin say/write this (i.e. does some kind of record exist that he coined this?). A friend actually brought up that this "quote" was only "documented" as recently as 1988 (see...

Former Gov. Mitt Romney, coming off a disappointing loss in the Iowa caucuses last night, should be buoyed by the latest Suffolk University poll that shows him retaking the lead in the run-up to Tuesday’s crucial New Hampshire primary. On the Democratic side, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton maintains her front-runner status in the Granite State, with a 12 percent lead over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who is coming off a big win in Iowa last night, according to the latest Suffolk University/7News poll released early this morning. The poll shows Romney gained 4 percentage points in the past two...

Mitt Romney’s problem isn’t that he’s a Mormon; his problem, in the eyes of the crowd now nipping at his heels, is that he’s serious about it. That makes him dangerous because it makes them uncomfortable. When you know what you believe and why, and you’re not ashamed to have it known, faith is not a position you take on an issue; it’s a position you bring to an issue, reflecting values and beliefs that have stood the test of time because you’ve discovered they’ll work when nothing else will. Americans, from the founding of this nation, have always understood...

BOSTON --With a big month in Iowa looming, Republican Mitt Romney is airing a commercial focused on one of the state's hot-button issues: immigration. Five days before the latest GOP presidential debate, and 11 days before the state's straw poll, Romney trimmed a May television ad into a 30-second spot in which he reiterates his support for legal immigration, but opposition to illegal immigration. "We should put in place an employment verification system," Romney tells an audience member in a scene from one of his "Ask Mitt Anything" town hall meetings. "And then, when an employer is thinking of hiring...

After three days, The Miami Herald only published two responses, but not a single apology from Herald Staff or from the journalist Ana Menendez. Please read article below, and forget about the word Cuban, and replace it with African American after each insulting word. Dont you think that after three days, the Herald Board of Directors will publish an apology by this time??

Meet Senor Sal DiMasi, the best amigo lobbyists ever had on Beacon Hill. Senor Sal is the speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He is the hack hombre whose members waste away in Margaritaville as the pesos are changing hands behind closed doors. It is a muy tough job, being speaker. When you take the job, the feds immediately empanel a new grand jury, on spec. The boss of the Gambino crime family has a better chance of avoiding indictment than the boss of the Mass. House. Still, Senor Sal dreams that he will be the first speaker in...

Beat John Kerry? Are the Massachusetts Republicans crazy? Oh sure, it was a heady moment on Wednesday afternoon, when Liveshot pulled a Finneran on the Senate floor and started blubbering - and he hasn’t even been convicted of a felony. And then there were all the jokes on TV Wednesday night, like Dennis Miller on Fox saying that now Kerry can go back to his old job as a statue on Easter Island. But then the local GOP got carried away. The headline yesterday said the Republicans are “ready to pounce.” Pounce? That rhymes with bounce, as in out of...

Tom Brady still has a ways to go before celebrating a fourth Super Bowl title, but gay men across the country have already embraced him as their champion. Gay-oriented sports Web sites from coast to coast are ablaze with desire for Tom Terrific. “It’s equal rights. We get to look at him the same way women do, we get to want him the same way women do,” said “Robert,” a 41-year-old gay South Shore fan of the Patriots heartthrob - one of many men jonesing to pit their pigskin palpitations against those of run-of-the-mill female groupies. Robert said Brady, 29,...

ST. LOUIS - The current kings of baseball are the worst World Series winners in history, though the St. Louis Cardinals are hardly bothered by such trivialities. For the rest of us, however, the question is whether to bury them or to praise them. That is what we are left with today, the first unofficial day of winter, following the fifth and final game of the World Series last night at Busch Stadium. The Cardinals defeated the Detroit Tigers, 4-2, concluding a wildly improbable playoff year during which 12 teams, including Detroit and, yes, the Red Sox, finished the regular...

online exclusive Fat Matt Amorello was a complete boob to the bitter end. Two weeks ago today, he had a deal on the table that would have paid him through the end of the 2007 fiscal year - $223,000. Here it is, exactly 14 days later. The bloated fool spent upwards of $1 million on white-shoed lawyers, and he ends up with a deal by which he leaves the payroll on Feb. 15, 4 1/2 months earlier than under the first deal. So Fat Matt is out $85,000 - and it cost him a million bucks to lose the money,...

Exclusive An ambulance racing to get a heart attack victim to the hospital was snagged in Big Dig tunnel gridlock, turning what should have been a four-minute trip into a desperate 24-minute ordeal that ended with the man’s death, public safety and transportation sources said. (snip) A police escort led the ambulance through the westbound Ted Williams Tunnel and onto surface streets through South Boston, a transportation source said. A public safety source said, however, that due to gridlock in the westbound side, the ambulance was led through the eastbound side of the I-90 Seaport connector tunnel, which was closed...

Hey, Mike Dukakis, how can we miss you when you won’t go away? You and Kitty don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here. It’s bad enough that you can’t get there from here anymore because of the Big Dig disaster. But now we must deal with the re-emergence of the man known as Pee Wee Dukakis from whatever rock, or concrete slab, he’s been hiding under all these years. You can’t open the paper, or turn on the TV, without seeing him, and always with the same lame rap. If only they’d listened to me . ....

Jul 23, 2005 Obituaries in the News-The Associated Press The Associated Press/ Long John Baldry VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) - Long John Baldry, the British blues legend who helped launch the careers of such rock greats as Rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones, died Thursday of a chest infection, according to his agent. He was 64. Baldry, nicknamed Long John because of his 6-foot-7 height, was one of the main forces in British blues, rock and pop music in the 1960s. He first hit the top of the U.K. singles charts in 1967 with "Let the Heartaches Begin." One of...

I have been arranging my extensive CD collection which lead me to play some of those long forgotten CD. This afternoon it was Mendelssohn "Reformation" Symphony. This might not be the best symphony of this rather underrated composer. The 5th popularity has suffered from being a "heftier" work, more intellectual, less crafted and vital than the "Italian". As if trying to encompass the reformation movement in music were possible. Still, the last movement opening is one of the most stirring moments of the repertoire, and a powerful musical image of the liberation of the spirit, no matter what religious connotation...

http://news.bostonherald.com/opinion/view.bg?articleid=49902

Marilyn Thompson, a 51-year-old investigative reporter and editor for The Washington Post, was named the editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader yesterday. In making the announcement, Publisher Timothy M. Kelly told newsroom staffers that he had fulfilled the promise he made in June to find an "extraordinary" editor for the newspaper. "I really do feel I have gotten the best editor I possibly can for this newspaper," Kelly said. Thompson's achievements at the Post include leading investigative teams that won two Pulitzer Prizes for public serv-ice. Last fall, she broke the story that South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond, once a leading...

President Bush's defense of his military service during the Vietnam War must have brought back memories to a whole generation of Americans. Anyone who was a male in his late teens or early 20s during the late 1960s and early 1970s knows the dilemma that Bush faced. They also know that his version of history does not tell the whole story. Most Americans may not understand that. A majority of Americans were either born after the fighting ended in 1975 or were too young to have any first-hand knowledge of it. They might think that war was just like the...

BEIRUT -- A Beirut newspaper failed Tuesday to print and distribute across Arab cities the International Herald Tribune to avoid "possible legal action" by the Lebanese government due to a pro-Israeli ad carried by the U.S. daily. "The *** Daily Star*** has decided that due to possible legal action by the Lebanese government, it will not distribute the International Herald Tribune on Tuesday because of advertising content in the IHT, as published around the world," it said in a front-page announcement. A source at the ***Daily Star***r told AFP that Tuesday's issue of the ***Tribune*** contained the same pro-Israeli advertisement...