Free Republic

Approximately once every four years, the media establishment and certain "moderates" in the Republican Party decide to destroy a conservative candidate. They sharpen their blades and their tongues and they go into action, armed with the conviction that the vitriol of their pens will wither away the candidate's reputation and potential. Very often, it works. After all, what would you think of a candidate the Baltimore Sun calls a symptom of "the right, the radical right, which cherishes notions that often are too simple, too negative and too risky"? What would you believe about a candidate one liberal columnist calls...

NEW YORK, Nov 24 (Reuters) - The Washington Post (WPO.N) is closing its last U.S. bureaus outside the nation's capital as the money-losing newspaper retrenches to focus on politics and local news. "At a time of limited resources and increased competitive pressure, it's necessary to concentrate our journalistic firepower on our central mission of covering Washington and the news, trends and ideas that shape both the region and the country's politics, policies and government," the newspaper's top editor, Marcus Brauchli, wrote in a memo to employees that was obtained by Reuters. The Post will close its bureaus in Chicago, Los...

The Washington Post is closing its remaining U.S. news bureaus in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, but will retain the six reporters from those bureaus and recall them to Washington. The paper's spokesperson, Kris Coratti, confirmed the closures Tuesday. Three news aides, one per each bureau, will be cut. "These changes are part of The Post's long-term strategy to focus our resources on covering Washington as a place to live and its impact on the nation and the world," Coratti wrote in an email to TheWrap. "The Post will continue to cover national news of interest to our core...

The gap between Obama's approval rating among Democrats and among Republicans is nearly 70 percentage points -- a higher partisan divide than either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush experienced. Obama's agenda and actions this year, and some mistakes, have solidified this divide. Polls show that Palin's favorability numbers are a mirror image of those of Obama. She is respected and loved by the Republican base, while Democrats despise her. Granted, independent voters have significant reservations about her capability to be president, and this would be a hurdle in the general election. But to win the Republican nomination, Palin needs...

Barack Obama didn't have a lot of bread-and-butter accomplishments to point to, either. He had, in fact, less governing experience than Palin already has. So experience can be gotten around.

Most of the media hate Sarah Palin. Given the hyperfocused offensive targeted at her, the simple conclusion is that the left-wing establishment views the former Alaska governor as the greatest threat to the current Democratic monopoly on power in Washington. Certainly Mrs. Palin's book tour is generating a lot of enthusiasm across the country, with thousands of admirers flocking to each stop. The book itself, "Going Rogue," was locked in at No. 1 on best-seller lists for weeks before it was officially available for sale. Mrs. Palin's appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" attracted the largest audience the program has...

Resarchers at UCLA prove that the media definitely has a liberal bias. They used the scientific method to arrive at these conclusions, and their research is completely sound. The left no lomger has any claim that the mainsream media doesn't have a liberal bias. For all their bitching about FoxNews, Dumbocrats will be forced to admit that the overall media is left leaning. http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx?RelNum=6664

This is the philosophical theme the film works tirelessly to promote; when you strip away our contrived institutional divisions, we are all the same, all part of one big happy human family. Survival requires abandoning antiquated paradigms and placing faith in the experts among us to “ensure the continuity of the species.” The paradigm most in the crosshairs of this philosophical apocalypse is Christianity. The eccentric Charlie Frost, a pirate radio host played with slovenly relish by Woody Harellson, demeans the Bible as the least accurate predictor of the end of days among competitors like the Mayan calendar and the...

Is there anyone quite like Sarah Palin online? At the moment, no -- not Michael Jackson, not Manny Pacquiao, not even President Obama. According to Google Insights for Search, which tracks what the online masses are searching for within specific times and regions, the former Alaska governor-turned vice presidential nominee-turned media celebrity far surpasses Obama when it comes to Google searches. Online, interest in all things Palin has surged in the past few days. "Searches for Sarah Palin have surged to their highest level since the election -- even further than when she resigned as Governor of Alaska," Google spokesman...

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The Palinology Symposium is now in full swing and the mainstream media’s aberrant preoccupation with the former Alaska governor has reached insalubrious proportions. The Associated Press deployed eleven reporters to fact check Palin’s book, Going Rogue. Fact checking, in this context is euphemistic, at best. It’s the same sort of “fact checking” Hillary Clinton used to dictate be done to Bill’s female victims and other enemies of the Clinton state. “11 AP reporters dedicating time and resources to tearing up the book, instead of using the time and resources to ‘fact check’ what’s going on with Sheik Mohammed’s trial, Pelosi’s...

The labor market improved slightly last month but offered little hope that the economy would soon emerge from its prolonged weakness. American employers added 39,000 jobs in August, roughly in line with the modest growth of recent months, the Labor Department reported yesterday, but the entire gain came from the hiring of new airport security guards and other government workers. Companies remain reluctant to hire until economic growth improves. The unemployment rate fell to 5.7 percent last month, from 5.9 percent in July, but economists at the Labor Department and on Wall Street called the decline almost meaningless. The rate,...

Listening to President Obama and his Chinese counterpart this week, it was hard to tell who was Hu. One is the leader of a great democracy. The other is the head of a repressive regime. But as the two men faced reporters in Beijing's Great Hall of the People, Obama deferred to the wishes of President Hu Jintao: They would not take questions. In lieu of this rite of freedom, the two leaders exchanged platitudes. "We reached agreement in many important fields," the communist leader assured everybody. "Our two governments have continued to move forward in a way that can...

What on earth was Sarah Palin thinking when she posed in a pair of teeny-tiny gym shorts for a photograph that ended up on the cover of Newsweek -- a cover she has called "sexist"? Perhaps she was thinking that her image would only appear in the magazine she was posing for, Runner's World, and nowhere else, at least not for months and months. If so, she had good reason -- since, as DailyFinance has learned, the photographer who shot the picture violated his contract by reselling them to Newsweek. That photographer, Brian Adams, could not immediately be reached, and...

The media will be barred from covering a speech by Sarah Palin at a Missouri university next month. The former Republican vice-presidential nominee and ex-governor of Alaska demanded the ban as part of her contract with the College of the Ozarks....

On the cover of this week’s issue of Newsweek is a photo that was shot for the August 2009 issue of Runner’s World, in which Sarah Palin was featured on the monthly “I’m a Runner” back page. Runner’s World did not provide Newsweek with the image. Instead, it was provided to Newsweek by the photographer’s stock agency, without Runner’s World’s knowledge or permission.

Former CNN veteran Lou Dobbs suggests his form of advocacy journalism fell out of favor when President Obama was elected and his ratings began to decline. Dobbs, who had come under fire from watchdog groups because of his on-air, anti-immigration stance, told Bill O'Reilly Monday on the Fox News Channel that he never heard directly from CNN management that he made the network look bad - but there was a tonal change when Obama became President. "You know, I discern more of a difference between then, which was under the Bush administration whom I was criticizing, and now, when it...

While much attention has been paid to the feud between the Fox News Channel and the White House, the Obama administration is now facing criticism of a different sort from Ms. Maddow, Keith Olbermann and other progressive hosts on MSNBC, who are using their nightly news-and-views-casts to measure what she calls “the distance between Obama’s rhetoric and his actions.” While they may agree with much of what Mr. Obama says, they have pressed him to keep his campaign promises about health care, civil liberties and other issues. “I don’t think our audience is looking for unequivocal ‘rah-rah,’ ” said Ms....

Atlanta's gay community has lost its Southern Voice. The city's gay and lesbian weekly has shut its doors after 21 years. Southern Voice, along with David Atlanta, a publication about gay men's nightlife in Atlanta, closed after a long-time financial battle to stay afloat. Southern's owner, Washington, D.C.-based Window Media LLC, shuttered the weekly newspaper and a handful of other gay publications nationwide over the weekend, the newspaper's editor, Laura Douglas Brown, confirmed to the AJC on Monday. Employees arrived at the newspaper's offices off of Briarcliff Road early Monday to find the door locked and a sign posted on...

ATLANTA — The nation's largest publisher of newspapers serving the gay and lesbian community has shut down. Laura Douglas-Brown, editor of Southern Voice newspaper in Atlanta, says she arrived at work Monday to find the locks changed and a note saying parent company Window Media LLC has closed down.

I HAVE A PRESENT FOR ALL OF YOU... I HAVE GAINED ACCESS TO THE ENEMY'S LITTLE SECRET WEAPON TO PUSH HEALTH CARE DOWN OUR THROATS... AND WE CAN NOW USE IT AGAINST THEM! Obama provides his people a link to contact media to support health care bill! Spread the word! we can use this same link to OPPOSE it. Dick Morris says we have to get 8% points in disapproval ratings to defeat it! Please follow this link, send your letter of opposition. (and continue to fax) Thanks Sandra for providing me this info: Barack Obamas " Organizing for America...

If there are any doubts at all that the press is a willing enabler to bolster Obama's image as Commander in Chief, CBS Sunday Morning just erased them. For a Veterans Day tribute, a reporter for the New York Daily News just narrated his experience at Arlington when, coincidently (cough, cough) the President just happened to make his visit. He lovingly describes the heartfelt actions of Obama, his spontaneous (cough, cough) trip to Section 60, and his tender concern for the families and friends of the fallen. This heartbreaking scenario was told along with dozens spur-of-the-moment snapshots of our caring...

America died by willing suicide, like a giant Jonestown. The people followed the yellow brick road to the wizard of Oz, who, secretly, was the king wearing new clothes no-one could see through though they were invisible. He swallowed them up in a mist of delusion and before they knew it, the The Pretender became top of the world, Ma. That was when the USA died, willingly, without a media whimper. The media love to eat themselves sick on Obamasugar. And it would be nice to moan about the stupidity of the people. Yes, many were stupid, but there is...

Are you more likely to stay informed of National and World events today than you were one year ago? Yes, new media sources--blogs, websites, etc.--make it easier to stay informed. Yes, events in the past year compel me to stay informed. No, I've always been fairly well informed. No, I've aways avoided the news. My news watching has not changed. No Opinion.

We welcome every single patriotic American who mourns the destruction of freedom and liberty to join us in a nationwide protest against all things Socialist. This event is an all out, no holds barred, tell it like it is, in your face protest designed to give liberty and freedom- loving American citizens and patriots an opportunity to voice just how fed up we are with BIG GOVERNMENT, BIG SPENDING, BIG DEBT, BIG BAILOUT, and BIG MEDIA COMPLICITY.

Freepers!...we're losing the image war. Photographs of the wounded at Fort Hood do not circulate among the major media. The wounded in Vietnam were commonly depicted in a way which maximized the public disgust with the war effort but the victims of jihadists are not shown in such an emotional way. The blood of civil rights demonstrators and marchers were commonly shown in the '60s and the image of the murdered and mutilated Emmett Till is a common icon to this day. But there is a lack of circulation of 9-11 pics (outside conservative media), mall shootings, Jihad victims, and...

For those that still refuse to forget!

Dobbs calls himself an independent with a strong populist streak, and many assume his departed because of politics. But perhaps something else influenced his decision: the fact that a bullet struck his home after threatening phone calls...

It was a feel-good hero story that for several days gave Americans some comfort after the murder of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas. But like so many war stories — including the infamous rescue of Private Jessica Lynch during the 2003 invasion of Iraq — the exact details of how last Thursday's mass shooting at Fort Hood was brought to a violent end are growing more murky by the day. Initially it was claimed that a slightly-built female police officer, Sergeant Kimberly "Mighty Mouse" Munley, opened fire on the suspect, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, and kept shooting even after...

Listening to government leaders and media avoid any connection between Islamist terrorism and the murderous attack at Ft. Hood is, to use their terminology, about as "twisted" and "nuts" as it gets...

Col. Mark Stammer, commander of 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne (Advise and Assist Brigade), answers questions from Los Angeles Times reporter, Liz Sly, and Washington Post reporter, Ernesto Londono, during a media engagement on Camp Ramadi, Nov. 11. Photo by Spc. Mike MacLeod, 82nd Airborne Division. < CAMP RAMADI — U.S. and Iraqi media representatives visited the U.S. Army's first Advise and Assist Brigade here, Nov. 11, to learn about this new mission facing U.S. troops. Journalists with the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and Iraqi Al Hurra TV focused their questions to Brig. Gen. Stephen Lanza, spokesman...

Current Media, a cable television company co-founded by former US vice president Al Gore, announced Wednesday that it is cutting 80 jobs as part of a reorganization. The layoffs, which will leave Current with some 300 employees worldwide, come seven months after the San Francisco-based startup shelved plans for a 100-million-dollar initial public offering, citing market conditions. In a statement on Wednesday, Current said it was canceling several television programs and shifting the focus of its programming away from short-form content to longer formats.

I'll tell you what. I am stoked to see the new wave of American bishops taking courageous, articulate, and effective public stands against evil in its many forms. This is exactly what the Heavenly Doctor ordered (John 10:11-15), and it's something I haven't seen, at least not like this, not in such numbers, in my nearly 50 years of being Catholic. Thank God Almighty that more and more of our bishops are standing up like men to fight the good fight. May the Lord strengthen them! Those thoughts were prompted by an article I saw just now at the St....

An ABC TV network news anchor said he’s troubled by what he called the biased news coverage of Fox and MSNBC. “I worry about the lack of objectivity and the future of the news business,” Charles Gibson told a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce audience yesterday. The host of ABC’s “World News” program said the two cable networks are playing to niche audiences - Fox to conservatives and MSNBC to liberals - to the detriment of what should be objective news gathering and reporting.

One thing you can give our media Chattering Classes: They are utterly consistent. After Major Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire on a roomful of defenseless people in Fort Hood, it was absolutely assured that we would immediately be told that this outrage had nothing to do with his Islamic faith and that it was not an act of terror. Then, as time went on and the bleedin' obvious became bleedin' obvious, we would spend all weekend enduring TV pundits scratching the $200 haircuts on their 88-cent heads and pondering the question of whether there might be some remote connection...

The media has been reporting that there is a wave of suicide on Ft. Hood. That the number of soldiers who are choosing to take their own lives is staggering. That violence abounds in this highly-stressed population. I was wondering, is this really true? So I decided to do a very crude statistical analysis of the situation here at Ft. Hood to see if I could shed light on these “shocking” numbers. I’m not a statistician, and I’m sure my methodology will make a real math nerd wince, but I think I’ve proven that the streets of Ft. Hood are...

When is the truth more important than a politically correct form of censorship called moderation? Censorship of any form is an injustice no matter how polite it is touted to be. Censorship controls opinion and is a tool of the court used to preserve the opinions of a jury by removing all but presented evidence. That is how powerful a tool censorship is. Who ought be allowed to censor and still be legitimate? It certainly isn't the province of any media to alter content or reject it utterly unless it contains useless foul language. The free press isn't free if...

For the purposes of argument, let's accept the media's insistence that Major Hasan is a lone crazy. So who's nuttier?

The Star Tribune is cutting another 100 jobs companywide to further shave costs after bankruptcy. The company's operating committee announced the cuts this morning, saying that the "cracking of our historical economic model and the current Great Recession have forced us to move quickly to make meaningful and difficult adjustments over the next few months." About 30 of the cuts will come from the newsroom and editorial staff -- about a 10 percent reduction -- Star Tribune Editor Nancy Barnes said. The company said most of the cuts would be completed by the end of the year, but that the...

John Allen Muhammad is scheduled to be executed tomorrow for the Beltway-area sniper spree that left 10 innocent people dead in 2002. Several family members of the victims will attend. At the time of the murderous rampage that stretched over three, horror-filled weeks... where Muhammad and his young partner in crime, Lee Malvo, wreaked bloody havoc. I covered two main aspects of the story that were underplayed by the MSM–Lee Malvo’s illegal alien catch-and-release story and Nation of Islam convert Muhammad and Malvo’s Muslim hate-mongering. Snide MSM’ers and the CAIR propagandists attacked those of who called these thugs what they...

The reality of the situation is such that the state run media, or main stream media if you will, controls what a vast majority of America sees. If you have cable or a satellite dish, you have choice in news programming. If you have an antenna in the air, you are stuck with the state run media of ABC, CBS and NBC. The state run media is not the news media of integrity and facts. There are no real journalists to be found on the news any longer. The news providers are entertainers, who offer you their perspective on the...

I wonder how much longer the media will attempt to spin the Fort Hood massacre as “pre-virtual vicarious Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”... Closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge does not mean that the situation does not exist. It is the somewhat more dignified version of sticking your fingers in your ears and singing, “La la la la, I can’t hear you!”

I just don’t understand how so many people/groups/media sources can remain in a 9/10 mindset. But they persist. The latest example comes from my local paper, the Cape Cod Times, which ran a front page headline yesterday on the Fort Hood massacre...

The London Telegraph has the bombshell report on Ft. Hood jihadist Nidal Hassan’s ties to the September 11 terrorists. Question: Why is it that we have to read British papers to get the unvarnished truths about the Ft. Hood Muslim mass murderer?

Yesterday, our nation suffered a tragic occurrence at Fort Hood Army Base in Fort Hood, TX. Here is what we know. On Thursday morning, November 5th, 2009, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim originally from Virginia, but stationed at Fort Hood, woke up and proceeded sometime thereafter to give away his belongings. He called a few friends and said thanks and/or goodbyes. He got dressed, not in his military issued uniform, but in the customary Muslim garb. He carried with him two handguns. He then went to the Soldier Readiness Processing Center, the place where soldiers soon leaving for or...

Left-wing news commentator for MSNBC Keith Olbermann declared voter demonstrations against the Administration’s health care bill “terrifying” and urged that “they be stopped in some way.” The remarks came in response to a massive rally in Washington this past Thursday by opponents of the health care bill originally slated for a vote in the House of Representatives on Saturday. “Here are our duly elected members of Congress trying to do their job, trying to fix a broken health care system, when mobs of ignorant yahoos descend on them,” Olbermann complained. “How can we expect to govern the people of America...

Carla Fiorina's been (officially) on the campaign trail for, what, three days and it's like she's already wearing the GOP Senate crown. Boxer, Boxer, Boxer, Boxer, Boxer. That's the only opponent she can talk about. Hey Carly, where's the respect for Chuck D from the OC, aka her GOP primary opponent Orange County Assemblyman Chuck DeVore? At her Pleasanton stop Friday, C-Fi was asked why she keeps talking about Boxer and not Chuck: "She is the opponent," Carly said and laughed. Uh, perhaps -- if you win the GOP primary in June. .. ... Carly's staff must have hid the...

Major Malik Hassan, after being transferred from Walter Reed Hospital to Fort Hood decided to celebrate his promotion and transfer by shouting “God is great” in Arabic while gunning down a dozen of his fellow soldiers. The mainstream media is falling all over itself today in an attempt to somehow paint this domestic Islamic terrorist as the victim rather than the perpetrator. Muslim-friendly to the point of being Muslim-centric, the news networks are even trying to do their reporting without mentioning the killer’s name...

As a talk-radio host officially banned in Britain for "fostering hatred," Michael Savage has unearthed a greater story from the ooze -- revealed in the very title of his new book, "Banned in Britain: Beating the Liberal Blacklist." Indeed, Mr. Savage contends that some nefarious "trans-Atlantic occlusion" was afoot in the decision to place him on a list of undesirables that included terrorists and murderers. And the book is just the beginning. "A petition will be circulated in Congress next week by concerned lawmakers. They will demand that the U.S. State Department act on my behalf as an American citizen...