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Uh Oh, Spaghettios.

Kris Coratti, communications director of Washington Post Media, a division of The Washington Post Company, said the flier “came out of a business division for conferences and events, and the newsroom was unaware of such communication. It went out before it was properly vetted, and this draft does not represent what the company’s vision for these dinners are, which is meant to be an independent, policy-oriented event for newsmakers....

Downtown D.C. Declared 'Prostitution Free Zone' @ 3:12 pm by Walter Alarkon The police in Washington, D.C. have declared several downtown blocks a "prostitution free zone" for Inauguration Week, reports DCist. In an area just east of Mt. Vernon Square and west of Union Station, the police will be on the lookout for anyone seeking sex for cash. According to D.C. law, officers will first hand out warnings to people they suspect engaging in "prostitution or prostitution-related activities" in that area, and then they would arrest them if they failed to obey orders to disperse. A conviction could lead to...

NEW YORK, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Standard & Poor's on Thursday slashed its ratings on the New York Times Co (NYT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) into junk territory and cited concerns about the newspaper publisher's revenue outlook, after it posted a third-quarter loss. ...SNIP... It cut the Times' rating three notches to "BB-minus," three levels below investment grade, from "BBB-minus." The outlook is negative, indicating an additional cut may be likely over the next one-to-two years.

She was a recently elected governor and the mother of five children, including a handicapped infant. The scorn from the mainstream press and the left-leaning blog world was both intense and instantaneous. Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic immediately began circulating rumors that Trig was not the governor's baby - that she had engaged in a huge charade to cover up her teen daughter's illegitimate child. The New York Times reported on Page One that Mrs. Palin had been a member of the Alaska Independence Party. Eleanor Clift of Newsweek described the reaction of most newsrooms to Mrs. Palin's elevation as...

CNN’s chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour, reporting on Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin on Thursday’s “The Situation Room,” expressed her shock that the European crowd didn’t seem to have the same mania for the Democrat that the media has: “I did ask some people as they were leaving what they thought. Everybody said good, good. But I was surprised that there wasn't this sort of euphoria afterwards, given how many people had come to listen and how much it had been anticipated.” She later stated in the segment that one unnamed political analyst talked about how “people [in Europe] want...

Premiers, Thursday, February 7, 2008 at 8:00 PM (EST) In a SURVIVOR first, 10 ultra-fans of the series will take on 10 former castaways to compete as FANS vs. FAVORITES. The two tribes will be marooned amidst the Rock Islands of Palau, Micronesia. The skills of the former castaways will be put to the test while the tribe of first-time competitors will see if their enthusiasm and passion for the game is enough to distinguish them as worthy competitors. Who will prevail to become Sole Survivor?

The reality show that started it all continues to raise the bar with its exotic locations and high-risk challenges with SURVIVOR: CHINA.The new competition unleashes an eclectic group of castaways on the ancient south central province of Jiang Xi, where they are prepared for adventure, danger and surprises in the hopes of winning $1 million and becoming the ultimate Survivor. Who will Outwit, Outplay and Outlast?

Dems hit Sheehan candidacy A local Democratic Club has criticized the decision by anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan to run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "If you continue with this threat to embarrass the speaker, it is very possible that the voters will turn against the Democratic leadership in Congress and return the Republicans to the majority," stated a letter written by J. Paton Marshall, corresponding secretary for the Robert F. Kennedy Democratic Club. "If that happens, all investigations will cease and justice for Bush and Cheney will be impossible," the letter stated. The club endorsed and then published the letter...

The bombshell sex probe of a Washington, D.C., madam that already has caught one Bush administration official with his pants down may soon focus on well-known political pundits who have appeared on TV. "There are several thousand names, tens of thousands of phone numbers, from administration officials to lobbyists to advisers who are well known, people who appear on television," said ABC News' Brian Ross, to whom alleged madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey turned over her little black book. In an interview with CNN, Ross refused to identify any more of the customers of Palfrey's "escort service" and did not indicate...

Premiering Thursday, February 8 at 8pm et/pt SURVIVOR PING ! ! ! (Above photo courtesy of Survivor Phoenix) Stranded on the Fiji Islands in the heart of the South Pacific, 19 strangers must live together and compete for the million-dollar prize. Who will outwit, outplay, and outlast all others?

Donald Trump Theatens To Sue Rosie O'Donnell POSTED: 6:58 am EST December 21, 2006 UPDATED: 7:41 am EST December 21, 2006 NEW YORK -- The Miss USA partying episode has led to a war of words between Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump. O'Donnell told her audience on ABC's "The View," Wednesday that Trump's news conference with Miss USA Tara Conner had annoyed her "on a multitude of levels." O'Donnell said Trump should not be the moral compass for 20-year-olds in America. She said he's divorced two times and had affairs. Trump lashed back at O'Donnell on the entertainment show "The...

BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. forces have arrested a senior Al Qaeda terrorist and personal associate of the group's new leader, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq said Thursday.

by Mark Finkelstein September 9, 2006 - 09:07 America, you ignorant Islamophobes! Alright, maybe it's not all your fault. Your anti-Muslim attitudes have been "stoked" by "inflammatory rhetoric" from . . . President Bush. That was the basic message of a segment narrated by Ron Claiborne this morning entitled "9/11 Remembered: Islamophobia" on ABC's Good Morning America. ABC made a weak case for the existence of widespread 'Islamophobia' in America. Let's imagine, for example, that 19 Jews had flown planes into iconic buildings in, say, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan - or France, for that matter. What do you think would befall...

The author of The Path to 9/11 is going to be LIVE, in-studio on The John Ziegler Show at 8pm Pacific. You can listen live ONLINE or if you're in Southern CA, tune in to KFI at 640AM. From John Ziegler.Com: If you want to tell ABC to not cave to Clinton's demands in the editing of "The Path to 9/11," call 818-460-7477. If you want to complain about the movies lessons plans being dropped by "Scholastic," go to this link for contact information. http://www.scholastic.com/aboutscholastic/offices/index.htm

ABC toned down a scene that involved Clinton's national security adviser, Samuel "Sandy" Berger, declining to give the order to kill bin Laden, according to a person involved with the film who declined to be identified. "That sequence has been the focus of attention," the source said. The network also decided that the credits would say the film is based "in part" on the 9/11 panel report, rather than "based on" the report, as the producers originally intended.

MACON, Ga. President Bush's once-solid relationship with Southern women is on the rocks. "I think history will show him to be the worst president since Ulysses S. Grant," said Barbara Knight, a self-described Republican since birth and the mother of three. "He's been an embarrassment." In the heart of Dixie, comparisons to Grant, a symbol of the Union, is the worst sort of insult, especially from a Macon woman who voted for Bush in 2000 but turned away in 2004. In recent years, Southern women have been some of Bush's biggest fans, defying the traditional gender gap in which women...

Yes FReepers and FReeperettes, its time once again for another season of Survivor. This time they are in the Cook Islands, in the middle of the South Pacific. I was going to start off this thread by informing you all about how Mark Burnett’s Production Company has decided to split the tribe along ethnic backgrounds. But that subject has been pretty much beaten to death on at least three different threads. So. . . . I would like to point out that for all their talk about “minorities” not applying to the show as much as “whites” and about...

Fellow TravelersBy David HorowitzFrontPageMagazine.com | July 18, 2006 It is in the nature of Stalinism for its adherents to make a certain kind of lying – and not only to others but first of all to themselves – a fundamental part of their lives. It is always a mistake to assume that Stalinists do not know the truth about the political reality they espouse. If they don’t know the truth (or all of it) one day, they know it the next, and it makes absolutely no difference to them politically. For their loyalty is to something other than the truth....

As the negotiations with the Mad Hatter of the Middle East, Iran’s President Ahmandinejihad* grew more tense, the Mad Hair of the Far East became the whack-a-mole of the Independence Day holiday. In an obvious bid to remain (literally) on the radar of the West, Kim (“Feckless Leader”) Jong-Il popped a few missiles to prove that Persian carpets were not the only thing he had in common with the mullahtocracy in Tehran. Some people will do anything to stay in the news cycle. We’ve seen it time and time again – the fading celebrity, the forgotten cause celebre, at the...

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday denied a report that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, is under investigation by the FBI in connection with a corruption probe.ABC News, citing high level Justice Department sources, said information implicating Hastert had been developed from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government.But department officials, who asked to not be identified, said the story was not accurate and that Hastert was not under investigation. "The story is wrong. Hastert is not under investigation," one official said.

In Iraq, the milestones add up, along with the casualties. This week, less than two months after U.S. military deaths surpassed 2,000, another milestone arrives: the 1,000th day of America's bloody ordeal in Iraq. The signpost -- today in the United States, Tuesday in Iraq -- comes three days before Iraqis are due to elect a permanent government. It comes as a defiant Saddam Hussein, toppled months after the start of the war, stands trial. It comes as American patience with the war has grown short, tempers have ignited on Capitol Hill and pressures have mounted for an exit strategy....

LONDON (AFP) - An Irish journalist working for the British newspaper The Guardian has been kidnapped by armed men in Iraq, the London-based newspaper said. "Rory Carroll was... kidnapped by gunmen in Baghdad. Carroll, 33, an experienced foreign correspondent, had been conducting an interview in the city with a victim of Saddam Hussein's regime. He had been preparing an article for today's (Thursday's) paper on the opening of the former dictator's trial yesterday," the paper said in its online edition. "Carroll, who was accompanied by two drivers and a translator, was confronted by the gunmen as he left the house...

When Army Spc. Bobby Hillen arrived in war-torn Iraq in January 2004, he saw small children playing in bomb craters in the streets. As he was leaving Iraq a year later, Hillen, a National Guard soldier from Brookline, recalls seeing children being shepherded into new schools that were part of the U.S. and coalition forces' reconstruction effort. "It was a drastic difference," said Hillen, 22, who believes most Americans never see such accomplishments because the media generally ignore positive developments in Iraq. "It's a slap in the face to a soldier when you turn on the news and all you...

<p>Katrina Takes a Toll on Truth, News Accuracy Rumors supplanted accurate information and media magnified the problem. Rapes, violence and estimates of the dead were wrong.</p> <p>BATON ROUGE, La. — Maj. Ed Bush recalled how he stood in the bed of a pickup truck in the days after Hurricane Katrina, struggling to help the crowd outside the Louisiana Superdome separate fact from fiction. Armed only with a megaphone and scant information, he might have been shouting into, well, a hurricane.</p>

Aides to Sen. John McCain have confirmed that the 2008 presidential hopeful will meet with anti-American war protester Cindy Sheehan, possibly later today. "No time frame was released," reports the Arizona Republic. "It was not clear whether Sheehan would be alone or joining a contingent of Arizonans making the rounds on Capitol Hill." Last week McCain explained his upcoming Sheehan summit by saying that other Republicans, including the president, had agreed to meet with the so-called "peace Mom." "[Arizona Sen.] Jon Kyl is also meeting with them, as well, since most of them are Arizonans," he told CNN. "And, as...

Geraldo Rivera, senior correspondent for Fox News, told a group of Hispanic journalists vigilantes had created "hysteria along the borders" and advised his colleagues not to "let your newsroom push you around on the issue of immigration." "Bust them on their hypocrisy," Rivera said at the annual awards gala of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists in Washington last week, according to a report by the Robert C. Maynard Institute of Journalism Education. Rivera, who served as honorary gala chairman of the event, announced from the hotel stage that he was donating $80,000 to NAHJ and $20,000 to Unity: Journalists...

When it comes to managing political crises (as opposed to national ones), the Bush White House has earned a reputation as masters of damage control. And rightly so -- let’s see you get reelected after Abu Ghraib, the “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US” memo, no WMD, no bin Laden (dead or alive), and “Mission (Most Definitely Not) Accomplished”. Well, according to the New York Times, Rove, Bartlett and the damage control boys are at it again, rolling out a plan to hang the post-Katrina debacle around the necks of Louisiana state and local officials… and, in the process,...

Reuters - Sat Sep 3, 4:20 PM ETRev. Al Sharpton (R) holds a motherless child along with Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee (L) as they visit survivors of hurricane Katrina on the floor of the Astrodome in Houston, Texas September 3, 2005. President George W. Bush ordered more troops to help evacuate and secure New Orleans on Saturday as rescuers moved thousands of desperate evacuees out of the city and shut down two huge shelters that had become the scene of murder, rape and chaos. Under fire for his government's slow response to Hurricane Katrina, which wrecked one of the world's...

Here’s a touching scene, featuring Cindy Sheehan and the Reverend Al Sharpton, in front of crosses, looking solemn and sad.Now let’s zoom out and see the media swarming around this manufactured event: (Hat tip: Bill P.) UPDATE at 8/28/05 5:36:04 pm: More pictures of this moving tableau at Getty Images. Co-starring “Army Mom.”UPDATE at 8/28/05 5:42:51 pm: Several LGF readers point out the Jewish star at lower right of the second photograph. Somebody tell CODEPINK not to let the Nazis know.

CRAWFORD, Texas - The Rev. Al Sharpton joined hundreds of war protesters outside President Bush's ranch for an interfaith service Sunday, saying he felt compelled to meet Cindy Sheehan, the grieving mother who started the rally three weeks earlier. Sheehan had arrived in Bush's hometown on Aug. 6 and refused to leave until she could question the president about the war that has killed more than 1,870 U.S. service members, including her 24-year-old son, Casey. As her vigil drew attention, it also drew crowds, with some people joining her camp, celebrities stopping by to lend her their support, and Bush...

Hidden deep in the rainforests of Central America, stand the ruins of an ancient civilization that once prospered, and then vanished. These were the Maya people, and this is the country of Guatemala. These stunning cities of the past stand as clues to a mystery thousands of years old. While Europe was in the dark ages, it was the Maya who harnessed the knowledge of the stars, and the celestial movements, to create a mystical union of man, nature and the gods. It was a world of great kings, elaborate ceremonies, fierce battles, and even human sacrifice. 18 Survivors will...

Gallup tested John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Rudy Guiliani, and John McCain in potential 2008 matchups. Both McCain and Guiliani trump Hillary 50 to 45 percent in the hypothetical race. And both McCain and Guiliani come out on top over Kerry 54 to 41 percent.McCain comes out very strong with a 51 percent favorable rating to 22 perecent negative. However, Rudy Guiliani beats the field with a 64 percent favorable rating to 19 percent negative.There can be no doubt those numbers will fluctuate and settle closer to 50 percent range once the '08 camapign is in full swing.However, if you're Guiliani...

THE BIGGER THEY ARE: Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican John McCain are considered the front-runners for their parties' presidential nominations in 2008. "They're 800-pound gorillas," says one Democratic consultant. ONE RACE AT A TIME: Clinton won't even talk about the presidential race, saying she's focused on her 2006 re-election campaign in New York. TWO MORE YEARS: McCain has said he wants to be president, but will wait a couple of years to decide whether to run. The maverick who gave Bush a run for his money in the 2000 primaries will turn 72 in 2008.

PHILADELPHIA - One of the military's new wartime challenges is dealing with global media that can instantly spread around the word information that may be false or damaging to U.S. interests, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Wednesday. The United States needs to respond to anti-American messages with greater agility and speed if it is to win the ideological struggle with Islamic extremists, Rumsfeld said in a speech to members of the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia. "We'll need to develop considerably more sophisticated ways of using these new means of communication that are now available to reach the many and...

The family of Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman who died in March after her feeding tube was removed, say that they have no idea where her ashes have been laid to rest. Giving their first interview since the tube was removed at the request of Mrs Schiavo's husband, the family claimed on American television that he was keeping her remains from them. Bob and Mary Schindler, and their surviving children, Bobby Jr and Suzanne, claimed that Michael Schiavo had ignored a court order that he should keep them informed about her ashes and plans for a memorial service. Mr...

Last week, Republican activist Bobby Eberle, the man behind the now infamous conservative Web site Talon News, insisted that before hiring "Jeff Gannon" as his White House correspondent, he never looked into Gannon's background. If true, Eberle probably wishes he had. And the same could be said for the White House officials who bent the rules to make way for Gannon in the press briefing room. There's new evidence that the Talon reporter, who lobbed softball questions at Bush during press conferences on behalf of a dubious news operation, recently worked as a male escort. Gannon, whose real name is...

SURVIVOR: PALAU premiering Thursday, February 17 at 8 pm ET/PT. Greetings Survivor FReeks! Its time once again for a new season of Survivor! “Twenty Americans are stranded in Palau, the South Pacific paradise some call the 8th natural wonder of the world, where colorful wildlife, dense jungles and an underwater world beyond belief are haunted by the wreckage and remnants of World War II. From the beginning, the game will be changed in a dramatic way: everything the Survivors have come to expect will be wiped out in the first 10 minutes. Who will outwit, outplay, and outlast all...

I have been thinking about how the GOP can try to quiet the decidedly partisan media's campaign against the president. At the recent UNITY conference where both candidates appeared, the mediots exposed their preference - that should be used against them in an ad. Ad cover caption, "At a recent gathering of supposedly objective reporters..."Alternating clips of the differing reactions, Kerry vs Bush. Show cheering Kerry support vs tepid, polite Bush applause. Show smiling, happy faces of Kerry supporters vs eye-rolling and snickering during the Bush speech. Use the clips showing the most opposite reactions and then to voiceover... The...

Just channel surfing when I caught the end of ABC news and their tribute to Reagan. Here are the highlights. He fired air traffic controlers He promised to keep Marines in Lebanon for two more weeks then 13 months later their barracks were bombed. He bombed Kadafi and ended up killing and injuring his children. I can't remember what other crap they threw out but all of it was negative. The invastion of Grenada and military personell being killed. Nothing about the booming economy under Reagan, the fall of communism under Reagan, the restoring of respect to America. Not a...

May 24, 2004 - Arkansas television stations have all refused to air President Bush's address to the nation since this will be at odds with the left-wing radical agenda of demonizing the United States of America in their attempt to make Americans hate themselves as much as the liberals hate themselves. Tonight on all the news channels in Arkansas, you will see plenty of reports of "atrocities" that a few American reservists committed on Iraqi terrorists. There will no coverage on what America has done for freeing the Iraqi people from the torture/death chambers of the Hussein regime - CNN...

<p>In his story March 26 on the likelihood that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice would testify again before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, Adam Nagourney of The New York Times wrote: "With the economy faltering and Democrats so united, Mr. Bush's terrorism credentials are portrayed by his supporters as the strongest assets he had going against Mr. Kerry."</p>

<p>Full disclosure is not what it’s cracked up to be.  A pickpocket who tells you that he is a pickpocket is still a threat to pick your pocket.</p> <p>Then again, if a pickpocket does confess his pickpocketing, the odds are that you will protect yourself against his digital dexterity by shifting your money and credit cards to a more secure position. It is for this reason that pickpockets so seldom announce their occupation to potential victims.</p>

New Hong Kong news channel gives viewers the naked truth HONG KONG, (AFP) - Hong Kong viewers will get the naked truth on a new TV news show presented by nude newsreaders, press reports said. The Fire/Ice News bulletins will be broadcast Saturday and Sunday nights on one of the many new digital TV channels springing up in the territory, the South China Morning Post said. The first show, to be aired this weekend, features newsreader Chan Long, a willowy 18-year old girl who strips through the five-minute bulletin until she is completely naked. "It's not easy, synchronising news-reading and...

The 2004 American presidential election is shaping up to be a rough one by recent standards with questions already rife about President Bush's National Guard service and Senator John Kerry's private life. But in historical terms, this is quite mild stuff and there is a moderating influence these days in that the heavyweight US media are reluctant to get involved in what they see as private issues. Both the New York Times and the Washington Post, for example, have written about whether President Bush actually carried out his duties as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard in 1973....

Most journalists are so stupid, the fact that they are also catty, lazy, vengeful and humorless is often overlooked. I generally avoid mentioning even widely published lies about me, or I'd never have time to do the things that provoke liberals to lie about me. But inasmuch as one of the media's favorite pastimes is to invent inane quotes and attribute them to me, I thought we could use a few examples to probe the need for lithium among the scribbling profession. One apocryphal quote that has long perplexed me was the one falsely attributed to me in Salon.com...

To help answer that question, I have gone back through a few weeks of links from the last updates here:   http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/532849/posts DUBOB 9-- even *more* tales from the Dark Underbelly of the Beast..... various links | 09-26-01 | backhoe   ...and the entries are in reverse chronological order. With no further ado, start clicking here:   http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/717004/posts McAuliffe's Shady Business Past: Why the DNC chairman can't preach about business accountability. National Review Online | July 16, 2002 | Byron York   http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/717494/postsHILL'S $$ FLOOD FUELING DEMS New York Post | 7/17/02 | VINCENT MORRIS   http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/716905/postsDemocrats Turn Corporate...

Part One: Documenting the Myth WASHINGTON, May 20 (UPI) -- After the Israeli Army launched its retaliatory strike into the Palestinian Authority-ruled West Bank in early April, the international media was filled with reports that the Israelis had possibly or probably killed hundreds, even thousands, of Palestinian civilians. The reports were later disproved and even the PA itself revised its own official figure for Palestinans killed in the fierce fighting down to only 56. Here, United Press International traces the course of this "media myth" and the reasons it became so influential and was so widely believed. The U.S. and...

The following is the text of radio personality Don Imus' speech at the Radio/TV Correspondents Association Annual Dinner, Thursday, March 21, 1996. Thank you very much ...um... this is kind of interesting, these don't appear to be my notes....you still have the folder I gave you? where did this come from? Well, nobody just leaves stuff like this just layin' around....(laughter) Heh, heh, heh .. let me see if I can see what it says: "S. McDougall called again ...says bank needs check and statement; told her both were in mail, ha ha ha. Jesus, she looks stupid in those...