Free Republic

In May, Politico's reporting inside Democratic circles led them to the strange conclusion that the one thing that could sink Hillary's hopes of winning the White House was the press corps. A Clinton insider announced: “She wants to be president; she doesn’t want to run for president...The worst part of running for president for her, clearly, is dealing with the press.” In July, Politico interviewed former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson, who made some sense of this bizarre-sounding notion. The media has for many years defended and protected and glamorized the Clintons. But Abramson said Hillary expects the...

When Ezra Klein and friends launched Vox as an "explanatory journalism" site this spring, conservative catcalls and ridicule began promptly. The project's critics have been vindicated time and again. Though the site sometimes produces solid content, it's run by hard-left ideologues who lack the capacity to present "just the facts, ma'am"-style reporting. Over the last 24 hours or so, Vox has beclowned itself on four separate occasions. First, see Mollie Hemingway's brutal take-down of co-founder Matt Yglesias' stupefyingly ignorant attack on conservatives and religious liberty. His asshattery was so acute that even a junior Vox colleague publicly rejected Yglesias', er,...

While NBC, ABC, and CBS have provided wall-to-wall coverage since midday Thursday on Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 being shot down over Ukraine and Israel sending ground forces into Gaza, none of the broadcast networks have made a single mention of President Obama being criticized for attending political fundraisers that night. Of the three network morning shows on Friday, only CBS This Morning even noted that Obama had just "returned to Washington late last night after a political trip to New York." Though it was never explained the trip was to raise campaign funds for the Democratic Party. NBC's Today didn't...

British journalist Diana Magnay vented her anger on Twitter after the group allegedly threatened to 'destroy' her team’s car if she said anything they didn’t like on air. "Scum." That's what a CNN reporter called Israelis she spotted cheering missiles that were striking Palestinian positions in Gaza on Thursday night. Diana Magnay took to Twitter to vent her anger after some of the group reportedly threatened to "destroy" her team's car if she spoke out of turn on air. "Israelis on hill above Sderot cheer as bombs land on #gaza; threaten to 'destroy our car if I saw a wrong...

Predictably, the nation’s mainstream media has launched a sob campaign publishing stories and airing broadcasts illustrating the industry’s support and compassion for the barrage of illegal immigrant minors that have entered the U.S. recently. Of particular note is a lengthy piece published this week in the capital-area’s mainstream newspaper, the Washington Post. It sympathetically tells the story of an illegal immigrant from Honduras who grew up dirt-poor (a child servant who sold tortillas on the streets) and has lived for a decade in the Washington D.C. area. The woman, Allis Godoy, abandoned her children in Honduras when she came to...

Via Charles Cooke, is this the worst listicle ever or the greatest? You’re expecting a list of different makes and models, I know. But look: 2. Revolvers Revolvers, named for their rotating chambered cylinder, placed second in the ATF’s ranking of guns found at crime scenes more than 46,000 recovered in 2012, the most recent year for which statistics were kept. Some grenade launchers, shotguns, and rifles also have rotating barrels, but the term “revolver” is generally used to describe handguns. Revolver types include single and double-action firing mechanisms, the latter of which does not require a cocking action separate...

In the early 1970s, the press obsessed about President Nixon's alleged "isolation," especially as the Watergate scandal, which in an objective lookback has to be seen as relative child's play compared to what we're seeing now, unfolded. Proof that Nixon's "isolation" had been a constant media theme in previous months is found in an NBC Nightly News report on May 10, 1973, when a White House staff reorganization was characterized by reporter Richard Valeriani as "Nixon moving to end President('s) isolation." On Fox News's "The Five" on Friday, Democrat Bob Beckel relayed what he said was an anonymous comment by...

On Monday, Morning Joe played a game of “Fact or Fiction” and Joe Scarborough had a lot to say when they arrived at this prediction: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) will win the 2016 GOP nomination. “Fiction, fiction, fiction,” Scarborough declared. Scarborough admitted that if Paul runs he will probably do well in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, but beyond that, “he will be his father’s son.” MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell said he “would have agreed” with Scarborough assessment, but does not know who on the Republican side has what it takes to beat Paul. “I have to continue to look...

Wow. Here’s a link to the Gates-subsidized NBCNews.com article. There is no indication that it’s an advertisement or advertorial. It appears to be a bona fide news story written by a bona fide reporter (Nona Willis Aronowitz). Here it is featured along with NBC News’ other articles on its education page:

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Annenberg poll released on Wednesday reveals something that an exasperated portion of the country likely feels is overdue: The majority of Americans -- 54 percent -- wish that Sarah Palin would step back into the shadows of public discourse. As we noted, that includes over 60 percent of Democrats and almost 40 percent of Republicans. Meaning that Sarah Palin must constrain her possible media audience to only 46 percent of the population of the United States, and a little over half of her party. Somehow, we doubt she'll starve. Palin has been remarkably adept at parlaying...

In what appears to be an act of leftist self-defense, an unbylined story at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, describes certain Colorado Democratic politicians' crticisms of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg over recent "off-base remarks about two of its cities," but noted no reactions from Republicans — who are genuinely outraged, as opposed to arguably trying to cover their political tracks. ... Bloomberg told Simon Vozick-Levinson that in recent recall elections in the Centennial State, "The NRA went after two or three state Senators in a part of Colorado where I don't think there's roads. It's...

The missing in action Geraldo Rivera is stricking! (Rush made me think of this when he asked what would the reaction be if the media/politicians/etc were denied access to the Katrina victims and the Superdome). Rivera is on a long overseas trip Maybe I've missed something. Has O'Reilly interviewed him? When was Geraldo Rivera reluctant to get in front of the camera and give his opinion? What gives? Geraldo melting down (crying) over the little babies!! "I don't know man, let them out of here, let them walk out of here - you have thousands and thousands of people in...

Hardball host Chris Matthews made some bizarre comments about the potential Republican candidates for president in 2016 on Tuesday night. Speaking to Jeanne Cummings of Bloomberg News and Republican strategist John Feehery, Matthews took a swipe at Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and suggested “he's the Republicans' John Edwards.” [See video below.](VIDEO-AT-LINK)The Hardball host never explained why in the world he would compare a man who cheated on his wife while pursuing the presidency to Senator Marco Rubio, but nevertheless the snide remark took his panelists by surprise. While Republican John Feehery didn’t directly condemn Matthews’ unusual comparison of Edwards and...

Gazette opinion: Obama earned the low ratings Sometimes, you have to admit you're wrong. And, we were wrong. We said that things couldn't get much worse after the sub par presidency of George W. Bush. But, President Barack Obama's administration has us yearning for the good ol' days when we were at least winning battles in Iraq. The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal polls show that Americans are giving Obama lower marks than in 2006 when Iraq was going poorly for Bush and a tepid response to Hurricane Katrina sunk Bush's ratings. It's not that popularity polling should be the final...

Chris Matthews’ disdain for House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and his decision to sue President Obama over his use of executive orders reached a fever pitch on his Hardball program Monday night. Speaking to David Corn of the liberal Mother Jones and Howard Fineman of The Huffington Post, Matthews maintained that Speaker Boehner’s lawsuit “is the kind of Mickey Mouse that goes on in third world countries before they have a coup because people were just sick of it.” [See video below.](VIDEO-AT-LINK)Matthews’ harshest condemnation of Boehner began when he promoted Erick Erickson a “guy on the hard right” who opposes...

On the day before the Fourth of July, the New York Times went out of its way to show its disgust for Americans against illegal immigration in Murrieta, California who turned away buses of illegal immigrants for, of all things, waving American flags and chanting "USA!" "Nobody was even being released in Murrieta," the Times' editorial board wrote on Thursday. "But the mayor urged residents to complain, and in a pageant of ugliness, dozens took action: They waved flags, screamed 'U.S.A.!' and turned three buses back." The Times' editorial urged Obama to "go big" on executive actions by granting amnesty...

On Thursday night’s Politics Nation, MSNBC host Al Sharpton wrapped up his show from New Orleans by insisting the Fourth of July is a great day to unload your talking points in defense of Barack Obama. Just like Thanksgiving. And Christmas. And perhaps at weddings and funerals. “It's a day to celebrate our great are country, to rest, relax and maybe have a barbecue. But you know what that means. Your wacky uncle or your Ted Cruz-loving neighbor or your cousin who watches Fox News all day may swing by for a burger or a dog,” he suggested. “But...

Newbusters reports that in the wake of tens of thousands of illegal aliens swarming over the American border, the broadcast networks are refusing to use the word "illegal" to describe these illegal aliens. And that's not because they are using words like "invaders" or "soon-to-be Democrats." Instead, viewers are hearing words like "refugee" and "undocumented." NBC News went so far as to create the Twitter handle #RefugeeRiders. NBC''s Lauer began his editorializing by arguing that “as so many issues in this country do it's going to boil down to politics. And wherever you stand on the issue, one side or...

Since its birth in the 1920s with the first national radio networks, the modern MSM has always had a cozy relationship with power, and until the creation of Fox News, one channel on your TV dial or satellite guide, that power has almost exclusively meant their fellow Democrats. The media have long voted overwhelmingly Democrat in presidential elections; as Walter Cronkite once said at a Radio & TV Correspondents Dinner in the mid-1990s, in-between feting the Clintons on his yacht in Martha’s Vineyard, “Everybody knows that there’s a liberal, that there’s a heavy liberal persuasion among correspondents.” But in the...

After last week’s breathless headlines putting Gov. Scott Walker at the center of a nationwide “criminal scheme,” the mainstream and left-leaning media are being forced to step back from such sensational indictments. The man doing the forcing is the special prosecutor who raised the specter of said conspiracy in a court document — part of 268 pages of previously sealed records dumped last week by order of a federal appeals court and embraced by John Doe prosecutors.