Free Republic

Last week’s cover story in The Times Magazine, “Scott Walker and the Fate of the Union,” drew hundreds of reader comments – and some mail to the Public Editor’s office. Two of the emails presented questions that I decided to pose to the magazine’s editor, Jake Silverstein. [SNIP] Mr. Silverstein’s response: Thanks for your question. It’s a perfectly reasonable one. To me, the answer lies in the distinction between a magazine story and a story produced by the newsroom for the daily paper. As you note, “an article in the magazine is a feature and doesn’t have exactly the same...

The New York Times ran an article this weekend profiling and quoting many children of gay and lesbian parents under the headline “What Could Gay Marriage Mean for the Kids?”Noticeably absent were any children who, while loving their two moms or two dads, yearned for both a mom and dad.In my new book, “The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom,” I devote a chapter to highlighting the stories of children of gays and lesbians who have spoken out about how redefining marriage has social costs. Their basic story is the same: Same-sex marriage denies children like them a relationship with...

NBC is planning to announce on Thursday that Brian Williams will not return to his position as the anchor of its “Nightly News” show, four months after the network suspended him for exaggerating his role in a helicopter incident in Iraq, according to two people briefed on the discussions. Mr. Williams is expected to move to a new role primarily at the cable news network MSNBC, probably in a breaking-news capacity in the beginning, according to one of the people. Lester Holt, who has been filling in for Mr. Williams as anchor, will take on the position permanently, one...

Brian Williams has been permanently removed from the anchor chair at “NBC Nightly News,” according to a report Wednesday evening in the New York Post. “Multiple sources confirmed to Page Six that after weeks of complex negotiations NBC is likely to announce Thursday that Lyin’ Brian is out of the anchor chair, but will remain a part of the news division,” wrote Post reporter Emily Smith.

In addition to unleashing no-talents with names like “Kardashian” and “The Situation” on society, reality television has long been mocked for being fake. So it’s only fitting that the genre dominating so many cable networks these days would embrace the current fraud sweeping the nation – former head of the NAACP Spokane chapter Rachel Dolezal. RadarOnline reports Dolezal didn’t just fly to New York for her “Today” interview, she’s also taking meetings for two proposed reality shows she’s been offered. Exactly which production companies and which networks might be interested is unknown at this time, but considering the publicity she’s...

On Saturday, MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry shared her thoughts about the Rachel Dolezal story with one of her guests. Perry said: “But is it possible that she might actually be black? The best way that I know how to describe this and I want to be very careful here. Because I don’t want to say it’s equivalent to the transgender experience. But there is a useful language in trans and cis, which is to just to say some of us are born cis-gendered, some of us are born trans-gendered. But I wonder can it be that one would be cis-black...

New York City underwater? Gas over $9 a gallon? A carton of milk costs almost $13? Welcome to June 12,  2015. Or at least that was the wildly-inaccurate version of 2015 predicted by ABC News exactly seven years ago. Appearing on Good Morning America in 2008, Bob Woodruff hyped Earth 2100, a special that pushed apocalyptic predictions of the then-futuristic 2015. The segment included supposedly prophetic videos, such as a teenager declaring, "It's June 8th, 2015. One carton of milk is $12.99." (On the actual June 8, 2015, a gallon of milk cost, on average, $3.39.) Another clip featured this prediction...

How Seinfeld became a bad joke: The threat of a hyper-vigilant left-wing outrage machine has been greatly exaggerated Jerry Seinfeld is the latest brave middle-aged white man to weigh in on the “creepy” ascendance of humorless p.c. SJW anti-free-speech scolds. We know the drill now–we’ve heard it from comedians like Seinfeld and Patton Oswalt and, to a lesser degree, Louis C.K. and Chris Rock. We’ve heard it packaged in a different format from Very Serious media commentators like Jonathan Chait, Laura Kipnis and, most recently, an anonymous white male adjunct professor whose left-wing students “terrify” him. It’s a familiar, tired...

There is nothing redeeming about a speedboat. It's loud, it serves no purpose other than to anger people not in it, it creates a huge wake that's obnoxious on the water and even on the beach and it violently slashes through manatees that bob near the surface of Miami's coastal waters. There is even less that is redeeming about the kind of person who covets one -- or, worse, actually owns one. Speedboats are made exclusively for assholes.

Don't you find it a bit odd that two glaringly contradictory narratives surround Hillary Clinton's bid for the presidency -- inevitability and "she's in trouble"? I've never been convinced, as I've written before, of Hillary's inevitability. In fact, I rarely believe the media or members of the establishment of either party when they anoint any candidate as inevitable. These people tend to live in the Northeastern power corridor but are often oblivious to what the rest of the country is thinking. I attended an influential confab prior to the 2008 primary season and listened to numerous GOP establishment honchos explaining...

[Snip] One of the best books that cracks the code on what we are living through was written by Dutch psychiatrist Joost A. M. Meerloo about 60 years ago. Mull over the first line of his book’s forward, and you will think he is writing about today: “This book attempts to depict the strange transformation of the free human mind into an automatically responding machine – a transformation which can be brought about by some of the cultural undercurrents in our present-day society as well as by deliberate experiments in the service of a political ideology.” That’s from “The Rape...

The New York Times is clamming up about the specific date Bill and Hillary Clinton contributed $100,000 to the paper’s charity group in 2008, but denies the donation played a role in its coverage and endorsement of Clinton in the Democratic primaries that year. The Washington Free Beacon reported on Sunday that the Clinton Family Foundation, a little-known philanthropic organization controlled by the Clintons, donated $100,000 to the New York Times Neediest Cases Fund in 2008. The charity is administered by the paper and run by top brass at the Times Company. On Jan. 25, 2008, the Times endorsed Hillary...

A decision about Brian Williams’ fate at NBC could come as early as this week — and it looks like the embattled anchor won’t be returning to “NBC Nightly News.” Sources tell Page Six that Williams will likely lose his anchor chair following the lengthy internal investigation into his alleged tall tales. SNIP But it is likely he won’t be back in the ‘Nightly’ anchor chair. A decision could be made as early as this week, if all sides can reach an agreement.” SNIP

"....The article describes at length the sources of conservative money that helped propel Walker forward and notes the “right-wing talk radio hosts” who amplified his voice. There is some rather straightforward campaign finance reporting that helps the reader understand Walker’s backing, but it’s tainted by loaded characterizations of the players and hints of sinister motives. And the story is missing one major component: the other side.National labor unions poured money into Wisconsin in an attempt to defeat Walker during the 2012 recall and again in the 2014 midterms,where Walker was the top target of national Democrats and the unions. As...

This is too good not to share. MRC’s Dan Gainor wrote for Foxnews.com on the liberal tendency to describe the Republicans with the term “clown car.” He found that since January 1, MSNBC hosts and their guests have dragged out the phrase 38 times. Hardball host Chris Matthews by far the worst repeat offender, with 29 mentions since the beginning of the year -

At least one small slice of the American public looks forward to the non-stop, sleazy political advertisements set to inundate viewers during the 2016 elections: media executives and their investors. Peter Liguori, the chief executive of Tribune Company, said earlier this month that the next presidential campaign presents “enormous opportunity” for advertising sales. Speaking at a conference hosted by J.P. Morgan Chase, Liguori, whose company owns television stations, referenced Super PAC spending as a key factor for why he thinks Tribune Co. political advertising revenue will rocket from $115 million in 2012 to about $200 million for the 2016 campaign...

CNN, the left-wing hate network that uses every opportunity available, including the threat of a beheading, to launch hate campaigns against its political enemies on the right, asked Pamela Geller Wednesday night if she “relishes the idea” of jihadists hunting her down to behead her.

RUSH: I mentioned in the previous hour working 9-to-5 is becoming a less popular way to make a living. This is an AP story. Now, listen. This is absurd, and this is part and parcel of the ongoing Democrat Party agenda. This is how you cover for a rotten economy. "If you want an income, or you're an employer looking for help, it may be time to scrap the idea of the traditional 9-to-5 arrangement." Yes. "For workers --" I prefer employees or associates "-- it has become easier and less risky to go solo. Affordable health-insurance plans, which kept...

Journalists are supposed to be the most informed members of society. Nothing is supposed to get past the iron traps in their brains. So which one of these concepts sounds more like a brain cramp? 1. Why would Hillary Clinton avoid taking questions from the press now that she's running for president? She's fantastic at defending herself when the scandals mount. 2. President Obama has run an administration amazingly free of scandal. Not just the president, but also everyone he has chosen to serve has been a pillar of integrity. These are actual concepts forwarded on television in the last...

Have you noticed your liberal friends on Facebook spotlighting some unbelievably shocking comments from Republican presidential candidates lately? Comments like Ted Cruz declaring on May 22, “While there may have been an age difference, Josh Duggar’s transgressions are far less an affront to God than what gays do to each other.” Or Dr. Ben Carson saying on May 10, “Mother’s Day is a sad, lonely day for women who aborted their babies. Even if they have a living child, they focus on the one they murdered. It’s why suicide rates are so high on Mother’s Day.” Or Marco Rubio asking...