Free Republic

When you get past the details of the Scottish independence referendum Thursday, there is a broader story underway, one that is also playing out in other advanced nations. It is a crisis of the elites. Scotland’s push for independence is driven by a conviction — one not ungrounded in reality — that the British ruling class has blundered through the last couple of decades. The same discontent applies to varying degrees in the United States and, especially, the eurozone. It is, in many ways, a defining feature of our time. The details of Scotland’s grievances are almost the diametrical opposite...

These days I live in a state of almost continual amazement, bedazzled by the things progressives believe. Earlier this week the New York Times had to print a correction which is probably the number one all time winner in a long line of their recent corrections: “Correction: September 8, 2014 An earlier version of a summary that appeared with this article misstated the former title of Dick Cheney. He was vice president, not president.” Seriously, someone was hired to and does write for the major progressive publication in America who thought that Dick Cheney had been our president. And what...

When does media reporting become actual collusion with selling propaganda? Perhaps the story of Mike Brown’s autopsy will provide food for thought. We suspected from the outset the Parks and Crump version of the Mike Brown autopsy was likely just a propaganda ploy to sell their narrative. We knew New York Times reporter Frances Robles was sympathetic to their scheme because she was similarly predisposed in 2012 with the Trayvon Martin narrative. Frances Robles arrived in Ferguson Missouri the morning of the autopsy Aug 17th. Perhaps she and forensic pathologist Dr. Baden flew in together. After all, they departed the...

You’ve seen the story of the Mike Brown family autopsy, and the grand press conference they produced to deliver it to the public. But a closer look points out why the Scheme Team actually used New York Times Frances Robles to deliver the ruse: Frances worked with the Scheme Team in 2012 (2012 bio below) while she was at the Miami Herald and was part of their inner circle of media types willing to sell the Trayvon Story. The actual truth appears to be – a rather controversial person Shawn Parcells, who is NOT a forensic pathologist, was used by...

I LIVED with the same cat for 19 years — by far the longest relationship of my adult life. Under common law, this cat was my wife. I fell asleep at night with the warm, pleasant weight of the cat on my chest. The first thing I saw on most mornings was the foreshortened paw of the cat retreating slowly from my face and her baleful crescent glare informing me that it was Cat Food Time. As I often told her, in a mellow, resonant, Barry White voice: “There is no luuve … like the luuve that exists … between...

When it comes to mocking president Obama, there is no easier or more effective way than focusing on his vacation/golfing schedule. The conservative Washington Examiner did just that last week, before the latest Malaysian Airlines disaster, when it reported that "It's going to be hot tubs, basketball, tennis and golf for the first family this summer, having set plans for a 16-day vacation in Martha's Vineyard, Mass., on a $12 million, 10-acre forested estate on the southwestern corner of the island. Reports from the Bay State indicate that President Obama and his family will vacation August 9-24 at the 8,100-square...

INDIANAPOLIS — Standing in a small booth surrounded by displays for rifles, pistols, holsters and other firearm accouterments, the Rev. Kenn Blanchard signed copies of his book “Black Man With a Gun: Reloaded.” Amid the sea of thousands of white faces that descended on this city for the National Rifle Association convention in late April, Mr. Blanchard, an N.R.A. member since 1991, offered his reasoning for why he was one of the few black visitors. “We still culturally have a fear that we’re going to be that lone guy out, and you don’t want to be the lone guy out,”...

On Thursday, the editorial board at the New York Times, reacting to the growing firestorm over the release of five hardened terrorists from Gitmo in return for the Army's Bowe Bergdahl, went after Bergdahl's "army unit’s lack of security and discipline." It then incredibly claimed that a classified army report described in a separate Times dispatch that day suggested that those alleged conditions were "as much to blame for the disappearance" of Bergdahl as ... well, the sloppy editorial didn't specifically say. On Sunday, two Times reporters continued the offensive against Bowe Bergdahl's platoon and its members, apparently wanting readers...

Oh, what fun to watch the contretemps going on in the shop of New York’s failed print model of what used to be journalism! “Fired for being a bitch,” is a Drudge headline that just won’t quit. The Pinches and Punches of the world of cutthroat print are just getting a pinch of their own punch as they feel the pushback from a female wanting to win in their falsely contrived War on Women. Oh, how payback is hell! How delicious to watch the Old Grey Lady impaled on a modern Lady’s sword. Arty (Sulzberger) is in the painful position...

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough tore into the leadership at the New York Times on Friday morning for what he characterized as a misleading self-defense over the reasons for the firing of former Executive Editor Jill Abramson. He observed that the Times admitted that the pay discrepancy issue was a factor even after they denied it at first. The appearance of a cover-up on this issue led Scarborough’s co-hosts to predict a backlash against the paper and even a wave of cancelled subscriptions from female subscribers. Reading from the latest piece in the New Yorker, Scarborough noted that the Times...

According to this New Yorker ARTICLE Jill Abramson's salary was $525,000 per year vs. $559,000 for previous Executive Editor, Bill Keller. However two BIG factors to keep in mind. First of all Keller had been there longer than Abramson as executive editor. And second, the taxes in New York State and City are so high that the $34,000 differential would be much lower. Perhaps someone out there can figure out what the AFTER TAX differential was. If Abramson wanted a higher TAKE HOME salary, perhaps she should have addressed the State and City governments of New York. So what would...

The New York Times, which has actively helped Democrats and the White House perpetuate the phony "war on women" campaign against Republicans, reportedly fired its female executive editor because she complained about pay inequality at the so-called "paper of record." On Wednesday, the Times announced that Dean Baquet, the managing editor, would replace Jill Abramson, becoming the paper's first black executive editor. Abramson was promoted to executive editor with much fanfare in 2011. "Several weeks ago," according to The New Yorker, "Abramson discovered that her pay and her pension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, as managing editor...

Jill Abramson “is unexpectedly leaving the position” as executive editor of The New York Times, the Times announced Wednesday. Dean Baquet will be the new executive editor, Ravi Somaiya reports. “The reasons for the switch were not immediately clear,” Somaiya reports. Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. attributed the change to “an issue with management in the newsroom,” Somaiya wrote on Twitter. Abramson became the Times’ executive editor in 2011. She is five years away from being 65, the age at which Times executive editors traditionally must retire. On Monday Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan noted that under Abramson, “not only...

You can’t make it up. Does New York Times reporter Mark Leibovich actually listen to talk radio? And is Congressman Mike Rogers being groomed as the next host in the perpetually losing business that is moderate Republican talk radio – RINO radio? Republican In Name Only Radio.

… A while back, the Times ran a huge front page photo of young men and women dashing for a table full of food. The headline told a million readers that these were Palestinian Arabs who had been STARVED by Israel, but after international pressure Israel relented and the kids were finally allowed to eat. I noticed that these kids were laughing and so did some other observers, until the Times finally admitted (on page 36) that Israel had nothing to do with this.Muslims had been fasting for some holy day (Ramadan?) and were finally allowed to feast. But the...

I can't keep up with it. Under Janet Napolitano - and in the MSM then - an act of terrorism became known as (or redefined as) "man-caused disasters." Before that, under the Bush administration, it was defined as an act of "terrorism." In the MSM, now, and to a large degree some Ukrainians are called terrorists. Sometimes they are called anti-Kiev protesters, or sometimes anti-government protesters. Should the MSM call Right Sector and others in Ukraine "terrorists"? One hardly ever even sees the word "fascist." But when you look at the top four news articles cached on Yahoo.com, when entering...

Let's show him how tolerant we can be. This week.[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYHZB9jK3Ls] Video linkHow many Indians Native Americans and Negros African Americans are fooled by patronizing nonsense of the type satirized in the video? Too many, it seems. Perhaps libruls are also fooling themselves, not a difficult task. As shown below by excerpts from an unexpurgated version, it now appears that Mr. Bundy's "racist" remarks -- that have drawn substantially more media attention than did his far more important stand and that of his supporters against governmental excesses at the Bundy Ranch -- boil down to his use of the politically incorrect words "Negro"...

In an obituary that Leonard Smith would have thought “was about three paragraphs too long,” his family asked that in lieu of flowers, people cancel their subscription to The New York Times. It so happens, former first lady Barbara Bush did just that.

The New York Times changed the lede of its explosive story about former New York Port Authority official David Wildstein on Friday. Whereas the original story stated that Wildstein has the evidence to prove Gov. Chris Christie knew about the George Washington Bridge lane closings when they were happening, the new version has Wildstein saying “evidence exists.” […] This seemingly minor change carries a big difference in meaning. The original lede reads as though Wildstein is saying he specifically has evidence that links Christie to knowing about the bridge lane closures. The second lede suggests only that “evidence exists,” not...

Kudos to New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan for asking why the Times couldn’t provide much coverage of Wednesday’s March for Life. Hundreds, if not thousands of New Yorkers were there, so “Was this local participation, or the event itself, worthy of a news story in the paper of record? Apparently not.” “The Times, in print, published only a stand-alone photograph of the event on Page A17 with a two-line caption on Thursday.” …