Free Republic

A Dan Brown-worthy mystery (forget about Dante, what about the zoo?) is as follows: Staffers at a zoological conservation center in Greenwich, Conn., are very confused — as are the rest of us — because their female giant anteater, Armani, has managed to conceive a baby, apparently without the presence of a male anteater. What? It all started in August, writes Lisa Chamoff for Greenwich Time. Armani, an anteater at the LEO Zoological Conservation Center, had given birth to anteater baby girl Alice. Alice's father, Alf, was kept away from Armani and Alice because male anteaters have a bad history...

You just knew this was bound to happen. Some on the left are trying to blame George W. Bush for Obama's IRS fiasco. Take for example Mediaite's resident Obama apologist Tommy Christopher, who wrote a much ado about nothing post on May 16 insinuating that this egregious abuse of government power stems from former Bush appointed IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman – and that credit for clearing this whole thing up will go to Obama.

Here's a classic from the Obama playbook: Whenever you're in trouble, find a way to blame George W. Bush for it. That concept was in play on Thursday afternoon's edition of MSNBC's Martin Bashir program, when the liberal host and contributor Joy Reid were able to convince their guest, GOP strategist Ron Christie, to admit that Steven Miller, the former acting director of the Internal Revenue Service, was appointed by “the previous administration,� a phrase used to describe Bush. Following the quick firing of Miller on Wednesday and President Obama's promise to hold everyone involved accountable, Bashir asked Christie if...

It's been a rough end to what started out as a record-breaking season for openly gay characters on the small screen.

CBS Anchor: 'We Are Getting Big Stories Wrong, Over and Over Again' "Our house is on fire." Daniel Halper May 11, 2013 12:09 PM CBS anchor Scott Pelley said at a speech at Quinnipiac University that journalists "are getting big stories wrong, over and over again." "Our house is on fire," said Pelley. The video of Pelley's speech is courtesy of nowthisnews.com. "These have been a bad few months for journalism," he added. "We're getting the big stories wrong, over and over again." The CBS newsreader was quick to take at least partial blame. "Let me take the first arrow:...

For the last 8 months, many news organizations have looked very casually (to put it lightly) on the Benghazi story…some journalists and news organizations have even been highly critical of those journalists or news organizations who dared to think the American people were not getting the whole story (yes, Fox News has been the subject of some sneering but we can take it …. we are big boys and big girls…and more importantly, we are also not afraid of what the media clique says about us. We do our job.) I don’t know what will shake out when we finally...

Eight months after four Americans died in a terrorist attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, a House committee held another hearing on Wednesday to examine whether the Obama administration mishandled the tragic events. What follows is an update on what is known about the Benghazi episode and why it has become such a political flash point: Q. Why is the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform holding a new hearing on Benghazi? A. Committee investigators found two State Department officials who previously had not spoken publicly and who are scathingly critical of the administration’s response to...

In a bizarre television and spatial anomaly on CNN this morning, the blanket coverage of two true-crime stories led two news anchors to conduct an odd "satellite" interview from the very same parking lot, background traffic and all. The two suspects are Ashleigh Banfield of CNN and Nancy Grace of Headline News, who were updating viewers on the latest from the ongoing and increasingly ugly Cleveland kidnapping story. (Grace being TV's leading expert on deviant crime.) At first it seems like a normal TV "remote," as Banfield interviews Grace from another location. Then the channel's graphics alert viewers: both anchors...

**SNIP** The short video played just before Perry took the stage to a welcome applause from the crowd. It shows Perry taking aim at an egg from about 100 yards out with a LaRue Tactical rifle, which is made by a company that recently opened up shop in Texas. The video then shows Perry hitting metal targets like a marksman. The video got quite a reaction online, and not all of it was good. The responses on Twitter ranged from folks saying Perry’s video did nothing but “promote and excite the already gun-thirsty and violent society” to others saying “I...

Back in 2011, I wrote about how George Creel's plan with the Committee for Public Information (CPI) was to make journalists associates of the state. Here is in part what he wrote: (page 17) With the nation in arms, the need was not so much to keep the press from doing the hurtful things as to get it to do the helpful things. It was not servants we wanted, but associates. Better far to have the desired compulsions proceed from within than to apply them from without. And from page 18: My proposition, in lieu of the proposed law, was...

(PP)- Tuesday NBC News, a radical left wing news organization, announced they mercifully will be ending “The Chris Matthews Show,” an unwatched syndicated public affairs production broadcast out of the NBC News Washington D.C. bureau. The final edition of the dismal program will be forced onto the airwaves July 21. The half-hour slobber-fest aired primarily on Sunday mornings, in an obviously failed attempt to compete with highly respected political programs like “FOX News Sunday.” “Matthews says he is ending the syndicated Sunday show to focus on some MSNBC show called “Hardball,” said a liberal political insider. “But Chris has to...

On Wednesday's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC analyst Richard Wolffe -- formerly of Newsweek -- claimed that President Bush "ignored all the warnings about al-Qaeda wanting to attack the homeland" before 9/11 as he mocked Republicans for praising Bush's record of preventing terrorist attacks on U.S. soil after the 9/11 attacks. As he alluded to Republicans criticizing President Clinton for not handling al-Qaeda more aggressively during his presidency, Wolffe asserted: You couldn't just say that 9/11 came out of nothing. It wasn't a total surprise because, in their narrative, Bill Clinton and, by extension, all Democrats somehow lost...

My post, Add Boston Marathon Bombing to pile of Failed Eliminationist Narratives, seems to have gotten the attention of Dave Neiwart of Crooks and Liars, the developer of the Eliminationist Narrative.Neiwart responds with Right-Wingers Use Boston Bombing to Paper Over Their Own Extremist Terror.I’ll deal with the breadth of Neiwart’s post later, but I do quickly want to note that Neiwart continues to push the claim that Jared Lougher, who shot Gabby Giffords and killed several others, was right-wing.Almost everyone else, even in the left-blogosphere, has given up on that claim.  Loughner was a lunatic living in a nether world...

Sarah Palin has said many controversial things in her life — but did John McCain’s running mate really call for the invasion of the Czech Republic? No, but a leading eastern European weekly wrote that she did — mistaking a satirical article written about Palin as fact. “Let’s burn Prague: Sarah Palin Calls for the Invasion of the Czech Republic” screamed a headline in Wprost, one of Poland’s top news publications. Wprost later yanked the article from its website after readers began questioning its authenticity on Facebook, the journalism blog JimRomenesko reported. Editor's Note: Should ObamaCare Be Repealed? Vote in...

What a beautiful racket the left has going. Those of us who dare not be liberal are literally paying, through our tax dollars, for NPR to smear us like this: (VIDEO-AT-LINK) Partial transcript: "The thinking, as we have been reporting, is that this is a domestic, extremist attack and officials are leaning that way largely because of the timing of the attack. April is a big month for anti-government and right-wing individuals. There's the Columbine anniversary, there's Hitler's birthday, there's the Oklahoma City bombing, the assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco."(continued)

In reaction to the defeat of gun control in the U.S. Senate yesterday, editorial pages across the nation are seething with anger, lashing out at rural America, gun manufacturers and the NRA.

The trial of notorious Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell -- as close to a demonic presence as anything this country will ever see -- was almost a month old when the network blackout finally ended. CNN broke its silence, as did CBS. National newspapers sent reporters to the trial for the first time. They started covering it only because of a national outrage that they would so deliberately withhold this horror story from the public -- for political reasons. Kirsten Powers in USA Today insisted: "This should be front page news. When Rush Limbaugh attacked Sandra Fluke, there was non-stop...

The cat is finally out of the bag. A blogger for the liberal Huffington Post has finally admitted that liberal mainstream media outlets made a conscious decision to ignore the Kermit Gosnell abortion-murder trial. In a HuffPost Live segment today on the issue, host Marc Lamont Hill admitted what many pro-life advocates have been thinking: “For what it’s worth, I do think that those of us on the left have made a decision not to cover this trial because we worry that it’ll compromise abortion rights. Whether you agree with abortion or not, I do think there’s a direct connection...

An article published on CNN's website makes an unproven claim that pressure cooker bombs like the ones used at the Boston Marathon terror attack are a 'signature' of 'right-wing extremists.' The article was co-written by Jennifer Roland and Peter Bergen. Bergen is the CNN ananlyst made the claim that right-wing extremists could be behind the bombing less than two hours after it took place. The article says (emphasis added) : A senior U.S. counterterrorism investigator told CNN that pressure cooker bombs have also been a signature of extreme right-wing individuals in the United States who he said tend to revel...

Predictably, the American Pravda Press immediately began conjecturing that the tragic terrorist act in Boston, at the Marathon, was possibly caused by 'right wing extremists'. Quoted Peter Bergen: ""One of the things that I'd be looking at, once the device, if it is a device, is found, what kind of explosives were used. If it, for instance, if it was hydrogen peroxide, sort of a signature of al Qaeda. If it was more conventional explosives, which are much harder to get hold of now, it might be some other kind of right wing extremists..."We've also seen other extremist groups, right...

<p>Come on. Can’t even the media hacks stop the political BS for just a few hours while we pray for the people and victims of the bombings in Boston at the Marathon? Already, CNN leftist hack Wolf Blitzer is blaming ‘anti-tax’ groups or in other words the Tea Party for the explosions at the Boston Marathon. I’ll post video as soon as it comes out. Go F*ck Yourself Wolf Blitzer and CNN. Seriously!</p>

One admitted to kidnapping and ransoming hostages in the Ivory Coast. Others said they had molested children or committed rape. And one, as he prepared for survival in a post-apocalyptic world, contemplated assassinating President Barack Obama. These are among the thousands of applicants who have sought sensitive law enforcement jobs in recent years with the U.S. Border Patrol and its parent agency, Customs and Border Protection. In many cases, these people made it all the way through the hiring process until one of the last steps – a polygraph exam. Once sitting with a polygraph examiner, they admitted to a...

For the past couple of weeks there has been a steady drip of bad news for ObamaCare, but you wouldn't know it if you only get your news from the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks. From a Society of Actuaries report that determined premium costs will shoot up thanks to a thirty-three percent average increase in claims; to thirty-three Senate Democrats joining Republicans in voting to repeal an ObamaCare tax on medical devices; to a Quinnipiac University poll showing even two-thirds of self-identified Democrats saying the law will either hurt them or have no effect, the recent news has...

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell delivered an unexpectedly laudatory eulogy for Margaret Thatcher on The Last Word Monday night, but it was not one that many of her Republican admirers would appreciate. While conservative columnist George Will credited Thatcher for helping to “bury socialism as a doctrine of governance� in his tribute to the former British prime minister in The Washington Post, O’Donnell praised her for upholding the “good socialism� that still exists in Britain.“What do you call a person who gets rid of bad socialism and keeps good socialism?� O’Donnell asked. “I call that person a good socialist, like Margaret Thatcher.�...

In the past few days a number of hugely misleading reports have circulated in both Britain and the United States alleging that Margaret Thatcher snubbed Sarah Palin. It all began with a blog post in The Guardian claiming the former prime minister had refused to meet with Mrs. Palin on her upcoming visit to London, on the grounds that she was “unworthy of an audience”, and quoting an anonymous “ally” of Lady Thatcher. According to The Guardian, in a piece entitled ‘Margaret Thatcher to Sarah Palin: don’t bother dropping by’: Her (Lady Thatcher’s) allies believe that Palin is a frivolous...

Via Legal Insurrection, between this and Krystal Ball’s Socratic dialogue with a five-year-old about gay marriage, evidently it was indoctrination weekend at MSNBC. The novelty here isn’t the sentiment, it’s the candor. Hillary made this same point more digestible for the public by ladling on warm-fuzzy sauce about a “village� raising a child together. (Similarly, don’t think of huge government programs as budget-busting liabilities. They’re Christmas presents!) Harris-Perry had 30 seconds to give her version of the same point; when you’re operating within those time constraints, there may be no way to make the pitch in terms less creepy than...

“Hi,” she says, striding into the room with a smooth gait and a low, sure voice. “I’m Chelsea!” The handshake is confident, the eyes firmly fixed. With the ease of her father and the directness of her mother, Chelsea Clinton is stepping out into the world. At 33, she wears her political royalty in triplicate: There are her famous parents, of course, but also her mother-in-law, former Pennsylvania congresswoman Marjorie Margolies. After several years in the private sector (with McKinsey & Company, then with a hedge fund), Clinton has emerged onto the civic stage in her own right, graceful and...

CAIR Claims Victory Over AP Stylebook’s Restrictions on Word 'Islamist' April 5, 2013 By Elizabeth Harrington (CNSNews.com) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) praised the Associated Press (AP) for revising its stylebook to forbid the use of the word “Islamist,” if it is used to describe Islamic militants or extremists. In a press release on Friday, CAIR said revising the term is a "step in the right direction,” and that they helped influence the AP’s decision. “Late last year, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) approached AP about modifying the reference, which had been added to its influential...

Considering McLelland was part of a task force that investigated the Aryan Brotherhood, and in light of the recent killing of Colorado prison chief Tom Clements allegedly by a member of a white supremacist prison gang, this theory that the AB may have been involved in the murders clearly has some merit. Yet in that coverage, the mainstream media has gone to great lengths to label ad-infinitum the Aryan Brotherhood as a “white supremacist” group, implying a racial motivation. The AB, even if involved at all, however, may have been motivated not by a "white supremacist” philosophy, but rather by...

(CNN) -- On the evening of March 19, Tom Clements, the director of Colorado's prison system, was shot and killed when he answered the door of his home near Colorado Springs. The slaying sparked a police chase that ended a few days later in Texas, with authorities finally killing the suspect, 28-year-old Evan Ebel, in a shootout. It was soon discovered that Ebel had been part of a violent white supremacist gang during the eight years he spent in Colorado prisons. Clements was the latest victim of increasingly active violent right-wing extremists. While American politicians and the U.S. public continue...

A California billionaire is pledging to spend as much of his fortune as necessary to make climate change “the defining issue of our generation.” Tom Steyer, who made his riches as a hedge fund manager, told The Hill on Tuesday that he wants to make climate change a campaign issue for years to come and Democratic support for environmental protections as widespread as support for gay marriage and immigration reform. “The goal here is not to win. The goal here is to destroy these people. We want a smashing victory,” Steyer said of candidates he judges to be on the...

The Associated Press announced Tuesday that it will no longer use the term “illegal immigrant.” On NBC’s Tonight Show, host Jay Leno said, “They will now use the phrase ‘undocumented Democrat’” (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary)...

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews seems to think that only white people can be racist. On Monday’s Hardball, he actually said, “Racism is the belief that one race - whites - should rule all others” MATTHEWS: Well actually, Rushbo, racism is the belief that one race – whites - should rule all others. Get your definitions straight.

In a time of severe budget constraints, two factors explain why the White House can afford to welcome more than 30,000 people Monday for the 135th annual Easter Egg Roll: corporate sponsors and souvenir eggs. Nearly a century ago, Congress empowered the National Park Service, which oversees the Easter Egg Roll, to accept private donations for its operations. So when her twin boys came home from kindergarten and told her the Easter Egg Roll might be canceled, Victoria Knight-McDowell, owner and chief executive of Pine Bros. Softish Throat Drops, wrote a check for $25,000 to make sure that would not...

I never knew the extent of a lobby's power until fate called me to speak on behalf of children's rights. Now, six months after having come forward with a logical, secular argument against same-sex parenting based on experience, broad research, and international law, I have been met with vicious attacks and something far worse than viciousness: a massive nationwide cold shoulder. Both left and right are allied in a complete blackout of dissent from LGBT orthodoxy. Doug Mainwaring is a gay father in Maryland; he and I jointly signed an amicus brief in support of Proposition 8. Over the last...

Is the mainstream media biased against gun owners? You bet it is. Are gun owners aware of this fact? Yes. Do we care? I suspect most of us don’t. At this point, it’s pretty much expected. With that said, we do get irked from time to time at the media’s portrayal of gun owners, which frequently hews to the narrative that we’re all a bunch of paranoid zealots, blood-thirsty and pernicious, who horde supplies and hideout in subterranean bunkers awaiting a zombie apocalypse. Naw, that might be overstating it. It’s probably more accurate to say that the media propagates or...

Those who are losing an argument often resort to smearing their opponents. Mike Barnicle, who a few years back was caught plagiarizing and Al Sharpton, The Worst of Al Sharpton who a few years before that built his career by accusing an innocent man of rape have resorted to smearing those of us who think New York Mike Bloomberg should at least confine his overbearing nannyist instincts to the city that actually elected him. “Let’s get down to it, Mike Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, there’s a level of anti-semitism in this thing directed towards Bloomberg,” Barnicle said on...

Analysis March 25, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - According to organizers, nearly one and a half million people joined the third demonstration in five months against the legalization of same-sex “marriage� by the French government in Paris, on Sunday. Meanwhile, large numbers of demonstrators who were unable to join the main venue – which had filled up by 3 p.m. – or who headed straight to the largest and most prestigious Parisian thoroughfare, the Champs-Elysées, were sprayed with tear-gas and beaten as they neared the presidential palace. Victims included children as young as 6 years old, elderly gentlemen, women of all...

On Tuesday, March 26, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether gay couples have a constitutional right to marry. But major American corporations have already heard the arguments—and in their own way, decided it's OK. Beginning in 2002, a leading gay-rights group, the Human Rights Campaign, began systematically rating corporate America's commitment to gay rights. The effort was born in large part out of frustration with the political process.

March 24 is Palm Sunday, which means that millions of Christians across the country will be celebrating Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem by carrying palm leaves, often shaped in the form of a cross, into their places of worship. Where do these palms come from? Most likely they have been imported from one of a few Latin American countries: Guatemala, Belize, or southern Mexico, for instance. And most likely, they have been harvested in a manner that is harmful to the environment. Harvesters are often paid by volume rather than quality, and they have a strong incentive to cut as many...

Pardon the age of this item, but it's on an issue of campaign history. On March 13, NPR Fresh Air host Terry Gross interviewed new CNN host Jake Tapper about politics and journalism, and whether there was blowback from presidents and candidates over tough questions. But Gross felt compelled to bring up the "lies" told about John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign -- without expressing anything specific. Tapper said he was assigned as a Swift Boat Veteran fact checker by ABC. Gross said, "So you were fact-checking some of the Swift Boat attacks against presidential candidate John Kerry. There...

HOUSTON — Authorities were investigating an attempted robbery scene in north Texas on Thursday where two Oklahoma teenagers were found fatally shot — possibly by self-inflicted gunshots — and the local sheriff praised the armed homeowner who fired on the suspected intruders.

American television nertworks, Fox News Channel among them, have decided that the attempted assasination of a leading critic of Islam in an American ally is unworthy of attention, so we must look northward for our information. Danish historian and journalist Lars Hedegaard was interviewed by Canadian Sun TV's Michael Coren for the third time since Hedegaard survived an assassination attempt in early February, ostensibly for his criticism of Islamic supremacism, and was forced into protective seclusion. During this interview (Monday 3/18/13), Hedegaard observed, Anyone who stands up and criticizes Islam is fair game. It's like Mao said, "Kill one and...

In a new report released today, the Republican National Committee owned up to a number of mistakes made during the 2012 election cycle. While the central party admitted there were too many presidential debates, it only barely touched on the role that unfair media moderators played in both the nominating process and in the general election. Despite its reluctance to criticize media impartiality, the RNC report did open the door to the creation of a new organization that would be assigned to create and host the debates apart from the media. “We are intrigued with the suggestion some have made...

Support for gay marriage reached a new high in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, marking a dramatic change in public attitudes on the subject across the past decade. Fifty-eight percent of Americans now say it should be legal for gay and lesbian couples to wed. That number has grown sharply in ABC News/Washington Post polls, from a low of 32 percent in a 2004 survey of registered voters, advancing to a narrow majority for the first time only two years ago, and now up again to a significant majority for the first time. Most Americans, moreover, say the U.S....

When conservatives complain about the harm that the endless debate schedule had on the 2012 Republican primary candidates, the conversation often turns to the hosts and the moderators. Why are Republican candidates letting someone like ABC’s George Stephanopoulos — a former aide to Democrat Bill Clinton — ask them “gotcha questions” during a GOP primary? Why are GOP presidential hopefuls agreeing to meet for a debate hosted by an outlet like MSNBC, a cable network that has increasingly grown hostile to Republicans as it self-identifies as a liberal news network? As the Republican Party released a 100-page report on Monday...

Travelers at Miami International Airport weren’t too happy this weekend after being caught in delays for hours due to cutbacks by the Transportation Security Adminstration. Passengers said they faced major frustration as they stood in long lines, desperate to get through customs. “Which is ridiculous for people to suffer like this,” said Sal Tricamo, a passenger who missed his flight...

Washington DC - -(Ammoland.com)- National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) president Steve Sanetti is warning gun owners to be beware the mainstream media’s efforts to pit one gun rights group against another in an attempt to divide and conquer. For example, Sanetti points out that a March 5 Washington Post article is constructed around the theory that the NSSF does not stand with the NRA in opposition to universal background checks. The WAPO does this by equating the NSSF’s support for improvements to the current background check system with support for universal background checks. Sanetti rejects this argument out of hand,...

Not surprisingly, most of the folks on MSNBC have being having a field day Thursday ridiculing Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) for his historic filibuster the day before. Doing his part on the Martin Bashir show was MSNBC political analyst David Corn who said that Attorney General Eric Holder’s letter to Paul “had a very silent FU in it” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

More gun laws = fewer deaths, 50-state study says By By LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer – 14 hours ago CHICAGO (AP) — States with the most gun control laws have the fewest gun-related deaths, according to a study that suggests sheer quantity of measures might make a difference. But the research leaves many questions unanswered and won't settle the debate over how policymakers should respond to recent high-profile acts of gun violence. In the dozen or so states with the most gun control-related laws, far fewer people were shot to death or killed themselves with guns than in the...