Free Republic

CANTON Thomas Buckius registered to vote last month when canvassers came to his neighborhood as part of a voter registration drive. "I want (Democratic presidential nominee Barack) Obama to win because he'll be the first African-American president," said Buckius, 21, who lives in a southwest neighborhood comprising mostly of blacks. "I think he can do better than what Bush is doing." But Obama didn't have Buckius' vote in the bank yet. Buckius said he didn't know when Election Day was, nor where he was supposed to vote. And while Buckius insisted he'll figure out how to get to the polls,...

Of course the AP couldn't syndicate an article without inserting a lil' spin. They coulda said she earned all her tax deductions the old fashioned way....by birthing them.....

http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=185853

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who has not held a press conference in nearly four weeks of campaigning, on Tuesday banned reporters from her first meetings with world leaders, allowing access only to photographers and a television crew. CNN, which was providing the television coverage for news organizations, decided to pull its TV crew, effectively denying Palin the high visibility she had sought....

I have a good idea for how we can "weclome" Nobama to the debates this Friday. I call it the "$15.00" way because a cheap pillow and a reliable delivery service should cost to send Barack Obama a pillow to sit on when he's wearied by the excruciating task of having to lower himself be in the same room with his opponent and answering to the American people. Saturday Night Live may have shown their ultimate bias by removing the video from the internet (http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/02/24/snl-cnn-debate-moderators-totally-tank-senator-obama) but WE can show them and the world that WE remember a time not long...

Howie Kurtz at WaPo warns that the media is really getting mad at the McCain-Palin campaign. Indignant reporters accuse them of playing politics and spinning. How dare they! No campaign has ever done that before. I read this and thought, this is news? Of course the press is upset; McCain-Palin threatens to bring down their chosen candidate. Here's a breathless excerpt from Howie's article:News outlets are increasingly challenging false or questionable claims by the McCain campaign, whether it's the ad accusing Obama of supporting sex-ed for kindergartners (the Illinois legislation clearly describes "age-appropriate" programs) or Palin's repeated boast that she...

Ever since Spiro Agnew lambasted the press in 1970 as "nattering nabobs of negativism," Republicans have reveled in attacking the national media for its so-called "liberal bias." President George H.W. Bush ran for re-election in 1992 with a bumper sticker that read "Annoy the media: Re-elect Bush." His son, the current President Bush, trotted before cameras in 2001 with a copy of Bernard Goldberg's book on the subject, "Bias," conspicuously cradled in his hand.

In a patronizing column, NY Slimes writer Allesandra Stanley writes: Republican delegates holding up “Palin Power” signs greeted Wednesday’s speech as a Norma Rae moment, but for viewers it came closer to Garbo Speaks. Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska spoke and did it forcefully, confidently and with humor, and that was plenty, because the most damaging part of the last 48 hours was her silence. No, Allesandra, the most damaging part of the last 48 hours was the vicious attack on a good and honorable woman by a Liberal establishment that fears the loss of its power and will stop...

"Governor Palin, I think I speak for the entire United States when I ask..." "Do you have any sisters?"

POWER OF THIS COURT It may receive and promulgate accusations of all kinds against all persons and characters among the citizens of the state, and even against all inferior courts; and may judge, sentence, and condemn to infamy, not only private individuals but public bodies, etc., with our without inquiry or hearing, at the court's discretion.IN WHOSE FAVOR AND FOR WHOSE EMOLUMENT THIS COURT IS ESTABLISHED It is IN FAVOR of about 1 citizen if 500, who, by education or practice in scribbling, has acquired a tolerable style as to grammar and construction so as to bear printing, or who...

The New Republic reports good news from Iraq. I love the grudging good news reports that come from Liberal bastions like the NY Times and the New Republic. Of course, when the Bush haters report on improvements in Iraq, there's usually a backhand agenda lurking. This time, its Joshua Hammer gleefully reporting that "mercenaries" are taking big pay cuts and going unemployed due to the decreasing violence. See how this works? Find a bright spot, but then use it to poke Bush, Halliburton, Blackwater, whomever supported this damned war! Iraqis are *Gasp* making their own oil contracts with other sovereign...

As I predicted, this election will be a referendum on Barack Hussein Obama. John McCain is the Republican nominee because it was his turn, but he does not turn the Republican base on. Absent a compelling reason to vote for McCain, is there a compelling reason to vote against Obama? Will Americans trust Obama enough to turn a rock star into a President? I don’t think so, but I could be wrong. The press, which has been solidly supportive of Obama, is beginning to notice that their adoration of the Messiah is beginning to irk people. It’s like a parade,...

Barack Obama wanted the world to know that he can pray like a Christian. Thus, he penned a ‘note to God' on stationery from the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, and he generously gave a copy to the "international media even before he put in the Kotel, a short time after he wrote it at the King David Hotel." Thus says the Ma'ariv spokesman in defense of his newspaper, which may be the subject of a criminal investigation for publishing the ‘note to God' which Obama gave to the paper. For, interestingly, not only Ma'ariv was a recipient of Obama's...

American history's "sad" aspects require action, the senator tells cheering journalists

Don't Be Afraid of the Drive-BysJuly 25, 2008 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: We'll start in Ava Maria, Florida. This is Andy. Thank you, sir, for waiting. I appreciate your patience. You're up first. CALLER: Mega Ava Maria and Army veteran dittos, Rush. RUSH: Thank you, sir. CALLER: I'm a bit nervous. I can't believe I actually got through. I've been trying to for 13 years. RUSH: Well, congratulations, sir. CALLER: I just went over to grab lunch earlier and unfortunately I caught a CNN broadcast. They were reporting that 85% of the French polled would vote Obama over McCain if they...

Click on the link to see the press fawning over the Messiah Obama. To read about how Media Donations Favor Dems 100-1 And. Gerald Baker's send up of Obama's global travels: And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness. The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white...

<p>The New Yorker's Washington correspondent has been denied a press place on Barack Obama's tour of the Middle East and Europe after the magazine depicted the presidential candidate as a terrorist on its cover.</p> <p>The Obama camp said there was not enough room on the aircraft but the move is being seen as a snub to the magazine.</p>

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 7, 2008 – Mentoring the Afghan National Army’s print plant staff here is a great mission, a Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan Afghan National Army communications mentor said, but he may have worked himself out of a job. Afghan National Army civilians load lined paper into a post-press machine at the ANA print plant in Kabul, Afghanistan. In an average week, the plant produces more than 75,000 products used by the ANA for training, recruitment and logistical support. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Beth Del Vecchio, Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan  (Click photo for screen-resolution...

On the lobby wall of the newspaper where I got my first reporting job are the Thomas Jefferson words that U.S. journalists like to trot out as America's Independence Day nears: "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." Of course, Jefferson also said the only reliable truths in newspapers were the advertisements, and that he was happiest when not reading the papers. But as to his iconic quote, it's no secret that we're trending toward the former....

...More importantly however is the fact that news organizations across the country conveniently failed to publish this portion of Obama’s remarks. Both CNN Online and The New York Times published excerpts of the speech that omitted the gaffe. Two reporters, however, took it upon themselves to alter the text of Obama’s speech in articles they published...

...The AP’s disharmony with bloggers may have only just begun, as the alternative it’s now offering to being served with takedown notices involves paying an up-front sum for excerpting online articles — as few as five words… The pricing scale for excerpting AP content begins at $12.50 for 5-25 words and goes as high as $100 for 251 words and up. Nonprofit organizations and educational institutions enjoy a discounted rate. The AP notice can be found: HERE.

Usually, when a journalist is censored in a Western nation, American news organizations respond with collective outrage. But as a major attack on press freedom unfolds in Canada, America's mainstream media are silent. Neither the TV networks nor the major newspapers have reported on hearings last week at what amounts to a Stalinesque show trial in Vancouver, British Columbia. Mark Steyn, a Canadian journalist who now lives in New Hampshire and whose column appears in National Review magazine as well as several U.S. and Canadian newspapers, is facing charges before British Columbia's Human Rights Tribunal. His crime? Spreading "hatred." The...

There's an axiom in Recovery (as in from addiction) circles which asserts that addictions are but symptoms of deeper emotional or psychological problems. Leaving aside the debate as to whether this holds water, I submit that the tremendous success of Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama is but a symptom of the broader disease: The establishment media (which includes broadcast news and print sources as well as the entertainment media) has finally subverted enough of the collective mind of America to usher in the era of socialism toward which the far Left has been maneuvering us for the last 40 years....

Wouldn't you like to be a politician who's running against an opponent most people distrust or hate?I would. That's why, if I ever ran for office, I would run against the media as much as I would run against my opponent. I would associate my opponent with the media. That should be easy and credible since I am conservative and the media is liberal. I would refuse to sit down with editorial boards and denounce the media's endorsement. So Hillary's decision to run against the media (see ad below) is both smart and infuriating. It's smart because it's good politics....

Star-Telegram Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson takes his job seriously. Fine. But he sometimes takes too seriously duties that don't fall within his job description, like being interpreter of the U.S. Constitution and official czar for Second Amendment rights. Patterson, whose title automatically makes him chairman of the School Land Board, is in charge of overseeing some state-owned property. His office has the power to invest in real estate to benefit the Permanent School Fund, which supports public education. For months now, the commissioner has been at the center of a public fight involving a 14.5-square-mile tract in West Texas...

Here's the link

SCRANTON, Pa. - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama kicked off a day of campaigning in Pennsylvania by dropping by a Scranton diner for a breakfast of waffles, sausage and orange juice. But the press corps went hungry — hungry for an answer that is. The Illinois senator brushed aside a question from one reporter on his reaction to former President Jimmy Carter’s description of a positive meeting with leaders of the Islamist Palestinian group Hamas. “Why can’t I just eat my waffle?” Obama replied. Reporters traveling with the Illinois senator, fighting with his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton over Pennsylvania ahead...

Guide to American Press USA TODAY is read by people who think they run the country; The New York Times is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Wall Street Journal is read by people who actually do run the country; Time Magazine is read by the wives of the people who run the country; Barrons is read by people who own the country; The Washington Post is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country and The L.A. Times is read by people who think it is. New...

The Chicago Tribune writes a mash note to Obama. Here's whats great about the Internet. Now we don't have to have our "letters to the editor" thrown away or edited because they don't correspond to the paper's editorial slant. so we get a more representative slice of opinion. I read this article in my Trib this morning and was completely bewildered as to the story's tone and emphasis. It seems to castigate white voters who don't want to vote for Obama, but fails utterly to mention that many, many black voters are supporting Obama simply because he's black and they...

What do three prominent crooked prosecuting attorneys have in common? They have the press as their allies! In fact, the press is indispensible in their campaigns. Spitzer threatened his enemies with his willing accomplices inthe media. Ronnie Earle held press conferences to vilify Tom Delay and succeeded in getting him out of office. So where is the prosecution? Where is the trail? Mike Nifong used the press to whip up hatred of the white lacrosse players and get elected in Durham. He was willing the sacrifice the lives of these young men to get a pension and the press was...

Retail Sales Post Worse-Than-Expected Showing in February, Raising More Recession Worries WASHINGTON (AP) -- Consumers, battered by plunging home prices and a credit crunch, stayed away from the malls in February, pushing retail sales down by a larger-than-expected amount. It was another worrisome sign that the country could be falling into a recession. The Commerce Department reported Thursday that retail sales fell by 0.6 percent last month, far worse than the 0.2 percent increase that analysts had been expecting. The weakness was widespread with sales of autos, furniture and appliances all down. It marked the second time in the past...

Eliot Spitzer is a thug and a bully and always has been. Now he is a disgraced thug and bully. But the press could not get enough of this sleazebag because he attacked the kind of people that the press loves to attack. Even now you read of people shaking their heads and wondering how such a “clean” crusader for good could have consorted with prostitutes. Easy, he consorted with the women prostitutes at night and press prostitutes during the day. He used the prostitutes in the press to extort literally billions of dollars out of his victims. And the...

Clinton press corps tries toilet journalism...no, really Tribune Co. reporters Rick Pearson, in foreground, and Glenn Thrush doing their business in a setting where doing one's business is common. Did they wash their hands after they filed their stories? by Rick PearsonAUSTIN, Texas---Perhaps a better dateline would be the Texas flush-handle.Yes, it was a night where journalism turned into urinalism for the traveling Hillary Clinton press corps, which is covering the Democratic presidential candidate making a speech at a rally at a sports facility.Ann Compton, the veteran ABC News radio correspondent, said the press digs were among the more...

Today in San Antonio, MSNBC describes a surprisingly contentious Barack Obama news conference that focused on Tony Rezko and the Canadian government: “Led by the Chicago press corps that has covered Obama for years, the candidate today faced a barrage of questions in what turned out to be a contentious news conference.Questions centered on why his campaign had denied that a meeting occurred between his chief economic advisor and Canadian officials as well as questions on his relationship with Tony Rezko, a Chicago land developer and fast food magnate, now on trial for corruption charges.” Obama cut off questions from...

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Laura and I, as you know, recently came back from Africa, where we saw firsthand how the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is saving lives. I had a chance to go to the -- speak to the Sullivan Foundation the other day about our trip, and the reason I did so was to remind the American people about how important it is for our nation to remain generous and compassionate when it comes to helping people overseas. I also, during my trip, urged Congress to reauthorize the Emergency Plan and increase our commitment, and they did....

Clinton and the press [UPDATED] Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson, delivered some really heated criticism of the press on a conference call just now. Halperin has audio, and here's a transcript. I think it is true that every time the Obama campaign in this campaign has attacked Senator Clinton in the worst kind of personal ways, attacked her veracity, attacked her credibility, said that she would say or do anything to get elected, the press has largely applauded him. When we have attempted to make contrasts with Senator Obama, we have been criticized for it. That is a fact...

HOUSTON, TEXAS---A transcript of Barack Obama's speech Tuesday night, delivered here just after he was declared the winner of the Wisconsin primary. My annonations in italics. "Ya'll know how to do it in Texas. Houston, I think we've achieved liftoff here." You get the NASA reference, right? "I want to thank all the wonderful faith leaders who are here who gave me a little circle of prayer before coming out here today." Texas has a lot of mega churches "I want to thank some wonderful union supporters -- SEIU in the house -- -- the United Food and Commercial workers...

“Barack Obama,” Howie Kurtz declared, “will never get this kind of cuddly coverage again.” With that, the uber-critic gave voice to one of the cyclical predictions of the primary season’s punditry, the prediction that appears and reappears, never fulfilled, yet never dying: that, at some point, the press will stop fawning over Obama. Kurtz made this particular prediction back in December. Of 2006. Has it materialized? Well, flash forward to February of 2008, to Tuesday’s Potomac Primary. During MSNBC’s live coverage of the returns, as Mssrs. Matthews and Olbermann analyzed the victory speeches of the winners (Obama, by considerably more...

1. McCain Should Be Feared, Writer Says Presidential hopeful John McCain is being billed as the Republican that liberals can live with, but his credentials as a “bipartisan progressive� are in fact a “lazy, hazy myth,� according to liberal pundit Johann Hari. “The truth is that McCain is the candidate we should most fear,� writes Hari, a columnist for The Independent in Britain, in an article that appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “Not only is he to the right of Bush on a whole range of subjects, he is also the Republican candidate most likely to dispense with Hillary Clinton...

Bill Clinton Unloads on Press By Anne E. Kornblut Former president Bill Clinton lashed out in response to criticism on Wednesday from a prominent Democrat in South Carolina, accusing the Obama campaign of running a political smear campaign against him through the media. "You live for this," Clinton snapped at CNN reporter Jessica Yellin when she asked him to comment on statements by Dick Harpootlian, the former South Carolina Democratic party chairman, who said recent distortions by the Clintons are "reprehensible." Harpootlian, who backed the Clintons in the 1990s and now supports Sen. Barack Obama, had compared Clinton's distortions to...

Recent press reporting of the status of Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) development has done more to illustrate reporters’ and editors’ lack of understanding on the subject than it has to inform.

The subprime mortgage crisis is tearing through the newspaper industry as US papers suffer sharp falls in real estate advertising. The extent of the damage was visible this month when Tribune Company, which owns the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, reported a 40 per cent decline in November for its real estate classified advertising revenues. Gannett, the largest chain, said recently it was on track for a 27 per cent drop in real estate advertising for the fourth quarter after reporting a 23 per cent slide in the third quarter. Edward Atorino, an analyst at Benchmark Capital, said: “It’s...

Religious right is deadBILL PRESS 26.DEC.07 No matter who becomes the next president of the United States, the American people have already won a great victory — with the total disintegration of the once all-powerful religious right. Starting in 1979 when Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority, Christian conservatives have been the most powerful voting bloc in the Republican Party. Ironically, they began by casting out of the White House a born-again Christian who continued, as president, his lifelong practice of teaching Sunday school, and replacing him with a divorced and remarried man who seldom stepped inside a church. But...

Mike Huckabee campaigns as religious Baptist. Yet how religious is Huck? Robert Novak, in the Washington Post, questions the depth of Huckabee’s Baptist support: More than personality explains why not all his Baptist brethren have signed on the dotted line for Huckabee. He did not join the “conservative resurgence” that successfully rebelled against liberals in the Southern Baptist Convention a generation ago. Ann Coulter goes farther, and questions both Huckabee’s intelligence and sincerity of his supposed religous convictions. Hat Tip: Allah Pundit: Hot Air, Huckabee is a liberal Arkansas politician, who would be a democrat, if the party was not...

Four back-breaking, soul-crushing, nation-rending years later, U.S. troops are at last scoring remarkable successes in Iraq - saving lives, calming strife and fostering the conditions necessary to build a self-governing country from its own rubble. There are thousands of reasons why the picture has brightened in these past few months. One of them is Army Spec. Pierce Clouden, of Canarsie, Brooklyn, who has been stationed at Camp Taji, northwest of Baghdad, since August as part of the "surge." "Don't know when I am going home, but it's not any time soon," Clouden told us last week. "I love my job,...

<p>Fred Thompson provided most of the lighter, and funnier, moments, including his exchange with Mitt Romney over who shoulders the biggest tax burden in the country.</p> <p>“I don’t stay awake at night worrying about the taxes that rich people are paying, to tell you the truth,” the multimillionaire Romney said. Thompson responded that his goal “is to get into Mitt Romney’s situation, where I don’t have to worry about taxes anymore.” Romney shot back that he wouldn’t mind being in Thompson’s shoes either. “You’re getting to be a pretty good actor actually,” Thompson joked. “Takes one to know one,” Romney said.</p>

It appears that the news that things are going well in Iraq has finally reached the editorial writers at the Virginian Pilot. Donald Luzatto has mounted his high horse and is busy denouncing anyone who has noted that the Democrats and the editors of the Virginian Pilot have been calling on the US to admit defeat in Iraq and pull out. In fact he is quite vociferous about it, characterizing Cal Thomas and Charles Krauthammer, the latter a Pulitzer Prize winner, as creators of straw men, unfairly characterizing Democrats as advocates of defeat in Iraq. His foam flecked diatribe is...

Transcript: HELEN THOMAS: Does the President want no troops out from Iraq on his watch? I’m talking about all the troops. MS. PERINO: Well, 5,700 troops will be home by the end of the year, so that is some troops coming home. The President said that troop levels are going to be made by commanders on the ground, and that we’re going to have to talk about – THOMAS: Why should it be? Why can’t the American people have a say? MS. PERINO: — return on success. The American people have had a say. They elected a President who is...

Excerpt - Washington - A Pakistani businessman suspected of playing a role in the 2002 brutal killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl died earlier this year, shortly after being interrogated by US and Pakistani intelligence, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Pearl, a Karachi-based correspondent for the Journal, was kidnapped on January 23 2002, and killed execution-style shortly after. The newspaper said Karachi businessman Saud Memon became a key suspect in the case because he owned a nursery where Pearl had been held captive. Citing an unnamed senior US law enforcement official, the report said Memon was interrogated by...

WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Wednesday prodded lawmakers to move forward on a host of pending issues, including the fiscal 2008 budget, children's health insurance, measures to help struggling homeowners and outstanding trade pacts. At a White House news conference, Mr. Bush also said it wasn't in Turkey's interest to send more troops into Iraq -- the prospect of which has shaken oil markets. "We are making it very clear to Turkey that we don't think it is in their interest to send troops into Iraq," Mr. Bush said shortly before Turkey's Parliament approved a cross-border military offensive against the...