Free Republic

Lots of folks like to throw around the term “fake news” to describe stories they do not like or stories that are, well, fake. I prefer the term “agenda journalism” because it does not make a judgment on the veracity of the reporting, and it can be easier to spot than the fake stuff that always has an agenda. The Huffington Post ran such a piece last week called “Gun owners more likely to vote than non-gun owners.” Do not accuse me of journalism profiling, because I believe even the editors of the HuffPost would eagerly agree they have a...

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) internal watchdog is auditing how the agency deals with issues of scientific integrity. In a notice released Friday, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) said it would launch research into how the EPA implements and adheres to its scientific integrity policy. The audit was launched voluntarily by the office, so it is not connected to a specific request from a lawmaker or complaint. But critics of the Trump administration have nonetheless criticized the agency for what they see as attempts to undermine science at the EPA, including downplaying the harms from climate change and...

Must be linked...

A research project by an international Catholic think tank, to be launched today by Mary McAleese, is to challenge the theological evidence for church teaching that homosexual acts are "intrinsically disorder". Plans for the study by Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research will be unveiled at Trinity College by McAleese, a former president and an outspoken critic of the Vatican. The institute will call on Pope Francis to question official church teaching on same-sex relationships. "I am hoping the project will advance an intelligent and scholarly debate about the warped, damaging, unchristian, unscientific, fake gender ideology which currently underpins Catholic teaching...

Beginning with Friday’s evening newscasts and going through Monday’s morning shows, the broadcast networks of NBC, ABC, and CBS provided an astonishing 93 minutes of air time to promoting former Trump White House aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman’s new tell-all book blasting the administration and accusing the President of being a “racist.” While hosts and correspondents repeatedly acknowledged the Apprentice star’s major credibility problems, that didn’t stop them from providing the avalanche of coverage. The total was compiled by looking at the evening and morning newscasts Friday night through Monday morning, as well as the Sunday political roundtable shows, NBC’s Meet the...

 A criminal justice researcher from New Jersey recently wrote an article that encouraged people who were reflexively for more restriction on gun ownership to explore the online gun culture.  She had done so. Her view of gun ownership and of legislation involving guns was transformed.From theconversation.com: I also realized that despite being married to a gun owner, I knew very little about gun subculture, either in real life or online. But I could learn. Guns, part of fabric of lifeFor all the noise around gun control versus gun rights, there was a story that was missed by non-gun owners...

SACRAMENTO - DNA is back in the spotlight, cracking cold cases. But questions are being raised after the state spent decades collecting the DNA of infants without parents realizing it. California has been collecting newborn blood samples since 1983. Many parents were shocked to hear their children’s blood is being stored in a state database, and possibly even sold to outside researchers. Pricking the toes newborns, to test their blood for certain disorders. The remaining blood becomes “property of the state,” and could be shared with outside researchers. “I feel like that’s something that should have been discussed with us,...

A Republican lawmaker wants answers from the Department of Agriculture about taxpayer-funded research experiments at a Maryland facility that have allegedly led to the deaths of hundreds of cats and kittens. Citing documents reviewed by his office, Michigan Republican Mike Bishop described a decades-old research project at the USDA's Animal Parasitic Diseases Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, in which hundreds of kittens are bred, fed meat that is infected with Toxoplasma, and later killed and discarded by "incineration." In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue dated Monday, Bishop wrote that he was "shocked to hear that the USDA, the very...

The federal money spent on research that uses tissue from aborted babies -- and sometimes transplants it into "humanized mice" -- has increased since Republicans won control of both houses of Congress in the 2014 elections, according to data published by the National Institutes of Health. The recently passed omnibus, which funds the government through fiscal 2018, was stripped of language initially included in the NIH funding bill that would have expressly prohibited funding for research that uses tissue from aborted babies. Since 2008, the NIH has published estimates of how much it spends on different categories of research in...

Will future Soldiers be kitted up with a futuristic exoskeleton-style arm that will bring even more deadly, more powerful weapons into battle? The U.S. military has been pioneering lots of advances in exoskeletons – real-life versions of what you see Tony Stark wearing as Iron Man. By merging man with machine, exoskeletons have the potential to massively increase a warfighter’s firepower, strength, speed, endurance and much, much, more. Special Operations Command (SOCOM)’s Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS) full body exo project has been blazing away and a regular in headlines. Meanwhile, other military teams have been also applying their...

I recall reading or hearing of research to determine the level of understanding of opponents political arguments by conservatives and leftists/liberals. The research, as I recall, showed a list of policy questions, and asked the recipient, who was self identified, as conservative or liberal/leftist, to give the opposite sides arguments on each policy question. My understanding was that conservatives consistently understood and knew the opposite sides arguments, while liberal/leftists were ignorant of the conservative arguments. I have been looking for the source of this research, but have not found any. Is this research a myth, or is there an actual...

The words 'pork fat' and 'nutritious' don't quite go together, but that may soon change, given a surprising finding by scientists which was first published in 2015 but went viral only recently. According to a BBC report in January, researchers who analysed more than 1,000 raw foods found that lard is among the top 10 foods which provide the best balance of a person's daily nutritional requirements. Pork fat was ranked 8th in a list of 100 foods, with a nutritional score of 74 - the higher the number, the more likely it will meet your daily nutritional needs. It...

Exactly who is International Research Agency? A young woman who says she was hired by a Russian company to dissemble and to promote certain political views online has come out of the shadows to shine a light on her purported former employer and the practice, known as "trolling."

Injecting minute amounts of two immune-stimulating agents directly into solid tumors in mice can eliminate all traces of cancer in the animals, including distant, untreated metastases, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The approach works for many different types of cancers, including those that arise spontaneously, the study found.

All this week, NewsBusters is recounting the most obnoxious liberal bias of 2017. Monday, we presented some of the most outrageous examples of journalists fawning over liberal or left-wing icons, and yesterday we showcased some of this year’s nastiest attacks on Republicans or conservatives. Today, it’s a look at all of the over-the-top attacks on President Donald Trump, who was called a “crazy” “basket case” of a “sociopath” by the likes of CNN’s Don Lemon and the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin. Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were terrified that “madman” Trump’s tweets were going to get us...

All this week, NewsBusters is recounting the most obnoxious liberal bias of 2017. Yesterday, we presented the most outrageous examples of journalists fawning over liberal or left-wing icons; today’s installment showcases some of this year’s most rancid quotes attacking Republicans or conservatives, NOT named Donald Trump. (The media’s attacks on the President will be featured on Wednesday.) The shootings in Las Vegas of country music fans and Republican Congressman Steve Scalise on a baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia brought out the media’s hatred for the NRA and gun-owners. Esquire columnist Charles Pierce disgustingly called the Vegas attack a “blood sacrifice”...

As 2017 comes to a close, this week NewsBusters is recounting the most obnoxious liberal bias of the year. Today’s installment: the most outrageous examples of journalists fawning over liberal or left-wing icons, including Barack Obama who MSNBC’s Chris Matthews swooned over: a “fine case of that fine man” that was a “fine president.” His colleague Rachel Maddow called Obama a “top ten” president of all-time who saved us from another Great Depression, while former disgraced Today show host Matt Lauer admitted he “burst out crying” over Obama and Joe Biden’s final moments. And of course, there was also praise...

Liberal reporters are scandalized by what they say is President Trump’s effort to “discredit” and “undermine” special counsel Robert Mueller, worried that it could presage an attempt to “remove Mueller, or end his investigation.” But when President Bill Clinton was being investigated by Ken Starr, journalists applauded Democratic and White House attacks on the independent counsel, and frequently joined in themselves. Today’s journalists seem appalled by attempts by the President and his allies that question Mueller’s credibility. Washington Post reporters Devlin Barrett and Sean Sullivan sounded the alarm in a front-page story on December 7: “Several law enforcement officials said...

A New York Doctor was found murdered shortly after reporting a “breakthrough” discovery in the cure for cancer. Dr. Miguel Crespo’s body was found in the bathroom of the Weill Cornell Medical Center on the Upper East Side where he worked, after having gone missing for several hours. Police initially thought that Dr. Crespo had committed suicide by drug overdose after they found vomit next to his body and “foaming at his mouth.” However, close friends and family say his death is suspicious, noting that Dr. Crespo had just made an exciting discovery in the field of cancer research and...

The FBI has asked the Senate for unredacted documents it obtained from abortion providers, signaling agents may be investigating whether Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers illegally sold fetal tissue and body parts, according to sources familiar with the document request. The request was made in recent days, the sources said, to the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), last December referred Planned Parenthood and several other abortion providers to the FBI for investigation after a lengthy probe into the transfers of fetal tissue. Grassley said at the time that his committee had uncovered enough evidence in...