Free Republic

Jeff Fager tells The Hollywood Reporter how the FBI's incident report prompted the news division's retraction of the story, defends anchor Lara Logan and describes why Dylan Davies was used as a source: "He deceived us. … This is not some sort of rogue player. There were a lot of reasons to believe he was credible. We were wrong to believe that." An FBI incident report that directly contradicts eyewitness claims made by Dylan Davies about the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya, was the "lynchpin" for CBS News executives' decision to retract an Oct....

<p>In a move that serves as a significant blow to "ex-gay" programs and anti-gay organizations, Dr. Robert Spitzer repudiated his much-criticized 2001 study that claimed some "highly motivated" homosexuals could go from gay to straight. His retraction occurred in an American Prospect magazine article that hit newsstands today. Spitzer's rejection of his own research, which was originally published in the prestigious Archives of Sexual Behavior, is a devastating blow to "ex-gay" organizations because it decisively eliminates their most potent claim that homosexuality can be reversed through therapy and prayer.</p>

Politico knew they likely wouldn’t get a quote from Sarah Palin for the latest hit piece they published so they made one up. One of the authors is the former chairman of the Democratic Party of Virgina.Politico wrote: Will Sarah Palin’s intensifying rivalry with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) cause the former Alaska governor to run for president?The first female Republican vice presidential nominee clearly believes she is the one who has paid the heavy dues by bearing the brunt of the “liberal elite” attacks to help build the tea party, social conservative wing of the GOP.Palin’s bus tour had some...

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman and South Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz isn't very good at retracting statements. Wasserman Schultz was on CNN Sunday when she said Republicans want to bring states back to Jim Crow-era laws, drawing the ire of the National Republican Congressional Committee. She responded by saying it wasn't the right analogy to use, then immediately made the same analogy without mentioning the name "Jim Crow." Here's what Wasserman Schultz said to CNN contributor Roland Martin on Sunday: "You have the Republicans, who want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally-and...

Richard Goldstone’s remarkable about-face this month was much talked about but incompletely understood. Peter Berkowitz of the Hoover Institution (who debated Goldstone shortly before the judge’s recantation) remedies that deficiency. Writing in the Weekly Standard, he observes that Goldstone did more than simply withdraw “the gravest charge that he and his colleagues had leveled against Israel and its Gaza operation of December 2008-January 2009, which aimed at stopping Hamas’s firing of thousands of mortar shells, rockets, and missiles at civilian populations in southern Israel.” Berkowitz reminds us that Goldstone’s original conclusion was more sweeping than his retraction. Goldstone had asserted...

MOSCOW (AP) - A Muslim cleric formerly held at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba said Tuesday U.S. guards there regularly desecrated the Qur'an by putting it into a toilet, although he added he never witnessed it himself. Airat Vakhitov, who described himself as a former imam of a mosque in Tatarstan, a majority Muslim republic in southern Russia, is one of seven men released from Guantanamo in 2004 and returned to Russia. He and the six others were held in Russia for three months, then released a year ago. Vakhitov said at a news conference organized by the state RIA-Novosti...

Last Friday, I posted "Update to Public School Library Propagates Falsehood that Governor Palin Banned Books." I went step by step and day by day through my battle to correct the record and emphatically declare that Sarah Palin never, ever banned any books. At that point, I was turning it over to the public who had voiced a desire to step in and hold the school accountable. No longer was I going to stand between anyone and their efforts to see this wrong corrected, which I had done while I attempted to right this wrong. I am not sure who,...

In any event, other than David Axelrod’s assertion on November 23rd that Obama and Blagojevich discussed the Senate succession, no independent reporting found thus far puts the two of them on the phone together or in the same room strategizing on Obama’s replacement. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that such a meeting took place — it would make sense, politically, for Blagojevich to consult Obama on potential candidates even if Blagojevich wasn’t corrupt — but people will have to look harder for evidence.

Cheney won't take back Pelosi comment 24 minutes ago Vice President Dick Cheney refused Friday to take back his charge that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record)'s opposition to President Bush's Iraq war buildup is playing into the hands of the al-Qaida terrorist network. "If you're going to advocate a course of action that basically is withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, then you don't get to just do the fun part of that, that says, 'We'll, we're going to get out,' and appeal to your constituents on that basis," Cheney said. The vice president had voiced the...

<p>WE'RE RELUCTANT to return to the subject of former CIA employee Valerie Plame because of our oft-stated belief that far too much attention and debate in Washington has been devoted to her story and that of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, over the past three years. But all those who have opined on this affair ought to take note of the not-so-surprising disclosure that the primary source of the newspaper column in which Ms. Plame's cover as an agent was purportedly blown in 2003 was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage.</p>

Ooops! We all make mistakes. But some mistakes are bigger than others. Here's an example--when a newspaper prints incorrect information. Newspapers frequently run corrections and retractions. But you usually have to search for them. Well, Regret the Error lists corrections, retractions and clarifications printed in newspapers around the country. It also includes a short commentary. Sometimes the mistakes are humorous. But I [Kim Komando] don't visit the site to gloat over others' mistakes. I read it because it makes me feel a little better about some of the mistakes I've made.

August 24, 2005 U.S. Representative John Linder 1026 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Phone: 770-232-3005 Fax: 770-232-2909 Copy: Neal Boortz, WSB Radio, Dr. Dale Jorgenson, Harvard University Dear Representative Linder: I wrote to you two days ago regarding what I consider to be serious misrepresentations of the Fair Tax plan contained in your book, “The FairTax Book”. On page 2, you state “Let’s agree up front that this book is about honesty” and I intend to hold you at your word. Since that time, I have been in contact with Dr. Jorgenson in an attempt to clarify his...

FAIRTAX UPDATE There is no doubt that the story of H.R. 25, the FairTax, has been pushed into the background by the Katrina disaster, and perhaps that is as it should be. When hundreds of thousands of people are suffering as they are in the aftermath of Katrina, that is the story. The FairTax is, however, still on the minds of the political class in Washington DC. Congressman Linder tells me that the Republican leadership is more than impressed with the success of The FairTax Book. They have been receiving a steady stream of phone calls, emails, faxes ... and...

bureau's take on: The Fair Tax Bill, Newt in 2008? More....

Dear Editor, I've just read a new best-seller, which I highly recommend to you and your readers: "The Fair Tax Book, Saying Goodbye to the Income Tax and the IRS." The co-authors are "reformed lawyer" and syndicated talk show host Neal Boortz, and Congressman John Linder, R-Ga. Linder is also the principal author/sponsor of The Fair Tax Bill (H.R. 25), currently before Congress. In the interest of brevity (the book is only 180 pages, by the way), I'll quote from the back of the dust jacket. "What the Fair Tax will do for America: eliminate the income tax and the...

NEW YORK (Money magazine) - If you don't care much for talk radio, or you don't live in the South, the name Neal Boortz might not ring a bell. But pay attention: Around 4 million people nationwide catch his radio show. It's No. 1 in Boortz's home market of Atlanta and ranks first or second in numerous smaller cities in red states. His 180-page polemic for radical tax reform, The FairTax Book, made its debut at No. 1 on the New York Times' bestseller list in August. When Boortz came to Jacksonville for a book signing at a downtown hotel...

THE FAIRTAX --- STRAIGHTENING OUT SOME CONFUSION When Congressman Linder and I were busy researching and writing The FairTax Book we knew full well that it would one day become the focal point for those opposed to this tax reform idea. We tried, therefore, to make sure that our numbers and claims were correct and consistent with the research that went into the drafting of HR 25. On review, and after reading the critiques of opponents to the FairTax plan, we have concluded that there is one element of the FairTax that could have been present with more clarity in...

Arutz-7 has learned that the captions on pictures posted on this site on July 4th indicating that a photographer was staging a photo of the wounded Arab in the Muwasi incident were not accurate. Arutz-7 originally received the photos and the misinformation about them from another large Hebrew website - but later learned that the photos were extracted from a video showing the Arab falling and the photographer extending his arm to assist him. Arutz-7 deeply regrets this error. Arutz-7 stands by its stories indicating that incident was not a "lynching," and that it did not occur the way in...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Guantanamo detainee who told an FBI agent in 2002 that U.S. personnel there had flushed a Koran in a toilet retracted his allegation when questioned this month by military investigators, the Pentagon said on Thursday. "We've gone back to the detainee who allegedly made the allegation and he has said it didn't happen. So the underlying allegation, the detainee himself, within the last two weeks, said that didn't happen," chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita told a briefing. An FBI document, dated Aug. 1, 2002, contained a summary of statements made by the detainee in two...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Guantanamo detainee who told an FBI agent in 2002 that U.S. personnel there had flushed a Koran in a toilet retracted his allegation when questioned this month by military investigators, the Pentagon said on Thursday. "We've gone back to the detainee who allegedly made the allegation and he has said it didn't happen. So the underlying allegation, the detainee himself, within the last two weeks, said that didn't happen," chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita told a briefing. An FBI document, dated Aug. 1, 2002, contained a summary of statements made by the detainee in two...