Free Republic

Thanks to NRO's Andrew Johnson, we learned that on Friday MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts used selective clips from a speech by Vice President Joe Biden to make it look as though Biden was making a push for gun control. Biden's speech had nothing to do with guns.

They’re not contributing members. They take away jobs from Americans, leech off the social benefits system and commit a number of crimes besides the whole “illegal entry” deal. Jails tend to be full of illegal aliens for a reason. "Every day, like the rest of us, they go out and try to earn a living. Often they do that in a shadow economy — a place where employers may offer them less than the minimum wage or make them work overtime without extra pay. And when that happens, it’s not just bad for them, it’s bad for the entire economy....

Last month, when the Republican Governor of South Carolina named GOP U.S. Representative Tim Scott to the U.S. Senate, the “first African American U.S. Senator from the South since Blanche Bruce of Mississippi in 1881” according to The State newspaper, thus becoming the only black -- Democrat or Republican -- in the Senate, ABC’s World News didn’t mention it. Fast-forward to Wednesday night, and ABC anchor Diane Sawyer suddenly found it newsworthy that the Democratic Governor of Massachusetts appointed an African-American to replace new Secretary of State John Kerry, trumpeting: “Look closely at this picture. That is William ‘Mo’ Cowan...

Twitchy.com has been all over the story of NBC’s latest… I was about to say “latest ethical lapse,” but that would imply they have any ethics to begin with. Let’s just call it the latest example of NBC lying so egregiously, even a few other liberal media outlets are calling them out on it. Twitchy deserves our thanks for catching the lie and presenting the truth. And now the cover-up begins at NBC. Erik Wemple at WaPo has the latest: MSNBC is reviewing its portrayal of the testimony of Neil Heslin, the father of a Sandy Hook victim, at a...

**SNIP** The president also conceded that “[t]he same dynamic happens on the Democratic side,” but in his mind, “the difference is just that the more left-leaning media outlets recognize that compromise is not a dirty word.” He claimed that “leaders like myself—and I include Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in this—are willing to buck the more absolutist-wing elements in our party to try to get stuff done,” as opposed to the opposing party which he views as obstructionist. “[T]hat’s one of the biggest problems we’ve got in how folks report about Washington right now, because I think journalists rightly value...

Obama: I'd Get More Done If GOP Wasn't Punished for Working With Democrats By Fox and Limbaugh By Noel Sheppard Created 01/27/2013 - 3:22pm "If a Republican member of Congress is not punished on Fox News or by Rush Limbaugh for working with a Democrat on a bill of common interest, then you'll see more of them doing it." So said Barack Obama in an interview just published by The New Republic: FRANKLIN FOER, EDITOR NEW REPUBLIC: Are there any forces for reform within the Republican Party, people you've been able to establish some sort of working relationship with? PRESIDENT...

Before President Obama decides once and for all to fly off the fiscal cliff like a leftist eagle, he’s meeting with all of his lackeys in the media. That started today with four MSNBC primetime hosts entering the West Wing to lick the shoes of the President. First, Ed Schultz tweeted that he was meeting with Obama to discuss the fiscal cliff; then Huffington Post reporter Jennifer Bendery let on that she’d seen Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, and Al Sharpton – a group with the combined IQ of a single kumquat – entering the West Wing. Maddow apparently gigglesnorted that...

.....The strike that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans is either proof of President Barack Obama's leadership failures or a tragic event that occurred despite the administration's best efforts to protect the compound and respond in the aftermath of the attack, according to highly charged arguments on both sides.....

Americans of all political stripes were distressed by the September 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including the U.S. Ambassador. But the reaction of the national broadcast networks has been demonstrably and shamefully partisan from the beginning of this story. In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attack, all three broadcast networks touted the political angle that the events would bolster President Obama — “reminding voters of his power as commander-in-chief,” as NBC’s Peter Alexander asserted on the September 14 edition of Today — while Mitt Romney would be damaged by his supposedly...

Question: How is Benghazi different from Watergate and Iran-Contra? The obvious answer: the media. Liberal journalists turned Watergate and Iran-Contra into gigantic national scandals by their consistent, relentless pursuit of both stories; to the contrary, they are consistently, relentlessly ignoring Benghazi................... [SNIP] ......The operative words are "searched diligently." CBS, NBC, ABC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, and the usual suspects looked everywhere for something -- gee, anything -- to hurt Reagan. Being political partisans first and journalists second, they dug furiously for their Watergate. And they thought they had it in Iran-Contra. It's fascinating, however, to see...

NBC's David Gregory isn't always a news reporter. As we're seeing with increasing frequency on that network, he's squashing stories. Call him an unreporter. On Sunday's "Meet the Press," he showed the extent to which he'll vaporize any suggestion that Team Obama failed to offer adequate protection from terrorists at our consulate in Benghazi. Businesswoman Carly Fiorina slammed Obama's Libya response: "That attack went on for seven hours ... [with the] Secretary of Defense saying he denied requests for help over that seven hours." Gregory cut her off: "We'll get to Libya a little bit later." Surprise: It never came...

...The emails reviewed by the AP offered an unusual, behind-the-scenes glimpse of the interpersonal relationship between Ryan and Walker. Although as a congressman Ryan's emails are exempt from disclosure under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, messages sent by Ryan or his aides to Walker or the governor's staff are subject to Wisconsin's open records law. The week after Ryan was tapped as Romney's vice presidential candidate, the AP requested all such emails since Walker was elected in November 2010. It received 1,037 pages of them late Friday....

On MSNBC’s post-debate wrap-up from Hempstead, N.Y., anchor and “Hardball” host Chris Matthews praised CNN’s Candy Crowley for making a charge that Republican nominee Mitt Romney was wrong in challenging the president’s “terror” description in his response to last month’s Benghazi, Libya attack. And even thought Crowley later admitted Romney was “right in the main,” Matthews and his panel praised Crowley for her courage. “Do you realize, Joy — you’re a woman here, let me tell you, do you realize the guts it took for Candy, even crystal in memory, knowing he had said ‘an act of terror,” Matthews said....

.....I had been trying to think if there was a comparable example of when a live television event had had such a profound effect upon what had been a widely accepted truth. When I read Toby Harnden's report of how Obama stepped off of the Denver stage believing he had won, it dawned on me.According to Harden: >>>"In an extraordinary insight into the events leading up to the 90 minute showdown which changed the face of the election, a Democrat close to the Obama campaign today reveals that the President also did not take his debate preparation seriously, ignored the...

..........The most pointed sketch, however, mocked MSNBC for considering the debate “the worst thing that ever happened anywhere.” In the segment, Kenan Thompson played an Al Sharpton struggling to come up with any number of excuses for why Obama performed the way he did, positing that perhaps Romney and Obama switched bodies, or that with “no way” to know exactly how high above sea level Denver is, Obama struggled with an altitude “upwards of a million” feet above Earth. Cecily Strong took over as Rachel Maddow, who decided to look on the bright side by focusing smugly on one of...

The Time cover story last week was headlined “The Mormon Identity.” The cover, featuring Mitt Romney in a stained-glass window, said in smaller type, “What Mitt Romney’s faith tells us about his vision and values.” Newsweek had President Obama on the cover, identifying him as “The Democrats’ Reagan” and heralding the story inside as “What Obama Will Achieve in His Second Term.” Neither of the stories, to put it mildly, was helpful to Romney’s presidential campaign. The piece in Time was fair, but the timing, long after Mormonism had faded as a factor in the election, was suspect. In Newsweek,...

To be blunt, Mitt Romney cleaned President Obama’s clock in the presidential debate Wednesday night. It was such a lopsided victory that 67 percent of debate watchers questioned in a CNN poll gave it to the Republican challenger. But it gets worse for the incumbent Democrat. “No presidential candidate has topped 60% in that question since it was first asked in 1984,” said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. Yet as bad as the president was, the freak-out by leftists and their media enablers was the stuff of legend. More subtly, the media establishment is busy softening Obama’s failure via absurd...

....Speaking to a largely black audience, Obama in the video made the case that race relations still had a long way to go in the United States, claiming the divide most severely has an impact on impoverished parts of the country. ....Democratic commentators fired back after portions of the speech aired Tuesday night, saying the remarks were old and blown out of proportion. "I think that there is no material significance here, but the Republicans are very good at taking nothing and turning it into what appears to be something," Boyce Watkins, founder of yourblackworld.com, said on CNN's "Anderson Cooper...

As for Obama, even as the ongoing scandals of Fast and Furious and Benghazi continue to deteriorate, it remains almost certain no one will call this administration or its standard-bearer to account for their blood-chilling indifference. They are people who have amply demonstrated that honor, respect and decency can be brushed aside in favor of political expediency as easily as one brushes lint off one’s suit jacket. And the silent media, which both forgive and forget the pile of bodies that have accrued in two major scandals, is equally reprehensible. Of the many scandals associated with the Obama administration, two...

.....Any voter considering pulling a straight Republican lever should be aware that the party's nominee for Harris County sheriff is apparently ready to deploy his deputies to keep federal forces from seizing the guns and ammo of Constitution-loving Texans. In a video posted on YouTube,an interviewer asks former Liberty County Sheriff's Deputy Louis Guthrie what role the local sheriff's department plays in preserving our constitutional rights. "Let's say the feds come in here and seize weapons and ammunition," he theorizes. "I don't have any issue with me or any of my employees…they WILL stand between the feds and the citizens...

It is increasingly obvious that Obama wants to get out of the White House, not just to take vacations,visit Letterman, and go golfing, but to be free of the responsibilities of the office of President itself,and those horrid media types are doing everything in their power to make him stay where he is. It's time to free Barack. This week...Obama got free of the phalanx of media guards--the gang Dorothy Rabinowitz of the Wall Street Journal,calls "Pack Journalism" and faced actual questioning on Univision,instead of the yentas on The View,Entertainment Tonight,"Pimp With the Limp" and such,and he made clear what...

The news editor of the official Cuban daily newspaper Granma defected a week ago during a business trip to Mexico and is now living in Miami. Mairelys Cuevas Gómez, 27, traveled to Mexico authorized by the paper’s executive editor and with the full knowledge of other Cuban officials and the elite in charge of the government media, according to a report published on the website Café Fuerte. Cuevas’ defection is a new blow to the regime’s news and propaganda operation. In recent months, at least four other members of the Cuban media also decided to ask for asylum in the...

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Talk about the conservative critique–and I think it’s a fair critique, the conservative critique: that all you guys in the media were talking about Mitt Romney, you should have talked about the warnings with the embassy, etc., etc. And yes perhaps we should have. But you know who didn’t allow us to do that? MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Mitt Romney. SCARBOROUGH: Mitt Romney. If Mitt Romney had kept his mouth shut, if he had not acted like a rank amateur, if he had not embarrassed himself–and by the way internally the campaign understands they screwed up, he’s moved on, they...

Jeffrey Toobin's latest book portrays Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as increasingly cranky and partisan — and infuriated with Chief Justice John Roberts over the court's recent decisions on healthcare and immigration. Toobin, who writes for The New Yorker and also covers the court for CNN, credits Scalia for a sea change in how both sides of the political spectrum think about the law. But he says the justice's bombast has become off-putting to more even-tempered colleagues.

NPR’s Terry Gross brought on CNN judicial analyst Jeffrey Toobin on Monday to discuss his new book on the Supreme Court (called The Oath) for 44 minutes of her program Fresh Air. Toobin proclaimed that Barack Obama is the conservative when it comes to the Supreme Court, and John Roberts is the radical revolutionary. This is the same Toobin who complained overturning ObamaCare would be "judicial activism." Toobin also claimed with a straight face (or at least an ungiggly voice) that Roberts voted to uphold ObamaCare to pave the way for more conservative decisions, to insulate the court from being...

Would this remain a local DC story if the accused had been staff director of an important committee in a Republican controlled Senate? >>>>A former senior congressional aide was indicted this week in D.C. Superior Court on charges that he sexually assaulted two women after drugging them with a sedative that he allegedly put in their drinks. Donny Ray Williams Jr., 36, who served as staff director for a Senate subcommittee and worked in the offices of several members of Congress, gave at least one woman Ambien and assaulted her while she was unconscious, according to court papers. Williams was...

The Obama media -- the Gatekeeper Media who try to control what people know based on what fits their narrative -- are proving almost daily that they're not in the news business. They are in the business of political activism, aimed solely at getting their guy another four years in the White House.... .....When Newt Gingrich railed against the Gatekeeper Media in two primary debates, he struck a deep chord with Americans. According to a Rasmussen Poll released on June 15, 2010, "Sixty-six percent (66%) of U.S. voters describe themselves as at least somewhat angry at the media, including 33%...

Since Palin and her team won’t share where the potential candidate is headed, reporters and producers have little choice but to simply stay close to Palin’s bus. This has resulted in scenes of the Palin bus tooling down the highway followed by a caravan of 10 or 15 vehicles – including a massive CNN bus – all trying to make sure they don’t lose sight of the Palin bus. It adds up to a dangerous situation, says CBS News Producer Ryan Corsaro. “I just hope to God that one of these young producers with a camera whose bosses are making...

House Democrats on Thursday shot down a G.O.P. attempt to roll back federal funding to NPR, a move that many Republicans have called for since the public radio network fired the analyst Juan Williams last month. Republicans in the House tried to advance the defunding measure as part of their “YouCut” initiative, which allows the public to vote on which spending cuts the G.O.P. should pursue. But their push was blocked, 239 to 171, with only three Democrats voting with a united bloc of Republicans.

Congress awarded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) $533.3 million in fiscal year 2010, $420 million of which was distributed to public radio and television stations in all 50 states and U.S. territories, according to the CPB Appropriation Request and Justification report. Taxpayer money for the CPB is allocated through the Department of Commerce. According to the CPB report, 583 public radio and television stations nationwide received $420 million in FY 2010. For example, KQED TV in San Francisco received $3,734,192 and KCET TV in Los Angeles got $4,066,328 that year. WAMU, the public radio station in Washington, D.C., received...

CARACAS, Venezuela -- A Venezuelan TV channel that takes a critical line against Hugo Chavez could be forced off cable if it doesn't carry mandatory government programming including some of the president's speeches, a lawyer for the channel said Friday. The government forced Radio Caracas Television, or RCTV, off the open airwaves in 2007 by refusing to renew its broadcast license, and the channel subsequently moved to cable under the name Radio Caracas Television International. Venezuela's telecommunications agency said Thursday that two dozen local cable channels including RCTV must carry government programming when deemed mandatory, just like broadcast channels already...

This morning there was a story on Yahoo/AP titled "Economic Growth less than expected". The story is gone but CBS still has it under Economy Growing, But Less Than Expected. A few hours later there is now a new story from AP titled Recovery likely strengthening after weaker 3Q.

Self-described “newspaper junkie” President Obama says he is “happy to look at” bills before Congress that might help the struggling newspaper industry. The White House later cautioned that the president’s remarks, made to media outlets over the weekend, shouldn’t be taken as support for a bailout for yet another industry. Obama was specifically addressing the issue of whether the government could make it easier for newspapers to restructure as nonprofits. One bill now before Congress would make it easier to convert newspapers into nonprofits.

ABC TURNS PROGRAMMING OVER TO OBAMA; NEWS TO BE ANCHORED FROM INSIDE WHITE HOUSE Tue Jun 16 2009 08:45:10 ET On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care -- a move that has ignited an ethical firestorm! Highlights on the agenda: ABCNEWS anchor Charlie Gibson will deliver WORLD NEWS from the Blue Room of the White House. The network plans a primetime special -- 'Prescription for America' -- originating from the East Room, exclude opposing voices on...

CHICAGO Newspapers perform a public service for democracy and should be allowed to operate as tax-exempt non-profits, U.S. Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D.-Md., proposed Tuesday. Cardin introduced a bill that would explicitly include newspapers among organizations eligible for 501(c)(3) status. The non-profit status is the same that public radio and television have now. The legislation would give a national green light for newspapers to adopt the so-called Low Profit Limited Liability Company business model, often shortened to L3C. The L3C model, which the Newspaper Guild supports as an alternative newspaper ownership model, is the subject of a feature story in the...

Non-Profit may describe a newspaper's balance sheet, but it does not describe its tax status, unless of course, if Senator Benjamin Cardin( D-Md.) gets his way. The Senator introduced a bill on the Senate floor today that would allow newspapers to elect to receive tax-exempt status all they have to do is promise not to endorse any political candidates (but they can report on the campaign):

Remember that scene in “Chinatown” where Jack Nicholson roughs up Faye Dunaway until she reveals the identity of the mysterious young girl? He slaps her and she says, “She’s my sister.” He slaps her again and she says, “My daughter.” They ping pong back and forth until Dunaway breaks down and admits the girl is daughter and her sister, the result of an incestuous relationship with her father. Looks we have another incestuous Chinatown situation on our hands in Washington, DC. Turns out Callie Shell, a Time Magazine photographer, has been working simultaneously for Team Obama, snapping official White House...

Connecticut is considering a bailout for local papers. But government assistance always comes with a catch. In the case of government aid of newspapers, it will destroy the ability of those papers to function as watchdogs. As journalism professor Paul Janensch told Reuters, "You can't expect a watchdog to bite the hand that feeds it." That's why the news out of Connecticut is very disturbing. Two small-town papers have been in danger of being shut down because of decreasing revenue and poor management decisions. Journal Register Corp. recently had to sell the two papers, The Bristol Press and The (New...

BEIJING (AFP) – Paleontologists in east China have dug up what they believe is one of the world's largest group of dinosaur fossils including the remains of an enormous "platypus", state press said Tuesday. Paleontologists have discovered 15 areas near Zhucheng city in Shandong province that contain thousands of dinosaur bones, the Beijing News reported. "This group of fossilised dinosaurs is currently the largest ever discovered in the world... in terms of area," the paper cited paleontologist Zhao Xijin of the China Academy of Sciences as saying. In one area measuring 300 metres (990 feet) by 10 metres, more than...

BEIJING (AFP) - At least two people died early Sunday in a series of explosions in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang, state media said, in an attack that eyewitnesses said was followed by gunfire. The report did not say who was responsible for the blasts which came little more than a day after the start of the Olympics in Beijing. Uighur separatists in Xinjiang have in video statements threatened to attack the sporting event and Chinese authorities have also warned that "terrorists" from home and abroad pose a massive threat to the Games. The blasts on Sunday occurred between...

Critics charge that the Macquarie purchase of American Consolidated Media is designed to silence critics of a Texas toll road project. Australian toll road giant Macquarie agreed Wednesday to purchase forty local newspapers, primarily in Texas and Oklahoma, for $80 million. Macquarie Bank is Australia's largest capital raising firm and has invested billions in purchasing roads in the US, Canada and UK. Most recently the company joined with Cintra Concesiones of Spain in a controversial 75-year lease of the 157-mile Indiana Toll Road. Sal Costello, the leading opponent of toll road projects as head of the Texas Toll Party, says...

BEIJING, July 13 (Reuters) - China has moved for the second time this year to limit outside involvement in its electronic media, banning city and provincial broadcasters from even cooperating with foreign firms. One Chinese television company, Qinghai TV, said such regulations had caused it to cancel plans to work with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., the China News Service and the People's Daily Online reported.

Guest columnistAmerican media should be more like the BBCBy Margaret T. GordonSpecial to The TimesIt is late July, 2003. American troops in Baghdad are said to have killed two sons of the former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, and many Iraqis ? as well as many Americans ? don't know whether to believe it, despite graphic photographs. Revelations over the past spring and early summer indicate that President Bush, knowingly or not ? and there is some question about which ? used information from faulty intelligence when he claimed in his State of the Union address that Iraq was seeking uranium...