Free Republic

At what point does this become a story beyond Fox News? Fox News has learned from sources who were on the ground in Benghazi that an urgent request from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. consulate and subsequent attack several hours later was denied by U.S. officials — who also told the CIA operators twice to “stand down” rather than help the ambassador’s team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11. .... [SNIP of events reported by Fox News] ....What. in the hell. was going on? Woods’s father,...

.....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...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Now, last night and this morning, we have a montage. Diane Sawyer. ("Recycliiiiiing! Recycliiiiiiing!") She was livid! They are all, in the media, outraged Obama would jeopardize his campaign that they've worked so hard on. They've carried the water everywhere. They have built Romney up to be this horrible, rotten guy who hates half the country; who sat idly by while a guy's wife with cancer died. They've said Romney is a felon. They've done everything the regime asked! They have carried the water, and now they are outraged Obama lied to 'em in the middle of...

As NewsBusters previously reported, ABC's Brian Ross on Friday falsely accused a Tea Party member of being the "James" Holmes that orchestrated the movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado. "Jim" Holmes during an interview with the Daily Caller had some harsh words for his accuser saying, "What kind of idiot makes that kind of statement?” “Really, seriously, how do we take a journalist seriously when it’s pretty clear they really haven’t done any sort of check on their facts?” told the Caller's Alex Pappas: Holmes informed Pappas that ABC News didn’t contact him before Ross went on air. In fact,...

During the chaotic aftermath of the Colorado shooting on Friday, a particularly chilling moment came when ABC News spoke to the mother of suspect James Holmes by phone. The network reported that the woman, reached in California, "told ABC News her son was likely the alleged culprit, saying, 'You have the right person.'" The article also said that Holmes's mother was "apparently speaking on gut instinct" when she "immediately expressed concern her son may be involved in the shooting death of at least 12 people overnight." Today, she disputed that account, claiming her quotes were misused. If true, that would...

In the media's eyes, the Boy Scouts of America are on par with bubble wrap - unimportant, disposable and something largely ignored unless someone wants to stomp on them. The Boy Scouts celebrated its 100th anniversary last month. And as an organization in which over 110 million Americans have participated, including film director Steven Spielberg, 211 current members of Congress and Presidents John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama - and given the positive characteristics often associated with Scouts - hard-working respectful and loyal - it's logical to think the media would love to...

The latest maneuvering by congressional Democrats to make their brand of health care reform a reality has a lot of Washington, D.C. insiders scratching their heads and unable to forecast what is around the bend when it comes to this legislation. But have the media completely dropped the ball and that is allowing those in power to circumvent constitutional process? According to Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., they have. She had some harsh words for the fourth estate on conservative talker Sean Hannity's March 16 radio show. (h/t Kevin Eder) "Well yeah and the other thing is treason media," Bachmann said....

The Washington Post Co. earnings fell 77 percent in the fourth quarter of last year compared with the same period in 2007, as a large impairment charge drove down net income. The Post Co. reported fourth-quarter net income of $18.8 million ($2.01 per share) on revenue of $1.16 billion, compared with net income of $82.9 million ($8.71) on revenue of $1.13 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007. The company's newspaper division, which includes the flagship Washington Post, reported a $14.4 million operating loss for the fourth quarter and a $192.7 million operating loss for all of 2008, nearly half...

THE New York Times' news room is bracing for a bloodbath in the next 10 days. The word from inside is that approximately 50 unionized journalists have accepted the buyout proposal, and only another 20 non-union editorial employees have gotten on board. That means the ax could fall on as many as 30 editorial people in the company's first-ever mass firing of journalists in its 156-year history.

Media Bias: Why would two Muslim men travel 3,000 miles to kill random people in the nation's capital a year after 9/11? CNN investigated and found Islamic terror had nothing to do with it. ..... ......... "Somehow CNN's "special investigations unit" managed to overlook this pile of courtroom evidence. It showed only one drawing — a self portrait of Malvo shedding tears."

It's telling when country luminary Merle Haggard has an entry on Rolling Stone magazine's list of top protest songs. Country musicians and their fans tend to hail from conservative states with high enlistment rates. Then again, the toll of the war on the sons and daughters of these states has been acute

The bipartisan opposition to President Bush's troop-increase plan has proved more intense than his advisers hoped and has left them scrambling to find support, but the White House is banking on the assumption that it can execute its "new way forward" in Iraq before Congress can derail it. The plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq was virtually guaranteed to provoke a furor in Washington, Bush advisers said, but the storm was exacerbated by the slow, leaky way that the White House reached a decision. The policy review stretched two months after the election and the essence of the...

Gates Before the Senate: Welcome Candor on Iraq It didn't take long, at his confirmation hearings for Defense Secretary, for Robert Gates to give Senate Democrats some answers they've been desperate for. After four years of rosy predictions and verbal sparring from Donald Rumsfeld over the Iraq war, Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee were desperate for some candor out of the man George Bush has picked to replace him — and that's what they got as Bob Gates's confirmation hearing began Tuesday morning. Sen. Carl Levin, who will take over the committee chairmanship in January, hit Gates with...

Iraq's Interior Ministry has charged 57 employees, including high-ranking officers, with human rights crimes for their roles in the torture of hundreds of detainees once jailed in a notorious eastern Baghdad prison known as Site 4, officials announced Monday. The charges marked the first time the present Iraqi government has taken criminal action against members of its own security forces for operating torture chambers inside Interior Ministry prisons, said Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a ministry spokesman. "Whoever abuses power and authority will be held accountable, regardless of their position or background," Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani told reporters in an opulent...

If only one thing comes out of the midterm elections this coming Tuesday, it ought to be this: The nation is tired of polemics and ideological politics. It's time for politicians on both the right and the left to move back toward the center, and come up with practical solutions to the serious problems the nation faces: How to get out of the mess in Iraq. How to pay for the baby-boomers' medical care and Social Security costs. How to meet the undeniable challenge of global warming. How to bring the budget back into balance without shredding the safety net...

The verdict against the former dictator, which the U.S. originally hoped would help the country exorcise its demons, won't make a difference to Iraqis' violence-filled lives For those seeking omens on Saddam Hussein's day of judgment, Mother Nature obliged: Sunday dawned wet, cool and clean in Baghdad after overnight showers rinsed the city of several layers of desert sand. Late in the morning, Ahmed Hussein, a government-employed street sweeper, looked up into the overcast and still-rumbling skies and nodded approvingly. "This is the right weather for a day like this," he said. "The rain is God's blessing upon the verdict."...

The Republican Party on Tuesday gained a late burst of energy in its flagging midterm election campaign following remarks by John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, in which he said college students could “get stuck in Iraq” if they do not study hard.While campaigning in California, the Massachusetts senator told a college crowd on Monday: “You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.” George W. Bush on Tuesday seized on...

WASHINGTON -- Deteriorating security in Iraq and bureaucratic wrangling between the State Department and the Pentagon have undermined the US government's effort to train provincial governments, according to a report to Congress released yesterday by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. The training, done by "provincial reconstruction teams" of soldiers, aid workers, and diplomats, is meant to coach local authorities in Iraq on how to deliver basic services to their municipalities, and to take over duties from the US-led coalition, such as running elections and making decisions over local budgets. The teams were considered such a critical part of...

"The principal sin of the neoconservatives is overbearing arrogance. It is not so much that they have been wrong. It is that nobody has ever convinced them that they've ever been wrong." I didn't say that. Oh, I said stuff like it a few times, but that particular quote come from David Keene, who is the chairman of the American Conservative Union. Like a lot of people on the rightish side of the political spectrum, he bought the rhetoric, he accepted the brilliance of Donald Rumsfeld's idea for a brand-new downsized "smart" army, he hung in there when things appeared...

60 Minutes' Steve Kroft Reports On Disappearance Of More Than $500 Million To Equip Iraqi Army (CBS) More than half a billion dollars earmarked to fight the insurgency in Iraq was stolen by people the U.S. had entrusted to run the country's Ministry of Defense before the 2005 elections, according to Iraqi investigators. Iraq's former minister of finance says coalition members like the U.S. and Britain are doing little to help recover the money or catch suspects, most of whom fled the country.