Free Republic

You can't be loved and adored by everybody, but if you're President Barack Obama and it concerns the media, you can come awfully close. In an interview on CNBC's June 16 "Closing Bell" with the network Washington correspondent John Harwood, Obama reflected on the media coverage he has received to date. Harwood asked the president to respond to the claim that lack of media criticism has allowed him to "hurt" the country. "When you and I spoke in January, you said, I observed that you haven't gotten much bad press," Harwood said. "You said, ‘It's coming.' Media critics would say...

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...

Shephard Smith is something of a contrarian at FOX News. Over the past few months, he has often poked fun at Glenn Beck, criticized the use of torture on terror suspects, and this week, cited the Department of Homeland Security's report that singled out right wing hate groups when reporting on the Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting.

<p>If you tell the lie often enough people will believe it. The libs are going to tag this on us and who will stand in their way besides talk radio?</p>

I am afraid I no longer believe . . .…That we have an inquisitive American media as we once knew it. There has emerged something as bad as state-sanctioned coercion—which we could at least identify, and thus struggle against.Now comes a more insidious, brave new self-imposed censorship of the Orwellian mode. It is not just the perennial embarrassment Chris Matthews describing his Obama ecstasy on camera, or even Newsweek’s Evan Thomas comparing his President to God, or even CNN execs being exposed trashing the US abroad at Davos, or whitewashing Saddam, but rather a more incremental new groupspeak in which...

You just know it has to be killing the folks at CNN and MSNBC that Fox News has completely overwhelmed them in the ratings. In fact, the combined number of viewers of both of those networks still doesn't match that of Fox News. Could it be that the public is sick of the fawning coverage given to the Obama administration by most of the mainstream media and look to Fox News for providing more balanced stories? That is something that the MSM people just can't confess. So what is their excuse for the ratings dominance by Fox News? CNN co-founder,...

At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee. Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

The Maxim Hot 100--and it's No. 1 hottest female--were just announced, and joining the bootylicious ranks of Scarlett Johansson, Megan Fox and Jessica Biel is ... drumroll ... Olivia Wilde, who plays Dr. Remy Hadley on House. Now. Wilde is drop-dead gorgeous, with stunning, almost feline features and one of those enviably lithe yoga-bods. She's definitely very attractive. But is she hot? There's a noted absence of those signature lad-mag curves that have characterized most of the other No. 1 hotties. Meaning either Maxim is being more expansive in its evals--she's intelligent (spent time at Andover and Georgetown Day) and...

Is Congressman Murtha About To Become the New Tom DeLay? By Bill Pascoe | May 13, 2009 9:13 AM Is Rep. John P. "The P is for Power" Murtha about to become the new Tom DeLay? He will if Rep. Pete Sessions and the National Republican Congressional Committee have anything to say about it. DeLay, of course, became the face of Republican congressional corruption in the 2006 cycle. Though DeLay himself has never been convicted of anything -- and continues to maintain his innocence as federal and state prosecutions against him move forward at a glacial pace -- several...

May 13, 2009 | In John Frankenheimer's taut 1964 film, "Seven Days in May," the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appalled at a disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union, plot a coup d'état to remove the president whom they regard as too soft and naive about the evil of America's enemies. The screenplay by Rod Serling (based on a 1962 novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II) is filled with passionate lines that seem right out of today's talk radio -- "intellectual dilettantes" versus patriotism; America's loss of "greatness"; the superiority of military experience to civilian judgment and governance.

We knew they would come. The lies and half truths about Barack Obama’s planned speech at next Sunday’s graduation ceremony at Notre Dame are intensifying. Beth Fouhy of the AP brings us the latest pack of lies half truths and omissions. She has produced yet another lock step bouquet to be placed on the alter of secular humanism which can not be allowed to stand unchallenged. Fouhy writes Catholics and pro-lifers are angry at Notre Dame’s invitation to Obama because; “They cite his support for abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research, and his repeal of a policy that denied...

On Morning Joe today, Joe Scarborough nailed the Washington press corps for its sycophantish performance at the White House Correspondents Association dinner this past Saturday night: “like a bunch of teenage girls waiting for a Bay City Rollers concert, waiting to scream at the top of their [lungs].” Mika Brzezinski, agreeing with Joe, lifted the veil on the goings-on behind the scenes, describing an enraptured TV production crew scrambling to get the most flattering shots of the prez and First Lady. View video here.

Now that Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. has been named the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, some on the far-left are gunning for Alabama's junior senator. The battle is happening as President Barack Obama is on the verge of naming an appointee to the Supreme Court to fill void of Justice David Souter.Some of the left-wing points that suggest Sessions has racist tendencies were incorporated into a May 6 Politico story by John Bresnahan and Manu Raju. "By elevating Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions to their top spot on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Republicans have selected their chief inquisitor for...

In an op-ed yesterday, David Brooks — The New York Times’ alleged conservative columnist — claims Republicans’ downward trajectory is due to their devotion to rugged individualism and their neglect of community. ... It seems The New York Times’ conservative lapdog has found his ideal Republican — Barack Hussein Obama.

Not long ago, sports writer Selena Roberts compared the Duke lacrosse players to gang members and career criminals. She claimed that the players’ unwillingness to confess to or snitch about a rape (that did not happen) was the equivalent of drug dealers and gang members promoting antisnitching campaigns. When since-disgraced district attorney Mike Nifong whipped up a media posse to rain justice on the drunken, male college students, Roberts jumped on the fastest, most influential horse, using her New York Times column to convict the players and the culture of privilege that created them. Proven inaccurate, Roberts never wrote a...

Gov. Sarah Palin is backing a ballot measure to bypass the Legislature and make it illegal for teenagers to get an abortion without telling their parents.

Specter: GOP priorities contributed to Kemp death By Tom LoBianco May 3, 2009 Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Democrat, said part of the reason he left the Republican Party last week was disillusionment with its healthcare priorities, and suggested that had the Republicans taken a more moderate track, Jack Kemp may have won his battle with cancer. Mr. Specter, responding to a question from CBS's Bob Schieffer over whether he had let down Pennsylvanians who wanted a Republican to represent them, said he felt his priorities were more in line with those of the Democrats. "Well, I was sorry to disappoint...

When the World Health Organization raised its swine flu threat level last week to suggest the first pandemic in more than four decades was imminent, the group’s director warned that “all of humanity is under threat.” Across the country, it’s looked like that. School closings will keep more than 300,000 Texas students at home this week. Stores have sold out of masks that experts don’t recommend. Sports events and concerts have been canceled. Headlines have warned that “Outbreak Threatens Global Recovery.” By the week’s end, an increasing number of experts were questioning whether it was overreaction. “I don’t see anything...

Gallup Poll Daily tracking during President Obama's first 100 days in office finds broad support for him among Americans affiliated with most major U.S. religions. U.S..........

WASHINGTON - After Barack Obama's first six weeks as president, the American public's attitudes about the two political parties couldn't be more different, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds. Despite the country's struggling economy and vocal opposition to some of his policies, President Obama's favorability rating is at an all-time high. Two-thirds feel hopeful about his leadership and six in 10 approve of the job he's doing in the White House. "What is amazing here is how much political capital Obama has spent in the first six weeks," said Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted this survey...

NBC Universal and its networks have been criticized for the global warming alarmism it parades on a regular basis. However, now the criticism is coming from its own affiliates. Prior to its April 26 airing on MSNBC, shows on NBC had been promoting the first part of the climate special "Future Earth" - an MSNBC program that used computer animation to show the possibilities of a polar icecap melting. That prompted Bill Steffen, a meteorologist for NBC's Grand Rapids, Mich. affiliate, to call out MSNBC for that special. Steffen challenged several premises of "Future Earth: Journey to the End of...

The swine flu story has captured the news cycle for three days and counting now and that's perpetuating the hysteria, according to Fox News Channel's Brit Hume. Hume appeared on the FNC's "The Live Desk with Trace Gallagher" April 27 and blasted the media in general for hyping the swine flu story 24/7. "I realize it's been a slow weekend in terms of news," Hume said. "The president went out and played golf on Sunday. The White House reporters don't have much to work with today, so they're trying to get a piece of this swine flu story, which you...

Forty-five percent (45%) of U.S. voters now have an unfavorable opinion of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano following her department’s release of a controversial report on right-wing extremist groups last week. Twenty-three percent (23%) say their view of her is Very Unfavorable. Thirty percent (30%) have a favorable view of the former Arizona governor, with eight percent (8%) Very Favorable, in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. However, one-out-of-four voters (25%) do not know enough about Napolitano to have an opinion about her one way or the other. At the time President Obama nominated her for the Homeland Security...

Christina Bellatoni reports Zero's 100 day press conference next Wednesday at 8 PM.

According to a report in the New York Post the venerable New York Times is much worse off financially than anyone predicted.

Friday, April 17, 2009 Kook Actress Garofalo: Tea Parties Were About Hating the Black Man You may have missed this. It was on Keith Olbermann's show. Actress Janeane Garofalo said the Tax Day Tea Party protests were really about hating the black man in the White House. How original. The 8 minute long hate-filled rant is Here. The Washington Times reported: Liberal actress and political activist Janeane Garofalo, in all seriousness, said activists who attended tea parties are racists with dysfunctional brains in a recent prime-time television appearance. "Let's be very honest about what this is about. This is not...

SAN ANTONIO, Texas — With The Alamo as a backdrop, thousands of Texans here joined demonstrators across the nation Wednesday to protest federal spending, corporate bailouts and taxes. "The Alamo is the perfect symbolic place to hold this rally," said Carl Benton, a Michigan native who moved to Texas a decade ago. "This is where people who had held deep convictions made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom." Benton, 43, a construction worker, said Americans are making sacrifices by cutting personal spending, but he does not see similar sacrifices from Washington.

For thousands of Americans, Tax Day was a moment to protest what they see as bloated budgets and a pile of debt being passed on to their children. For CNN, MSNBC and other media outlets, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use the word "teabagging" in a sentence. Teabagging, for those who don't live in a frat house, refers to a sexual act involving part of the male genitalia and a second person's face or mouth. So when the anti-tax "tea party" protests were held Wednesday across the country, cable anchors and guests -- who for weeks had all but...

Newsbusters caught the same indignantly indignant Susan Roesgen covering an anti-Bush rally in New Orleans in which she blithely refers to a huge Bush puppet with horns and a Hitler mustache as a “lookalike.”

NPR.org, April 15, 2009 · On April 15, the deadline for filing taxes, conservatives are planning Tax Day Tea Parties around the country. Inspired by the Boston Tea Party in 1773, the rallies are designed as protests against the use of taxpayer money for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the stimulus package and other government spending. But some historians and beverage makers say it doesn't make sense for java-loving Americans to rally around tea. Tea party protests began in early 2009. In February, CNBC market analyst Rick Santelli raised the idea of a "Chicago Tea Party" to protest a federal...

MIAMI (Reuters) - Right-wing extremists in the United States are gaining new recruits by exploiting fears about the economy and the election of the first black U.S. president, the Department of Homeland Security warned in a report to law enforcement officials. The April 7 report, which Reuters and other news media obtained on Tuesday, said such fears were driving a resurgence in "recruitment and radicalization activity" by white supremacist groups, antigovernment extremists and militia movements. It did not identify any by name. DHS had no specific information about pending violence and said threats had so far been "largely rhetorical."

MSNBC prides itself as being the place for politics, the seemingly clever marketing slogan could be used to describe the network as the place where hosts try to use dirty humor about important political events. David Shuster, filling in for MSNBC loose-cannon Keith Olbermann on his April 13 broadcast, and his writers probably thought they were pretty clever when they pieced an item denigrating the tax protests by using the sexual term “teabagging.” Urbandictionary.com, cited multiple times by one MSNBC guest, describes it as when a man places his testicles “onto someone’s face, or into their mouth.” “For most Americans,...

In December 1773, Bostonians held a Tea Party in Boston Harbor to protest excessive British taxes. "No taxation without representation" was their message. On Wednesday, April 15, Americans will hold rallies across the country to protest onerous taxes. Organizers have a motto for their Tea Day - "taxed enough already." Big problem: There is a world of difference between 1773 and 2009. Two hundred-plus years ago, Americans risked life and limb protesting a distant and oligarchic system of government that did not represent the good people of Massachusetts. In 2009, the federal government is dysfunctional because, if anything, Washington is...

MIAMI (Reuters) - Right-wing extremists in the United States are gaining new recruits by exploiting fears about the economy and the election of the first black U.S. president, the Department of Homeland Security warned in a report to law enforcement officials. The April 7 report, which Reuters and other news media obtained Tuesday, said such fears were driving a resurgence in "recruitment and radicalization activity" by white supremacist groups, antigovernment extremists and militia movements. It did not identify any by name. DHS had no specific information about pending violence and said threats had so far been "largely rhetorical." But it...

Planned Parenthood, First Avenue and Grape Street, San Diego, Saturday, March 7, 2009 Planned Parenthood at First Avenue and Grape Street near downtown San Diego started telling customers last Saturday, February 28, they would not be allowed in if they had leaflets given them by "the protestors." Surprisingly, this did not stop nearly the same number of potential clients getting the "Danger" pamphlet on Saturday, March 7. Most clients seemed willing to roll down their windows as they were turning into the clinic's driveway and accept information about the clinic. By 8 a.m., nearly 10 customers coming in the driveway...

The Treasury Department oversees the Internal Revenue Service. But if the Secretary of the Treasury - or any other political appointee being considered for the Treasury Department - didn't pay his income payroll taxes, it doesn't matter. That's the message from House Banking Committee Chairman Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and he blamed the fourth estate for acting like it does matter. On MSNBC's March 11 broadcast of "Andrea Mitchell Reports," host Andrea Mitchell asked Frank to respond to criticism in a March 11 piece from New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman that too many appointees were being held up for...

Suddenly, bloggers, opinion people, columnists and, yes, pundits who haven't paid attention to anything I have been saying or writing for the past 18 months are all over me. Suddenly, I find myself in the center of a firestorm over Obama's economic policies, taking enfilading fire from the "liberal" media (from serious columnist Frank Rich to entertainer Jon Stewart) while being defended by Rush Limbaugh, the standard-bearer for the Republicans. I'm uncomfortable being in the crosshairs of columnists and comedians I enjoy, and I find the embrace of Rush Limbaugh most certainly strange if not antithetical to many of my...

Newsweek magazine joins the Obama administration's war on Rush Limbaugh with a cover story authored by conservative lightwieght David Frum.The cover art is an unflattering tight shot of Limbaugh's face featuring a black box over his mouth with the word ENOUGH!The article, which doesn't matter really because it is the excuse to position the anti-Rush agit-prop cover on newstands around the country for a week, can be read here.Newsweek released a press release with an excerpt from Frum's article:"In the days since I stumbled into this controversy, I've received a great deal of e-mail. (Most of it on days...

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WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama enjoys widespread backing from a frightened American public for his ambitious, front-loaded agenda, a new poll indicates. He is more popular than ever, Americans are hopeful about his leadership, and opposition Republicans are getting drubbed in public opinion, the new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll suggests. POLL: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123612000246123253.html#project%3DWSJNBC090302%26articleTabs%3Dinteractive

It was reported with much glee today that conservative talker, Rush Limbaugh, and the Republican Party national chairman, Michael Steele, had a dust up. The reports went on to say Mr. Steele eventually felt a need to apologize for calling Rush’s show “ugly”. Since this is a story that fit a specific journalistic template, the one that states any intramural brawl between Republicans is always news; it received very heavy play on television, radio and in print. What was covered with less enthusiasm or not at all was the admission on Politico.com by President Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel,...

Just listening to CNN online and heard Rick Sanchez interview this Media Matters guy and made no mention of MM's affiliations or slant, just that he works for "a media fact check group". I wanted to barf. It's to be expected coming from CNN, but here's the real shocker: they picked apart a Republican congressman's response (forgot his name) to a question. Sanchez asked him about spending and earmarks under the Bush Administration and why he's making a big fuss now instead of back then. The congressman rattled off several bills that Bush supported that he fought Bush on. Enter...

Democrats took a swipe at Republicans - and conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh - with a Web page launched Wednesday morning on the official site of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The page - found at imsorryrush.com - allows users to construct a Mad Libs-style message to Limbaugh using "the secret Republican Apology Machine" and sign it with the name of prominent Republicans who've released mea culpas to Limbaugh recently - including Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. [Snip] Limbaugh made headlines on his radio show when he stated, four days before Barack Obama's inauguration, that he wanted...

Top Democrats believe they have struck political gold by depicting Rush Limbaugh as the new face of the Republican Party, a full-scale effort first hatched by some of the most familiar names in politics and now being guided in part from inside the White House. .... The seeds were planted in October after Democracy Corps, the Democratic polling company run by Carville and Greenberg, included Limbaugh’s name in a survey and found that many Americans just don’t like him. “His positives for voters under 40 was 11 percent,” Carville recalled with a degree of amazement, ... "I hope he fails,”...

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh rejected reports that he is rooting for the failure of President Obama on his syndicated radio program Tuesday. Instead, he suggested that President Obama stands to gain from an economic failure. “I am an average citizen…I have a microphone,” Mr. Limbaugh said. He argued that he has been financially fortuitous in his life and asked why he would want to see the economy fail and his capital shrink. Mr. Limbaugh also responded to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s comment on CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’ Sunday that Limbaugh “is the voice and the intellectual...

In lifting the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson who has been accused of Holocaust denial last month, the Catholic Church also readmitted a priestly society that openly propagates virulent anti-Semitism, according to a probe by a Belgian Jewish newspaper. The Roman Catholic Church excommunicated The Society of St. Pius X in 1988 along with Williamson and three other member priests, declaring their consecrations were "unlawful" and "schismatic." In January of this year the Vatican lifted the excommunication. On the same day, a Swedish television station aired an interview with Williamson in which he denied the existence of gas chambers during...

In his latest “Memo from Cairo,” New York Times correspondent Michael Slackman virtually begs the Obama administration to avoid using the word “terrorist” in reference to Hamas and Hezbollah. According to Slackman... calling these groups “terrorists” turns off the Arab world, in which people view Israel as the “real terrorist,” whereas Hamas and Hezbollah are just “trying to liberate their countries.” In turn, intimates Slackman, using a “loaded word” like “terrorist” when describing Hamas or Hezbollah makes peace impossible. Let’s leave aside for a moment that Slackman has managed to pass off his own view on the mind-numbingly dull one-man’s-terrorist-is-another-man’s-freedom-fighter...

WASHINGTON – News organizations will be allowed to photograph the homecomings of America's war dead under a new Pentagon policy, defense and congressional officials said Thursday. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has decided to allow photos of flag-draped caskets at Dover Air Force Base, Del., if the families of the fallen troops agree, the officials told The Associated Press. Gates planned to announce his decision later Thursday, they said. The current ban was put in place in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush. At least two Democratic senators have called on President Barack Obama to let news photographers attend ceremonies at...

Introduction: ...At the outset of a book chapter describing the 2001 analysis from this project (Paterson, 2005), I asked if media convergence and the migration of news consumers to the Internet democratise information flow - as conventional wisdom suggests - or simply disguise a steady reduction in information diversity. Here I seek to approach the problem more definitively. The hypothesis of reduction of information diversity saw preliminary support from my 1999 and 2001 data, and other academic and industry reports. And so I pose the following hypothesis for testing through longitudinal analysis: In the last five years, international news flow...

A couple of years ago, when speaking to a local group, I mentioned that The Chronicle was losing money. A couple in the back of the room rudely applauded. How thrilled those two must have felt when - if - they learned of Chronicle Publisher Frank Vega's announcement Tuesday that the Hearst Corp. will implement "significant" workforce cuts. If the cuts don't pay off, then the Hearst Corp. will "offer the newspaper for sale or close it altogether." Bloggers and e-mailers are crowing. If The Chronicle is shuttered, they'll be dancing a jig. Many conservatives feel a warm glow at...