Free Republic

When Vallejo Mayor Osby Davis told the New York Times in a recent interview that gay people don't get to heaven, he broke not one, but two cardinal rules of politics in a single sentence. With a simple phrase, Davis breached the separation between church and state and grabbed the electrified "third-rail" in Bay Area politics with both hands. He told the reporter that gays are "committing sins and those sins will keep them out of heaven." After the Nov. 20 article, the mayor claimed his words were taken out of context. The Times responded by providing an audio link...

The photographer who shot the picture violated his contract by reselling them to Newsweek. That photographer, Brian Adams, could not immediately be reached, and his agent, Kelly Price, declined to comment, saying, "I keep all of my clients' business private." But a spokeswoman for Runner's World confirms that Adams's contract contained a clause stipulating that his photos of Palin would be under embargo for a period of one year following publication -- meaning until August 2010. "Runner's World did not provide Newsweek with its cover image," the spokeswoman said. "It was provided to Newsweek by the photographer's stock agency, without...

Islam Remains Innocent thelastcrusade.org A conservative media watchdog organization says for the most part, the mainstream media networks have downplayed the Muslim connections with terrorism in the Fort Hood massacre.The Media Research Center (MRC) says that when authorities first announced the Fort Hood shooter was Major Nidal Malik Hasan, CBS and NBC purposefully avoided mentioning his name for fear of offending Muslims. The Center points out that ABC's Charles Gibson suggested Hasan was a "Muslim convert," which was not a correct statement, but adds at least Gibson was not trying to play "hide and seek" with the facts.The MRC...

Dan Calabrese notices a scolding tone coming from the Associated Press in reporting its latest polling. It headlines the report by noting that “a grouchy public [is] sticking with Obama,” having seen a 54% job approval rating in its survey — but some bad numbers on the issues. Does the AP report those falling levels of support as a consequence of Barack Obama doing a poor job? No, as emphases from Dan and myself show: The public grew slightly more dispirited on a range of matters over the past month, including war and the economy, continuing the slippage that has...

It’s not just conservatives who accuse the media of showing a liberal bias. A new survey from the Sacred Heart University Polling Institute shows that 89.3 percent of Americans believe the national media played a sizable role in helping to elect President Obama. And 69.9 percent of respondents view the national news media as intent on promoting the Obama presidency, while 26.5 percent disagreed, and 3.6 percent were unsure. More than half of those surveyed, 56.4 percent, said the news media are promoting Obama’s healthcare reform without objective criticism. Another 39.3 percent disagreed, and 4.3 percent were unsure. A majority,...

Ill will against former Vice President Dick Cheney still runs high in some circles. So high, in fact, that when the University of Wyoming decided to name an international student center after him, Suzanne Pelican began circulating a petition against it last year. One year later, that petition has earned 150 signatures and an Associated Press story. In a story titled “Protest brews over Cheney center at Univ. of Wyo.” AP reporter Mead Gruver writes:

More than $10bn in advertising disappeared from US media markets in the first six months of this year, according to new data that show intense pressure on media owners and ad agencies as they search for other business models. Preliminary figures from Nielsen show a 15.4 per cent year-on-year decline in US advertising revenues, the largest drop for any period in the decade since the marketing and media measurement group began compiling such reports. The study showed sharp differences in the behaviour of different media and product categories, with cable television the only medium on which ad spend increased, up...

Picture a recovering alcoholic falling off the wagon. First he says he can handle a few drinks... But eventually he turns mean... As a drunk is to alcohol, the Bush administration is to budget deficits. During the 2000 campaign George W. Bush often pledged to maintain fiscal responsibility... [H]is people said they could cut taxes, pay for new programs... and still pay off most of the federal government's debt... Now the budget director, Mitch Daniels, has admitted the obvious: The federal government faces the prospect of large deficits as far as the eye can see. And sure enough, the drunk...

When George W. Bush was President, ABC and Charles Gibson, like most media members, couldn't get enough of anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan. Now that Barack Obama is in the White House, the host of "World News Tonight" is no longer interested in Sheehan, even telling WLS radio in Chicago, "Enough already." I guess she served her purpose as reported by the Washington Examiner's Byron York Thurday: In an appearance August 18 on WLS radio in Chicago, ABC News anchor Charles Gibson was asked about anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan's plans to travel to Martha's Vineyard next week, where she will protest...

I missed this yesterday at Newsbusters but Treacher, rightly aghast, tipped me to it this afternoon. Never will you see a starker example of MSNBC getting away with the sort of deception for which Fox News would be pilloried, especially in the context of race. If you missed Monday’s post about this, go watch the footage (or look at this photo) and see if you can deduce why they wouldn’t want to show the guy with the rifle from the neck up during this particular segment. For all the well-deserved heat that MSNBC’s primetime line-up has taken for its demagoguery...

Palmer, Alaska (AP) -- The mother of the man former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol had planned on marrying has reached a plea deal in her drug case. Sherry Johnston pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of possession with intent to deliver the painkiller OxyContin. Five other felony counts were dropped. Johnston was placed in pink handcuffs and taken to a correctional facility where she'll be held until her Nov. 20 sentencing.

The Obama White House is abuzz with talk of witchcraft by first grandmother, 72-year-old Marian Robinson, who lives in the White House residence. A close friend of Michelle Obama says the president is furious at his mother-in-law after learning that she was practicing Santeria, an African spirit cult, in the White House. "The president is quite upset about this on two different levels. First, he is a committed Christian, no matter what his critics say about Reverend Wright. He is adamant that Sasha and Malia be raised with Christian influences. He does not want them to be involved with African...

Experts who track hate groups across the U.S. are growing increasingly concerned over violent rhetoric targeted at President Obama, especially as the debate over health care intensifies and a pattern of threats emerges.

This is no time for jokes or trivial banter. The stakes are getting higher by the nanosecond. As tensions are inflamed at health care town hall meetings across the country, a dangerous trend of Hitler comparisons, Stalin comparisons, and all-around dictator comparisons to President Barack Obama is taking shape. The most probing question at this juncture might be uncomfortable to some, but it must be asked: Do conservative, hard-right demagogues, whose hatred for President Obama has hardly ever been subdued, secretly hope for--and are hard at work toward--the assassination of the nation's first Black president. The sheer thought that a...

The L.A.Times' Dan Neil is confused. He thinks that the so-called progressive movement is right on all the issues, but he just cannot understand why they can't win the public debate. Neil laments that they have all the "English majors" on their side but cannot win "any war of words." Just what is going on here, he wants to know? He's so frustrated that he took to his keyboard to ask these questions in a Pittsburgh Gazette article from August 9. In his piece, Neil wonders, for instance, why the "progressives" are so inept at debate and cannot convince the...

Ah, democracy! It never works better than when informed citizens gather in town hall meetings to discuss and debate the issues of the day. But, oh, democracy! It's never more damaged than when partisan zealots plot to disrupt town hall meetings in order to prevent any honest debate of the issues. And that's exactly what's happening in health care forums held across the nation by members of Congress. We've seen it in Philadelphia; Austin, Texas; Georgetown, Del.; Salisbury, Md; and other communities. Taking a page right out of a Nazi playbook, organizers bus in professional protestors and arm them with...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent her chamber home for the summer recess with a list of talking points to respond to constituents' questions about pending health care legislation. But those traditionally sleepy town hall meetings have become rowdy shout-fests across the nation, including Northern California, with opponents hanging members in effigy and mocking them with Nazi and devil imagery in an effort to derail discussions of health care. They're organized in part by conservative think tanks like FreedomWorks, which offers tips on how to disrupt a meeting ("Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep's statements early,"...

Liberals Paint Health-Reform Protesters As Dangerous Nuts Tuesday, August 04, 2009 By Susan Jones, Senior Editor (CNSNews.com) – Democrats have a warning for Republicans: Angry constituents who berate their congressional representatives at public forums are “dangerous” people. “These are the sort of excessive displays that breed a backlash,” wrote a Politico.com blogger on Monday. The national press secretary for the Democratic National Committee linked to the Politico item in a mass email on Tuesday, effectively endorsing the blogger’s message. “Yes, there is now much energy on the right,” Politico’s Jonathan Martin wrote on Monday afternoon, adding “there is danger in...

WASHINGTON – The White House is turning to the Internet to hit back at a Web posting that claims to show President Barack Obama explaining how his health care reform plans eventually would eliminate private insurance.

An attorney for Sarah Palin has delivered a letter threatening legal action against an anti-Palin blogger who was the source of a divorce rumor that the attorney for the former Alaska governor called "categorically false." Publication of the letter at a Web site that repeated the rumor has uncovered circumstantial evidence that the anti-Palin blogger "Gryphen" is a kindergarten teacher at an Anchorage elementary school.... CNN stringer/anti-Palin blogger Dennis Zaki published ... a copy of a letter from Palin attorney Thomas Van Flein, ordering "Gryphen" to retract the allegations -- calling them "complete fabrications, false and defamatory" -- or face...

I've been covering the Obama certificate issue for over a year; see my extensive coverage at that link. Since June of last year my focus has been on the lies and misleading statements surrounding this issue; my goal was to show that many of those discussing this issue weren't credible. My wider goal with that was to get the MSM to tell something closely approximating the truth. If the MSM tried the tell the truth instead of frequently lying as they do now, many of our problems would be lessened. For instance, forcing the MSM to tell the truth would...

‘Meet John Doe’ and the Old Fakearoo Posted By Michael McGruther On June 30, 2009 @ 11:10 am In Classic Hollywood | No Comments Dear Reader, Do you have a little time to sit back and examine a classic movie that will absolutely shock you when seen through the prism of now? This is not my typical short article or essay. This is my own argument that what occurs in the 1941 picture “Meet John Doe” is exactly what has come to pass in America today with the Democratic Congress and their Presidential puppet. All the players and plays...

Back in 2008, New York Times correspondent David S. Rohde, along with Afghan reporter Taki Luden, were abducted in Pakistan by the Taliban. Because they felt it might adversely affect hostage rescue efforts, the Times requested a news black-out. The Associated Press and other news agencies respected the request and only broke the story recently, after Rohde and Luden had scaled a wall and made their escape. It would be nothing other than a story with a happy ending, except that the Times has time and again ignored the government’s requests that it not report the specific ways in which...

Good Morning America's Diane Sawyer popped up on Sunday's Reliable Sources and swore that ABC's much-scrutinized health care special with President Obama "won't be an infomercial." She also seriously touted the objectivity of the network, cheering, "I know that our network has worked very, very hard to be completely-completely responsible and fair and serious about big issues."

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...

<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>

Sunday was Pentecost on the Christian calendar. Pentecost, put simply, is considered to be the church's birthday ­ the day the Holy Spirit descended with great flourish and was received by the Apostles. Had modern-day media been in existence, surely every major network would have swarmed with their live trucks to Jerusalem on this day to report the spectacle. The noise and activity attracted a huge crowd and the Apostle Peter preached a sermon to the crowd with some effectiveness, as Acts 2:41 reports: "On that day about three thousand believed his message and were baptized." Just as millions of...

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.

A new polling analysis from Gallup finds that the Republican Party has lost support among nearly every major demographic subgroup, from college graduates to married people to those making under $30,000 a year. In 2001, 47 percent of college grads leaned Republican. Today, just 37 percent do. Support among married people has slid from 51 percent to 46 percent. Just 28 percent of those making less than $30,000 lean Republican, down 9 points in the past eight years.

A new poll released last week indicates members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints generally approve of President Barack Obama’s performance, but much less so than members of other religious groups. The poll, conducted by Gallup, pegs the president’s approval among Latter-day Saints at 45 percent, with 40 percent disapproving. This level of support is significantly lower than Obama receives from the poll’s other religious groups. Muslims offer Obama his highest approval ratings, with 85 percent of respondents indicating support for his job performance. Similarly, Jews and Catholics also generally approve of the president, polling at 79...

Media watchdog Brent Bozell tells Newsmax that the national media are so slanted to the left that they have been "pamphleteers for the Obama administration." Bozell, founder and president of The Media Research Center — which tracks liberal bias in the media — also said that the major TV networks have refused to call Obama a socialist or even a liberal even though he is "the most radical left-wing president in the history of the United States." See Video: Brent Bozell explains how the mainstream media supports Obama’s socialist agenda - Click Here Now|

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.

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...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A new national poll suggests that President Obama is personally more popular than his policies. The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, released Monday, also indicates that 63 percent of Americans approve of how Obama is handling his duties as president. One in three questioned in the poll disapprove. The survey, released two days before Obama marks 100 days in the White House, indicates that three in four Americans feel Obama has the personal qualities a president should have. But when asked whether Obama agrees with the respondent on the issues, that number drops to 57 percent. "Americans have...

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...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Millions of people jobless. Billions of dollars in bailouts. Trillions of dollars in U.S. debt. And yet, for the first time in years, more Americans than not say the country is on the right track. In a sign that Barack Obama has inspired hopes for a brighter future in the first 100 days of his presidency, an Associated Press-GfK poll shows that 48 percent of Americans believe the United States is headed in the right direction — compared with 44 percent who disagree. The "right direction" number is up 8 points since February and a remarkable 31...

For the first time in years, more Americans than not say the country is headed in the right direction, a sign that Barack Obama has used the first 100 days of his presidency to lift the public's mood and inspire hopes for a brighter future. Intensely worried about their personal finances and medical expenses, Americans nonetheless appear realistic about the time Obama might need to turn things around, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll. It shows most Americans consider their new president to be a strong, ethical and empathetic leader who is working to change Washington. Nobody knows how long...

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...

What, exactly, are the protesters protesting? The marginal tax rate rising 3% for millionaires? The Web is buzzing with information about how to throw an anti-Obama Taxpayer Tea Party, something organizers hope will be held today from Santa Monica to South Carolina. But no need to burn up your bandwidth reading complicated instructions. Here's a simpler recipe: Go to a hobby store. Buy a scale model of a U.N. One-World-Government Black Helicopter and a tube of glue. Toss the model kit. Sniff the entire tube of glue. You're all set for the party. I can recall only a few outbreaks...

Now, this has occurred before with Bill Clinton, and it quite possibly could have been the same with Bush - the issue is how the MSM spins this and how it will report one way if you are affiliated with one party versus the other way when you have the “scarlet” R next to your name. From Flopping Aces: “Cheered wildly by U.S. troops,” begins Jennifer Democratic Operative Loven’s AP report on Obama’s surprise visit to Iraq on Tuesday. Quite a contrast to the silent treatment Marines gave Obama at his Camp LeJeune speech in late February. Just how did...

Meghan McCain: We Need More Gay Republicans! By David Knowles Apr 13th 2009 10:00AM Here's a question: Can Meghan McCain, the blog-a-lot daughter of Senator John McCain, help bring the Republican Party into the twenty-first century? Well, with her column at The Daily Beast, and during her many television interviews, she sure is giving it a go. Today's screed, for instance, attempts to light a fire under the Republican posterior on the matter of including gay rights in the party platform: If the Republican Party has any hope of gaining substantial support from a wider, younger base, we need to...

From John Ziegler, creator of the documentary Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted. On April 15th, the once upon a time prestigious (and apparently now openly a political leftist propaganda tool, akin to the Nobel Prize given to Paul Krugmann -not elevating leftist quacks, but rather tarnishing once noble institutions) USC Annenberg School for Communication will be presenting CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric with the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Journalism. Now, for there to even be such a thing as an prize for Excellence in Television Journalism, in an age where a...

Rasmussen Poll: Just 53% of Americans Say Capitalism Better Than Socialism... Developing...

Americans evenly divided at 49% on need for stricter gun lawsPRINCETON, NJ -- In Gallup polling conducted prior to last week's gun massacre at an immigrant center in Binghamton, N.Y., only 29% of Americans said the possession of handguns by private citizens should be banned in the United States. While similar to the 30% recorded in 2007, the latest reading is the smallest percentage favoring a handgun ban since Gallup first polled on this nearly 50 years ago.Public support for restricting the sale and possession of handguns to "police and other authorized persons" was relatively high in the early 1990s,...

LAS VEGAS — Ethan Hawke might want to avoid crossing paths with Toby Keith in the near future. The country star lit into the actor for an article Hawke wrote in the new issue of Rolling Stone about Kris Kristofferson. In it, Hawke refers to a blowup Kristofferson had with an unnamed country star back in 2003 that sounds a lot like Toby Keith. But a furious Keith, speaking backstage at the Academy of Country Music Awards, said it wasn't true, and added that Hawke did not name him in the story because he did not want to face him...

(CBS) As President Obama concludes his well-publicized trip to Europe, Americans are more positive about the respect accorded to a U.S. president than they have been in years, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll. Sixty-seven percent say world leaders respect Mr. Obama, while 18 percent say they do not respect the president. That's a sharp contrast to the response when this question was asked about Mr. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, in July 2006: Just 30 percent then said the president is respected by the leaders of other countries. Mr. Obama's overall approval rating, meanwhile, has hit...

She knew? You betcha, says the baby daddy of Sarah Palin's grandson. The Alaska governor most likely was aware before her daughter, Bristol, became pregnant that the teenager and her hockey hunk boyfriend were having sex, Levi Johnston said in a bombshell new interview. "I'm pretty sure she probably knew. Moms are pretty smart," said Johnston, 18, the father of the governor's first grandchild, in an interview that will air Monday on "The Tyra Banks Show." Johnston said he and Bristol Palin practiced safe sex "most of the time."