Free Republic

Gunman who at one point was holding eight people is taken into custody early Thursday. AP

Today (Tuesday) the San Francisco Chronicle ran an editorial entitled, “Why Alito is the wrong choice.” Instead of demonstrating what it says, it demonstrates why the Chronicle has failed to do its homework as reporters, in preparing its editorial. Here’s why: The editorial begins with this statement: In some ways, Alito's taciturn approach to questions about the great constitutional issues of our time was similar to that of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. But the distinction between the history of the two judges -- and the role of the justice they were nominated to replace -- are important. First,...

The Chronicle of Higher Education yesterday published a story on Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. It spoke of her “playing a key role” in the late 1990s in establishing the Louise B. Raggio lectureship at Southern Methodist University, Miss Miers’ alma mater. The article says Miss Miers “pushed for the creation” of the Raggio speakers’ series. The Raggio lectureship brought an apparently unbroken string of pro-abortion speakers to the university’s Dallas campus. Among those tapped to enlighten young law students were Gloria Steinem, founder of Ms. Magazine and a veteran campaigner for liberal abortion laws. Also holding forth were Congresswoman...

Cancer patient Earl Robicheaux, his immune system depleted by radical chemotherapy, lay in a hospital bed as Hurricane Katrina bore down on New Orleans. Trying to leave, he thought, seemed suicidal. But after four days in the hospital's reeking darkness, he escaped via a Black Hawk helicopter that landed on the roof of the University Hospital under heavy guard because of the threat of sniper fire. It was not the evacuation plan authorities had envisioned for its sick, its elderly and its poor. As the floodwaters recede, serious questions remain about whether New Orleans and Louisiana officials followed their own...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- As the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle's datebook section, 58-year-old David Wiegand has pretty much seen it all. But when he met Sean Penn, Wiegand had the same reaction that a lot of us would have if we ever encountered the Oscar-winning actor. "You can't help but admire him," Wiegand said, reflecting on Penn's memorable performances in such powerful films as "Mystic River," "I Am Sam" and "Dead Man Walking." At the same time, Wiegand smiled and stressed that he "wasn't star-struck." That's good, because Wiegand couldn't afford the luxury, anyway. He edited Penn's ambitious...

Craig Newmark already has tormented newspapers by creating a Web site where anyone can post ads at little or no cost, capturing an ever-growing share of the classified advertising market that had been one of the industry's most dependable sources of revenue. Now, the founder of Craigslist.org is pondering ways to improve upon newspapers. He smells an opportunity, convinced that publishers are more interested in preserving short-term profits than pursuing online audiences who still passionately care about journalism but don't read newspapers. ``There is a lot of change coming and I want to make whatever contribution I can. I'm just...

Pasadena police on Friday were looking for a man who they said sold fake newspaper subscriptions, including one to the Houston Chronicle, to area residents earlier this week. According to Pasadena police, a man was going door-to-door in the 5000 block of Fairdale Street about 6 p.m. Thursday posing as a newspaper subscription salesman. At one home, the man, described as being between 30 and 40 years old, told a resident she could renew her subscription to the Pasadena Citizen for $10 a month, police spokesman Martin DeLeon said. The man asked the 61-year-old resident to write a check for...

You can make the argument that last year's Super Bowl kicked off the morality war in earnest, led by Janet Jackson's right breast and a host of crude commercials. This year an old guy sang at halftime and a cheap dot-com ad -- now there's a Super Bowl chestnut -- tried to send up the whole affair and failed. Does this mean we're a more civilized, less sex-obsessed, fully cultured country? Nah, it was still mostly beer, boobs, cars and head-crunching football all day long.

Nov. 23, 2004, 7:49PM The Chronicle's Nov. 22 editorial, "Shooting the messenger / In slapping the hand of Congressman Bell, a House committee risks discouraging future ethics complaints," revealed once again the Chronicle's bias against U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, which is costing the paper credibility with readers. No one believes the paper's position that the censure of lame duck Congressman Chris Bell will discourage honestly posed ethics complaints. Hopefully, it will discourage dishonest rhetoric, false accusations and mean-spirited, politically motivated charges made and timed to influence a political foe's campaign. If the Chronicle wants to write honest editorials,...

The earnings of many top university presidents are spiraling up toward $1 million a year, according to an annual survey by The Chronicle of Higher Education, rising far more quickly than faculty salaries. Forty-two presidents of private universities were paid $500,000 or more in the 2003 fiscal year, the most recent for which figures are available, compared with 27 presidents the previous year. Just two earned half a million in 1994. The highest-paid private university president, William R. Brody of Johns Hopkins University, earned $897,786 in university compensation, not counting at least $100,000 in annual pay for membership on several...

'Child's Pay' ad hits the airwaves Nixed by Super Bowl, dot-com moves on MoveOn.org, the politically left-leaning Internet-based advocacy group whose Super Bowl commercial criticizing the nation's deficit was rejected by CBS, is separately attacking President Bush in ads running in four states. The rejected ad had been selected the winner by a panel of judges in a competition staged by MoveOn.org. The ad, by Charlie Fisher of Denver, is called "Child's Pay,'' and shows children washing dishes in a restaurant, cleaning an office building, hauling trash and standing on an assembly line - with the tagline, "Guess who's going...

Has the President Gone on a "Spending Spree"? Only if you think that withdrawing from the war and surrendering the world to Osama bin Laden is a viable option. A lot of conservatives have been on a tear lately (myself included). Every time you turn around, someone is screaming about government spending and the there are those who are more than happy to exploit the confusion surrounding spending issues to erode support for the President. The San Francisco Chronicle recently put out a hit piece attempting to spin the spending numbers in a way that makes the President seem like...

<p>Nevada memo to George Bush: When making a first presidential visit to a state, use the right pronounciation of its name.</p> <p>Bush, in Las Vegas on Tuesday, repeatedly said Ne-vah-da. To properly pronounce Nevada, the middle syllable should rhyme with gamble.</p>

<p>Suppose you were a screenwriter and you used the Bush administration as a model for a screenplay. Do you think anyone in Hollywood would buy it?</p> <p>"Not a chance," would say Steven Spielberg. "Too outlandish. Nobody would believe anything as ridiculously far-fetched as that."</p>

The following was sent out earlier tonight with request for wide distribution...it seems to speak for itself. ------------------------------------------------- The bishops of the Reformed Episcopal Church recently released a statement on homosexuality in the wake of the ECUSA general convention. It was been fairly widely published both on the onternet and in local newspapers by of our parishes. It is printed below for reference. Recently the REC parishes in Houston attempted to run the ad in the upcoming saturday Religion section of Houston Chronicle( a left leaning paper which has been notoriously unsupportive of traditional anglicans for years). The cost we...

Calif. Journalist Suspended Over Antiwar Protest Fri Mar 28, 5:41 PM ET Add Entertainment - Reuters Industry to My Yahoo! By Adam Tanner SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A San Francisco Chronicle reporter suspended after getting arrested in an anti-war rally said on Friday that he felt unfairly treated and that no one should expect complete objectivity from a journalist. The Chronicle suspended technology reporter Henry Norr, 57, effective Thursday, after he was among more than 1,300 people arrested last week for blocking public streets on the first morning after the Iraq (news - web sites) war started. "I don't write...

Being bereft of hate crimes against Muslims to report, the Chronicle finally turned its attention to the rise of anti-Semitism across the nation, and in particular the Bay Area. Despite the fact that this has been a subject of concern for many since 9/11, the Chron has rarely addressed the issue. Even when Chron articles included so-called Hate Crime statistics showing that attacks on Jews had increased, they still buried the information under headlines that focused on anti-Muslim bias.

<p>A San Francisco Chronicle business and technology reporter has been suspended for at least two weeks without pay for getting arrested during ``peaceful civil disobedience'' in an anti-war demonstration.</p> <p>Henry Norr, a four-year veteran of the paper and author of the weekly column ``Tech 21,'' was among the more than 1,400 protesters arrested March 20, when he, his wife and his daughter helped block the intersection of Market and Sansome streets in San Francisco, near Citicorp offices.</p>

H Norr, an employee of the SF Chronicle was suspended for falsifying a time card taking a sick day off to protest the war.

It seems that the mainstream media is finding it harder and harder to ignore the pro-America rallies that have been taking place with increasing regularity all over the country. Even the Chronicle, which, up until now has steadfastly refused to provide any coverage of these rallies (while at the same time providing nonstop coverage of anti-war activities), has jumped on the bandwagon. Still, their article about the Rally for America that took place in Sacramento on Saturday, 3/22, contains the usual sprinkling of liberal bias. As someone who took part in the 3000-strong Sacramento rally, I’d like to try and...