Free Republic

After months of what some critics called overexposure, President Obama has of late avoided questions from the White House press corps at large, closing the Oval Office to traditionally informal question-and-answer sessions with reporters and pulling back from the fast pace of news conferences he established when taking office. The president, whose job-approval ratings have been on a steady slide...

Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants could receive health care coverage from their employers under the bills winding their way through Congress, despite President Obama's explicit pledge that illegal immigrants would not benefit. The House bill mandates, and the Senate bill strongly encourages, businesses to extend health care coverage to all employees. But the bills do not have exemptions to screen out illegal immigrants, who usually obtain jobs by using false identities and are indistinguishable from legal workers.

BEIJING – Washington's ambassador to Beijing hit out Friday at negative U.S. media coverage of President Barack Obama's visit to China, saying it failed to take into account important progress on many issues. Although producing no breakthroughs on key issues, Obama's first state visit to the Asian giant that ended Wednesday was heralded by both sides as a success. The trip was the top news story in China, drawing strong interest from the Chinese public who, surveys suggest, are largely positive in their view of the American president.

Seinfeld fans should love Harry Reid's health scare plan. Reid wants to spend almost a trillion of your tax dollars over the next decade for ... nothing. According to reports, Reid's plan would leave 24 million people uninsured in 2019. That is approximately the same number of people that some studies show who are currently uninsured because they can't afford health insurance. One dirty, big secret that Dr. Reid, Nurse Nancy, and Orderly Obama don't want you to know is that a significant number of uninsured Americans can afford health insurance; they just choose not to purchase it. Many are...

THE health-care-reform debate is plagued by different num bers on how many Ameri cans lack health insurance, but we actually have excellent data on the question: Ninety percent of Americans are insured, according to the Census -- and even the president more or less concurs. The Census is the source for the much-cited figure of 46 million uninsured. Yet the very same table plainly indicates that 9 million of those are not US citizens. That leaves 37 million uninsured who are Americans. But there's more. In the same document, the Census also plainly states that "health-insurance coverage is underreported" in...

RC-East Media Ground Rules: 1. Media on Bagram Air Field will not take photographs, video or conduct interviews unless escorted by Public Affairs personnel. 2. All interviews will be on the record. 3. During interviews, no questions will be asked about the politics of the military. (e.g. Iraq war, equipment, readiness, funding, etc.) 4. When embedded with a unit, media must remain with that unit at all times. 5. The media is responsible for loading and carrying its own equipment at all times. 6. Media will not carry or possess personal weapons, knives, firearms, pornography or alcohol. 7. Visible light...

As health-care legislation advances through Congress, the young adults who were so vital to President Obama's election are emerging as a significant beneficiary of his top domestic priority, but they are also likely to play a major role in funding any reform. In a campaign-style rally Thursday at the University of Maryland at College Park, Obama will aim to tap his richest vein of support -- voters younger than 30 -- to help sell his reform plan to a more skeptical general public. "We're at an important turning point in our push for real reform," read the e-mailed invitation, "and...

Abortion measure passes, then fails, in House Thursday, July 30, 2009 An anti-abortion amendment to a sweeping health overhaul bill was voted down in a House committee late Thursday — a dramatic reversal just hours after the measure initially was approved. The amendment said health care legislation moving through Congress may not impose requirements for coverage of abortion, except in limited cases. It was approved in the Energy and Commerce Committee after conservative Democrats joined Republicans to support it. But committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., invoked House rules that allowed him to bring up the amendment for a second vote,...

Massachusetts' budget forces retreat from universal coverage15. July 2009 18:40 "The new state budget in Massachusetts eliminates health care coverage for some 30,000 legal immigrants to help close a growing deficit, reversing progress toward universal coverage just as Congress looks to the state as a model for overhauling the nation’s health care system," the New York Times reports. The affected immigrants are permanent residents who have had green cards for less than five years and are insured through the Commonwealth Care program, an insurance program created by the 2006 law that brought near-universal coverage to Massachusetts. The cuts would save...

Senate bill fines people refusing health coverageBy RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR – 58 minutes ago WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans who refuse to buy affordable medical coverage could be hit with fines of more than $1,000 under a health care overhaul bill unveiled Thursday by key Senate Democrats looking to fulfill President Barack Obama's top domestic priority. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the fines will raise around $36 billion over 10 years. Senate aides said the penalties would be modeled on the approach taken by Massachusetts, which now imposes a fine of about $1,000 a year on individuals who refuse to get coverage....

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Nearly two out of three Americans believe the media gave too much coverage to the death of Michael Jackson and just three percent think it was too little, according to a survey published on Wednesday. Twenty-nine percent of the 1,000 people polled June 26-29 for the survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press believe the coverage of Jackson's sudden death on Thursday at the age of 50 was the "right amount." Thirty percent of those polled said they followed the coverage of Jackson's death "very closely" while 28 percent said they followed...

Veterans Groups Protest Proposed Change In Coverage For Injuries, Conditions Related To Military ServiceArticle Date: 11 Mar 2009 - 5:00 PDT Several veterans groups "are lashing out" at the Obama administration over a policy proposal they say would "dramatically alter" how the Department of Veterans Affairs handles health insurance claims for veterans, The Hill reports. Under the policy, which is included in President Obama's fiscal year 2010 budget proposal, VA would bill health insurers for treatment of injuries and conditions sustained as a result of veterans' military service. Currently, VA covers those costs and bills health insurers only for treatment...

Oh, the broadcast cameos and photo ops are magnificent. but surprise: Even Pew Research says the press has turned "bearish" on President. Obama. Grrrr.

Main Entry:lick·spit·tle Pronunciation: \ˈlik-ˌspi-təl\ Function: nounDate:1825 : a fawning subordinate : toady Alternate spellings: ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN... Context Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). Servility Sycophant, parasite; toad, toady, toad-eater; tufthunter; snob, flunky, flunkey, yes-man, lapdog, spaniel, lickspittle, smell-feast, Graeculus esuriens, hanger on, cavaliere servente, led captain, carpet knight; timeserver, fortune hunter, Vicar of Bray, Sir-Pertinax, Max Sycophant, pickthank; flatterer; doer of dirty work; ame damnee, tool; reptile; slave; (servant); courtier; beat, dead beat, doughface , heeler, homme de cour, sponger, sucker, tagtail, truckler.

The Media Research Center has quantified, documented and exposed media bias for its 20 years of existence. But media bias has a new dimension – media garbage, which is false information or unsubstantiated rumors. Media garbage is an outgrowth of the speed and proliferation of 24/7 news, the Internet, the blogosphere and the race to be the first to report a sensational story, sensationalize a non-story or capture the often-desired mantel of journalistic achievement called “gotcha”. Ever since Dan Rather of CBS News was fired for insisting that phony National Guard records about President Bush were true, most media outlets...

Civic Center seems to be turning ugly. According to Metropolitan photographer Dawn Madura police started moving protesters in to the park. They had previously been in the streets. About 100 cops surrounded the park. Traffic had to be diverted. The march that wound through city streets, stopping traffic and causing police to scramble to mediate between motorists and marchers was dubbed "Reclaiming the Streets". The mass was made up of 37 different liberal groups that entered the streets without a permit. A young girl was seen being arrested for being in the street. She resisted arrest and was forced into...

McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis asked Sunday for a meeting with Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, to protest what the campaign called signs that the network is "abandoning non-partisan coverage of the Presidential race." Davis made the request Sunday in a letter that is part of an aggressive effort by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to counter news coverage he considers critical. Politico has asked NBC for a response and will post that here when it arrives.

On his program last night Fox News host Bill O'Reilly blasted his cable competitors for their "delight in showing Iraqi violence," a product of an editorial mindset at CNN and MSNBC that "want[s] Americans to think badly of President Bush." "And that strategy has succeeded," he added. O'Reilly's words came in response to remarks made by CNN president Jon Klein who accused FNC of dialing back Iraq coverage as violence in Iraq has increased. "It illustrates the danger of cheerleading for one particular point or another because they were obviously cheerleaders for the war," He told the AP. "When the...

BERKELEY -- By a unanimous vote, the Berkeley City Council took the first step Tuesday night toward including sex change surgery in employee health care benefits. The proposal is modeled after a similar benefit in effect in San Francisco since 2001. The council ordered the city manager to create a feasibility study before the measure comes back to the council in six months for final approval. The vote was cast without comment, in contrast to the media frenzy that broke out last week after the proposal was put on the agenda. Councilman Darryl Moore, who co-sponsored the resolution with his...

For all its firepower, Israel’s military is at a disadvantage fighting Hamas and Hezbollah because internationally accepted rules of military engagement hamstring democratic nation-states battling non-state terrorist groups. This is true even when terrorists show utter contempt for all standards of human decency and engage in wanton killing — a sign of how ineffective the rules of engagement are in today’s era of asymmetrical warfare.