Free Republic

For at least the past two years, Americans have lived in an extended state of suspense about what could be the most nefarious scandal in the nation’s political history. Evidence has piled up suggesting that the Trump campaign teamed with the Russian state in pursuit of electoral victory. Some of this evidence is circumstantial and hardly conclusive; some of it is pretty damn concrete. The hard evidence, alas, reveals more about the motives of the central characters than the shape of the narrative. There’s hard-and-fast proof that Trump’s innermost circle was more than willing to work with the Russians. And...

In the shifting saga of how members of the Trump campaign/administration ended up having their phone conversations tapped under the Obama administration, the American people have been fed a series of shifting excuses on how the Obama administration would never violate the laws concerning surveillance of US Persons. We were told the President cannot order such surveillance (which we know is a false statement, see here and here). Then we were given the impression by the Fake News Media these “intercepts” were under a FISA court warrant. But later we learned the FISA court rejected the application by Team Obama...

This spring, a group of computer scientists set out to determine whether hackers were interfering with the Trump campaign. They found something they weren’t expecting. ...snip In late July, one of these scientists—who asked to be referred to as Tea Leaves, a pseudonym that would protect his relationship with the networks and banks that employ him to sift their data—found what looked like malware emanating from Russia. The destination domain had Trump in its name, which of course attracted Tea Leaves’ attention. But his discovery of the data was pure happenstance—a surprising needle in a large haystack of DNS lookups...

ON THE AFTERNOON of September 26, George W. Bush gathered 15 prominent Muslim- and Arab-Americans at the White House. With cameras rolling, the president proclaimed that “the teachings of Islam are teachings of peace and good.” (SNIP) And he has done so to their mutual political benefit. During the 2000 campaign, Norquist urged Karl Rove to focus on the Muslim vote—pointing to, among other things, the thousands of Muslims in the key state of Michigan. By all appearances, the Bush campaign heeded Norquist’s advice. In an admirable departure from the usual Republican script, Bush frequently integrated mosques into his platitudes...

SHOCK DOCS: THE NEW REPUBLIC 'SHOCK TROOPS' STORY COLLAPSESWED Oct 24 2007 12:29:44 ET The DRUDGE REPORT has optained internal documents from the investigation of THE NEW REPUBLIC'S "Baghdad Diarist", Scott Thomas Beauchamp, an Army private turned war correspondent who reported tales of military malfeasance from the Iraq War front. The documents appear to expose that once the veracity of Beauchamp's diaries were called into question, and an Army investigation ensued, THE NEW REPUBLIC has failed to publicly account for publishing slanderous falsehoods about the U.S. military in a time of war. Document 1: Beauchamp Refuses to Stand by...

The Weekly Standard has learned from a military source close to the investigation that Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp -- author of the much-disputed "Shock Troops" article in the New Republic's July 23 issue as well as two previous "Baghdad Diarist" columns -- signed a sworn statement admitting that all three articles he published in the New Republic were exaggerations and falsehoods -- fabrications containing only "a smidgen of truth," in the words of our source. Separately, we received this statement from Major Steven F. Lamb, the deputy Public Affairs Officer for Multi National Division-Baghdad: "An investigation has been completed and...

Bottom Line: Following the standards of journalism adopted by The New Republic and by my post-modern colleagues in the Academy, I have decided to report on my experiences in Iraq. Now I have never been to Iraq, but I am told (by modern academics) that it is not the literal truth of the story that counts, but whether the story “smells right” or has the right over arching plot. It seems good to try this out and write a story that is not true, but which accepts all the premises about the War and the troops that I am supposed...

In a famous passage in his Confessions, St. Augustine admits that as a young boy he ran with a bad crowd and fabricated stories to impress his friends. I was ashamed among other youths that my viciousness was less than theirs: I heard them boasting of their exploits...not only for the pleasure of the act but for the pleasure of the boasting....and when I lacked opportunity to equal others in vice, I invented things I had not done, lest I might be held cowardly for being innocent, or contemptible for being chaste....Someone cries, 'Come on, let's do it'--and we would...

After a thorough investigation that lasted nearly a week the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division has concluded that the allegation made by Private Thomas Scott Beauchamp, the "Baghdad Diarist", have been "refuted by members of his platoon and proven to be false" The official investigation the 4th IBCT Public Affairs Office qualified as "thorough and professional" concluded late August 1st. Officials would not speculate on the possibility of further action against Private Beauchamp, nor would they confirm his current whereabouts or status. Sergeant First Class Robert Timmons, the acting public affairs official of the 4th IBCT, 1st...

A STATEMENT FROM SCOTT THOMAS BEAUCHAMP: As we've noted in this space, some have questioned details that appeared in the Diarist "Shock Troops," published under the pseudonym Scott Thomas. According to Major Kirk Luedeke, a public affairs officer at Forward Operating Base Falcon, a formal military investigation has also been launched into the incidents described in the piece. Although the article was rigorously edited and fact-checked before it was published, we have decided to go back and, to the extent possible, re-report every detail. This process takes considerable time, as the primary subjects are on another continent, with intermittent access...

Surprisingly enough, there’s actually something interesting in Howard Kurtz’ characteristically lifeless rundown on the Scott Beauchamp drama. As usual, Kurtz entered the fray days late and with little to add. Nonetheless, he concluded his piece in compelling fashion by quoting GWU journalism professor Mark Feldstein. “There is a cloud over the New Republic, but there's one hanging over the Army, as well,” Feldstein noted. “Each investigated this and cleared themselves, but they both have vested interests.” Feldstein must not have gotten Franklin Foer’s memo. The Baghdad Diarists were supposed to represent one soldier’s “discrete” impressions of the war and how...

Not long after he purchased The New Republic, Chris Hughes had lunch with me, as he was doing with quite a few journalists around Washington. At one point, he asked me who the best editor had been during my 16 years. I had worked for a half dozen editors, several of them great, but it was an easy question. I replied “Frank Foer” so quickly that Hughes appeared startled. I don’t think my answer convinced Hughes to hire Foer as TNR’s editor, because I’m sure anybody else who worked with him said the same, and anyway, Frank Foer was born...

It took four months of dodging, ducking, bobbing, and weaving, but bloggers have finally pinned Franklin Foer and The New Republic to the mat. Yesterday afternoon, Foer's online edition of the magazine published a long, self-pitying, highly defensive screed about the Scott Beauchamp articles that accused American soldiers of casual atrocities in Iraq in which the Editor of The New Republic admitted the magazine would no longer stand behind or vouch for their accuracy: "When I last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to stand by his stories. Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine require more than that....

We've talked to military personnel directly involved in the events that Scott Thomas Beauchamp described, and they corroborated his account as detailed in our statement. When we called Army spokesman Major Steven F. Lamb and asked about an anonymously sourced allegation that Beauchamp had recanted his articles in a sworn statement, he told us, "I have no knowledge of that." He added, "If someone is speaking anonymously [to The Weekly Standard], they are on their own." When we pressed Lamb for details on the Army investigation, he told us, "We don't go into the details of how we conduct our...

Remember Scott Beauchamp? The soldier who wrote stories from the Middle East, about things like mocking a disfigured woman in a chow hall, running over a dog and wearing pieces of baby skull under helmets? The tales never rang true, but the editors of The New Republic ran with them like crack addicts looking for more baking soda. Now that TNR has posted a whinging, non-apology, Franklin Foer is your editorial man of the hour whose self-effacing pen is less mighty than his apparent ego. And that’s why there’s already a new movie out. See source for lotsa kewl links....

Roughly two dozen staffers and contributing editors at The New Republic resigned on Friday as the result of what one of them described as an ugly cultural clash between a traditional journalistic institution and the Silicon Valley management style of its owner, a Facebook co-founder. The exodus marks the second time in recent months that a media venture backed by a tech industry tycoon encountered resistance from journalists who bristled over management’s new approach.

In a memo to staff yesterday announcing a masthead shake-up, New Republic chief executive Guy Vidra wrote that a reduction in the frequency of the 100-year-old magazine would require a staff “restructuring,” a common euphemism for layoffs. Well, that may not be necessary considering that a whole herd of staffers resigned en masse following the defenestration of top editor Franklin Foer and longtime literary editor Leon Wieseltier. Have a look at the departures.... Perhaps the “restructuring” will now come in the form of a hiring spree to fill vacancies created by the newsroom-wide disgust with Foer’s firing. A group of...