Free Republic

<p>Facts now pale in comparison with the higher truths of progressivism.</p> <p>Do bothersome facts matter anymore?</p> <p>Not really. This is an age when Americans were assured that the Affordable Care Act lowered our premiums. It cut deductibles. Obamacare allowed us to keep our doctors and health plans, and lowered the deficit. Those fantasies were both demonstrably untrue and did not matter, given the supposedly noble aims of health care reform.</p>

Everybody knows what the word "average" means and that it is the most widely used simple statistic. But it can be highly misleading. That occurred to me in two recent news reports. One article a week ago detailed how households would be affected if we returned to the tax rates in effect from 1994 to 2001, including an elaborate tabulation of the average annual increase for taxpayers by state. The second article dealt with average life expectancies relating to the solvency of Social Security and Medicare. In the first article, the tax increases detailed ranged from an average of about...

A new narrative seems to be developing about Barack Obama; that he is smart but also a "gaffe machine." The WSJ's John Fund writes: "As smart and credentialed as he is, Sen. Obama is often an indifferent speaker without a teleprompter. He has large gaps in his knowledge base, and is just as likely to dig in and embrace a policy misstatement as abandon it. ABC reporter Jake Tapper calls him "a one-man gaffe machine." Let's be honest, when you talk as much as presidential candidates must, some gaffes are unavoidable. Others occur when a candidate is tired. But Obama's...

60 Minutes' Steve Kroft Reports On Disappearance Of More Than $500 Million To Equip Iraqi Army (CBS) More than half a billion dollars earmarked to fight the insurgency in Iraq was stolen by people the U.S. had entrusted to run the country's Ministry of Defense before the 2005 elections, according to Iraqi investigators. Iraq's former minister of finance says coalition members like the U.S. and Britain are doing little to help recover the money or catch suspects, most of whom fled the country.

A longtime columnist of the Sacramento Bee who resigned amid controversy last month may have invented the existence of 43 people she wrote about over several years, an internal investigation found. The paper announced yesterday it had completed a probe into Diana Griego Erwin's writing, stating: "We have been unable to verify the existence of 43 people she named in her columns. This doesn't prove these people don't exist, but despite extensive research we have been unable to find them." Bee Executive Editor Rick Rodriguez wrote that recent tightening in editorial standards at the paper led to questions about the...

Amid speculation about a possible vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, The Washington Post apparently jumped the gun. A screenshot from the newspaper's Bloglines newsfeeds service captured by blogger Jason Kottke shows headlines and lead paragraphs of four stories about William Rehnquist, including one titled "Chief Justice Rehnquist Retires/Dies." The items are no longer on the Bloglines site, and WashingtonPost.com spokesman Eric Easter said the problem was due to "a publishing glitch." "Clearly it was part of a package that is being prepared, like all newsrooms do," he said. "It was just a potential headline, just in case. It got...

May 26, 2005) -- Newspaper Guild President Linda Foley made a public statement on May 13 that journalists are “being targeted for real in places like Iraq.” She has been trying to slide out of it ever since. Pressed by E&P’s Joe Strupp, Foley offered a clarification on who specifically was doing the targeting: “I was careful of not saying troops, I said U.S. military.” Everette Dennis, a former dean of a journalism school and founder of the Gannett Center for Media Studies, finds this a distinction without a difference. “A military without troops is inconceivable,” he told me this...

Attn DC Freepers: On the FRONT PAGE of today's business section, there is an article..."Big News Media Join in Push to Limit Use of Unidentified Sources" ( an excellent article, BTW..I did a search and it hasn't been posted as yet..can someone please do so?) there is a pic which I am positive is of the DC Freepers protesting a few days ago. I recognize the sign.."Newsweek Lied/ People Died"

Rick Rodriguez: Griego Erwin resigns amid internal inquiry into her columns By Rick Rodriguez -- Bee Executive Editor Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, May 12, 2005 Diana Griego Erwin, whose column has appeared in this space three days a week, resigned Wednesday amid an internal inquiry into whether some people mentioned in several recent columns actually existed. During our inquiry we found we could not authenticate the existence of several people even though they were identified by name, age and sometimes by the neighborhoods in which they were reported to have lived. We used extensive online database searches as well...

Probe Can't Confirm Sources in Freelancer's Stories for 'Wired News' Published: May 09, 2005 4:55 PM ET updated 8:00 PM SAN FRANCISCO An investigation into the sourcing and accuracy of news stories by a freelance journalist at a leading Internet news site concluded that the existence of dozens of people quoted in the articles could not be confirmed. Wired News, which publishes some articles from Wired magazine, paid for the review of stories by one of its frequent contributors, Michelle Delio, 37, of New York City. It was expected to disclose results late Monday. The review determined that dozens of...

The sloppy, inaccurate, "class-less", and potentially defamatory journalism displayed today by reporter Dan Feldstein and the Houston Chronicle in their article concerning my property taxes is a perfect example of why both the American public’s esteem for the mainstream media– and the Chronicle’s paid subscription numbers –continue to plummet like a stone. This article was a clear personal attack on me in an attempt to discredit my efforts to reform the property tax system and bring relief to Texas homeowners. It was also an attempt to destroy the trust I have earned with the public over a 16 year career...

CBS News executives, facing the prospect of a Rather-less evening news program for the first time in two decades, may experiment with a so-called "reality TV" newscast format, according to one unnamed network insider. "Anchors and personalities cost big bucks," said the source. "Instead of trying to find the next Dan Rather or Ted Baxter, we're thinking of getting back to basics. You know...just the facts. We're dead last now, so how bad could it get?" Indeed a notesheet obtained from a top-level CBS programming meeting seems to confirm that the network may be ready to shake things up. Here's...

WHEN you work for a newspaper, you get used to it. "Your paper is too liberal." "Your paper is too conservative." "It's too this." "It's too that." Then there was the phone call I got last week from Mike Papantonio, a talk host on the Air America Radio network — the liberal answer to Rush Limbaugh and conservative talk radio. He wanted to know why we didn't cover a story — even though we did. Air America has 15 stations across the country, but none in Houston. You can hear it on Sirius and XM Satellite Radio, however. Papantonio challenged...