Free Republic

Zaire Dinzey Flores is racist because she thinks black plagiarists should not be held to the same standard of accountability as white ones. This is called the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”

British rock band Led Zeppelin on Monday effectively won a long-running legal battle over claims it stole the opening guitar riff from its signature 1971 song “Stairway to Heaven.” The band, one of the best-selling rock acts of all time, was handed victory after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case, meaning that a March 2020 decision by a U.S. appeals court in Led Zeppelin’s favor will stand. Lead singer Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page had been accused in the six-year-long case of lifting the riff — one of the best-known openings in rock music —...

Jimmy Page was interviewed for a cover story in the latest issue of Uncut, where he talks about the potential of a LED ZEPPELIN film, career regrets (or not), and carrying on the legacy of ZEPPELIN as the best band in the world. Speaking to writer Michael Bonner about why he feels no other bands could come close to LED ZEPPELIN, Page said: "It's really hard to say something like that and not sound conceited, but over the years, a lot of other musicians have told me they thought we were the best. I'm not talking about record sales or...

Fareed Zakaria’s take on gun control for Time magazine is generating some buzz, but not because of what he has to say about firearms. Instead, the magazine editor-at-large and CNN host is taking heat for some suspicious similarities between his piece and a recent New Yorker article on the subject. NewsBusters flagged the two paragraphs Friday morning, which aside from some minor word and structural changes, bear a striking resemblance to one another. First, Zakaria’s “The Case for Gun Control” piece from Time magazine’s upcoming Aug. 20 issue: Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at UCLA, documents the actual...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) — Time editor-at-large and CNN host Fareed Zakaria has been suspended by both the magazine and the network for lifting several paragraphs by another writer for his use in a recent Time column.</p> <p>Zakaria apologized Friday, declaring in a statement he made "a terrible mistake," adding, "It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault."</p>

When CNN host and Time editor-at-large Fareed Zakaria wrote a new piece called “The Case for Gun Control,” it ended with a bang: “So when people throw up their hands and say we can't do anything about guns, tell them they're being un-American--and unintelligent.” Here’s something that suggests a lack of intelligence: plagiarism. Cam Edwards at NRANews.com suggested to me that Zakaria seemed to plagiarize a paragraph from an April article in The New Yorker magazine -- with a modicum word-usage changes and interjections (Texas!) in an attempt to paper it over. Here’s a paragraph from his Time piece: Adam...

NEW YORK (AP) — Time editor-at-large and CNN host Fareed Zakaria has been suspended by both the magazine and the network for lifting several paragraphs by another writer for his use in a recent Time column. Zakaria apologized Friday, declaring in a statement he made "a terrible mistake," adding, "It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault." In a separate statement, Time spokesman Ali Zelenko said the magazine accepts Zakaria's apology, but would suspend his column for one month, "pending further review." "What he did violates our own standards for our columnists, which is that their...

Her confirmation assured, Elena Kagan is on the brink of becoming the fourth woman ever to serve as a Supreme Court justice. The Senate is set Thursday to confirm President Barack Obama's nominee, whose addition to the court will mark the first time three female justices have served concurrently. Nearly all Democrats, the Senate's two independents and a handful of Republicans are backing her. The vote is to be one of the Senate's last actions before its members depart for a monthlong vacation. Republicans have harshly criticized Kagan, 50, as a political activist who would be unable to put...

How ironic that on a day when we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, The Daily Caller released 15 pages of JournoListers’ email exchanges about a dark and demented conspiracy regarding my son, Trig. It’s tough to fittingly describe these numerous members of the mainstream media who actively engaged in the debate about this conspiracy back when I was first introduced as John McCain’s running mate, and it’s impossible to legitimize any “prominent” media publication that continues to traffic in this bizarre narrative today. It wasn’t just a few fringe characters...

* Gov. Palin posted this Monday on her Facebook Notes page: Journey into the Media’s Heart of DarknessHow ironic that on a day when we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, The Daily Caller released 15 pages of JournoListers’ email exchanges about a dark and demented conspiracy regarding my son, Trig. It’s tough to fittingly describe these numerous members of the mainstream media who actively engaged in the debate about this conspiracy back when I was first introduced as John McCain’s running mate, and it’s impossible to legitimize any “prominent” media...

Spencer Ackerman - Wired, FireDogLake, Washington Independent, Talking Points Memo, The American Prospect Thomas Adcock - New York Law Journal Ben Adler - Newsweek, POLITICO Mike Allen - POLITICO Eric Alterman - The Nation, Media Matters for America Marc Ambinder - The Atlantic Greg Anrig - The Century Foundation Ryan Avent - Economist Dean Baker - The American Prospect Nick Baumann - Mother Jones Josh Bearman - LA Weekly Steven Benen - The Carpetbagger Report Ari Berman - The Nation Jared Bernstein - Economic Policy Institute Michael Berube - Crooked Timer, Pennsylvania State University Brian Beutler - The Media...

Spencer Ackerman - Wired, FireDogLake, Washington Independent, Talking Points Memo, The American Prospect Thomas Adcock - New York Law Journal Ben Adler - Newsweek, POLITICO Mike Allen - POLITICO Eric Alterman - The Nation, Media Matters for America Marc Ambinder - The Atlantic Greg Anrig - The Century Foundation Ryan Avent - Economist Dean Baker - The American Prospect Nick Baumann - Mother Jones Josh Bearman - LA Weekly Steven Benen - The Carpetbagger Report Ari Berman - The Nation Jared Bernstein - Economic Policy Institute Michael Berube - Crooked Timer, Pennsylvania State University Brian Beutler - The Media...

In 2007, when Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein founded JournoList, an online gathering place for several hundred liberal journalists, academics and political activists, he imagined a discussion group that would connect young writers to top sources. But in the heat of a bitter presidential campaign in 2008, the list’s discussions veered into collusion and coordination at key political moments, documents revealed this week by The Daily Caller show. In a key episode, JournoList members openly plotted to bury attention on then-candidate Barack Obama’s controversial pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The Washington Independent’s Spencer Ackerman, for instance, suggested an effective tactic...

The following 65 names are confirmed members of the now-defunct JournoList listserv. 1. Ezra Klein 2. Dave Weigel 3. Matthew Yglesias 4. David Dayen 5. Spencer Ackerman 6. Jeffrey Toobin 7. Eric Alterman 8. Paul Krugman 9. John Judis 10. Eve Fairbanks 11. Mike Allen 12. Ben Smith 13. Lisa Lerer 14. Joe Klein 15. Brad DeLong 16. Chris Hayes 17. Matt Duss 18. Jonathan Chait 19. Jesse Singal 20. Michael Cohen 21. Isaac Chotiner 22. Katha Pollitt 23. Alyssa Rosenberg 24. Rick Perlstein 25. Alex Rossmiller 26. Ed Kilgore 27. Walter Shapiro 28. Noam Scheiber 29. Michael Tomasky 30....

There's a funny story about Barack Obama at Harvard Law, both funny-ha-ha and funny-peculiar. It involves one of those cloud-borne Himalayan intellects of liberalism, Professor Larry Tribe, the Tyler Professor of Constitutional Law at one of the most prestigious law schools in the United States. Tribe is the legal giant who is always a bridesmaid but never a bride for the Supremes. And yea verily, the Professor met and held converse with The Blessed Lightworker Himself back in the nineties. The story doesn't say if they were both stoned out of their minds when they got together, but it's the...

Be with you in a sec. Gotta finish this bag of Cheetos. Man, what a mess down here in Mom's basement. Let's see, where were we? Barnicle. Right. Bloggers. Doesn't think much of us. On this evening's Hardball, decrying the decline of bi-partisanship, Barnicle put much of the blame on the blogosphere. Subbing for Chris Matthews, Barnicle had as his guest historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. The jumping off point was a clip of Obama saying he could imagine naming McCain as his head of Homeland Security. Barnicle wondered whether that was feasible in what he sees as a hyper-partisan age,...