Free Republic

A conservative columnist who was suspended by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch after she defended the National Rifle Association from comparisons to ISIS fired back with her resignation and a series of targeted tweets. The newspaper on Friday suspended Stacy Washington after a column entitled “Guns and the Media” disputed an anti-NRA article that argued since more Americans die from guns than from ISIS, the Second Amendment advocacy group is the greater danger. “[W]hen has a member of the NRA ever decapitated, set on fire, tossed from a rooftop or otherwise terrorized another American? The linkage is not only rife with...

ST. LOUIS • Tom Schweich, Missouri's Republican state auditor and a leading contender for the governor's office in next year's election, has died, according to his office. Earlier in the day, a police source said Schweich had sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The police source said Schweich's wife was in another room of their house when she heard her husband making phone calls, followed by a single gunshot. He was 54. His death was confirmed by his office early Thursday afternoon, just hours after Schweich had requested an interview with reporters for the Post-Dispatch and the Associated Press at his...

The Post-Dispatch said Friday that it will require all nonunion employees to take a week off without pay in the next two months, as parent company Lee Enterprises tries to cut costs and renegotiate $306 million in debt that's coming due. The news came as Lee announced a third extension of a waiver granted by its lenders on the debt — until Friday. The company has been in technical default since Dec. 31 because auditors do not think it can make a $142.5 million payment due in April. The company continues talking with lenders on a plan to restructure the...

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is laying off 39 employees, including 14 in the newsroom. The others are in operations, advertising and finance departments. Publisher Kevin Mowbray said in a story Thursday at the STLtoday.com that the layoffs result from a fall in advertising revenue caused by the recession. The Post-Dispatch is owned by Davenport, Iowa-based Lee Enterprises, whose stock has declined since it bought Pulitzer Inc. in 2005. Pulitzer previously owned the Post-Dispatch. The newspaper announced 20 layoffs in September in production, marketing and the newsroom, and 31 layoffs last March — none from the news department. In September 2007,...

DES MOINES, Iowa Newspaper publisher Lee Enterprises Inc. reported a loss for its second fiscal quarter, primarily the result of a previously announced charge related to future liability involving the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The company said Monday it lost $4.45 million, or 10 cents a share, in the quarter ended March 30. A year ago, the company reported it earned $11.9 million, or 26 cents a share. Excluding one-time charges, the company earned 8 cents a share in the second quarter compared with 19 cents a year ago. Sales declined 4.7 percent to $247.7 million for the quarter and circulation...

Newspaper owner Lee Enterprises Inc. expects a net loss in its fiscal second quarter and fiscal year because of a write-down that could total $500 million to $700 million. Lee, publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Lincoln Journal Star and 49 other newspapers, expects to write down the value of goodwill and other intangible assets, including some newspaper mastheads, in the quarter ending March 30. The company said it will include an estimated value of the write-down when it reports second-quarter results because the final amount will not be determined for several months. Lee said the difference between its stock...

There are substantial revisions to our lineup and schedule of syndicated national columnists: Six columnists from our current lineup - Charles Krauthammer, Jonah Goldberg, Maureen Dowd, Leonard Pitts, David Broder and Ellen Goodman - are continuing, but their work will appear on different days of the week. We're adding five new columnists to the page - three conservative, two liberal - with an eye toward freshening up the mix and upgrading the quality of the writing and advocacy. Conservative Michael Barone, a senior writer for U.S. News & World Report and principal co-writer of the "Almanac of American Politics," has...

...Terry McAuliffe called the program "an illegal in-kind contribution" to the Bush campaign and said the Democratic National Committee is filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission. Over at the FCC, Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps interrupted his Columbus Day holiday to dub the broadcast "an abuse of the public trust." More ominously, Kerry adviser Chad Clanton told Fox News yesterday that "I think they (Sinclair) are going to regret doing this, and they better hope we don't win." ...It wasn't the intention of the Founders to give elected officials veto power over press reports.... The excuse for such broadcast...

<p>JEFFERSON CITY - Gov. Bob Holden on Friday delivered good news to Missouri's 524 public school districts and did what Republicans have been asking him to do for months.</p> <p>Holden released $127 million that he had withheld from public schools and universities last year to balance the state budget. Holden, a Democrat, said a combination of positive budgeting developments - not improving state revenue - prompted him to make the decision.</p>

Anti-Union actions conflict with P-D's editorial philosophy and past stances.Management's demands would be the first step to breaking the St. Louis Newspaper Guild, which has represented the bulk of Post-Dispatch employees for over 60 years.Hypocrisy, pure and simple.  The Post-Dispatch has a long and honorable history of championing the rights of unions and ordinary working people. The newspaper is proud of the support it has given over the decades to the development of the union movement. That is why the newspaper's current position in bargaining with its own employees is so glaringly contrary to its own stated beliefs, and why our...

<p>Hoping to spend as much as it wants on next year's elections, the National Rifle Association is looking to buy a television or radio station and declare that it should be treated as a news organization, exempt from spending limits in the campaign finance law. "We're looking at bringing a court case that we're as legitimate a media outlet as Disney or Viacom or Time-Warner," the NRA's executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, told the Associated Press.</p>

Question of the day: Do you favor a 24-hour waiting period before a woman can get an abortion, as advanced by the Missouri House? YES--It helps to protect women from making a decision they may regret NO--It treats women as if they are incapable of making their own decisions

Question of the day: The concealed weapon debate is back in Missouri. Who do you think should be able to carry them? No one Anyone with the proper training and no criminal background Anyone with the proper training, regardless of background Everyone over 21, regardless of training or background