Free Republic

Are bloggers against hate, or feeding it? Blogs dedicated to protecting America against terrorism are troubling the Muslim community. By S.I. ROSENBAUM Published January 16, 2006 It's 4 a.m. Somewhere near Coral Springs, Joe Kaufman is still at his computer. Blurry with fatigue, he types: It has been said that 80 percent of all the mosques ... inside the United States are ... tied to a radical form of Islam. ... One of the American locations that ... influence has been prevalent is the Tampa-St. Pete area of Southwest Florida. Kaufman is 35, clean-shaven, a lawyer's assistant. He goes inline...

And so we come to the illustrious S. I. Rosenbaum of the St. Pete rag, with whom I wasted thirty or 45 minutes of my life a few days ago, while if I had not been fool enough to think that she might be decent and fair I could have slavered a little and given her what she wanted in no more than twenty seconds. Rosenbaum called me looking for material for her story which appears today, "Are bloggers against hate, or feeding it?" (thanks to all who sent this in). You can imagine which side she comes down on,...

Blogs dedicated to protecting America against terrorism are troubling the Muslim community. Kaufman's site is only one of a constellation of blogs with names like JihadWatch.com, MilitantIslamMonitor.org, and WesternResistance.com that are dedicated to the surveillance of American Muslims. The blogs link to one another, with more-traveled sites amplifying stories from more obscure ones, like Kaufman's. Last month, after Kaufman called a Tampa Muslim religious retreat a "jihad camp for children" and wrote that the speakers were "linked to al-Qaida," death threats poured in to the Presbyterian camp hosting the event. Muslims say the blogs breed hate. "He's spreading lies, slandering...

Just got this in email from NewsMax: "Blogger Posts Phony Mel Gibson: A Web site calling itself melgibsonsblog, and bearing Mel Gibson's photo, is filled with anti-Semitic comments and other outrageous statements, much of them in Latin. Gibson fans should rest easy: The blog is a hoax, though it claims to be a personal blog by the 'Passion' producer and Hollywood celebrity. Alerted by Canada Free Press editor Judy McLeod - who wrote about a new blog allegedly posted by Gibson - NewsMax located the Web site and checked with a colleague close to the actor/producer. NewsMax was told flat...

Talk radio, cable news, and the blogosphere freed U.S. political discourse. The Left wants to rein it in again. The rise of alternative media—political talk radio in the eighties, cable news in the nineties, and the blogosphere in the new millennium—has broken the liberal monopoly over news and opinion outlets. The Left understands acutely the implications of this revolution, blaming much of the Democratic Party’s current electoral trouble on the influence of the new media’s vigorous conservative voices. Instead of fighting back with ideas, however, today’s liberals quietly, relentlessly, and illiberally are working to smother this flourishing universe of political...

This week's Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Judge Samuel Alito appear to have given rise to a new sport in the blogosphere: Whack-A-Pol. Here's how the game is played: Every time a senator pops up with a comment on Alito, bloggers whack 'em down with a rhetorical hammer. But unlike the game Whack-A-Mole, where the nimble moles often avoid the blows by ducking into their holes, no senator -- regardless of party or popularity outside the realm of mouth-to-mouth combat over judicial nominations -- can escape the jabs of bloggers. Even worse, bloggers tend to prefer hammers of the sledge...

Just a quick announcement of my new blog: RightWinged.comI intend to be a slightly different kind of media watchdog, in addition to covering the regular news I will be busting the omissions, spin, and lies of the liberal media in places most wouldn't otherwise find. Plus, I'll serve up news with the proper framing, comentary, and analysis when it's required. I actually enjoy this stuff a lot too, so expect a lot of humor. I like photoshopping and political cartoons, so you should expect a bunch of that included in my posts. Anyway, again, just a new blog announcement if...

I'm in D.C. today for a "blogger forum" being held by the Republican National Committee. The morning session will feature RNC head Ken Mehlman, briefings from RNC senior staff on races, polling, and blogs, plus live-blogging of Judge Alito's opening statement. The afternoon session will be led by White House senior staff and will conclude with a Q&A hosted by Fred Barnes, who is coming out with a new book on President Bush. The RNC is providing bloggers with an Internet connection and brown bag lunch. Nothing more and nothing expected in return. I'll post dispatches throughout the day. ***...

While her toddler son slept, Carrie Lynch of Madison sat down at her computer last week and stepped into a public square of pixels and Web pages. The 34-year-old political insider and stay-at-home mom launched her Web log of leftwing commentary on a prominent local Web site Wednesday, joining a growing horde of pundits and partisans looking to play a modest but unprecedented role in the November state elections. "That's pretty crazy. I'm surprised," Lynch said when she learned that by noon Friday, 100 people had logged on to read the post she'd written in her pajamas that morning. "It's...

With the Christmas political hiatus over, Canada's politicians have ramped up their election campaigns for the final push toward Jan. 23. And in this election, with the ebb and flow of promises, optics and positioning, one communications tool already making a big difference is the Internet weblog or "blog" as it's called. A blog is a personal website where the author posts journal entries, commentaries and thoughts, usually daily or in some chronological sequence. Some people use their blogs as diaries, although why you'd wax on about "what I did today" for more than two billion people on the Net...

WASHINGTON - Wonkette is getting a new identity. Ana Marie Cox, the voice behind the racy and gossip-filled political blog, is stepping down later this month after signing a second book deal. Taking her place will be David Lat, a 30-year-old lawyer who anonymously wrote the irreverent legal blog Underneath Their Robes. Alex Pareene, 20, who has been a guest editor on the New York-based Gawker.com, will join Lat as coeditor. Cox, 33, became known for her sometimes bawdy musings about goings-on in the nation's capital. Her first novel, "Dog Days," comes out this week, and she recently signed a...

A dispute between a self-described "Republican operative" and a former Democratic campaign organizer widely quoted in Minnesota media has turned into a libel lawsuit that could help set legal standards for Internet blogs. The suit pits Blois Olson, a Democratic public relations executive who is a frequent guest on Twin Cities Public Television's "Almanac" show, against Michael

The following is a snip from www.democratsexposed.com: "I have been informed by a source in direct contact with Coleen Rowley's campaign, that Blois Olson's PR firm, New School Communications, tried to get Rowley's campaign to hire Blois' firm for a consulting contract. Buck Humphrey, an employee of New School Communications, was the main person trying to get Rowley's campaign to ink the contract. Rowley's campaign decided against hiring New School Communications. According to my source, it was only after Rowley's campaign decided against hiring Blois' firm that Blois started to appear in newspapers criticizing Rowley's campaign. If my source is...

This morning I heard Rush Limbaugh infer that the people who run DailyKos make and receive phone calls to people in the Democratic hierarchy. Is this true? Is the site connected directly to the Democratic party? Can anyone provide some solid sourcing on this?

Guilt by association. It is a common tool used to discredit those deemed a threat to the established order. Recently, I've found myself on the receiving end of such a tactic courtesy of a piece by Jonathan Finer and Douglas Struck in the Washington Post. On the day after Christmas, the Washington Post featured an article titled "Bloggers, Money Now Weapons in Information War — U.S. Recruits Advocates to the Front, Pays Iraqi TV Stations for Coverage," of which my recent embed in Iraq was the subject of scrutiny as a military-information operation. It is a fact-challenged article that manages...

"I envision a future where there'll be 300 million reporters, where anyone from anywhere can report for any reason. It's freedom of participation absolutely realized." —Matt Drudge in his 1998 Speech to the National Press Club The future is not yet. Despite the talk about the influence of blogs, the medium is still in the process of change and growth. According to a study published in early 2005 by the Pew Research Center, 62% of Internet users don't even know what a blog is. 27% are Blog Readers and 7% have published their own blogs. Even big blogs like Glenn...

Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel, or so goes the old saw. For decades, the famous and the infamous alike largely followed this advice. Even when subjects of news stories felt they had been misunderstood or badly treated, they were unlikely to take on reporters or publishers, believing that the power of the press gave the press the final word. The Internet, and especially the amplifying power of blogs, is changing that. Unhappy subjects discovered a decade ago that they could use their Web sites to correct the record or deconstruct articles to expose...

Jack Kelly: Shooting the new messenger An article about blogger Bill Roggio shows mainstream media running scared Sunday, January 01, 2006 It was the journalistic equivalent of a drive-by shooting. The targets of Washington Post reporters Jonathan Finer and Doug Struck were two of journalism's favorites: Web loggers and the U.S. military.           "Bloggers, Money, Now Weapons in Information War," read the headline over their story, which appeared Monday. "U.S. Recruits Advocates to the Front, Pays Iraqi TV Stations for Coverage," the subhed said. "Retired soldier Bill Roggio was a computer technician living in New Jersey...

Tory campaign worker resigns after blog posting Updated Fri. Dec. 30 2005 9:12 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff The campaign manager for Conservative Party member Peter Goldring stepped down Friday, after writing a blog posting that called for Alberta's independence. Gordon Stamp, who posts under the pseudonym "Psycho," wrote on Free Dominion: "I honestly see no benefit for Alberta to remain part of Canada. Seriously, there is absolutely nothing that Canada as a nation offers me." He goes on to compare Alberta to "a battered wife who has not yet realized that being divorced is better than staying married." While...

NEWARK, N.J. - A young federal prosecutor who was revealed as the author of a spicy blog about the judiciary is leaving the inner circle. David Lat, who had been the anonymous writer of "Underneath Their Robes," left his job as an assistant U.S. attorney in Newark. Lat, 30, sent an e-mail Friday to fellow staff at the U.S. attorney's office, telling them that it was his last day. He said he would soon be going to work in Washington. The blogger initially claimed to be a young, female lawyer going by the pen name of Article Three Groupie, or...