A multitude of organizations, hundreds of thousands of individuals join together to defend the First Amendment from a reinstatement of the so-called "Fairness" Doctrine

Editor's Note: You too can join the Free Speech Alliance.  Click here and sign the petition, and stand at the ready for whenever any liberal again threatens the First Amendment with talk of reinstating the Censorship Doctrine.   

Spreading the Word

The Media Research Center today officially announced the Free Speech Alliance, a gathering of a multitude of organizations and hundreds of thousands of individual citizens dedicated to ensuring that the Censorship Doctrine, mis-named the "Fairness" Doctrine, is never again reinstated.

The Free Speech Alliance member organizations are themselves engaged in a wide array of issues, but they all recognize the preeminent importance of defending the First Amendment and protecting free speech from government censorship, a fundamental Constitutional safeguard.

The Free Speech Alliance member organizations thus far:

What a disgraceful display of media malice in response to the Gov. Palin announcement. The Governor is a remarkable, genteel and upstanding woman, yet the press went right into the gutter in response to Sen. McCain's selection of her to be Vice President.

These alleged journalists are again demonstrating what utter charlatans they are. Every day they lecture conservatives about ‘mean-spirited' politics, yet they spent the entire Labor Day weekend using Gov. Palin's new born son's condition to try to score cheap and shoddy Democratic campaign points. And continued right on doing so when the Palin family announced that their oldest daughter Bristol was pregnant.

These are not reporters, these are hypocritical left-wing advocates using their First Amendment rights as clubs to bludgeon and abuse this fine woman with the lowliest attacks they can drum up.

The line between the liberal media and the Democratic Party has now been crossed so many times it is no longer blurred, it is obliterated.

We're back up. A network connection switch to our servers broke which caused them to be unreachable. The machines themselves were unaffected.

The problem is nothing to do with the domain issue earlier, fyi.

Consider this today's open thread.

Yes, we had some issues back there.

Somehow our domain was not renewed this year thanks to some bureaucratic errors. It's now fixed. We apologize for the interruption.

Here at NewsBusters, we try to stay on the cutting edge of both media and technology, which is why I'm pleased to announce the addition of “NewsBusted,” a comedy show we're releasing today. You can watch the video now over on the top right of this page.

The idea for the show is really quite simple. Politics is absurd, so is the news. Why not have some laughs from it all?

“NewsBusted” will air twice weekly and be available on every NB page as well as on YouTube. We also are taking joke submissions from readers. If we like your joke, we'll pay you $50 and use it in a future show. Send jokes along with name, email, and phone number to rightstuffcomedy@yahoo.com.

PS: If you are trying to get into the NB live chat, click the "chats" link at the top of this page.

There has been a lot of talk in the blogosphere about Osama’s beard.Was it fake? Was it dyed?

There has also been a lot of discussion about the politics in the video. Some suggesting they sound a lot like the American left.

There are a lot of oddities that open up questions on the authenticity of the latest Al Qaeda propaganda. Michael Leeden, at the Corner, ponders whether this was really Osama with many good points. Another significant find was pointed out by the leftist site, Booman Tribune.

"Osama Bin Laden’s widely publicized video address to the American people has a peculiarity that casts serious doubt on its authenticity: the video freezes at about 1 minute and 36 seconds, and motion only resumes again at 12:30. The video then freezes again at 14:02 remains frozen until the end. All references to current events, such as the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, and Sarkozy and Brown being the leaders of France and the UK, respectively, occur when the video is frozen! The words spoken when the video is in motion contain no references to contemporary events and could have been (and likely were) made before the U.S. invasion of Iraq."

A lot of you have been reporting problems lately accessing NB. It was apparently triggered by a bug in Internet Explorer 7. After a few days of futzing with the DNS and some of the database backend, I think I've fixed the problem.

Report here if you continue to have trouble.

In a recent blog post by CBS Evening News correspondent Cynthia Bowers we find that she has had some problems with the housing market herself. Bowers apparently didn’t grasp the fact that her Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) can actually adjust:

“For a while we were okay. Then that Fed rate started going up, and so did our ARM. Over a five-month period it increased the cost of our monthly mortgage by nearly 40%!” Bowers wrote.

But Bowers shouldn’t have been surprised about her rate adjustment. According to Nexis, Cynthia Bowers has been reporting on the mortgage and housing market since at least 1997. With a decade of industry reporting under her belt, you’d think she’d be able to anticipate the fact that rates shift and payments adjust.

“Do you fly to San Francisco by any chance?...OK, I have to go out there, are you going to promise me, guarantee me, that if I buy a ticket at the end of August you won’t cancel that flight?”

That was NBC “Today” show host Meredith Vieira’s final question in an interview with Northwest Airlines CEO Douglas Steenland. Vieira phrased the question as though it was Steenland’s fault that a high number of flights had been cancelled earlier in the summer. To Vieira weather, mechanical problems, and Air Traffic Control apparently played no part in it.

Vieira spent almost the entire five-and-a-half-minute interview berating Steenland.

Gas prices have been going down, nearly 24 cents since this time last year and 29 cents since last month. So NBC had to find another liquid to condemn. Meredith Vieira said on the August 14 “Today” show that “your wallet is getting sucked dry” by milk prices.

She lamented that “The average price for a gallon of milk is at its highest nationwide average ever, it will set you back $3.80.”

Reporter Lee Cowan explained that dairy cows are getting squeezed: “Dairy cows these days are being pushed to the limit, demand for their milk has never been higher, and neither has its price.”

Wasn't Tucker Carlson supposed to be MSNBC's conservative counterweight to Olbermann, Matthews, & Co?  I might have to rethink that one, judging by the opening roll of his 'Tucker' show this afternoon, which clearly cast Israel as the heavy in the current conflict. Here's how it went:

• Open to video of an Israeli tank firing rounds, as an off-screen voice breathlessly announces "Lebanon, under siege" as the scene changes to smoke rising from an urban Lebanese landscape.
• Cut to a Lebanese couple, with the woman informing us that "our house is bombed, everything is bombed."
• Cut to what looks like a mosque in ruins. Announcer: "Israel's attack on Hezbollah marches on, and so does the devastating toll on civilian life."
• Cut to woman in Muslim head shawl comforting distraught young boy with kiss on head.
  
  
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On Monday night, July 18, Keith Olbermann mocked the NRA’s executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, because of LaPierre’s criticism of Columbus, Ohio’s recently-passed assault weapons ban. On his Countdown program, Olbermann has a regular segment called the “Worst Person in the World” in which he introduces three nominees for the dishonor – the first nominee labeled as “worse,” the second nominee labeled as “worser,” and the third nominee labeled as “worst.” Olbermann bestowed upon LaPierre the distinction of “worser” as detailed in the below quote from last night’s show: Keith Olbermann “Also nominated, Wayne LaPierre, president of the ever-popular NRA, the National Rifle Association. He’s moving the group’s 2007 convention out of Columbus, Ohio, after the city council there passed a ban on assault weapons. As a result, LaPierre tells the city, 65,000 people will not be coming to your wonderful convention center, hundreds of exhibitors will not fill your halls with their latest guns, outdoor gear and hunting accessories. I’m confused. Oh, I get it. He thinks that’s a punishment. Okay.”

 

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Media Ignore Further Weaknesses in Obama Firing Inspector Gen Walpin