This blog is mainly about the spectacular train wreck at The Sacramento Bee and its parent company, the McClatchy Company. But I also post about current events, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, politics, anything else that grabs my attention. Take a look around this blog, hope you enjoy it.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Thursday August 13 -- Got news or an update?
If you have news or an update, leave it in comments. . . .
80 comments:
Anonymous
said...
There is a rumor that KC Star will be closing down on December 31. I seriously doubt it, considering that it is 1 of a couple papers that are still making money for McClatchy. Anybody here anything like this? OR have it in print to be verified?
Was There a Plant at the Sheila Jackson Lee Town Hall Meeting? Filed under: Obama (Patterico)
[UPDATE: Mayer has admitted to me that she is not a doctor. Details here.]
Yesterday, DRJ posted on a comical town hall meeting that Sheila Jackson Lee held in Houston on Tuesday, in which Jackson Lee talked on her cell phone as a constituent asked a question.
A reader writes to raise questions about whether there was a Barack Obama plant at Jackson Lee’s town hall meeting, in the form of one “Dr. Roxana Mayer,” who was mentioned in this Houston Chronicle article:
Some attendees at the meeting spoke in favor of the plan, go so far as to want a system where the government had complete control.
One supporter, Dr. Roxana Mayer, a physician who does not live in Jackson Lee’s district, praised the reform plan for overhauling a broken system.
“I don’t know what there is in the bill that creates such panic,” she said.
MyBarackObama shows a Roxana Mayer was a Texas Delegate for Obama. But I can’t find any evidence that she’s a doctor. Instead, I find evidence of a Roxana Mayer who appears to be a graduate student studying social work at the University of Houston, where Jackson Lee’s husband is a vice president for student affairs.
If Roxana Mayer is a doctor, she isn’t listed where you would expected her to be listed. For example, the AMA Doctor Finder doesn’t list any physician named Roxana Mayer.
Nor does the Texas Medical Association. The search results: nothing
Now, this is not conclusive. It is not clear whether all doctors are members, and I suppose that it’s possible that some kinds of doctors may not be listed there. (For example, I’m not sure about the licensing or registration requirements for osteopaths.) However, the University of Houston lists a student by the name of Roxana Mercedes Mayer.
In addition, Linked In lists a Roxana Mayer — who, according to LinkedIn, is slated to graduate from the University of Houston with a Masters in Social Work in 2010.
And oddly, there is a connection between Jackson Lee and Roxana Mayer’s University of Houston. Namely, Jackson Lee is married to one Elwyn C. Lee, who has a dual appointment as the “University of Houston System vice chancellor for student affairs and University of Houston vice president for student affairs.”
What does it all mean? I’m not quite sure at this point. But it’s enough to make me go:
I have written the Roxana Mayer at the e-mail address to see if she will answer some of my questions. Hey, if Obama can do it at his own town hall meetings, who’s to say it’s not happening everywhere.
PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF UPDATE: A picture of the Roxana Mayer at the town hall meeting, hugging Jackson Lee, is clearly the same person as a Roxana Mayer on MySpace from Houston, TX.
Not the greatest vetting by the Chronicle.
Thanks to David Mickelson at Ace’s for the link to the town hall meeting picture, and beedubya for the MySpace idea.
White House Insists "Bussed In" Town Hall Members Were Not Planted... They Were Picked Randomly By Computer (FOX News)
The White House said the audience members at yesterday's town hall in New Hampshire were picked randomly by computer.
Even the ones that were bussed in. FOX News reported:
The friendliness of the audience at Obama's event was in stark contrast to the often rowdy and antagonistic crowds that attended similar events held around the country by members of Congress.
As an organizer and donor, Manning Hall had previously met first lady Michelle Obama, Obama daughters, Sasha and Malia, and Vice President Biden, according to a report published Wednesday in the Boston Globe. And her daughter also attended this year's White House East egg hunt, according to WCVB-TV, the ABC affiliate in Boston...
Julia Hall's question at the town hall meeting prompted Obama to attempt to refute what he called the "underlying fear" among Americans "that people somehow won't get the care they need."
On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs acknowledged that many audience members were friendly to Obama's message, but he said the president chose questions at random.
He reiterated the administration's earlier announcement that anyone could sign up for the free tickets through the White House Web site and said winners were picked "randomly by computer."
Obamacare's tax hikes(Look what you find out when you actually read the DeathCare bill) washington times
Please check out page 203 of the main House version of health care reform. It contains all the evidence you need that the entire bill is a nasty bait-and-switch.
"The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax imposed by this chapter. ..."
Yes, it really says that. The tax shall not be considered a tax. Or at least not "... for purposes of determining the amount of any credit under this chapter or for purposes of Section 55."
Gee, that really clears things up. It is especially helpful to know that the bill itself does not even contain a Section 55; the bill begins with a section numbered 101. (Section 55 apparently refers to the Internal Revenue Code, which it wouldn't do if the health care bill were not a tax bill, too.)
Another disgrace: In Nigeria, Hillary hints that 2000 U.S. election was rigged (Hotair)
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton compared Nigeria’s corruption and electoral problems with the 2000 Florida presidential election recount during a town hall meeting today in Abuja, Nigeria.
Answering a question about Nigeria’s recent election, Clinton said, “In 2000, our presidential election came down to one state where the brother of the man running for President was the governor of the state. So we have our problems too.”
Ex-Clinton Aide Named In Prison Case [Betsy Wright] AP
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - A former chief of staff for Bill Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas faces felony charges accusing her of trying to smuggle a knife and 48 tattoo needles onto the state's death row.
The charges against Betsey Wright come as The Associated Press obtained documents showing death-row inmate allegedly passed love letters and contraband to a guard with whom he committed a sex act.
There's an old joke here, and the message is look at the delivery model. ----- -ObamaCare a Trojan Horse- The Sebring News-Sun Dale O'Leary
The fight over ObamaCare reminds me of the story of the guard at a Soviet plant. Every night one worker would leave the plant pushing a wheel barrow full of dirt. The guard meticulously searched the dirt, but never found anything. After the fall of the communist regime, the guard saw the worker in coffee shop and asked "I know you had to be stealing something. Now we are both retired, tell me, what was it?" The worker answered, "Wheelbarrows". "It isn't enough to shift through the details of the ObamaCare bill; [we need to look at the delivery model....]
It's hard to know why President Obama said what he said at Tuesday's health-care town hall in New Hampshire. He actually stated, "If you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It's the Post Office that's always having problems."
Oops. Freudian slip? Subliminally speaking, was the president inferring that private health insurers are doing just fine?
Seniors that cut-up their AARP cards needs to have their name removed from their bragging list. Years ago it cost a small amount to join AARP, and they did that to gain a large list. They may not have [ever] updated that list. Make them do it, no excuses. My granddad calls them blackhearts, and he is pissed as hell. I helped him make a sign to take to a town hall meeting. ‘The government given the right to “kill off’ my granddad? Not in my lifetime, we are practicing Catholics. (The real thing, not the Kerry/Kennedy kind.)
Platinum Continues To Slash (San Diego) Union-Tribune Staff, Cuts 200 (PaidContent.org)
The San Diego Union-Tribune has laid off about 200 of its employees, a source tells us. The mass layoffs come four months after private equity firm Platinum Equity—which is also reportedly trying to buy the Boston Globe—purchased the paper.
Under Platinum Equity’s ownership, the paper had already laid off 192 employees in May, meaning it will have now eliminated a staggering 40percent of staff since it took over. The paper will now have about 650 employees.
Race-Baiting Group Hitting TV's Glenn Beck Was Founded By Obama's Communist Green Jobs Czar (Matthew Vadum)
President Obama's controversial green jobs czar Van Jones --a self-described “rowdy black nationalist” and "communist"-- is a co-founder of the same unsavory left-wing pressure group that is urging an advertiser boycott of Glenn Beck's TV show after Beck did several unflattering news packages on the czar. Not surprisingly, Big Media haven't noticed the connection.
Stand-Up Guy: Obama knocks 'em dead with jokes about pulling the plug on grandma. WSJ
If you're not creeped out by ObamaCare yet, you will be after you've read this passage from the New York Times transcript of the president's "town hall" meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., yesterday: "The rumor that's been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for ‘death panels' that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we've decided that we don't--it's too expensive to let her live anymore. (Laughter.)"
Laughter? Way to knock 'em dead, Mr. President!
You can hear the "joke," and the laughter, on NPR's Web site.
Why The AP plans to hold some web content off the wire (Nieman Journalism Lab)
Series: AP's online strategy
In a break with tradition, The Associated Press plans to prevent members and customers from publishing some AP content on their websites. Instead, those news organizations would link to the content on a central AP website — a move that could upend the consortium’s traditional notions of syndication.
That’s one revelation from a document we obtained (labeled “AP CONFIDENTIAL — NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION”) that offers new insight into how the AP is planning to reinvent itself on the Internet.
The seven-page briefing, entitled “Protect, Point, Pay — An Associated Press Plan for Reclaiming News Content Online,” was distributed to AP members late last month. It provides greater detail about the tracking device that will be attached to AP content and describes their plans to create topic pages around news stories to rival Wikipedia and major aggregation sites. And in an hour-long interview last night, the AP’s general counsel, Srinandan Kasi, also shed light on how the consortium views reuse of its material across the Internet.
I’ll be wading through the document and what we’ve found in a series of posts beginning today. (You can subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter if you don’t want to miss anything.) We’ll eventually post the full document, too. And as we go, feel free to comment and ask questions so we can flesh this out. I think you’ll find this stuff applies to all news organizations, not just the 1,500 newspapers that own the AP.
Air France Paris Club Lounge Blocks Conservative Websites
While waiting for a flight at the Paris Air France club lounge yesterday, I logged into to their free computers to catch US news and found that they used OLFEO to block the following sites blocked as pornographic: National Review, Hot Air, Foxnews Nation, Dick Morris, Ann Coulter, Brent Bozell, Steyn Online, Joe Sobran, American Spectator, American Thinker, Powerline and Canada Free Press.
Yet, unblocked sites were Huffington Post, Democratic Underground, and Daily Kos.
The Air France staff on hand had no explanation.
Virgin Air lounge in London, had no such censorship in their club.
The Union’s Bleeding Pensions(Here's why they want more union members - they are going broke) Canada Free Press
We’ve mentioned it here and there in the past, but one of the under reported stories about unions today is that few of them have fully funded pension plans and worse, many are in dire trouble.
The Wall Street Journal reminds us all of the mess that union pensions are in with a July 27 piece headlined, “Union Pensions in the Red .”
The WSJ reports on the unusual actions of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of the most powerful unions in America, as it tries to fix its pension funds.
Only last week, the country’s largest union local re-opened the contract for its 145,000 members two years early and gave up raises and reduced retirement benefits for future hires.
The SEIU’s United Healthcare Workers East struck this unusual deal so employers could instead plug a gaping pension hole.
The union is so desperate to replace the pension money it has wasted on other things that it is willing to give up stuff it would never give up otherwise.
Of course, like any union, what it gives up now is only the next item on the agenda to steal back at a later date, so nothing is “gone,” as it were. Just like Congress, no bad idea is ever off the table forever.
Obama-approved: Only liberals can organize protests (Union Leader)
Since at least May, this newspaper has received suspiciously uniform letters to the editor expressing support for Democratic health care reform plans.
The letters come in the same format, use the same talking points and often contain the exact same language. We have found that they came (and are still coming) from Organizing for America. That's President Obama's own campaign organization. Its Web site is www.barackobama.com.
That's interesting because last week White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed thousands of Americans who have protested against Democratic health care plans. He said these citizens displayed "manufactured anger," and he warned of "the AstroTurf nature of so-called grass-roots lobbying."
There have been some references to the Terri Schiavo case. The same corrupt media that helped elect Obama, helped legally murder Terri. There was a sinister group under the radar hyping a dignified death, and the media didn’t explore, or expose them. They probably wrote the portion of the bill on euthanasia.
It will take bloggers to expose them. That end of live counseling might bring in millions for them, they are the so-called [experts?]
If you think there haven't been non-profits to make it legal to kill people off, think again. They are working in Oregon and now Washington states to set precedents. Killing off Terri Schiavo was just one of their test cases, and they won. The precedent has been set, and if the counseling section in the bill stands, we will be hearing a lot more of the Schiavo case! MOO
'Almost Entirely White and Irritable Crowd' of 'Angry' Obama-Care Protesters (But obama plants way COOL) By Clay Waters
After years of mainstreaming and idealizing antiwar protesters and marches supporting illegal immigrants as "grandmothers with canes, parents with children in strollers," dissent against a president's policies is no longer cool at the New York Times.
The Times finds the newest batch of protesters against Obama health care to be "angry," "irritable" crowds of whites taking marching orders from conservative talk radio and web sites.
Some Democrats demand use of ID cards. How many people have noted that you must have an ID card to attend a townhall meeting, but the Democrats fight needing to show an ID card to vote! Their hypocrisy is sickening. They decide when they need you, and when they don’t! **Vote Democrats OUT!**
The biased media never mention that the frustrated people speaking at townhall meetings are very new at this. They are not the selected speakers at the Obama staged events. The media ridicules people speaking their mind in a plain, but clearly frustrated fashion. If ever the elite media tipped, their distain of common people, hands, it is now. Fox News is the only reliable source to watch the townhall meetings. Those people speaking are me. I would be terrified to ask my questions knowing I might appear on national TV. I give them big props, very big props. Too bad the media hacks can’t see the courage displayed, and not just a rowdy, crude bunch of hicks.
Unless things have changed, Catholics do not believe in committing suicide, it is considered a sin. Maybe the media’s steady attacks on the Catholic church is more about their stands on anti-abortion, anti-homosexual marriage, and anti-assisted suicide, that the liberals hate. I think there are more pedophile, and sexual abuse cases against the public schools than the Catholic Church, and yet you don’t read much about them. Selected news? Of course there is, and we recently saw the damage it can do in the Obama election.
Seeing the videos of Miz Clinton makes me think she is off her meds. She even had to dis the elections here while in Africa. What is wrong with these apologist politicians? Talk about not letting go! The Dumcraps wallowed in the hate of losing the 2000 election for eight years, and the corrupted media did carry their water. This bama won, so get over it crap, is just too funny. Hypocrites all!
Yesterday a black man said the ‘white’ townhall protesters are protesting against a black man as president, more than the health care bill. Someone should have reminded him that Obama is half white. The media rarely say he is the first mixed race man, only that he is black. Odd that.
Re: Was There a Plant at the Sheila Jackson Lee Town Hall Meeting? The bloggers are all over the phony phone call Jackson took during the questions from a cancer survivor. I do believe, in the Dan Rather forged documents fiasco, the bloggers embarrassed the MSM. We’ll see if the so-called MSM watchdogs are upstaged by the honest reporting of bloggers again. We are witnessing why the future of journalism needs independent reporting, not mealy mouthed regurgitations from nearly state run operations, cloaked in the leftists’ agenda.
As the baby boomers approach retirement age, it isn’t too smart to make them angry. AARP didn't seem to care until now. Obama has probably promised them taxpayer’s money for nothing. AARP running away now at their newly exposed participation in writing the bill, is disgusting to me. Something is rotten about a senior’s group that sides against the very lives of their members. I don’t believe that counseling plan, it may come as bureaucrats bullying our grandparents into committing suicide. I have no reason to trust Obama, or the Democrats about anything. Just ask what is really happening in Oregon. It is sickening that the voters never understood the death culture laws that passed in their state, and you can thank the media for that.
The Oregon media makes Pravda look like a downright independent news organ in comparison. The politico leftists and wacko environmentalists run the state. Geeze!
If Bill Ayers' revolutionary days are really over, what has he been up to in Venezuela? (World Tribune)
A state Freedom of Information Act request for official information on the foreign travel of University of Illinois Professor Bill Ayers has disclosed trips to Taiwan, Germany, and Amsterdam for “educational” purposes over the last several years, but nothing to Venezuela, which is where we know that he was in 2006, propagandizing for Hugo Chavez.
So it appears that Ayers’ trip to celebrate Chavez’s “Socialism of the 21st Century” was financed by someone or something other than the taxpayers who pay Ayers’ $126,000 annual salary at a public university. Did Chavez pick up the tab?
Ayers' adopted son has written about his parents' trip to Venezuela and in a speech there, Ayers referred to having made serveral other trips to Venezuela.
We are told that Ayers, a political associate of Barack Obama, has abandoned his activities as a communist terrorist, and that he and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, another former leader of the Weather Underground, are now “respectable” academics. Ayers is formally known as a “Distinguished Professor” of Education and “University Scholar,” while Dohrn, a one-time booster of mass murderer Charles Manson, teaches law and discusses “human rights” issues at Northwestern University.
CBS Joins NBC, CNN & MSNBC in Mis-Ascribing Leftist LaRouche's Poster to Conservatives (NewsBusters.org)
Yesterday we informed you of the media's serial misuse of an Obama-as-Hitler poster from esoteric left-winger Lyndon LaRouche's website, as outlets like NBC (on their Nightly News and Meet the Press), CNN and MSNBC all ascribed the poster to sentiments roiled up by talk radio host Rush Limbaugh specifically and conservatives generally.
Well apparently CBS hasn't yet learned the lesson we had hoped to impart. In fact, last night they did the other networks one worse.
When America Will Become Europe. Thoughts of Our European Future to Come [Victor Davis Hanson]
The more Europe professes to be egalitarian, the more cynical and conniving the people have become.
After concluding another 16 days in Europe. I am again reminded how different their form of socialism is, and yet how closely it resembles the model that Obama seeks for America. The vast majority of citizens lives in apartments, even in smaller towns and villages.
Cars are tiny. Prices are higher than in the states; income is lower (The government taxes you to pay for things like “free” college, so you won’t have much to spend on antisocial things like your Wal-Mart plastic Christmas Tree or your second K-Mart plasma TV.)
Mass transit is frequent and cheap, but often crowded and occasionally unpleasant. The stifled desire to acquire something—large house, car, deposit account—is of course not quite destroyed by socialism, but rather is channeled into a sort of cynicism and anger, often leading to a hedonism of few children, late and long meals, and disco hours until the early morning.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee responds to cell-phone incident (Houston Chronicle)
Here's what Rep. Jackson Lee told "The Sleuth":
Jackson Lee explained she was on her cell phone during Tuesday's town hall meeting because she had called the House health care hotline seeking answers to a number of questions about particular elements of the health care bill moving through Congress.
"I had been on the cell phone getting a series of questions answered," Jackson Lee said.
"I don't know why [Republicans think] it's so challenging. I happen to be able to think, listen and maybe even talk at the same time."
That would be the purple-shirted members of the SEIU--the Service Employees International Union—who (literally) swung into action outside a town hall meeting in Missouri and became infamous on YouTube and national media.
“Town Hall Protestor Roughed Up by SEIU Members” read one headline. The legal system will sort out what happened to David Gladney, the victim of the attack. But public opinion will sort out whether SEIU is sending thugs to town halls.
The union “Purps” also turned out in force at President Obama's town hall in New Hampshire. SEIU brought its people in by chartered buses after getting special tickets from the White House.
And why shouldn’t the president give ‘em freebie tickets? He owes them! After all, the SEIU spent $61-million to help elect him. The union also set aside $10-million to push Obama’s agenda in its post-election “Change That Works” campaign, and pledged more, including 30% of the union's resources and hiring over 1,000 workers in 35 states.
Five Key Reasons Why Newspapers Are Failing (Splice Today)
This is Part 1 of a series.
Journalists are pretty good at working the scene of a disaster. They’ll tell you what happened, who did it, and why.
But when it comes to the disaster engulfing their own profession, their analysis is less rigorous. An uncharacteristic haze characterizes a lot of the reporting and commentary on the current crisis of the industry.
It could have been brought on by delicacy, perhaps romanticism. And since it is not just any crisis, but a definitive one—one that seems to mean an end to the physical papers’ role in American life as we have come to know it—perhaps there’s a little bit of shell-shock in the mix as well.
Whatever the reasons, I can think of five key aspects of the industry collapse that don’t get talked about much.
How The Associated Press will try to rival Wikipedia in search results (niemanlab.org)
Yesterday we revealed plans by The Associated Press to hold back some content from member websites. (Great discussion going on there, by the way.)
The primary motivation of that initiative is search: AP material that resides on hundreds of disparate sites at the same time will hardly rate in Google compared to a single page with hundreds of links pointing to it. That’s a fundamental tenet of search engine optimization.
The same philosophy is driving their plan to build “news guide landing pages” that will aggregate the AP’s content around subjects, places, organizations, and people. Think of the topic pages on sites like The Chicago Tribune, BBC, and others — except that the AP will be harnessing its vast network of members and customers in what could amount to a brilliant SEO play.
Roxana Mayer: I’m Not a Doctor But I Play One at Town Hall Meetings (File under: General, Media Bias, Obama) PATTERICO
[This post follows up on a previous post in which I questioned the credentials of a woman at a Texas town hall meeting who claimed to be a doctor, but turned out to be anything but. She is a graduate student in social work -- oh, and an Obama delegate. Read on for more.]
It took some work to get the admission, but I got it.
SNIP
UPDATE x4: Further confirmation (as if it were needed!) from the Lone Star Times:
Our own David Jennings secured a phone interview, in which Mayer admitted to impersonating a physician, saying — get this — she thought it would help her credibility. (It didn’t.)
Weird; her hero Barack Obama also thinks that lying enhances his credibility . . .
UPDATE x6: Courtesy of the Lone Star Times post mentioned above, here is video of Ms. Mayer’s appearance, in which she claims to be a “general practitioner” who has been practicing for “four years”:
Also, again, I highly recommend the Lone Star Times post. Remember the woman who had a Che Guevara poster at an Obama campaign office? You’ll want to read about her. Trust me.
If you really want to know what the Obama Death Race 2009 Bill says (thats HR3200 for all you lefties)you can download it here...Over 1,000 pages of Gub'ment mumbo jumbo (emphasis on the jumbo)
5:44 said "Stand-Up Guy: Obama knocks 'em dead with jokes about pulling the plug on grandma. WSJ
I'm sure the lady in Oregon with cancer is laughing because the state will pay for her end of life treatment but will not pay for her cheomtherapy because it costs too much!
Philly Guild Files NLRB Complaint Over Lack of Bargaining (Editor and Publisher)
NEW YORK The Philadelphia Newspaper Guild, which recently rejected a request from the city's two major newspapers to extend their contract for 30 days, has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board accusing the newspapers of bad faith bargaining.
"We are concerned that Philadelphia Newspapers delay of bargaining and its failure to disclose its bargaining proposals are tactics designed to leave the Guild membership with no leverage in the event it submits a [bankruptcy] plan that includes contract concessions and that plan is accepted," a memo from Philadelphia Newspaper Guild leaders to its members Wednesday stated.
Video: ObamaCare fans take Astroturfing to a new level; Mayer an OFA organizer (HotAir)
Patterico and Lone Star Times capture yet another banner moment from a town-hall forum hosted by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) . In this clip, Roxana Mayer introduces herself as a doctor (a general practitioner for four years) in order to support ObamaCare and Jackson-Lee in a fairly hostile crowd. For her efforts, she gets a big hug from the Congresswoman, an image which the Houston Chronicle featured prominently on their website coverage of the event.
But was Mayer really a doctor?
Not only was Mayer not a doctor, Roxana Mayer was an Obama delegate, as Patterico discovered with some digging. What’s more, the Houston Chronicle apparently knew this and failed to include it in its glowing coverage of Mayer’s appearance. The reporter, Cindy Horswell, has admitted that she knew Mayer was an Obama delegate and that Mayer didn’t live in Jackson-Lee’s district when she wrote the Chronicle story. After getting exposed, the Chronicle quietly changed the caption on the photo without issuing a correction, removing the reference to Mayer being a doctor.
It is with regret that I am announcing Randy Smith, Director of Strategic Development, has resigned and will be leaving the Star on Friday, August 14th to accept a position at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism.
Randy has been named as the first Donald W. Reynolds Endowed Chair in Business Journalism. His new role will include the instructional development and teaching of undergraduate and graduate level courses in business journalism. Randy will collaborate with the Foundation in training and research programs aimed at improving the practice of business journalism.
The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation is a national philanthropic organization founded in 1954 by the late media entrepreneur for whom it is named. Headquartered in Las Vegas, it is one of the largest private foundations in the United States.
Randy began his career at the Star in 1979 as a copy editor. In his career he has held the role of Assistant Managing Editor in the Metro and Business departments, as well as Deputy Managing Editor.
Please join me in thanking Randy for his leadership at the Star over these past 30 years and also in congratulating him on this outstanding opportunity at the University of Missouri.
11-year-old lobbed prez a question at N.H forum (Boston Herald)BIASED LIARS ALL OF THEM
The mother of a sixth-grade Malden girl, whose “mean sign” question to President Obama at his Portsmouth, N.H., health care forum was a softball that he slugged out of the park, insisted yesterday the child was not “a plant.”
“I thought it was great,” Kathleen Manning Hall said of Obama’s answer to the question posed by her daughter Julia.
The girl became a target of conservative critics such as Michelle Malkin yesterday, who alleged that the poised and eloquent 11-year-old was “a plant” after the revelation that her mother served as an organizer for Obama’s campaign.
Planting major falsehoods has been a favorite Alinsky strategy from the start.
His acolyte, Barack Obama, learned his Industrial Areas Foundation lessons on deceiving for power while on a side trip during his Harvard years, then taught the Alinsky power tactics at the University of Chicago.
Hardly qualifies as ‘Constitutional Law’ if you ask me.
Covering for oneself by accusing the other fellow has been the left’s most successful deception for decades now.
It took on its best traction lately, as leftists within Moveon.org and others have used this Nazi smear tactic for the past eight years against George W. Bush.
They’ve seen how well it’s worked and just can’t stop themselves now.
(Everythings bigger here in Texas, including fraud)
Jackson Lee says she doesn't know town hall 'doc' (Houston Chronicle)
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said today she does not know the woman who falsely claimed to be a physician when she made a statement supporting the White House's health care overhaul at the congresswoman's town hall meeting Tuesday.
The woman, a University of Houston student named Roxana Mayer, is not a licensed physician, although she called herself one at the meeting and was incorrectly identified as such in Wednesday's editions of the Chronicle.
In an e-mail to the Chronicle today, Mayer said she'd been advised not to talk further about the matter, but did not say who counseled her.
Mayer was an organizer and delegate for the Barack Obama campaign last year.
Roxana Mayer, an organizer and delegate for the Barack Obama campaign last year, who “coincidentally” is a social worker student at the University of Houston...where Sheila Lee Jackson's husband is the vice chancellor for student affairs and vice president for student affairs...
There were numerous accounts of the Obama thuggery in the Texas caucuses, even Hillary started a lawsuit and dropped it, perhaps to be Sexlesstary of state. What happened with the totally corrupted Lee is just the tip of the iceberg. The in-the-tank media ignored it all. They were too busy in Alaska collecting false rumors.
The kid was definitely a plant. No one in their right mind would randomly call on a random kid. Because kids say the darndest things!
Remember the young girl who asked Clinton "Boxers or briefs?", how that one was run ad nauseum ... and we later found out she was the daughter of one of the White House Press Whores?
This woman should be taken to task for exploiting her kid...like, David Letterman should make jokes about the kid....like he did about.... Oh,wait—I forgot—this brat and her mom are Obama Democrats. Nevermind
No one ever successfully challenged the lies of the Democrats before, and if they did, the media made it to look as if the accusers were nutcases. Look at the questions about Obama’s birth certificate. He could have cleared that up long ago, but did not, why? He has spent over $1 million to keep it secret. The ones asking the questions are kooks right? There is a theory now that Barry’s birth information contains names that will prove Obama is in fact more white than black, oh what a shock, that would be!
The media cover up I found the most amusing was excusing, and then burying the story about President Bill Clinton's National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, carrying official documents unkind to Bill Clinton, out in his socks and pants. The media actually said he was known to be messy and forgetful. What a whitewash! It turns out we had a National Security Adviser that stole things. He would be a top Czarist in the ‘Debt Presidents’ cabinet. Now if we just knew if Berger pays his taxes?
8:12 a.m, was this meant to be a parody of right-wing thinking? Or do you really think this way? I especially laughed out loud at these two points: "Mass transit is frequent and cheap, but often crowded and occasionally unpleasant." (Compared to our mass transit, which is almost non-existent in most places, is not cheap (compared to Europe), and is often crowded and usually unpleasant.) And: "The stifled desire to acquire something—large house, car, deposit account—is of course not quite destroyed by socialism, but rather is channeled into a sort of cynicism and anger, often leading to a hedonism of few children, late and long meals, and disco hours until the early morning." ROFL! How dare those immoral Europeans enjoy late and long meals, and disco hours until the early morning, instead of working 60-hour weeks and gobbling fast-food lunches at their desk.
Smoking gun: Memo proves secret deal denied by Obama and pharma?
hotair.com ^ Maybe Naked Emperor News was right. Maybe this really is the mother of all Obama lies. Thanks, HuffPo! It says the White House agreed to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government’s leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada — and also agreed not to pursue Medicare rebates or shift some drugs from Medicare Part B to Medicare Part D, which would cost Big Pharma billions in reduced reimbursements. In exchange, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) agreed to cut $80 billion in projected costs to taxpayers and senior citizens over ten years....
Did anyone at the Star get that August raise a poster here was expecting? More than likely, instead of a raise, he was shitcanned out the door. Not that I don’t feel sorry for anyone that has lost their job, but a liberal liar out of a job is not all bad, on the ethical side of things, anyway.
Fox News Special Report FOX News | 8/13/09 | http://www.foxnews.com/specialreport/index.html
Obama in his Town Hall cited doctor's opting to amputate diabetics rather than counsel weight lose and diet because they pay very little for counseling whereas amputation pays $30,000-$40,000. AMA has issued a statement saying Medicare pays $541-$708. American College of Surgeons echoed the AMA numbers. Charles Krauthammer pointed out that people are losing confidence in the health care proposals when Obama is wrong by a factor of thirty.
Every media layoff brings us closer to a new day of news reporting. The newspaper web sites that continue to lie, will face the same fate as the liberal MSM faces now. I wish this search for truth has started well before the Obama presidency, but the future holds a cleansing of phony government politicians. The people will speak loud and clear. Just ask Jimmah Carter!
Europe -"Mass transit is frequent and cheap, but often crowded and occasionally unpleasant." --- Everyone that I know that has ever traveled by mass transit in Europe will tell you a ride with people that do not wear deodorant, or change their clothing, makes for a ride with your handkerchief over your nose. Remember you are riding with the masses, not the elite. They still ride by private cars. It is the masses that have to save the planet.
The mainstream media denies abortion funding is in the health care bill, well, they may be lying, again. *** Planned Parenthood President Attends Special White House Health Care Meeting
LifeNews by Steven Ertelt The president of the nation's largest abortion business attended what she called a "special meeting" at the White House yesterday on health care reform. This is the second time the Obama administration gave special privileges to Planned Parenthood. As the mainstream media denies abortion funding is in the health care bills Congress is considering, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards appears to have special access to the White House to make sure it is included. In a note she posted on Facebook, Richards reveals more about the meeting and the Obama administration's strategy for getting the pro-abortion bill approved.
Apparently Pruitt's idiom is again proving true. The company IS run by idiots. Furloughs instead of vacation reduction. Sorry state that the board and family cannot see that they have No direction, or sense of business.
80 comments:
There is a rumor that KC Star will be closing down on December 31. I seriously doubt it, considering that it is 1 of a couple papers that are still making money for McClatchy. Anybody here anything like this? OR have it in print to be verified?
MORE ASTROTURF FROM THE STALINIST LIBS.
Was There a Plant at the Sheila Jackson Lee Town Hall Meeting?
Filed under: Obama (Patterico)
[UPDATE: Mayer has admitted to me that she is not a doctor. Details here.]
Yesterday, DRJ posted on a comical town hall meeting that Sheila Jackson Lee held in Houston on Tuesday, in which Jackson Lee talked on her cell phone as a constituent asked a question.
A reader writes to raise questions about whether there was a Barack Obama plant at Jackson Lee’s town hall meeting, in the form of one “Dr. Roxana Mayer,” who was mentioned in this Houston Chronicle article:
Some attendees at the meeting spoke in favor of the plan, go so far as to want a system where the government had complete control.
One supporter, Dr. Roxana Mayer, a physician who does not live in Jackson Lee’s district, praised the reform plan for overhauling a broken system.
“I don’t know what there is in the bill that creates such panic,” she said.
MyBarackObama shows a Roxana Mayer was a Texas Delegate for Obama. But I can’t find any evidence that she’s a doctor. Instead, I find evidence of a Roxana Mayer who appears to be a graduate student studying social work at the University of Houston, where Jackson Lee’s husband is a vice president for student affairs.
If Roxana Mayer is a doctor, she isn’t listed where you would expected her to be listed. For example, the AMA Doctor Finder doesn’t list any physician named Roxana Mayer.
Nor does the Texas Medical Association. The search results: nothing
Now, this is not conclusive. It is not clear whether all doctors are members, and I suppose that it’s possible that some kinds of doctors may not be listed there. (For example, I’m not sure about the licensing or registration requirements for osteopaths.)
However, the University of Houston lists a student by the name of Roxana Mercedes Mayer.
In addition, Linked In lists a Roxana Mayer — who, according to LinkedIn, is slated to graduate from the University of Houston with a Masters in Social Work in 2010.
And oddly, there is a connection between Jackson Lee and Roxana Mayer’s University of Houston. Namely, Jackson Lee is married to one Elwyn C. Lee, who has a dual appointment as the “University of Houston System vice chancellor for student affairs and University of Houston vice president for student affairs.”
What does it all mean? I’m not quite sure at this point. But it’s enough to make me go:
I have written the Roxana Mayer at the e-mail address to see if she will answer some of my questions. Hey, if Obama can do it at his own town hall meetings, who’s to say it’s not happening everywhere.
PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF UPDATE: A picture of the Roxana Mayer at the town hall meeting, hugging Jackson Lee, is clearly the same person as a Roxana Mayer on MySpace from Houston, TX.
Not the greatest vetting by the Chronicle.
Thanks to David Mickelson at Ace’s for the link to the town hall meeting picture, and beedubya for the MySpace idea.
The "journalists" at the Houston Chronicle (Hearst) must have some really sore backs.
They are carrying gallons and gallons of water for the democrats.
White House Insists "Bussed In" Town Hall Members Were Not Planted... They Were Picked Randomly By Computer (FOX News)
The White House said the audience members at yesterday's town hall in New Hampshire were picked randomly by computer.
Even the ones that were bussed in.
FOX News reported:
The friendliness of the audience at Obama's event was in stark contrast to the often rowdy and antagonistic crowds that attended similar events held around the country by members of Congress.
As an organizer and donor, Manning Hall had previously met first lady Michelle Obama, Obama daughters, Sasha and Malia, and Vice President Biden, according to a report published Wednesday in the Boston Globe. And her daughter also attended this year's White House East egg hunt, according to WCVB-TV, the ABC affiliate in Boston...
Julia Hall's question at the town hall meeting prompted Obama to attempt to refute what he called the "underlying fear" among Americans "that people somehow won't get the care they need."
On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs acknowledged that many audience members were friendly to Obama's message, but he said the president chose questions at random.
He reiterated the administration's earlier announcement that anyone could sign up for the free tickets through the White House Web site and said winners were picked "randomly by computer."
Obamacare's tax hikes(Look what you find out when you actually read the DeathCare bill)
washington times
Please check out page 203 of the main House version of health care reform. It contains all the evidence you need that the entire bill is a nasty bait-and-switch.
"The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax imposed by this chapter. ..."
Yes, it really says that. The tax shall not be considered a tax. Or at least not "... for purposes of determining the amount of any credit under this chapter or for purposes of Section 55."
Gee, that really clears things up. It is especially helpful to know that the bill itself does not even contain a Section 55; the bill begins with a section numbered 101. (Section 55 apparently refers to the Internal Revenue Code, which it wouldn't do if the health care bill were not a tax bill, too.)
Not the greatest vetting by the Chronicle.
There is no such thing as vetting at the Houston Chronicle. It gets in the way of the message and that is why I quit working there.
Such a shame too. It was a wonderful place to work when Rice owned it.
4:31 sounds unlikely to me that the KC Star would close down anytime soon.
Another disgrace: In Nigeria, Hillary hints that 2000 U.S. election was rigged (Hotair)
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton compared Nigeria’s corruption and electoral problems with the 2000 Florida presidential election recount during a town hall meeting today in Abuja, Nigeria.
Answering a question about Nigeria’s recent election, Clinton said, “In 2000, our presidential election came down to one state where the brother of the man running for President was the governor of the state. So we have our problems too.”
Ex-Clinton Aide Named In Prison Case [Betsy Wright] AP
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - A former chief of staff for Bill Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas faces felony charges accusing her of trying to smuggle a knife and 48 tattoo needles onto the state's death row.
The charges against Betsey Wright come as The Associated Press obtained documents showing death-row inmate allegedly passed love letters and contraband to a guard with whom he committed a sex act.
There's an old joke here,
and the message is look at the delivery model.
-----
-ObamaCare a Trojan Horse-
The Sebring News-Sun
Dale O'Leary
The fight over ObamaCare reminds me of the story of the guard at a Soviet plant. Every night one worker would leave the plant pushing a wheel barrow full of dirt. The guard meticulously searched the dirt, but never found anything. After the fall of the communist regime, the guard saw the worker in coffee shop and asked "I know you had to be stealing something. Now we are both retired, tell me, what was it?" The worker answered, "Wheelbarrows".
"It isn't enough to shift through the details of the ObamaCare bill;
[we need to look at the delivery model....]
Someone should ask Hilliary to channel Betsey Wright.
Markets Bet ObamaCare Won't Survive
IBD
It's hard to know why President Obama said what he said at Tuesday's health-care town hall in New Hampshire. He actually stated, "If you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It's the Post Office that's always having problems."
Oops. Freudian slip? Subliminally speaking, was the president inferring that private health insurers are doing just fine?
Seniors that cut-up their AARP cards needs to have their name removed from their bragging list. Years ago it cost a small amount to join AARP, and they did that to gain a large list. They may not have [ever] updated that list. Make them do it, no excuses. My granddad calls them blackhearts, and he is pissed as hell. I helped him make a sign to take to a town hall meeting.
‘The government given the right to “kill off’ my granddad? Not in my lifetime, we are practicing Catholics.
(The real thing, not the Kerry/Kennedy kind.)
Platinum Continues To Slash (San Diego) Union-Tribune Staff, Cuts 200 (PaidContent.org)
The San Diego Union-Tribune has laid off about 200 of its employees, a source tells us. The mass layoffs come four months after private equity firm Platinum Equity—which is also reportedly trying to buy the Boston Globe—purchased the paper.
Under Platinum Equity’s ownership, the paper had already laid off 192 employees in May, meaning it will have now eliminated a staggering 40percent of staff since it took over. The paper will now have about 650 employees.
Race-Baiting Group Hitting TV's Glenn Beck Was Founded By Obama's Communist Green Jobs Czar
(Matthew Vadum)
President Obama's controversial green jobs czar Van Jones --a self-described “rowdy black nationalist” and "communist"-- is a co-founder of the same unsavory left-wing pressure group that is urging an advertiser boycott of Glenn Beck's TV show after Beck did several unflattering news packages on the czar. Not surprisingly, Big Media haven't noticed the connection.
Why is it to find out any news of DEMOCRATS you have to go to the tabloids?
While the MSM is more then willing to go cover to cover with Republican scew ups?
Report: DNA Test Confirms that John Edwards fathered mistress’s child (The National Enquirer)
The National Enquirer is more trustworthy than the New York Times.
They broke the story when the MSM supported Edwards by ignoring it.
The LA Times went even further and forbid and censured any mention of the story in any of their blogs
Stand-Up Guy: Obama knocks 'em dead with jokes about pulling the plug on grandma. WSJ
If you're not creeped out by ObamaCare yet, you will be after you've read this passage from the New York Times transcript of the president's "town hall" meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., yesterday: "The rumor that's been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for ‘death panels' that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we've decided that we don't--it's too expensive to let her live anymore. (Laughter.)"
Laughter? Way to knock 'em dead, Mr. President!
You can hear the "joke," and the laughter, on NPR's Web site.
Why The AP plans to hold some web content off the wire (Nieman Journalism Lab)
Series: AP's online strategy
In a break with tradition, The Associated Press plans to prevent members and customers from publishing some AP content on their websites. Instead, those news organizations would link to the content on a central AP website — a move that could upend the consortium’s traditional notions of syndication.
That’s one revelation from a document we obtained (labeled “AP CONFIDENTIAL — NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION”) that offers new insight into how the AP is planning to reinvent itself on the Internet.
The seven-page briefing, entitled “Protect, Point, Pay — An Associated Press Plan for Reclaiming News Content Online,” was distributed to AP members late last month. It provides greater detail about the tracking device that will be attached to AP content and describes their plans to create topic pages around news stories to rival Wikipedia and major aggregation sites. And in an hour-long interview last night, the AP’s general counsel, Srinandan Kasi, also shed light on how the consortium views reuse of its material across the Internet.
I’ll be wading through the document and what we’ve found in a series of posts beginning today. (You can subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter if you don’t want to miss anything.) We’ll eventually post the full document, too. And as we go, feel free to comment and ask questions so we can flesh this out. I think you’ll find this stuff applies to all news organizations, not just the 1,500 newspapers that own the AP.
Air France Paris Club Lounge Blocks Conservative Websites
While waiting for a flight at the Paris Air France club lounge yesterday, I logged into to their free computers to catch US news and found that they used OLFEO to block the following sites blocked as pornographic: National Review, Hot Air, Foxnews Nation, Dick Morris, Ann Coulter, Brent Bozell, Steyn Online, Joe Sobran, American Spectator, American Thinker, Powerline and Canada Free Press.
Yet, unblocked sites were Huffington Post, Democratic Underground, and Daily Kos.
The Air France staff on hand had no explanation.
Virgin Air lounge in London, had no such censorship in their club.
The Union’s Bleeding Pensions(Here's why they want more union members - they are going broke)
Canada Free Press
We’ve mentioned it here and there in the past, but one of the under reported stories about unions today is that few of them have fully funded pension plans and worse, many are in dire trouble.
The Wall Street Journal reminds us all of the mess that union pensions are in with a July 27 piece headlined, “Union Pensions in the Red .”
The WSJ reports on the unusual actions of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of the most powerful unions in America, as it tries to fix its pension funds.
Only last week, the country’s largest union local re-opened the contract for its 145,000 members two years early and gave up raises and reduced retirement benefits for future hires.
The SEIU’s United Healthcare Workers East struck this unusual deal so employers could instead plug a gaping pension hole.
The union is so desperate to replace the pension money it has wasted on other things that it is willing to give up stuff it would never give up otherwise.
Of course, like any union, what it gives up now is only the next item on the agenda to steal back at a later date, so nothing is “gone,” as it were. Just like Congress, no bad idea is ever off the table forever.
Obama-approved: Only liberals can organize protests (Union Leader)
Since at least May, this newspaper has received suspiciously uniform letters to the editor expressing support for Democratic health care reform plans.
The letters come in the same format, use the same talking points and often contain the exact same language. We have found that they came (and are still coming) from Organizing for America. That's President Obama's own campaign organization. Its Web site is www.barackobama.com.
That's interesting because last week White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed thousands of Americans who have protested against Democratic health care plans. He said these citizens displayed "manufactured anger," and he warned of "the AstroTurf nature of so-called grass-roots lobbying."
There have been some references to the Terri Schiavo case. The same corrupt media that helped elect Obama, helped legally murder Terri. There was a sinister group under the radar hyping a dignified death, and the media didn’t explore, or expose them. They probably wrote the portion of the bill on euthanasia.
It will take bloggers to expose them. That end of live counseling might bring in millions for them, they are the so-called [experts?]
If you think there haven't been non-profits to make it legal to kill people off, think again. They are working in Oregon and now Washington states to set precedents. Killing off Terri Schiavo was just one of their test cases, and they won. The precedent has been set, and if the counseling section in the bill stands, we will be hearing a lot more of the Schiavo case! MOO
'Almost Entirely White and Irritable Crowd' of 'Angry' Obama-Care Protesters (But obama plants way COOL) By Clay Waters
After years of mainstreaming and idealizing antiwar protesters and marches supporting illegal immigrants as "grandmothers with canes, parents with children in strollers," dissent against a president's policies is no longer cool at the New York Times.
The Times finds the newest batch of protesters against Obama health care to be "angry," "irritable" crowds of whites taking marching orders from conservative talk radio and web sites.
Note that it is always the LEFT that brings race into the discussion.
Some Democrats demand use of ID cards. How many people have noted that you must have an ID card to attend a townhall meeting, but the Democrats fight needing to show an ID card to vote! Their hypocrisy is sickening. They decide when they need you, and when they don’t!
**Vote Democrats OUT!**
During the Terri Schiavo case, the Right to Life people were painted into of framework of being crazies by the leftist media.
Sound familiar?
The biased media never mention that the frustrated people speaking at townhall meetings are very new at this. They are not the selected speakers at the Obama staged events. The media ridicules people speaking their mind in a plain, but clearly frustrated fashion. If ever the elite media tipped, their distain of common people, hands, it is now. Fox News is the only reliable source to watch the townhall meetings. Those people speaking are me. I would be terrified to ask my questions knowing I might appear on national TV. I give them big props, very big props. Too bad the media hacks can’t see the courage displayed, and not just a rowdy, crude bunch of hicks.
Unless things have changed, Catholics do not believe in committing suicide, it is considered a sin. Maybe the media’s steady attacks on the Catholic church is more about their stands on anti-abortion, anti-homosexual marriage, and anti-assisted suicide, that the liberals hate. I think there are more pedophile, and sexual abuse cases against the public schools than the Catholic Church, and yet you don’t read much about them. Selected news? Of course there is, and we recently saw the damage it can do in the Obama election.
Seeing the videos of Miz Clinton makes me think she is off her meds. She even had to dis the elections here while in Africa. What is wrong with these apologist politicians? Talk about not letting go! The Dumcraps wallowed in the hate of losing the 2000 election for eight years, and the corrupted media did carry their water. This bama won, so get over it crap, is just too funny. Hypocrites all!
Yesterday a black man said the ‘white’ townhall protesters are protesting against a black man as president, more than the health care bill. Someone should have reminded him that Obama is half white. The media rarely say he is the first mixed race man, only that he is black. Odd that.
Re: Was There a Plant at the Sheila Jackson Lee Town Hall Meeting?
The bloggers are all over the phony phone call Jackson took during the questions from a cancer survivor. I do believe, in the Dan Rather forged documents fiasco, the bloggers embarrassed the MSM. We’ll see if the so-called MSM watchdogs are upstaged by the honest reporting of bloggers again. We are witnessing why the future of journalism needs independent reporting, not mealy mouthed regurgitations from nearly state run operations, cloaked in the leftists’ agenda.
As the baby boomers approach retirement age, it isn’t too smart to make them angry. AARP didn't seem to care until now. Obama has probably promised them taxpayer’s money for nothing. AARP running away now at their newly exposed participation in writing the bill, is disgusting to me. Something is rotten about a senior’s group that sides against the very lives of their members. I don’t believe that counseling plan, it may come as bureaucrats bullying our grandparents into committing suicide. I have no reason to trust Obama, or the Democrats about anything. Just ask what is really happening in Oregon. It is sickening that the voters never understood the death culture laws that passed in their state, and you can thank the media for that.
The Oregon media makes Pravda look like a downright independent news organ in comparison. The politico leftists and wacko environmentalists run the state. Geeze!
If Bill Ayers' revolutionary days are really over, what has he been up to in Venezuela? (World Tribune)
A state Freedom of Information Act request for official information on the foreign travel of University of Illinois Professor Bill Ayers has disclosed trips to Taiwan, Germany, and Amsterdam for “educational” purposes over the last several years, but nothing to Venezuela, which is where we know that he was in 2006, propagandizing for Hugo Chavez.
So it appears that Ayers’ trip to celebrate Chavez’s “Socialism of the 21st Century” was financed by someone or something other than the taxpayers who pay Ayers’ $126,000 annual salary at a public university. Did Chavez pick up the tab?
Ayers' adopted son has written about his parents' trip to Venezuela and in a speech there, Ayers referred to having made serveral other trips to Venezuela.
We are told that Ayers, a political associate of Barack Obama, has abandoned his activities as a communist terrorist, and that he and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, another former leader of the Weather Underground, are now “respectable” academics. Ayers is formally known as a “Distinguished Professor” of Education and “University Scholar,” while Dohrn, a one-time booster of mass murderer Charles Manson, teaches law and discusses “human rights” issues at Northwestern University.
CBS Joins NBC, CNN & MSNBC in Mis-Ascribing Leftist LaRouche's Poster to Conservatives (NewsBusters.org)
Yesterday we informed you of the media's serial misuse of an Obama-as-Hitler poster from esoteric left-winger Lyndon LaRouche's website, as outlets like NBC (on their Nightly News and Meet the Press), CNN and MSNBC all ascribed the poster to sentiments roiled up by talk radio host Rush Limbaugh specifically and conservatives generally.
Well apparently CBS hasn't yet learned the lesson we had hoped to impart. In fact, last night they did the other networks one worse.
Congress cowards are ducking townhall meeting by citing death threats, but will offer no certifiable proof. They are such liars, who believes them?
When America Will Become Europe. Thoughts of Our European Future to Come [Victor Davis Hanson]
The more Europe professes to be egalitarian, the more cynical and conniving the people have become.
After concluding another 16 days in Europe. I am again reminded how different their form of socialism is, and yet how closely it resembles the model that Obama seeks for America. The vast majority of citizens lives in apartments, even in smaller towns and villages.
Cars are tiny. Prices are higher than in the states; income is lower (The government taxes you to pay for things like “free” college, so you won’t have much to spend on antisocial things like your Wal-Mart plastic Christmas Tree or your second K-Mart plasma TV.)
Mass transit is frequent and cheap, but often crowded and occasionally unpleasant. The stifled desire to acquire something—large house, car, deposit account—is of course not quite destroyed by socialism, but rather is channeled into a sort of cynicism and anger, often leading to a hedonism of few children, late and long meals, and disco hours until the early morning.
Actually Obama will head us to the Cuban model rather than the European model.
Some companies in Europe are still allowed to earn profits.
An AARP supporter said that the current end of life discussions are definitely hurting their brand name.
Bwhahahahaha
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee responds to cell-phone incident (Houston Chronicle)
Here's what Rep. Jackson Lee told "The Sleuth":
Jackson Lee explained she was on her cell phone during Tuesday's town hall meeting because she had called the House health care hotline seeking answers to a number of questions about particular elements of the health care bill moving through Congress.
"I had been on the cell phone getting a series of questions answered," Jackson Lee said.
"I don't know why [Republicans think] it's so challenging. I happen to be able to think, listen and maybe even talk at the same time."
"In Congress, we have to multi-task."
Some newspapers are dropping the AP because they simply cannot afford it. That is a real upside to the economic downside right now.
The Purple People Beaters (Human Events)
That would be the purple-shirted members of the SEIU--the Service Employees International Union—who (literally) swung into action outside a town hall meeting in Missouri and became infamous on YouTube and national media.
“Town Hall Protestor Roughed Up by SEIU Members” read one headline. The legal system will sort out what happened to David Gladney, the victim of the attack. But public opinion will sort out whether SEIU is sending thugs to town halls.
The union “Purps” also turned out in force at President Obama's town hall in New Hampshire. SEIU brought its people in by chartered buses after getting special tickets from the White House.
And why shouldn’t the president give ‘em freebie tickets? He owes them! After all, the SEIU spent $61-million to help elect him. The union also set aside $10-million to push Obama’s agenda in its post-election “Change That Works” campaign, and pledged more, including 30% of the union's resources and hiring over 1,000 workers in 35 states.
Time for an Obama tune!
♫ Nowhere Man ♫
The Beatles
He's a real nowhere man,
Sitting in his Nowhere Land,
Making all his nowhere plans
for nobody.
Doesn't have a point of view,
Knows not where he's going to,
Isn't he a bit like you and me?
Nowhere Man please listen,
You don't know what you're missing,
Nowhere Man, the world is at your command!
He's as blind as he can be,
Just sees what he wants to see,
Nowhere Man can you see me at all?
Nowhere Man, don't worry,
Take your time, don't hurry,
Leave it all till somebody else
lends you a hand!
KC Star closing doors? Maybe the print edition while online carries the banner? They'd have to layoff a lot of folks.
Five Key Reasons Why Newspapers Are Failing (Splice Today)
This is Part 1 of a series.
Journalists are pretty good at working the scene of a disaster. They’ll tell you what happened, who did it, and why.
But when it comes to the disaster engulfing their own profession, their analysis is less rigorous. An uncharacteristic haze characterizes a lot of the reporting and commentary on the current crisis of the industry.
It could have been brought on by delicacy, perhaps romanticism. And since it is not just any crisis, but a definitive one—one that seems to mean an end to the physical papers’ role in American life as we have come to know it—perhaps there’s a little bit of shell-shock in the mix as well.
Whatever the reasons, I can think of five key aspects of the industry collapse that don’t get talked about much.
How The Associated Press will try to rival Wikipedia in search results (niemanlab.org)
Yesterday we revealed plans by The Associated Press to hold back some content from member websites. (Great discussion going on there, by the way.)
The primary motivation of that initiative is search: AP material that resides on hundreds of disparate sites at the same time will hardly rate in Google compared to a single page with hundreds of links pointing to it. That’s a fundamental tenet of search engine optimization.
The same philosophy is driving their plan to build “news guide landing pages” that will aggregate the AP’s content around subjects, places, organizations, and people. Think of the topic pages on sites like The Chicago Tribune, BBC, and others — except that the AP will be harnessing its vast network of members and customers in what could amount to a brilliant SEO play.
Roxana Mayer: I’m Not a Doctor But I Play One at Town Hall Meetings
(File under: General, Media Bias, Obama) PATTERICO
[This post follows up on a previous post in which I questioned the credentials of a woman at a Texas town hall meeting who claimed to be a doctor, but turned out to be anything but. She is a graduate student in social work -- oh, and an Obama delegate. Read on for more.]
It took some work to get the admission, but I got it.
SNIP
UPDATE x4: Further confirmation (as if it were needed!) from the Lone Star Times:
Our own David Jennings secured a phone interview, in which Mayer admitted to impersonating a physician, saying — get this — she thought it would help her credibility. (It didn’t.)
Weird; her hero Barack Obama also thinks that lying enhances his credibility . . .
UPDATE x6: Courtesy of the Lone Star Times post mentioned above, here is video of Ms. Mayer’s appearance, in which she claims to be a “general practitioner” who has been practicing for “four years”:
Also, again, I highly recommend the Lone Star Times post. Remember the woman who had a Che Guevara poster at an Obama campaign office? You’ll want to read about her. Trust me.
If you really want to know what the Obama Death Race 2009 Bill says (thats HR3200 for all you lefties)you can download it here...Over 1,000 pages of Gub'ment mumbo jumbo (emphasis on the jumbo)
energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090714/aahca.pdf
AND to see what Chuck Norris has to say about it (YES he is a conservative!)
http://townhall.com/columnists/ChuckNorris/2009/08/11/dirty_secret_no_1_in_obamacare?page=full&comments=true
5:44 said "Stand-Up Guy: Obama knocks 'em dead with jokes about pulling the plug on grandma. WSJ
I'm sure the lady in Oregon with cancer is laughing because the state will pay for her end of life treatment but will not pay for her cheomtherapy because it costs too much!
Philly Guild Files NLRB Complaint Over Lack of Bargaining (Editor and Publisher)
NEW YORK The Philadelphia Newspaper Guild, which recently rejected a request from the city's two major newspapers to extend their contract for 30 days, has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board accusing the newspapers of bad faith bargaining.
"We are concerned that Philadelphia Newspapers delay of bargaining and its failure to disclose its bargaining proposals are tactics designed to leave the Guild membership with no leverage in the event it submits a [bankruptcy] plan that includes contract concessions and that plan is accepted," a memo from Philadelphia Newspaper Guild leaders to its members Wednesday stated.
Video: ObamaCare fans take Astroturfing to a new level; Mayer an OFA organizer (HotAir)
Patterico and Lone Star Times capture yet another banner moment from a town-hall forum hosted by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) . In this clip, Roxana Mayer introduces herself as a doctor (a general practitioner for four years) in order to support ObamaCare and Jackson-Lee in a fairly hostile crowd. For her efforts, she gets a big hug from the Congresswoman, an image which the Houston Chronicle featured prominently on their website coverage of the event.
But was Mayer really a doctor?
Not only was Mayer not a doctor, Roxana Mayer was an Obama delegate, as Patterico discovered with some digging. What’s more, the Houston Chronicle apparently knew this and failed to include it in its glowing coverage of Mayer’s appearance. The reporter, Cindy Horswell, has admitted that she knew Mayer was an Obama delegate and that Mayer didn’t live in Jackson-Lee’s district when she wrote the Chronicle story. After getting exposed, the Chronicle quietly changed the caption on the photo without issuing a correction, removing the reference to Mayer being a doctor.
It is with regret that I am announcing Randy Smith, Director of Strategic Development, has resigned and will be leaving the Star on Friday, August 14th to accept a position at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism.
Randy has been named as the first Donald W. Reynolds Endowed Chair in Business Journalism. His new role will include the instructional development and teaching of undergraduate and graduate level courses in business journalism. Randy will collaborate with the Foundation in training and research programs aimed at improving the practice of business journalism.
The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation is a national philanthropic organization founded in 1954 by the late media entrepreneur for whom it is named. Headquartered in Las Vegas, it is one of the largest private foundations in the United States.
Randy began his career at the Star in 1979 as a copy editor. In his career he has held the role of Assistant Managing Editor in the Metro and Business departments, as well as Deputy Managing Editor.
Please join me in thanking Randy for his leadership at the Star over these past 30 years and also in congratulating him on this outstanding opportunity at the University of Missouri.
Chris
Since there's obviously no strategic development by McClatchy, there was no need for a director.
11-year-old lobbed prez a question at N.H forum (Boston Herald)BIASED LIARS ALL OF THEM
The mother of a sixth-grade Malden girl, whose “mean sign” question to President Obama at his Portsmouth, N.H., health care forum was a softball that he slugged out of the park, insisted yesterday the child was not “a plant.”
“I thought it was great,” Kathleen Manning Hall said of Obama’s answer to the question posed by her daughter Julia.
The girl became a target of conservative critics such as Michelle Malkin yesterday, who alleged that the poised and eloquent 11-year-old was “a plant” after the revelation that her mother served as an organizer for Obama’s campaign.
Gibbs added that audience members were selected “randomly by computer.”
Yeah, from a database of DNC donors!
“I sent the ‘Pres__ent’ $1,280.00 and all I got for it was my kid to ask him a softball question at a staged event!”
Planting major falsehoods has been a favorite Alinsky strategy from the start.
His acolyte, Barack Obama, learned his Industrial Areas Foundation lessons on deceiving for power while on a side trip during his Harvard years, then taught the Alinsky power tactics at the University of Chicago.
Hardly qualifies as ‘Constitutional Law’ if you ask me.
Covering for oneself by accusing the other fellow has been the left’s most successful deception for decades now.
It took on its best traction lately, as leftists within Moveon.org and others have used this Nazi smear tactic for the past eight years against George W. Bush.
They’ve seen how well it’s worked and just can’t stop themselves now.
(from the American Thinker yesterday)
(Everythings bigger here in Texas, including fraud)
Jackson Lee says she doesn't know town hall 'doc' (Houston Chronicle)
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said today she does not know the woman who falsely claimed to be a physician when she made a statement supporting the White House's health care overhaul at the congresswoman's town hall meeting Tuesday.
The woman, a University of Houston student named Roxana Mayer, is not a licensed physician, although she called herself one at the meeting and was incorrectly identified as such in Wednesday's editions of the Chronicle.
In an e-mail to the Chronicle today, Mayer said she'd been advised not to talk further about the matter, but did not say who counseled her.
Mayer was an organizer and delegate for the Barack Obama campaign last year.
In an e-mail to the Chronicle today, Mayer said she'd been advised not to talk further about the matter, but did not say who counseled her.
WHAT A SMALL WORLD!
Roxana Mayer, an organizer and delegate for the Barack Obama campaign last year, who “coincidentally” is a social worker student at the University of Houston...where Sheila Lee Jackson's husband is the vice chancellor for student affairs and vice president for student affairs...
“Roxana Mayer's a doctor the same way Al Sharpton is reverend”
There were numerous accounts of the Obama thuggery in the Texas caucuses, even Hillary started a lawsuit and dropped it, perhaps to be Sexlesstary of state. What happened with the totally corrupted Lee is just the tip of the iceberg. The in-the-tank media ignored it all. They were too busy in Alaska collecting false rumors.
But why is the 11-year-old girl's Mom, Kathleen Manning's Facebook profile, now suddenly blank!
Could it be that the internet and Facebook that helped elect 0bama, is now the technology that's exposing him and his supporters as frauds!
The kid was definitely a plant. No one in their right mind would randomly call on a random kid. Because kids say the darndest things!
Remember the young girl who asked Clinton "Boxers or briefs?", how that one was run ad nauseum ... and we later found out she was the daughter of one of the White House Press Whores?
This woman should be taken to task for exploiting her kid...like, David Letterman should make jokes about the kid....like he did about.... Oh,wait—I forgot—this brat and her mom are Obama Democrats. Nevermind
No one ever successfully challenged the lies of the Democrats before, and if they did, the media made it to look as if the accusers were nutcases. Look at the questions about Obama’s birth certificate. He could have cleared that up long ago, but did not, why? He has spent over $1 million to keep it secret. The ones asking the questions are kooks right? There is a theory now that Barry’s birth information contains names that will prove Obama is in fact more white than black, oh what a shock, that would be!
The media cover up I found the most amusing was excusing, and then burying the story about President Bill Clinton's National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, carrying official documents unkind to Bill Clinton, out in his socks and pants. The media actually said he was known to be messy and forgetful. What a whitewash! It turns out we had a National Security Adviser that stole things. He would be a top Czarist in the ‘Debt Presidents’ cabinet. Now if we just knew if Berger pays his taxes?
Limbaugh parody (Paul Shanklin) "OLD PEOPLE"
Parody of "Short People" by Randy Newman, redone by Paul Shanklin as "Old People"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFquafUtYeM
Obama is just singing what he really thinks of old people. Too funny! I hope every AARP member watches this video.
8:12 a.m, was this meant to be a parody of right-wing thinking? Or do you really think this way?
I especially laughed out loud at these two points:
"Mass transit is frequent and cheap, but often crowded and occasionally unpleasant."
(Compared to our mass transit, which is almost non-existent in most places, is not cheap (compared to Europe), and is often crowded and usually unpleasant.)
And: "The stifled desire to acquire something—large house, car, deposit account—is of course not quite destroyed by socialism, but rather is channeled into a sort of cynicism and anger, often leading to a hedonism of few children, late and long meals, and disco hours until the early morning."
ROFL! How dare those immoral Europeans enjoy late and long meals, and disco hours until the early morning, instead of working 60-hour weeks and gobbling fast-food lunches at their desk.
Smoking gun: Memo proves secret deal denied by Obama and pharma?
hotair.com ^
Maybe Naked Emperor News was right. Maybe this really is the mother of all Obama lies. Thanks, HuffPo! It says the White House agreed to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government’s leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada — and also agreed not to pursue Medicare rebates or shift some drugs from Medicare Part B to Medicare Part D, which would cost Big Pharma billions in reduced reimbursements. In exchange, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) agreed to cut $80 billion in projected costs to taxpayers and senior citizens over ten years....
Did anyone at the Star get that August raise a poster here was expecting? More than likely, instead of a raise, he was shitcanned out the door. Not that I don’t feel sorry for anyone that has lost their job, but a liberal liar out of a job is not all bad, on the ethical side of things, anyway.
Fox News Special Report
FOX News | 8/13/09 | http://www.foxnews.com/specialreport/index.html
Obama in his Town Hall cited doctor's opting to amputate diabetics rather than counsel weight lose and diet because they pay very little for counseling whereas amputation pays $30,000-$40,000. AMA has issued a statement saying Medicare pays $541-$708. American College of Surgeons echoed the AMA numbers. Charles Krauthammer pointed out that people are losing confidence in the health care proposals when Obama is wrong by a factor of thirty.
Every media layoff brings us closer to a new day of news reporting. The newspaper web sites that continue to lie, will face the same fate as the liberal MSM faces now. I wish this search for truth has started well before the Obama presidency, but the future holds a cleansing of phony government politicians. The people will speak loud and clear. Just ask Jimmah Carter!
Europe -"Mass transit is frequent and cheap, but often crowded and occasionally unpleasant."
---
Everyone that I know that has ever traveled by mass transit in Europe will tell you a ride with people that do not wear deodorant, or change their clothing, makes for a ride with your handkerchief over your nose. Remember you are riding with the masses, not the elite. They still ride by private cars. It is the masses that have to save the planet.
"Obama asks court to block forest road building-
(The rot and burn gang rides again!)"
The mainstream media denies abortion funding is in the health care bill, well, they may be lying, again.
***
Planned Parenthood President Attends Special White House Health Care Meeting
LifeNews by Steven Ertelt
The president of the nation's largest abortion business attended what she called a "special meeting" at the White House yesterday on health care reform. This is the second time the Obama administration gave special privileges to Planned Parenthood. As the mainstream media denies abortion funding is in the health care bills Congress is considering, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards appears to have special access to the White House to make sure it is included. In a note she posted on Facebook, Richards reveals more about the meeting and the Obama administration's strategy for getting the pro-abortion bill approved.
For Second Time This Week,
FNC Tops
MSNBC, CNN, HLN & CNBC Combined
New Jobless Claims Rise Unexpectedly
Numbers Revised Again
558,000,from 554,000
Apparently Pruitt's idiom is again proving true. The company IS run by idiots. Furloughs instead of vacation reduction. Sorry state that the board and family cannot see that they have No direction, or sense of business.
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