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.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Friday September 18 -- Got news or an update, leave it in comments
If you have news or an update, leave it in comments. . . .
52 comments:
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Shock Video... Obama 2007 Revelation: Health Care Reform Requires Tax Hikes-- Savings Are Just a Theory (GatewayPundit)
SHOCK VIDEO--- Barack Obama in April 2007 told a group of supporters: Health Care Reform Requires Tax Hikes — Savings Just a Theory.
"Initially you may need another $90-100 billion each year."
Obama ties immigration to health care battle (The Washington Times)
President Obama said this week that his health care plan won't cover illegal immigrants, but argued that's all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage.
"Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don't simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken," Mr. Obama said Wednesday evening in a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.
"That's why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else.
"ACORN CAN HELP YOU, ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, TO PURCHASE A HOME" (Translation from Spanish) Sept. 2005 (TelemundoT47 Spanish Website)
NEW YORK, NY. -- Thanks to an initiative of private banking it is now possible for illegal immigrants to buy homes in the United States without having a social security number.
A new program helps immigrants who can not afford home to fulfill their American dream. Elena Hernandez has long had the dream of buying a home, but has not succeeded, she said not to have immigration papers.
The Mexican immigrant said: "I believe I have closed the doors to buy a house because I have a card from social insurance number, so without social security number can not do anything."
Historically, immigrants who have purchased home in the United States have done so under some risk, with false documents or with the help of others.
"There are people who do have their own, but are in the name of another person who does have legal documents.
But now Citigroup have joined ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform , to help immigrants to buy your house even without social security number.
ACORN worker fired over video sting (San Diego News Story) San Diego Union-Tribune
NATIONAL CITY - Local ACORN officials reversed an earlier decision Thursday afternoon and fired a community organizer who was caught on video providing advice about human smuggling to a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute.
In an afternoon press conference, Lagstein said he believed his employee, Juan Carlos Vera, did his best to deal with a challenging situation, and would not be disciplined.
But two hours later, Lagstein stated he had reevaluated the videos posted online in which Vera was secretly filmed answering questions about smuggling people across the Tijuana border.
House and Senate take action against ACORN (LA Times)
Reporting from Washington - Trying to dodge a building conservative firestorm, the House and Senate made clear Thursday that the community-based nonprofit organization ACORN was persona non grata on Capitol Hill.
House Republicans took over a debate about a sweeping student loan bill to propose a measure that would bar the Assn. of Community Organizers for Reform Now from receiving any federal funds.
It passed 345 to 75, with 172 Democrats joining all of the chamber's Republicans in support. In the Senate, an amendment that would prohibit ACORN from receiving any money contained in an Interior Department spending bill passed by an 85-11 vote.
It was the second such vote directed at ACORN in the Senate this week.
snip
On Thursday, ACORN suggested Congress was caving in to pressure from the conservative media.
Barack Obama’s dear friends at ACORN are busy trying to lie, cheat, and steal their way to victory in November.
The latest ACORN Watch entry comes to you from the battleground state of New Mexico, where election officials have notified prosecutors of an estimated 1,100 possibly fraudulent voter registration cards.
The Bernalillo County clerk has notified prosecutors that some 1,100 possibly fraudulent voter registration cards have been turned in to her office.
Some cards in New Mexico’s most populous county have the same name as a voter who’s already registered, but carry a different birth date or Social Security number; some list someone else’s Social Security number; some have addresses that don’t exist, Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver said Wednesday.
In one case, a series of about nine cards appears to have been taken directly from the phone book, she said. “Those are sort of the big red flags,” Toulouse Oliver said.
NBC Seeking News Staff Buyouts (NBC = Natural Born Communists)
NBC Universal executives have approached a large number of employees across its news divisions and bureaus, announcing that the company is looking for unspecified number of staffers to take voluntary buyouts
Down Steeply Since Late Jan., Big 3Evening Newscasts Stuck at Low Summer Levels
After a summer swoon, you would think that the evening newscasts of the Big 3 networks would start to recover a bit now that many Americans are back from vacations, kids are back in school, and fall routines are getting established or re-established.
So far, you would be wrong.
It's early, and there's still plenty of time this fall to recover, but during the time period after Labor Day, the broadcasts primarily anchored by Brian Williams at NBC, Charles Gibson at ABC, and Katie Couric at CBS:
•Are down a combined 28.5% from their peak in late January during the first full week of Barack Obama's presidency.
•Have lost a combined 37.7% of their audience in the 25-54 demographic during the same time period.
•Are down year-over-year compared to September 1, 2008, the week after Labor a year ago, by 8.9% overall and 18.1% in the 25-54 demographic.
•At 19.55 million, are basically drawing audiences no larger than they were during this past (for them) miserable summer.
Jimmy Carter’s Record on Race David Horowitz's NewsReal Blog
As Jimmy Carter portrays conservatives as violent racists, it's worth remembering Carter's own history of racial demagoguery.
Carter campaigned for governor of Georgia as a self- proclaimed “redneck,” in an era when that word had pronounced racial connotations.
His campaign distributed a photo of his gubernatorial opponent Carl Sanders being embraced by black basketball players to a Ku Klux Klan rally.
Carter pledged to invite Alabama's infamous segregationist governor George Wallace to Georgia if elected. He once said he was “proud” to have the equally segregationist Lester Maddox as his lieutenant governor following the 1970 election, calling Governor Axe-handle “the essence of the Democratic Party” (which he was).
In 1972, Carter promised – then broke his promise – to the newly crippled Wallace to nominate or second him at the Democratic National Convention in Miami, jumping at the opportunity to give the nomination speech for Henry “Scoop” Jackson (and the national exposure that would bring; see Obama, Barack).
Dowd and Carter Guilty of That Which They Decry (davidlimbaugh.com)
I'm sure New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and former President Jimmy Carter derive a great deal of self-satisfaction slandering other people with false charges of racism, but the damage they're doing to race relations is worse than any bona fide racist could dream of doing.
I ask you: Who is more likely racist, the person who sees race every time she turns around or the person who aspires toward colorblindness?
Could those always pointing the accusatory finger be projecting their own discomfort with race?
Listen to how Maureen begins her snarky Sept. 12 column, in which she posited that Rep. Joe Wilson's "you lie" outburst was driven by racism.
She writes: "Surrounded by middle-aged white guys -- a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men's club -- Joe Wilson yelled 'You lie!' at a president who didn't. B
ut, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!"
The stunning, total defeat of ACORN (Washington Examiner)
The ACORN vote in the House is stunning news. Just 48 hours after Republican Leader John Boehner introduced the "Defund ACORN Act," the bill -- which most Republicans thought Democrats would do anything to block -- passed by a resounding 345-75 vote.
It would never have made it to a vote had not the Democratic leadership decided to allow it, and the winning total included 172 Democrats.
Yes, 172 House Democrats voted to totally cut off funding for an organization that has worked for years on behalf of Democrats nationwide.
Couple that with the 83-7 Senate vote to cut off housing funds to ACORN -- a number that included 50 Democrats -- and the votes signal the complete collapse of Democratic support for ACORN.
The job is not anywhere near finished -- the Senate still has to consider a total-cutoff bill, introduced just today by Sen. Mike Johanns, and a conference committee has to come up with a final bill that President Obama signs.
Obama to amend report on $800,000 in spending (to ACORN) (Pittsburgh Live.COM)
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign paid more than $800,000 to an offshoot of the liberal Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now for services the Democrat's campaign says it mistakenly misrepresented in federal reports.
An Obama spokesman said Federal Election Commission reports would be amended to show Citizens Services Inc. -- a subsidiary of ACORN -- worked in "get-out-the-vote" projects, instead of activities such as polling, advance work and staging major events as stated in FEC finance reports filed during the primary.
FEC spokeswoman Mary Brandenberger said it is not unusual for campaigns to amend reports, even regarding large sums of money.
But, said Blair Latoff, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee: "Barack Obama's failure to accurately report his campaign's financial records is an incredibly suspicious situation that appears to be an attempt to hide his campaign's interaction with a left-wing organization previously convicted of voter fraud.
For a candidate who claims to be practicing 'new' politics, his FEC reports look an awful lot like the 'old-style' Chicago politics of yesterday."
Jim Terry, spokesman for a group that tracks ACORN, said Citizens Services Inc.'s involvement in the Obama campaign raises bigger questions.
"All of this just seems like an awful lot of money and time spent on political campaigning for an organization that purports to exist to help low-income consumers," said Terry, chief public advocate for Consumers Rights League, a Washington, D.C., advocacy outfit with a libertarian outlook.
"ACORN has a long and sordid history of employing convoluted Enron-style accounting to illegally use taxpayer funds for their own political gain," Terry claimed.
"Now it looks like ACORN is using the same type of convoluted accounting scheme for Obama's political gain."
Add it up During primary campaigning in February through May, Barack Obama's campaign paid Citizens Services Inc. $832,598.29, for services including:
"Barack Obama's failure to accurately report his campaign's financial records is an incredibly suspicious situation that appears to be an attempt to hide his campaign's interaction with a left-wing organization previously convicted of voter fraud.
For a candidate who claims to be practicing 'new' politics, his FEC reports look an awful lot like the 'old-style' Chicago politics of yesterday."
How conservative pranksters made idiots of Obama's favourite left-wing charity ACORN (The London Telegraph)
A skinny white prostitute and her pimp turn up at the office of Barack Obama’s favourite US “poverty action” charity ACORN (Association of Community Organisations for Reform Now).
They want advice on a few problems, like how best to bring over a “couple” of - well, 13, actually - underage girls from El Salvador to work in this brothel they’ve got planned, without attracting too much heat from the authorities.
How can they get a mortgage, how should they deal with their tax affairs, how do they legitimize their immoral earnings and so on?
ACORN’s expert advisers are more than happy to oblige, as this hilarious video - first posted at the BigGovernment site - reveals.
Hilarious because, of course, the footage is a stitch-up. It was filmed with a hidden camera and acted out by two very brave young US investigative journalists - Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe, keen to expose the dubious moral standards of the radical left organisation. (Using methods not unakin to those advocated by Obama’s preferred leftist agitator Saul Alinsky)
Obama’s Direct and Lucrative Ties to ACORN (Canada Free Press)
Since Obama announced his run for the presidency of the United States of America, some us have been reporting on the direct ties—both ideological and financial—between Obama and his voter-fraud and massive-corruption organization ACORN.
-SNIP-
Thus far, any and all attempts to investigate ACORN have been blocked by ObamaThugs and the Democrat-run Congress.
-SNIP-
As a reminder, the below are only a few of the direct ties and activities that the Obama pretender-to-the-throne has engaged in with ACORN.
In a number of crucial cases, Obama was the Attorney for the Chicago ACORN chapter and he used them to assist him in his run for the Illinois State Senate in 1996
•In 1992, prior to his working as ACORN’s attorney, Obama was Executive Director of ACORN subsidiary “Project Vote” Obama trained ACORN workers
•While sitting on the board of the Woods Foundation, Obama and domestic terrorist William Ayers—who is also a major Obama fundraiser—arranged for grants for ACORN
•While both on the board of Chicago’s Annenberg Challenge—Ayers and Obama with Obama as Chairman—funds were funneled to ACORN
•In his run for the Democrat presidential nomination, Obama paid ACORN subsidiary “Citizen’s Services, Inc.” over $830,000 to engage in ACORN ‘get out the vote’ activities (these would later be called the Obama-ACORN Voter Fraud Alliance)
•ACORN is falsely registered as “non-partisan,” as its leader Maude Hurd endorsed Obama for president
•Tax dollars collected from US citizens are paying for this Obama and Democrat Party fraud voter fraud group. Did you know that?
Not long ago Obama Promises Seat Acorn a seat at Table. Today, Obama Drives Bus Over Acorn.
Obama said 12/01/07, "Before I even get inaugurated, during the transition we're going to being calling all of you in to help us shape the agenda.
We're gonna be having meetings all over the country with community organizations so that you all have input into the agenda of the next presidency of the United States of America" Senator Obama 12/01/07 Heartland Democratic Presidential Forum see 1:48
Why Are Embezzlement Coverup Conspirators Still at ACORN? (American Spectator)
ACORN did the right thing in firing employees who advised a couple on the finer legal points of establishing a child prostitution ring but ACORN officials who covered up a nearly $1 million embezzlement for eight years still have their jobs, the ACORN 8 declared in a statement today.
Members of ACORN 8, a reform group founded by former ACORN national board members Marcel Reid and Karen Inman, released a statement today regarding the three videos that have surfaced so far that show ACORN employees telling two undercover journalists posing as a pimp and prostitute how to launder money, evade taxes, defraud banks, and conceal the fictitious scenario the duo cooked up.
Although the ACORN workers caught behaving badly "were immediately terminated for behaving unprofessionally...senior staff members who assisted and concealed a million dollar Rathke embezzlement remain employed," ACORN 8 said in the release.
Reid and Inman were expelled from the ACORN board after they asked uncomfortable questions about ACORN's finances in the wake of an embezzlement scandal involving ACORN founder Wade Rathke.
Rathke covered up his brother Dale's circa 2000 theft of $948,000 in ACORN funds but the long-hidden misappropriation was revealed last year and this led to the founder's expulsion from the group. Reid and Inman were appointed by the board to probe the group's finances.
When they tried to actually do so, the same people who helped Rathke engineer and sustain a coverup showed them the door.
Politico’s Mike Allen: Networks Have to Cover ‘Real News;' Too Busy to Talk About ACORN
The Politico’s Mike Allen appeared on Wednesday’s Morning Joe to both defend the mainstream media’s decision to ignore the ACORN controversy and agree that a double standard is at work.
If you rely on MSNBC for your news, you may not have noticed ACORN’s very thin “community organizer” veneer being sanded away exposing the rotten termite-infested wood underneath.
Part of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now’s (ACORN) rotten core includes a very cozy relationship with Big Labor.
In fact, in many instances ACORN and Big Labor are one and the same. In 2008, Big Labor funneled ACORN millions of dollars for so-called organizing activity. But, that is only the tip of the Big Labor iceberg.
ACORN controls or significantly dominates several Big Labor unions and organizations. ACORN created and controls SEIU 100 (Gulf Region) and SEIU 880 (a recently expanded SEIU mega-local that covers Chicago, Illinois, Indiana, and Kansas).
ACORN founder S. Wade Rathke referred to mega-union SEIU 880 as “one of the pillars of the ACORN Family.”
New York City freezes ACORN funds, Cuomo launches probe
The media may be trying as hard as possible to ignore the series of undercover videos taken at ACORN offices around the nation, but politicians don’t have that luxury.
Even in New York, both state and city officials have reacted to voter outrage over the actions of ACORN staffers offering advice on hiding tax evasion and child prostitution, especially since these offices run in part on taxpayer money.
The New York Post reports that the city council in NYC have suspended payments to ACORN pending further investigation, and that Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo has launched an investigation
Surprise: ACORN audit to be conducted by panel full of leftists and cronies
“A Soros hack, an SEIU thug, someone who pleaded to lying to the FBI, and a Kennedy.”
All that’s missing are a few pimps and prostitutes for “technical expertise.” Hardest-hitting internal investigation evah:
Rocked by a continuing stream of scandals, ACORN is trying to pass them off as the “indefensible” acts of a few employees, but promised an “independent review.”
Who will conduct the “independent review?” Round up the usual suspects:
The Council includes many prominent Democrats, including the man who helped President Obama Transition Team, John Podesta, President and CEO of the Center for American Progress; former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend; Andrew Stern, International President of the Service Employees International Union; and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros.
Cisneros, who worked regularly with ACORN as HUD Secretary, would later plead guilty to lying to the FBI to cover up a political embarrassment. Perfect choice.
Townsend is so inependent that she called the stories of ACORN’s frequent involvement in voter fraud a “desperate smokescreen maneuver” masking an extensive coast-to-coast GOP push to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters in 2008. No bias there.
Stern heads SEIU, which has a very cozy relationship with ACORN. How cozy?
ACORN controls or significantly dominates several SEIU chapters. And Stern hand-picked ACORN’s Wade Rathke to direct SEIU’s nationwide organizing projects. He could not be more independent.
And Podesta runs the Soros-funded Center for American Progress, which has been coordinating the public defense of ACORN this summer. He might be even more independent than Andy Stern.
Glad to see that ACORN is taking this all so seriously.
ABC World News Boss on Ignoring ACORN: 'We're Not in the Business of Noise'
Backing up his anchorman, Charles Gibson, who suggested on the radio that maybe the ACORN story "is just one you leave to the cables," World News executive Jon Banner extended the liberal snobbery on Politico:
While Banner admits that some stories may get more attention on cable, blogs or talk radio, it doesn’t mean they’re suited for the "World News" audience.
"There’s a tremendous amount of – for lack of a better word –‘noise’ out there. We’re not in the business of noise."
ABC can devote entire segments to Obama swatting a fly on camera, but they report "news," not "noise"? Banner also claimed:
"It’s a very different editorial process when you have 24 hours to fill as opposed to 22 minutes," Banner said, explaining why ACORN hasn’t yet fit in the evening newscast.
Lately, Banner noted that the program has been focused on covering Afghanistan, health care, the economy and the anniversary of 9/11.
There’s nothing liberals love more than apologizing for the misdeeds of others.
Recently in the New York Times Magazine, Paul Krugman took it to an extreme with his 6,670-word article titled “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?”.
Don’t bother reading it. It’s clear that he still doesn’t get it and definitely isn’t looking for any real answers.
Just the length of the piece is comical. We imagine poor Paul gazing out the window of his New York Times office searching for just one more quote, one more study, one more insight to help redeem his profession and his reputation in the wake of the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Because in Krugman’s ivory tower and on the Times editorial board, economics still matters and no debate about stimulus packages or health care plans or financial regulation would be complete without his unique and important insights.
He’s too big to fail and worth every word. And who could edit him anyway? He won a Nobel Prize.
Over here in reality, most of us already know that he and those that follow in his footsteps have no reputation to salvage. ...
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The situation at recently rescued Chrysler Group is even more dire than first thought, the CEO of Italy's Fiat -- which came to the aid of the U.S. automaker -- said Wednesday.
"We were surprised by how little had been done in the past 24 months," Sergio Marchionne told reporters in Frankfurt, Germany.
Chrysler will present a revised business plan in November, Marchionne told reporters.
Pelosi: I'm clueless about cash cut-off (ACORN.........)NYPOST
WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday she is clueless about an amendment to prohibit government funds for embattled ACORN, although it overwhelmingly passed the Senate Monday and the White House is calling for the group to be held accountable.
"I don't even know what they passed," Pelosi told The Post yesterday.
"What did they do? They defunded it?"
The amendment to suspend housing grants was a stunning blow to the community-activist group -- and came as some Democrats and the White House have been backing away from the group.
White House collects Web users' data without notice (Washington Times)
The White House is collecting and storing comments and videos placed on its social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube without notifying or asking the consent of the site users, a failure that appears to run counter to President Obama's promise of a transparent government and his pledge to protect privacy on the Internet.
Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the White House signaled that it would insist on open dealings with Internet users and, in fact, should feel obliged to disclose that it is collecting such information.
"The White House has not been adequately transparent, particularly on how it makes use of new social media techniques, such as this example," he said.
Defenders of the White House actions said the Presidential Records Act requires that the administration gather the information and that it was justified in taking the additional step of asking a private contractor to "crawl and archive" all such material.
Nicholas Shapiro, a White House spokesman, declined to say when the practice began or how much the new contract would cost.
The National Legal and Policy Center, a government ethics watchdog, said archiving the sites would have a "chilling effect" on Web site users who might wish to leave comments critical of the administration.
Democrats to Obama : Um, what exactly are we getting for selling out Poland to Russia ?
What are you getting? You’re getting the same thing you got when he sold out Honduras to Chavez over that non-coup “coup” they staged: The warm fuzzy glow of knowing that George Bush would heartily disapprove.
But some members of Obama’s own party, however, had a simple question for the administration: if this was a return to realism, and a concession to Russia’s long and vocal opposition to the missile program, what, exactly, was the U.S. getting in return for fundamentally changing it?
“Next week the Obama Administration will allow Ahmadinejad, Castro, Chavez, Gaddafi and several other international thugs into New York City to speak in front of the United Nations General Assembly.
However, one country’s president will not be allowed into the United States.
President Roberto Micheletti from Honduras will not be allowed to enter into America.
The US has suspended the visa policy in Honduras.
For the first time in this country’s history, our leaders in government are siding with Marxists Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, Raul Castro and Evo Morales against a democratic foreign leader.”
Before the Presidential election, we were told it’s wrong to judge candidate Obama by his radical friends and associates.
Now President Obama chooses to recognize radical international leaders and reject democratic friends. Can we judge him now?
L.A. Times Buries (And Hides) Worst Facts of ACORN Scandal (Patterico)
Well, well. Just look at how the L.A. Times is characterizing the myriad revelations of rampant criminal conduct by ACORN. You guessed it: it’s portrayed as a conservative thing:
Trying to dodge a building conservative firestorm, the House and Senate made clear Thursday that the community-based nonprofit organization ACORN was persona non grata on Capitol Hill.
. . . .
Congress’ actions were the strongest statement yet that the advocacy group, which conservatives accused of voter fraud in the 2008 presidential election, has become politically radioactive for Democrats.
Gee, why are those damn conservatives so upset? It takes until paragraph five to get this much out of Times editors:
Video made public earlier this month that featured ACORN workers giving advice on how to evade the law is the latest subject of conservative criticism.
Oh, well, if it’s just conservative criticism, then it must be bogus.
By the way, why isn’t this the headline? “ACORN workers caught on tape giving advice on how to evade the law”? Why is that not in the lede? And it takes until the paragraph seventeen to give some of the lurid details:
The most serious blow to ACORN’s reputation, however, may have come this month when video surfaced showing two employees in the group’s Baltimore office advising two actors who were posing as a prostitute and pimp on tax evasion and fraud. The duo are conservative filmmakers who have targeted ACORN offices nationwide.
Oh, well, if they’re conservative filmmakers, then it must be bogus.
So: mentioning that illegal activity is involved comes in paragraph five, and the revelation that a pimp is involved comes in paragraph seventeen.
And which paragraph tells Times readers that the illegal actions that ACORN workers eagerly worked to cover up include trafficking in child prostitutes aged 13 to 15?
For that little tidbit, you have to read all the way down to paragraph fuck you L.A. Times readers because you don’t even need to know that part at all.
Can we agree that this constitutes hiding the worst of it?
So remember: opposing pimping out underaged prostitutes is a conservative thing.
New poll finds Americans not buying Obama's light-at-the-end-of-the-recession talk LA Times
In recent days both Democrat Vice President Joe Biden and the other fellow have begun to make the argument in public that from the point of view of the secure White House, they can somehow see the current dumpster economy smelling better, light at the end of the tunnel, the dawn of a new economic era just over the horizon.
This is based largely on scattered economic stats indicating that things are not so much really getting better; they're just not getting bad as much as before.
Back in those awful winter days when new blood and Aretha Franklin's hat arrived with such promise and the new team inherited a terrible situation from you-know-who and his evil partner, you-know-him.
Also Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, who also still has a fulltime job, sees the recession as virtually over.
But a new poll indicates it's gonna take a whole lot more than repeated rhetoric to convince skeptical Americans not feeling the $787 billion economic stimulus.
The new CNN / Opinion Research Poll finds an overwhelming majority of Americans see the country as good and stuck in a recession and have no doubts about it.
Fully 86% of the 1,012 adults surveyed said the country remained mired in a recession; 13% disagreed. Seventy-seven percent call it a severe or moderate recession; only 10% light. More than half said their economic position had not improved in the past year and nearly 40% said it was worse.
NY Tax Lawyer’s $100K in Deductions for Prostitutes Disallowed (ABA Journal)
A New York tax lawyer has lost a bid to deduct more than $100,000 in payments for prostitutes and pornography.
The federal Tax Court denied the deductions, claimed by lawyer William Halby as medical expenses for sex therapy. TaxProf Blog reported on yesterday's ruling, first noted by Tax Update Blog.
The U.S. Tax Court opinion (PDF) involved more than $100,000 in deductions for 2004 and 2005.
Halby noted his visits to prostitutes in a tax journal, but they were not part of a physician-ordered therapy and they are illegal in New York, the Tax Court said.
Halby lost a similar bid before the New York Division of Tax Appeals last year, the New York Post reported at the time. The New York ruling involved more than $300,000 in deductions for 2002, 2003 and 2004.
S.F. Chronicle sheds 5 more jobs (San Francisco Business Times)
The Northern California Media Workers Guild said late Wednesday that five members of the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial department are being laid off, the latest in a series of staffing cuts at the troubled daily newspaper.
The Guild didn’t indicate which editorial staffers were losing their jobs.
Five staffers in the Chronicle’s classified advertising department, four of them Guild members, agreed to job buyouts last week, according to the union, and “at least one voluntary layoff has been accepted in editorial, the Guild said.
That would mean at least 11 jobs have been eliminated this month, after earlier rounds of cuts this year slashed roughly 150 Guild job between March and mid-May.
“Company managers told Guild officers that no additional ‘journalist’ positions are being cut for now, but did not rule out the possibility of additional layoffs in non-news departments,” the Sept. 16 Guild statement said.
How many people dropped their subscriptions after reading an editorial, crumpling the paper up, and vowing NEVER AGAIN.
================
I don't know but that was the exact final straw with me. I had watched the quality of the paper go downhill for several years before I retired but continued my subscription out of loyalty.
It finally became just too much with some of the garbage they were allowing their anonymous "Editorial Board" put out.
...How many people dropped their subscriptions after reading an editorial, crumpling the paper up, and vowing NEVER AGAIN...
Why would anyone object to reading an opinion they didn't agree with? Are they afraid they might find out they've been wrong? Or at least might see factors they haven't considered? Or is it just easier never to have your beliefs challenged so you have to think?
This has been an argument of mine since The Star began cutting its workforce. The Star's editorial board is a national embarrassment. It is not only heavily tilted to the far left, but it continuously disgraces the profession by serving as a handmaiden to KC's corrupt establishment, pimping for its sleazy edifice complexes and promoting its money-grubbing schemes.
It is at the heart of The Star's credibility crisis and there is no question that editorial policy drives the news side.
By eliminating the editorial staff (save for someone to post letters from readers) there would be more money for reporters to do local news and The Star would be spared from the repeated embarrassment writers like Hendricks and Diuguid and Sanchez and Shelly bring to the paper.
As it is, our local blogs post material that is vastly superior to anything these whores publish and the credibility of The Star is continually diminished.
John -- I'd love to know what the Star is paying Hendricks and Diuguid and Sanchez and Shelly. Not to mention the biggest (literally) embarrassment of all, Jason Whitlock.
...But hey, if the MSM wants to continue insulting half the country, let them continue self-destructing...
Well, I don't know why someone would feel "insulted" by reading something they disagree with (especially since there are so many sources they also can consult). They'd benefit from having their beliefs challenged. But obviously, many just want their opinions and beliefs reinforced so they don't have to think. That's their loss.
Question: Is it really a wise business practice to force employees to take furloughs, then pay employees overtime (time-and-a-half) to work for the employees on furlough?
It seems to me that you're just paying 50 percent more than you need to, but I'm sure McClatchy knows better than me.
11:10 writes: “They'd benefit from having their beliefs challenged” You keep writing that same thing over and over, so perhaps you could shed light on why the left hates Fox News. You would think they would love to have their beliefs challenged. Bwhahahaha
52 comments:
Shock Video... Obama 2007 Revelation: Health Care Reform Requires Tax Hikes-- Savings Are Just a Theory (GatewayPundit)
SHOCK VIDEO--- Barack Obama in April 2007 told a group of supporters: Health Care Reform Requires Tax Hikes — Savings Just a Theory.
"Initially you may need another $90-100 billion each year."
Obama ties immigration to health care battle (The Washington Times)
President Obama said this week that his health care plan won't cover illegal immigrants, but argued that's all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage.
"Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don't simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken," Mr. Obama said Wednesday evening in a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.
"That's why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else.
"ACORN CAN HELP YOU, ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, TO PURCHASE A HOME" (Translation from Spanish) Sept. 2005 (TelemundoT47 Spanish Website)
NEW YORK, NY. -- Thanks to an initiative of private banking it is now possible for illegal immigrants to buy homes in the United States without having a social security number.
A new program helps immigrants who can not afford home to fulfill their American dream.
Elena Hernandez has long had the dream of buying a home, but has not succeeded, she said not to have immigration papers.
The Mexican immigrant said: "I believe I have closed the doors to buy a house because I have a card from social insurance number, so without social security number can not do anything."
Historically, immigrants who have purchased home in the United States have done so under some risk, with false documents or with the help of others.
"There are people who do have their own, but are in the name of another person who does have legal documents.
But now Citigroup have joined ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform , to help immigrants to buy your house even without social security number.
ACORN worker fired over video sting (San Diego News Story)
San Diego Union-Tribune
NATIONAL CITY - Local ACORN officials reversed an earlier decision Thursday afternoon and fired a community organizer who was caught on video providing advice about human smuggling to a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute.
In an afternoon press conference, Lagstein said he believed his employee, Juan Carlos Vera, did his best to deal with a challenging situation, and would not be disciplined.
But two hours later, Lagstein stated he had reevaluated the videos posted online in which Vera was secretly filmed answering questions about smuggling people across the Tijuana border.
‘Thank You ACORN’: Leno Plays ‘Commercial’ Featuring Prostitute’s Gratitude NBC
"ACORN. We'll help you get away with stuff."
House and Senate take action against ACORN (LA Times)
Reporting from Washington - Trying to dodge a building conservative firestorm, the House and Senate made clear Thursday that the community-based nonprofit organization ACORN was persona non grata on Capitol Hill.
House Republicans took over a debate about a sweeping student loan bill to propose a measure that would bar the Assn. of Community Organizers for Reform Now from receiving any federal funds.
It passed 345 to 75, with 172 Democrats joining all of the chamber's Republicans in support.
In the Senate, an amendment that would prohibit ACORN from receiving any money contained in an Interior Department spending bill passed by an 85-11 vote.
It was the second such vote directed at ACORN in the Senate this week.
snip
On Thursday, ACORN suggested Congress was caving in to pressure from the conservative media.
ACORN Watch: 1,100 suspicious voter cards in NM
Barack Obama’s dear friends at ACORN are busy trying to lie, cheat, and steal their way to victory in November.
The latest ACORN Watch entry comes to you from the battleground state of New Mexico, where election officials have notified prosecutors of an estimated 1,100 possibly fraudulent voter registration cards.
The Bernalillo County clerk has notified prosecutors that some 1,100 possibly fraudulent voter registration cards have been turned in to her office.
Some cards in New Mexico’s most populous county have the same name as a voter who’s already registered, but carry a different birth date or Social Security number; some list someone else’s Social Security number; some have addresses that don’t exist, Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver said Wednesday.
In one case, a series of about nine cards appears to have been taken directly from the phone book, she said. “Those are sort of the big red flags,” Toulouse Oliver said.
NBC Seeking News Staff Buyouts (NBC = Natural Born Communists)
NBC Universal executives have approached a large number of employees across its news divisions and bureaus, announcing that the company is looking for unspecified number of staffers to take voluntary buyouts
Down Steeply Since Late Jan., Big 3Evening Newscasts Stuck at Low Summer Levels
After a summer swoon, you would think that the evening newscasts of the Big 3 networks would start to recover a bit now that many Americans are back from vacations, kids are back in school, and fall routines are getting established or re-established.
So far, you would be wrong.
It's early, and there's still plenty of time this fall to recover, but during the time period after Labor Day, the broadcasts primarily anchored by Brian Williams at NBC, Charles Gibson at ABC, and Katie Couric at
CBS:
•Are down a combined 28.5% from their peak in late January during the first full week of Barack Obama's presidency.
•Have lost a combined 37.7% of their audience in the 25-54 demographic during the same time period.
•Are down year-over-year compared to September 1, 2008, the week after Labor a year ago, by 8.9% overall and 18.1% in the 25-54 demographic.
•At 19.55 million, are basically drawing audiences no larger than they were during this past (for them) miserable summer.
Jimmy Carter’s Record on Race
David Horowitz's NewsReal Blog
As Jimmy Carter portrays conservatives as violent racists, it's worth remembering Carter's own history of racial demagoguery.
Carter campaigned for governor of Georgia as a self- proclaimed “redneck,” in an era when that word had pronounced racial connotations.
His campaign distributed a photo of his gubernatorial opponent Carl Sanders being embraced by black basketball players to a Ku Klux Klan rally.
Carter pledged to invite Alabama's infamous segregationist governor George Wallace to Georgia if elected. He once said he was “proud” to have the equally segregationist Lester Maddox as his lieutenant governor following the 1970 election, calling Governor Axe-handle “the essence of the Democratic Party” (which he was).
In 1972, Carter promised – then broke his promise – to the newly crippled Wallace to nominate or second him at the Democratic National Convention in Miami, jumping at the opportunity to give the nomination speech for Henry “Scoop” Jackson (and the national exposure that would bring; see Obama, Barack).
Dowd and Carter Guilty of That Which They Decry (davidlimbaugh.com)
I'm sure New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and former President Jimmy Carter derive a great deal of self-satisfaction slandering other people with false charges of racism, but the damage they're doing to race relations is worse than any bona fide racist could dream of doing.
I ask you: Who is more likely racist, the person who sees race every time she turns around or the person who aspires toward colorblindness?
Could those always pointing the accusatory finger be projecting their own discomfort with race?
Listen to how Maureen begins her snarky Sept. 12 column, in which she posited that Rep. Joe Wilson's "you lie" outburst was driven by racism.
She writes: "Surrounded by middle-aged white guys -- a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men's club -- Joe Wilson yelled 'You lie!' at a president who didn't. B
ut, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!"
The stunning, total defeat of ACORN
(Washington Examiner)
The ACORN vote in the House is stunning news. Just 48 hours after Republican Leader John Boehner introduced the "Defund ACORN Act," the bill -- which most Republicans thought Democrats would do anything to block -- passed by a resounding 345-75 vote.
It would never have made it to a vote had not the Democratic leadership decided to allow it, and the winning total included 172 Democrats.
Yes, 172 House Democrats voted to totally cut off funding for an organization that has worked for years on behalf of Democrats nationwide.
Couple that with the 83-7 Senate vote to cut off housing funds to ACORN -- a number that included 50 Democrats -- and the votes signal the complete collapse of Democratic support for ACORN.
The job is not anywhere near finished -- the Senate still has to consider a total-cutoff bill, introduced just today by Sen. Mike Johanns, and a conference committee has to come up with a final bill that President Obama signs.
Obama to amend report on $800,000 in spending (to ACORN) (Pittsburgh Live.COM)
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign paid more than $800,000 to an offshoot of the liberal Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now for services the Democrat's campaign says it mistakenly misrepresented in federal reports.
An Obama spokesman said Federal Election Commission reports would be amended to show Citizens Services Inc. -- a subsidiary of ACORN -- worked in "get-out-the-vote" projects, instead of activities such as polling, advance work and staging major events as stated in FEC finance reports filed during the primary.
FEC spokeswoman Mary Brandenberger said it is not unusual for campaigns to amend reports, even regarding large sums of money.
But, said Blair Latoff, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee: "Barack Obama's failure to accurately report his campaign's financial records is an incredibly suspicious situation that appears to be an attempt to hide his campaign's interaction with a left-wing organization previously convicted of voter fraud.
For a candidate who claims to be practicing 'new' politics, his FEC reports look an awful lot like the 'old-style' Chicago politics of yesterday."
Jim Terry, spokesman for a group that tracks ACORN, said Citizens Services Inc.'s involvement in the Obama campaign raises bigger questions.
"All of this just seems like an awful lot of money and time spent on political campaigning for an organization that purports to exist to help low-income consumers," said Terry, chief public advocate for Consumers Rights League, a Washington, D.C., advocacy outfit with a libertarian outlook.
"ACORN has a long and sordid history of employing convoluted Enron-style accounting to illegally use taxpayer funds for their own political gain," Terry claimed.
"Now it looks like ACORN is using the same type of convoluted accounting scheme for Obama's political gain."
Add it up During primary campaigning in February through May, Barack Obama's campaign paid Citizens Services Inc. $832,598.29, for services including:
• $310,441.20 -- Feb. 25, staging, sound, lighting
• $160,689.40 -- Feb. 27, staging, sound, lighting
• $98,451.20 -- Feb. 29, travel/lodging
• $74,578.01-- March 13, staging, sound, lighting
• $18,417.00 -- March 28, polling
• $18,633.60 -- April 29, staging, sound, lighting
• $63,000.00 -- April 8, advance work
• $105.84 -- May 2, license fees
• $105.84 -- May 2, license fees
• $75,000.00 -- May 17, advance work
• $13,176.20 -- May 17, per diem
Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt indicated all work by CSI would be amended to the category of field work.
"Barack Obama's failure to accurately report his campaign's financial records is an incredibly suspicious situation that appears to be an attempt to hide his campaign's interaction with a left-wing organization previously convicted of voter fraud.
For a candidate who claims to be practicing 'new' politics, his FEC reports look an awful lot like the 'old-style' Chicago politics of yesterday."
How conservative pranksters made idiots of Obama's favourite left-wing charity ACORN (The London Telegraph)
A skinny white prostitute and her pimp turn up at the office of Barack Obama’s favourite US “poverty action” charity ACORN (Association of Community Organisations for Reform Now).
They want advice on a few problems, like how best to bring over a “couple” of - well, 13, actually - underage girls from El Salvador to work in this brothel they’ve got planned, without attracting too much heat from the authorities.
How can they get a mortgage, how should they deal with their tax affairs, how do they legitimize their immoral earnings and so on?
ACORN’s expert advisers are more than happy to oblige, as this hilarious video - first posted at the BigGovernment site - reveals.
Hilarious because, of course, the footage is a stitch-up. It was filmed with a hidden camera and acted out by two very brave young US investigative journalists - Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe, keen to expose the dubious moral standards of the radical left organisation. (Using methods not unakin to those advocated by Obama’s preferred leftist agitator Saul Alinsky)
Obama’s Direct and Lucrative Ties to ACORN (Canada Free Press)
Since Obama announced his run for the presidency of the United States of America, some us have been reporting on the direct ties—both ideological and financial—between Obama and his voter-fraud and massive-corruption organization ACORN.
-SNIP-
Thus far, any and all attempts to investigate ACORN have been blocked by ObamaThugs and the Democrat-run Congress.
-SNIP-
As a reminder, the below are only a few of the direct ties and activities that the Obama pretender-to-the-throne has engaged in with ACORN.
In a number of crucial cases, Obama was the Attorney for the Chicago ACORN chapter and he used them to assist him in his run for the Illinois State Senate in 1996
•In 1992, prior to his working as ACORN’s attorney, Obama was Executive Director of ACORN subsidiary “Project Vote” Obama trained ACORN workers
•While sitting on the board of the Woods Foundation, Obama and domestic terrorist William Ayers—who is also a major Obama fundraiser—arranged for grants for ACORN
•While both on the board of Chicago’s Annenberg Challenge—Ayers and Obama with Obama as Chairman—funds were funneled to ACORN
•In his run for the Democrat presidential nomination, Obama paid ACORN subsidiary “Citizen’s Services, Inc.” over $830,000 to engage in ACORN ‘get out the vote’ activities (these would later be called the Obama-ACORN Voter Fraud Alliance)
•ACORN is falsely registered as “non-partisan,” as its leader Maude Hurd endorsed Obama for president
•Tax dollars collected from US citizens are paying for this Obama and Democrat Party fraud voter fraud group. Did you know that?
Not long ago Obama Promises Seat Acorn a seat at Table. Today, Obama Drives Bus Over Acorn.
Obama said 12/01/07, "Before I even get inaugurated, during the transition we're going to being calling all of you in to help us shape the agenda.
We're gonna be having meetings all over the country with community organizations so that you all have input into the agenda of the next presidency of the United States of America" Senator Obama 12/01/07 Heartland Democratic Presidential Forum see 1:48
Why Are Embezzlement Coverup Conspirators Still at ACORN? (American Spectator)
ACORN did the right thing in firing employees who advised a couple on the finer legal points of establishing a child prostitution ring but ACORN officials who covered up a nearly $1 million embezzlement for eight years still have their jobs, the ACORN 8 declared in a statement today.
Members of ACORN 8, a reform group founded by former ACORN national board members Marcel Reid and Karen Inman, released a statement today regarding the three videos that have surfaced so far that show ACORN employees telling two undercover journalists posing as a pimp and prostitute how to launder money, evade taxes, defraud banks, and conceal the fictitious scenario the duo cooked up.
Although the ACORN workers caught behaving badly "were immediately terminated for behaving unprofessionally...senior staff members who assisted and concealed a million dollar Rathke embezzlement remain employed," ACORN 8 said in the release.
Reid and Inman were expelled from the ACORN board after they asked uncomfortable questions about ACORN's finances in the wake of an embezzlement scandal involving ACORN founder Wade Rathke.
Rathke covered up his brother Dale's circa 2000 theft of $948,000 in ACORN funds but the long-hidden misappropriation was revealed last year and this led to the founder's expulsion from the group. Reid and Inman were appointed by the board to probe the group's finances.
When they tried to actually do so, the same people who helped Rathke engineer and sustain a coverup showed them the door.
Politico’s Mike Allen: Networks Have to Cover ‘Real News;' Too Busy to Talk About ACORN
The Politico’s Mike Allen appeared on Wednesday’s Morning Joe to both defend the mainstream media’s decision to ignore the ACORN controversy and agree that a double standard is at work.
SEIU is “One of the Pillars of the ACORN Family” (Big Government)
For one of Big Labor’s most notorious organizing partners, ACORN, the “chickens have come home to roost” thanks to the James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles continuously unfolding ACORN exposé.
If you rely on MSNBC for your news, you may not have noticed ACORN’s very thin “community organizer” veneer being sanded away exposing the rotten termite-infested wood underneath.
Part of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now’s (ACORN) rotten core includes a very cozy relationship with Big Labor.
In fact, in many instances ACORN and Big Labor are one and the same. In 2008, Big Labor funneled ACORN millions of dollars for so-called organizing activity. But, that is only the tip of the Big Labor iceberg.
ACORN controls or significantly dominates several Big Labor unions and organizations. ACORN created and controls SEIU 100 (Gulf Region) and SEIU 880 (a recently expanded SEIU mega-local that covers Chicago, Illinois, Indiana, and Kansas).
ACORN founder S. Wade Rathke referred to mega-union SEIU 880 as “one of the pillars of the ACORN Family.”
New York City freezes ACORN funds, Cuomo launches probe
The media may be trying as hard as possible to ignore the series of undercover videos taken at ACORN offices around the nation, but politicians don’t have that luxury.
Even in New York, both state and city officials have reacted to voter outrage over the actions of ACORN staffers offering advice on hiding tax evasion and child prostitution, especially since these offices run in part on taxpayer money.
The New York Post reports that the city council in NYC have suspended payments to ACORN pending further investigation, and that Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo has launched an investigation
ACORN: "We knew they were filming us so we played along for laughs"
(Fox)
The latest thigh-slapper from the gangsters at ACORN.
Surprise: ACORN audit to be conducted by panel full of leftists and cronies
“A Soros hack, an SEIU thug, someone who pleaded to lying to the FBI, and a Kennedy.”
All that’s missing are a few pimps and prostitutes for “technical expertise.” Hardest-hitting internal investigation evah:
Rocked by a continuing stream of scandals, ACORN is trying to pass them off as the “indefensible” acts of a few employees, but promised an “independent review.”
Who will conduct the “independent review?” Round up the usual suspects:
The Council includes many prominent Democrats, including the man who helped President Obama Transition Team, John Podesta, President and CEO of the Center for American Progress; former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend; Andrew Stern, International President of the Service Employees International Union; and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros.
Cisneros, who worked regularly with ACORN as HUD Secretary, would later plead guilty to lying to the FBI to cover up a political embarrassment. Perfect choice.
Townsend is so inependent that she called the stories of ACORN’s frequent involvement in voter fraud a “desperate smokescreen maneuver” masking an extensive coast-to-coast GOP push to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters in 2008. No bias there.
Stern heads SEIU, which has a very cozy relationship with ACORN. How cozy?
ACORN controls or significantly dominates several SEIU chapters. And Stern hand-picked ACORN’s Wade Rathke to direct SEIU’s nationwide organizing projects. He could not be more independent.
And Podesta runs the Soros-funded Center for American Progress, which has been coordinating the public defense of ACORN this summer. He might be even more independent than Andy Stern.
Glad to see that ACORN is taking this all so seriously.
ABC World News Boss on Ignoring ACORN: 'We're Not in the Business of Noise'
Backing up his anchorman, Charles Gibson, who suggested on the radio that maybe the ACORN story "is just one you leave to the cables," World News executive Jon Banner extended the liberal snobbery on Politico:
While Banner admits that some stories may get more attention on cable, blogs or talk radio, it doesn’t mean they’re suited for the "World News" audience.
"There’s a tremendous amount of – for lack of a better word –‘noise’ out there. We’re not in the business of noise."
ABC can devote entire segments to Obama swatting a fly on camera, but they report "news," not "noise"? Banner also claimed:
"It’s a very different editorial process when you have 24 hours to fill as opposed to 22 minutes," Banner said, explaining why ACORN hasn’t yet fit in the evening newscast.
Lately, Banner noted that the program has been focused on covering Afghanistan, health care, the economy and the anniversary of 9/11.
The Uselessness of Paul Krugman
(Pajamas Media)
There’s nothing liberals love more than apologizing for the misdeeds of others.
Recently in the New York Times Magazine, Paul Krugman took it to an extreme with his 6,670-word article titled “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?”.
Don’t bother reading it. It’s clear that he still doesn’t get it and definitely isn’t looking for any real answers.
Just the length of the piece is comical. We imagine poor Paul gazing out the window of his New York Times office searching for just one more quote, one more study, one more insight to help redeem his profession and his reputation in the wake of the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Because in Krugman’s ivory tower and on the Times editorial board, economics still matters and no debate about stimulus packages or health care plans or financial regulation would be complete without his unique and important insights.
He’s too big to fail and worth every word. And who could edit him anyway? He won a Nobel Prize.
Over here in reality, most of us already know that he and those that follow in his footsteps have no reputation to salvage. ...
Fiat CEO: Chrysler worse than we thought
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The situation at recently rescued Chrysler Group is even more dire than first thought, the CEO of Italy's Fiat -- which came to the aid of the U.S. automaker -- said Wednesday.
"We were surprised by how little had been done in the past 24 months," Sergio Marchionne told reporters in Frankfurt, Germany.
Chrysler will present a revised business plan in November, Marchionne told reporters.
Sen. Sanders: Unemployment Rate At 17% (Real Clear Politics)
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT): "The middle class in this country is collapsing.
We've got 17-percent of our population who don't have jobs; people have lost their homes, people have lost their savings."
Obama Sings the "Sounds of Silence"
Lyrics to Obama's version of Simon and Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence." Lyrics:
Hello ACORN, my old friend/ I cannot talk with you again/
Because a vision softly creeping/ Of hidden cameras that went peeping/
from a story the press could not contain/ cannot remain/
Within the sound of silence/
In Martha's Vineyard I walked alone/ 'Til Teddy's funeral I had flown/
And his story I did revamp/ 'Cause He drove his car into the cold and damp/
But his death may yet help my healthcare plight/ And split the right/
And keep the sound of silence/
And in the DC Mall I saw/ Ten thousand people, maybe more/
Racists talking without speaking/ Haters hating without hating/
People writing stories that networks never share/ And no one dared/
Disturb the sound of silence/
"Fools", said I, "You do not know/ Freedom like a cancer grows/
Hear my words that I might teach you/ Another speech just might reach you"/
But my words, like silent raindrops fell/ And echoed/
In the wells of silence/
But the media bowed and prayed/ To the neon god they made/
And the polls flashed out its warning/ In the words that it was forming/
And the sign said, "The seeds of the defeat are marching on the national mall/
And those town halls"/ And proven in the sounds of silence
Pelosi: I'm clueless about cash cut-off (ACORN.........)NYPOST
WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday she is clueless about an amendment to prohibit government funds for embattled ACORN, although it overwhelmingly passed the Senate Monday and the White House is calling for the group to be held accountable.
"I don't even know what they passed," Pelosi told The Post yesterday.
"What did they do? They defunded it?"
The amendment to suspend housing grants was a stunning blow to the community-activist group -- and came as some Democrats and the White House have been backing away from the group.
White House collects Web users' data without notice (Washington Times)
The White House is collecting and storing comments and videos placed on its social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube without notifying or asking the consent of the site users, a failure that appears to run counter to President Obama's promise of a transparent government and his pledge to protect privacy on the Internet.
Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the White House signaled that it would insist on open dealings with Internet users and, in fact, should feel obliged to disclose that it is collecting such information.
"The White House has not been adequately transparent, particularly on how it makes use of new social media techniques, such as this example," he said.
Defenders of the White House actions said the Presidential Records Act requires that the administration gather the information and that it was justified in taking the additional step of asking a private contractor to "crawl and archive" all such material.
Nicholas Shapiro, a White House spokesman, declined to say when the practice began or how much the new contract would cost.
The National Legal and Policy Center, a government ethics watchdog, said archiving the sites would have a "chilling effect" on Web site users who might wish to leave comments critical of the administration.
Democrats to Obama : Um, what exactly are we getting for selling out Poland to Russia ?
What are you getting? You’re getting the same thing you got when he sold out Honduras to Chavez over that non-coup “coup” they staged: The warm fuzzy glow of knowing that George Bush would heartily disapprove.
But some members of Obama’s own party, however, had a simple question for the administration: if this was a return to realism, and a concession to Russia’s long and vocal opposition to the missile program, what, exactly, was the U.S. getting in return for fundamentally changing it?
The Company He Keeps(GatewayPundit)
“Next week the Obama Administration will allow Ahmadinejad, Castro, Chavez, Gaddafi and several other international thugs into New York City to speak in front of the United Nations General Assembly.
However, one country’s president will not be allowed into the United States.
President Roberto Micheletti from Honduras will not be allowed to enter into America.
The US has suspended the visa policy in Honduras.
For the first time in this country’s history, our leaders in government are siding with Marxists Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, Raul Castro and Evo Morales against a democratic foreign leader.”
Before the Presidential election, we were told it’s wrong to judge candidate Obama by his radical friends and associates.
Now President Obama chooses to recognize radical international leaders and reject democratic friends. Can we judge him now?
L.A. Times Buries (And Hides) Worst Facts of ACORN Scandal (Patterico)
Well, well. Just look at how the L.A. Times is characterizing the myriad revelations of rampant criminal conduct by ACORN. You guessed it: it’s portrayed as a conservative thing:
Trying to dodge a building conservative firestorm, the House and Senate made clear Thursday that the community-based nonprofit organization ACORN was persona non grata on Capitol Hill.
. . . .
Congress’ actions were the strongest statement yet that the advocacy group, which conservatives accused of voter fraud in the 2008 presidential election, has become politically radioactive for Democrats.
Gee, why are those damn conservatives so upset? It takes until paragraph five to get this much out of Times editors:
Video made public earlier this month that featured ACORN workers giving advice on how to evade the law is the latest subject of conservative criticism.
Oh, well, if it’s just conservative criticism, then it must be bogus.
By the way, why isn’t this the headline? “ACORN workers caught on tape giving advice on how to evade the law”? Why is that not in the lede? And it takes until the paragraph seventeen to give some of the lurid details:
The most serious blow to ACORN’s reputation, however, may have come this month when video surfaced showing two employees in the group’s Baltimore office advising two actors who were posing as a prostitute and pimp on tax evasion and fraud. The duo are conservative filmmakers who have targeted ACORN offices nationwide.
Oh, well, if they’re conservative filmmakers, then it must be bogus.
So: mentioning that illegal activity is involved comes in paragraph five, and the revelation that a pimp is involved comes in paragraph seventeen.
And which paragraph tells Times readers that the illegal actions that ACORN workers eagerly worked to cover up include trafficking in child prostitutes aged 13 to 15?
For that little tidbit, you have to read all the way down to paragraph fuck you L.A. Times readers because you don’t even need to know that part at all.
Can we agree that this constitutes hiding the worst of it?
So remember: opposing pimping out underaged prostitutes is a conservative thing.
So says the L.A. Times.
New poll finds Americans not buying Obama's light-at-the-end-of-the-recession talk LA Times
In recent days both Democrat Vice President Joe Biden and the other fellow have begun to make the argument in public that from the point of view of the secure White House, they can somehow see the current dumpster economy smelling better, light at the end of the tunnel, the dawn of a new economic era just over the horizon.
This is based largely on scattered economic stats indicating that things are not so much really getting better; they're just not getting bad as much as before.
Back in those awful winter days when new blood and Aretha Franklin's hat arrived with such promise and the new team inherited a terrible situation from you-know-who and his evil partner, you-know-him.
Also Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, who also still has a fulltime job, sees the recession as virtually over.
But a new poll indicates it's gonna take a whole lot more than repeated rhetoric to convince skeptical Americans not feeling the $787 billion economic stimulus.
The new CNN / Opinion Research Poll finds an overwhelming majority of Americans see the country as good and stuck in a recession and have no doubts about it.
Fully 86% of the 1,012 adults surveyed said the country remained mired in a recession; 13% disagreed. Seventy-seven percent call it a severe or moderate recession; only 10% light. More than half said their economic position had not improved in the past year and nearly 40% said it was worse.
Why wasn’t ACORN consulted?
NY Tax Lawyer’s $100K in Deductions for Prostitutes Disallowed (ABA Journal)
A New York tax lawyer has lost a bid to deduct more than $100,000 in payments for prostitutes and pornography.
The federal Tax Court denied the deductions, claimed by lawyer William Halby as medical expenses for sex therapy. TaxProf Blog reported on yesterday's ruling, first noted by Tax Update Blog.
The U.S. Tax Court opinion (PDF) involved more than $100,000 in deductions for 2004 and 2005.
Halby noted his visits to prostitutes in a tax journal, but they were not part of a physician-ordered therapy and they are illegal in New York, the Tax Court said.
Halby lost a similar bid before the New York Division of Tax Appeals last year, the New York Post reported at the time. The New York ruling involved more than $300,000 in deductions for 2002, 2003 and 2004.
S.F. Chronicle sheds 5 more jobs (San Francisco Business Times)
The Northern California Media Workers Guild said late Wednesday that five members of the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial department are being laid off, the latest in a series of staffing cuts at the troubled daily newspaper.
The Guild didn’t indicate which editorial staffers were losing their jobs.
Five staffers in the Chronicle’s classified advertising department, four of them Guild members, agreed to job buyouts last week, according to the union, and “at least one voluntary layoff has been accepted in editorial, the Guild said.
That would mean at least 11 jobs have been eliminated this month, after earlier rounds of cuts this year slashed roughly 150 Guild job between March and mid-May.
“Company managers told Guild officers that no additional ‘journalist’ positions are being cut for now, but did not rule out the possibility of additional layoffs in non-news departments,” the Sept. 16 Guild statement said.
If you eliminated newspaper editorials and you'd get an immediate bump in subscriptions.
How many people dropped their subscriptions after reading an editorial, crumpling the paper up, and vowing NEVER AGAIN.
How many people dropped their subscriptions after reading an editorial, crumpling the paper up, and vowing NEVER AGAIN.
================
I don't know but that was the exact final straw with me. I had watched the quality of the paper go downhill for several years before I retired but continued my subscription out of loyalty.
It finally became just too much with some of the garbage they were allowing their anonymous "Editorial Board" put out.
7:16 -- McClatchy would get more readers if they started living up to their "Truth to Power" motto instead of acting like a DNC propaganda arm.
...How many people dropped their subscriptions after reading an editorial, crumpling the paper up, and vowing NEVER AGAIN...
Why would anyone object to reading an opinion they didn't agree with? Are they afraid they might find out they've been wrong? Or at least might see factors they haven't considered? Or is it just easier never to have your beliefs challenged so you have to think?
8:48 -- half the readers in the country are tired of reading news and editorials slanted in one direction only.
But hey, if the MSM wants to continue insulting half the country, let them continue self-destructing.
This has been an argument of mine since The Star began cutting its workforce. The Star's editorial board is a national embarrassment. It is not only heavily tilted to the far left, but it continuously disgraces the profession by serving as a handmaiden to KC's corrupt establishment, pimping for its sleazy edifice complexes and promoting its money-grubbing schemes.
It is at the heart of The Star's credibility crisis and there is no question that editorial policy drives the news side.
By eliminating the editorial staff (save for someone to post letters from readers) there would be more money for reporters to do local news and The Star would be spared from the repeated embarrassment writers like Hendricks and Diuguid and Sanchez and Shelly bring to the paper.
As it is, our local blogs post material that is vastly superior to anything these whores publish and the credibility of The Star is continually diminished.
John -- I'd love to know what the Star is paying Hendricks and Diuguid and Sanchez and Shelly. Not to mention the biggest (literally) embarrassment of all, Jason Whitlock.
...But hey, if the MSM wants to continue insulting half the country, let them continue self-destructing...
Well, I don't know why someone would feel "insulted" by reading something they disagree with (especially since there are so many sources they also can consult). They'd benefit from having their beliefs challenged. But obviously, many just want their opinions and beliefs reinforced so they don't have to think. That's their loss.
Question: Is it really a wise business practice to force employees to take furloughs, then pay employees overtime (time-and-a-half) to work for the employees on furlough?
It seems to me that you're just paying 50 percent more than you need to, but I'm sure McClatchy knows better than me.
Right?
11:10 writes: “They'd benefit from having their beliefs challenged” You keep writing that same thing over and over, so perhaps you could shed light on why the left hates Fox News. You would think they would love to have their beliefs challenged.
Bwhahahaha
///perhaps you could shed light on why the left hates Fox News.///
Because it lies and distorts.
...perhaps you could shed light on why the left hates Fox News. You would think they would love to have their beliefs challenged...
The same reason the right hates MSNBC.
Bwahahahahahaha
"Well, I don't know why someone would feel "insulted" by reading something they disagree with"
Personally, I'm not insulted by things I diagree with...
But I sure as hell wouldn't spend my money to buy it.
I'm fairly certain that millions of others feel the same way.
:o)
"Because it lies and distorts."
LOL How original.
To quote another poster...
they hate Fox because...
just want their opinions and beliefs reinforced so they don't have to think.
Outrageous McClatchy propaganda regarding Joe Wilson.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1240808.html
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