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, October 22, 2009
Thursday October 22 -- Got news or an update?
If you have news or an update, leave it in comments. . . .
35 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Dems change locks on Capitol offices; tell Repubs to get lost (Fox)
No Repubs now have access to any meeting rooms in the Capitol Building.
Reid to hold fourth secret meeting on ObamaCare tomorrow. No one besides committee members to be allowed into any meetings.
No press coverage. No statements. They are working on a 1,500 + page bill in an attempt to merge different versions.
A Dem liar is on Cavuto now saying that the process is indeed open and transparent because the Dems are releasing what information they feel like.
Has locking-out the minority party in Congress ever been done before?
Despite Closed Doors, Dems Say Health Care Process Is Transparent (Politics Daily)
Under the "health care" heading on the White House Web site, a paragraph reads:
"The President has vowed that the health reform process will be different in his Administration – an open, inclusive, and transparent process where all ideas are encouraged and all parties work together to find a solution to the health care crisis."
But after dozens of televised hearings, round tables, markups and press conferences, top White House officials are now meeting in the Capitol with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sens. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Max Baucus of Montana, away from Republicans and the press, to meld two very different committee-passed versions of their health care reform bills.
Maddow/Olbermann Invited to White House Chat with Obama, But Fox Isn't a News Organization? (Mediabistro.com)
Here's a curious turn in the White House vs. Fox News fight. On Monday, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow were among several people who attended an off-the-record briefing with Pres. Obama at the White House.
Sources tell us other attendees at the two-and-a-half hour chat included Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Gwen Ifill of PBS and Gloria Borger of CNN.
Perhaps not surprisingly, no one from Fox News was in the room.
New York Times posts loss of 25 cents a share (Marketwatch.com)
The New York Times Co. said Thursday that it lost $36 million, or 25 cents a share in the third quarter, compared to a loss of $106million, or 74 cents a share, in the same period a year ago.
Earnings per share from continuing operations, excluding severance and special items, were 16 cents. Revenue fell 17% to $571 million from $687 million. Analysts polled by FactSet Research estimated, on average, a loss of 2 cents a share and sales of $576 million.
They All Look Alike? MSNBC's Head Witch Mistakes Jesse Jackson for Al Sharpton
Relax Contessa! Just get on your knees and well, you know, apologize.
Jesse, Al, Jesse, Al, what's the difference right? Jesse despises Contessa, remember she's white, so there is no need for her to get down on her knees and well, you know, apologize, as if he's going to mug her.
The look on her face! It was as if Contessa was thinking, 'I'm so so sorry Mr. Black man, It wasn't my fault, I swear.
Deirdra Imus Blasts CNN and PMSNBC for "kissing Obama's ass"
Talk about a strong conservative......WOW Mrs. Imus said something many of us have wanted to say for months....that CNN and PMSNBC were prostituting themselves and kissing Obama's ass....
Gallup: Obama Suffers Worst 3rd Quarter Drop in Approval Since 1953(RCP)
Barack Obama has suffered worst third quarter decline in his public approval rating of any elected president in the post-World War II era.
Obama's average quarterly approval rating has slipped from 62 percent in the second quarter to 52.9 percent in the third quarter, according to Gallup polling.
That 9 percentage point decline is twice the amount of any other post-war elected president. Dwight Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan saw their standing decline 4 points between the two quarters.
No other elected president has declined more than 4 points since 1953. The third quarter began July 20 and ended October 19.
As newspapers and TV networks struggle and the administration presumes to define a proper news organization, what does the journalism establishment demand? No fair if you guessed a government bailout.
The dead giveaway answer came this week as Leonard Downie Jr., former executive editor and current vice president at large of the Washington Post, along with Michael Schudson, a professor at the mission-fatigued Columbia Journalism School, debuted their role-playing as cash-strapped bankers and auto execs.
The news business' tenuous hold on profitability, they lamented, has threatened its sustainability. They demanded massive government involvement.
The duo released their full report, "The Reconstruction of American Journalism," under the J school's auspices. Their executive summary appeared Monday as a Post op-ed, confirming that some ideas are so monstrous that some credulous people, often in the supposedly critical media, will take them seriously.
"American society," the two Church of Journalism priests intone, "must now take some collective responsibility for supporting news reporting — as society has, at much greater expense, for public education, health care, scientific advancement and cultural preservation, through varying combinations of philanthropy, subsidy and government policy."
The White House war on Fox News St Louis Post Dispatch
You'd think the leader of the free world would have more important things to worry about.
We are, after all, in the midst of a recession, two wars and a swine flu epidemic. Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons.
Russia is rebuffing our overtures to cooperate in imposing sanctions on Iran. The situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating amid a fraud-marred election and White House indecision about a troop surge.
Meanwhile, the dollar's value is falling; Americans are struggling to hold on to their homes and jobs and Congress is flirting with a health care reform proposal that many consider a cure worse than the disease.
But never mind all that. President Barack Obama has a serious issue to tackle. After enjoying adoring, 99 percent content-free press coverage throughout his campaign and recently winning a Nobel Peace Prize for his good intentions, Obama has smelled a skunk at the garden party of his presidency.
Irked that one television network reports on his sagging poll numbers and tea-party critics rather than sticking to the White House talking points parroted by such bastions of objectivity as MSNBC, the conciliator-in-chief finally has decided to get tough on a rogue regime. He has launched a full-scale, all-hands-on-deck attack on ... Fox News.
Telegraph column: The White House will lose its war against Fox News (Telegraph UK)
The White House’s extraordinary assault on the Fox News Channel will end in tears – and not for Rupert Murdoch, Fox’s owner.
The Obama administration has embarked on a high-risk strategy of shooting the messenger, in effect blaming its plummeting poll ratings on alleged political bias at the number one 24-hour cable news network.
As Anita Dunn, the Mao-quoting White House communications director put it in an interview with The New York Times:
“We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent. As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”
During the eight years of the George W. Bush presidency, the left constantly told us that "dissent is the highest form of patriotism."
During the Obama presidency, dissent is routinely considered the lowest form of treachery.
Candidate Barack Obama promised to be a "new kind" of leader who would welcome vigorous debate and listen to all opinions.
As president, however, he has shown a disturbing intolerance for any viewpoint other than his own.
Rather than his promised post-partisan open-mindedness, his White House is using its power to try to smear and delegitimize those who oppose its agenda.
With Orwellian coldness and efficiency, the administration has waged war on those who have had the gall to disagree with it:
Leftist Crank Krugman Admits Dem’s Plan Will Result In Nationalized Health Care System (GatewayPundit)
Starting in April VerumSerum.com blog has uncovered many prominent advocates of health reform revealing the hidden agenda behind the public option.
Most prominently Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), but also Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Even Rahm Emanuel got into the act.
Today at Big Government Verum Serum’s Morgen Richmond unveiled another leftist crank in support of the public option.
Paul Krugman admitted in a speech last year that even without a public option the system would largely look like a single payer system based on the subsidies for lower wage earners, and the fact that everyone else is paying for these with taxes on top of their insurance premiums.
Big Government has the audio. It should be clear to everyone by now that the democrat’s main goal is to swallow up the nation’s health care system.
Sen. Alexander Warns White House Against Creating "Enemies List"
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER: "Based upon that experience and my forty years since then in and out of public life I want to make what I hope will be taken as a friendly suggestion to President Obama and his White House: don’t create an enemies list."
UK consumers won't pay for web news, report says (Mediaweek UK)
LONDON - Nine in 10 UK consumers would never pay for news stories online, regardless of how cheap it was, according to a new report.
Unpopular: nine out of 10 UK consumers would not pay for online news says report
A study of 2,000 UK consumers by Lightspeed Research commissioned for digital research outfit The Global Web Index, challenges Rupert Murdoch's decision to charge users to access the websites of The Sun, The Times and Sky News.
It found that 91% of UK consumers would be unwilling to pay for news online and 90% would be unwilling to pay for news analysis. Of those aged 16 to 24, 86% would never pay for news online, while in the 45 to 54 age sectors, 96% said they would not pay.
In addition, only 5% of UK consumers would be happy to pay for each piece of news content online, while just 4% would be happy to take out a subscription for online news content.
Los Angeles Times staffers fear more layoffs coming (Reuters)
We feel like we’ve read this bad news before. Our sources tell us that they are expecting another round of layoffs in the Los Angeles Times newsroom.
They said that people thought a few dozen editorial staffers could get their walking papers this week, though someone else close to the paper whom we spoke cautioned that amount was too extreme.
The paper hasn’t scheduled any meetings or circulated any memos, the sources said. In other words, all this could change. A Times spokeswoman declined to comment.
The blog Laobserved.com, which follows the Times closely, reported that at least one reporter, Tina Daunt, has posted on her Facebook page that she has been canned. “More expected through the day,” the blog also reported.
The LA Times is part of Tribune Co, the bankrupt, Chicago-based newspaper publisher and television broadcaster that also owns the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun and Orlando Sentinel, among others.
Times are tough at Tribune’s newspapers, as well as other papers around the nation.
USA Today and many other papers are set to report big declines in circulation next Monday (though some of that is actually a good thing, which we’ll explain in a subsequent blog post), and publishers such as Gannett Co Inc and McClatchy have been making their quarterly numbers only because of big cost cut — of which layoffs are a major part.
The New York TImes, which has the largest newspaper editorial staff in the nation, said on Monday that it will slice 100 jobs through buyouts and maybe layoffs from its newsroom. The Charlotte Observer, a McClatchy paper, is offering buyouts too.
Media General Swings to Q3 Loss, But Sees Ad Improvement (Editor and Publisher)
CHICAGO Richmond, Va.-based Media General Inc. reported a net loss for the third quarter Wednesday of $62.5 million, or $2.80 a share, that includes a non-cash impairment charge of $84 million, most of it related to its television properties.
In the third quarter of 2008, Media General reported a profit of $6.1 million, or 27 cents per share.
For the first time, Media General is not reporting results by type of media but by geographic segments plus a sixth segment that includes interactive operation. Media General publishes The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune, Richmond Times-Dispatch and 19 other dailies as well as more than 200 weeklies and specialty publications. It operates 18 network-affiliated television stations.
Paterson: economy is "worst we will see in our lifetime" (WTEN)
David Paterson wants to address a special, joint session of the State Legislature to impress upon all senators and assembly members the urgency of dealing with a budget deficit expected to top $3 billion for the current year.
The governor says, if mid-year spending cuts are not approved quickly, the state could run out of money in December when it must make several billion dollars' worth of payments such as school aid.
"Not on my watch," Paterson said Wednesday, "is New York State going to go into default." The governor has proposed about $3 billion in what he concedes are painful cuts, including $686 million from education this school year and $500 million in health care.
While he admits the cuts are rough, Paterson adds that we are in "historically tough times". "This is a devastating economy, I believe the worst we will see in our lifetime," Paterson said Wednesday. "Anyone who doesn't realize how dire the situation is, needs to just look out the window.
People are out of work, our tax base has been decimated, and we have revenues that continue to plunder."
7 Months After Stimulus 49 of 50 States Have Lost Jobs (House Ways and Means Committee)
America Now Over 6 Million Jobs Shy of Administration's Projections
The table below compares the White House's February 2009 projection of the number of jobs that would be created by the 2009 stimulus law (through the end of 2010) with the actual change in state payroll employment through September 2009 (the latest figures available).
According to the data, 49 States and the District of Columbia have lost jobs since stimulus was enacted. Only North Dakota has seen net job creation following the February 2009 stimulus.
While President Obama claimed the result of his stimulus bill would be the creation of 3.5 million jobs, the Nation has already lost a total of 2.7 million – a difference of 6.2 million jobs.
[Louisiana Health Secretary] Levine: [Democrat] health proposal hurts [the state](The New Orleans Times-Picayune)
BATON ROUGE -- Louisiana's top health care official blasted the leading Democratic health care proposal in Congress on Tuesday, saying it carves out special favors for states represented by powerful legislators while ignoring the financial calamity facing less fortunate states.
Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine said the Senate bill authored by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., includes language that would exempt select states from having to share in the cost of adding new people to their Medicaid rolls.
But the bill includes nothing to help Louisiana avoid a Medicaid shortfall caused in part by the overheated post-Katrina economy.
Levine said if the bill passes in its current form, he will ask his agency's lawyers to investigate whether a legal case can be made that it violates the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law.
"It is simply outrageous for states to be deliberately hand-picked for special treatment and other states that have legitimate natural disaster recovery issues resulting from federal failures to be utterly ignored," Levine wrote in an e-mail exchange.
Democrat hypocrites trying to exempt Blue States from Medicaid cost increases in 1502 page bill (The Collins Report)
Senate Democrats think we’re stupid. They actually believe hiding their criminal deals in 1502pages keeps us from knowing what they’re up to.
Harry Reid, who is ten points down to two unknown Republicans, has attempted to slip a provision into the Baucus bill exempting Nevada from the skyrocketing of Medicaid costs it will bring.
Three other Democrat run basket case states Oregon, Rhode Island and Michigan slithered in as well.
Sneaky scheme
All of the Obamacare bills currently being considered “appear” to save money because they shift costs to the states. That way when he gets his bill Obama can claim it “saves” federal money.
Because our country has been handed over to Chicago gangsters by the dopes who voted for Obama and his Democrats, which states pay what will be decided by low lifes like Harry Reid.
Very clearly Democrat states, that can’t survive without extorted funds from other states, will be supported with money ripped away from states run under conservative principles.
Oklahoma and Texas come to mind. As has become the expected pattern, this legislation will be used to punish achievers.
States with lower tax rates or unfriendly climates for illegal aliens or invoke States Rights under the Tenth Amendment will be forced to pay “tribute” to king Obama. He’ll need it to feed his lackeys in Michigan and Oregon.
Double edged sword
Fortunately this dirty deal will help kill the Baucus bill and quite likely all other similarly written bills.
The Democrats are basically greedy and will not be able to resist the opportunity to over play their hand.
Other greedy Democrats will demand their state be exempted as well. It’s hard to see Arkansas and Louisiana’s Democrat Senators not sticking their hands into this pie. There is no honor amongst thieves after all.
Eighteen women diagnosed with breast cancer after faulty screening (Telegraph.co.uk.)
Eighteen women have been told they have breast cancer after a consultant working at Accrington Victoria Hospital conducted faulty mammograms, it has been disclosed.
The women were given the devastating news after colleagues of the consultant, a senior radiologist working for East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, raised concerns about his work.
In all, 355 mammograms, going back three years, had to be re-checked by an independent review of breast screening assessment clinics carried out by a ''quality assurance'' team of medics.
Another four women were diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ, which Cancer Research UK described as a very early form of breast cancer.
Medics insist their prognosis will not be affected by the wait. All the women are aged over 50.
Breast cancer sufferers will be denied life-extending drug (Daily Mail UK)
Britain's cost-effectiveness watchdog has blocked the use of a breast cancer drug on the NHS, despite a fresh review of the medicine.
The National Institute for Health Clinical Excellence (NICE), said it still did not feel GlaxoSmithKline's drug Tyverb was a cost-effective use of resources.
The latest appraisal would result in 2,000 British women a year being denied access to the drug.
Tyverb is the first once-daily pill for breast cancer patients who over-express a protein called HER2. It is used in combination with another drug called Xeloda. It can prolong life by stopping the breast cancer from growing in advanced patients.
3,000 NHS staff get private care (Just like Congress and DeathCare) London Times
THE National Health Service has spent £1.5m paying for hundreds of its staff to have private health treatment so they can leapfrog their own waiting lists.
More than 3,000 staff, including doctors and nurses, have gone private at the taxpayers’ expense in the past three years because the queues at the clinics and hospitals where they work are too long.
Figures released under the Freedom of Information act show that NHS administrative staff, paramedics and ambulance drivers have also been given free private healthcare.
This has covered physiotherapy, osteopathy, psychiatric care and counselling — all widely available on the NHS.
“It simply isn’t fair to have one service for staff and another for everyone else,” said Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, who obtained the figures.
“If the NHS has to circumvent their own waiting lists the system isn’t working well enough. It’s an admission by the NHS that their own system isn’t able to respond to the mass of people desperate to get back to work.”
The number of health service employees sent to private healthcare facilities has more than doubled in the past three years.
In 2006-7, 708 staff working for NHS trusts received private treatment at a cost of £279,000. Last year it increased to 1,641 at a cost of £828,413.
The health department defended the practice and said sending doctors, nurses and other key staff for private treatment helped to get them back to work.
“If trusts want to get their staff back to work more quickly they can’t jump NHS waiting lists, so going private is an option,” said the spokesman.
President Obama's school age daughters have not been vaccinated against the H1N1 flu virus.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says the vaccine is not available to them based on their risk.
The Centers for Disease Control recommend that children ages 6 months through 18 years of age receive a vaccination against the H1N1 flu virus.
At this time only children with chronic medical conditions are receiving the vaccination because their immune system is not strong enough to fight off the strain.
The CDC also says a regular seasonal flu shot does not protect against the virus.
Germans Unhappy with Alternative Swine Flu Vaccine for Politicians SPIEGEL ONLINE
Damage control is the name of the game in Berlin on Monday as politicians rush to deny that they are receiving a better, safer swine flu vaccine than ordinary Germans.
But with news breaking over the weekend that top government officials in Berlin will be injected with an alternative vaccine -- one widely seen as safer -- a debate about an alleged two-class medical system has erupted.
Health care costs to rise faster with legislation than with nothing (Dallas Morning News)
The nation's medical costs will keep spiraling upward even faster than they are now under Democratic legislation pending in the House, a report from government economic experts concluded Wednesday.
Republicans said the report is a warning that health care legislation is likely to fall short of President Barack Obama's goal of "bending the cost curve" by slowing medical inflation.
Pelosi Refuses to Call New Spending Another Stimulus Package (Roll Call)
It looks like another stimulus package. It sounds like a stimulus package. It spends like a stimulus package. Her economic advisers are even calling it another stimulus.
But Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) insists her plans for a host of new spending is not a stimulus package.
“That’s not what we’re doing,” Pelosi said Wednesday when asked if there would be a “Stimulus Two.” Instead, the new spending and tax cuts will move in a series of bills, she said, instead of one big bill.
“We do not have a plan for an additional stimulus package, but we do have plans to stimulate the economy,” Pelosi insisted.
Dems seek cover to boost debt limit (to $13 Trillion)Politico
The Senate must soon increase the national debt limit to above $13 trillion — and Democrats are looking for political cover.
Knowing they will face unyielding GOP attacks for voting to increase the eye-popping debt, Democrats are considering attaching a debt increase provision to a must-pass bill, possibly the Defense Department spending bill, according to Democratic and Republican sources.
Adding it to the defense bill would allow Democrats to argue that they voted for the measure to help troops in harm’s way — and downplay that their vote also expanded the limit for how much money the country can borrow.
Mmmmmmmm..Mmmmmmmm, Mmmmmm! KC Star's Pork Chop has to apologize to Rush Limbaugh!
Ordinarily I would never insult MW readers with a link to the Red Star, but the comments are well worth the hit. This is what KC thinks of this racist bigot and his piece of shit newspaper.
35 comments:
Dems change locks on Capitol offices; tell Repubs to get lost
(Fox)
No Repubs now have access to any meeting rooms in the Capitol Building.
Reid to hold fourth secret meeting on ObamaCare tomorrow. No one besides committee members to be allowed into any meetings.
No press coverage. No statements. They are working on a 1,500 + page bill in an attempt to merge different versions.
A Dem liar is on Cavuto now saying that the process is indeed open and transparent because the Dems are releasing what information they feel like.
Has locking-out the minority party in Congress ever been done before?
Despite Closed Doors, Dems Say Health Care Process Is Transparent (Politics Daily)
Under the "health care" heading on the White House Web site, a paragraph reads:
"The President has vowed that the health reform process will be different in his Administration – an open, inclusive, and transparent process where all ideas are encouraged and all parties work together to find a solution to the health care crisis."
But after dozens of televised hearings, round tables, markups and press conferences, top White House officials are now meeting in the Capitol with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sens. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Max Baucus of Montana, away from Republicans and the press, to meld two very different committee-passed versions of their health care reform bills.
Maddow/Olbermann Invited to White House Chat with Obama, But Fox Isn't a News Organization? (Mediabistro.com)
Here's a curious turn in the White House vs. Fox News fight. On Monday, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow were among several people who attended an off-the-record briefing with Pres. Obama at the White House.
Sources tell us other attendees at the two-and-a-half hour chat included Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Gwen Ifill of PBS and Gloria Borger of CNN.
Perhaps not surprisingly, no one from Fox News was in the room.
New York Times posts loss of 25 cents a share (Marketwatch.com)
The New York Times Co. said Thursday that it lost $36 million, or 25 cents a share in the third quarter, compared to a loss of $106million, or 74 cents a share, in the same period a year ago.
Earnings per share from continuing operations, excluding severance and special items, were 16 cents. Revenue fell 17% to $571 million from $687 million. Analysts polled by FactSet Research estimated, on average, a loss of 2 cents a share and sales of $576 million.
They All Look Alike? MSNBC's Head Witch Mistakes Jesse Jackson for Al Sharpton
Relax Contessa! Just get on your knees and well, you know, apologize.
Jesse, Al, Jesse, Al, what's the difference right? Jesse despises Contessa, remember she's white, so there is no need for her to get down on her knees and well, you know, apologize, as if he's going to mug her.
The look on her face! It was as if Contessa was thinking, 'I'm so so sorry Mr. Black man, It wasn't my fault, I swear.
Deirdra Imus Blasts CNN and PMSNBC for "kissing Obama's ass"
Talk about a strong conservative......WOW Mrs. Imus said something many of us have wanted to say for months....that CNN and PMSNBC were prostituting themselves and kissing Obama's ass....
Gallup: Obama Suffers Worst 3rd Quarter Drop in Approval Since 1953(RCP)
Barack Obama has suffered worst third quarter decline in his public approval rating of any elected president in the post-World War II era.
Obama's average quarterly approval rating has slipped from 62 percent in the second quarter to 52.9 percent in the third quarter, according to Gallup polling.
That 9 percentage point decline is twice the amount of any other post-war elected president. Dwight Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan saw their standing decline 4 points between the two quarters.
No other elected president has declined more than 4 points since 1953. The third quarter began July 20 and ended October 19.
Subsidies For News? IBD
As newspapers and TV networks struggle and the administration presumes to define a proper news organization, what does the journalism establishment demand? No fair if you guessed a government bailout.
The dead giveaway answer came this week as Leonard Downie Jr., former executive editor and current vice president at large of the Washington Post, along with Michael Schudson, a professor at the mission-fatigued Columbia Journalism School, debuted their role-playing as cash-strapped bankers and auto execs.
The news business' tenuous hold on profitability, they lamented, has threatened its sustainability. They demanded massive government involvement.
The duo released their full report, "The Reconstruction of American Journalism," under the J school's auspices. Their executive summary appeared Monday as a Post op-ed, confirming that some ideas are so monstrous that some credulous people, often in the supposedly critical media, will take them seriously.
"American society," the two Church of Journalism priests intone, "must now take some collective responsibility for supporting news reporting — as society has, at much greater expense, for public education, health care, scientific advancement and cultural preservation, through varying combinations of philanthropy, subsidy and government policy."
The White House war on Fox News
St Louis Post Dispatch
You'd think the leader of the free world would have more important things to worry about.
We are, after all, in the midst of a recession, two wars and a swine flu epidemic. Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons.
Russia is rebuffing our overtures to cooperate in imposing sanctions on Iran. The situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating amid a fraud-marred election and White House indecision about a troop surge.
Meanwhile, the dollar's value is falling; Americans are struggling to hold on to their homes and jobs and Congress is flirting with a health care reform proposal that many consider a cure worse than the disease.
But never mind all that. President Barack Obama has a serious issue to tackle. After enjoying adoring, 99 percent content-free press coverage throughout his campaign and recently winning a Nobel Peace Prize for his good intentions, Obama has smelled a skunk at the garden party of his presidency.
Irked that one television network reports on his sagging poll numbers and tea-party critics rather than sticking to the White House talking points parroted by such bastions of objectivity as MSNBC, the conciliator-in-chief finally has decided to get tough on a rogue regime. He has launched a full-scale, all-hands-on-deck attack on ... Fox News.
Telegraph column: The White House will lose its war against Fox News (Telegraph UK)
The White House’s extraordinary assault on the Fox News Channel will end in tears – and not for Rupert Murdoch, Fox’s owner.
The Obama administration has embarked on a high-risk strategy of shooting the messenger, in effect blaming its plummeting poll ratings on alleged political bias at the number one 24-hour cable news network.
As Anita Dunn, the Mao-quoting White House communications director put it in an interview with The New York Times:
“We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent. As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”
White House offensive (Washington Times)
During the eight years of the George W. Bush presidency, the left constantly told us that "dissent is the highest form of patriotism."
During the Obama presidency, dissent is routinely considered the lowest form of treachery.
Candidate Barack Obama promised to be a "new kind" of leader who would welcome vigorous debate and listen to all opinions.
As president, however, he has shown a disturbing intolerance for any viewpoint other than his own.
Rather than his promised post-partisan open-mindedness, his White House is using its power to try to smear and delegitimize those who oppose its agenda.
With Orwellian coldness and efficiency, the administration has waged war on those who have had the gall to disagree with it:
Leftist Crank Krugman Admits Dem’s Plan Will Result In Nationalized Health Care System (GatewayPundit)
Starting in April VerumSerum.com blog has uncovered many prominent advocates of health reform revealing the hidden agenda behind the public option.
Most prominently Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), but also Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Even Rahm Emanuel got into the act.
Today at Big Government Verum Serum’s Morgen Richmond unveiled another leftist crank in support of the public option.
Paul Krugman admitted in a speech last year that even without a public option the system would largely look like a single payer system based on the subsidies for lower wage earners, and the fact that everyone else is paying for these with taxes on top of their insurance premiums.
Big Government has the audio.
It should be clear to everyone by now that the democrat’s main goal is to swallow up the nation’s health care system.
Sen. Alexander Warns White House Against Creating "Enemies List"
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER: "Based upon that experience and my forty years since then in and out of public life I want to make what I hope will be taken as a friendly suggestion to President Obama and his White House: don’t create an enemies list."
UK consumers won't pay for web news, report says (Mediaweek UK)
LONDON - Nine in 10 UK consumers would never pay for news stories online, regardless of how cheap it was, according to a new report.
Unpopular: nine out of 10 UK consumers would not pay for online news says report
A study of 2,000 UK consumers by Lightspeed Research commissioned for digital research outfit The Global Web Index, challenges Rupert Murdoch's decision to charge users to access the websites of The Sun, The Times and Sky News.
It found that 91% of UK consumers would be unwilling to pay for news online and 90% would be unwilling to pay for news analysis. Of those aged 16 to 24, 86% would never pay for news online, while in the 45 to 54 age sectors, 96% said they would not pay.
In addition, only 5% of UK consumers would be happy to pay for each piece of news content online, while just 4% would be happy to take out a subscription for online news content.
Los Angeles Times staffers fear more layoffs coming (Reuters)
We feel like we’ve read this bad news before. Our sources tell us that they are expecting another round of layoffs in the Los Angeles Times newsroom.
They said that people thought a few dozen editorial staffers could get their walking papers this week, though someone else close to the paper whom we spoke cautioned that amount was too extreme.
The paper hasn’t scheduled any meetings or circulated any memos, the sources said. In other words, all this could change. A Times spokeswoman declined to comment.
The blog Laobserved.com, which follows the Times closely, reported that at least one reporter, Tina Daunt, has posted on her Facebook page that she has been canned. “More expected through the day,” the blog also reported.
The LA Times is part of Tribune Co, the bankrupt, Chicago-based newspaper publisher and television broadcaster that also owns the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun and Orlando Sentinel, among others.
Times are tough at Tribune’s newspapers, as well as other papers around the nation.
USA Today and many other papers are set to report big declines in circulation next Monday (though some of that is actually a good thing, which we’ll explain in a subsequent blog post), and publishers such as Gannett Co Inc and McClatchy have been making their quarterly numbers only because of big cost cut — of which layoffs are a major part.
The New York TImes, which has the largest newspaper editorial staff in the nation, said on Monday that it will slice 100 jobs through buyouts and maybe layoffs from its newsroom. The Charlotte Observer, a McClatchy paper, is offering buyouts too.
Media General Swings to Q3 Loss, But Sees Ad Improvement (Editor and Publisher)
CHICAGO Richmond, Va.-based Media General Inc. reported a net loss for the third quarter Wednesday of $62.5 million, or $2.80 a share, that includes a non-cash impairment charge of $84 million, most of it related to its television properties.
In the third quarter of 2008, Media General reported a profit of $6.1 million, or 27 cents per share.
For the first time, Media General is not reporting results by type of media but by geographic segments plus a sixth segment that includes interactive operation. Media General publishes The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune, Richmond Times-Dispatch and 19 other dailies as well as more than 200 weeklies and specialty publications. It operates 18 network-affiliated television stations.
Paterson: economy is "worst we will see in our lifetime" (WTEN)
David Paterson wants to address a special, joint session of the State Legislature to impress upon all senators and assembly members the urgency of dealing with a budget deficit expected to top $3 billion for the current year.
The governor says, if mid-year spending cuts are not approved quickly, the state could run out of money in December when it must make several billion dollars' worth of payments such as school aid.
"Not on my watch," Paterson said Wednesday, "is New York State going to go into default."
The governor has proposed about $3 billion in what he concedes are painful cuts, including $686 million from education this school year and $500 million in health care.
While he admits the cuts are rough, Paterson adds that we are in "historically tough times".
"This is a devastating economy, I believe the worst we will see in our lifetime," Paterson said Wednesday. "Anyone who doesn't realize how dire the situation is, needs to just look out the window.
People are out of work, our tax base has been decimated, and we have revenues that continue to plunder."
7 Months After Stimulus 49 of 50 States Have Lost Jobs (House Ways and Means Committee)
America Now Over 6 Million Jobs Shy of Administration's Projections
The table below compares the White House's February 2009 projection of the number of jobs that would be created by the 2009 stimulus law (through the end of 2010) with the actual change in state payroll employment through September 2009 (the latest figures available).
According to the data, 49 States and the District of Columbia have lost jobs since stimulus was enacted. Only North Dakota has seen net job creation following the February 2009 stimulus.
While President Obama claimed the result of his stimulus bill would be the creation of 3.5 million jobs, the Nation has already lost a total of 2.7 million – a difference of 6.2 million jobs.
[Louisiana Health Secretary] Levine: [Democrat] health proposal hurts [the state](The New Orleans Times-Picayune)
BATON ROUGE -- Louisiana's top health care official blasted the leading Democratic health care proposal in Congress on Tuesday, saying it carves out special favors for states represented by powerful legislators while ignoring the financial calamity facing less fortunate states.
Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine said the Senate bill authored by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., includes language that would exempt select states from having to share in the cost of adding new people to their Medicaid rolls.
But the bill includes nothing to help Louisiana avoid a Medicaid shortfall caused in part by the overheated post-Katrina economy.
Levine said if the bill passes in its current form, he will ask his agency's lawyers to investigate whether a legal case can be made that it violates the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law.
"It is simply outrageous for states to be deliberately hand-picked for special treatment and other states that have legitimate natural disaster recovery issues resulting from federal failures to be utterly ignored," Levine wrote in an e-mail exchange.
Democrat hypocrites trying to exempt Blue States from Medicaid cost increases in 1502 page bill
(The Collins Report)
Senate Democrats think we’re stupid. They actually believe hiding their criminal deals in 1502pages keeps us from knowing what they’re up to.
Harry Reid, who is ten points down to two unknown Republicans, has attempted to slip a provision into the Baucus bill exempting Nevada from the skyrocketing of Medicaid costs it will bring.
Three other Democrat run basket case states Oregon, Rhode Island and Michigan slithered in as well.
Sneaky scheme
All of the Obamacare bills currently being considered “appear” to save money because they shift costs to the states. That way when he gets his bill Obama can claim it “saves” federal money.
Because our country has been handed over to Chicago gangsters by the dopes who voted for Obama and his Democrats, which states pay what will be decided by low lifes like Harry Reid.
Very clearly Democrat states, that can’t survive without extorted funds from other states, will be supported with money ripped away from states run under conservative principles.
Oklahoma and Texas come to mind. As has become the expected pattern, this legislation will be used to punish achievers.
States with lower tax rates or unfriendly climates for illegal aliens or invoke States Rights under the Tenth Amendment will be forced to pay “tribute” to king Obama. He’ll need it to feed his lackeys in Michigan and Oregon.
Double edged sword
Fortunately this dirty deal will help kill the Baucus bill and quite likely all other similarly written bills.
The Democrats are basically greedy and will not be able to resist the opportunity to over play their hand.
Other greedy Democrats will demand their state be exempted as well. It’s hard to see Arkansas and Louisiana’s Democrat Senators not sticking their hands into this pie. There is no honor amongst thieves after all.
Eighteen women diagnosed with breast cancer after faulty screening (Telegraph.co.uk.)
Eighteen women have been told they have breast cancer after a consultant working at Accrington Victoria Hospital conducted faulty mammograms, it has been disclosed.
The women were given the devastating news after colleagues of the consultant, a senior radiologist working for East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, raised concerns about his work.
In all, 355 mammograms, going back three years, had to be re-checked by an independent review of breast screening assessment clinics carried out by a ''quality assurance'' team of medics.
Another four women were diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ, which Cancer Research UK described as a very early form of breast cancer.
Medics insist their prognosis will not be affected by the wait. All the women are aged over 50.
Breast cancer sufferers will be denied life-extending drug (Daily Mail UK)
Britain's cost-effectiveness watchdog has blocked the use of a breast cancer drug on the NHS, despite a fresh review of the medicine.
The National Institute for Health Clinical Excellence (NICE), said it still did not feel GlaxoSmithKline's drug Tyverb was a cost-effective use of resources.
The latest appraisal would result in 2,000 British women a year being denied access to the drug.
Tyverb is the first once-daily pill for breast cancer patients who over-express a protein called HER2. It is used in combination with another drug called Xeloda. It can prolong life by stopping the breast cancer from growing in advanced patients.
3,000 NHS staff get private care (Just like Congress and DeathCare)
London Times
THE National Health Service has spent £1.5m paying for hundreds of its staff to have private health treatment so they can leapfrog their own waiting lists.
More than 3,000 staff, including doctors and nurses, have gone private at the taxpayers’ expense in the past three years because the queues at the clinics and hospitals where they work are too long.
Figures released under the Freedom of Information act show that NHS administrative staff, paramedics and ambulance drivers have also been given free private healthcare.
This has covered physiotherapy, osteopathy, psychiatric care and counselling — all widely available on the NHS.
“It simply isn’t fair to have one service for staff and another for everyone else,” said Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, who obtained the figures.
“If the NHS has to circumvent their own waiting lists the system isn’t working well enough. It’s an admission by the NHS that their own system isn’t able to respond to the mass of people desperate to get back to work.”
The number of health service employees sent to private healthcare facilities has more than doubled in the past three years.
In 2006-7, 708 staff working for NHS trusts received private treatment at a cost of £279,000. Last year it increased to 1,641 at a cost of £828,413.
The health department defended the practice and said sending doctors, nurses and other key staff for private treatment helped to get them back to work.
“If trusts want to get their staff back to work more quickly they can’t jump NHS waiting lists, so going private is an option,” said the spokesman.
Swine flu Q&A: What you need to know [Obama's CDC rationing health care] [Sun-Sentinel] The vaccine is perfectly safe...Kathleen Sebelius
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants these groups to have top priority, as they are at highest risk of spreading or catching the flu:
Health care workers; healthy children and young adults age 2 to 24; and healthy adults up to age 49who are caring for children younger than 6 months.
First Daughters Not Vaccinated Against H1N1 (Fox)
President Obama's school age daughters have not been vaccinated against the H1N1 flu virus.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says the vaccine is not available to them based on their risk.
The Centers for Disease Control recommend that children ages 6 months through 18 years of age receive a vaccination against the H1N1 flu virus.
At this time only children with chronic medical conditions are receiving the vaccination because their immune system is not strong enough to fight off the strain.
The CDC also says a regular seasonal flu shot does not protect against the virus.
German Chancellor Merkel and Ministers Get Special H1N1 Vaccine(Spiegel Online)
Der Spiegel has learned that the German chancellor and government ministers are to get a special version of the H1N1 vaccine.
Other high ranking members of government will get it as well.
Their vaccine does not contain any controversial ingredients—unlike the vaccine for the general population.
Germans Unhappy with Alternative Swine Flu Vaccine for Politicians
SPIEGEL ONLINE
Damage control is the name of the game in Berlin on Monday as politicians rush to deny that they are receiving a better, safer swine flu vaccine than ordinary Germans.
But with news breaking over the weekend that top government officials in Berlin will be injected with an alternative vaccine -- one widely seen as safer -- a debate about an alleged two-class medical system has erupted.
Health care costs to rise faster with legislation than with nothing (Dallas Morning News)
The nation's medical costs will keep spiraling upward even faster than they are now under Democratic legislation pending in the House, a report from government economic experts concluded Wednesday.
Republicans said the report is a warning that health care legislation is likely to fall short of President Barack Obama's goal of "bending the cost curve" by slowing medical inflation.
Bachmann mentions that ACORN will get full federal funding starting midnight Oct 31 (Laura Ingraham)
INTERVIEW - Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), on her campaign to stop the government from fostering extortion via ACORN.
Pelosi Refuses to Call New Spending Another Stimulus Package
(Roll Call)
It looks like another stimulus package. It sounds like a stimulus package. It spends like a stimulus package. Her economic advisers are even calling it another stimulus.
But Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) insists her plans for a host of new spending is not a stimulus package.
“That’s not what we’re doing,” Pelosi said Wednesday when asked if there would be a “Stimulus Two.” Instead, the new spending and tax cuts will move in a series of bills, she said, instead of one big bill.
“We do not have a plan for an additional stimulus package, but we do have plans to stimulate the economy,” Pelosi insisted.
Dems seek cover to boost debt limit (to $13 Trillion)Politico
The Senate must soon increase the national debt limit to above $13 trillion — and Democrats are looking for political cover.
Knowing they will face unyielding GOP attacks for voting to increase the eye-popping debt, Democrats are considering attaching a debt increase provision to a must-pass bill, possibly the Defense Department spending bill, according to Democratic and Republican sources.
Adding it to the defense bill would allow Democrats to argue that they voted for the measure to help troops in harm’s way — and downplay that their vote also expanded the limit for how much money the country can borrow.
Major staff meeting at Tacoma today. "Lots to talk about."
Here's the link to the report mentioned earlier: Nine in 10 UK consumers would never pay for news stories online
How many think Newsday going pay-only (that is, you buy a print subscription or have a cable TV account with its owner) will fail big time?
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/newsday-com-moves-to-subscriber-model-1.1539582
Mmmmmmmm..Mmmmmmmm, Mmmmmm! KC Star's Pork Chop has to apologize to Rush Limbaugh!
Ordinarily I would never insult MW readers with a link to the Red Star, but the comments are well worth the hit. This is what KC thinks of this racist bigot and his piece of shit newspaper.
http://www.kansascity.com/666/story/1523843.html
Post a Comment