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.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Tuesday October 27 -- Got news or an update?
If you have news or an update, leave it in comments. . . .
21 comments:
Anonymous
said...
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s circulation fell 9.9 percent for Sunday, 13.8 percent weekdays, and 7.7 percent Saturday.
Publisher Gary Wortel said part of the loss occurred outside the paper’s core market. Among factors affecting sales was the discontinuation of a pizza restaurant’s program delivering newspapers along with food orders.
In revenue terms, the circulation declines were more than made up for by price hikes on single-copy sales in April and on home delivery in July, Wortel said. The rack price went from 50 cents to $1 weekdays and Saturday and from $1.50 to $2 Sunday. Monthly home delivery subscriptions rose from $17.50 to $19.95, a 14 percent increase.
What this means to you: if you have stayed with the paper and paid for home delivery, we are going to screw you and charge you more and give you less.
And what person alive thinks this formula will work long term?
Record plunge: Newspaper circ at pre-WWII low (Newsosaur)
Following an average drop of 10.6% in the last six months, daily newspaper circulation has fallen to a pre-World War II low of an estimated 39.1 million, according to an analysis of industry data released today.
The first double-digit circulation decline in history means only 12.9%of the U.S. population buys a daily newspaper. The analysis is based on data provided by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, an industry-funded group.
Newspaper circulation now is lower than the 41.1 million papers sold in 1940, the earliest date for which records are published by the Newspaper Association of America.
Back in 1940, newspapers were purchased by 31.1% of the population.
Sunday circulation, which fell an average of 7.5% in the last six months to an estimated 40.9 million copies per week, is at the lowest point since 1945 when it was 39.9 million.
At that rate, Sunday papers in the last six months reached only 13.5% of American homes, as compared with 28.5% in 1945, when the population was less than half the size it is today.
Far Left Crank Krugman Casually Refers to “Teabaggers” in Latest Column (GatewayPundit)[No wonder our Troll “Sweetie” just loved krugman so, so much!]
Paul Krugman is the latest far left crank to refer to the “teabaggers” in his latest New York Times column: So, how well will health reform work after it passes?
There’s a part of me that can’t believe I’m asking that question. After all, serious health reform has long seemed like an impossible dream. And it could yet go all wrong.
But the teabaggers have come and gone, as have the cries of “death panels” and the demonstrations by Medicare recipients demanding that the government stay out of health care. And reform is still on track. Right now it looks highly likely that Congress will, indeed, send a health care bill to the president’s desk.
Of course, Krugman knew exactly what he was saying. Don’t look for a correction.
Nielsen : Fox News ratings up almost 10% since WH declared war (Hot Air)
It’s a nine-percent bump in the two weeks since Anita Dunn’s whine heard ’round the world — in terms of overall audience.
Among the coveted 25-54 demographic? A 14-percent bump.
Good work, Barry. People keep telling me that this PR offensive by the White House benefits both sides but I don’t see how that’s true.
If the goal is to contain Fox by framing the stories it breaks — Van Jones, ACORN, etc — as somehow illegitimate, then every tenth of a point that Fox’s ratings go up undermines that goal.
Half of CNN viewers are trapped in airport waiting rooms being cruelly tortured by having to watch CNN.
CNN Drops to Last Place Among Cable News Networks (N.Y. Times)
CNN, which invented the cable news network more than two decades ago, will hit a new competitive low with its prime-time programs in October, finishing fourth – and last – among the cable news networks with the audience that all the networks rely on for their advertising.
The official monthly numbers will be finalized at 4 p.m. Monday, and will include results from Friday; but CNN executives conceded that will not change the competitive standing for the month. CNN will still be last in prime time.
That means CNN’s programs were behind not only Fox News and MSNBC, but even its own sister network HLN (formerly Headline News.) That was the first time CNN had finished that poorly with its prime-time shows.
Fox News’ Bill O’ReillyThe results demonstrate once more the apparent preference of viewers for opinion-oriented shows from the news networks in prime time.
Shouldn’t CNN be embarrassed to have lower ratings than MSNBC? I guess that most viewers enjoy getting "non" news from Fox. In fact, CNN would be behind the Native American test pattern, if it was included!
Michelle Obama sets record of running barefooted on White House lawn! [CBS, Schieffer] BUT THIS IS NEWS I SHOULD WATCH? (Newsbusters)
Showing that the media sees every act by the Obamas as an historic achievement, at the end of Sunday’s Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer was amazed by the romping of First Lady Michelle Obama:
“Michelle Obama took it to another level as she set records as the first First Lady to run barefoot across the White House lawn.
She also became the first to jump rope there.” Schieffer began his pointless rambling by looking at how past first ladies, all wives of Democratic presidents, shaped the position:
What Jobless Recovery? (Michelle Obama has created more jobs than any other First Lady in history!!) (American Thinker)
The radical left economist Paul Krugman recently opined that the United States is headed into a jobless recovery despite the three-quarter trillion dollar “stimulus” package that the Obama administration said would keep unemployment below 8%.
snip
Krugman’s prescription, of course, is to have another “stimulus” package.
But I disagree. We don’t need another stimulus package, because the remedy is already to hand. The Canada Free Press informs us that Michelle Obama is a one-woman job creation machine right inside the White House.
In less than a year, she has managed to hire at least 200% more personal servants than any other First Lady in the entire history of the American Republic.
Currently, the number stands at 26, “including a hair dresser and make-up artist.”
The collective salary of Michele’s personal “staff” apparently costs the American taxpayer $1,750,000.00per year, plus benefit packages.
Yes, it's "Happy Birthday, Hillary"! The Secretary of State turns 62 today... I wonder how she is celebrating the big event...
Which Soviet Block dictator is she kow-towing to today? What lie or lies is she trying to peddle on behalf of the Obama Administration today?
Yes, the great leader who was named after Sir Edmund Hillary (who first climbed Mt. Everest some 7 years AFTER Hillary was born) became famous, continues to serve us all in her capacity of Secretary of State -- and make no mistake: SHE's Secretary of State, not Bill!!!!!
I wonder if Barrack has sent her a card or a dozen roses... and Monica sent her a very nice blue dress.
President Obama ties George W. Bush on Golf (as much in 9 months than Bush in 34 months)Politico
President Barack Obama has only been in office for just over nine months, but he's already hit the links as much as President Bush did in over two years.
I am waiting for Michael Moore movie with Obama playing golf while soldiers die... I know, I’ll be waiting a long time because the left are hypocrites.
I’m curious about his parties. Seems like he has a couple parties every week; between ‘dates’ with his wife flying one jet airliner out somewhere, so he can fly AF1 out to join her later.
Another little example of the hypocrisy of the media and the lack of knowledge by the American people.
Too bad Afgan General McCrystal doesn’t play golf. Maybe he would get more time with the President.
But maybe it's not a golf club, but a mop and he's cleaning up after Bush.
Obama Presidential Library could be in the Works (Illinois Home)
Those who thought President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was premature have something else to ponder: Obama's presidential library.
Although the George W. Bush library hasn't opened yet in Dallas, "Bloomberg News" reports sponsors already have contacted the White House about making the University of Chicago a permanent home for Obama's papers.
There's a connection to the Nobels, because more than 80 have been claimed by people affiliated with the university. Obama taught constitutional law at the school for twelve years.
But why do we need a library for his papers when the public isn’t allowed to look at them anyway? Couldn’t we just sock them away in a drawer?
Of course, they won't have a Historical Records Wing, since he's scrubbed all those.
Obama Told House Democrat He Wasn’t Talking about House Health Bill When He Told Congress ...
(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.) told CNSNews.com that President Barack Obama told him in a telephone conversation that when he said in his Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress that “under our plan no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions” he was not talking about the actual bill drafted in the House but about the president’s own health care plan—which has never been written.
“I don’t know if it is a game of semantics or what,” Stupak said of Obama’s nationally televised declaration to Congress that the health-care plan will not allow federal funding of abortion.
Lies, Earmarks And Corruption All In One Bill (IBD)
We are nominating Sen. Baucus' health care reform bill for the Pulitzer Prize — for fiction.
Like works of great fiction writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Conrad and F. Scott Fitzgerald, the story line of the Baucus bill is not what it seems and is in fact a clever subterfuge of what health care reform will mean for the American people.
Hiding behind this facade is another story about a massive power grab by the Washington political establishment.
The bill is loaded with fiction. To begin with, it purports to reduce the deficit. This is really an Enron-style scam with the bill's massive new taxes starting on day one and its dramatic new health care expenditures, which will far exceed the tax revenues, beginning in year four.
Hence its favorable score: 10 years of revenue, seven of expenditures. In the private sector, people go to jail for this type of accounting; in the U.S. Senate, they trumpet it as good news.
The Baucus bill claims to treat all Americans equitably, yet four states receive Medicaid exemptions — the federal government will pick up the state's share of Medicaid costs — for five years.
That means taxpayers in 46 states will subsidize other states, including Nevada, so Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can bring home the bacon and get re-elected.
Sen. Chuck Schumer put in a little-noticed provision that exempts New Yorkers and taxpayers from some other states from the bill's tax on gold-plated insurance plans.
The result: The rest of the nation will subsidize the health care of New Yorkers and a few others.
If you're lucky enough to live in one of the favored states, you win. If not, you lose. Guess how many of those states are blue and have Democratic senators up for re-election?
Obama Heads to Oslo for Nobel, but Too Busy for Berlin Wall Ceremony (Pajamas MEdia)
In December, President Obama will fly to Oslo to receive in person the Nobel Peace Prize he was recently awarded — beating, among others, Chinese dissident Hu Jia.
He might also drop in next door to Copenhagen, where the United Nations will be trying to arrive at a global solution to climate change, a sort of another Kyoto, only successful.
President Obama, however, will miss the November 9 celebrations of the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the event symbolically marking the end of the Cold War.
“Barack too busy,” reports Germany’s Spiegel.
Unkind cynics might say that Barack is too busy preparing America’s future defeats to celebrate her past victories.
But even the more sympathetic observers will wonder what sort of “scheduling difficulties” will keep the leader of the free world from participating in a celebration of one of the most momentous events in the history of the twentieth century — one which was a culmination of America’s longest (albeit cold) war and which represented the victory and vindication of everything that America stood for over the forces of tyranny and totalitarianism.
Dana Perino Compares White House Attack On Fox to Hugo Chavez (Newsbusters)
Former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino on Sunday compared last week's attempt by the White House to exclude Fox News from of a pool interview to Hugo Chavez shutting down television stations in Venezuela.
As NewsBuster Jeff Poor reported Thursday, the Obama administration earlier in the day tried to shut Fox News out of an interview with pay czar Kenneth Feinberg that was to be part of a pool that the cable network would always be involved in.
On "Fox News Sunday," when the panel discussion turned to this subject, Perino really went after the White House for what she called conduct "unbecoming" and an impediment to our efforts to "help emerging democracies get journalists and government officials to talk to one another"
(From the LA Times in July 2009) "Reporting from Caracas, Venezuela — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has made moves to tighten government control over national media, say critics who warn that the Internet could be his next target.
"Chavez recently announced that the government would review the licenses of and possibly close as many as 240 radio stations -- more than one-third of all AM and FM broadcasters. He has proposed rules that would limit the sharing of programming by stations, something that helps many stay economically viable."
Anita Dunn's husband leads the effort to block access to Obama's birth records...(TownHall)
Any objective observer would find it newsworthy that attorney Robert Bauer, who is Anita Dunn's husband, and who has been leading legal efforts to block inquiries into Obama's birth records, is also expected to become the top White House counsel (replacing Gregory Craig).
I realize that this is the story that all the mass media is too frightened to report, but are there any additional news reports about this?
Obama's War on Fox Is Liberalism's War on Dissent (davidlimbaugh.com)
Can you imagine the outrage that would have ensued had former President George W. Bush declared off-limits those media outlets he thought (correctly) treated him unfairly?
Heck, the left declared him a dictator simply because he led a war on Iraq that Congress approved.
He never tried to shut down his critics. He rarely even objected to their abuse.
But liberal politicians have been spoiled with mainstream media favoritism for so long that they believe anything other than sycophancy is mistreatment.
Their selective outrage is as hollow as it is risible. In fact, Fox News seems much more conservative than it is because no other television network over the past half-century has been anything but decidedly liberal.
When the media norm is liberal, liberals equate liberalism with objectivity and deviations from it as bias, just as liberals preach tolerance toward all ideas -- except conservative ones. Their self-delusion is surreal.
Thus, Fox News Channel -- which has a number of liberal hosts, scores of liberal contributors, and nonstop liberal guests -- is painted as conservative because it is the only network that has more than one token conservative host.
Back from dead: Return of the 'public option' (NY Post)
The public option is back. Its Lazarus act is hailed as a sign of how rosy the health- care debate looks for Democrats.
August is but a sepia-tinged memory. Passage of a sweeping bill is now considered a lock by the wisest Beltway pundits.
And legislation may even include the most shining prize of all, the public option that liberals -- no matter what the talking points for public consumption -- consider a way station to the Valhalla of a government-controlled system.
The flush on ObamaCare's cheeks, though, is not necessarily a sign of health. The return of the public option speaks to a key -- perhaps decisive -- substantive weakness in the legislation.
It's no accident that the public option came roaring back in the immediate aftermath of an insurance-industry-commissioned study arguing that ObamaCare would increase premiums.
(UK) Doctors who back assisted suicide 40 per cent more likely to withdraw treatment (The Times)
Doctors who support the legalisation of assisted suicide are more likely to withdraw or withhold treatment from dying patients, a study has found.
Actively helping someone to die remains illegal in Britain but more than a third of GPs and hospital doctors report making decisions which they expected would accelerate the death of a terminally-ill patient.
A significant minority — 7 per cent — said that they had taken steps such as withdrawing medications, foods or fluid, with the intention of hastening a patient’s death.
But doctors who actively support a change in the law to allow assisted suicide are up to 40 per cent more likely to take such actions, a new analysis has found.
By contrast, doctors who reported strong religious beliefs or who actively opposed to changing the law were less likely to intervene to quicken the dying process.
Obama Adds Public Option to World Series (The Washington Examiner; satire)
President Obama today announced his plan to add "choice and competition" to the World Series of Major League Baseball by adding a 'public team' to the traditional end-of-season championship duel.
The president said the public option was needed because the American League champion New York Yankees and National League victors, the Philadelphia Phillies, were "motivated by greed to put their own interests ahead of the interests of the American people."
"Without a public option," said Obama, "you would just see two teams trying to run up the score, without any consideration of the price a ticket to the ballpark, which is out-of-reach for so many Americans."
According to White House officials, the public option team will step in and replace any team that begins to lead its rival by more than two runs during any particular game in the series.
If a previously losing team should begin to run up the score on the public team, then it, too, shall be replaced by players on the public squad so fans can enjoy "reliable, accessible baseball."
"The problem with baseball," Obama said, "is the irrational exuberance spawned by the inherent instability.
My plan removes the element of uncertainty, thus reducing the cost of a ticket to the ballpark to a price anyone could afford."
Players on the public team must meet a stringent set of regulations, outlined in a 2,700-page codebook, that ensures the public will get the highest quality of baseball available within the limited resources of the federal government.
If ticket sales should drop off, Obama said, it would trigger a "mandatory attendance provision" which would impose fines on local employers who fail to buy tickets for their employee
21 comments:
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s circulation fell 9.9 percent for Sunday, 13.8 percent weekdays, and 7.7 percent Saturday.
Publisher Gary Wortel said part of the loss occurred outside the paper’s core market. Among factors affecting sales was the discontinuation of a pizza restaurant’s program delivering newspapers along with food orders.
In revenue terms, the circulation declines were more than made up for by price hikes on single-copy sales in April and on home delivery in July, Wortel said. The rack price went from 50 cents to $1 weekdays and Saturday and from $1.50 to $2 Sunday. Monthly home delivery subscriptions rose from $17.50 to $19.95, a 14 percent increase.
What this means to you: if you have stayed with the paper and paid for home delivery, we are going to screw you and charge you more and give you less.
And what person alive thinks this formula will work long term?
Record plunge: Newspaper circ at pre-WWII low (Newsosaur)
Following an average drop of 10.6% in the last six months, daily newspaper circulation has fallen to a pre-World War II low of an estimated 39.1 million, according to an analysis of industry data released today.
The first double-digit circulation decline in history means only 12.9%of the U.S. population buys a daily newspaper. The analysis is based on data provided by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, an industry-funded group.
Newspaper circulation now is lower than the 41.1 million papers sold in 1940, the earliest date for which records are published by the Newspaper Association of America.
Back in 1940, newspapers were purchased by 31.1% of the population.
Sunday circulation, which fell an average of 7.5% in the last six months to an estimated 40.9 million copies per week, is at the lowest point since 1945 when it was 39.9 million.
At that rate, Sunday papers in the last six months reached only 13.5% of American homes, as compared with 28.5% in 1945, when the population was less than half the size it is today.
Far Left Crank Krugman Casually Refers to “Teabaggers” in Latest Column (GatewayPundit)[No wonder our Troll “Sweetie” just loved krugman so, so much!]
Paul Krugman is the latest far left crank to refer to the “teabaggers” in his latest New York Times column: So, how well will health reform work after it passes?
There’s a part of me that can’t believe I’m asking that question. After all, serious health reform has long seemed like an impossible dream. And it could yet go all wrong.
But the teabaggers have come and gone, as have the cries of “death panels” and the demonstrations by Medicare recipients demanding that the government stay out of health care. And reform is still on track. Right now it looks highly likely that Congress will, indeed, send a health care bill to the president’s desk.
Of course, Krugman knew exactly what he was saying. Don’t look for a correction.
Nielsen : Fox News ratings up almost 10% since WH declared war (Hot Air)
It’s a nine-percent bump in the two weeks since Anita Dunn’s whine heard ’round the world — in terms of overall audience.
Among the coveted 25-54 demographic? A 14-percent bump.
Good work, Barry. People keep telling me that this PR offensive by the White House benefits both sides but I don’t see how that’s true.
If the goal is to contain Fox by framing the stories it breaks — Van Jones, ACORN, etc — as somehow illegitimate, then every tenth of a point that Fox’s ratings go up undermines that goal.
Half of CNN viewers are trapped in airport waiting rooms being cruelly tortured by having to watch CNN.
CNN Drops to Last Place Among Cable News Networks (N.Y. Times)
CNN, which invented the cable news network more than two decades ago, will hit a new competitive low with its prime-time programs in October, finishing fourth – and last – among the cable news networks with the audience that all the networks rely on for their advertising.
The official monthly numbers will be finalized at 4 p.m. Monday, and will include results from Friday; but CNN executives conceded that will not change the competitive standing for the month. CNN will still be last in prime time.
That means CNN’s programs were behind not only Fox News and MSNBC, but even its own sister network HLN (formerly Headline News.) That was the first time CNN had finished that poorly with its prime-time shows.
Fox News’ Bill O’ReillyThe results demonstrate once more the apparent preference of viewers for opinion-oriented shows from the news networks in prime time.
Shouldn’t CNN be embarrassed to have lower ratings than MSNBC? I guess that most viewers enjoy getting "non" news from Fox. In fact, CNN would be behind the Native American test pattern, if it was included!
Michelle Obama sets record of running barefooted on White House lawn! [CBS, Schieffer] BUT THIS IS NEWS I SHOULD WATCH? (Newsbusters)
Showing that the media sees every act by the Obamas as an historic achievement, at the end of Sunday’s Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer was amazed by the romping of First Lady Michelle Obama:
“Michelle Obama took it to another level as she set records as the first First Lady to run barefoot across the White House lawn.
She also became the first to jump rope there.” Schieffer began his pointless rambling by looking at how past first ladies, all wives of Democratic presidents, shaped the position:
LATEST:US President Obama Says He Will Not Rush "Solemn Decision" To Commit Troops To Afghanistan (BUT DEATHCARE MUST BE VOTED ON TODAY?)
BBC
BBC LATEST: Headline Only US President Obama Says He Will Not Rush "Solemn Decision" To Commit Troops To Afghanistan
What Jobless Recovery? (Michelle Obama has created more jobs than any other First Lady in history!!)
(American Thinker)
The radical left economist Paul Krugman recently opined that the United States is headed into a jobless recovery despite the three-quarter trillion dollar “stimulus” package that the Obama administration said would keep unemployment below 8%.
snip
Krugman’s prescription, of course, is to have another “stimulus” package.
But I disagree. We don’t need another stimulus package, because the remedy is already to hand. The Canada Free Press informs us that Michelle Obama is a one-woman job creation machine right inside the White House.
In less than a year, she has managed to hire at least 200% more personal servants than any other First Lady in the entire history of the American Republic.
Currently, the number stands at 26, “including a hair dresser and make-up artist.”
The collective salary of Michele’s personal “staff” apparently costs the American taxpayer $1,750,000.00per year, plus benefit packages.
Go girl … keep those unemployment figures down!
Happy Birthday, Hillary!
Yes, it's "Happy Birthday, Hillary"! The Secretary of State turns 62 today... I wonder how she is celebrating the big event...
Which Soviet Block dictator is she kow-towing to today? What lie or lies is she trying to peddle on behalf of the Obama Administration today?
Yes, the great leader who was named after Sir Edmund Hillary (who first climbed Mt. Everest some 7 years AFTER Hillary was born) became famous, continues to serve us all in her capacity of Secretary of State -- and make no mistake: SHE's Secretary of State, not Bill!!!!!
I wonder if Barrack has sent her a card or a dozen roses... and Monica sent her a very nice blue dress.
President Obama ties George W. Bush on Golf (as much in 9 months than Bush in 34 months)Politico
President Barack Obama has only been in office for just over nine months, but he's already hit the links as much as President Bush did in over two years.
I am waiting for Michael Moore movie with Obama playing golf while soldiers die... I know, I’ll be waiting a long time because the left are hypocrites.
I’m curious about his parties. Seems like he has a couple parties every week; between ‘dates’ with his wife flying one jet airliner out somewhere, so he can fly AF1 out to join her later.
Another little example of the hypocrisy of the media and the lack of knowledge by the American people.
Too bad Afgan General McCrystal doesn’t play golf. Maybe he would get more time with the President.
But maybe it's not a golf club, but a mop and he's cleaning up after Bush.
Obama Presidential Library could be in the Works (Illinois Home)
Those who thought President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was premature have something else to ponder: Obama's presidential library.
Although the George W. Bush library hasn't opened yet in Dallas, "Bloomberg News" reports sponsors already have contacted the White House about making the University of Chicago a permanent home for Obama's papers.
There's a connection to the Nobels, because more than 80 have been claimed by people affiliated with the university. Obama taught constitutional law at the school for twelve years.
But why do we need a library for his papers when the public isn’t allowed to look at them anyway? Couldn’t we just sock them away in a drawer?
Of course, they won't have a Historical Records Wing, since he's scrubbed all those.
Obama Told House Democrat He Wasn’t Talking about House Health Bill When He Told Congress ...
(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.) told CNSNews.com that President Barack Obama told him in a telephone conversation that when he said in his Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress that “under our plan no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions” he was not talking about the actual bill drafted in the House but about the president’s own health care plan—which has never been written.
“I don’t know if it is a game of semantics or what,” Stupak said of Obama’s nationally televised declaration to Congress that the health-care plan will not allow federal funding of abortion.
Lies, Earmarks And Corruption All In One Bill (IBD)
We are nominating Sen. Baucus' health care reform bill for the Pulitzer Prize — for fiction.
Like works of great fiction writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Conrad and F. Scott Fitzgerald, the story line of the Baucus bill is not what it seems and is in fact a clever subterfuge of what health care reform will mean for the American people.
Hiding behind this facade is another story about a massive power grab by the Washington political establishment.
The bill is loaded with fiction. To begin with, it purports to reduce the deficit. This is really an Enron-style scam with the bill's massive new taxes starting on day one and its dramatic new health care expenditures, which will far exceed the tax revenues, beginning in year four.
Hence its favorable score: 10 years of revenue, seven of expenditures. In the private sector, people go to jail for this type of accounting; in the U.S. Senate, they trumpet it as good news.
The Baucus bill claims to treat all Americans equitably, yet four states receive Medicaid exemptions — the federal government will pick up the state's share of Medicaid costs — for five years.
That means taxpayers in 46 states will subsidize other states, including Nevada, so Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can bring home the bacon and get re-elected.
Sen. Chuck Schumer put in a little-noticed provision that exempts New Yorkers and taxpayers from some other states from the bill's tax on gold-plated insurance plans.
The result: The rest of the nation will subsidize the health care of New Yorkers and a few others.
If you're lucky enough to live in one of the favored states, you win. If not, you lose. Guess how many of those states are blue and have Democratic senators up for re-election?
Obama Heads to Oslo for Nobel, but Too Busy for Berlin Wall Ceremony (Pajamas MEdia)
In December, President Obama will fly to Oslo to receive in person the Nobel Peace Prize he was recently awarded — beating, among others, Chinese dissident Hu Jia.
He might also drop in next door to Copenhagen, where the United Nations will be trying to arrive at a global solution to climate change, a sort of another Kyoto, only successful.
President Obama, however, will miss the November 9 celebrations of the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the event symbolically marking the end of the Cold War.
“Barack too busy,” reports Germany’s Spiegel.
Unkind cynics might say that Barack is too busy preparing America’s future defeats to celebrate her past victories.
But even the more sympathetic observers will wonder what sort of “scheduling difficulties” will keep the leader of the free world from participating in a celebration of one of the most momentous events in the history of the twentieth century — one which was a culmination of America’s longest (albeit cold) war and which represented the victory and vindication of everything that America stood for over the forces of tyranny and totalitarianism.
Dana Perino Compares White House Attack On Fox to Hugo Chavez
(Newsbusters)
Former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino on Sunday compared last week's attempt by the White House to exclude Fox News from of a pool interview to Hugo Chavez shutting down television stations in Venezuela.
As NewsBuster Jeff Poor reported Thursday, the Obama administration earlier in the day tried to shut Fox News out of an interview with pay czar Kenneth Feinberg that was to be part of a pool that the cable network would always be involved in.
On "Fox News Sunday," when the panel discussion turned to this subject, Perino really went after the White House for what she called conduct "unbecoming" and an impediment to our efforts to "help emerging democracies get journalists and government officials to talk to one another"
(From the LA Times in July 2009)
"Reporting from Caracas, Venezuela — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has made moves to tighten government control over national media, say critics who warn that the Internet could be his next target.
"Chavez recently announced that the government would review the licenses of and possibly close as many as 240 radio stations -- more than one-third of all AM and FM broadcasters. He has proposed rules that would limit the sharing of programming by stations, something that helps many stay economically viable."
Sounds awfully familiar?
Anita Dunn's husband leads the effort to block access to Obama's birth records...(TownHall)
Any objective observer would find it newsworthy that attorney Robert Bauer, who is Anita Dunn's husband, and who has been leading legal efforts to block inquiries into Obama's birth records, is also expected to become the top White House counsel (replacing Gregory Craig).
I realize that this is the story that all the mass media is too frightened to report, but are there any additional news reports about this?
Obama's War on Fox Is Liberalism's War on Dissent (davidlimbaugh.com)
Can you imagine the outrage that would have ensued had former President George W. Bush declared off-limits those media outlets he thought (correctly) treated him unfairly?
Heck, the left declared him a dictator simply because he led a war on Iraq that Congress approved.
He never tried to shut down his critics. He rarely even objected to their abuse.
But liberal politicians have been spoiled with mainstream media favoritism for so long that they believe anything other than sycophancy is mistreatment.
Their selective outrage is as hollow as it is risible.
In fact, Fox News seems much more conservative than it is because no other television network over the past half-century has been anything but decidedly liberal.
When the media norm is liberal, liberals equate liberalism with objectivity and deviations from it as bias, just as liberals preach tolerance toward all ideas -- except conservative ones. Their self-delusion is surreal.
Thus, Fox News Channel -- which has a number of liberal hosts, scores of liberal contributors, and nonstop liberal guests -- is painted as conservative because it is the only network that has more than one token conservative host.
Back from dead: Return of the 'public option' (NY Post)
The public option is back. Its Lazarus act is hailed as a sign of how rosy the health- care debate looks for Democrats.
August is but a sepia-tinged memory. Passage of a sweeping bill is now considered a lock by the wisest Beltway pundits.
And legislation may even include the most shining prize of all, the public option that liberals -- no matter what the talking points for public consumption -- consider a way station to the Valhalla of a government-controlled system.
The flush on ObamaCare's cheeks, though, is not necessarily a sign of health. The return of the public option speaks to a key -- perhaps decisive -- substantive weakness in the legislation.
It's no accident that the public option came roaring back in the immediate aftermath of an insurance-industry-commissioned study arguing that ObamaCare would increase premiums.
(UK) Doctors who back assisted suicide 40 per cent more likely to withdraw treatment (The Times)
Doctors who support the legalisation of assisted suicide are more likely to withdraw or withhold treatment from dying patients, a study has found.
Actively helping someone to die remains illegal in Britain but more than a third of GPs and hospital doctors report making decisions which they expected would accelerate the death of a terminally-ill patient.
A significant minority — 7 per cent — said that they had taken steps such as withdrawing medications, foods or fluid, with the intention of hastening a patient’s death.
But doctors who actively support a change in the law to allow assisted suicide are up to 40 per cent more likely to take such actions, a new analysis has found.
By contrast, doctors who reported strong religious beliefs or who actively opposed to changing the law were less likely to intervene to quicken the dying process.
Boy, 10, dies of meningitis after being wrongly diagnosed with a migraine (dailymail.co.uk)
A boy of 10 died from meningitis after doctors wrongly diagnosed a migraine and told his mother to give him calpol, an inquest was told yesterday.
William Cressey saw five doctors in three days before finally suffering 'catastrophic' brain damage.
His mother, Cheryl, 48, repeatedly told doctors that she suspected meningitis but each time was ignored, she said.
Just hours before he died the schoolboy begged one of those doctors: 'Please help me. I'm going to die.'
By then his face was so swollen that he could barely see and he was drifting in and out of consciousness.
Obama Adds Public Option to World Series (The Washington Examiner; satire)
President Obama today announced his plan to add "choice and competition" to the World Series of Major League Baseball by adding a 'public team' to the traditional end-of-season championship duel.
The president said the public option was needed because the American League champion New York Yankees and National League victors, the Philadelphia Phillies, were "motivated by greed to put their own interests ahead of the interests of the American people."
"Without a public option," said Obama, "you would just see two teams trying to run up the score, without any consideration of the price a ticket to the ballpark, which is out-of-reach for so many Americans."
According to White House officials, the public option team will step in and replace any team that begins to lead its rival by more than two runs during any particular game in the series.
If a previously losing team should begin to run up the score on the public team, then it, too, shall be replaced by players on the public squad so fans can enjoy "reliable, accessible baseball."
"The problem with baseball," Obama said, "is the irrational exuberance spawned by the inherent instability.
My plan removes the element of uncertainty, thus reducing the cost of a ticket to the ballpark to a price anyone could afford."
Players on the public team must meet a stringent set of regulations, outlined in a 2,700-page codebook, that ensures the public will get the highest quality of baseball available within the limited resources of the federal government.
If ticket sales should drop off, Obama said, it would trigger a "mandatory attendance provision" which would impose fines on local employers who fail to buy tickets for their employee
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