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, November 26, 2009
Thursday November 26 -- Got news or an update?
If you have news or an update, leave it in comments. . . .
38 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Turkey TIME Inc. (more layoffs) New York Post
The list of staffers downsized from Time Inc. yesterday grew by another 25 people, even though it appeared that CEO Ann Moore and Editor-in-Chief John Huey would wait until after Thanksgiving to begin this round of cuts.
Fortune was the hardest-hit title. Including yesterday's layoffs, about 30 staffers have left the company rather than the expected 40, with about 22 from the edit side.
Yesterday, three assistant managing editors were whacked: Eric Gellman, John Brodie and Brian Dumanie, who ran the recently shuttered Fortune Small Business. Two writers were also laid off, Suzanne Kapner and Telis Demos.
Managing Editor Andy Serwer walked around to personally deliver the news.
Executive Editor Steve Koepp and Assistant Managing Editor Lee Clifford volunteered for buyouts last week.
At Sports Illustrated, the final tally for this month was around 25 people. Seven editorial people volunteered for buyouts, including Assistant Managing Editor Mike Bevans, and three others were ousted.
The People Group shut down the spin-off title In Style Weddings yesterday and let go its nine editorial staffers.
Time Inc. is cutting more than 500 people from its workforce of 9,000.
Most of the cuts have been made and the remainder will play out before year's end.
Time Cover Story: Bush Decade 'Hell,' Obama Decade Better (NewsBusters) How’s the circulation doing again?
In one tidy cover story—The Decade From Hell And Why The Next One Will Be Better—Time sums up the last decade and the one to come. Things were "hell" under George W. Bush, but will be better under Barack Obama.
Class dismissed: that's really all you need to know. But just to drive home the Manichean message, Time editor Rick Stengel and Andy Serwer [of Time stable-mate Fortune], who wrote the cover story, appeared on Morning Joe today.
Of course there's the inconvenient detail about Barack Obama having been elected in this decade. But not to worry. Serwer explains "you may see Barack Obama being elected as the beginning of the next decade."
"I remember the bad old days of DJIA at 14,000. And unemployment at 4.5%. And a massive federal deficit of $180B. Whew!
" The leftists were telling us back when the market was booming, unemployment was low, and the deficit seems paltry compared to now that it was the worst economy since the Great Depression.
UPDATE 2-Washington Post closing remaining U.S. bureaus (Reuters) "it's necessary to concentrate our journalistic firepower " ROFL!
NEW YORK, Nov 24 (Reuters) - The Washington Post (WPO.N) is closing its last U.S. bureaus outside the nation's capital as the money-losing newspaper retrenches to focus on politics and local news.
"At a time of limited resources and increased competitive pressure, it's necessary to concentrate our journalistic firepower on our central mission of covering Washington and the news, trends and ideas that shape both the region and the country's politics, policies and government," the newspaper's top editor, Marcus Brauchli, wrote in a memo to employees that was obtained by Reuters.
The Post will close its bureaus in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, effective Dec. 31.
The news comes after the Post told several employees at its website that they would be laid off, and follows several rounds of buyouts in recent years.
Here's a dirty little secret about The New York Times: It likes to leak things. Important things.
Things that change the course of the public conversation. From the Pentagon Papers to the ruined terrorist-surveillance programs of the Bush era, the Times has routinely found that secrecy is a danger and sunlight is a disinfectant.
Until now. A troublesome hacker recently released e-mails going to and from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Britain, e-mails that exposed how the "scientific experts" cited so often by the media on global warming are guilty of crude political talk, attempts at censoring opponents and twisting scientific data to support their policy agenda.
The e-mails prove just how dishonest this left-wing global warming agenda truly is.
And now suddenly, The New York Times has found religion and won't publish these private e-mails.
Environmental reporter Andrew Revkin, who's more global warming lobbyist than reporter, quoted -- sparsely -- from the e-mails, but declared he would not post these texts on his "Dot Earth" blog on the Times website:
"The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won't be posted here."
That rule didn't apply to things like the disclosure of the SWIFT global bank monitoring program against terrorists.
Unlike our secret terror-fighting efforts, there is no grave matter of national security to protect here.
There is only a danger of shredding the undeserved reputation of some global-warming alarmists as nonpartisan, nonideological, just-the-facts scientists with no preconceived environmentalist or statist agenda.
The networks also have ignored this emerging scandal with all the ignorance they could muster.
But in the seven days after The New York Times revealed the existence of an NSA program to monitor communications to terrorist cells abroad, the three networks ran a combined 23 stories about the program, more than one story, per network, per night.
Revkin's story in the Times did have some truncated quotes with ridiculous details. In a 1999 e-mail exchange about charts showing apparent climate patterns over the last two millenniums, Phil Jones of the CRU said he had used a "trick" employed by another scientist, Michael Mann, to "hide the decline" in temperatures.
Dr. Mann confirmed the e-mail was real, but told the Times "the choice of words by his colleague was poor but noted that scientists often used the word 'trick' to refer to a good way to solve a problem," and not as something secret.
Doesn't a network correspondent just smell the fraud when scientists start offering lame excuses for the words they somehow didn't mean?
Don't just listen to conservatives. Try Nate Silver, a statistician and liberal-media favorite, recently named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People. He says the scientists in this exchange were unethical:
"Dr. Jones, talking candidly about sexing up a graph to make his conclusions more persuasive.
This is not a good thing to do -- I'd go so far as to call it unethical -- and Jones deserves some of the loss of face that he will suffer." But then he adds the typical liberal disclaimer: "Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing that happens all the time in both academia and the private sector -- have you ever looked at the graphs in the annual report of a company which had a bad year?
And it seems to happen all too often on both sides of the global warming debate."
When conservatives are wrong, conservatives are wrong. When liberals are wrong, everyone does it, don't you know?
Dem Congressman confirms: ObamaCare Will Require Rationing Healthcare (Fox)
Kentucky Dem Congressman John Yarmuth was just interviewed on Fox.
He surprised me by confirming that, under Obamacare, all health care will be rationed based upon the government's double secret Quality Life Years scale.
When the reporter asked him to repeat that, he continued with,
"If you want any procedure not approved by Obama's Health Care Panel of experts (hip replacement, cancer screening, etc.), "you will have to pay for that yourself."
Beware: Senate Bill Threaten Seniors, Disabled With Health Care Rationing (Life News)
LifeNews.com: Burke Balch is a pro-life attorney who is the director of the Robert Powell Center for Ethics at the National Right to Life Committee. He is considered one of the foremost experts on health care, euthanasia and bioethics issues.
The U.S. Senate is poised to begin debate on the 2,074-page health care bill, crafted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nv.), when senators return to Washington next week.
In a release last week, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of right-to-life organizations in all 50 states, noted that Senator Reid's bill would authorize the federal government to pay for any and all abortions through a huge federal health insurance program, and also to subsidize purchase of private plans that cover abortion on demand.
Further analysis finds that the Reid bill, like the House bill approved earlier this month, puts the lives of older Americans and persons with disabilities at great risk.
LIMITS ON SENIOR CITIZENS' CHOICE TO SPEND THEIR OWN MONEY TO ENSURE ACCESS TO LIFESAVING CARE
Under current law, Medicare recipients have the legal option, if they choose, of adding their own money on top of the government contribution in order to obtain "private fee-for-service" Medicare Advantage plans that can use the additional premiums to avoid "managed care" limitations on treatments and tests and to ensure access by paying providers market rates.
Presently, the Medicare statute prevents the government from second-guessing or imposing limits on the premiums for private fee-for-service plans, allowing beneficiaries to balance cost, benefit, and affordability in making their own decisions whether to purchase such plans.
However, Section 3209, on page 920, amends that provision so as to empower the federal government to exclude from competing in Medicare Advantage those plans whose bids it does not like.
The consequence is to give the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) the discretion to deny older Americans the choice of plans whose premiums CMS disallows.
This amounts to the imposition of price controls, thus limiting what older Americans are permitted to spend for health insurance.
Again, being prohibited from paying what may be needed to obtain unrationed health insurance amounts to government-imposed health care rationing.
Naeem Khan gown worn by Michelle Obama wows state dinner crowd (creating jobs, took 40 non-Americans in India to make it) NJ.com
Naeem Khan has dressed Beyonce, Alicia Keys and Katherine Heigl, but it appears to have taken First Lady Michelle Obama, who wore his custom-made strapless silver-and-cream gown to a state dinner Tuesday night, to make him a household name. (If Khan gets a smidgen of the press that Jason Wu and Isabel Toledo got for designing Obama's Inauguration Day ensembles. we'll be thrilled for him.)
Khan, an Indian-born designer who shows at New York Fashion Week, consistently turns out jaw-droppingly gorgeous eveningwear, though he has been branching out in recent seasons.
His signatures are ethnic embroideries, dazzling colors, and bold embellishments, like this stunner worn by Keys to the BET Honors last year.
Khan says the gown took 40 people three weeks to complete at the designer's family workshop in India.
40 people x 3 weeks x 40 hours/week = 4,800 man-hours = 2-1/2 MAN-YEARS (to resurrect an old term). Of course, at $0.20 per hour, that's only $960.
1.Why POTUS exporting these valuable jobs.
2.Why his wife is using Indian slave labor to make her dress.
3.Why isn't the International Ladies Garment Workers Union shrieking with anguish and rage?
4.Why isn't SEIU boycotting the White House in solidarity with the ILGWU?
Convicted Felon Invited to Obama’s First State Dinner – GOP Leaders Don’t Make the List (GatewayPundit)
More Hope and Change...The Obamas welcome guests to their first State Dinner last night.
The Obama White House invited convicted felon and HuffPo contributor Robert Creamer to the first State Dinner last night in Washington DC.
ABC7 reported in 2006 on his prison sentence: The husband of an Illinois congresswoman was sentenced to five months in prison Wednesday.
Robert Creamer is married to US Representative Jan Schakowsky. He was convicted on charges of writing bad checks and tax evasion.
This is a case that ends with both sides claiming to be disappointed with the sentence. Federal prosecutors wanted two-and-a-half to three years in prison for Creamer’s blatant violations of the law, even after a visit from the FBI.
Creamer’s supporters wanted probation for a man who spent a lifetime fighting for social justice and broke the law so he could keep fighting for the causes he believed in.
“Of course I’m disappointed that the sentence imposed today includes a period of incarceration. But the judge is a fair and thoughtful man, and I accept his judgment,” said Creamer.
Creamer is also tied to ACORN out of Chicago.
Howerver, top Republicans did not make the list. The Washington Times reported:
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner won’t be there; he’s on Thanksgiving break and home in Ohio. His deputy, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, also didn’t get an invitation to the dinner.
The president didn’t invite his 2008 rival, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, even though Mr. Obama the candidate pledged a post-partisan presidency.
UPDATE: Creamer worked on Obama’s campaign after he left jail.
DC Couple Crashes White House State Dinner– Pose For Photos With Joe Biden
The Secret Service is investigating how a DC couple was able to crash the White House State Dinner last night. Michaele and Tareq Salahi crashed the dinner and posed with Joe Biden and Katie Couric at the event.
House Republicans Ask White House to Stop Touting Inaccurate 'Created or Saved' Job Numbers (CNS News)
House Republicans asked the Obama administration to stop touting the number of jobs “saved or created” by the $787 billion economic stimulus law, citing widespread reports that the data are inaccurate.
They requested a response from the administration before the Dec. 3 White House “Jobs Summit.”
“The inaccuracy of the job creation and retention claims posted on the Administration’s website, www.recovery.gov, has not prevented administration officials from touting this misleading and inaccurate number as evidence that the president’s stimulus spending package is succeeding even as the unemployment rate continues to rise,”
Sick-bags at the ready: The New York Times gushes over the Obamas' state dinner (The Telegraph)
If you’re feeling queasy, look away now. The New York Times scales new heights of sycophancy in its report of the White House state dinner last night, which by their account was the most charming, imaginative, glittering – yet tasteful! – social event since Jackie Kennedy was Queen of Camelot.
Indeed, it may even have surpassed Jackie’s standards, since Barack and Michelle added a deeply appropriate and thoughtful element of multiculturalism to the glamorous proceedings.
And the decorative magnolia branches, I’m relieved to report, were “sustainably harvested”.
snip
There was White House honey and sage from the garden and a menu that gave vegetables and beans — including eggplants and lentils — top billing. (For a White House keen on promoting fresh fruits and vegetables, what could be more serendipitous than a guest of honor who happens to be a vegetarian?)
Sounds to me like the Obamas filled their guests with piles of wind-inducing vegetables. Hardly necessary, you would have thought.
The Carter Ricochet Effect The Wall Street Journal
An idealistic president takes office promising an era of American moral renewal at home and abroad.
The effort includes a focus on diplomacy and peace-making, an aversion to the use of force, the selling out of old allies. The result is that within a couple of years the U.S. is more suspected, detested and enfeebled than ever.
No, we're not talking about Barack Obama. But since the current administration took office offering roughly the same prescriptions as Jimmy Carter did, it's worth recalling how that worked out.
How it worked out became inescapably apparent 30 years ago this month. On Nov. 20, 1979, Sunni religious fanatics led by a dark-eyed charismatic Saudi named Juhayman bin Seif al Uteybi seized Mecca's Grand Mosque, Islam's holiest site. After a two week siege distinguished mainly by its incompetence, Saudi forces were able to recapture the mosque at a cost of several hundred lives.
By any objective account—the very best of which was offered by Wall Street Journal reporter Yaroslav Trofimov in his 2007 book "The Siege of Mecca"—the battle at the Grand Mosque was a purely Sunni affair pitting a fundamentalist Islamic regime against ultra-fundamentalist renegades.
Yet throughout the Muslim world, the Carter administration was viewed as the main culprit. U.S. diplomatic missions in Bangladesh, India, Turkey and Libya were assaulted; in Pakistan, the embassy was burned to the ground. How could that happen to a country whose president was so intent on making his policies as inoffensive as possible?
The answer was, precisely, that Mr. Carter had set out to make America as inoffensive as possible.
Two weeks before Juhayman seized the Grand Mosque, Iranian radicals seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 66 Americans hostage.(continued)
OBAMA’S GRANNY IN MECCA FOR HAJJ (The Last Crusade)
The grandmother of President Barack Obama has arrived in Saudi Arabia for the 'Hajj' or Islamic pilgrimage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, a Saudi daily confirmed on Wednesday. Sarah Obama, 87, is being accompanied by a nephew and Obama's cousin, Omran.
On Wednesday Sarah Obama was in the valley of Mina with an African delegation, according to the Saudi daily Okaz.
Sarah Obama, the mother of the American president's father, lives in a village in Kenya and is one of the many guests of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud.
"The rituals of Hajj and Eid-ul-Adha both serve as reminders of the shared Abrahamic roots of three of the world's major religions," read a White House statement.
"On behalf of the American people, we would like to extend our greetings during this Hajj season -- Eid Mubarak," Obama said, using a traditional Muslim greeting.
Saudi King Pays For Grandma Obama’s Hajj (Sweetness-Light)
From Channel Africa: Obama’s Muslim grandmother among Mecca pilgrims
Sarah Obama, US President Barack Obama’s 87-year-old Kenyan grandmother, has arrived in Mecca to perform the Muslim pilgrimage of hajj, the Saudi daily Okaz reported Wednesday.
Sarah Obama, one of her grandchildren and 10 people from her village in Kenya made the pilgrimage at the invitation of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, the newspaper reported.
The Saudi monarch invites Muslims from around the world to make the pilgrimage at his expense each year.
Among his nearly 3,000 guests this year, almost 2,000 are relatives of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Also, according to the (Italian/Arabic) Adnkronos International (AKI), the Saudi newspaper also reports:
Sarah Obama, 87, is being accompanied by a nephew and Obama’s cousin, Omran.
Well, it looks like Mr. Obama’s bow to the Saudi king has paid off.
Oh, and never mind that he did the same thing for the relatives of Palestinian terrorists.
Aren’t there laws about the President’s family members accepting gifts – especially from foreign governments?
Didn’t Billy Carter catch a lot of flack about some Libyan ‘favors.’
By the way, when did Mrs. Obama convert?
Back when it was convenient, she said she was a Christian.
Obama’s grandma slams ‘untruths’ By Katharine Houreld, Associated Press March 5, 2008
KOGELO, Kenya — American shock jocks, dirty tricks masterminds and political bloggers: Beware the wrath of an 86-year-old Kenyan villager.
A frown replaces the dimpled beam of Sarah Hussein Obama, grandmother of U.S. senator Barack Obama, when asked on Wednesday about recent attacks on her grandson that include the spreading of rumors that he is secretly a Muslim and the repeated use of his middle name — Hussein — by a radio host at rally of the Republican presidential candidate.
"Untruths are told that don’t have anything to do with what Barack is about," she said in the local Luo language, her gray hair smoothed neatly under a headwrap. "I am very against it." ...
In recent weeks, two Clinton volunteers in the state of Iowa resigned after forwarding false e-mails falsely saying he was a Muslim and a threat to national security.
Matt Drudge, who publishes the political blog the Drudge Report, said that he was e-mailed a widely circulated picture of Obama in a turban and robe by the Clinton campaign.
"Bringing such pictures that are trying to imply that not only is he a foreigner, he is a Muslim is wrong, because that is not what he is," scolded Sarah Obama...
Obama’s grandfather had converted to Islam from Roman Catholicism and taken the name Hussein, Sarah Obama said, but his children had inherited only the name, not the religion.
Each person should be able to choose how they worshipped, she said.
"In the world of today, children have different religions from their parents," she said. She, too, is a Christian...
MSNBC is at it again, editing its transcripts to make Ed Schultz sound less crazy.
Leftists complained -- falsely -- for years that Republicans questioned the patriotism of anyone who opposed them.
On Monday's edition of The Ed Show, Schultz called Joe Liberman a "traitor" yet again -- so MSNBC changed this into a jovial reference to a grocer's chain.
Schultz said Lieberman was one of the senators "cheating on the American public" by opposing a public option.
After accusing the senator of economic adultery and playing a video clip of Lieberman saying the bill will not pass, Schultz used one of her favorite terms for Lieberman: "Traitor Joe." (You can verify the audio/video here.)
But according to MSNBC's transcript, Big Ed said: "Oh, yes. But Trader Joe is not alone."
What';s that -- with Ed's Fargo accent, you can't tell which phrase he used?
Schultz took all guess work out of it earlier this month. On November 12th, he and Bill Press had an in-depth discussion about smearing a liberal Democrat who occasionally votes centrist:
Climategate, the plot thickens! --------- Climategate: White House Involvement in Scandal Will Make It Harder for MSM to Ignore
NewsBusters P.J. Gladnick
Yesterday Brian Williams delivered an NBC Nightly News report about President Obama attending the Copenhagen global warming summit. Guess what hot topic was left untouched? If you had guessed Climategate you would have been correct. Not only Williams but also the other TV networks, with the exception of FOX News, have completely ignored what is considered to be the biggest scientific scandal in history. However, new Climategate revelations made by the Canada Free Press about a White House connection to the scandal will soon make it much more difficult (and ridiculous) for the networks to ignore. Canada Free Press editor... Via FreeRepublic.com
It seems like the UK and Canadian media are covering the Climategate scandal better than the weasel US Fringe media. Like the Van Jones story, they are hoping it will just go away. Now the Obamaites will have to demean the foreign news outlets as well as Fox News for carrying news they wanted suppressed. What fools these corrupted media people are. ---- Climate change scandal deepens as BBC expert claims he was sent 'cover-up' emails
Daily Mail ^ By Carol Driver The controversy surrounding the global warming scandal today deepened after a BBC correspondent admitted he was sent the leaked emails more than a month before they were made public.
That ditzy couple who crashed the White House State Dinner brings into question our national security. What does it say about bring terrorists into New York City to stand trial when Obama's security can't even keep a couple of whackjobs from infiltrating dinner!
Here's something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day: New Gallup Poll finds Obama's support among white Americans has fallen from 61 percent to 39 percent! That does not bode well for his re-election because whites tend to vote. African Americans don't care what he does as long as the entitlements keep coming. 90 percent of African-Americans still support him.
"It seems like the UK and Canadian media are covering the Climategate scandal better than the weasel US Fringe media. Like the Van Jones story," AGAIN!
The White House Gatecrashers: Reality TV hopefuls crash Obama party and post pictures on Facebook The Mail (UK)
Crashing a state dinner at the White House apparently takes a security breakdown as well as some kind of nerve.
But the stars were aligned for Tareq and Michaele Salahi on Tuesday night.
White House staff were left red-faced after the aspiring reality TV couple caused a security scare by gatecrashing an Obama-hosted dinner.
The Salahis mingled in the same room as President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and guest of honour Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh - despite not being on the guest list.
They even posed for pictures with Vice President Joe Biden, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and U.S. news presenter Katie Couric.
It is not known if they encountered the Obamas themselves.
The couple was only discovered after posting pictures on Facebook.
They captioned them, writing: 'Honored to be at the White House for the state dinner in honor of India with President Obama and our First Lady!'
The couple did not manage to be seated at a table in the South Lawn tent where the dinner was held, however.
Somehow, I don’t think Katie Couric will have this story on the CBS Evening News, even though her picture was taken with one of the principals of the story.
The days when CBS News had integrity are past, it seems.
Crashing Bam's big bash (Amateur hour at the White House again) NY Post
It's the greatest White House fiasco since the sale of the Lincoln Bedroom.
A pair of social-climbing, reality show wannabes got into the White House state dinner Tuesday night --without an invitation -- and giddily rubbed elbows with Vice President Joe Biden, Rahm Emanuel and a host of other high-level politicians and the media elite.
"The Real Housewives of Washington" hopefuls Tareq and Michaele Salahi -- who've gotten a reputation for a bitter family feud involving a winery in the posh horse-country of Northern Virginia -- showed up at the state dinner honoring Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Secret Service acknowledged last night.
Our country is secure from terrorists - yeah, right. These nutjobs were in the same room as the Prez! This could have been a freakin' disaster. Can somebody please show this guy how to be a president and oversee national security.
The problem is, even if they only get one anti American traitor elected once per generation they can wreak havoc unchecked for 4 years and then the weak kneed republicans will do nothing to undo the damage...except where it concerns their own large scale donors.
George Bush could have kept Dehmi's out of office for generations, but what did he do? He cow towed the globalists and the leftists thinking he would make friends and appease them. When that didn't work, he repaid his "corporate base" at the expense of the average American that put him in office.
The very same thing Obama is doing with a separate set of players.
38 comments:
Turkey TIME Inc. (more layoffs) New York Post
The list of staffers downsized from Time Inc. yesterday grew by another 25 people, even though it appeared that CEO Ann Moore and Editor-in-Chief John Huey would wait until after Thanksgiving to begin this round of cuts.
Fortune was the hardest-hit title. Including yesterday's layoffs, about 30 staffers have left the company rather than the expected 40, with about 22 from the edit side.
Yesterday, three assistant managing editors were whacked: Eric Gellman, John Brodie and Brian Dumanie, who ran the recently shuttered Fortune Small Business. Two writers were also laid off, Suzanne Kapner and Telis Demos.
Managing Editor Andy Serwer walked around to personally deliver the news.
Executive Editor Steve Koepp and Assistant Managing Editor Lee Clifford volunteered for buyouts last week.
At Sports Illustrated, the final tally for this month was around 25 people. Seven editorial people volunteered for buyouts, including Assistant Managing Editor Mike Bevans, and three others were ousted.
The People Group shut down the spin-off title In Style Weddings yesterday and let go its nine editorial staffers.
Time Inc. is cutting more than 500 people from its workforce of 9,000.
Most of the cuts have been made and the remainder will play out before year's end.
Time Cover Story: Bush Decade 'Hell,' Obama Decade Better (NewsBusters) How’s the circulation doing again?
In one tidy cover story—The Decade From Hell And Why The Next One Will Be Better—Time sums up the last decade and the one to come. Things were "hell" under George W. Bush, but will be better under Barack Obama.
Class dismissed: that's really all you need to know. But just to drive home the Manichean message, Time editor Rick Stengel and Andy Serwer [of Time stable-mate Fortune], who wrote the cover story, appeared on Morning Joe today.
Of course there's the inconvenient detail about Barack Obama having been elected in this decade. But not to worry. Serwer explains "you may see Barack Obama being elected as the beginning of the next decade."
"I remember the bad old days of DJIA at 14,000. And unemployment at 4.5%. And a massive federal deficit of $180B. Whew!
" The leftists were telling us back when the market was booming, unemployment was low, and the deficit seems paltry compared to now that it was the worst economy since the Great Depression.
UPDATE 2-Washington Post closing remaining U.S. bureaus (Reuters)
"it's necessary to concentrate our journalistic firepower " ROFL!
NEW YORK, Nov 24 (Reuters) - The Washington Post (WPO.N) is closing its last U.S. bureaus outside the nation's capital as the money-losing newspaper retrenches to focus on politics and local news.
"At a time of limited resources and increased competitive pressure, it's necessary to concentrate our journalistic firepower on our central mission of covering Washington and the news, trends and ideas that shape both the region and the country's politics, policies and government," the newspaper's top editor, Marcus Brauchli, wrote in a memo to employees that was obtained by Reuters.
The Post will close its bureaus in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, effective Dec. 31.
The news comes after the Post told several employees at its website that they would be laid off, and follows several rounds of buyouts in recent years.
Lede Buried PATTERICO
In the sixth paragraph of this story about Obama’s upcoming Afghanistan decision, we see this:
Mr. Obama will also announce a change in the American goal—without calling attention to the new objective.
His goal up to now has been to “defeat” al Qaeda. The new mission: to “dismantle and degrade” the terrorists.
Now let’s go out there and dismantle and degrade the enemy!
When the Press Favors Secrecy (Townhall.com
Here's a dirty little secret about The New York Times: It likes to leak things. Important things.
Things that change the course of the public conversation. From the Pentagon Papers to the ruined terrorist-surveillance programs of the Bush era, the Times has routinely found that secrecy is a danger and sunlight is a disinfectant.
Until now. A troublesome hacker recently released e-mails going to and from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Britain, e-mails that exposed how the "scientific experts" cited so often by the media on global warming are guilty of crude political talk, attempts at censoring opponents and twisting scientific data to support their policy agenda.
The e-mails prove just how dishonest this left-wing global warming agenda truly is.
And now suddenly, The New York Times has found religion and won't publish these private e-mails.
Environmental reporter Andrew Revkin, who's more global warming lobbyist than reporter, quoted -- sparsely -- from the e-mails, but declared he would not post these texts on his "Dot Earth" blog on the Times website:
"The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won't be posted here."
That rule didn't apply to things like the disclosure of the SWIFT global bank monitoring program against terrorists.
Unlike our secret terror-fighting efforts, there is no grave matter of national security to protect here.
There is only a danger of shredding the undeserved reputation of some global-warming alarmists as nonpartisan, nonideological, just-the-facts scientists with no preconceived environmentalist or statist agenda.
The networks also have ignored this emerging scandal with all the ignorance they could muster.
But in the seven days after The New York Times revealed the existence of an NSA program to monitor communications to terrorist cells abroad, the three networks ran a combined 23 stories about the program, more than one story, per network, per night.
Revkin's story in the Times did have some truncated quotes with ridiculous details. In a 1999 e-mail exchange about charts showing apparent climate patterns over the last two millenniums, Phil Jones of the CRU said he had used a "trick" employed by another scientist, Michael Mann, to "hide the decline" in temperatures.
Dr. Mann confirmed the e-mail was real, but told the Times "the choice of words by his colleague was poor but noted that scientists often used the word 'trick' to refer to a good way to solve a problem," and not as something secret.
Doesn't a network correspondent just smell the fraud when scientists start offering lame excuses for the words they somehow didn't mean?
Don't just listen to conservatives. Try Nate Silver, a statistician and liberal-media favorite, recently named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People. He says the scientists in this exchange were unethical:
"Dr. Jones, talking candidly about sexing up a graph to make his conclusions more persuasive.
This is not a good thing to do -- I'd go so far as to call it unethical -- and Jones deserves some of the loss of face that he will suffer." But then he adds the typical liberal disclaimer: "Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing that happens all the time in both academia and the private sector -- have you ever looked at the graphs in the annual report of a company which had a bad year?
And it seems to happen all too often on both sides of the global warming debate."
When conservatives are wrong, conservatives are wrong. When liberals are wrong, everyone does it, don't you know?
Dem Congressman confirms: ObamaCare Will Require Rationing Healthcare (Fox)
Kentucky Dem Congressman John Yarmuth was just interviewed on Fox.
He surprised me by confirming that, under Obamacare, all health care will be rationed based upon the government's double secret Quality Life Years scale.
When the reporter asked him to repeat that, he continued with,
"If you want any procedure not approved by Obama's Health Care Panel of experts (hip replacement, cancer screening, etc.), "you will have to pay for that yourself."
Beware: Senate Bill Threaten Seniors, Disabled With Health Care Rationing (Life News)
LifeNews.com: Burke Balch is a pro-life attorney who is the director of the Robert Powell Center for Ethics at the National Right to Life Committee. He is considered one of the foremost experts on health care, euthanasia and bioethics issues.
The U.S. Senate is poised to begin debate on the 2,074-page health care bill, crafted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nv.), when senators return to Washington next week.
In a release last week, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of right-to-life organizations in all 50 states, noted that Senator Reid's bill would authorize the federal government to pay for any and all abortions through a huge federal health insurance program, and also to subsidize purchase of private plans that cover abortion on demand.
Further analysis finds that the Reid bill, like the House bill approved earlier this month, puts the lives of older Americans and persons with disabilities at great risk.
LIMITS ON SENIOR CITIZENS' CHOICE TO SPEND THEIR OWN MONEY TO ENSURE ACCESS TO LIFESAVING CARE
Under current law, Medicare recipients have the legal option, if they choose, of adding their own money on top of the government contribution in order to obtain "private fee-for-service" Medicare Advantage plans that can use the additional premiums to avoid "managed care" limitations on treatments and tests and to ensure access by paying providers market rates.
Presently, the Medicare statute prevents the government from second-guessing or imposing limits on the premiums for private fee-for-service plans, allowing beneficiaries to balance cost, benefit, and affordability in making their own decisions whether to purchase such plans.
However, Section 3209, on page 920, amends that provision so as to empower the federal government to exclude from competing in Medicare Advantage those plans whose bids it does not like.
The consequence is to give the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) the discretion to deny older Americans the choice of plans whose premiums CMS disallows.
This amounts to the imposition of price controls, thus limiting what older Americans are permitted to spend for health insurance.
Again, being prohibited from paying what may be needed to obtain unrationed health insurance amounts to government-imposed health care rationing.
Naeem Khan gown worn by Michelle Obama wows state dinner crowd (creating jobs, took 40 non-Americans in India to make it) NJ.com
Naeem Khan has dressed Beyonce, Alicia Keys and Katherine Heigl, but it appears to have taken First Lady Michelle Obama, who wore his custom-made strapless silver-and-cream gown to a state dinner Tuesday night, to make him a household name. (If Khan gets a smidgen of the press that Jason Wu and Isabel Toledo got for designing Obama's Inauguration Day ensembles. we'll be thrilled for him.)
Khan, an Indian-born designer who shows at New York Fashion Week, consistently turns out jaw-droppingly gorgeous eveningwear, though he has been branching out in recent seasons.
His signatures are ethnic embroideries, dazzling colors, and bold embellishments, like this stunner worn by Keys to the BET Honors last year.
Khan says the gown took 40 people three weeks to complete at the designer's family workshop in India.
40 people x 3 weeks x 40 hours/week = 4,800 man-hours = 2-1/2 MAN-YEARS (to resurrect an old term). Of course, at $0.20 per hour, that's only $960.
1.Why POTUS exporting these valuable jobs.
2.Why his wife is using Indian slave labor to make her dress.
3.Why isn't the International Ladies Garment Workers Union shrieking with anguish and rage?
4.Why isn't SEIU boycotting the White House in solidarity with the ILGWU?
Convicted Felon Invited to Obama’s First State Dinner – GOP Leaders Don’t Make the List (GatewayPundit)
More Hope and Change...The Obamas welcome guests to their first State Dinner last night.
The Obama White House invited convicted felon and HuffPo contributor Robert Creamer to the first State Dinner last night in Washington DC.
ABC7 reported in 2006 on his prison sentence: The husband of an Illinois congresswoman was sentenced to five months in prison Wednesday.
Robert Creamer is married to US Representative Jan Schakowsky. He was convicted on charges of writing bad checks and tax evasion.
This is a case that ends with both sides claiming to be disappointed with the sentence. Federal prosecutors wanted two-and-a-half to three years in prison for Creamer’s blatant violations of the law, even after a visit from the FBI.
Creamer’s supporters wanted probation for a man who spent a lifetime fighting for social justice and broke the law so he could keep fighting for the causes he believed in.
“Of course I’m disappointed that the sentence imposed today includes a period of incarceration. But the judge is a fair and thoughtful man, and I accept his judgment,” said Creamer.
Creamer is also tied to ACORN out of Chicago.
Howerver, top Republicans did not make the list. The Washington Times reported:
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner won’t be there; he’s on Thanksgiving break and home in Ohio. His deputy, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, also didn’t get an invitation to the dinner.
The president didn’t invite his 2008 rival, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, even though Mr. Obama the candidate pledged a post-partisan presidency.
UPDATE: Creamer worked on Obama’s campaign after he left jail.
DC Couple Crashes White House State Dinner– Pose For Photos With Joe Biden
The Secret Service is investigating how a DC couple was able to crash the White House State Dinner last night.
Michaele and Tareq Salahi crashed the dinner and posed with Joe Biden and Katie Couric at the event.
Cabinet appointments-- Previous private sector experience 1900-2009
(0 ranks lowest) (Zero hedge No pun)
They don’t need to know anything other than the Communist Manifesto.
House Republicans Ask White House to Stop Touting Inaccurate 'Created or Saved' Job Numbers (CNS News)
House Republicans asked the Obama administration to stop touting the number of jobs “saved or created” by the $787 billion economic stimulus law, citing widespread reports that the data are inaccurate.
They requested a response from the administration before the Dec. 3 White House “Jobs Summit.”
“The inaccuracy of the job creation and retention claims posted on the Administration’s website, www.recovery.gov, has not prevented administration officials from touting this misleading and inaccurate number as evidence that the president’s stimulus spending package is succeeding even as the unemployment rate continues to rise,”
Sick-bags at the ready: The New York Times gushes over the Obamas' state dinner (The Telegraph)
If you’re feeling queasy, look away now. The New York Times scales new heights of sycophancy in its report of the White House state dinner last night, which by their account was the most charming, imaginative, glittering – yet tasteful! – social event since Jackie Kennedy was Queen of Camelot.
Indeed, it may even have surpassed Jackie’s standards, since Barack and Michelle added a deeply appropriate and thoughtful element of multiculturalism to the glamorous proceedings.
And the decorative magnolia branches, I’m relieved to report, were “sustainably harvested”.
snip
There was White House honey and sage from the garden and a menu that gave vegetables and beans — including eggplants and lentils — top billing. (For a White House keen on promoting fresh fruits and vegetables, what could be more serendipitous than a guest of honor who happens to be a vegetarian?)
Sounds to me like the Obamas filled their guests with piles of wind-inducing vegetables. Hardly necessary, you would have thought.
The Carter Ricochet Effect
The Wall Street Journal
An idealistic president takes office promising an era of American moral renewal at home and abroad.
The effort includes a focus on diplomacy and peace-making, an aversion to the use of force, the selling out of old allies. The result is that within a couple of years the U.S. is more suspected, detested and enfeebled than ever.
No, we're not talking about Barack Obama. But since the current administration took office offering roughly the same prescriptions as Jimmy Carter did, it's worth recalling how that worked out.
How it worked out became inescapably apparent 30 years ago this month. On Nov. 20, 1979, Sunni religious fanatics led by a dark-eyed charismatic Saudi named Juhayman bin Seif al Uteybi seized Mecca's Grand Mosque, Islam's holiest site. After a two week siege distinguished mainly by its incompetence, Saudi forces were able to recapture the mosque at a cost of several hundred lives.
By any objective account—the very best of which was offered by Wall Street Journal reporter Yaroslav Trofimov in his 2007 book "The Siege of Mecca"—the battle at the Grand Mosque was a purely Sunni affair pitting a fundamentalist Islamic regime against ultra-fundamentalist renegades.
Yet throughout the Muslim world, the Carter administration was viewed as the main culprit. U.S. diplomatic missions in Bangladesh, India, Turkey and Libya were assaulted; in Pakistan, the embassy was burned to the ground. How could that happen to a country whose president was so intent on making his policies as inoffensive as possible?
The answer was, precisely, that Mr. Carter had set out to make America as inoffensive as possible.
Two weeks before Juhayman seized the Grand Mosque, Iranian radicals seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 66 Americans hostage.(continued)
OBAMA’S GRANNY IN MECCA FOR HAJJ
(The Last Crusade)
The grandmother of President Barack Obama has arrived in Saudi Arabia for the 'Hajj' or Islamic pilgrimage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, a Saudi daily confirmed on Wednesday.
Sarah Obama, 87, is being accompanied by a nephew and Obama's cousin, Omran.
On Wednesday Sarah Obama was in the valley of Mina with an African delegation, according to the Saudi daily Okaz.
Sarah Obama, the mother of the American president's father, lives in a village in Kenya and is one of the many guests of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud.
Obama sends hajj, Eid greetings to Muslims (AFP)
"The rituals of Hajj and Eid-ul-Adha both serve as reminders of the shared Abrahamic roots of three of the world's major religions," read a White House statement.
"On behalf of the American people, we would like to extend our greetings during this Hajj season -- Eid Mubarak," Obama said, using a traditional Muslim greeting.
Saudi King Pays For Grandma Obama’s Hajj (Sweetness-Light)
From Channel Africa: Obama’s Muslim grandmother among Mecca pilgrims
Sarah Obama, US President Barack Obama’s 87-year-old Kenyan grandmother, has arrived in Mecca to perform the Muslim pilgrimage of hajj, the Saudi daily Okaz reported Wednesday.
Sarah Obama, one of her grandchildren and 10 people from her village in Kenya made the pilgrimage at the invitation of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, the newspaper reported.
The Saudi monarch invites Muslims from around the world to make the pilgrimage at his expense each year.
Among his nearly 3,000 guests this year, almost 2,000 are relatives of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Also, according to the (Italian/Arabic) Adnkronos International (AKI), the Saudi newspaper also reports:
Sarah Obama, 87, is being accompanied by a nephew and Obama’s cousin, Omran.
Well, it looks like Mr. Obama’s bow to the Saudi king has paid off.
Oh, and never mind that he did the same thing for the relatives of Palestinian terrorists.
Aren’t there laws about the President’s family members accepting gifts – especially from foreign governments?
Didn’t Billy Carter catch a lot of flack about some Libyan ‘favors.’
By the way, when did Mrs. Obama convert?
Back when it was convenient, she said she was a Christian.
Obama’s grandma slams ‘untruths’
By Katharine Houreld, Associated Press March 5, 2008
KOGELO, Kenya — American shock jocks, dirty tricks masterminds and political bloggers: Beware the wrath of an 86-year-old Kenyan villager.
A frown replaces the dimpled beam of Sarah Hussein Obama, grandmother of U.S. senator Barack Obama, when asked on Wednesday about recent attacks on her grandson that include the spreading of rumors that he is secretly a Muslim and the repeated use of his middle name — Hussein — by a radio host at rally of the Republican presidential candidate.
"Untruths are told that don’t have anything to do with what Barack is about," she said in the local Luo language, her gray hair smoothed neatly under a headwrap. "I am very against it." ...
In recent weeks, two Clinton volunteers in the state of Iowa resigned after forwarding false e-mails falsely saying he was a Muslim and a threat to national security.
Matt Drudge, who publishes the political blog the Drudge Report, said that he was e-mailed a widely circulated picture of Obama in a turban and robe by the Clinton campaign.
"Bringing such pictures that are trying to imply that not only is he a foreigner, he is a Muslim is wrong, because that is not what he is," scolded Sarah Obama...
Obama’s grandfather had converted to Islam from Roman Catholicism and taken the name Hussein, Sarah Obama said, but his children had inherited only the name, not the religion.
Each person should be able to choose how they worshipped, she said.
"In the world of today, children have different religions from their parents," she said. She, too, is a Christian...
But that was then and this is now.
MSNBC Falsifies Transcripts, Again.
(NewsRealblog.com)
MSNBC is at it again, editing its transcripts to make Ed Schultz sound less crazy.
Leftists complained -- falsely -- for years that Republicans questioned the patriotism of anyone who opposed them.
On Monday's edition of The Ed Show, Schultz called Joe Liberman a "traitor" yet again -- so MSNBC changed this into a jovial reference to a grocer's chain.
Schultz said Lieberman was one of the senators "cheating on the American public" by opposing a public option.
After accusing the senator of economic adultery and playing a video clip of Lieberman saying the bill will not pass, Schultz used one of her favorite terms for Lieberman: "Traitor Joe." (You can verify the audio/video here.)
But according to MSNBC's transcript, Big Ed said: "Oh, yes. But Trader Joe is not alone."
What';s that -- with Ed's Fargo accent, you can't tell which phrase he used?
Schultz took all guess work out of it earlier this month. On November 12th, he and Bill Press had an in-depth discussion about smearing a liberal Democrat who occasionally votes centrist:
This article was mentioned earlier: Obama is starting to look a lot like Carter.
Climategate, the plot thickens!
---------
Climategate: White House Involvement in Scandal Will Make It Harder for MSM to Ignore
NewsBusters
P.J. Gladnick
Yesterday Brian Williams delivered an NBC Nightly News report about President Obama attending the Copenhagen global warming summit. Guess what hot topic was left untouched? If you had guessed Climategate you would have been correct. Not only Williams but also the other TV networks, with the exception of FOX News, have completely ignored what is considered to be the biggest scientific scandal in history. However, new Climategate revelations made by the Canada Free Press about a White House connection to the scandal will soon make it much more difficult (and ridiculous) for the networks to ignore. Canada Free Press editor...
Via FreeRepublic.com
It seems like the UK and Canadian media are covering the Climategate scandal better than the weasel US Fringe media. Like the Van Jones story, they are hoping it will just go away. Now the Obamaites will have to demean the foreign news outlets as well as Fox News for carrying news they wanted suppressed. What fools these corrupted media people are.
----
Climate change scandal deepens as BBC expert claims he was sent 'cover-up' emails
Daily Mail ^
By Carol Driver
The controversy surrounding the global warming scandal today deepened after a BBC correspondent admitted he was sent the leaked emails more than a month before they were made public.
That ditzy couple who crashed the White House State Dinner brings into question our national security. What does it say about bring terrorists into New York City to stand trial when Obama's security can't even keep a couple of whackjobs from infiltrating dinner!
Here's something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day: New Gallup Poll finds Obama's support among white Americans has fallen from 61 percent to 39 percent! That does not bode well for his re-election because whites tend to vote.
African Americans don't care what he does as long as the entitlements keep coming. 90 percent of African-Americans still support him.
is this the same Obama who promised to unite and heal the country? he's caused more of a split than any president in modern history.
The country is in the best of hands, folks -- photo of Joe Biden posing with the gala crasher.
Anon 6:15 Bingo, we have a winner!
"It seems like the UK and Canadian media are covering the Climategate scandal better than the weasel US Fringe media. Like the Van Jones story," AGAIN!
But “Plugs Biden” never looked so happy in the picture.
Was Kerry's daughter invited? She's always a good time
THE UK LAUGHS TOO
The White House Gatecrashers: Reality TV hopefuls crash Obama party and post pictures on Facebook
The Mail (UK)
Crashing a state dinner at the White House apparently takes a security breakdown as well as some kind of nerve.
But the stars were aligned for Tareq and Michaele Salahi on Tuesday night.
White House staff were left red-faced after the aspiring reality TV couple caused a security scare by gatecrashing an Obama-hosted dinner.
The Salahis mingled in the same room as President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and guest of honour Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh - despite not being on the guest list.
They even posed for pictures with Vice President Joe Biden, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and U.S. news presenter Katie Couric.
It is not known if they encountered the Obamas themselves.
The couple was only discovered after posting pictures on Facebook.
They captioned them, writing: 'Honored to be at the White House for the state dinner in honor of India with President Obama and our First Lady!'
The couple did not manage to be seated at a table in the South Lawn tent where the dinner was held, however.
Talk about embarrassing....ah well they had foreign names, so I suppose they just let them in.
So why I am reading about this in a newspaper based in the UK?
Don’t bother answering — it’s a rhetorical question. People in the MSM wonder why they have no viewers or readers. It’s stuff like this, folks.
Somehow, I don’t think Katie Couric will have this story on the CBS Evening News, even though her picture was taken with one of the principals of the story.
The days when CBS News had integrity are past, it seems.
Amateur hour has turned into amatuer around the clock at this White House.
It would have been really funny and ironic if the couple had been "ACORN's" James and Hannah dressed as pimp and hooker.
Crashing Bam's big bash (Amateur hour at the White House again)
NY Post
It's the greatest White House fiasco since the sale of the Lincoln Bedroom.
A pair of social-climbing, reality show wannabes got into the White House state dinner Tuesday night --without an invitation -- and giddily rubbed elbows with Vice President Joe Biden, Rahm Emanuel and a host of other high-level politicians and the media elite.
"The Real Housewives of Washington" hopefuls Tareq and Michaele Salahi -- who've gotten a reputation for a bitter family feud involving a winery in the posh horse-country of Northern Virginia -- showed up at the state dinner honoring Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Secret Service acknowledged last night.
Our country is secure from terrorists - yeah, right. These nutjobs were in the same room as the Prez! This could have been a freakin' disaster. Can somebody please show this guy how to be a president and oversee national security.
I'll bet no Fox News people got an invitation.
These nutjobs were in the same room as the Prez! This could have been a freakin' disaster.
Or a godsend. I like to look at it as a trial run. Leftists never learn their lessons, they just call them man made disasters.
I would like to see Jimmy Carter do his full term. This way another generation can see the damage this crowd does, on purpose
The problem is, even if they only get one anti American traitor elected once per generation they can wreak havoc unchecked for 4 years and then the weak kneed republicans will do nothing to undo the damage...except where it concerns their own large scale donors.
George Bush could have kept Dehmi's out of office for generations, but what did he do? He cow towed the globalists and the leftists thinking he would make friends and appease them. When that didn't work, he repaid his "corporate base" at the expense of the average American that put him in office.
The very same thing Obama is doing with a separate set of players.
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