Nancy Pelosi Extreme Makeover Working — (Not Her Facelifts) Her Transformation from San Francisco Liberal Progressive to Kindly Grandma, Italian Catholic

By Mick Gregory

Newt Gingrich has exposed the lies of Nancy Pelosi and is calling her actions the worst example of political power and damaging lies he has ever experienced in his lifetime. Watch the new Democrat one-party system ignor Pelosi’s poison and turn it on the few remaining Republicans.

 

 

Recent Pelosi items in the news

Chris Mathews of “Softball” calls Ms. Pelosi “a knockout.” She is amazing looking for a 68-year-old.

Update: Feb. 25, 2009 (Morning after Obama’s first State of the Union address). 

Pelosi’s face- and eye-lifts are amazing, but her biggest makeover is her political image, from a progressive Democrat/socialist, atheist, wealthy resort owner, to a middle of the road, “working class” Catholic.

 

 

Quite a makeover for newly sworn House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as her national image morphed from leader of the San Francisco liberal elite to Italian Catholic mom from Baltimore.

There was her photo-op return to the Little Italy neighborhood where she grew up as Nancy D’Alesandro, the mayor’s daughter. There was the visit to St. Leo the Great Catholic Church, where they still recite Mass in Italian several times a year.

“It’s clear Republicans are reeling today based on her outreach to Italian Catholics who, as we know, have deserted the Democratic Party in the Midwest in droves,” said San Francisco power attorney Joe Cotchett, who was among those attending the Pelosi swearing in.

While the marathon events in the nation’s capital might have resembled a coronation, those most familiar with how Washington works said Pelosi’s time in the spotlight amounted to well-calculated politics that could help her move her agenda in her first 100 days.

“A lot of people don’t know much about her, so this is a chance to fill in her profile and biography so she doesn’t just become the San Francisco liberal,” said San Francisco consultant Chris Lehane, a veteran of the Clinton-Gore White House. “This is the one time when the press will be focusing on it.”

And it may be working.

According to the results of a Rasmussen Reports national phone survey of 800 likely voters, released Friday, Pelosi’s approval rating has jumped to 43 percent — up 19 points from November.

On the other hand, the same poll also found 39 percent of those surveyed still give Pelosi the thumbs-down.

Showing off: In politics as in movies, staging is all-important to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — and his inaugural was no exception.

Produced by Schwarzenegger family friend Carl Bendix, who has done the Academy Awards Governors Ball and other Hollywood events, and emceed by former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, the Friday affair was Hollywood through and through — including a last-minute prop to help the gimpy governor.

–Matier & Ross, SF Chronicle

Keep a score card on the liberal mainstream media. Make note that there is never a word about:

Nancy Pelosi’s age.
The age of her children — in photo-ops it is Pelosi and her youngest, prettiest grand children
Her resort, Napa Valley vineyards, and high-end restaurants and use of non-union and illegal immigrant labor.
Her total support of partial birth abortion.
How she gained the votes from Democrats for first, minority leader and now majority leader.

Notice how the San Francisco reporters go with the spin, calling her a “mom” and not mentioning any of these items.

That’s why citizen journalists are filling the void.

The Shagged Sheep — One party PC journalism is here. Watch the attack on Mark Steyn

THE SHAGGED SHEEP

This is a long piece but it does have underage sex and bestiality in it. So enjoy! — Mark Steyn The other day I had an e-mail from M J Murphy, who blogs as Big City Lib, saying only this: I think you owe Dr. Miller an apology. There followed a link to a post called Steyn Gets Punked By 28-Year Old Literary Hoax: Remember the kerfuffle between Mark Steyn and journalism professor Dr. John Miller from a few weeks back? Dr. Miller accused Steyn of taking material for “America Alone” from illegitimate sources like the infamous Little Green Book: Sayings of the Ayatollah Khomeini.* [*UPDATE: M J Murphy has quietly revised this paragraph, and so the airbrushing begins]  Actually, I don’t think Dr Miller has accused me of any such thing, though I admit, given his shifting accusations, that I’m no longer quite sure what he’s accusing me of. Just to recap, said “kerfuffle” arises from this passage in a review I wrote for Maclean’s of Oriana Fallaci’s final book The Force Of Reason: Signora Fallaci then moves on to the livelier examples of contemporary Islam — for example, Ayatollah Khomeini’s “Blue Book” and its helpful advice on romantic matters: “If a man marries a minor who has reached the age of nine and if during the defloration he immediately breaks the hymen, he cannot enjoy her any longer.” I’ll say. I know it always ruins my evening. Also: “A man who has had sexual relations with an animal, such as a sheep, may not eat its meat. He would commit sin.” Indeed. A quiet cigarette afterwards as you listen to your favourite Johnny Mathis LP and then a promise to call her next week and swing by the pasture is by far the best way. It may also be a sin to roast your nine-year-old wife, but the Ayatollah’s not clear on that. A cheap joke en passant. Indeed, insofar as I dwelt on the ovine fornication, it was to suggest to La Fallaci that, even for us flagrant Islamophobes, it was not perhaps the most useful avenue of attack: I enjoy the don’t-eat-your-sexual-partner stuff as much as the next infidel, but the challenge presented by Islam is not that the cities of the Western world will be filling up with sheep-shaggers. If I had to choose, I’d rather Mohammed Atta was downriver in Egypt hitting on the livestock than flying through the windows of Manhattan skyscrapers. But he’s not. And that’s it. That’s all I said. And no one would remember had not El Mo’s sock puppets included the sheep-shagging line in the dossier they submitted to the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission. Whereupon Dr Miller …actually, I’m not sure he is a doctor: He calls himself “The Journalism Doctor”, but the  title seems to be entirely self-conferred. Anyway, at this point, Doc Miller, Prof Miller, Herr Baron von Miller or whatever he is got interested in the case and asked the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal if he could intervene. Silly ol’ me assumed that he wished to intervene to argue the cause of free speech. But no: he wanted to intervene to argue that I was not a “responsible journalist”, and so it was entirely appropriate for the state to censor me. As Rory Leishman notes, since this thought-police racket got going, “Most journalists have either condoned censorship or cowered in silence.” Canadians who still value liberty should know that, if they rely on anemic PC flunkeys like Professor Miller, they’ll lose their country. At any rate, the BCHRT gave him the bum’s rush, so Prof Miller surfaced a few weeks ago and kept returning to the subject of the sheep-shaggers line. His complaint is in an apparently endless process of evolution. But let’s go through the story so far: 1) First, insofar as I understand his initial argument, he advanced the curious line that the ruling from the Ayatollah was not widely cited, and therefore it was improper of me to use it. After it was pointed out that in fact Khomeini’s views on the post-bestiality buffet, child sex and other arcane points of Islamic law are known to many (especially those  on the receiving end), a couple of weeks later he revised his line of attack: 2) Now his argument was that I’d concocted it out of whole cloth. The J-Doc declared boldly that Steyn “gave no citation for the quote, and I suspect it was made up.” In fact, as anyone who reads the passage above can see, I attributed it to Oriana Fallaci’s book. The disinterested observer might conclude that Professor Ethics-Bore had never so much as glanced at the offending article but had simply taken the Sock Puppets’ word for it. So the E-Bore was obliged to revise his argument yet again – and decided to accuse me of what he appeared to have done himself: 3) Now my sin was that I “clearly accepted someone else’s word for it”. Evidently, it wasn’t all that “clear” when he was accusing me of making it up, but a drowning ethics prof can be forgiven for clutching at straw men. At any rate, that makes three different complaints. As I wrote: That’s the great thing about the self-appointed “Journalism Doctor”: When he diagnoses you, he provides his own second opinion. Now, on Prof Miller’s behalf, M J Murphy has revised my crime yet again: Dr. Miller accused Steyn of taking material for “America Alone” from illegitimate sources like the infamous Little Green Book: Sayings of the Ayatollah Khomeini. As I said, the sheep-shagging passage is from a review of La Fallaci’s book in Maclean’s. It’s nothing to do with America Alone. There is no mention of sheep shagging in America Alone. There is no mention of any Little Green Book in America Alone. There is, indeed, no mention of Ayatollah Khomeini in America Alone. Prof Miller and Mr Murphy and their enthusiastic chorus boys at Law Is Cool are welcome to check for themselves. But, leaving that aside and forgiving M J Murphy for confusing America Alone with a book review in Maclean’s, if you return to the passage up above, you’ll see that neither Oriana nor I refer to any Little Green Book. We cite a “Blue Book” – or “Libro Azzurro”, in La Fallaci’s original Italian. That’s the color we’re nailing to our mast. We’re singing the blues, and it’s you fellers who are smelling the green. Indeed, the guy who brought up the Little Green Book is Prof Miller in his response to me. I never mentioned any green book. Like I said, I’d rather be blue. So, if M J Murphy and the excitable schoolgirls at Law R Cool have proved The Little Green Book is a “hoax”, the person who’s been “punked” is Professor Miller. Incidentally, I wouldn’t describe The Little Green Book as a “hoax”. It would be truer to say that it is a somewhat lurid and condensed version of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s work. Nevertheless, if you read M J Murphy’s post, you’ll find that Marvin Zonis of the University of Chicago declined to provide an introduction for it. Professor Zonis is evidently regarded by M J Murphy as a greater authority in these matters than I am, so please keep his name in mind. However, as it happens, I didn’t take “someone else’s word” for anything, whether it was the word of Oriana Fallaci or the compiler of The Little Green Book. When it comes to the Ayatollah Khomeini’s views on sheep shagging, my gu ide for many years has been a book called Resaleh Towzih al-Masael. The author is a chap called …Ayatollah Khomeini. Let’s go back to the original offending quotation from my Maclean’s book review: Signora Fallaci then moves on to the livelier examples of contemporary Islam — for example, Ayatollah Khomeini’s “Blue Book” and its helpful advice on romantic matters. Well, here’s a clue: Hmm. Here’s another clue: But how can that be? We all know: “There is no Blue Book.” The Lord High Checker of Facts has pronounced. As it happens, Resaleh Towzih al-Masael has been published in Iran in several editions. But the most popular was the paperback edition published by Nashr I Sharia’t of Tehran. It sold for 120 rials. It had some 350 pages, approx 5×7 inches, with a blue cover, featuring a picture of its ever more famous author. A souvenir hardback edition marketed as the perfect New Year gift was subsequently published by Rashidi with a plain blue cover… almost every year this book is published in a different color. But many versions of the “Blue Book” are still out there:     In the relevant passage in her book, Oriana recalls first seeing excerpts from the “Blue Book” in 1979. That’s what it was back then: A blue book. The blue book in revolutionary Iran. It certainly wasn’t a “little green book” as that wasn’t published till 1980. So when she and I refer to the Ayatollah’s “Blue Book” we’re referring to that Nashr I Sharia’t edition of the Resaleh. It was translated into English, unabridged, by J Borujerdi and published in 1984 by Westview in London and Boulder, Colorado under the title A Clarification Of Questions. I was given it a couple of decades ago by the Iranian gal I was then dating. She had a copy of the pocket paperback with the Ayatollah on the cover, and once, when she read out a bit to me, I expressed skepticism that it could really be that wacky.  So a few weeks later she presented me with the English edition. As she explained, these were not just some personal musings from the Ayatollah but a kind of moral compass for the Islamic state. So I didn’t need to “accept someone else’s word for it” on having sex with nine-year-old girls, because, like anyone else who’s taken even a cursory interest in the subject, I’ve known for a long time that, in the Islamic Republic of Iran, girls could be legally married at the age of nine. Article 1041 of the Civil Code states: Marriage before puberty by the permission of the Guardian and on condition of taking into interest the ward’s interest is proper. “Puberty” is defined as “nine full lunar years” – although, in practice, girls as young as seven can be married on the say-so of a doctor. The justification for all this is in the highly elaborate rules of Islamic life. They may sound unlikely to M J Murphy or Prof Miller but the Ayatollah’s “clarification of questions” doesn’t strike most devout Iranian Shi’ites that way. Mr Borujerdi, the English translator, was an Iranian émigré living in Cleveland, and he gave an interview about the book to David Remnick (now the editor of The New Yorker) in The Washington Post in 1985. It’s not available online but M J Murphy and Prof Miller and the Law R Cool nellies are welcome to go to their local reference library and check it out. It’s the Aug 21 issue, page B1: “I did the translation because it gives a very close understanding of the Shiite view of the world,” he said. “The Bantam Press published a very slight version five years ago called The Little Green Book’-just 6 percent of the original-but that was really a joke book, to poke fun at Khomeini and debunk Islam at the beginning of the hostage crisis. In Iran, this book is mandatory for every literate person, a kind of guide to living.” So this is the real deal, not the sensationalist précis but a serious, scholarly  “unabridged translation” designed to provide “a unique picture of the belief structure of Shi’ism“. Mr Borujerdi had no difficulty finding eminent academics to provide an introduction – namely, Professors Mehdi Abedi and Michael Fischer of Rice University in Houston. But he also consulted on the translation and interpretation with many other scholars, among them Professor Wilfred Madelung of the Oriental Institute at Oxford University, Professor Wheeler Thackston of Harvard’s Near Eastern Languages department, Professor William Darrow of Williams College, Professor Vincent McHale of Case Western, Professor Merlin Swartz of Boston University …oh, and Professor Marvin Zonis of the University of Chicago. That would be the same Prof Zonis who was unhappy with The Little Green Book, and thus made M J Murphy unhappy, too. But Prof Zonis is cool with A Clarification Of Questions, so presumably M J Murphy will also be satisfied? Resaleh Towzih al-Masael/A Clarification Of Questions consists of almost 3,000 “problems” for which Ayatollah Khomeini provides answers, plus a few follow-ups he dealt with in subsequent editions. So, just to bring the deplorably unicultural Prof Miller up to speed, the easiest way to get a flavor of the Ayatollah’s book is simply to  sample the contents pages: THE UNCLEANS 1&2. Urine and stool 3. Semen 4. Corpse 5. Blood 6&7. Dog and pig 8. Infidel 9. Wine 10. Beer 11. Sweat of an unlawful ejaculation 12. The sweat of a camel that eats uncleans Hey, Multiculti Man, that would be you at big hit sound number 8: “Infidel” – right behind “Dog and pig” but, if it’s any consolation, ahead of “Sweat of an unlawful ejaculation”. But hang on: ejaculate-wise, the Ayatollah’s just getting cranked up: PRECEPTS OF EJACULATION Things that are unlawful for an ejaculator Things that are loathesome for an ejaculator The bath of ejaculation… So just to reprise: Did I cite Oriana Fallaci accurately? Yes. Did she cite Ayatollah Khomeini accurately? Yes. Is there a volume by the Ayatollah commonly known as the “Blue Book”? Yes  Does it include rulings on sex with nine-year olds and what to do with a shagged sheep? Yes. Did either of us mention a Little Green Book? No. In fact, the translation Oriana cites pre-dates The Little Green Book by a year. I think Professor Waggy-Finger is doing what they call “projecting”. He’s accusing me of everything he’s been doing himself. I took “somebody else’s word for it”. Er, no. That would be you, taking the Sock Puppets’ word for it on my book review. I didn’t check the “primary source”. Er, no. That would be you, cavalierly announcing there’s no such thing as a “Blue Book”. To be more charitable to you than you deserve, you assume that Oriana Fallaci and I so want to think the worst of Islam that we’ll fall for any old hooey. Actually not. On the other hand, you so want to think the worst of us blowhard provocateurs that you assume we’re as ignorant of Islam as you evidently are.  Please follow this on SteynOnline.com

The age of objectivity and fair reporting in America is over — MSNBC is disgraced

Who is a Democrat PR talking head and who is a journalist on MSNBC, NBC or CNN? Why stop there? The Washington Post, New York Times, LA Times and SF Chronicle are not investigating economic issues and massive bailouts. What kind of balanced journalism do you think the media performed during the two-year election?

First the gang journalists piled on Hillary, next they covered for Obama and attacked Palin.

MSNBC was the victim of a hoax when it reported that an adviser to John McCain had identified himself as the source of an embarrassing story about former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the network said Wednesday.

The New York TImes had a reporter rewrite an AP story on the hoax and they spun the story to blame FOX News first with the hoax.  This is called journalism?

MSNBC was the victim of a hoax when it reported that an adviser to John McCain had identified himself as the source of an embarrassing story about former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the network said Wednesday.

David Shuster, an anchor for the cable news network, said on air Monday that Martin Eisenstadt, “a McCain policy adviser,” had come forth and identified himself as the source of a story saying Palin had mistakenly believed Africa was a country instead of a continent.

Eisenstadt identifies himself on a blog as a senior fellow at the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy and “a contributor to FOX News.” Yet neither he nor the institute exist; each is part of a hoax dreamed up by a filmmaker named Eitan Gorlin and his partner, Dan Mirvish, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

The Eisenstadt claim had mistakenly been delivered to Shuster by a producer and was used in a political discussion Monday afternoon, MSNBC said.

“The story was not properly vetted and should not have made air,” said Jeremy Gaines, network spokesman. “We recognized the error almost immediately and ran a correction on air within minutes.”

Gaines told the Times that someone in the network’s newsroom had presumed the information solid because it was passed along in an e-mail from a colleague.

The hoax was limited to the identity of the source in the story about Palin—not the Fox News story itself. While Palin has denied that she mistook Africa for a country, the veracity of that report was not put in question by the revelation that Eisenstadt is a phony.

Eisenstadt’s “work” had been quoted and debunked before. The Huffington Post said it had cited Eisenstadt in July on a story regarding the Hilton family and McCain.

Among the other victims were political blogs for the Los Angeles Times and The New Republic, each of which referenced false material from Eisenstadt’s blog.

“The story was not properly vetted and should not have made air,” said Jeremy Gaines, MSNBC spokesman.

There are plenty of questions that are not asked.

How did Minnesota Democrat Party election officials come up with 500 more votes for the Democrat senate candidate days after the polls closed and none for the Republican candidate?

Why was there a crisis over $150,000 spent on Sarah Palin’s campaign clothing, but no comparison with Hillary’s warehouse of pantsuits or Obama’s Greek columns and semi-truck of suits?

Newspaper and news magazine circulation is dropping. Layoffs continue. (Wait until after January).

How about bringing in the National Guard to make bus rides safe for whites in Baltimore?

There has apparently been another black attack against whites on a bus in Baltimore.
Less than a week ago a young white woman was severly beaten. Did you read about this in the New York Times the past few days? No. In fact, in today’s PC/Liberal Democrat society, you are considered a racist if you bring up a news item that doest fit the Big Brother/Big Sis agenda.

By Mick Gregory

Rosa Parks wasn’t beaten up by whites, was she? No, she was a prop in a lawsuit against segregation laws in the Old South. No, in fact, Ms. Parks soon moved to Detroit where a white woman would have risked her life to ride the public transit for the past 40 years. Now apparently, whites are not allowed on public transit in Baltimore.

Is the Baltimore Sun reporting this? How about the Washington Post, the paper of record for that region of the country?

WBAL-TV reports that two men aboard the #64 bus in Brooklyn claim they were attacked by a group of 7 black teens. The two men say they were attacked because they were white. They also claim the bus driver refused to call police for them. They were dropped off on the street by the black bus driver.

This comes less than a week after a white woman was beaten on a bus. Nine black middle school students have been arrested in that case.

What the MSM makes sure you don’t read in your Sunday newspaper

By Mick Gregory

The progressive liberal desk editors have been hard at work keeping certain stories out of the well-read Sunday papers. For example, some news broke on Friday on Hannity’s radio show that Nancy Pelosi’s rush to raise the Federal minimum wage with one big exemption, that of Del Monte’s U.S. Samoa tuna factory, it was cut out of the wage hike. By next week, it will be “old” news.

The perverted teenage boy kidnapper was caught on Friday, and jailed. Police charged Michael Devlin, 41, a pizza shop worker who moonlights at a funeral home, with one count of kidnapping. (Wondering about that funny tasting sausage and mushroom?) Two boys kidnapped four years and 40 miles apart. Not a word on what Devlin wanted with the boys.

But the New York Post reports that Devlin had child porn on his computers. Thanks for sparing us the gay, pedophile details. But is this another white wash by the PC, liberal press?

Also on Friday, the federal deficit has improved significantly in the first three months of the new budget year, helped by a continued surge in tax revenues.

In its monthly budget report, the Treasury Department said Friday that the deficit from October through December totaled $80.4 billion, the smallest imbalance for the first three months of a budget year since The budget year ends Sept. 30.

Tax collections are running 8.2 percent higher than a year ago while government spending is up by just 0.7 percent from a year ago. Last year’s spending totals were boosted by significant payments to help the victims of the Gulf Coast hurricanes.

The Treasury said for December, the government actually ran a surplus of $44.5 billion, the largest surplus ever recorded in December and a gain that reflected a big jump in quarterly corporate tax payments.

The $80.4 billion deficit for the first three months of the current budget year was down 32.6 percent from the imbalance for the same period a year ago of $119.4 billion.

Then no mention of icicles forming on snow covered, tiny Prius hybrids in California and Texas, nor of the billions lost in citrus crops. Where is Al Gore and the Democrat Progressives rants about global warming?

Newspapers killing Scripps profit picture

Mick Gregory

When did newspapers make 20 percent profits?

The Scripps Co. owner of several newspapers and the popular HGTV channel, sent out a press release to stock analysts stating it is “talking about options” for its newspaper division, which is dragging down the company’s stock price.

“We’ve reached no conclusions, it’s fair to say,” Chief Financial Officer Joseph NeCastro said at an investor conference late Tuesday. “But we do believe that there probably is some value to be created in looking at a structural alternative there . . . maybe some form of separating the newspapers out.”

Scripps has built its cable-networks business, which includes HGTV and the Food Network, into the company’s leading profit generator. It’s now entering e-commerce with acquisitions of Web sites Shopzilla and uSwitch.

Scripps’ newspapers are slow-growth or no-growth. In the first nine months of 2006, the Scripps Networks division, which includes its cable business, posted a 17.8 percent gain in revenue. Meanwhile, its Interactive Media division, aided by the uSwitch acquisition, grew 408 percent.

Newspapers, which account for less than 30 percent of the company’s revenue, saw sales drop by 0.1 percent in the same time period.

Compared to broadcast television, “Newspapers seem to be much more troubled, and it’s hard to call a bottom there,” NeCastro said. “I think up until this last year probably it wasn’t that clear. I think we collectively feel like there is some damage.”

The newspaper industry is in a death ride. The Knight Ridder chain sold itself last year after investor pressure, and the Tribune Co., which paid more than 8 billion dollars for Times Mirror, is now being pressured to break up its newspapers, especially by the Chandler family, (former owners of Times Mirror), to boost its stock.

Scripps’ comments cheered Wall Street, with analysts from Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs publishing positive analyses Wednesday. Scripps stock hit a 52-week high, closing up 3.8 percent to $51.92.

“We were positively surprised by the company’s comments, which indicate that management has given more serious consideration to this possibility than we had previously thought,” Goldman Sachs analyst Peter Appert said. “Elimination of the newspaper unit would meaningfully enhance the company’s growth prospects and likely translate into a higher valuation for the shares.”

Scripps has daily and community newspapers in 18 markets, including Denver; Memphis and Knoxville, Tenn.; and south Florida. Scripps is a 50-50 partner with MediaNews Group, the owner of the Denver Post, in the Denver Newspaper Agency.

Scripps executives did not say an investment banker has been hired to assist in the deliberations. But NeCastro said the company’s board has spent “a fair amount of time” discussing options.
One possibility is a spinoff, in which Scripps shareholders would receive shares in a new, “pure play” newspaper company. Investors could then choose to sell the newspaper company shares and stick with the higher-growth, new-economy Scripps — or vice-versa.
“We believe (Scripps) could spin out its non-newspaper businesses, could sell most of its papers, or likely pursue many other scenarios,” Merrill Lynch analyst Lauren Fine said.

— David Milstead, Rocky Mountain News

New York Times selling off TV stations en mass to keep afloat

The New York Times Co. stated after the stock market closed Thursday that it plans to sell its broadcast-media group, including nine television stations, to Robert M. Bass’s Oak Hill Capital Partners for $575 million.

Facing the prospect of further circulation and advertising declines and the growing threat of online competition, the newspaper giant said it needs to dispose of the properties to focus on core operations (the old gray lady).

“Over the years (the stations) have provided their communities with high-quality programming and have contributed significantly to our financial performance,” Janet L. Robinson, the company’s chief executive, said in a press release. “We believe, however, that our focus now should be on the development of our newspapers and our rapidly growing digital businesses and the increasing synergies between them.”
The lead investor for Oak Hill, Bass is part of the Bass family of Texas oil billionaires. His brother, Sid, recently held a large stake in Walt Disney Co. Robert Bass’s net worth is placed at more than $5 billion. Oak Hill’s committed capital stands at $4.6 billion, the company said.

The nine stations were expected to account for $150 million in 2006 sales, or 4 percent of New York Times’ overall revenue when the plan to sell was announced in September, spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said. At that time, 2006 operating earnings from the group was estimated at $33 million.

The stations are affiliates of ABC, CBS and NBC, as well as one member of the MyNetworkTV group, and are in Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia. Market sizes range from Memphis to Moline, Ill. They employ roughly 900 people, Mathis said.

While a number of media companies are disposing of assets in order to cut costs, don’t expect large newspaper companies to sell off their broadcast assets en masse like the Times has, said Steven Barlow, analyst for Prudential Securities in New York.

“I wouldn’t imagine you’ll see anything from (other media companies) on that front,” Barlow said.

Guess who is coming to dinner? The Nancy Pelosi $1000 a plate dinner?

Will your 67 year old grandmother be able to have the facelifts and eye lifts that Nancy Pelosi did on Mediacare?

“‘This old woman is quite prejudiced toward China. Therefore, (she) may bring some dissonance to Sino-U.S. relations,’ Professor Jin said.”

Actually, I hope my grandmother can afford a better plastic surgeon. Pelosi’s face now looks like the Joker played by Jack Nicholson. She must sleep with her eyes open.

Are any union bosses and other lobbyists coming to the dinner tonight? Will Nancy Pelosi‘s high-end Piati restaurants be the official caterers? Which Napa Valley wines will be served? Will the Rev Jesse Jackson be at the table? How about Cindy Sheehan? Will the servers be union? Will the women wear burkes? Imagine how much Nancy Pelosi could have saved on face lifts if she wore a burke.

Speaking of Democrat Progressives, this would be a good time to show you the progressive income tax mirroring socialist systems in France and Germany.

The Top 1% Pay 35%

Maybe our liberal friends are onto something. They keep saying the rich should pay more taxes, and it turns out the rich already are! That’s one of the valuable lessons from the IRS’s annual study of income tax data, just released for 2004.

Americans who earned more than $1 million in adjusted gross income paid $178 billion, or an average of $740,000 per filer, in income taxes in 2004. That’s up about one-third from 2002, the year before the Bush tax cuts in marginal income-tax and dividend and capital gains rates. The wealthiest 1% of tax filers paid a remarkable 35% of all individual income-tax payments that year.

Here’s a way to think of the distribution of current income-tax payments: Imagine Nancy Pelosi’s banquet attended by 100 random Americans. If the bill for the meal is distributed like the income tax, the richest person in the room is required to pay one-third of the tab (that would be George Soros) — or more than all 50 attendees with a below-average income. The three richest people are charged as much as the other 97. And the 30 or so lowest-income people in the room — those with a family income of $30,000 or less — pay nothing and eat for free.

The Earned Income Credit, actually allows 30 lowest-income people get paid to eat, thanks to the rest of the people in the room.

Social Security, contrary to Mainstream Media reports, is a “progressive” setup too. In its case, the more you make, the less you get in retirement benefits compared to what you earned while you were working.

And the new Democrats in Congress want to make income taxes and social security even more progressive.

“According to China Daily, Jin Rong-can, a professor at the International Relations Institute of the People’s University of China, pointed out that although the House’s influence on diplomatic policies is actually limited, Sino-U.S. relations will be affected if the democratic party controls the house following the midterm election.”

“‘This old woman is quite prejudiced toward China. Therefore, (she) may bring some dissonance to Sino-U.S. relations,’ (professor) Jin said.”

“Zhang Guoqing, associate investigator at the American Institute of National Academy of Social Science, concurs: ‘The Democratic Party cares more about domestic issues. It will protect the mid- and small U.S. enterprises and American labor’s interests, and thus will have some impact on trade relations between China and the United States.”

New Year — New Job Cuts at Philly Newspapers

The Newspaper industry can’t stop the bleeding. McClatchy lost more than 38 percent of its market value even after they absorbed Knight Ridder. McClatchy sold the Star Tribune at a 58 percent loss from it’s purchase price eight years ago.

By Mick Gregory

The McClatchy newspaper chain may be remembered in the same light as Mrs. O’ Leary’s cow. You may know the “story,” her cow was blamed for kicking over a lamp that started the Great Chicago Fire. McClatchy’s leveraged buyout of Knight Ridder and the spin-off of large, award-winning (union-heavy) newspapers started the Great Newspaper Fire Sale of 2006. And it has raged out of control.

Maybe journalists will start to gain some humility along with a dose of reality and economics 101. Especially at the papers McClatchy dumped i.e., the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and now the Star Tribune. Where have all their union dues gone? I’m guessing that most went to multi-millionaire Democrat politicians.

The Associated Press reports this afternoon that the Inquirer began a round of layoffs today. Several reporters at the Inquirer said they were told Tuesday morning that their jobs were being eliminated, according to AP. The employees said that they were told to meet with personnel officials on Wednesday to discuss details of their severance pay and health benefits.

“The specific number of layoffs is still unclear because some Inquirer employees have already taken other jobs since word of the impending layoffs was announced in November,” the AP reports.

“As we all know, layoff notices are expected next week and could come as early as Tuesday (Jan. 2, today), so I am sending this memo in advance to inform you of some basics,” the e-mail from Ferrick said. “This FAQ is intended for those who may receive layoff notices.”

They tried to avoid more layoffs following last year’s 80-person job cut at the Inquirer. My thinking is the union wants enough dues paying members so the Guild/CWA bosses can still rub elbows with John Edwards, Obmama and Hillary.

Philly shouldn’t take in personally, the entire newspaper industry is in death spiral.

Alan Mutter of the non-profit Poynter Institute said the shares of publicly held publishing stocks in the last two years lost nearly $13.5 billion in value. “Growing investor pressure has terrorized and dangerously defocused the executives of publicly held [newspaper] companies,” he says. “Instead of navigating their businesses through the most difficult environment they will ever know, the executives have been forced to spend disproportionate amounts of their time on investor relations, financial engineering and ill-considered expense cuts that could imperil the long-term health of their franchises.”

Alan Mutter of the non-profit Pointer Institute says the shares of publicly held publishing stocks in the last two years lost nearly $13.5 billion in value. “Growing investor pressure has terrorized and dangerously defocused the executives of publicly held [newspaper] companies,” he says. “Instead of navigating their businesses through the most difficult environment they will ever know, the executives have been forced to spend disproportionate amounts of their time on investor relations…”

What? Newspaper CEOs have actually started to care what investors thought?

McClatchy dumps the Minneapolis Star Tribune

Mick Gregory

A private investment group bought the Star Tribune this week for $530 million. Avista Partnerships has offices in Houston and New York and its mission statement focuses on three sectors: Energy, Healthcare and Media. I’m guessing the investors don’t see a gem in the rough. I think they bought the Star Tribune to clean house, bust the unions and then flip it to a bottom feeder company like MediaNews Group, or a wealthy ill-informed local MN group of investors. Never mind their press releases, that “they want to provide excellent content.” So how will they do that, hire more journalists covering a small city in the tundra?

“The Star Tribune is one of the best newspapers in this country,” Pruitt said in 1998. “The Twin Cities is one of the most attractive newspaper markets in the country. And it was a near-perfect fit in terms of values and traditions.”

Things change. It appears that some of the editors in the McClatchy chain may have been going to night school for some Management Accounting and Economics 101.

What’s wrong with the content right now? A lot of pictures of snow and shots of bundled up shoppers packing the Star Trib’s advertisers’ parking lots?

McClatchy management washes their hands of the union busting, and remains on good terms with the Democrat Progressives they support every day with their bias.

Avista may make a good deal of money on the transaction about a year from now. They are not in the business and have no concerns about being labled union bashers. They don’t have any ties to the newspaper business.

A citizen journalist who wants to remain anonymous sent me the memo from McClatchy. It just got a little colder in Minneapolis.

—————

To: McClatchy employees
From: Gary Pruitt, CEO

Many of you will have heard or read by now that McClatchy has agreed to
sell the Minneapolis Star Tribune to Avista Capital Partners. We expect
the deal to close in the first quarter of 2007.

And while there were a dozen newspaper transactions associated with our
acquisition of Knight Ridder earlier this year, I know this particular
deal comes as an unsettling surprise. Selling an established McClatchy
paper certainly is not business-as-usual for us.

Details about the deal are available in the attached press release, but
I want to speak directly to you about one point: this deal came about
because of very specific conditions involving the Star Tribune and
today’s changing media landscape. We have no plans to sell any other
newspapers.

In fact, we struck this deal to make the company stronger overall.
While it is painful and difficult to say farewell to talented and
hardworking colleagues at the Star Tribune, we know that McClatchy will be in a
stronger position going forward as we work with you in building the
news company of the future.

Following the sale and the debt repayment it allows, McClatchy will be
in better shape to navigate through changing conditions. It will
improve our operating performance, increase operational flexibility and give
us freedom to make investments to extend our growing online operations.

This sale might lead some to conclude that McClatchy has doubts about
the direction of our company or that the Knight Ridder acquisition has
proved ill advised. Both conclusions are wrong. Thanks to the Knight
Ridder additions, our portfolio of newspapers and related enterprises has
never been stronger. We are not complacent about the future, but we are
very confident. We are not waiting for events to overtake us; we are
actively building our future together instead.

Our mission remains unchanged: to bring the benefits of independent,
public service journalism to the communities we serve. It has animated
this company for nearly 150 years, and it animates us still.

If you have questions about this deal or what it means to you, please
talk with your supervisor, or write to us directly at
questions@mcclatchy.com. We have much hard work ahead of us, but we can
approach the future more confidently as a result of the sale we have
announced today.

McClatchy says they want to sell the papers in “non-growth areas. ”

But now we see the real reason. McClatchy doesn’t want papers with strong unionized work forces in a labor towns, yet they want to remain on the Democrat Progressive team.

‘Apocalypto’ has prevented one of the biggest rewrites of evil in history

Mick Gregory

I just saw Apocalypto and I am in awe of Mel Gibson’s work. The digital photography caputured the jungle beauty and the heart pounding running that could not have been filmed just a few years ago. The cast was meticulously picked from villagers and the man who played Jaguar Paw is an excellent actor. He has a future in Hollywood.

But most important to me is that Gibson has pointed out that the Mayan empire was not morally or scientificly superior to Western Civilization. The Mayans did hold pagan festivals where they beheaded and cut the hearts out of captured countrymen and took women as sex slaves by the thousands. They were a blood lusting totalitarian society that killed off their own civilization at a greater clip than Hitler or Stalin. This movie is based on documented events and many are learning them for the first time.
Another was the Mayan’s great studies of the solar eclipse… For what reason, science? Only to show power over their people and stop the killings once every ten years or so. The Mayans had played a sport similar to lacross… No, it was just a sand pit where the sport was hunting men like animals.

Why the coverup?

Gibson has overturned one of the most unusual rewrites of an evil empire in history. I know that the progressive/socialists at our universities are not happy with the truth coming out. They are busy coming out with their counter punches.
“Don’t pay attention to Gibson, he’s a (fill in the blank). Why the distortions? Because it doesn’t fit their propaganda model that all culures are equal and most are even superior to Christianity, Western Civilization and the bottom line, America’s cultureal roots.

————

I remember teachers and texts telling me that the Mayans were so advanced, that they performed operations on skulls and hearts to save their warriors.

My father laughed at me when I repeated that story in the early 70s.

He said the Mayan witch doctors were killing people, mainly slaves, including virgins by cutting their hearts out and cooking them in front of them as offerings.

Living in San Francisco, I have to report that the Progressive Democrats in that city no longer observe Memorial Day, instead, the city has a parade celebrating Hispanic culture, compete with samba dancing, Mayan Sun God dances and floats.

I can imagine Hugo Chavez as one of the high priests ordering the heads chopped off of his competition.

Did you read this in your daily newspaper or text books?

Are Journalists Above the Law?

Did you read about this in your daily newspaper? It happened just a year ago. Imagine if Bill O’Reilly had illegally taped an African-American politician and they later killed themselves in the FOX News lobby?

A year ago, according to a witnesses, Mr. Art Teele, an African-American Miami Councilman walked into the Miami Herald lobby, spoke calmly with a security guard and shook his hand. Then Teele took a pistol out of a book bag and held it to his head.

The Herald’s Web site says that Teele told the security guard to give a message to Herald columnist Jim DeFede. Teele said that he wanted DeFede to tell his wife that he loved her. The statement was unclear as to exactly whose wife Teele was referring to, but it seems likely he was referring to his own wife, Stefanie Teele.

Then when police arrived, he pulled the trigger.

There was a lot of blood.

About two hours later, at 7:50 p.m., Teele was declared dead. His wife was at his side when he died.

Many of Teele’s colleagues and friends expressed sadness over his death. Others were angry.

“We can’t ever have anybody to go into office and retire with dignity. They got to drag them down like they’re pit bulls, like some kind of road kill,” said Teele’s friend, Paulette Simms Wimberly.

Columnist Fired

DeFede was fired just hours after Teele’s death because he “allegedly” recorded a phone conversation with Teele without the politician’s permission.

In the longest call, about 90 minutes before the shooting, Teele spoke very emotionally about his legal problems and various allegations that had been made against him, according to the newspaper.

Many of the journalist’s co-workers were upset that DeFee was fired over the incident.

Who is the media elite? Continued…

By Mick Gregory

Walter H. Shorenstein the SF Real Estate Baron worth a billion, is also the money behind Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy.

If today’s political donors have taken the place of yesterday’s corrupt ward bosses, Walter Shorenstein can easily call all of San Francisco his home turf. The Democrat machine hardly hosts an event, plans a party, or schedules a speech in the City by the Bay without consulting Mr. Shorenstein. And when he speaks, high-ranking Democrats tend to kneel and listen.

During the ill faited Gore campaign, Shorenstein was reportedly bemoaning the lack of attention Al Gore had paid towards the Bay Area, where the vice president was heavily favored to win.

“They have no problem picking up the phone and asking for 25 thousand more dollars,” a source close to Shorenstein told the San Francisco Chronicle, “but they won’t answer the phone when asked to come out here and energize the troops.” Shorenstein’s call evidently got through: Within a week, President Clinton had added a rally in San Francisco to his schedule.

At the rally, Clinton did little to hide his affection for the real estate tycoon who has given millions of dollars to Democrats in the 1990s and 2000s. “I want to thank Walter Shorenstein for having the guts to stand up here and say that he didn’t need a tax cut; he wanted you to have it. I love him,” the president said.

A mogul in every meaning of the word, in his late 80s whose net worth has been set at $900 million by Forbes. In 1960, he founded the Shorenstein Company, which quickly became the largest owner and operator of commercial real estate in San Francisco. By one estimate, the firm now controls 25 percent of the city’s downtown, which has seen rental prices skyrocket in the last five years.

I remember paying $20 for the first 20 minutes of parking while Christmas shopping in San Francisco. I asked an attendent who owned the lot, he said “Mr. Shorenstein, of course.” I said tell him Merry Christmas for me.

Day-to-day operation of the company is now overseen by Shorenstein’s son, Douglas. In memory of his late daughter, Shorenstein founded the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. You often see “objective” polls and comments from the non-profit, especially around election time.

Though most of his political giving is on the national scene and 98 percent to Democrats, Shorenstein’s political muscle extends to SF city government as well. In 1998, the SF Weekly found that Shorenstein was a leading sponsor of a reelection bid by city Tax Assessor Doris Ward, who had allowed big property owners to continue to benefit from tax breaks issued during the recession in 1990. With real estate prices booming, owners were pocketing an estimated $100 million a year in tax revenues because of Ward’s policies.

Another Journo retires…
In his final column, which was killed by editors at the San Diego Union-Tribune, Preston Turegano had brought up that his high school yearbook/newspaper adviser predicted he’d never make a good reporter because he was “so rude.”

He wrote: “Sorry, Mrs. Abbott, but chutzpah came in handy during my career as a U.S. Navy journalist and later a reporter for the Evening Tribune (which became the San Diego Tribune) that merged with The San Diego Union in 1992.”

I think his high school adviser was pretty accurate about his cocky rudeness. But Mrs. Abbott didn’t know that those are the “skills” his fellow journalists were looking for.

It’s not the medium, it’s the bias, stupid!

I just saw this piece from the New York Sun by Alicia Colon on Drudge. Ms. Colon highlights a blog that has been hidden by the mainstream media, Lucianne.com.

Lucianne exposes what I believe is the root cause of the shift of the educated middle class from the mainstream media to that of the fresh air of Web-based citizen journalists.

The Mendacity Of the Liberal Press

BY ALICIA COLON
December 15, 2006
http://www.nysun.com/article/45266

The first time I heard the word “mendacity” was in the film “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” I loved the way Burl Ives’s character spits out the word as something vile and unacceptable.

Unfortunately, we live in a society where untruthfulness is routinely accepted and even mandated by politicians, union leaders, and members of the press. New York is the headquarters of the biggest producer of mendacity, the New York Times. Fortunately, it’s also the home of the antidote, Lucianne.com.

I pity the Americans who do not have the computer expertise to access the exposés of lies of corrupt politicians and gullible television anchors, biased newspaper headlines, and anything from the Associated Press. If it were not for the Internet and Lucianne Goldberg’s Web news forum, I would never learn the truth behind the Times headlines as pitched by the Drudge Report.

Matt Drudge, who may or may not be a willing accomplice to the distortion of news reporting, must be held responsible for the dissemination of the bias in the liberal press. Studies have shown that the readership of the Times is down — as it is in other liberal publications — and so are the television ratings of the alphabet networks and CNN and MSNBC, while Fox News is up.

The Newspaper Dead Pool Growing

More than 100 New York Newsday reporters and editors signed a letter of protest against their boss, Dennis FitzSimons for widespread cuts that have sliced about one-third of the paper’s editorial staff over the past three years.

Can you imagine 100 employees at HP or IBM doing that? Yet, the software segment has lost tens of thousands of jobs over the past five or six years.

“In its six years of ownership, Tribune has damaged Newsday as an instrument of public information and accountability and, for that matter, as a business,” the letter said. The protest was organized by the Guild union editorial workers.

Dean Baquet, who publicly spoke out against making repeated cuts in the Los Angeles Times – reported here at “Mick’s Place” – was sacked and is looking for work.

I think there are obvious signs of a drift from reality among the journalists and their self proclaimed “Fourth Estate.”

Convenient Liberal Fabrications — Overwheliming bias in the media regarding global warming

What about Greenland actually being green during the Medieval warming? Didn’t we have a couple of Ice Ages? Doesn’t the Kyoto Treaty just punish developed countries, giving a free pass to pollute to China and India?

Get your copy of “The Skeptics’ Guide to Global Warming,” linked below.
See how Al Gore is pressuring public school science teachers to legitimize “An Inconvenient Truth”

Mick Gregory

The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was a time of unusually warm climate recorded in Europe, lasting from about the 10th century to about the 14th century. This inconvenient truth is being written out of the liberal’s Big Brother/Big Sis political propaganda to inact more control and taxing authority over free enterprise, espically in the U.S. The Al Gore political machine tried to have 50,000 copies of his movie distributed through the public schools through his executive producer, Ms. Laurie David. When the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) refused the unusual request, The Washington Post let her write an Op-Ed piece complaigning about it.

NSTA Statement on the Distribution of “An Inconvenient Truth”
Nov 30 2006
Last updated 12/7/06

Over the past few days, NSTA and film producer Laurie David have been discussing her offer to provide NSTA with copies of the DVD “An Inconvenient Truth” to mass distribute to our members. On November 29, 2006, NSTA’s Board of Directors held a telephone conference to review Ms. David’s request. In an effort to accommodate her request without violating the Board’s 2001 policy prohibiting product endorsement, and to provide science educators with the opportunity to take advantage of the educational opportunities presented by films such as this, NSTA has offered to greatly expand the scope of the potential target audience identified in her initial request.

NSTA established its non-endorsement policy to formalize our position that the association would not send third-party materials to our members without their consent or request. NSTA looks forward to working with Ms. David to ensure that there are many options for publicizing the availability of the DVD to the national science education community, and to broaden the conversation on the important topic of global warming.

Professor David Deming, an author, scientist and lecturer at the University of Oklahoma and an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), testified Wednesday morning at a special hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The hearing examined climate change and the media. Bellow are excerpts from his prepared remarks.