It’s patriotic to pay more taxes? Say it ain’t so, Joe! Joe, there you go again!

She connected with the West and Midwest.

Sarah stood toe to toe with an old Democrat who has been in Congress since she was in second grade.

“This was a knockout. She did the best of any debate I’ve ever seen.” — Rudy Guliani

She is more than qualified. She is a maverick governor of a large, important state.

She uses plain talk.

“McCain rang the warning bell in 2005. The Democrat Party ignored that warning and shut it off. That’s why we are in the financial bail out we are in,” Sarah Palin.

Create jobs, lower taxes, end the war with victory…

— Sarah Palin

Look, $180 billion to Kenya’s poor?

Energy independence.

I can’t wait to get to work there.

Did Joe Biden’s kids go to public schools? Did Clinton’s? Did Kerry’s? Did Obama’s?

Why do the teachers unions send their dues to Democrat elitists?

Joe there you go again.

Our schools need to be ramped up. Palin comes from a family of school teachers. Increase the standards.

“We need people from middle America’s opinions. They know what hard work and morals are about.”

“I’m totally blown away,” Senator Fred Thomson.

I’m so happy for her. She has been made to look like a bafoon. She has placed shame on a lot of people if they are capable of shame,” Thomson.

Obama said he would sit down with Amadidajon.

Biden said he was against coal. All coal in the U.S.

Try and say the following with a straight face to a liberal friend:

Senator Biden made the performance of a lifetime. He is substanitive, presidential and has gravitas. Sarah Palin, the hockey mom, pitbull with lipstick was an embarassment. What does she know about governing? She was an embarassment!”

Ugly racism behind the flight attendant’s lawsuit against Victoria Osteen

Victoria Osteen, the wife of Joel Osteen, best selling author and pastor of the Lakewood mega church was sued by a flight attendant. A jury returned a verdict of innocent, no incident took place.

“If I had to go through this, I could at least be an example of trying to live out what’s right, trying to stand strong and trying to just keep my faith intact,” she said. “I stood strong because I believe in the truth,” she told an AP reporter after the trial.

Victoria Osteen said she never touched Continental Airlines flight attendant Sharon Brown and a jury on Thursday believed her, deciding that the co-pastor of Houston’s Lakewood Church did not “attack” the airline employee. Here are some facts that were left out of the coverage in the mainstream media.

Sharon Brown is an African American who according to co-workers was jumping on the opportunity to embarrass the Osteens into settling out of court for six figures. Brown’s attorney was most likely working on contingency.

The frivolous lawsuit was started while the Duke lacrosse team travesty was taking place.

The dirty secret that has been kept out of the reporting, is that there is in deed racism in America; the “get whitey” brand.

After the jury’s verdict, which came following a week-long trial, Victoria Osteen began to cry and hugged her attorneys and several supporters in the courtroom as she said “thank you God” and “praise God.” The 12 jurors deliberated for just 2 hours.

Brown had testified Victoria Osteen got so upset when a spill on her first-class seat’s armrest was not quickly cleaned up that she threw the flight attendant against a bathroom door and elbowed her in the left breast while attempting to rush into the cockpit.

But Victoria Osteen testified no such incident took place, as did her husband and other first-class passengers. No body saw that dramatic attack in a crowded first class section.

Brown quickly left the courtroom without talking to reporters.

She had been seeking at least $405,000 for actual damages — physical and mental pain as a result of an attack she alleged took place before the start of a December 2005 flight from Houston to Vail, Colo.

The jury’s foreman, Gilles Labbe, said he and other jurors believed what happened on the plane was not an attack but a disagreement between a passenger and one or more flight attendants.

“This lawsuit in my opinion should not have been filed because nothing happened,” he said.

“It’s a great vindication …” he said.

In his closing argument earlier Thursday, Rusty Hardin, Victoria Osteen’s attorney, dismissed Brown’s lawsuit as a made-up story concocted to land a courtroom payday.

In his closing argument, McKamie told jurors that because of Victoria Osteen’s status as a religious leader, she felt she had “favor from God.” That led her to believe she was above reproach for humiliating and assaulting his client, he said.

Besides money for actual damages, Brown had requested punitive damages amounting to 10 percent of Victoria Osteen’s net worth as part of her lawsuit. He said it’s just the sliver of the amount of a Monet painting… That’s all.

Craigslist.org single-handedly destroyed the giant newspaper classifieds

Mick Gregory

“You took over our advertising — now are you going to take over our news?” — a question from a San Francisco Chronicle journalist to Craig Newmark, founder and CEO of craigslist.org.

“We took a straw and drained your milkshake,” from “There Will Be Blood.”

Craigslist.org has dominated the classified advertising market with its free listings for everything from real estate — to jobs — to personals. Big city newspapers, like the SF Chronicle have been crippled by this new kid on the block.

How much traffic does craigslist get?
A: More than 10 billion page views per month

Q: How does that compare with other companies?
A: craigslist is #8 worldwide in terms of english-language page views

Q: How many people use craigslist?
A: More than 40 million each month, including more than 30 million in the US alone

Q: How many classified ads does craigslist receive?
A: craigslist users self-publish more than 30 million new classified ads each month

Q: How many job listings does craigslist receive?
A: More than 2 million new job listings each month

— The Q&A is from Craigslist.org

The average user/reader spends so much time on the site–about five days a month, 20 minutes per day–the site ranks a startling seventh in terms of monthly page views. This is 4 billion page views per month. A billion here, a billion there, now we are talking about real readership numbers.

So how exactly does Craigslist make money?

By charging $25 for job postings in six of its largest U.S. markets and $75 for job listings in San Francisco and by assessing a $10 fee for brokered apartment listings in New York City, according to their website.

Classified advertising was the real money-maker for newspapers. Want ads, are the little ads placed by individuals. They were not only the most profitable for newspapers on a word-for-word basis, they also generated great readership numbers, a fact that was lost on ALL of the newsrooms in America. The editor-centric news “executives” had not bothered to do any research on the readership of the ads that paid their salaries. They mocked MBAs, IT and celebrated BAs from America’s most liberal J-schools.

The arrogant editors who “manage” the entire newspaper enterprise, didn’t have a clue. They thought that they called the shots. People were paying 25  cents to read the ads just and a few pages of news and entertainment.

This just in from the Washington Post:

Let’s not bury the lead: This is a rough time for the newspaper business, a rough time for The Washington Post and a rough time for me.

No one need shed any tears for the people leaving this building. The more than 100 journalists who have just taken early-retirement packages are voluntarily accepting a generous offer as the company trims its payroll — a situation far better than at newspapers that have resorted to layoffs.

With advertising revenue sinking and classified competition from the likes of Craigslist, newspaper market values are taking a hit. Avista Capital Partners, which bought the Minneapolis Star Tribune 14 months ago, recently had to write down 75 percent of its investment. The purchase price had been $530 million; the previous owner, McClatchy Newspapers, paid $1.2 billion for the paper in 1998.

That’s just a few pieces to the puzzle of what went wrong. It’s not unlike the fall of family-owned business, where the next generation of trust-fund brats drain the profits and only find interest in the fun, ivory tower aspects of the business.

In these sob stories of more layoffs, there isn’t any mention of the marketing/advertising departments, because the editors have no interest in that aspect of the media.

If newspapers were run like real companies, there would have been “big picture” studies of trends and competition. How’s this for an idea, cut out five top level editors and buy 100 servers, two webmasters and one internet marketing guy.

What a concept.

Young Conservatives trying to get into mainstream media face grim future, says Bob Novak

You think? They may be mentally ill.

Mick Gregory

Political columnist Bob Novak opened the curtains for a look behind the liberal bias in mainstream media. Remember Novak from the Valerie Plame blame Libby game?

The syndicated columnist made his remarks on a conference call with bloggers about his new book “The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington.”

Novak blamed liberal discrimination which he said forces young conservatives to remain “in the closet” if they hope to have a career in media.

“One of the big differences in 50 years is that the liberals have now filtered into the executive ranks of journalism. And so if you go into journalism now not in the closet but out in the open as a conservative, you’re going to have a hard time getting a job, believe me.”

Conservatives also don’t like journalism as a profession, Bob Novak added, saying that when he goes to various colleges and universities, the young conservatives he runs into rarely have any interest in journalism.

They did the math. Hey, they are probably business majors. Just read the WSJ and Finacial Times; you don’t have to be a financial wizard to see that papers are bleeding.

“Journalism is a hard thing to gauge. When I set out with my first paper in the summer of 1948, for the Joliet Herald-News there were in the newsroom there about two or three people who had ever been to college. Journalism was not an educated person’s game. So we’re much better educated, we’re sophisticated, we have people with graduate degrees—they know a lot more but are they better reporters than the others? I rather doubt.

“They don’t seem to be interested in reporting what’s really happening on a day-by-day basis. Particularly, congressional reporting has gone way downhill. I thought the coverage of the farm bill where, for example, the first time since 1933, a tax increase was attached to a farm bill. Now isn’t that an interesting thing to put into the story? I didn’t read that in any story anywhere. So I think there’s an awful lot of journalism that’s instead of reporting or investigating is bloviating, editorializing, opinionating, analyzing. Some people say that the news stories read more like columns than the columns these days. And to some extent, that’s true.”

Editor & Publisher reported the findings of a Harris Poll, journalists are rated near the bottom of careers in prestige. The pay and future suck too. What’s left, a free newspaper at work?

The annual Harris Poll measuring public perceptions of 23 professions and occupations came out Wednesday — and you can find journalists in the Bottom Ten.

Just 13% of the 1,100 U.S. adults surveyed in June and July said the occupation of journalist had “very great prestige,” while 16% said it had “hardly any prestige at all.” The plurality of respondents, 47%, grudging conceded there was “some prestige” in being a journalist.

Contrast that to America’s most prestigious occupation, firefighter. Fully 61% of those surveyed said that job had “very great prestige.”

Journalists were rated ahead of just seven other occupations: union leader, stockbroker, entertainer, accountant, banker, actor, and real estate agent/broker.

In addition to firefighters, five occupations are perceived to have “very great” prestige by at least half of all adults — scientists (54%); teachers (54%); doctors (52%); military officers (52%); and nurses (50%).

The Valerie Plame Game You Did Not Read About in the Mainstream media.

The Bush administration is not allowed to respond to slanderous, damning accusations by Valerie Plame’s husband, Joe Wilson, because Ms. Plame worked in the office at the CIA (and pushed for hubby to go on the smear campaign trip)?

Who in Washington D.C. didn’t know that they were newly married and where they worked? The “cute couple” made the Georgetown cocktail party circuit and posed together in Vogue magazine before the Libby trial and Plame’s other lawsuit (which she just lost).

Wilson, you will recall, was “recommended” by his wife, Plame, to go on the fact finding mission to Niger. In the normal business world, that’s called nepotisim. Wilson stayed in the finest hotels, wined and dined like royalty and never actually found any evidence to contradict the British intelligence report that Iraq was trying to buy yellow cake uranium.

Wilson and Plame had another agenda, to attack Bush and Cheney. On the talk show rounds, Wilson called Cheney a “lying son of a bitch” and Bush a “liar.”

To this day, British intelligence has documented proof that Iraq was seeking to buy yellow cake and Wilson was the liar when he said he saw “proof” that the Iraq mission to buy yellow cake never happened.

Inside the mind of an LA Times columnist

You have to wonder why newspaper journalists seem to be so out of touch with the public. Maybe it comes down to elite, arrogant snobbishness.

Joel Stein of the LA Times writes:

I don’t want to talk to you; I want to talk at you. A column is not my attempt to engage in a conversation with you….Not everything should be interactive. A piece of work that stands on its own, without explanation or defense, takes on its own power.

I get that you have opinions you want to share. That’s great. You’re the Person of the Year. I just don’t have any interest in them.

A lot of e-mail screeds argue that, in return for the privilege of broadcasting my opinion, I have the responsibility to listen to you. I don’t. No more than you have a responsibility to read me. I’m not an elected servant. I’m an arrogant, solipsistic, attention-needy freak who pretends to have an opinion about everything. I don’t have time to listen to you.

Hello? We don’t care to digest your opinion anymore. This is the world of Web 2.0. Read up on it. You may need a new job in the next couple of years.

Desperate Clinton White House–Why?

—-By Mick Gregory

The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz deserves credit for at least bringing up the media manipulation today by the Democrat party, but he did not tell the powerful story of “Sandy” Berger’s destruction of evidence and the fact that Clinton was more interested in his image and sexual appitite than Osama bin Laden. Top officials of the Clinton administration have launched a preemptive strike against an ABC-TV docudrama, slated to air Sunday and Monday, that they say includes made-up scenes depicting them as undermining attempts to kill Osama bin Laden.  

Too bad Clinton didn’t launch a real preemtive strike against Osama, one has to ask

Former national security adviser Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger said the film “flagrantly misrepresents my personal actions.”

Mr. Kurtz, did you forget about the documents Sandy Berger admitted he destroyed regarding Osama bin Laden and terror plots?

It’s breathtaking, that the Democrats are so used to getting the white glove treatment by the mainstream media, that when some truth is shed on the sloppy Clinton administration, they think they can confuse the public and even prevent a major network from broadcasting details. Update — the Clinton administration did pressure ABC to change wording and some other demands. We will know more by the weekend.

Web 2.0 and citzen journalists will now connect the dots. The truth will come out in blogs in the coming weeks. Don’t miss the docudrama on ABC this Sunday and Monday.

Berger said in an interview that ABC is “certainly trying to create the impression that this is realistic, but it’s a fabrication.” Why did you destroy several documents on this subject matter, Mr. Burger? ABC will get a big audience from this, unknowing football fans looking for “Monday Night Football,” may actually stick around and learn something. Scores of them will be blogging later and help capture the truth for today and history.  

One year ago — “The Sept. 11 commission (search) did not learn of any U.S. government knowledge prior to 9/11 of surveillance of Mohammed Atta or of his cell,” said Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from
Indiana. “Had we learned of it obviously it would’ve been a major focus of our investigation.”
 

Check out Dr. Sanity for a top Web site that has been following the Berger/Clinton  cover-up. http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2005/08/motive-for-bergers-bizarre-behavior.html
On Friday evening, Bill Clinton’s lawyers sent a new letter to ABC chief Bob Iger demanding that ABC yank “The Path to 9/11.” We’ve obtained a copy of the letter, and it reads in part: “As a nation, we need to be focused on preventing another attack, not fictionalizing the last one for television ratings. `The Path to 9/11′ not only tarnishes the work of the 9/11 Commission, but also cheapens the fith anniversary of what was a very painful moment in history for all Americans. We expect that you will make the responsible decision to not air this film.”

JonBenet wasn’t the only victim of this media circus

“I did not kill JonBenet. I loved that child with my whole heart and soul,” Mrs. Ramsey said in one of the first press conferences held after her daughter’s murder. She continued to say essentially the same thing for the rest of her life, she died of cancer last June. 
  

It didn’t matter to the newspaper “journalists” who helped feed the tabloids and cable news headline and crime shows with the sensational story. Now it’s been 10 years, and the media stoked public perception is that the wealthy parents did it.

Some details: Boulder is a lot like the sister city of Berkeley, Calif. Both are liberal university towns. So the Boulder police are “smarter” than your average police. The rich parents were immediately under the umbrella of suspicion. They may have even been Republicans! Did Mr. Ramsey’s computer company work with Halliburton?    

Michael Tracey, a University of Colorado journalism professor, had communicated with Mark Karr (the former 2nd grade school teacher) by e-mail, the Rocky Mountain News has reported. Tracey produced documentaries on JonBenet’s murder. Karr and Tracey exchanged dozens of e-mails, the Rocky reported, and that helped lead police to Karr, who was arrested Wednesday in Bangkok, shopping for sex on holiday.

“Tracey was instrumental in this investigation,” Susan Stine, a friend of the Ramseys told reporters. “He was instrumental in flushing this person out in the sense of getting him to talk,” she added, also saying the e-mails, “helped develop the case. I do believe he has the right to be presumed innocent,” Tracy told the Rocky reporters.  “I got involved in this, for 10 years, because I believe that right was never extended to the Ramseys, and that was wrong. We’ll see how this thing unfolds. Previously, the media leaks about the evidence and absurd theories as to how JonBenet died helped convince the public that the parents did it.”

“Was it ethical for a journalist or journalism professor  to share private e-mails?  Was the principle of finding a killer more important than the privacy of a journalist’s notes and communications?”  

This is a question being asked by journalists today. Some of the same “holier than thou” group who ruined JonBenet’s parents with sloppy reporting, hand fed to them by the town’s police department.  Now we find out there was a broken window to the Ramsey basement. What else was held up by the Boulder police in order to frame the “rich” Ramsey family?  This sad case will play out without any mention in the major media of the arrogance of the journalism “profession.” It’s not unlike the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. ‘You must have the bishop’s blessing!’

But it is a new Web age, so blogs and e-mails have taken the role of finding and communicating the truth. JonBenett Ramsey may become a Wikipedia entry that includes how the mainstream media helped judge and convict her parents in the court of public opinion, with some “journalists” arguing that it was unethical for the journalism professor to share his private e-mails from Mark Karr with the police or media. The Web 2.0, new media must put that fact in the story.