Obama Creating the United Socialist States of Amerika — trillions spent on Big Government programs

Back in the USSA. We don’t know how lucky we are, eh! Back in the USSA! 

WE GOT YOUR  MONEY     GONNA SPEND YOUR  MONEY   GONNA PRINT SOME MORE  MONEY

 

Antonia Ferrier, a spokeswoman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), said Gibbs was trying to create a distraction by responding to Limbaugh.

“What we are seeing is a desperate attempt by Democrats to distract attention away from a multi-trillion dollar spending spree taking place in Washington,” Ferrier said. “Creating a boogeyman to change the subject does nothing to alter the fact that there are 9,000 earmarks in the omnibus spending bill, that the economic stimulus bill contained no Republican input or that their budget would increase taxes on all Americans.”

Mick Gregory

The EU is on the verge of crumbling as Obama and Gordy Brown use the banking crisis to nationalize and build more power for central government.

Historians will look back and say this was no ordinary time but a defining moment: an unprecedented period of global change, and a time when one chapter ended and another began.

The scale and the speed of the global banking crisis has at times been almost overwhelming, and I know that in countries everywhere people who rely on their banks for savings have been feeling powerless and afraid. But it is when times become harder and challenges greater that across the world countries must show vision, leadership and courage – and, while we can do a great deal nationally, we can do even more working together internationally. — Gordy Brown, UK Prime Minister

Anyone who took Economics 101 remembers the root cause of inflation — the central government prints massive amounts of currency. Change is coming. Inflation is coming my friends. From near zero under Bush (the evil one) to what may rival Zimbabwa in about a year or two. 

What will happen to the Democrat/Socialist Party’s plan to tax “only the rich?” We will all be the rich. Any two income household making over $210,000 will be taxed at the super high rates of Jimmy Carter, LBJ and FDR. 

That is coming. Bet on it. We will be wards of the state with more than 50 percent of our wealth taxed by the Democrats. The home mortgage deduction has been taken away from those like Joe the Plumber. Welcome to the USSA. We don’t know how lucky we are, eh! 

 

 

 

Back on Uncle Sam’s plantation 
Star Parker – Syndicated Columnist – 2/9/2009 8:00:00 AM

 

Six years ago I wrote a book called Uncle Sam’s Plantation. I wrote the book to tell my own story of what I saw living inside thewelfare state and my own transformation out of it.

I said in that book that indeed there are two Americas — a poor America on socialism and a wealthy America on 
capitalism. 
 
I talked about government programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS), Emergency Assistance to Needy Families with Children (EANF), Section 8 Housing, and Food Stamps.

A vast sea of perhaps well-intentioned government programs, all initially set into motion in the 1960s, that were going to lift the nation’s poor out of poverty.

A benevolent Uncle Sam welcomed mostly poor black Americans onto the government plantation. Those who accepted the invitation switched mindsets from “How do I take care of myself?” to “What do I have to do to stay on the plantation?”

Instead of solving economic problems, government welfare socialism created monstrous moral and spiritual problems — the kind of problems that are inevitable when individuals turn responsibility for their lives over to others.

The legacy of American socialism is our blighted inner cities, dysfunctional inner city schools, and broke n black families.

Through God’s grace, I found my way out. It was then that I understood what freedom meant and how great this country is.

I had the privilege of working on welfare reform in 1996, passed by a Republican Congress and signed 50 percent.

I thought we were on the road to moving socialism out of our poor black communities and replacing it with wealth-producingAmerican capitalism.

But, incredibly, we are going in the opposite direction.

Instead of poor America on socialism becoming more like rich American on capitalism, rich America on capitalism is becoming like poor America on socialism.

Uncle Sam has welcomed our banks onto the plantation and they have said, “Thank you, Suh.”

Now, instead of thinking about what creative things need to be done to serve customers, they are thinking about what they have to tell Massah in order to get their cash.

There is some kind of irony that this is all happening under our first black president on the 200th anniversary of the birthday ofAbraham Lincoln.

Worse, socialism seems to be the element of our new young president. And maybe even more troubling, our corporate executives seem happy to move onto the plantation.

In an op-ed on the opinion page of the Washington Post, Mr. Obama is clear that the goal of his trillion dollar spending plan is much more than short term economic stimulus.

“This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending — it’s a strategy for America ‘s long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, healthcare, and education.”

Perhaps more incredibly, Obama seems to think that government taking over an economy is a new idea. Or that massive growth in government can take place “with unprecedented transparency and accountability.”

Yes, sir, we heard it from Jimmy Carter when he created the Department of Energy, the Synfuels Corporation, and the Department of Education.

Or how about the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 — The War on Poverty — which President Johnson said “…does not merely expand old programs or improve what is already being done. It charts a new course. It strikes at the causes, not just the consequences of poverty.”

Trillions of dollars later, black poverty is the same. But black families are not, with triple the incidence of single-parent homes and out-of-wedlock births.

It’s not complicated. Americans can accept Barack Obama‘s invitation to move onto the plantation. Or they can choose personal responsibility and freedom.

Does anyone really need to think about what the choice should be?

 

Will terrorists strike again? Why is the U.S. pouring 20,000 troops into cities? There must be some ‘chatter’

UPDATE:

The Washington Post reports that the Pentagon has issued the marching orders to mobilize 20,000 millitary troops to secure unspecified cities within the U.S.

Homeland Securtiy issued warnings of a terror attack on New York City’s mass transit system from Nov. 28 through the holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hanukkah) the mainstream media doesn’t even have the intellectual honesty to report which holidays. Commuters and vacationing shoppers are supposed to be uneasy and many may even put off their trips to buy gifts. This, as we watch to bloodbath from Nov. 26-28, in Mumbi, India where the death toll has reached 200 from a group of 10 terrorists.

Who did it? We know the terrorists hate Jews. That narrows it down. 

What do the learders of Iran, Palistine and Syria have to say about the bombings? 

A Brooklyn rabbi and his wife were found among the dead in a series of terrorist attacks in India that have claimed more than 150 lives. In response to the attacks, the NYPD beefed up patrols around large hotels and Jewish centers, including the Lubavitcher headquarters, said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.

The department already was on alert because of a warning earlier this week of a possible al-Qaida plot to strike the city’s rail systems over the holidays.

“The threat is serious, the threat is significant, and it is plausible,” said Congressman Peter King, R-Long Island, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, who ran the Chabad-Lubavitch local headquarters in Mumbai were killed during a hostage standoff at the center, said Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, a spokesman for the movement. 

On Wednesday, federal authorities warned New York police of an unsubstantiated (but reliable) report that al-Qaida operatives discussed an attack on New York’s subway system or rail lines like Amtrak and the Long Island Rail Road.

A spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he had no plans to comment. (Keep shopping sheelple). 

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said additional resources were being deployed in the mass transit system in an “abundance of caution,” a common response when police receive new information about a threat.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the city’s 468 stations and 6,480 subway cars, released a statement saying there was “no reason to be alarmed.”

The terrorists have been weakend from eight years of George W. Bush as Commander and Chief. 

We can be thankful for that time.

New York Times Empire Crumbling — Road Trip! Publisher Meets and Greets at Davos, Switzerland!

By Mick Gregory

“I don’t know if we will be printing in five years, and you know what, I don’t care,” said Pinchy Suzberger, New York Times publisher.

You know what Pinchy? Most of us don’t care either!

Profits at the Times have been declining for going on five years, and the Times company’s market capitalization has been crumbling faster.

The Times wrote down the value of its New England Media Group—which includes The Boston Globe—by $814 million, resulting in the shocking quarterly drop announced last week. Oopsie!

Yet, as they hold “town hall” meetings with their working stiffs at the Boston Globe, the editors made room to hire Dean Baquet and hand him the Washington DC throne. Baquet, you may recall, is the executive editor who refused to make any more cuts at the LA Times which has a 950 person newsroom.

But Mr. Baquet, you just joined a paper that has cut some 150 journalists in the past year? No problems with that, eh?

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Janet Robinson’s pep talk: first impression

Word is, the Times Co. president/CEO faced a very tough crowd at Morrissey Boulevard today. Here’s what Media Log has heard so far:
It was a very hostile meeting. I would say most of the hostility came from the classified ad people who’re being outsourced to India. This woman–her name doesn’t matter–got up and said, she’s been there 37 years, she loves the company, and basically, how can you do this? The paper’s been cut back; we’re kicked out; is this corporate greed or what?

So Janet Robinson right off the bat had to handle this highly indignant, well-spoken classified ad person.

(Note: classified sales people are subhuman in the eyes of the far superior editorial department, so the surprisingly well spoken woman doesn’t get a name).

And she just kept on talking about how they’d had to make very difficult decisions, they wouldn’t be doing them if it wasn’t necessary. That was basically the theme: in order to save the village, we have to destroy it.

The people really kept at her about the outsourcing–that was really the main theme. Dan Totten [the Globe union head] said it was appalling and disgusting, and when did they make the decision–because let’s face it, we just agreed to this contract, and right after that they announced this outsourcing. Was that bad-faith bargaining? And [Robinson] never really gave an answer. She said [the outsourcing] had been under consideration for at least a year, but they didn’t make the final decision until the terrible results of the final quarter were known. They didn’t have a choice.

Somebody said, why do you still want us as part of [the Times Co.] portfolio? And she went on about, you’re a beacon of great journalism, people want to buy you and I admire their taste, but you’re a very important part of the company.
—thephoenix.com

Morgan Stanley, has set out on a campaign that could cost Sulzberger control over the paper. The New York Times is one of a unique few that have a two-tiered stock plan. The family holds a fraction of the stock, but they are voting stocks, the majority of the stockholders do not have a vote on decisions of the company. They ivory tower “executive editors” at the Times have been making horrible business decisions. And Morgan Stanley has been communicating the reasons why.

The details are by AFX International Focus — The New York Times has refused to list on its proxy a proposal from a Morgan Stanley investment fund that called for putting the company’s two-class share structure to a vote.

That system, which has existed since before the company went public in 1969, cements control of the company with the Ochs-Sulzberger family. The company says the control is necessary to protect the editorial integrity of the newspaper.

The Morgan Stanley fund had proposed the measure in November after expressing dissatisfaction with the company’s share price and what it called a lack of accountability to public shareholders.

Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for the Times, said the Times rejected the proposal last month, with the blessing of the Securities and Exchange Commission, after determining that the issues being raised in the proposal couldn’t be voted on by holders of the company’s publicly traded stock.

Those shares, which are called Class A stock, have limited voting rights, such as electing 30 percent of the company’s directors, the approval of certain acquisitions and other matters, she said. The more powerful voting rights belong to the Class B shares, which are almost entirely controlled by the Sulzbergers.

The company rejected the proposal last December, Mathis said, but the news became public late Tuesday in a regulatory filing made by Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

And Mr. Sulzberger had to get away. He jumped on a jet to the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland. Remember, that’s where Senator John Kerry called the USA a pariah to the civilized world?

Then they fit in some skiing at one of the ritziest resorts in the world.

What began as a casual chat ended in a fascinating glimpse into Sulzberger’s world, and how he sees the future of the news business.

By Eytan Avriel of Haaretz.com

Given the constant erosion of the printed press, do you see the New York Times still being printed in five years?

“I really don’t know whether we’ll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don’t care either,” he says.

Sulzberger is focusing on how to best manage the transition from print to Internet.

“The Internet is a wonderful place to be, and we’re leading there,” he points out.

The Times, in fact, has doubled its online readership to 1.5 million a day to go along with its 1.1 million subscribers for the print edition.

Sulzberger says the New York Times is on a journey that will conclude the day the company decides to stop printing the paper. That will mark the end of the transition. It’s a long journey, and there will be bumps on the road, says the man at the driving wheel, but he doesn’t see a black void ahead.

Asked if local papers have a future, Sulzberger points out that the New York Times is not a local paper, but rather a national one based in New York that enjoys more readers from outside, than within, the city.

Classifieds have long been a major source of income to the press, but the business is moving to the Internet.

Sulzberger agrees, but what papers lose, Web sites gain. Media groups can develop their online advertising business, he explains. Also, because Internet advertising doesn’t involve paper, ink and distribution, companies can earn the same amount of money even if it receives less advertising revenue.

Really? What about the costs of development and computerization?

“These costs aren’t anywhere near what print costs,” Sulzberger says. “The last time we made a major investment in print, it cost no less than $1 billion. Site development costs don’t grow to that magnitude.”

The New York Times recently merged its print and online news desks. Did it go smoothly, or were there ruffled feathers? Which team is leading the way today?

“You know what a newspaper’s news desk is like? It’s like the emergency room at a hospital, or an office in the military. Both organizations are very goal-oriented, and both are very hard to change,” Sulzberger says.

Once change begins, it happens quickly, so the transition was difficult, he says. “But once the journalists grasped the concept, they flipped and embraced it, and supported the move.” That included veteran managers, too.

How are you preparing for changes to the paper that are dictated by the Internet?

“We live in the Internet world. We have, for example, five people working in a special development unit whose only job is to initiate and develop things related to the electronic world – Internet, cellular, whatever comes.

The average age of readers of the New York Times print edition is 42, Sulzberger says, and that hasn’t changed in 10 years. The average age of readers of its Internet edition is 37, which shows that the group is also managing to recruit young readers for both the printed version and Web site.

Also, the Times signed a deal with Microsoft to distribute the paper through a software program called Times Reader, Sulzberger says. The software enables users to conveniently read the paper on screens, mainly laptops. “I very much believe that the experience of reading a paper can be transfered to these new devices.”

Will it be free?

No, Sulzberger says. If you want to read the New York Times online, you will have to pay.

In the age of bloggers, what is the future of online newspapers and the profession in general? There are millions of bloggers out there, and if the Times forgets who and what they are, it will lose the war, and rightly so, according to Sulzberger. “We are curators, curators of news. People don’t click onto the New York Times to read blogs. They want reliable news that they can trust,” he says.

“We aren’t ignoring what’s happening. We understand that the newspaper is not the focal point of city life as it was 10 years ago.

“Once upon a time, people had to read the paper to find out what was going on in theater. Today there are hundreds of forums and sites with that information,” he says. “But the paper can integrate material from bloggers and external writers. We need to be part of that community and to have dialogue with the online world.”

And while on community, the scandal about Jayson Blair, the reporter caught plagiarizing and fabricating, hurt the brand, not the business, he says. Blair was forced to quit in May 2003.

You’re one of the few papers that continues to print on broadsheet, which people consider to be too big and clumsy. Until when?

“Until when? The New York Times has no intention of changing that,” Sulzberger promises. At any rate, transitioning from broadsheet to tabloid would be prohibitively expensive, he says.

If you own any of those secondary NY Times stocks, I think it’s time to sell.

Pelosi Fying Circus. What About the Carbon Footprint? Abuse of Power?

By Mick Gregory

Democrat Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, now demands a free jet. Ever hear of conference calls?

Hillary’s big guns are holding back from advising Pelosi.

I have a new theory, I think that Pelosi is being sabotaged by the powerful elite in the Democrat party. Image mistakes like this can easily be avoided with a little brainstorming. I think that having Pelosi around hurts Hillary’s chances. Not even moderate Democrats want to see the total government run by Prorgressive Democrats.

In a new world of face-to-face conference calls, Blackberries, online chats from all over the world on Skype, Macs and many other devices, the new Democrat Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi is asking for her own government jet to fly her and her friends around for meetings.

Can you imagine the outrage in the media if Newt Gingrich had demanded his own 747-200 passenger jet? I can. Page one stories all week.

The excuse Pelosi is using now is that she just wants a plane that doesn’t have to refuel. Question, don’t most smaller aircraft sometimes have to refuel, including the president’s plane?

Question 2) Doesn’t Pelosi own a brownstone mansion in Georgetown? Why does she all of a sudden have to shuttle back and forth the California?

During the same week that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are pushing for a bill that states “It is not in the national interest of the United States to deepen its military involvement in Iraq…” she is demanding a military 747-200 for her use.

I think the jig is up.

Meanwhile, Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam of Florida said Mrs. Pelosi’s request represents “an arrogance of office that just defies common sense” and called it “a major deviation from the previous speaker.”

Now she is DEMANDING (and by demanding we mean having John Murtha send threatening phone calls to the administration) to be given a military aircraft that is the equivalent size of a commercial 757.

Evidently having the old small plane that Dennis Hastert had occasional use of was not enough, nope — she wants Air Force One – without the Oval Office. Room for her friends and lobbyists?

And what would Al Gore say about the amount of fuel she would be using?

Minority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri called it a “flying Lincoln Bedroom,” and Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, North Carolina Republican, labeled the speaker’s plane “Pelosi One.”

“This is a bullet point to a larger value — Pelosi’s abuse of power continues,” Mr. McHenry said yesterday. “It began when the speaker denied minority rights to Republicans, continued with her ‘TunaGate’ scandal, and now she’s exploiting America’s armed forces and taxpayers for her own personal convenience.”
“TunaGate” was a reference to Democrats exempting American Samoa from legislation to increase the minimum wage. Star-Kist Tuna, whose parent company Del Monte Corp. is based in Mrs. Pelosi’s district, had lobbied against the wage increase.

Nancy Pelosi has unleashed her clueless, elitist, and out-of-touch inner-limousine liberal and allowed it to run free. First it was her recent demand for private use of an Air Force jet for trips to California not only for her, but her staff, delegation colleagues, family friends, and generally anyone else she likes. Now, in a moment of irony so rich it should carry a diabetes warning, we learn that she will be going to tomorrow’s Congressional hearings on global warming in a Chevy Tahoe.

It’s amazing to contemplate, but I do believe she has a political tin-ear bigger even than Hillary’s.
—irishspy.typepad.com

Molly Ivins — The Texas Liberal Icon Has Died. Get Ready for the Mother of All Obits. Updated.

By Mick Gregory

Molly Ivins was the Texas Democrat party’s biggest supporter for 40 years. Newspapers always deliver big obits of their own, but when they are uber-liberal “celebrity” columnists, get ready for a state funeral pageant.

Although the press is fond of labeling FOX News journalists and nearly all Republicans “right-wing,” they rarely call even the most liberal journalist or Democrat left-wing.

But not so for Molly Ivins. Ivins was a self-described leftist agitator. She made her living as the Texas Democrats’ pit bull.

—————–

Update: Sunday, February 4, 2007
Every day we have seen more updates on the late Molly Ivins. The journalists who have “touched her robes,” or sat at her feet and heard her anti-Reagan, Bush bashing, Arnold scorn (she said he looked like a condom filled with walnuts) one-liners.

James T. Campbell, at the Houston Chronicle, had his little brush with famous Ivans when she volunteered to speak at a conference of the National Association of Black Journalists. (One has to wonder about associations based on skin color).

For nearly 45 minutes, she captivated the audience with her salty humor and delicious tidbits about Texas politics and politicians. She saved the day. She was my heroine.

Sill, I was embarrassed. The conference had no budget to speak of, so I couldn’t even offer her a small honorarium. She settled for gas money, a couple of drinks and my company at the hotel bar.”

Read “The Mother of All Obits,” today in your daily newspaper. In The Houston Chronicle, she gets front page play today, a 2-col. photo with a jump to page four, about 80 column inches with “pull-quotes” and photo of her as an “intern” with the paper in 1966.

“I’ll remember sunsets, rivers, hills, plains, the Gulf, woods, a thousand beers in a thousand joints, and sunshine and laughter. And people…Mostly I’ll remember people.” — her farewell column to Texas Observer readers in 1976, when she took a job with the New York Times.

She was fired by the New York Times six years later, “because she didn’t show due respect and reverence to the great dignity…”

Andy Ivins, brother to late columnist Molly Ivins, recalled his sister smashing a beer can on the deck of the family’s boat in New York to the puzzlement of those on board.

He also remembered his sister disliking UT fraternities but devouring the beer they dispensed. His stories set the tone for Ivins’ memorial service, where those in attendance seemed determined not to focus on her passing, but on the unorthodox qualities that defined her as a friend, party girl and liberal megaphone.

Can you imagine being too liberal for the New York Times?

I met her in 1982 at Times Mirror‘s Dallas Times Herald. I was in my early twenties, fresh out of college and as promotion manager, advertised the super stars like Ivans. She was the headliner of the LA Time’s liberal journalism expansion into Dallas, Houston and Denver. She got top billing. Her face was on billboards and the sides of delivery trucks, and her quotes in radio ads. Her left wing, in-your-face rants may have helped sink each of those “left coast” papers in time. Only the Denver Post survives today, because of a Joint Operating Agreement for failing newspapers, with the Rocky Mountain News.

Her resume reads, “After the Times Herald folded, she joined the Fort Worth Star Telegram.”

Correction: The Times Herald didn’t fold. It was purchased by the Dallas Morning News and turned into a parking lot.

It wasn’t Ms. Ivan’s fault. Her anti-American rants is what she did. Her attacks on Ronald Reagan and the conservative values of Dallas readers caused a mass exodus of circulation and advertisers from the Times Herald to the Morning News. The same thing happened in Houston and Denver. Who knew? Editors still don’t get it.

One of her repeated gems was: “Ronald Reagan was so dumb he couldn’t pour water out of a boot if the directions were written on the heel.”

The Minneapolis Tribune hired her as its first female police beat reporter, and she claimed one of her proudest moments of her journalism career was when the department named its mascot – a pig – in her honor. Funny stuff. By the way, The Minneapolis Tribune, a well-known liberal New York Times wannabe, and was dumped off on private investors just a month ago.

It wasn’t the publisher’s fault, Thomas McCartin at the Times Herald was a Times Mirror Company (TMC) man all the way. His initials (TMC) allowed him to have custom monograms on his cuffs, stenciled into glass doors and in the marble. McCartin wouldn’t argue with Otis Chandler’s top editors’ plans. It was the editorial executives who had the vision that a socialist, poison pen columnist would increase readership in conservative Texas and Colorado. They were out to show the establishment who was boss.

Tom McCartin was a marketing, community events promoter of “Dallas, City of The Arts” and jazzy new sections publisher. He switched the paper from a blue collar afternoon paper to a morning, middle- and upper-middle class paper (on the surface) through promotion, almost overnight. He may have known about the liberal-snob link before the rest of the mainstream media. McCartin was a marketing genius. He didn’t dwell on the leftist takeover of the Times Herald’s editorial department. He was used to that, having worked at the LA Times and for a time, the Washington Post. Ken Johnson, the executive editor of the Dallas Times Herald also came from the Washington Post. David Broder — the famous lefty who is a regular on “Face the Nation” and other Sunday morning political shows actually had an office at the Times Herald for a stint. I promoted him too. We had a party at the downtown Dallas paper where liberal heavy hitters gathered. I even have a picture of me with Martha Graham, publisher/owner of the Washington Post. But I digress.

Johnson “knew” that Ivins was his kind of journalist. The editorial department was well funded at this boom time and there were layers of managing editors.

Here’s a little piece from an editor, Jim Schutze at the time:
…There were six or seven assistant city editors, a city editor and half a dozen people with the words “managing editor” somewhere in their titles sitting around the desk.
I harrumphed for attention, then said, “I have written a column for tomorrow’s newspaper that I am worried about. It’s a fairly personal attack on a wealthy and powerful citizen of the city, known to be litigious, and I fear that it may be libelous. I worry that the column, in its present form, may harm the paper. Would any one of you be willing just to read behind me on it before I send it to the printers?”
No one moved. There was a long silence, They all kept their eyes glued to each other or to their computer screens. I refused to move. I waited. Finally one of them whirled around and held up his hands before his face with the two index fingers in the sign of the cross, in the gesture used to ward off vampires.

Schutze was showing a friend that he was free to print anything he wanted and attack the big shots at will. That’s the environment that Molly Ivins worked in for a few years, anyway. The paper’s enemies — and even some of its liberal friends in the Democrat and black communities — closed in on the Times Herald editorial slant.

There were jabs by Ivins and others about “lavish holiday parties” by builders who were overcharging for their new homes, the same story on the evil new car dealers. The home builders and auto dealers simply pulled their advertising from the Times Herald and put it in the more conservative Morning News.

As ad revenues fell, editors were less able to defend the journalist “foot soldiers” from the Dallas establishment’s heavy weights. In 1984, the paper finally gave in to critics and Molly Ivins was kicked-off the metro section front page. Molly was still allowed a fairly visible spot on the Op Ed Page, but she had to get out of Dallas and move to Austin and she had to stop writing about the business leaders in Dallas. Ken Johnson left with a golden handshake from McCartin and Chandler and started a chain of weekly newspapers called Westward Communications. That chain actually got back to basics and covered local news. Johnson learned his lessson about letting the rabid left wingers destroy the advertising base.

Ivans was a diehard liberal. She boasted about that. She was at nearly all the fancy fundraisers with her gal pal, the former governor, Ann Richards. She hung out at with Dan Rather and Jim Hightower at fundraisers in lawyers private mansions around Texas.

Ivins had a reputation as something of a partyer, and, until her health declined, she hosted at her Austin home monthly gatherings of writers, Marxists, druggies and rabble-rousers.

She was a colorful writer. It’s just too bad she didn’t spread some of her talent and power of the press to attacks on LBJ, Jimmy Carter, Ann Richards, Hilly and Bill Clinton. Maybe the Houston Post and Dallas Times Herald would still be around today.

Ivans was actually born in Carmel-Monterey, California and grew up in Houston’s River Oaks. (That’s where Ken Lay used to live). She attended Smith College, her mother’s and grandmother’s alma mater. Her father was a rich corporate lawyer and a Republican.

She put on persona that she came from the piney woods of East Texas. Now you know that she has a lot in common with Democrat leaders, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Diane Fienstien, Teddy Kennedy, perhaps even fed with a silver spoon.

She missed her calling, that was some act she put on. RIP.

——————–

Visit the Wonkette to see a liberal point of view. Like which conservative columnist should die next.

http://wonkette.com/politics/gene-weingarten/political-humor-columnist-trifecta-who-must-die-next-233080.php