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.

Who is Nancy Pelosi? What does Progressive Democrat mean? Watch Obama, Hillary and Pelosi smile and talk with Ortega and Chavez, fellow socialists

OBEY OBAMA

You won’t see the mainstream media reporting who Nancy Pelosi is.

Citizens: Print,  clip and save this free Obey Obama poster (Void where prohibited by law).

By Mick Gregory

I know quite a bit about her, having lived and worked in her San Francisco district. You won’t see the San Francisco Chronicle or New York Times mentioning that she is a multi-millionaire from earnings on her non-union Napa Valley winerey and resort hotel. Yet, the soon-to-be-crowned Speaker, gets one of the largest shares of union campaign money.

Your 68-year-old grandmother hasn’t spent as much on her home as 68-year-old Nancy Pelosi has on facelifts.
Democrats are America’s neo-progressives, better known as socialists. I lived in Nancy Peloci’s San Francisco, where transsexuals are given special status along with all the other classes of minorities and the city is a “sactuary city” for illegals.

 

Do you think I am exagerating? Progressive Democrats are America’s Democrat/Socialists — Google it for yourself. Why doesn’t the LA Times with it’s 950-person newsroom devote an afternoon of a reporter’s time to check into this?

Socialism in America is growing. Aided by such influential Congressmen as John Conyers, Ranking Member of the House Judicial Committee, and the one who will start impeachment proceedings against George Bush in the coming months. Nancy Pelosi is one of the stars of the nearly 60 other Democrats advancing socialism in America behind the “Progressive” label.

Here are a few excerpts taken directly from the web page of the Democratic Socialists of America.

“The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the United States, and the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International. DSA’s members are building progressive movements for social change while establishing an openly socialist presence in American communities and politics.

“At the root of our socialism is a profound commitment to democracy, as means and end. We are activists committed not only to extending political democracy but to demanding democratic empowerment in the economy, in gender relations, and in culture. Democracy is not simply one of our political values but our means of restructuring society. Our vision is of a society in which people have a real voice in the choices and relationships that affect the entirety of our lives. We call this vision democratic socialism – a vision of a more free, democratic and humane society.

0. We are socialists because we reject an international economic order sustained by private profit, alienated labor, race and gender discrimination, environmental destruction, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo.
0. We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane international social order based both on democratic planning and market mechanisms to achieve equitable distribution of resources, meaningful work, a healthy environment, sustainable growth, gender and racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships.”
Here is what “Liberty” looks like to a socialist:
“A democratic commitment to a vibrant pluralist life assumes the need for a democratic, responsive, and representative government to regulate the market, protect the environment, and ensure a basic level of equality and equity for each citizen. In the 21st century, such regulation will increasingly occur through international, multilateral action. But while a democratic state can protect individuals from domination by inordinately powerful, undemocratic transnational corporations, people develop the social bonds that render life meaningful only through cooperative, voluntary relationships. Promoting such bonds is the responsibility of socialists and the government alike.
“The social welfare programs of government have been for the most part positive, if partial, responses to the genuine social needs of the great majority of Americans. The dismantling of such programs by conservative and corporate elites in the absence of any alternatives will be disastrous. Abandoning schools, health care, and housing, for example, to the control of an unregulated free market magnifies the existing harsh realities of inequality and injustice.”
The action agenda posted on the socialists’ web site very closely parallels Agenda 21, and the recommendations of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development. The web site boasts the creation of the “Progressive Caucus” in Congress, as well as the coalition that is working to promote the socialist agenda in Congress.

Now you know that the third person in line for the Presidency is a socialist.

Secret Service, please make sure that President Bush and Dick Chaney are not ever again with in a mile of each other for the next two years.

Imagine this, the Democrats impeach George Bush for invading Iraq, Dick Cheney becomes president, he dies of a heart attack within weeks because of his spike in blood pressure. Nancy Pelosi becomes the first women President of the United States, and another first of much more import, America’s first Progressive Democrat president.

Sources: http://www.dsausa.org/dsa.html,
http://www.sovereignty.net/center/socialists.htm

Rocky Mountain News publishes final edition Friday

Poynteronline.org holds a podcast/blog later today on “Is it time to exit newspaper journalism?” What do you think they will say? 

Here is the final edition. It has a sad, final edition look to it. http://eatthedarkness.wordpress.com/2009/02/27/rip-rocky/

 

  

Joe Mahoney © The Rocky

Executives from  Scripps, announce their decision on the future of the Rocky Mountain News in the 150-year-old newspaper’s newsroom on 2/26/09 in Denver. In December 2008, the Rocky’s parent company put the paper up for sale, citing multi-million dollar annual losses. No offers were made. Nobody was that slow on the uptake on the future of newspapers.

  

 

 

  

Photo by Darin McGregor © The Rocky

A man stops to read the ticker on the outside of the Denver Newspaper Agency building announcing that the Rocky Mountain News is closing and that it will publish its last edition on Friday. Photograph taken in Denver Thurs. Feb 26, 2009.

  

Photo by Joe Mahoney © The Rocky

 

  

Photo by Joe Mahoney © The Rocky

Executives from E.W. Scripps Co., announce their decision on the future of the Rocky Mountain News in the 150-year-old newspaper’s newsroom on 2/26/09 in Denver. In December 2008, the Rocky’s parent company put the paper up for sale, citing multi-million dollar annual losses.

Share Your Thoughts

What do you think about Scripps’ decision to close the Rocky? We want to hear your thoughts. You can talk live with Mark Wolf by clicking here, or send a letter to the editor at letters@rockymountainnews.com

• BLOG: Official announcement at Rocky
• VIDEO: Scripps announces closure of Rocky Mountain News
• SLIDE SHOW: Rocky staff members get news of closure
• NEWS CONFERENCE: Recession forced closure, Boehne says

The Rocky Mountain News publishes its last paper today (Friday).

Rich Boehne, chief executive officer of Rocky-owner Scripps, broke the news to the staff at noon today, ending nearly three months of speculation over the paper’s future.

“People are in grief,” Editor John Temple said a noon news conference.

But he was intent on making sure the Rocky’s final edition, which would include a 52-page wraparound section, was as special as the paper itself.

“This is our last shot at this,” Temple said at a second afternoon gathering at the newsroom. “This morning (someone) said it’s like playing music at your own funeral. It’s an opportunity to make really sweet sounds or blow it. I’d like to go out really proud.”

Boehne told staffers that the Rocky was the victim of a terrible economy and an upheaval in the newspaper industry.

“Denver can’t support two newspapers any longer,” Boehne told staffers, some of whom cried at the news. “It’s certainly not good news for you, and it’s certainly not good news for Denver.”

Tensions were higher at the second staff meeting, held to update additional employees who couldn¹t attend the hastily called noon press conference.

Several employees wanted to know about severance packages, or even if they could buy at discount their computers.

Others were critical of Scripps for not seeking wage concessions first or going online only.

But Mark Contreras, vice president of newspapers for Scripps, said the math simply didn’t work.

“If you cut both newsrooms in half, fired half the people in each newsroom, you’d be down to where other market newsrooms are today. And they’re struggling,” he said.

As for online revenues, he said if they were to grow 40 percent a year for the next five years, they still would be equal to the cost of one newsroom today.

“We’re sick that we’re here,” Contreras said. “We want you to know it’s not your fault. There’s no paper in Scripps that we hold dearer.”

But Boehne said Scripps intended to keep its other media, both print and in broadcast, running.

“Scripps has been around for 130 years. We intend to be around another 130 years,” Boehne said. “If you can’t make hard decisions, you won’t make it.”

After Friday, the Denver Post will be the only newspaper in town.

Asked if pubilsher Dean Singleton now walks away with the whole pie, Boehne was blunt.

“He walks away with an unprofitable paper, $130 million in debt and revenues that are down 15-20 percent every year,” Boehne said.

Asked if Singleton would have to pay for the presses now, Boehne added, “We had to kill a newspaper. He can pay for the presses.”

Reaction came from across the nation and around the block.

“The Rocky Mountain News has chronicled the storied, and at times tumultuous, history of Colorado for nearly 150 years. I am deeply saddened by this news, and my heart goes out to all the talented men and women at the Rocky,” U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet said in a statement. “I am grateful for their hard work and dedication to not only their profession, but the people of Colorado as well.”

At the Statehouse, Rep. Joe Rice (D-Littleton), said the paper would be missed.

“The Rocky Mountain News has been a valued institution in Denver,” he said.

“It’s a sad, sad day.”

Long-time Denver real estate agent Edie Marks called the Rocky a voice of reason, moderation and common sense.

“I think that it was the fairest newspaper, the most diverse, and am important part of my daily life,” she said. “I’m going to miss it tremendously.”

On Dec. 4, Boehne announced that Scripps was looking for a buyer for the Rocky and its 50 percent interest in the Denver Newspaper Agency, the company that handles business matters for the papers. The move came because of financial losses in Denver, including $16 million in 2008.

“This moment is nothing like any experience any of us have had,” Boehne said. “The industry is in serious, serious trouble.”

Didn’t Obama sign the trillion dollar stimulous bill in Denver? What did that do for the Rocky? 

Buyouts, layoffs, big declines in readership and ads — it is a bleak Christmas for newspapers

The decline of the newspaper media monopoly never slows. If you have any stock in newspaper-heavy media, it’s too late to get out. As of the end of 2008, 30 daily newspapers are for sale. Buyouts were the good old days. Now there are brutal Christmans-time layoffs. Google the Gannett Blog and find a running count by an ex-Gannetter. 

The layoffs and firings that started this week at newspapers owned by Gannett, including at the flagship USA Today, have been especially ruthless,  in addition to being timed just weeks before Christmas, they number in the thousdands.  But why not? These are mainly socialists and athiests who mock families and call moms breeders. 

It’s bloody news for newspaper journalists. Even the sill profitable Gannett newspapers (many still have profit margins at 20 percent) are shedding employees at a breathtaking rate. 

This week  a Gannett spokesperson said the cuts are being managed locally, at each newspaper, which is why as a company they’ve not released figures on specific jobs other than to say it’s a 10 percent cut companywide. While early figures compiled paper-by-paper totaled 1,700 Gannett jobs cut, it looks like that number may well pass 2,000 by next week.

In just the past week several thousand newspaper employees in America have lost their jobs, Cox Newspapers announced the closing of their Washington, DC, bureau, and the Tribune Co. will lay off more people at their flagship paper in Chicago.

In Chicago the credit analyst Fitch Ratings predicted that the continued decline in advertising revenues will cause some newspapers to default on their debt in 2009, and rated the debt of two huge newspaper companies – The McClatchy Co. and Tribune Co. – ask “junk.” Fitch also predicted that several cities could find themselves without daily print newspapers by 2010.

As many as 1,700 Gannett jobs were cut this week, from assistant managing editors on down, including reductions of up to 31 percent of the staff at one newspaper, The Salinas Californian, according to a reader tally on a blog published by a former Gannett worker, Jim Hopkins.

 

The most recent E&P (an online Web site on newspapers that ironically ended its print edtions a decade ago) reports that recruitment advertising declined in May. The Newspaper Conference Board, which measures job ads in 51 print newspapers across the country, said its Help-Wanted Advertising Index is 33. It was 38 one year ago.

“This is certainly a more negative picture going into the second half of the year, compared to the beginning of the year,” Ken Goldstein, a labor economist at the Conference Board, said in a statement.

In the last three months, help-wanted advertising fell in all nine U.S. regions.

 

The Dallas Morning News (a monopoly) said today it’s going to offer buyouts to the newsroom. That means waving a modest proposal of a few extra weeks of severance pay in front of the noses of older employees. Reality check: the UAW buyouts give auto workers 90 percent of their pay and free health care for life.

 

I was walking my dog this morning at 5:30 a.m. and watched a newspaper carrier in a junk car speeding around my neighborhood to drop a paper at every 20th house or so. Just a few years ago, 40 percent of the homes subscribed to the paper. 

Imagine the carbon footprint of that old smokestack medium. 

Hillary’s slow motion speech — Night of the orange pantsuit

Don’t you find it  repulsive the way “leaders” like Hillary talk so slow and dumb down their speeches. You know that the Harvard grad speaks a mile a minute with her elitist friends at cocktail parties.

Getting back to her speech and slide show showing baby pictures… WTF?

You missed Hillary’s little sideshow. She pointed out the son and wife of two of her super delegates who died within the last 10 days, one of gunshots, the other was found in her car (brain dead from a stroke).

 

Then she mentioned a cancer victim she met who wrote “Hillary” on her bald head who didn’t have medical coverage and was pleading  for Universal  Health Care. Well, how was she getting treatment? She actually was getting chemo treatments from a local clinic.

She failed to mention another similar incident on the campaign trail. Remember the man that came into her headquarters (Hillary was in another state)  with a bomb and gun asking to speak with Hillary about getting more federal government help for mental patients. The life-long Democrat is locked up now receiving medication.

Chinese upset with Greorge W. Bush’s speech at Olympics about freedom

What kind of reception will Bush get? Perhaps a steaming platter of dog or perhaps a horse penis, both delicacies in China.

In a speech highlighting America’s historic freedoms and challenges ahead  in Asia, President Bush had boldly pushed China to enact a free press, free assembly,  freedom of religion  and labor rights in China, and spoke out sharply against its imprisonment of its citizens, human rights advocates and religious leaders. He said he wasn’t trying to antagonize China, but called such reform the only path the U.S. rival can take to reach its full potential.

This  sets the stage for an interesting reception when he attends the opening ceremonies Friday evening and meets with Hu on Sunday after attending church.

No other U.S. president has been so blunt with the Chinese  in modern history.

What kind of reception will Bush get? Perhaps a steaming platter of dog or perhaps a horse penis and testicles,  delicacies in China.

A look at the mind set of newspaper columnists and journalists as security boxes their belongings

By Mick Gregory

After the spring break/Easter holiday retail promotions, newspapers have a long, low period of advertising drop off, followed closely by subscription and single-copy sales declines. That’s when the next big wave of head-count cuts usually hits. It’s as predictable as a 2-hour commute in So Cal. The newsrooms don’t see it coming any better than hogs at a Bakersfield slaughter house. I take that back, hogs do get the picture about five minutes before the drill.

UPDATE:
(CAN YOU IMAGINE? WRITERS COMING UP WITH THEIR OWN HEADLINES?)

Word out of the Los Angeles Daily Journal newsroom is that the legal paper lopped off its copy desk last night — the whole thing. I’ve heard it from a few sources, one of whom emails that deadlines will be pushed earlier in the day, writers are being asked to suggest their own headlines and line editors will back read each other’s edited copy. The editor staffing was already thin, with recent departures not replaced. Emails one staffer:

Honestly, how do you put out a paper without a copy desk? We’re all very shell-shocked. The lay-offs included a veteran copy-editor who had been at the paper for 15 years, and who was completly unaware she was on the chopping block. We’re all scrambling around, trying to figure out how we’re going to keep doing our jobs without copy editors. — Kevin Roderick of the LA Observer

TIP TO PUBLISHERS: TRY USING WEB-BASED CONTENT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE AND HAVE COPY EDITORS IN PUNE, INDIA DO THE EDITING FOR 20 PERCENT OF THE EXPENSE. THOUGH, GIVE YOUR WRITERS A CHANCE. ALL THEY NEED IS ABOUT A WEEK OF PRACTICE.

Here are the latest cuts:
The Seattle Times –175 to 200.
The Dizzy Dean Singleton cuts in California — bottomless.

Here is some open grieving from what was once a real fluff position, sports columnist in Southern California. Free food in the press box, jokes about the sports stars, great seats for all the best games, somebody had to do it. Well, not any more.

I have a suggestion for your exit interview, say “Pull my finger!”
And blow one a burrito/beer fart that they will remember.

…
‘We’re Eliminating the Position of Sports Columnist’
It took me, oh, about three seconds to process the meaning of the call from the newsroom secretary.

“Steve wants to see you in Louise’s office.”

Steve would be Steve Lambert, editor of The Sun/Bulletin/Titanic. And Louise is Louise Kopitch, head of personnel for the same foundering entities.

These days, your editor wants to see you (in tandem with the HR boss) for one reason only. And it’s not to congratulate you on being named Employee of the Year.

It was about noon, and I was in the new, north San Bernardino offices of The Sun to do my weekly IE-oriented notes column. I was going to lead with several paragraphs on Don Markham, the mad genius of Inland Empire prep football who, at age 68, is attempting to put a maraschino cherry atop his “mad genius” credentials by starting up an intercollegiate sports program (and, more importantly, to him, a football team) at something called American Sports University (current enrollment, about 30). A school planned and created by a Korean mad-genius businessman who either is about to fill a niche in academe or lose a boatload of money.

As it turns out, American Sports University is located in downtown San Bernardino in the very same collection of buildings occupied until October of 2006 by The Sun. The same buildings I reported to for my first day of work, Aug. 16, 1976, and then spent the next three decades of my working life. Later, I found that meaningful.

When the phone rang, my colleague, Michelle Gardner, had been talking to me about Cal State San Bernardino basketball, the aspect of her beat that most interests her. As usual, she was highly animated and barely paused for breath as I took the call, said, “OK,” and hung up. Michelle resumed describing the permutations of the CCAA basketball tournament and what it meant for the Division II NCAA playoffs. She was just getting warmed up. I basically had to walk away from her to answer the summons. Michelle does love her beats, and I admire her for that.

I may have laughed aloud as I went down the stairs. Certainly, I smiled. It seemed so silly. “They come for me at a random time and a random day. A Thursday. At lunch. Huh.”

I walked down the hall, looking for the personnel department offices. All the doors were closed, so I had to glance through the glass to find one occupied. I noticed a guy sitting across the walkway, a guy whom I once had worked with on a daily basis, when he was in the plate room and I would run downstairs to build the agate page. Mark Quarles. I remember wondering if he knew what I was doing down there, Thursday afternoon, and whether he might actually call out to me. Or whether it’s politically dangerous to acknowledge a Dead Man Walking.

I pushed open the door to Kopitch’s office, was invited in, and there was Lambert, looking smaller and thinner than I recalled him. Not that I had seen him often the past year, between my doing so many L.A.-oriented columns and him doing whatever it was he does. Corporate stuff, meetings off site, whatever.

I said, brightly, “I’ve been trying to think of a scenario in which this meeting is a good thing.”

Lambert said something like, “It’s not a good thing.”

I sat on the other side of Kopitch’s desk. As did Lambert, but he was turned slightly toward me and was about six feet away. Maybe that’s the way you do these things? On the same side of the desk but a bit removed? I remember a managing editor, name of Mike Whitehead, telling me, 20-odd years ago, that you never fire someone in your own office because if they insist on talking/complaining you can’t get up and leave. It’s your own office, see? So you fire people somewhere else.

Anyway, Lambert had a bit of a preamble. Something we hate to do, forced on us by economic realities, sorry … “but we’re eliminating the position of sports columnist for the Inland group.” I remember that fairly clearly, and I recall thinking “hmm, they leave it to me to grasp that I am not just a columnist but “sports columnist for the Inland group,” a title I’d never heard, let alone used. There was a flicker of “what if I were really dim, or contentious, and made him say it more directly? Like, “you’re fired.”

Lambert may have said he was sorry another time or two. How often he said it doesn’t matter because I don’t believe he meant it in the least. He could have said it 20 times or not at all and it wouldn’t have mattered. The guy hasn’t liked me since, oh, 2004, and I bet whacking me was the easiest call for him, of the 11 Sun newsroom people he fired that day. Dump a big salary (by Singleton standards) and a guy you don’t like at the same time? Easy. Fun, actually.

A military rocket launcher found in the front yard of Niranjana Besai in Jersey City

Mick Gregory

These used rocket launchers are actually worthless. I’ve seen them at Army surplus stores.

Yet, Drudge reports that a Jersey City woman made a “shocking discovery” on her lawn this morning when she noticed a military rocket launcher lying in the grass.

Niranjana Besai was leaving her house, located at 88 Nelson Street, to go to work just after 8 this morning when she spotted the launcher on her front lawn. “I read it and it [said] ‘missile,'” Besai told news reporters. “There was little ‘missile’ [writing] on it.”

She immediately called police.

Sources report that the device is an AT-4 missile launcher that is used to fire against tanks and buildings. The device was first approved by the U.S. Army in 1985 and questions are being raised as to whether the device was stolen from a branch of the military.

Its very powerful warheads can penetrate through well over a foot of armor, however each launcher can only be used once. The device found on Besai’s lawn was said to have been used previously and deemed inoperable.

Investigators are now trying to determine when and even where the launcher had been fired.

Officials initially expressed concern after discovering that Besai’s house is located along a flight path for Newark Liberty International Airport.

Residents along Nelson Street were alarmed by the discovery.

Besai’s neighbor, Joe Quinn, said he was outside of his home when he noticed Besai pointing at the device from her front porch. When he walked over to see what the fuss was about, he was just as shocked to see weapon, said to be about three or four feet long and weighing about 15 pounds.

“She’s pointing that there’s something in the front,” he told CBS 2 HD. “I said, ‘Let me come down and take a look,’ and I saw a little soldier on it and I said, ‘Whoa, that’s a missile launcher or something!'”

Quinn says he originally thought the launcher was just a pipe, but after noticing the picture of the soldier — which he described as a soldier kneeling, holding the launcher — he realized it looked similar to a missile launcher he’d seen on television. “I got scared myself,” he says. “It looked like a bazooka, and right away you think what does somebody want with something like that?”

Jersey City Police removed the launcher, and the incident is now being investigated by the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the FBI.

Sources say Besai is not involved in the investigation as a suspect. “I don’t think it was hers, they’re nice people,” Quinn said.

Don Imus — The Talk Jock Who Supports Democrats Gets Whacked by Sharpton. But who placed the call?

Mick Gregory

UPDATE:

Imus has campaigned for Al Gore, John Kerry and all the liberal Democrats up and down the East Coast. He’s been taking pimp/gutter slang from the street from start of his career in Cleveland in the late ’60s.

Tim Russert, the life-long Democrat, used to be on the Imus show every week along with Biden, Kerry, Leiberman, Sharpton, the entire list of the Democrat “Rat Pack.”

All but one, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Imus called her “the devil,” a Chavez-style nickname. It was clear, Imus was not on the Hillary/Obmama band wagon.

Talk show host and political watchdog, Michael Savage has a theory. The Clintons made the “hit” to take out Imus.

The Democrat’s biggest junkyard dog gets away with it again and again. So who knew he would get fired right at the start of the ’08 campaign for the presidency?

The MSNBC morning talk show host of “Imus in the Morning,” who supported the Al Gore presidency, the John Kerry campaign and this year, “the good liberal” Senator Dodd’s chance at the White House went a little too far this time. He called the Rutgers University Womens’ basketball team several N-word-style names. Rutgers is an Ivy League school and the young women on that team made it all the way to the national championships.

Can you imgaine if Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh said anything close to the Imus racist remarks?

The bias and propaganda machine is becoming more transparent due in part to citizen journalists.

Look at the attacks on Mel Gibson when he made some negative remarks about Jews and their treatment of Palsitinians and constant war in the Middle East.

It’s sickening when you look at how long this double standard has been in effect.

What is worse, the Democrat machine and media alliance will turn the Imus flap to their advantage. Watch them get the “Fairness Doctrine” back.

Gatekeepers in robes like the Revs Sharpton and Jackson will be joined by Oboma and Hillary deciding what content you should be allowed to see and hear.

Get ready for a Brave New PC World.

The Progressives are Fanning the Flames of Global Warming Fear

By Mick Gregory

There are skeptics about global warming among scientists who are experts on weather and climate. If you heard both arguments, you might not be so willing to go along with those who are pushing to impose more taxes, sacrifice jobs and the middle class standard of living to the latest cause, created by politicians and the media.

Why aren’t your major daily newspapers publishing both sides? Because they already took sides? That’s what I’m thinking.

The New Republic’s editor, Mick Crowley tries his best to discredit Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear.”

The uber-progressive, Crowley slammed one of the most well-educated authors of the past 50 years. Michael Crichton graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College, received his MD from Harvard Medical School, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, researching public policy with Jacob Bronowski. He has taught courses in anthropology at Cambridge University and writing at MIT. Crichton’s 2004 bestseller, State of Fear, acknowledged the world was growing warmer, but challenged extreme anthropogenic warming scenarios. He predicted future warming at 0.8 degrees C.

Crichton’s first bestseller, “The Andromeda Strain,” was published while he was still a medical student. He later worked full time on film and writing. Now one of the most popular writers in the world, his books have been translated into thirty-six languages, and thirteen have been made into films.

“It’s all like a Stalinist show trial. The senators all get up and make their statements and leave. No one listens. At one point in State of Fear, a sympathetic character observes that a Senate hearing is an “unquestionably manipulative” means of raising public awareness.

When I read this biased review, I knew I had to buy “State of Fear.” It has kick-started me to look deeper into to
the mass media and Progressive Democrat global warming scare. It must be “for the children.”

Mick Crowley — a neo-Stalinist, is a senior editor at The New Republic, the U.S. version of Pravada.
If he hates “State of Fear,” you know it is a must-read.

Salt Lake City Shooter Was A Bosnian Muslim Refugee. Sulejmen Talovic Killed Five Shoppers and Seriously Wounded Four.

By Mick Gregory

The mainstream media seems to cover up Muslim terrorism with their PC-style — very much like a full burqa cover-up.

Why was this not printed in your daily newspaper? America took in these Bosnian Muslim Refugees, gave them grants, subsidized housing and this is what we get in return.
I was wondering, why a shopping mall?

Trolley Square Shooter Bosnian Muslim Refugee
February 13th, 2007
Police have identified the victims shot at Trolley Square on Monday, as well as the man believed to be the shooter.

Killed were Jeffrey Walker, 52; Vanessa Quinn, 29; Teresa Ellis, 29; Brad Frantz, 24; and Kirsten Hinckley, 15.

Hospitalized were Allen Walker, 16, son of Jeffrey Walker; Carolyn Tuft, 44; Shawn Munns, 34; and Stacy Hansen, 53.

The 18-year-old man who shot and killed at least five people Monday night has been identified as Sulejmen Talovic, a Bosnian Muslim refugee who lived in Salt Lake City.

He managed to kill five and wound four. The body count would have been much higher, if off-duty Ogden police officer Ken Hammond hadn’t been on hand to pin down Talovic with gunfire until other officers arrived to help.

According to WaPo, investigators are “still trying to figure out” Talovic’s motives for wanting to kill random Americans.

How’s this for a good guess: Sulejmen Talovic belonged to the same blood-thirsty cult as Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, who ran over nine random “infidels” on the University of North Carolina campus with a rented SUV. And the Muslim from Northern California who ran over and killed men and women including an elderly women in front of San Francisco’s Jewish Community Center.

The Muslim community, which numbers about 3,000 in Utah, planned a news conference later this afternoon.

I’m guessing something about the “religion of peace” will be mentioned.

Czech Republic President Calls Man-Made Global Warming a ‘Myth’ and Questions Al Gore’s Sanity

By Mick Gregory

Man-Made Global Warming May Be the Biggest Hoax Ever Supported by the Mainstream Media.
Maybe there is hope. It’s no longer a done deal. Now a European head of state speaks out.
Check when this will be in the mainstream media. This propaganda is worse than the era of yellow journalism. At least there were real facts hyped in that era.

Czech president Vaclav Klaus has criticized the UN panel on global warming, claiming that it was a political authority without any scientific basis.

In an interview with “Hospodárské noviny”, a Czech economics daily, Klaus answered a few questions:

Q: IPCC has released its report and you say that the global warming is a false myth. How did you get this idea, Mr President?•

A: It’s not my idea. Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it’s a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It’s neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment. Also, it’s an undignified slapstick that people don’t wait for the full report in May 2007 but instead respond, in such a serious way, to the summary for policymakers where all the “but’s” are scratched, removed, and replaced by oversimplified theses.• This is clearly such an incredible failure of so many people, from journalists to politicians. If the European Commission is instantly going to buy such a trick, we have another very good reason to think that the countries themselves, not the Commission, should be deciding about similar issues.•

Q: How do you explain that there is no other comparably senior statesman in Europe who would advocate this viewpoint? No one else has such strong opinions…•

A: My opinions about this issue simply are strong. Other top-level politicians do not express their global warming doubts because a whip of political correctness strangles their voice.

• Q: But you’re not a climate scientist. Do you have a sufficient knowledge and enough information?•

A: Environmentalism as a metaphysical ideology and as a worldview has absolutely nothing to do with natural sciences or with the climate. Sadly, it has nothing to do with social sciences either. Still, it is becoming fashionable and this fact scares me. The second part of the sentence should be: we also have lots of reports, studies, and books of climatologists whose conclusions are diametrally opposite.• Indeed, I never measure the thickness of ice in Antarctica. I really don’t know how to do it and don’t plan to learn it. However, as a scientifically oriented person, I know how to read science reports about these questions, for example about ice in Antarctica. I don’t have to be a climate scientist myself to read them. And inside the papers I have read, the conclusions we may see in the media simply don’t appear. But let me promise you something: this topic troubles me which is why I started to write an article about it last Christmas. The article expanded and became a book. In a couple of months, it will be published. One chapter out of seven will organize my opinions about the climate change.• Environmentalism and green ideology is something very different from climate science. Various findings and screams of scientists are abused by this ideology.•

Q: How do you explain that conservative media are skeptical while the left-wing media view the global warming as a done deal?•

A: It is not quite exactly divided to the left-wingers and right-wingers. Nevertheless it’s obvious that environmentalism is a new incarnation of modern leftism.•

Q: If you look at all these things, even if you were right …•

A: …I am right…•

Q: Isn’t there enough empirical evidence and facts we can see with our eyes that imply that Man is demolishing the planet and himself?•

A: It’s such a nonsense that I have probably not heard a bigger nonsense yet.•

Q: Don’t you believe that we’re ruining our planet?•

A: I will pretend that I haven’t heard you. Perhaps only Mr Al Gore may be saying something along these lines: a sane person can’t. I don’t see any ruining of the planet, I have never seen it, and I don’t think that a reasonable and serious person could say such a thing. Look: you represent the economic media so I expect a certain economical erudition from you. My book will answer these questions. For example, we know that there exists a huge correlation between the care we give to the environment on one side and the wealth and technological prowess on the other side. It’s clear that the poorer the society is, the more brutally it behaves with respect to Nature, and vice versa.• It’s also true that there exist social systems that are damaging Nature – by eliminating private ownership and similar things – much more than the freer societies. These tendencies become important in the long run. They unambiguously imply that today, on February 8th, 2007, Nature is protected uncomparably more than on February 8th ten years ago or fifty years ago or one hundred years ago.• That’s why I ask: how can you pronounce the sentence you said? Perhaps if you’re unconscious? Or did you mean it as a provocation only? And maybe I am just too naive and I allowed you to provoke me to give you all these answers, am I not? It is more likely that you actually believe what you say.

[English translation from Harvard Professor Lubos Motl]

Oldest Newspaper Now Out of Print

For literally centuries, Swedish readers thumbed through the pages of the Post-och Inrikes Tidningar newspaper. Not any more. The world’s oldest paper has dropped its paper edition and now exists only online. The newspaper, founded in 1645 by Sweden’s Queen Kristina, became a Web-only publication on Jan. 1, 2007. It’s fate may await many of the world’s most popular newspapers.

Queen Kristina used the publication to keep her kingdom informed of the affairs of state, much like Democrat politicians use the mainstream media today.

What else is new? Editor and Publisher, the trade magazine for newspapers has been out of print for several years now. When in print, it was a small People Magazine size on a cheap glossy stock. Why wasn’t it printed on newsprint?

More bad news for newspapers — McClatchy Co., the second-largest newspaper publisher in the country, behind Gannett, reported a fourth-quarter loss of $279.3 million Tuesday after taking a hit on the sale of its largest newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The editor-centric company is not very savvy at investments.

In late December McClatchy executives announced that it was selling the Star Tribune for $530 million to the investment group Avista Capital Partners, well below the $1.2 billion it paid for the newspaper in 1998.

Newspaper values have been hit hard in recent years due to slumping advertising trends as more readers and advertisers go to the Internet for news and information.

For the full year, McClatchy posted a loss of $155.6 million.

Editor-Centric New York Times Loses More Than $800 Million in Fourth Quarter, Yet Makes Room for Baquet

The New York Times Co. posted a $648 million loss for the fourth quarter as it absorbed an $814.4 million expense to write down the value of its struggling New England properties, the Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

It’s fun to watch editors with no business acumen calling the shots and rearranging the deck chairs as the big old ship, New York Times takes on water.

The top editors made a space for the former LA Times editor, Dean Baquet. You have to wonder what hard-working, award-winning New York Times editors think of that, especially the next time there is another round of layoffs. Baquet was reported hoping and holding out for new owners of the LA Times to have him “back at the helm.”

“it became clearer and clearer to me that the New York Times was the place where I belonged now,” Baquet said.

Would Senator Biden think that Baquet is “clean and well spoken?”

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

Quote of the Week — By Tucker Carlson

“We ruined their country? It was kind of a crappy country to begin with.”

—Tucker Carlson, on America now being blamed for ruining Iraq, Tucker’s show, January 2, 2007

Blog of the Week — http://jamilhussein.com

Jamilhussein.com is a blog “Borat” — It’s a hit!

Jan0414:11
Media Opportunities
By: Capt. Jamil Hussein
I am very interested in developing new relationships with media representatives in Baghdad. I would especially be interested in on-air opportunities with Western broadcast media. I have fluency in English and can also converse in German.

As an Iraqi police captain I see many, many bad things. Just this morning I saw a Sadr City street brawl erupt into gunfire over a discussion about whether Cheetos Lip Balm is haram. Yesterday I witnessed a dog having sex with a sheep. Truly Iraq is descending into madness. I have many compelling stories to tell.

Please contact me through this website.

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.

Why did the LA Times ignore coverage of this hate crime?

Can a minority be a racist? Mainstream media journalists ask.
The LA Times and CNN stayed far away of this hate crime.

Again, a citizen journalist brought the truth to light.

The story broke on November 3, 2006, when an LA Web site editor William Pearl scooped other media on LBReport.com, quoting Long Beach police spokeswoman Jacqueline Bezart as saying a crowd of black attackers hurled racial taunts (“White bitches!” “We hate whites!”) at the young women, and the police were pursuing it as a hate crime.

At the Press-Telegram, reporter Tracy Manzer quickly landed an exclusive interview with the victims, introducing awkward issues of race and culture rarely (if ever) seen in California mainstream media. Said one victim, identified as Laura: “They asked us, ‘Are you down with it?’ We had no idea what that meant so we didn’t say anything and just walked by them up to the haunted house. They were grabbing their crotches — we didn’t know if it was a gang thing or what.”

Suddenly, newspaper editors, TV-news directors and other media faced an unsettling prospect of their own: If white-on-black hate crime is covered with an apologetic tone and references to the legacy of slavery, what’s the tone for covering black-on-white hate crime? Can a minority be a racist? And how can we, the media, get out of this?

As the Press-Telegram reported, three white women aged 19 to 21 emerged from a “maze” walk in a house and were confronted by up to 40 black teenagers who pelted them with pumpkins and lemons. The paper said, “The taunts and jeers grew more aggressive, the victims recalled, as did the size of the crowd. Now females joined in, and everyone began saying, ‘We hate white people, f— whites!’ ”

Notice there was not the around-the-clock coverage by CNN or any coverage by the LA Times.

Compare this “non story” with that of the Duke Lacrosse team. The alleged hate crime by a stripper and the Democrat prosecutor Nyfong.

Where will you read the followup? In the Mainstream Media?

Hip LA journo decides not to be recalled to Sacramento — On a listening tour instead

Here is another example of the smug mainstream media

By Mick Gregory

Ms. Laura Mecoy looked at the McClatchy marching orders of a recall to the home office in Sacramento and decided it wasn’t for her. Instead, the paper’s ex-Los Angeles correspondent takes a page from the many politicians she has covered:

After leading The Sacramento Bee’s coverage of Southern California for 14 years, veteran reporter Laura Mecoy today announced the formation of an “exploratory campaign” to determine the next chapter in her life.

Laura will launch her campaign with the traditional “listening tour” at local restaurants, coffeehouses, bars and anywhere else people gather.

Shortly before Christmas, The Bee announced plans to close all its bureaus, including Los Angeles, and “recall” its out-of-town reporters.

“I saw how the recall worked out for Gov. Gray Davis and decided it’s not for me,” Laura said.

Earth to “journo:” without your Sacramento Bee byline, you are a zero. Aren’t you happy that the Democrats you were spinning for will raise the minimum wage?

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.