Another liberal newspaper about to bite the dust: San Francisco Chronicle to be sold or closed if owner can’t lower expenses dramatically
Looks like people will need to find another newspaper (The NY Times until it dies perhaps?) for birdcages and dog droppings. The San Francisco Chronicle joined the lengthening list of imperiled newspapers Tuesday as its owner set out to purge the payroll and slash other expenses in a last-ditch effort to reverse years of heavy losses.
If it can’t reduce expenses dramatically within the next few weeks, the Hearst Corp. said it will close or sell the Chronicle, northern California’s largest newspaper with a paid weekday circulation of 339,430.
Hearst didn’t specify a savings target nor a deadline for wringing out the expenses. A Hearst spokesman didn’t immediately respond to messages Tuesday.
But management made it clear that the cost-cutting will require a significant number of layoffs.
Hilda Solis approved as Labor Secretary – On the bright side 17 Republicans vote no
Another socialist, spouse of a tax cheat, Hilda Solis has been approved as B. Hussein Obama’s Labor Secretary. 17 Republicans voted no to confirm her:
Bond (R-MO)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)
Jennifer Loven not ‘Loven’ Republicans, already dissing them before B. Hussein Obama talks tonight
AP Obama water-carrier Jennifer Loven takes a slap at Republicans for criticizing President Obama’s 9pm Eastern address tonight to a joint session of Congress:
“Comments on Obama’s address came in early from Republicans, many hours before he had uttered a word.”
Loven filed her 826-word article on Obama’s speech at 3:22pm Eastern — “many hours before he had uttered a word.”
Standing before a nation on an economic precipice, President Barack Obama aimed to balance candor with can-do Tuesday night in his first address to a joint session of Congress. Millions more anxious Americans were tuning in on TV.
Obama was arguing that his still-unfolding economic revival plan has room for—even demands—a broader agenda including dramatic increases in health care coverage and wiser, “greener” fuel use. He was addressing an ebullient Democratic congressional majority and an embattled but reinvigorated GOP minority as well as worried viewers at home.
Just five weeks after his inauguration, Obama wasn’t charged with producing a formal State of the Union status report. But for all intents and purposes, that’s what it was: a night for the president to sketch out his priorities in a setting unmatched the rest of the year.
He enters the chamber to lawmakers of both parties hanging into the aisle for a chance to shake his hand or exchange a word. The gallery is filled, including a special section hosted by first lady Michelle Obama in which guests are selected to serve as living symbols of the president’s goals. Cramming the floor are the leaders of the federal government: Supreme Court justices, all but one Cabinet member—held away in case disaster strikes—and nearly every member of Congress.
(Hat tip: Abe Greenwald)
Uh.. “Mental Stimulus” for government officials who forget to pay their taxes.
I love it. A biotech firm in Wisconsin has stepped up to the plate with its own stimulus — a stimulant for government officials who can’t remember to pay their taxes and follow the laws.
Via the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
A Madison biotech company is offering what it is calling a mental stimulus package to government officials who forget to pay their taxes.
Quincy Bioscience will provide free bottles of its flagship brain-enhancing supplement, Prevagen, to any member of Congress or the Obama administration who has forgotten to pay taxes during the last 10 years, the company said this morning.
“We’re confident that after 30 to 60 days of taking the supplement, most legislators and government officials will recall, without being reminded by aides or reporters, all tax periods for which they have forgotten to pay state or federal income taxes,” Quincy Bioscience president Mark Underwood said in a news release.
Prevagen is so effective it also should help most government officials recall when they failed to make Social Security and Medicare contributions for undocumented household workers, Underwood said.
Geert Wilders Videos from The O’Reilly Factor and Glenn Beck
Here’s Geert Wilders on Glenn Beck yesterday:
Hat tip Gates of Vienna, Vlad Tepes, and International Free Press Society.
And here’s Geert Wilders on The O’Reilly Factor yesterday
Hat tip: International Free Press Society.
Eric Holder not attending Obama speech tonight
Attorney General Eric Holder will be the cabinet member not attending President Obama’s speech tonight to Congress in the House chamber for security reasons, a Justice Department official tells CNN.
The official said Holder will be staying at an undisclosed location.
Is he being a “coward” in the nation of cowards?
B. Hussein Obama’s rumored next cabinet pick: Gary Locke has quite a few skeletons in his closet. Aka he’s perfect!
Is it possible for Barack Obama to pick a Commerce Secretary nominee who’ll actually make it past first base? Bill Richardson withdrew in the midst of a pay-for-play scandal. Judd Gregg withdrew in the midst of a humiliating power play over the Census and porkulus bill.
Now, former Democrat Gov. Gary Locke — a lawyer for international firm Davis, Wright, and Tremaine who specializes in China — is rumored to be the next nominee for the post. The MSM is pulling for him. WaPo writes: “Locke is regarded as a safe choice by senior officials in the Obama administration given his long history in public life, his strait-laced reputation and his bipartisan governing credentials.” Wishful thinking? Willful cluelessness? Probably a bit of both.
Michelle Malkin covered Gary Locke when she worked at the Seattle Times. She dealt with his campaign and gubernatorial staffs. “Strait-laced” is not the adjective she’d use for my dealings with him and his people.
In response to her columns pressing Locke on his close ties to campaign finance crook John Huang, the governor’s office first stonewalled. His standard Democrat smokescreen? Play the race card and play the victim.
From June 1999:
Forget Publisher’s Clearing House – Watch this video of the Taxpayers Clearinghouse Prize confront AIG, Tax Cheat Geithner, Sen. Snowe
The Taxpayers Clearinghouse Prize Patrol travels to NYC, NJ, and Washington to present huge bailout checks to AIG, Citi, and other lucky winners of the bailout bonanza.
Plus: Showering Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner with cash:
Brought to you by the same creative folks who are offering the personal bailout contest at www.right.org.
Hussein Obama’s ego continues. First he’s FDR, then he’s Abe Lincoln, now he’s Ronald Reagan?
Because, uh, you know, the whole “Obama-as-Lincoln” thing isn’t working out and the fear-mongering President Doom costume wasn’t exactly boosting consumer confidence.
President Barack Obama won’t speak until prime-time, but his aides fanned out to the morning shows Tuesday morning to talk up his first speech before a joint session of Congress. And the word they used to preview it: “Reaganesque.”
“The president believes very clearly that we have to be honest with the American people about where we are,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“He will,” Gibbs said, “tell the country that we’ve faced … greater challenges than the ones we face now, but we as Americans always meet those challenges. But in the Reaganesque words, there are always better days ahead.”
It was a full-on rollout, befitting a State-of-the-Union-style speech to Congress, at a moment of economic peril for the nation.
Pssst. President Obama: Leave the Nancy Reagan insults at home this time.
Hussein Obama’s ego continues. First he’s FDR, then he’s Abe Lincoln, now he’s Ronald Reagan?
Because, uh, you know, the whole “Obama-as-Lincoln” thing isn’t working out and the fear-mongering President Doom costume wasn’t exactly boosting consumer confidence.
Gipper, meet Flipper:
President Barack Obama won’t speak until prime-time, but his aides fanned out to the morning shows Tuesday morning to talk up his first speech before a joint session of Congress. And the word they used to preview it: “Reaganesque.”
“The president believes very clearly that we have to be honest with the American people about where we are,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“He will,” Gibbs said, “tell the country that we’ve faced … greater challenges than the ones we face now, but we as Americans always meet those challenges. But in the Reaganesque words, there are always better days ahead.”
It was a full-on rollout, befitting a State-of-the-Union-style speech to Congress, at a moment of economic peril for the nation.
Pssst. President Obama: Leave the Nancy Reagan insults at home this time.
Norah O’Donnell goes Rosie on John Zielger over Sarah Palin / Media Malpractice: The documentary
Michelle Malkin just got her copy of John Ziegler’s new film, Media Malpractice — a damning indictment of the MSM’s failures and partisan complicity during the 2008 presidential campaign. Ziegler’s done yeomen’s work putting this together and it’s an invaluable contribution. John Ziegler is also know for his documentary/video How Obama got Elected. . After appearing with left biased Matt Lauer yesterday, where the lengthy segment gave plenty of time for dialogue, today Ziegler appeared with Norah O’Donnell and needless to say, it was a totally different story. If John Ziegler tried to keep it friendly with Matt Lauer yesterday, he had no such reticence with Norah O’Donnell later on MS-NBC. He called NBC an “advocacy organization” and wondered why O’Donnell didn’t get fired after misquoting Sarah Palin:
The new Raw Deal: Special Interests Dominate Fiscal Responsibility Summit
So much for keeping the special interests at bay.
For all the talk about reforming government, the bulk of the guests at Monday’s Fiscal Responsibility Summit are from groups with clear investments in the Obama administration.
Aside from the 64 representatives from the Obama administration and Congress, a sampling of the 56 “community leaders and stakeholders” shows that no less than seven union chiefs, 10 organizations advancing racial and ethnic concerns, 10 progressive think tanks and advocacy groups, three universities, three health care associations and at least six interests groups for women, seniors, disabled and gay rights groups were in attendance.
Six conservative think tanks and advocacy groups, two health policy organizations and four business associations along with one law firm specializing in Wall Street mergers, one retirement and financial services fund, a John McCain adviser and a representative from the Congressional Budget Office rounded out the guest list.
Is Chris Matthews finally losing that thrill up his leg for Hussein Obama?
Chris Matthews, Chris Matthew’s leg, and the others on MSNBC have lost that loving feeling for Obama. Jim Geraghty has the details:
Puma08 was shocked when they were watching MSNBC earlier, because, well they weren’t licking can hardly believe what I’m watching on MSNBC right now. Chris Matthews is almost critical — no, not even almost, he’s flat-out critical of President Obama on the economic front. He mentions an earlier conversation with CNBC’s manic stock analyst Jim Cramer and a University of Maryland professor (Peter Morici?) knocking Obama for several economic decisions — that the stimulus bill needed more real infrastructure and less pork, that the housing bill isn’t inspiring confidence and doesn’t look like it will work, and that no one has faith in Tim Geithner’s solution for the banks.
Howard Fineman of Newsweek says Obama has been “grim and a little distant at the same time . . . Tim Geithner hasn’t inspired any confidence anywhere, as far as I can tell.”
Matthews: “He seems like Barney Fife to me.”
Eugene Robinson: “I actually referred to him as Doogie Howser, Treasury Secretary, and I think it’s a little unfair.” Much laughter ensues.
More Fineman: “Despite his high approval rating and obvious intellect and goodwill, he hasn’t quite yet seemed to convey the sense that he knows the way forward and that he can get us there . . . I thought the first fifteen minutes of this show were devastating. Not that Jim Cramer is the only person they have to convince, but they have to convince people that they know what they’re doing, that they’re not just feeling their way forward.” Robinson points out that they are feeling their way forward.
Matthews: “I thought 8,000 was the floor, and it looks like 6,000 is the floor. People are angry, I’m getting angry.”
Porkulus 1.5? $410 billion omnibus spending bill: Gang tattoo removal, Maine lobster, La Raza & more!
Yea, well techically this bill isnt meant to “stimulate” the economy, but its basically as worthless as the one that is supposed to, and nearly half the cost. You want earmarks? There are lots and lots and lots of earmarks in the $410 billion omnibus spending bill coming down the road. Not that any of the people who are going to vote for it will actually read it, of course. If they did, they couldn’t look into the camera and sanctimoniously declare that, uh, you know, “There are no earmarks.”
The Modesto Bee reports:
During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidates Barack Obama and John McCain fought vigorously over who would be toughest on congressional earmarks.
“We need earmark reform,” Obama said in September during a presidential debate in Oxford, Miss. “And when I’m president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.”
President Barack Obama should prepare to carve out a lot of free time and keep the coffee hot this week as Congress prepares to unveil a $410 billion omnibus spending bill that’s riddled with thousands of earmarks, despite his calls for restraint and efforts on Capitol Hill to curtail the practice.
The bill will contain about 9,000 earmarks totaling $5 billion, congressional officials say. Many of the earmarks — loosely defined as local projects inserted by members of Congress — were inserted last year as the spending bills worked their way through various committees.
So while Obama and McCain were slamming earmarks on the camp aign trail, House and Senate members — Democrats and Republicans — were slapping them into spending bills.
“It will be a little embarrassing for the president if he signs a bill with that many earmarks on it,” said Stan Collender, a veteran Washington budget analyst.
Hill staffer Tom Jones is going through the omnibus spending bill with a fine-tooth comb, and Twittering his earmark findings, including:
* $200,000 for “Tattoo Removal Violence Prevention Outreach Program,” pg. 283;
*Maine lobster earmark in the omnibus, pg. 173;
*$5.8 million earmark for the “Ted Kennedy Institute for the Senate…for the planning and design of a building & an endowment,” pg. 232;
*and National Council of La Raza, $473,000 earmark from Sens. Bingaman and Menendez, pg. 212.
The Audacity of Dope – no, not Obama’s past drug problems, but California’s largest cash crop
Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps has made marijuana a popular topic. He was photographed smoking from a bong, lost corporate sponsorships, and was suspended from the sport as a result. But celebrities aren’t the only ones thinking about dope.
Some legislators in California have pot on their minds, too. That’s because the government of the biggest economy in the United States is facing a massive budget deficit whose pain would be alleviated by decriminalizing marijuana.
California’s current deficit stands at a whopping $15 billion and is expected to reach $42 billion next year. And the state run by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has virtually run out of cash. It recently delayed $3.5 billion of payments to taxpayers and counties.
Marijuana is California’s largest cash crop. It’s valued at $14 billion annually, or nearly twice the value of the state’s grape and vegetable crops combined, according to government statistics. Indeed, a recent report pegged marijuana as two-thirds of the economy of Mendocino County, a ganja hotbed north of San Francisco. That’s not surprising—it costs $400 to grow a pound of pot that can sell for $6,000 on the street.
Hussein Obama to help Hamas restock and reload! USA to send $900 million to help “rebuild Gaza”
Via JWF, who calls it a different kind of “stimulus package.” After flushing $800 billion down the toilet on the stimulus, flushing another $900 mil in a doomed attempt to buy goodwill from a revanchist anti-western culture seems almost like a bargain.
The money, which needs U.S. congressional approval, will be distributed through U.N. and other bodies and not via the militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza, said one official.
“This money is for Gaza and to help strengthen the Palestinian Authority. It is not going to go to Hamas,” said the official, who asked not to be named as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton planned to announce the funding at a donors’ conference in Egypt next week…
Clinton’s bid to get “substantial” funds could face an uphill battle in Congress because Hamas continues to rule Gaza and the U.S. focus is on its own souring economy…
The United States wants Abbas’s PA to play a central role in the reconstruction effort in Gaza, hoping this will increase its influence in the Hamas stronghold. Washington is also putting pressure on other donors to bolster Abbas.
Wasn’t one of the left’s chief criticisms of Israel’s Gaza operation that there was no Plan B if Hamas disintegrated? Fatah couldn’t ride in as the white knight on the backs of Israeli tanks to restore order or else they’d be seen as stooges and collaborators, we were told, not unreasonably. How is this de facto bribe of Gazans by Uncle Sam to restore Abbas to authority any different? And why would Hamas take the chance of letting the Palestinian Authority back into the strip knowing the threat it might pose to their hegemony? What am I missing here?
Hussein Obama’s stock market plunge continues. Stock markets reach their lowest level since 1997.
I guess Hussein Obama isn’t only trying to emulator Clinton with his retread cabinet picks, but also with the Stock Market. Today the Dow closed down nearly 251 points, ending at 7114.78 – the lowest level the stock market has been since 1997! Much like Hussein Obama’s excuse of being only 8 when his pal Bill Ayers will a terrorists, maybe we can cut him some slack since Hussein was only 35 at the time the stock market was this low.
Did you watch Hussein Obama’s media coverage of the suck-up fiscal responsibility summit today? If you did, consider yourself lucky.
Lucky in a sense, that if you were able to not vomit that is..
It was nauseating.
“Republicans” including John McCain and Eric Cantor joined Democrat tax cheat Charlie Rangel and spendocrat Henry Waxman, along with Obama corrupto-cronies such as the SEIU’s Andy Stern in a boot-licking session with Dear Leader.
He gathered them all in a press conference setting and called on them as if they were journalistic stenographers.
Obama paid lip service to bipartisanship. They paid lip service to bipartisanship. Obama declared the need to fix health care. They declared the need to fix health care. Obama said we had budget problems. They nodded their heads and bemoaned our budget problems.
It was one big game of…
Uh oh.. Monkeys. Does this now make me racist?
William Ayers to Alan Colmes: Obama Making ‘Colossal Mistake’ sending additional troops to Afghanistan
In an exclusive interview airing tonight on Hannity at 9:00pm ET on FOX News Channel, Bill Ayers spoke with Alan Colmes on a wide range of issues including his past with the Weather Underground and President Obama.
Ayers on President Obama sending 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan:
“I fear that this brilliant young man, this hopeful new administration, could easily burn their prospect of a great presidency in the war in Afghanistan or elsewhere.”
On setting bombs as part of the Weather Underground:
“I don’t regret anything I did it to oppose the war. It was — I did it to oppose the war. I don’t regret it.”
“I don’t look back on those things and regret them, but I’m willing to rethink them. And there are many things which I’m going to rethink.”
Developing…
Leave it to a liberal state like Washington to pull this moronic porkulus stunt
Oh. For. Crying. Out. Loud. From Washington state, here’s your moronic stimulus stunt of the day:
OLYMPIA, Wash. —
The state of Washington sent out $1 checks to the 250,000 food stamp recipients in the state.
The director of the Community Services Division for the Department of Social and Health Services, Leo Ribas, says the checks mailed Feb. 17 trigger an additional $43 million in federal food benefits. They also connect recipients to an energy assistance program.
Ribas says the $1 check is a one-time move to leverage the federal money. He says next year the state will be able to trigger the federal assistance through a routine deposit in food stamp accounts.
A commenter notes: “Well bulk rate is about 26 cents. Envelop another 5-10 cents. Plus printing at 5-10 cents a copy. Plus handling. I’m sure [the cost to send the checks] was as much if not more then the food stamps.”
Amber Gunn of EFF/Washington adds: “To top it off, a lot of recipients of these checks do not have bank accounts so the fee to cash the check is greater than the check itself (usually $2 to $5). Genius.”
***
On a related note, Kentucky talk show host Leland Conway (who organized the pork rind drive from Sen. Schmucky Schumer) sends along these $8 Obama bills symbolizing the $8/week stimulus tax break. Washington rammed the trillion-dollar Generational Theft Act down our throats and all we got were these lousy bills…
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