-
Social Security Sell-Out Deal?
Michelle Malkin has a piece about our good friends the Senate Mavericks and how they are selling out the American people on Social Security Reform. Read the piece here:
BusinessWeek says Congress and the White House are inching toward a compromise on Social Security. Private accounts will not be part of the plan. Instead, the compromise would include (a) reducing the rate of growth in benefits paid to upper-income beneficiaries (as President Bush has suggested) and (b) sharply increasing taxes on upper-income taxpayers (i.e., those that earn more than
$80,000$90,000 per year). In other words, Republicans would give Democrats almost everything they want and get virtually nothing in return. Sounds like the kind of plan John McCain and other Senate “mavericks” will enthusiastically support.Time for baby-boom conservatives to exact their piece of flesh from so-called centrist Republicans.
-
John Bolton: The Senate Debates
The U.S Senate has begun debate on confirming John Bolton as U.S. Ambassasdor to the United Nations. Read the story here:
Exhaustive investigations turned up nothing to disqualify John R. Bolton from becoming U.N. ambassador, and he should be quickly given the post, a top Republican said Wednesday as the Senate opened debate on the long-delayed nomination.
Democrats, however, signaled anew that they may still try to block the nomination, which has been the subject of weeks of wrangling over whether Bolton, an outspoken conservative, mistreated co-workers or took liberties with government intelligence.
Flap is watching the debate on C-Span2.
Senator Dodd, you do not need additonal information. You will vote against his nomination, anyway.
Up or Down Vote tomorrow!
-
Justice Priscilla Owen Confirmed
Finally!
What patience after four years.
Read about her confirmation here:
Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen won Senate confirmation as a federal appeals judge Wednesday after a ferocious four-year battle, a personal triumph that also marked a victory for
President Bush in his drive to install conservatives on the nation’s highest courts.The 56-43 vote was largely along party lines, and made the 50-year-old jurist the first of Bush’s long-blocked nominees to win approval under a newly minted agreement by Senate centrists meant to end years of partisan gridlock.
“We cannot stop with this single step,” Majority Leader Bill Frist said in a written statement soon after the vote. The Tennessee Republican resurrected a threat to strip Democrats of their right to filibuster Bush’s picks for the nation’s highest courts if they violate the two-day-old accord.
“We must give fair up-or-down votes to other previously blocked nominees. It is the only way to close this miserable and unprecedented chapter in Senate history,” he said.
Hat Tip: Huffington Post
-
New York Times: Will Cut 190 Jobs
New York Times Company will be cutting 190 jobs, including journalists at the New York Times and Boston Globe Newspapers. Read the story here:
The New York Times Co. will shed 190 employees, mostly at its flagship newspaper, the company announced Wednesday.
In a statement, the company said the reductions will include “fewer than two dozen” employees in The New York Times newsroom. About two-thirds of the reductions will occur at the Times, with the rest coming from the company’s New England Media Group, which includes The Boston Globe.
Newsroom reductions will come from a “voluntary reduction program,” the company said. The reductions should be implemented by the end of August, Times Co. said.
All told, the reductions amount to less than 2% of the company’s total workforce, it added. “Staff reductions will be carefully managed so that they do not adversely affect journalistic quality, the smooth functioning of the Company’s daily operations and the ability to achieve its long-term strategic goals,” the company’s statement said.
Bill Keller, executive editor, wrote that the newspaper “concluded we can tolerate a slight contraction in staffing in certain parts of the newsroom, by reorganizing and consolidating duties in a way
that will not damage the paper,” in a memo posted at Romenesko at www.poynter.org.“Throughout our 154-year history, we have experienced peaks and troughs but we have always found a way to prosper. We have continued confidence in our shared vision, intellect and values, and we know that we will weather this challenge as well,” wrote New York Times Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. and New York Times Co. CEO Janet Robinson in a memo.
They also revealed: “Earlier this year, we began rigorously evaluating our operations to determine how we could further streamline them to improve efficiency and lower costs. At both The Times newspaper and the New England Media Group, many departments have identified cost savings and generally supported efforts to improve our bottom line. All of these efforts have included cross-functional groups of employees who are dedicated full-time to examining different functional processes.
“Given the current challenges in the advertising at the Times and the Globe and the cloudy economic outlook for the remainder of the year, we believed it was prudent to accelerate these ongoing cost control efforts.”
Flap has already reported that the New York Times will soon begin charging for on-line content. Read the piece here.
Now, the job cuts come along to boost profitability.
The blogosphere and other new on-line media are impacting traditional MSM, especially the traditional print newspapers.
How will these newspapers adapt and survive?
Stay tuned.
Hat Tip: Huffington Post
-
L.A Times: Perhaps O’Reilly Is Wrong
Flap previously reported the assinine comments of Bill O’Reilly here.
Now, the Los Angeles Times (free registration required) opines here:
In a May 17 radio broadcast, telephilosopher Bill O’Reilly fantasized unpleasantly that terrorists might “grab” the Los Angeles Times editorial and opinion editor “out of his little house and … cut his head off.” O’Reilly went on, “And maybe when the blade sinks in, he’ll go, ‘Perhaps O’Reilly was right.’ ”
What popped O’Reilly’s cork was an editorial one week ago on the Newsweek controversy. The magazine reported, apparently without good evidence, that American guards at the Guantanamo prison for terrorism “detainees” had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet. This reportedly led to riots in Pakistan and Afghanistan in which 14 people were killed.
Contrary to the impression you might get by following the story in the U.S. media, the riots were not about the journalists’ use of anonymous sources. They were about perceived American contempt for the faith, the culture and ultimately the lives of Muslim Arabs and other dark-skinned people in distant lands.
It is legitimately maddening to Americans that people whom we have liberated from tyranny or the nearby threat of it, at a vast cost in American lives and dollars, should be so spectacularly ungrateful, and should misunderstand us so completely. Why don’t they love us? It doesn’t seem worthy of decapitation to suggest that ghastly stories (not all fabricated by Newsweek) about abuse of prisoners don’t help. Or that American preaching about liberal democratic values might be enhanced by practicing them. For instance, by letting the Gitmo detainees (some totally innocent) have lawyers.
But to O’Reilly, “That’s like saying, ‘Well, if we’re nicer to the people who want to KILL US, then the other people who want to KILL US will like us more.’ ”
Where did The Times’ editorial page get the idea that winning the war on terrorism depends on persuading societies that breed terrorists that they should like us and adopt our values? Actually, this is not some wooly left-wing notion concocted over a joint during a lesbian wedding reception in Santa Monica. It is the cornerstone of the George Bush presidency, according to Bush himself.
In his State of the Union address in January, for instance, Bush said, “In the long term, the peace we seek will only be achieved by eliminating the conditions that feed radicalism and ideologies of murder. If whole regions of the world remain in despair and grow in hatred, they will be the recruiting grounds for terror, and that terror will stalk America….”
O’Reilly should be careful. Any further decapitation fantasies could get him in serious trouble with the Secret Service.
Touché, Michael!
-
Divita V. Ziegler
Vs.
Flap has been listening to the machinations of this trial the past few days on KFI 640.
Read about the trial here:
A Jefferson Circuit Court jury ruled against former WDRB-TV morning host Darcie Divita yesterday on every claim in her defamation and invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against Clear Channel Broadcasting, doing business as 84 WHAS radio, and talk-show host John Ziegler.
After a five-day trial and two hours of deliberation, the jury of eight women and four men returned the verdict at 4 p.m., upholding Ziegler’s repeated claim that the case had no merit.
Thomas Clay, Divita’s lawyer, said she would appeal.
Talk about a woman scorned agenda and a lawsuit that the judge should have stopped early as a matter of law (hasn’t the judge heard of NYT v. Sullivan?)!
In the British court system she would be obligated to pay Ziegler’s attorney’s fees.
And what chance does hshe have on appeal – NONE!
Divita needs to GET OVER IT!
For Ziegler’s show:
Flap misses Phil Hendrie at times.
-
The Digital Dentist: Freeware Programs
Dr. Lorne Lavine has a list of freeware programs that he finds indispensable:
1. Firefox. If you haven’t tried this web browser, stop what you’re doing and download it now. Far more secure and many more features than Internet Explorer.
2. AVG and AVAST. Both are excellent anti-virus programs. The free versions are meant for home use only.
3. PDF Speedup. If you’re like me and open PDF’s all day long, you know how long it typically takes for Acrobat Reader to open the file. This program reduces that from 10 seconds to closer to 1 second!
4. Picassa. Got a ton of digital images that you need to organize? This is a great free program, now owned by Google.
5. PowerToys
Check them out – you will be glad you did!
-
Canadian Adscam Scandel: Groupaction cash
Jean Brault former president of GroupactionA forensic audit presented yesterday reveals that Groupaction Marketing, one of the biggest beneficiaries of the federal sponsorship program, may have given more than $1.7-million to the federal Liberal party in unregistered donations. Read the story here:
The sum is in addition to the $800,000 that nine advertising firms involved in the sponsorship program, including Groupaction, made in official donations to the Liberals, for a total of $2.5-million over the 10 years examined by Kroll Lindquist Avey, forensic accounting experts hired by the Gomery inquiry.
The accounting firm was unable to trace any cash payments made to the Liberals but unearthed more than $400,000 in cash that Groupaction president Jean Brault would have had at his disposal between 1996 and 2002.
Mr. Brault has testified that he was leaned on to help the Liberal “cause” as payment for the lucrative sponsorship and advertising contracts being sent his way. He said he provided envelopes of cash and put Liberal workers on his payroll.
How can the Canadian people tolerate such blatant subversion of their government with these corrupt activities?
-
Adscam Scandel: Gomery War Room Funded by Taxpayers
Prime Minister Paul Martin has a taxpayer financed War Room to help him manage Gomery Inquiry public relations. Read the story here:
The Liberal government has set up a war room — at a cost of about $1-million to taxpayers — to handle the fallout from the Gomery commission.
Documents obtained by CanWest News Service through the Access to Information Act reveal the rapid-response war room, which is in almost daily contact with the Prime Minister’s Office and the government’s top bureaucrat, Alex Himelfarb, is operating out of the Privy Council Office.
The cost of the strategic office, which does everything from prepare answers for Question Period in the House of Commons to keeping the PMO abreast of testimony at the inquiry, covers the salaries of staff and expenses.
The Gomery war room and its cost came to light on the heels of last week’s complaints from Judge John Gomery about federal officials exaggerating the cost of his inquiry.
Officials at the commission looking into the sponsorship scandal say the total cost of the actual inquiry will come in under $32-million. Judge Gomery said government officials have “leaked” to the media that it is costing departments another $40-million to cover costs at four key departments, including the PCO.
“It’s an exaggeration and it’s twisting reality,” Judge Gomery said Thursday during the inquiry.
Revelations from the inquiry, which is digging into the $250-million sponsorship scheme, forced the Liberals to put $750,000 into a trust fund to pay back money improperly obtained by the party.
One memo to Mr. Himelfarb indicates the strategy office was set up almost immediately after the Martin government launched the inquiry in February, 2004, upon the release of Auditor-General Sheila Fraser’s damning report on the sponsorship program.
What is so surprising of a Prime Minister, and the Liberal political party who bribes (Flap means convinces) Conservative Party members to switch parties to save themselves from a no-confidence vote?
-
Day By Day by Chris Muir
