links for 2009-01-22

If President Obama’s election taught the GOP anything it’s this: Republicans must compete with Democrats in the online arena of social networking, fundraising and communication.

Improving the GOP’s technology capabilities has been a hot topic in the race for Republican National Committee Chairman and candidate Michael Steele gave Townhall an exclusive copy of the plan he’s pitching to RNC members to do just this.

“The Democrats are light years ahead of us,” Steele wrote in the 4-page memo which will be delivered to RNC members Thursday morning. “If we don’t act now, we may never have the chance to catch up.”
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About time……

Bankrupt Tribune Co.’s Los Angeles Times, the fourth-largest U.S. newspaper by circulation, plans to cut more jobs by March to help reduce costs, according to a letter sent to the press operators’ union.

“Time is of the essence and the company intends to implement the cutbacks no later than March 15,” Russ Newton, senior vice president of operations, said in the letter. “The pressroom will be impacted by this decision.”

The Los Angeles Times fired 235 workers in July and August and 75 more in October. Tribune declared bankruptcy Dec. 8, less than a year after billionaire Sam Zell took the publisher private in a deal that saddled it with debt.
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The MSM is dying on the vine

Despite the historically symbolic, hope-filled aura surrounding President Obama's inauguration, not everyone gave Obama's inaugural speech glowing reviews. For example, in an interview for radio KTAR, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) describes Obama's inaugural address as "low brow"

An unknown white powder was found in several packages mailed to the Wall Street Journal in New York City, according to Dow Jones.

Five employees were being decontaminated as a precaution, said FBI spokesman James Margolin.

Police evacuated the mailroom and another floor at the Dow Jones Inc. building.

At least four envelopes were opened and others were left unopened in the mailroom, police said. The Wall Street Journal said it had received more than a dozen envelopes containing the substance.

Field tests are being done on the substance. People who came into contact with the substance were isolated.

The paper's Web site says the mail was addressed to several New York-based executives of the paper, which is owned by News Corp. The postmark was Knoxville, Tenn., but each letter had a different return address.
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Not good…….

“Each year, millions of Americans use TurboTax to accurately prepare and file their federal and state tax returns,” Dan Maurer, senior vice president and general manager of TurboTax, said in a statement late this afternoon. “The software helps taxpayers report their income and find the deductions and credits they’re entitled to claim. TurboTax, and all software and in-person tax preparation services, base their calculations on the information users provide when completing their returns. TurboTax also has built-in error-checking tools that routinely catch common taxpayer mistakes. Federal law and our own privacy policy prohibit us from discussing specifics of any customer’s return.”
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Tax evasion or negligence?

President Barack Obama is going to get his blackberry.

On Monday, a government agency that the Obama administration — but that is probably the National Security Agency — added to a standard blackberry a super-encryption package…. and Obama WILL be able to use it … still for routine and personal messages.

It's not clear whether he yet has the device.
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Better have super-encryption or the messages will be leaked on the net.

If Obama moves forward, his administration will have to answer a basic question: If not Gitmo, then where? And if the answer is Fort Leavenworth, he'll have to explain why he's ignoring the objections of Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, once a potential running mate.

If it's Camp Pendleton in California, then Obama is overruling the objections of local congressmen, and we're left wondering where Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer will stand.

The U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina? Again, local lawmakers staunchly oppose the idea, and you would be dropping the world's most wanted terrorists into a heavily populated area near an interstate highway and a port, and about three miles from an airport.
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Plus Ca Change

In today's confirmation hearing, Treasury Secretary nominee Tim Geithner said he used TurboTax to prepare his returns for the years in question where he failed to pay self-employment taxes — even though he collected reimbursement from his employer, the International Monetary Fund.

Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, asked, "Did the software prompt you to pay those taxes?"

"Not to my recollection," Geithner answered.

Do any TurboTax users know otherwise from experience?

UPDATE: A reader responds, "I assure you that Turbotax asks very specifically if you got a 1099 or a W2 from your employer. I know it, you know it, the American people know it!"
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Ridiculous.Geithner was either negligent or intentional in his actions.

Geithner's prepared opening statement didn't mention the tax problem. But at the end of his remarks, he addressed the problem in a general way. "These were careless mistakes," he said. "They were avoidable mistakes. But they were unintentional. I should have been more careful." Geithner also apologized to the committee "for putting you into the position of having to spend so much time on these issues."

Barack Obama’s nomination of Timothy Geithner for Treasury Secretary, and the circumstances surrounding it, have raised many issues and questions — not only about the nominee himself, but also about senators and others reviewing it, the media’s coverage, and ultimately his presumptive boss’s leadership.

Here are the top ten disturbing aspects of the Geithner nomination, not in order of importance until number one.
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10 good reasons….

With Timothy Geithner’s Senate confirmation hearing scheduled to begin again today, voters are evenly divided over whether President Obama should scuttle his embattled choice for secretary of the Treasury.

Forty-one percent (41%) of U.S. voters say Geithner’s failure to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes in 2001, 2002 and 2003 should prevent him from being Treasury secretary, while the identical number (41%) disagree. Eighteen percent (18%) are not sure in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Late Tuesday afternoon, Fox News was the only major national TV outlet that carried a live telecast of former President Bush's homecoming speech to cheering supporters in Midland, Texas.

"Sometimes what I did wasn't popular," a smiling Bush told the crowd. "But that's OK. I always did what I thought was right."

The rest of the networks, however, did not see the Bush address as news fit to broadcast. At 6:40 p.m. EST, MSNBC was in the middle of "Hardball," with host Chris Matthews and guests batting around the meaning of Obama's swearing-in. CNN was carrying live ongoing coverage of the final moments of the inaugural parade, with the Obamas beaming from the White House reviewing stand.

The broadcast networks likewise did not cover the Bush speech. At least in Los Angeles, both KCBS-Channel 2 and KNBC-Channel 4 had returned to regular syndicated programming ("Judge Judy" and "Deal or No Deal"). KABC-Channel 7 was airing local news.
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Surprised MSNBC did not throw shoes

Timothy Geithner will call for a comprehensive and aggressive approach to tackling the U.S. financial crisis when he appears Wednesday at hearings on his confirmation as Treasury secretary, while also trying to assure lawmakers that he simply erred by failing to pay some payroll taxes earlier this decade.

At the hearing, Mr. Geithner will likely be grilled over his tax missteps and his role in helping to craft the Bush administration's financial-sector rescue. But senators' seeming reluctance to derail his confirmation while the economy is sputtering and the lending freeze is worsening makes it likely he will be confirmed for the cabinet post.
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The new standard: Treasury Secretarys who don't pay their taxes timely. Sheesh…..

More than a million giddy spectators convened on the national mall to watch Barack Obama take the oath of office today, but it is unclear if the crowd surpassed the record believed to have been set three and half decades ago at Lyndon B. Johnson's 1965 inauguration.

Though early estimates Tuesday ranged as high as 2 million, satellite images of Obaam's swearing-in suggested the actual size of the throng may have been closer to half that, according to Clark McPhail, a sociologist who has been analyzing crowds on the mall since the '60s.

"It was sparser than I thought," said McPhail, an emeritus sociologist from the University of Illinois. "There were lots of open spaces."
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And, it was cold…..Flap would never go to DC during the middle of winter for anyone's inauguration. Sorry.