links for 2009-04-22

The New York Times Co. fell into a deeper financial hole during the first quarter as the newspaper publisher's advertising revenue plunged 27 percent in an industrywide slump that is reshaping the print media. Its shares dived after the results were released Tuesday.

Rep. Jane Harman, who has come under criticism for what she said in apparently wiretapped conversations with two pro-Israel lobbyists under investigation for espionage, went on CNN today to defend herself, calling the government wiretaps an "abuse of power."

"And let's see who else was wiretapped. I mean lots of members of Congress talk to advocacy organizations. My phone is ringing off the hook in my office from worried members who are asking whether I think it could have happened to them. I think this is an abuse of power," she told Wolf Blitzer in an CNN interview.

The marriage issue "will be something that Republicans don't have to use. This is something that will bring a lot of people to the Republican Party because it's such a basic challenge to what people believe is the way society should be organized," he said on the show, asserting that more voters are concerned about economic issues anyway.

After huddling with state Senate Republicans in Albany Monday, Giuliani, who was in town to headline a GOP fundraiser, said he supports Senate Republican leaders’ plans to let their caucus members vote however they choose on Paterson’s gay marriage bill.

Nonetheless, Giuliani stressed his view that marriage is "between a man and a woman, and it should remain that way."

California's latest economic recession – unemployment hit 11.2 percent last month, fourth highest in the nation – has regenerated our perpetual squabble over whether the state's high taxes and regulatory climate have rendered it inhospitable to job-creating investment.

A conservative organization called the American Legislative Exchange Council says that's exactly what's happened, rating the state 43rd in the nation in economic competitiveness and citing its high taxes and regulation as the reasons.

The organization's recent report, titled "Rich States, Poor States," devotes two entire chapters to California, one of which contrasts the state with supposedly business-friendly Texas.

Social conservatives tolerated John McCain as the party's nominee, but never trusted him, and he now appears to be facing a serious primary from the right in Arizona next year.

Chris Simcox, the founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and a prominent figure in the movement to clamp down on illegal immigration, will announcing tomorrow at an event on the Mexican border that he's resigned from the group to run in the 2010 Senate primary.

You’ll remember President Obama’s aggressive lobbying for the porkulus package at a Caterpillar plant in February. Obama grandly promised that if the stimulus passed, Caterpillar would rehire laid-off workers — a claim that was refuted by Caterpillar’s CEO.

How’s it all working out for Caterpillar? Not so well:

Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles — In the first major disclosure of corruption in the $750-billion financial bailout program, federal investigators said Monday they have opened 20 criminal probes into possible securities fraud, tax violations, insider trading and other crimes.

The cases represent only the first wave of investigations, and the total fraud could ultimately reach into the tens of billions of dollars, according to Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general overseeing the bailout program.

In releasing highly classified documents on the CIA interrogation program last week, President Obama declared that the techniques used to question captured terrorists "did not make us safer." This is patently false. The proof is in the memos Obama made public — in sections that have gone virtually unreported in the media.

As Congress returns to begin an intense debate over reshaping the nation's $2.2 trillion health-care system, prominent left-leaning organizations and liberal House members are issuing a warning to their Democratic allies: Don't cave on us.
The early skirmishing — essentially amounting to friendly fire — is perhaps the clearest indication yet of the uphill battle President Obama faces in delivering on his promise to make affordable, high-quality care available to every American.

Disputes over whether to create a new government-sponsored insurance program to compete with private companies shine a light on the intraparty fissures that may prove more problematic than any partisan brawl.

And that's shocking, according to one contestant? And hurtful to the "Miss California family"?

Keith Lewis, who runs the Miss California competition, tells FOXNews.com that he was "saddened" by Prejean's statement.

"As co-director of the Miss California USA, I am personally saddened and hurt that Miss California believes marriage rights belong only to a man and a woman," said Lewis in a statement. "I believe all religions should be able to ordain what unions they see fit. I do not believe our government should be able to discriminate against anyone and religious beliefs have no politics in the Miss California family."

The other point is that Steele had probably the rockiest start of any party chairman in recent memory, most notably his comment on February 28 that Rush Limbaugh's program can be "incendiary" and "ugly." If we expected Steele's brouhaha with Limbaugh to have any impact on fundraising, we probably would have seen it most clearly reflected in the March fundraising numbers. But donations were up, $1.6 million higher than the previous month.

It's possible the RNC's numbers will get worse as the year wears on, but if they do, it will probably reflect other factors, fresher in the minds of potential donors.

On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency that had just awarded her husband's real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms.

Mrs. Feinstein's intervention on behalf of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was unusual: the California Democrat isn't a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with jurisdiction over FDIC; and the agency is supposed to operate from money it raises from bank-paid insurance payments – not direct federal dollars.