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Matt Davies

THE FALL OF AMERICA, INC. (by Francis Fukuyama, writing in Newsweek)
The implosion of America’s most storied investment banks. The vanishing of more than a trillion dollars in stock-market wealth in a day. A $700 billion tab for U.S. taxpayers. The scale of the Wall Street crackup could scarcely be more gargantuan. Yet even as Americans ask why they’re having to pay such mind-bending sums to prevent the economy from imploding, few are discussing a more intangible, yet potentially much greater cost to the United States—the damage that the financial meltdown is doing to America’s “brand.”
Why would anyone listen to Francis Fukuyama?  The fall of the Soviet Union, he said in 1992, was The End of History, meaning that communism had lost and capitalism had won, and that was that.  There would be no more experimentation with financial systems.  Of course, the Soviet Union was never really communistic, but what does that matter when you’re promoting yourself with a really catchy idea that has a catchy title?  So here he is, almost 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, telling us that capitalism, too, will fall, unless we use propaganda to keep that from happening.

If it means the end of wild west type dealings in the world’s financial markets, then this wake-up call could be a very good thing—in the long run, of course.  In the short run, however, many people will be dead.  And that is because we lurch back and forth between extremes, time and time again, rather than dealing consistently with the problems inherent in free societies.  If the goal were always to make policy that takes into account human frailties and the need to guard against them, and to follow strategies that maximize the benefits to the greatest number of people in the society, we might be less prone to these pendulum swings.

Unfortunately, what has happened here in the U.S. is that a few right-wing families have spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 40 years to build a propaganda-pushing infrastructure that has been very successful in moving the country to the right—at least nominally.  That was in reaction to a decisive move to the left in the 1960s, at least in terms of social issues.  If the objective were to keep us on an even keel, then the proponents of populist policy would be spending something to educate the public that right-wing policies do not provide the best outcome for the most people.  But they’re not doing that.  Maybe they think it’s the mainstream media’s job, but unfortunately the mainstream media has become the corporate media, and its minions push the corporate agenda.

From the book I would finish, if I could ever find a publisher:

The right wing has convinced far too many people that government is always bad and business is always good.  We must have a healthy skepticism about both government and business, and to be effective in protecting our interests, government must be at least as powerful as the most powerful combination of corporations.  We do not have to be cynical, just cautious—as cautious as we are in other aspects of our lives, as when an insurance salesman or a stockbroker calls and says he has a great deal for us.   Right winger Grover Norquist has said he wants to reduce the size of government until it is so small he “can drown it in the bathtub.” But we can afford to reduce the power of government only as far as we reduce corporate power, or we have no protection from corporate bosses.  Do we also want to drown corporations in the bathtub?

And we must balance the powers of government, as the founders intended.  Right wingers have been content to grant extraordinary powers to George W. Bush, but they have not thought of the consequences.  We must always remember that whatever powers we grant to someone in office that we trust, will also be available to those who come after, people we may not trust as much.

We must begin to think of government not as the solution to all our problems, and not as an institution that can never solve a problem, but as a tool we can use to solve what the majority agrees are our common problems…  We must demand that our government represent all of us.

I wish we had a presidential candidate from a major party who was willing to take on this challenge.  We don’t., so I’m voting for the Green candidate.

Moment of Truth (by Paul Krugman)
[O]n Wednesday the British government, showing the kind of clear thinking that has been all too scarce on this side of the pond, announced a plan to provide banks with £50 billion in new capital — the equivalent, relative to the size of the economy, of a $500 billion program here — together with extensive guarantees for financial transactions between banks. And U.S. Treasury officials now say that they plan to do something similar, using the authority they didn’t want but Congress gave them anyway. The question now is whether these moves are too little, too late. I don’t think so, but it will be very alarming if this weekend rolls by without a credible announcement of a new financial rescue plan, involving not just the United States but all the major players…

What should be done? The United States and Europe should just say “Yes, prime minister.” The British plan isn’t perfect, but there’s widespread agreement among economists that it offers by far the best available template for a broader rescue effort. And the time to act is now. You may think that things can’t get any worse — but they can, and if nothing is done in the next few days, they will.

Global stocks rebound after plunge on bailout failure (AP)
Bargain-hunting helped lift the London, Paris and Hong Kong stock markets Tuesday after investors worldwide had dumped shares following the unexpected rejection of a US financial bailout package.

Bush says anxiety feeding market instability (AP)
WASHINGTON - President Bush said Friday that the government’s financial rescue plan was aggressive enough and big enough to work, but would take time to fully kick in.

US stocks swing sharply in early trading (AP)
NEW YORK - Stock prices swung sharply in early trading Friday as investors again dumped stocks but also scooped up shares that have been devastated by more than a week of intense and panicked selling. The Dow Jones industrials, down nearly 700 points in the opening minutes of trading, recovered to a loss of just over 125 and then headed lower again.

Must reading now (by Paul Krugman)
I would be remiss if I didn’t link to the insta-booklet from Vox EU, Rescuing our jobs and savings. I agree completely with Baldwin and Eichengreen’s summary of what must be done — this weekend, if at all possible:
• Policy makers must move boldly to stabilise the financial system. The basic elements are:
• A quick bank recapitalisation with global coordination
• A guarantee of deposits and/or loans with global coordination
• Further, coordinated macroeconomic stimulus.

Loans are available, but there are new rules (McClatchy)
The Federal Reserve cut its leading interest rate Wednesday, but the ripple effect that usually comes from such a cut isn’t expected to help consumers soon. Banks continue to tighten their requirements for mortgages, car loans and in-store financing. Gone — perhaps for good — are the days of no down payment and 100 percent financing.
RULES, by goddess!  I thought we didn’t need no stinkin’ rules.

Oil plummets below $83 on global slowdown fears
LONDON - Oil prices plummeted to a one-year low below $83 a barrel Friday in European trading as investor fears of a severe global economic downturn caused by the crisis in credit markets sparked a panicked sell-off of both crude and equities.
So maybe people will be able to afford the gas to get to the jobs they no longer have.

Crisis could crimp defense spending, now at World War II levels (McClatchy)
WASHINGTON — With the U.S. economy in crisis and military spending at its highest level since World War II, military officials and experts are worrying that America may have to start reining in defense spending.
If the world were sane . . .

THIS will gall the right wingers:
For legions of lawyers, bad markets are good business (McClatchy)
NEW YORK — As the corporate victims continue to pile up in Wall Street’s great financial collapse, that flapping noise coming from the skies over Manhattan isn’t the pigeons circling, it’s the vultures.

At the Center of the Web (by Anglachel)
The Reckoning series by the NYT continues with its newest installment, Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy. I have read it over once, but this is an article that will bear several readings. It is hard to tease out just a few paragraphs. In short, the argument is that Alan Greenspan, with the help of Robert Rubin, fought tooth and nail to prevent any regulation of the derivatives market, even when evidence was provided that they were dangerous and unstable. “…Time and again, Mr. Greenspan — a revered figure affectionately nicknamed the Oracle — proclaimed that risks could be handled by the markets themselves… Arthur Levitt Jr., a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, says Mr. Greenspan opposes regulating derivatives because of a fundamental disdain for government.”

A disdain for government. This is what fundamentally ties all of these jokers together, the like Bush, Cheney, GAlberto Greenspan, Paulson, and the rest of the criminal gang. Government is for people who follow rules. They don’t need no stinking govenment. They will not tolerate restrictions on their freedom to do as the damn well please. Nothing, no matter how prudent, could be allowed to impede their philosophy of destruction… The article is long and detailed, with a good amount of background on Greenspan’s philosophy of economics. Read the whole thing. Bill Clinton should not have kept him on. This was someone who despised government and so had no business being connected to it. With luck, after this crisis, no one will listen to The Oracle every again.
Trouble is, the people who are wrong are the ones who appear as pundits in your corporate media.  On every single issue.

Does Income Concentration Cause Bubbles? (by Mark Thoma at Economist’s View)
Bubbles – the devastating kind – seem to occur during a period of time when income is becoming increasingly concentrated at the top. That then raises a question. Do large bubbles cause income to become more concentrated, or does the concentration of income cause the bubbles?… It’s interesting to note that the … dot.com bubble in stocks … that popped in 2000 - occurred when the concentration of income (including capital gains) hit a level very similar to the concentration of income in 1929, particularly for the top .01%. The concentration of income accelerates from 1995-2000 in both diagrams as the dot.com … bubble is inflating, and a similar concentration of income is evident as the housing bubble is inflating… So what causes what?
Click through to see the graphs.  Both major party candidates for president are firmly committed to enhancing the income concentration that is so detrimental to a free society.

Happiness, The pursuit of (by lambert at Corrente)
Stirling: “To green the American economy means starting at the other end: to change the things that people can buy, and the ways that they achieve happiness… If we allow people to believe that they can go back to burning oil to make hamburgers, and then sell paper backed by the idea that a century from now they will still be eating hamburgers, then the only result will be a war for the dwindling sources of oil, and then facing the catastrophic effects of global warming. It must be this that will be the direct project, not ‘alternative energy,’ but a new happiness and new goal for economic activity itself. We must remember that money exists in the real world. Money means what we say it means, and it exists because of its utility, not it’s God given certainty.”
Yes, we can decide.  If we’ll only take the initiative ourselves and not believe that some savior will come along to do it all for us.

Double digits (by lambert at Corrente)
[Per] BTD. You can start holding Obama’s feet to the fire right now, progressives! Before Obama works the phones to get another trillion allocated without knowing who’s getting it, why they’re getting it, where it’s going to go, or when it’s all going to happen. Or what the Fuck.
Well, now that I have permission, keep reading.

McCain Releases Letter To Obama (by Rabble Rouser Reverend Amy at No Quarter)
John McCain has claimed he is a reformer, and has the record to back it up. Obama has claimed to be a reformer, and to have worked with John McCain on campaign finance reform. His record does not back him up. But, don’t take my word for it, take Senator McCain’s:

…February 6, 2006… Dear Senator Obama: I would like to apologize to you for assuming that your private assurances to me regarding your desire to cooperate in our efforts to negotiate bipartisan lobbying reform legislation were sincere. When you approached me and insisted that despite your leadership’s preference to use the issue to gain a political advantage in the 2006 elections, you were personally committed to achieving a result that would reflect credit on the entire Senate and offer the country a better example of political leadership, I concluded your professed concern for the institution and the public interest was genuine and admirable. Thank you for disabusing me of such notions with your letter to me dated February 2, 2006, which explained your decision to withdraw from our bipartisan discussions.

The inspiring Barack Obama (by vastleft at Corrente)
Naturally, my reaction here qualifies as rightwing spin, but this tale leaves me a little underwhelmed. It shows Obama:
• Misunderstanding legislation and voting accordingly
• W.O.R.M.[*]-ing his vote (and trying, apparently, to subvert the rules to do so)
• Waiting five years before reacting to a problem
• Threatening to kick a political adversary’s ass, leading to physical violence

I guess I’m still having trouble getting attuned to the New Politics. The heroes of it are people who — because of personal grudges or failure to properly read legislation — vote against childrens’ welfare facilities and who, in the aftermath, verbally and physically assault the opposition. Oh, I get it: we’re all Republicans now.
*Per the Corrente glossary: “What Obama Really Meant” — a rationalization for a controversial statement by Barack Obama. Originally, a fictitious game show where such rationalizations are put forth.

Obama takes aim at McCain’s mortgage plan in new ad (On Politics, USA Today)
A statement that Republican presidential nominee John McCain made at the start of Tuesday’s debate — saying that if he were president he would “order the secretary of Treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America” — takes center stage in a new TV ad from Democratic nominee Barack Obama: “…Narrator: On Wednesday, the details. McCain would shift the burden from lenders to taxpayers –- guaranteeing a loss of taxpayer money. Who wins? The same lenders that caused the crisis in the first place…”

Obama Opposes HOLC? (by Alegre)
BHO’s issued a statement in reaction to McCain’s mortgage bailout plan, and I have to say I’m stunned that the Democratic nominee would stand against providing relief to struggling homeowners.  There was a time when Democrats would be the ones proposing stuff like this - not opposing it. “…McCain’s proposal would devote nearly half the $700 billion from the recent financial rescue package to buying troubled mortgages directly, rather than indirectly aiding the nation’s financial markets.” Sounds like a winner to me… I can’t for the life of me see how BHO could oppose this or ridicule any efforts to bring relief to the struggling homeowners out there.  But then I never could figure out why he ridiculed Hillary’s proposal to stop foreclosures for 6 months and freeze adjustable rate mortgages for 5 years so they could sort this mess out.  

Obama, the “Democrat” Opposes Homeowners Rescue Plan (by riverdaughter at The Confluence)
Let that sink in for a minute. According to the AP piece, Obama camp says McCain Mortgage Plan unworkable, Obama is suddenly concerned that the taxpayer would be unduly burdened… What’s wrong with this picture?  Helping strapped homeowners get back on track to pay their mortgages is in everyone’s best interest.  It’s not a Republican or Democrat thing.  It’s the *right* thing.  What is the point of forcing families into foreclosure on loans that suddenly ballooned beyond the homeowner’s ability to pay?  A homeowner who walks away from a mortgage is paying the bank nothing.  That interrupts the flow of money into the financial system.  Is it in the interest of other homeowners to see multiple foreclosures in their neighborhoods?  That sort of depresses house values, doesn’t it?  So, it seems like renegotiating the terms of these loans would be a very good idea for taxpayers who now have a stake in the banks who have been subsumed.

Who is actually hurt by this?  I can’t think of anyone who loses- except for the people who were gambling on big returns and are going to have to settle for a lot less… I can’t wait to see how the cognitively dissonant are going to spin this.

When the federal government won’t do the right thing, sometimes local governments will step in.
Illinois sheriff: No foreclosure evictions on my watch (CNN)
Sheriff Thomas J. Dart said Wednesday he is suspending foreclosure evictions in Cook County, which had been on track to reach a record number of evictions, many because of mortgage foreclosures. He said many of the evictions involve renters who are paying their rent on time but are being thrown out because the landlord has fallen behind on mortgage payments. Mortgage companies are supposed to identify a building’s occupants before asking for an eviction, but sheriff’s deputies routinely find that the mortgage companies have not done so, he said. “These mortgage companies only see pieces of paper, not people, and don’t care who’s in the building,” Dart said. “They simply want their money and don’t care who gets hurt along the way. “On top of it all, they want taxpayers to fund their investigative work for them. We’re not going to do their jobs for them anymore. We’re just not going to evict innocent tenants. It stops today.” 
I HEART my sheriff!

Plucky community group alerted sheriff to evictions (Chicago Sun-Times)
Chalk up a win for the little guys in the mortgage foreclosure crisis. A small victory perhaps, maybe a temporary one. But all in all, a step in the right direction Wednesday by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, due in large part to the aggressive advocacy of a plucky community organization. It was the Albany Park Community Council and the neighbors it represents who brought to Dart’s attention the insane way banks were being allowed to evict innocent tenants whose landlords had lost their properties through mortgage foreclosure proceedings — even when the tenants had paid their rent and knew nothing of the problems.

Party creep and the Big Zap (by Joseph Cannon at Cannonfire)
Just to prove how bass-ackwards this election year has become, the “conservative” candidate has proposed direct help to homeowners facing foreclosure, an idea which the “progressive” candidate nixes in favor of sending billions to the financial institutions that got us into this mess. Moreover, John McCain is being saddled with responsibility for the financial disaster — even though he (not Obama) proposed legislation in 2005 which would have done much to correct the problems at Fannie Mae. Previously, I’ve complained that today’s progressives are acting like Republicans. (You’ve heard the refrain: “Daily Kos is the new Free Republic.”) But who’d a thunk we’d see a day when the Democrats started governing like Republicans?

New U.S. intelligence report warns ‘victory’ not certain in Iraq  (McClatchy)
WASHINGTON — A nearly completed high-level U.S. intelligence analysis warns that unresolved ethnic and sectarian tensions in Iraq could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing the major security and political gains achieved over the last year. U.S. officials familiar with the new National Intelligence Estimate said they were unsure when the top-secret report would be completed and whether it would be published before the Nov. 4 presidential election.
If it helps McCain, it will be published before the election.  If it doesn’t, it won’t.

Afghanistan: The American Strategy Is “Destined to Fail” (by BDBlue at Corrente)
Buried in the onslaught of economic bad news is word that the British Amabassador to Afghanistan has predicted that the war against the Taliban will fail and that what needs to be done is to prepare the public to accept a dictator in Afghanistan because that’s the best option… But wait, we have bipartisan agreement that Afghanistan is the good war. That what we must do is send more military troops to Afghanistan, that that will make it better, not worse. All the serious people agree! We must be on the right track, right? Bipartisanship = Good.

“Sir Sherard, as quoted, was critical of both American presidential candidates, who have vowed, if elected, to substantially increase American military support for Afghanistan to fight the Taliban. In the short run, ‘It is the American presidential candidates who must be dissuaded from getting further bogged down in Afghanistan,’ he is quoted as saying.”… [H]e can’t really be suggesting we should be trying to dissuade Obama or McCain from anything. Not right before an election. After, maybe, but everyone knows your job is to support a candidate before an election, not ask him for a bunch of shit, like not getting more Americans needlessly killed. How very partisan and petty.

And isn’t it amazing that a guy so obsessed with getting beyond the “excesses” of the 1960s as Obama is seems committed to pursuing policies in Afghanistan that could leave him with his very own Vietnam. Perhaps the JFK comparisons were more apt than I thought.

ABC Report: NSA ‘Routinely’ Listened In On Americans’ Phone Calls, Passed Around ‘Salacious’ Bits (Think Progress)
Ever since President Bush confirmed the existence of a National Security Administration wiretapping program in late 2005, he has insisted it is aimed only at terrorists’ calls and protects Americans’ civil liberties… However, ABC News reports that the NSA frequently listened to and transcribed the private phone calls of Americans abroad, according to two former military intercept operators. These conversations included those of American soldiers stationed in Iraq and American aid workers abroad, such as Doctors Without Borders.
And the candidate of the so-called progressives voted for this.

Gallup Poll suggests Obama supporters are racist. (by garychapelhill at The Confluence)
Gallup has a poll that shows it is actually Obama’s supporters who are more likely to show bias against a candidate based on his race.  According to that poll, nonwhites (a term not defined in the article btw) are twice as likely to not vote for John McCain because of his race than white people are to withold their votes from Obama because of his.  Will this get ANY airtime in the media?  Of course not.   And what you definitely won’t hear, but which this poll suggests, is that Obama actually benefits because of his race.  And this is largely due to the racial bias of his supporters… Poor John McCain.  If only Americans weren’t so racist….
Click through for details and graphs.

Snapshots of 2001 — Reality is Not What It Seems (by Matthew Weaver at No Quarter, from his blog, The Independent View)
Google has made available its search engine index from 2001 as part of its 10th anniversary. Here are a few tidbits that you may not find on today’s Internet…

13TH DISTRICT, Democrat: Barack Obama. Supports gay rights, same-sex marriage; increased AIDS funding, abortion rights, affirmative action. Endorsed by IFHR, IMPACT, IVI-IPO, Illinois and Chicago NOW, Personal PAC.—Trudy Ring, Elections set for Illinois House, Senate,; McKeon runs for Rep, November 1996.

Obama was an active member of the now-defunct socialist New Party! “Chicago DSA is affiliated with the national Democratic Socialists of America.”

Lunch Break - the socialists love him so. and Across the Universe. (by J –SOM at Liberal Rapture)
Hey kids - plenty of Western democracies elect socialists and then throw them out. Why should we be any different?
The facts here are overwhelming that BHO was committed to the ”New” Party and the DSA platforms until relatively recently. There is no dispute about this yet. The pod line of defense is that calling the Dem a socialist is an old “canard”. They have a point. The Right has called every Dem a socialist for so long it is hard to take it seriously. In this case, though, the accusation carries some weight. You have to go back to Henry Wallace to find someone this close to the Presidency and so close to a loopy Left agenda at the same time…

I am not much afraid of old line socialists - like Bernie Sanders. My fear is that Ayres and Obama and crew are not merely socialists - they are radical control freaks :the Left’s version of Cheney and his cabal. Hence the FISA flip flop. But right now, I am more interested in the Obama campaigns lies and spin on this than I am afraid of a Socialist president. Finally, Obama’s ideology is Obama.

Palomino Ponderings (by Anglachel)
I’m beginning to understand how Republicans like Lincoln Chafee must feel looking at the takeover of their party by the Movement Conservatives. What should be a celebratory election for me, the downfall of the Reaganauts, leaves me feeling angry and betrayed… People who have been the most loyal to the party, their dedication and service spanning decades, were declared unfit to show their faces and told they were no longer wanted. In the caucuses, they were physically threatened. Others have been sent death threats, have been stalked, have had their property vandalized. The violence done to people within the party is outdone only by the denials that anything is wrong and we’d better make the best of the situation we’re in. I can only compare it to being forced to cohabitate with your rapist… I have no answer to the violence and cruelty than has seized my party. But I’m thinking.

Obama: I Assumed Ayers Had Been Rehabilitated (by Jake Tapper at Political Punch, ABC News)
In an interview with conservative Philadelphia radio talk show host Michael Smerconish [Thursday], Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said his relationship with William Ayers is being questioned and his middle name is being invoked at events for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to distract voters from the economy. You can listen to the audio HERE, courtesy of Politico. “This is a red herring,” Obama said of the Ayers story,” because people don’t want to talk about the fact that economy over the last eight years has been mismanaged to the point that we’re teetering on a really, really bad situation… One of the problems with being in public life is you end up knowing all sorts of people,” Obama said. “And you’re not going to do a vet or an investigation on every single one of them.”
Maybe not, but Obama isn’t just any politician.  He’s been planning his presidency since his law school days, at least, and you’d think that would have made him more careful about his associations.  But he has only cared whether the person in front of him could and would help him catapult to the next rung of the ladder.  He’s never given a damn about their ideology.  That’s what makes him soulless.  He has no beliefs except in his own superiority.  Not to mention that his story on the Ayers relationship changes from day to day.

When It Comes to Ayers, It is Participation that Matters (by Larry Johnson at No Quarter)
Barack Obama is a liar. Plain and simple. When he was asked about William Ayers, unrepentant terrorist, in an April Democratic debate this year, he said: “…This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who’s a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He’s not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis…” But we now know that is not true. Obama tries to create the impression that his contact with Ayers was incidental and there was no meaningful contact. He persists with this myth in [Wednesday’s] interview with Charlie Gibson… [T]hey spent time … working together on a common project heading to the same destination. That ain’t association, that is a relationship of some depth… He is not responsible for Ayers’ actions in the sixties. But he is responsible for choosing to work for, work with, and solicit political support from Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn…

This is not guilt by association. This is guilt because of continued participation. And Barack continues to lie about the nature of the relationship. The McCain campaign … put out this comprehensive summary of Obama’s prevarications and slipperiness…

Since Monday, The Obama Campaign Has Had Six (6) Distinct Stories About Barack Obama’s Relationship With Bill Ayers:

· STORY #1: David Axelrod And Robert Gibbs Said For The First Time That Barack Obama Did Not Know About Bill Ayers’ Past When Ayers Held A Coffee For Obama In 1995

· STORY #2: Obama Senior Adviser Robert Gibbs Said He Didn’t Know The “Details” Of Ayers’ Relationship

· STORY #3: Obama Spokesman Bill Burton Said That Barack Obama Did Not Launch His Political Career At Ayers’ House And Didn’t Write A Blurb For An Ayers’ Book.

· STORY #4: David Axelrod Confirmed That Barack Obama Knew About Ayers’ Past After Their Initial Meetings; Contradicted Earlier Story And Said “No One Is Suggesting That He Never Knew”

· STORY #5: Obama Senior Adviser Anita Dunn Says When Barack Obama Went To Ayers’ House, He Was Merely Attending A Meeting Of State Senator Alice Palmer’s Supporters – A Statement Contradicted By Palmer

· STORY #6: Obama Senior Adviser Robert Gibbs Says After Barack Obama Knew About Ayers’ Past He Continued To Associated With Bill Ayers
Why so many different stories?  What is he hiding?  And why won’t he provide a legitimate copy of his birth certificate to a federal court?  Why is he stalling?  What does he have to hide?

it isn’t coincidence…there is a pattern (by American Girl in Italy at No Quarter)
But sadly, too many people choose to ignore it, or accept it, or just call you a racist for noticing it. But the pattern is there. It begins like this: Obama has a friend or associate that is questionable. Video or articles surface of Obama thanking them, supporting them, writing a blurb for their book, organizing events for them, campaigning for them, campaigning with them, playing poker with them, serving on boards with them, buying homes with them, dining with them, praising them, using them to prove his christian faith, or hiring them. Obama then denies their tight relationship - brushes the association off as *a guy in the ‘hood*, claims they are someone who doesn’t advise him, minimizes the actual number of times he attended church, says he can’t vet his vetters, or flat out lies. Obama THEN completely denies any knowledge of who they really are, denies ever knowing who they were, what they said, what they did, how corrupt they were, any fraud they were up to, and what they were preaching.

People - this isn’t a coincidence. One or two nefarious associations can be examined and written off. But there is a looooooooong list of people that Obama is close to - whether they be family members, business partners, friends or co-workers who are either radicals, criminals, racist, or anti-American.
Click through to see the list.  It’s amazingly long.

If... (by J –SOM at Liberal Rapture)
If John McCain had started his career in Timothy McVeigh’s living room the media would:
• Give the story wall to wall coverage. Condemn McCain’s judgement.
• Make excuses for McCain like they are for Ayres/Obama
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Palin pre-empts state report, clears self in probe (AP)
Trying to head off a potentially embarrassing state ethics report on GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report Thursday that clears her of any wrongdoing… Lawmakers are expected to release their own findings Friday. Campaign officials have yet to see that report — the result of an investigation that began before she was tapped as McCain’s running mate — but said the investigation has falsely portrayed a legitimate policy dispute between a governor and her commissioner as something inappropriate.

Alaska Supreme Court won’t halt ‘troopergate’ probe (McClatchy)
The Alaska Supreme Court today rejected an attempt by a group of six Republican legislators to shut down the Legislature’s investigation of Gov. Sarah Palin.

Fired official asked Palin about her car seat use with Trig (McClatchy)
Todd Palin talked with over a dozen state officials, many of them repeatedly, in his crusade to get a state trooper fired who he considered to be a bad cop, a dishonest person and a threat to the Palin family, according to his sworn statement given Wednesday to a legislative investigator.

Many Say Press Has Been Too Tough on Palin (Pew Research)
Strong majorities of the public say the press has been fair to John McCain, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. But fewer than four-in-ten (38%) say the press has been fair to Sarah Palin. Many more believe the press has been too tough on Palin (38%) than say it has been too easy (21%). While opinions about Palin coverage are highly partisan, many independents share the view that the press has been too tough on the Alaska governor.

How Sarah Palin Won the Election… And Saved America Does Not As Yet Have a Publisher (New York Observer)
We talked to some publishing people about why more reporters out on the campaign trail aren’t working on books about the election — and why the handful who are doing it think it’s a good idea. One campaign book that has already bitten the dust is right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt’s How Sarah Palin Won the Election… which the literary agent Curtis Yates sent to publishers in New York last week.

Obama Buys 30 Minutes of TV Time (Political Wire)
Sen. Barack Obama has purchased a half-hour of airtime on CBS, reports Live Feed. “The Obama campaign will air a half-hour primetime special on Wednesday, Oct. 29, at 8 p.m. Sources say the Obama camp is also in talks with NBC and Fox. NBC is said to be very near a deal. With Fox, the matter is likely to remain uncertain as the time period could conflict with Game 6 of the World Series.”

The Beavis and Butthead school of journalism strikes again (No Quarter)
Last weekend Slate Magazine, a Washington Post subsidiary, featured on the front page of its website a cartoon showing Sarah Palin on a stool wearing a skimpy red dress, breasts popping out, with a bible squeezed between her bare thighs. In the accompanying article, The Sexy Puritan, author Tom Perrotta mused aloud that Sarah Palin was emblematic of a new breed of Christian women who alternately boast about their pre-marital virginal purity and, once properly wed, titillate their spouses with “anal sex, fisting, and ‘masturbating for your husband.’” Got that? Right. Basically the article is about the contents of Tom Perrotta’s head, not anything Sarah Palin has ever done, said, or symbolized.

The New Agenda, the new non-partisan women’s rights group, sent a strongly worded letter to David Plotz, the current editor of Slate Magazine, protesting the publication of the article: “…Have you no shame, Mr. Plotz? As the editor of Slate Magazine, you are responsible for its content, and it is our opinion at The New Agenda that your publishing of articles of this nature about Governor Palin is a calculated attempt to demean her…” In response, David Plotz sent [a] reply, which lacked only an animated gif of a man’s hand patting a woman on the head: “…I’m sorry the article troubled you. Perrotta’s piece is insightful, witty, and provocative… Needless to say, we will not be removing it or altering it…” Got that? Gratuitous commentary about anal sex and masturbation = “insightful, witty, and provocative.”
Click through for contact information if you would like to tell Slate what you think.

The David Brooks contradiction cont’d (County Fair, Media Matters for America)
Last Friday we noted the hypocrisy of the Times’ David Brooks, the East Coast media elite intellectual, cheering Palin’s debate performance and her anti-intellectual approach; cheering the way Palin’s “accent, her colloquialisms and her constant invocations of the accoutrements of everyday” likely connected with “casual parts of the country.” That struck us as rather embarrassing narrative for Brooks of all people to embrace. And guess what? Apparently so did Brooks. Because on Monday during an interview, he did a complete about-face and announced that Palin and her anti-intellectual approach represents a “a fatal cancer to the Republican party.” And that she was no way qualified to be VP. So to recap: On Friday, Palin was the star of the GOP. On Monday she represented a cancer. At least Brooks now has the bases covered.

Paris has her fake solutions for the fake presidency (On Politics, USA Today)
Paris Hilton has some more fun with politics in her latest video for Will Ferrell’s Funny or Die productions.
Click through to watch the video.

Fo Po (by Joseph Cannon at Cannonfire)
In case you have not seen this yet: Paris Hilton, in an interview with actor Martin Sheen, has announced that she is continuing her fake run for the presidency. “Running for fake president is a little daunting,” a heavily made-up Hilton tells Martin Sheen, whom she calls “one of our greatest fake presidents.” “Being a fake president is a lot harder today than it was when I was a fake president,” says Sheen, who has often played American presidents, most notably on TV’s “The West Wing.” Hilton talks with Sheen about “Fo Po” — “Foreign policy, silly” — and shares what could be her real views on the economy and the war in Iraq. “Iraq has a Democratic government that is asking for us to leave,” she says. “It seems that we’ve done our job and we should bring our troops home safely.” Well, she’s smarter than the current fake president.
So what would be our candidates’ celebrity names?  J-Mac and  Bar-Ob?

Second debate draws 66 million viewers (On Politics, USA Today)
Nielson and PBS have released viewership for the second presidential debate. The good news for Barack Obama and John McCain: They got a bigger audience then the one that tuned in for their first debate. The bad news — their vice presidential picks proved a bigger draw. Nielsen reports that 63.2 million people watched the Tuesday night town hall debate. PBS reported separately an audience of 2.8 million. The first presidential debate attracted about 55 million, including PBS, while the vice presidential audience topped 73 million.

McCain addresses crowd as ‘my fellow prisoners.’ (Think Progress)
The Jed Report notes that in a rally [Wednesday], Sen. John McCain referred to his audience as “my fellow prisoners“.
Before you get too excited Obamalites, if any are left reading my website, Obama has made similar mistakes, and he’s a much younger man.

Fox report: ‘More and more’ McCain rallies are taunting Obama as ‘traitor, criminal, and even terrorist.’ (Think Progress)
Fox News’ political reporter Carl Cameron is on the trail with John McCain. Reporting from a live McCain rally [Wednesday] evening, he said: “You’ll hear the booing behind me. In recent days, when Barack Obama’s name has been mentioned, it has gone from boos and hissing to actual chants and calls of traitor, criminal, and even terrorist. The McCain campaign says they don’t condone it, they don’t want to see it happen, but it’s happening more and more every day.”
Click through to watch the video.

States’ purges of voter rolls appear illegal (New York Times)
Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law, according to a review of state records and Social Security data by The New York Times. The actions do not seem to be coordinated by one party or the other, nor do they appear to be the result of election officials intentionally breaking rules, but are apparently the result of mistakes in the handling of the registrations and voter files as the states tried to comply with a 2002 federal law, intended to overhaul the way elections are run. Still, because Democrats have been more aggressive at registering new voters this year, according to state election officials, any heightened screening of new applications may affect their party’s supporters disproportionately. The screening and trimming of voter registration lists in the six states — Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina — could also result in problems at the polls on Election Day: people who have been removed from the rolls are likely to show up only to be challenged by political party officials or election workers, resulting in confusion, long lines and heated tempers.

Ohio secretary of state must verify registrations (AP)
A federal judge on Thursday ordered Ohio’s top elections official to verify the identity of newly registered voters by matching them with other government documents. U.S. District Judge George C. Smith in Columbus ruled that Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner must perform verification required by the Help America Vote Act. That includes matching new registrants’ information against information in databases maintained by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles or the Social Security Administration. The order was the result of a lawsuit the Ohio Republican Party filed against Brunner, a Democrat.

Two Presidential Candidates Pledge to Challenge Suspicious Elections (PR Newswire)
Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader and Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney have taken the Standing For Voters ‘Super Pledge’ offered by StandingForVoters.org, a project of VelvetRevolution.us.

Meet the Press Ratings Fade Without Russert  (New York Post)
The death last summer of Tim Russert is taking a toll on the once invincibleMeet the Press. The show that Russert hosted for 17 years is steadily falling in the ratings. Late last month, for the first time in two years, CBS’ Face the Nation beat MTP in total viewers — though CBS did have Barack Obama on that week.

Hannity to become ‘an even more prominent part of Fox’ after election. (Think Progress)
The New York Times reports today that Sean Hannity has agreed to stay at Fox News until 2012, and “is expected to become an even more prominent part of Fox’s opinion programming.” Fox executives are reportedly pleased with his Sunday-night show “Hannity’s America,” and in a statement, Fox senior vice president for programming Bill Shine said that Hannity would “remain a marquee name at Fox News for several years to come.” Fox declined to comment on the future of Bill O’Reilly or Alan Colmes.

Lawyer: CBS’ ‘Fraud’ Hurt Rather’s Income
Dan Rather could have made millions of dollars more per year if CBS had not defrauded him before firing him, his lawyer said Tuesday. Martin Gold discussed the finances after a hearing on Rather’s ongoing $70 million breach-of-contract lawsuit. Rather says he was removed from the evening news anchor chair and given little to do after a disputed story about President Bush’s military service.

Calif. Ballot Initiative Threatens To Strip Marriage Rights From Same-Sex Couples (American Constitution Society)
On November 4, California voters will be presented with a ballot initiative intended to strip away the fundamental right to marry from same-sex couples.  Proposition 8, known as the “Eliminates Rights of Same-Sex Couples to Marry Act,” would alter the California Constitution to bar lesbian and gay couples from marriage… If Proposition 8 passes – and current polls indicate that the election will be very close – it would mark the first time that voters in any state have stripped same-sex couples of an existing, established right to marry.  It would also mark the first time that California voters have used the initiative process to eliminate a fundamental right only for a particular group, based on a suspect classification. If Proposition 8 were enacted, the fate of the thousands of same-sex couples who have already married in California is unclear.
It’s cruel.  Just plain cruel.

Tennessee Supreme Court Makes Progress (by tnjen at Corrente)
Amidst all the gloomy news, there’s finally something to celebrate. The Supreme Court of Tennessee is now composed of a female majority for the first time in the state’s history! Given that Tennessee has never elected a female Governor or a female US Senator and that females still hold only about 20% of the state’s judgeships, the news is all the sweeter. “…Wisconsin, New York and Washington, D.C., are the only other states that can boast the distinction of having a female majority, and those in the legal community say Tennessee can attribute its progress, in part, to Gov. Phil Bredesen.”

Media Matters for America headlines

• Hannity vs. Hannity: Is he, or is he not, a “journalist”?

• O’Reilly falsely claimed Obama did not vote to condemn attacks on Petraeus and Kerry

• MSNBC’s Witt falsely suggested Obama concealed Ayers event when referring to Ayers as “a guy who lives in my neighborhood”

• Politico quoted from McCain campaign’s Ayers ad without noting its distortions

• In sketch on Corsi’s detention in Kenya, Liddy played audio of “jungle telegraph drums”

• Ignoring its own reporting, NY Times did not point out falsehoods in Corsi’s smear books on Obama, Kerry

• MSNBC.com’s First Read again falsely claimed McCain “did not vote” against troop funding

• NY Times’ Bumiller uncritically quoted McCain’s distortion of Obama’s remarks on subprime lending

• ABC’s David Wright uncritically repeated Palin claim that Obama has been “palling around with terrorists”

• Savage: “I fear that Obama will stir up a race war … in order to seize absolute power”

• Media continue to repeat Cindy McCain’s comment about troop funding without noting her husband’s own vote

UK: Government Will Spy On Every Call And E-mail
Ministers are considering spending up to 12 billion on a database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits, e-mail and telephone records of everyone in Britain.

Israel Doesn’t Want to Hear Good News. Does Anyone? (Paid Content)
Israeli man-of-all-media Yair Lapid has an interesting lament in his latest column. In today’s column, The News You Want, he tells the tale of the “good news” segment he insisted on putting in his new TV show. It was a nice idea — especially in Israel, where the country’s mainstream media tend toward the tabloid. Lapid points out he created the special items in exact response to people who complained to him that the media only report “bad” news. However, Lapid recently decided to kill his good news feature. Why?

Judge Keeps RealDVD Distribution Restraining Order In Place (Paid Content)
RealNetworks’ chances with RealDVD seem to be in limbo: Judge Marilyn Patel from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled this afternoon to extend the temporary restraining order against RealDVD, until she can hold a more complete hearing. RealNetworks had to stop distributing the software on Friday after the judge asked it to, and [Tuesday], the judge formally barred sales of the software.

No Immunity for the Media Business
Shrinking ad budgets and a weakened economic outlook will take a dramatic toll on all sectors of the media business in 2008 and 2009 — including the fast-growing digital sector, according to a series of revised ad forecasts. Goldman Sachs projected that weak local and national ad markets will create a scenario in 2009 similar to the downturn experienced in 2001 — the steepest on record.

New Media Feels Heat After Steve Jobs Misstep
Ben Arnoldy: Citizen journalism, or user-generated content, has proved successful enough to argue against abandoning it, say new media experts. Rather, the episode serves as a public reminder that “news” now includes both traditional journalism and a crowd-sourced model that treats verification as a public process, not a prerequisite for publishing.

New Philly TV News Scandal
Another lurid scandal involving news anchors in Philadelphia has erupted - and it promises to be juicy. Lori Delgado, the sexy morning news presenter on WCAU-TV, quit this week — days after she and the station were hit with a legal notice from the NBC-owned channel’s ex-afternoon anchor, Vince DeMentri, that he intends to sue the station for slander.

New Emails Appear to Make Clear Reporter’s Relationship With School Board Chief
New e-mails have surfaced that appear to further implicate new Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho in a romantic relationship with a former Miami Herald reporter. Carvalho, a longtime school district administrator, has repeatedly denied any romance with former Herald education reporter Tania deLuzuriaga, who covered the Miami-Dade schools from October 2006 to September 2007.

David Willey: ‘I Don’t Think Print Is Dead or Even Dying’
Runner’s World editor-in-chief and current American Society of Magazine Editors president David Willey offered a positive view of the future in his address to the American Magazine Conference Tuesday morning. “I don’t think print is dead or even dying,” the editor said. Still, he’s focused on helping ASME transition into the digital age.

Brauchli Addresses Staff on WaPo’s Mission
Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli, in an afternoon meeting with staffers, said the Post shouldn’t be following a “national paper of record” model, according to staffers present. During his prepared remarks, Brauchli said that the paper can’t be expected to cover every national story, such as a tornado in Oklahoma, indicating that services like the AP can provide that content to Post readers.

The New York Times’ Styles Section and Bogus Trends
Jack Shafer: If the New York Times’ Sunday Styles were a hairdo, it would be a wig. If it were on the menu, it would be a meringue. As a melange of fashion notes, celebrity reporting, personal essays, and piffle, Sunday Styles resembles the old-fashioned supermarket tabloids in that it knows that it’s a stinking pile of entertaining trash and makes no apologies for it.

Times Co. to Shutter IHT Site
The New York Times’ Web site is getting more global, and IHT.com is going bye-bye. The Times told staff in an internal e-mail Tuesday that the paper’s flagship Web site will soon become host to news from sister paper the International Herald Tribune and that the Tribune’s site will be shuttered.

Newhouse ‘Optimistic’ After Star-Ledger Moves
The owner of New Jersey’s largest newspaper said Wednesday that coming operational changes and payroll cuts, including concessions approved by two unions, should return the paper to profitability even if the advertising outlook doesn’t improve. The catch is that analysts don’t expect the advertising market to stabilize in light of the current economic woes , meaning the latest restructuring might be inadequate.

Star-Ledger Truck Drivers Ratify Labor Agreement — Paper Won’t Be Shut or Sold, for Now
The union representing Star-Ledger truck drivers ratified a new labor agreement Tuesday night, ensuring the state’s largest newspaper will not be sold or closed. The union agreement was the last of three conditions set July 31 by Advance Publications to maintain ownership of the nation’s 15th-largest daily paper.

Newsmags Enjoy Emmys Bump
The Emmys, while a ratings disappointment, gave a good-sized bump to syndicated magazine show ratings in the third week of the syndie season. During the week of Sept. 22 five out of the six magazine shows saw their week-to-week ratings rise, mainly due to Emmy coverage.

Mag Launches Still Happening
This month alone, Hearst Magazines is launching two titles: the premier issue of Food Networkmagazine and Mis Quince, a magazine aimed at girls who are planning their quinceaneras. The title will be sent out with select November issues of Seventeen, Cosmogirl, and the winter issue of Teen, with a total distribution of 1.4 million.

Is Portfolio On the Rocks?
Conde Nast has devoted an enormous sum to launch its new business title, Portfolio, but since its debut in 2007, Portfolio has struggled to gain subscribers and advertisers, fired editors and hired new ones, changed its cover strategy, and emerged as the perpetual train wreck that media obsessives can’t get enough of. But now things may be worse than ever.

PopTent Brings Filmmakers and Brands Together Online (Mashable)
PopTent is a new social networking platform for independent and freelance filmmakers and videographers where they can collaborate on projects and earn income as well. Members (also known as Creators) create their profile as they do on other social networks and showcase their talents by sharing their video online. Potential clients (known as Brands on the site) can hire any member after seeing their profile or work. Members can follow brands or projects just like they do on Twitter and Facebook. It’s important to note that while the service is geared for filmmakers, it is also open to other types of talents in the filmmaking industry such as actors, comedians, grips, animators and more. The focus is to provide a platform where people with varying skills and experience can find one another and collaborate on projects. You can search for other things like other members that you might want to work with on an assignment. Also, you can search a listing of all the brands that might be interested in working with you.

Forbes.com Plays Financial Adviser With New Content Section
Forbes.com has launched a new content section within its Personal Finance channel aimed at financial advisers and big money investors. The new Financial Adviser Network (not to be confused with the various multisite ad networks Forbes has launched recently) will feature a mix of news, analysis, and commentary centered around amassing and building wealth.

People to Publish Paul Newman Book
People magazine is set to publish a book honoring Paul Newman. The 96-page soft-cover tribute will carry a cover price of $12 and be distributed in bookstores and newsstands beginning on October 11. It is slated for a print run of 450,000. “Because of Newman’s illness, we began working on this project before his passing,” a spokesperson for People said.

How the Election Ate Daytime Television
What the (still mostly male) political pundits are coming to grips with is that the election cycle is not just playing out on their news shows and their 24-hour networks but also in the traditionally feminine — and therefore traditionally marginalized — world of daytime television.

TBS’ MLB Playoffs See Ratings Slump
With six of Major League Baseball’s eight postseason teams hailing from major media markets, this year’s playoffs held out the hope of a ratings bonanza. Thus far, however, the results have been largely a letdown. TBS, the sole broadcaster of the four Division Series, averaged a tepid 4.2 million total viewers over the 15 MLDS games, down 22% vs. last year’s 5.4 million across 12 games.

NBC Shutting Down Weather Plus
The sun is setting on NBC Weather Plus, the 4-year-old digital joint venture between NBC and affiliated local stations, which programmed the 24/7 local weather service on their digital channels. The service was one of the first digital projects conceived as a way for a network and its affiliates to work together to create new revenue streams.

Study: Men Love the Internet — And They Don’t Read Books
The mythical and highly sought-after 18 to 34-year-old male is way more addicted to the Internet than he is to television, according to a study conducted by Hall and Partners for Break Media. Close to half the men surveyed spend more than 22 hours a week online, and 69 percent said they cannot live without the Internet, while only 31 percent said they couldn’t live without TV.

YouTube to Sell Music, Games in Revenue Push
YouTube, the world’s most popular video-sharing site, will start to sell music and video games and experiment with new advertising formats to grow revenue, executives said on Tuesday. The Google-owned business is taking the first steps toward building an e-commerce service through which it will sell music, films, TV shows, video games, books, concert tickets, and other media-related products.

Viacom Targets YouTube Backers
As part of its effort to prove that the business model behind Google Inc.’s YouTube unit depends on copyright infringement, Viacom Inc. has targeted early investors who seeded the video-sharing service and cashed in when they sold it roughly two years ago. Viacom has filed discovery requests against Sequoia Capital, Artis Capital Management and TriplePoint Capital.

Programming The Web, Part Two
James Erik Abels: TV execs are worried that people will do to their business what college students did to the music industry in the late ’90s. So, television producers and new Web production houses are quickly adding big libraries of shows to all the user-generated video already available online. And as a consequence of that, people’s ability to sort through it is getting squashed by too much choice.

Google Maps: Now Officially Gorgeous (by Stan Schroeder at Mashable)
Remember when we told you about Google’s new satellite, GeoEye-1, which should bring highest resolution commercial imagery available to Google Maps… GeoEye-1 captures images at .41 meters in black and white and 1.65 meters in color; for real life reference, that means crisp enough to read license plates. Google, however, will receive imagery in 50-centimeter resolution because of a government restriction and the fact that it’s not the only customer who benefits from GeoEye-1… The important fact is that GeoEye-1 is up and running, collecting imagery for Google Maps which will soon start looking like the image below. Time for a new round of mapspotting!
Click through to see the first image made available.

Why Doesn’t Twitter Want to Make Money?
Chadwick Matlin: For months, tech writers have marveled at Twitter’s quirky success. As Twitter has made the leap to the masses, a fundamental, quantitative question has started to percolate among technoscribes: How the hell is Twitter going to make money? Behind that query, though, is another that often goes unasked in today’s Silicon Valley: Does Twitter even want to make money in the first place?

Get All Your Social Network Messages and Emails with NutShellMail (Mashable)
NutShellMail appears like just another email and social network message aggregator similar to Fuser, but there’s a critical distinction to be made. NutShellMail will not get blocked by your company’s firewall which means you can now get all of your emails and messages from all of your personal email accounts as well as your MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn social networking accounts.

Digg’s Recent Bans and the Limits of Crowdsourcing (by David Chen at Mashable)
Several weeks ago, Digg made online headlines when it banned several dozen of its users, some of which were among its most highly ranked contributors (including Reg “Zaibatsu” Saddler, who by some metrics was the #3 Digg user of all time).
Click through for a discussion of what’s being changed and, perhaps, why.

Google Begins Wider Testing In-Game AdSense System (Paid Content)
Google is hoping to take advantage of in-game ads’ strong growth with its new AdSense for Games system, [which] will let marketers place video ads, image ads, or text ads within developers’ games. The system is based on technology from Adscape…Google is also promising text and image ads that are targeted by demo and location. To be eligible for the program, publishers must have a minimum of 500,000 game plays and have 80 percent of their traffic from the U.S. or the U.K.

Buy Stuff “As Seen On YouTube” With New Click-to-Buy Platform (by Stan Schroeder at Mashable)
How many times have you seen a YouTube video and just had to buy a product or a service related to the video? Ok, never. But still, if you want to spend your hard earned cash in these times of looming recession, now you can do it directly from YouTube. Thousands of YouTube partner videos will now get click-to-buy links, which appear on the watch page beneath the video, right there with the other community features, like share, favorite, or flag. For starters, iTunes and Amazon.com links will be embedded on videos from media companies such as EMI Music - I cannot see it, because it apparently works only in the United States. Google says that they’ll slowly expand this program to international users, too.

Magazine publishers advised to use coupons to boost single-copy sales
Hearst Magazines veep John Loughlin also suggested that publishers use in-store promotions to help sales. He said at the American Magazine Conference that if the current trends continue, magazines could be facing a time when instead of 1,000 titles, 200 or fewer are on display in stores. The situation, he said, “is unfortunately incredibly fragile.”

Studies Aim To Show How Well Online Ads Work—And How (Paid Content)
Two new studies being released Wednesday promise answers to some of the questions that plague marketers about online advertising. In particular: do online ads drive purchases? And how?
Click through for more information.

Analysts Lower Q3 Estimates For Online Ad Revenues; Offline Still Looks Worse (Paid Content)
Given the continued downward spirals in the world’s financial markets, UBS internet analyst Ben Schachter says the firm is lowering price estimates for online ad revenues ahead of the Q3 earnings report period. Still, it may be at least a small consolation that offline looks worse and some web-based companies could benefit as more companies look to cheaper and more targeted online ads. In an analyst note (PDF, not online), Schachter said that while the first two months of Q3 “were decent,” September proved difficult. He sees all companies being negatively impacted to some extent, but continues to believe that Google is relatively better positioned than the others because of its dependence on search, which remains more attractive to marketers than display.