Permanent link to MTA daily media news

Economic crisis hitting political fundraising, too (McClatchy)
The current recession is wrapping its tightfisted hands around its latest victim: political fundraising.
NOW, we’ll see some action.

All Hat No Cattle

Bailed-out Bank of America spent $10 million on Super Bowl party. (Think Progress)
Just weeks ago, the federal government extended $20 billion to Bank of America to keep it afloat, bringing its total in federal bailout dollars received to $45 billion. ABC News reports, however, that the bank managed to scrounge up millions of dollars to be an NFL sponsor and for “a five day carnival-like” Super Bowl party just outside the stadium: “…The bank refused to tell ABC News how much it is spending as an NFL corporate sponsor, but insiders have put the figure at close to $10 million…” The Huffington Post notes that this is the latest in a series of bailed-out banks that continue to spend lavishly on sports sponsorships.

Drinks Are On the (White) House (by Jake Tapper at Political Punch, ABC News)
President Obama’s invited guests to the White House cocktail party [Wednesday night were] essentially the bipartisan bicameral leadership of the House and Senate. Six House Democrats, six House Republicans, six Senate Democrats, six Senate Republicans. Their spouses are invited as well. Hors d’œuvres — chicken curry, wagyu steak – [were] served in addition to drinks.
Wagyu beef, aka Kobe beef, a product of Japan, costs $75 to $80 per pound at ePrimeCuts.  It’s more expensive than that in stores.  I tasted some many years ago, and it was incredibly good.  I was able to cut it with my fork.

Democrats Set High Goal Of Sweeping Fiscal Reform (Washington Post)
Though key Republicans in the Senate say they are ready to work with Obama, House GOP leaders last week orchestrated a lock-step rejection of his economic stimulus package, signaling their intent to oppose rather than cooperate with the new president. Meanwhile, progressives in the Democratic party are preparing a major push for a big permanent increase in social spending, beyond the expiration date of the stimulus bill. Obama and his allies nonetheless have said that they view a grand bargain as a political imperative. Anxious moderates in both parties have made clear that their support for some of the president’s most significant campaign promises hinges on having a plan to pay for them.
What crap!  Nobody EVER demanded that George Bush have a plan to pay for his lavish tax cuts and his horrendously expensive foreign adventures.  The only plan was to dump a mess in the lap of the next guy.

More Obama, Please (by paradox at The Left Coaster)
We know what works, the economists always said in my brief forays of study into the Depression and public policy economics, we learned what we did wrong before with the markets and the disastrous penny-pinching of Hoover, a Depression can’t and won’t happen again… Spend, the revered Keynesians always say, spend! Inject capital directly into the system when the consumer and industry won’t, and most of all keep the little people employed to get consumer spending back. Is that what the current stimulus plan does? Not hardly, it’s full of those ridiculous Randian tax cuts that got us into this ditch into the first place…

We need President Obama directly speaking to all of us every day, through press conferences, YouTube videos, a modern variant of fireside chats, appearances and speeches why liberal social spending works. Why we have to do it, there is no choice, it is very true we know what works, duty now implacably demands that we implement it. Take the message to the little people relentlessly like FDR did, President Obama, we know that works too.

Obama Plans Media Blitz (Political Wire)
President Obama will give sit-down interviews with all the major networks today, according to Hollywood Reporter.
“Obama will talk separately with the anchors of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Fox News Channel at the Oval Office on Tuesday. The networks will air their interviews over the course of the afternoon and the early evening.” Obama is expected to make the case for his economic stimulus package.

Obama turns to grassroots to sway Senate on stimulus (McClatchy)
A divided and discontented Senate on Monday began debating a nearly $900 billion economic stimulus plan, while President Barack Obama launched a new grassroots campaign asking Americans to prod their lawmakers to act on it. Obama, looking to bring some Republican critics on board in time to have the final bill ready for his signature by mid-February, called Democratic congressional leaders to the White House on Monday for a strategy session. In an e-mail sent by the Democratic National Committee, the president also urged voters to host or attend a neighbor’s “Economic Recovery House Meeting” this coming weekend, where a videotaped message from party chairman and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine would be played to answer questions about the stimulus spending.

Radio ad pressures N. Carolina’s Burr over stimulus bill (McClatchy)
A new radio ad running in Sen. Richard Burr’s community of Winston-Salem urges him to support the economic stimulus package now being considered by Congress.

Senate GOP blocks extra $25B in stimulus package (AP)
Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked Democrats from adding $25 billion for highways, mass transit, and water projects to President Barack Obama’s economic recovery program. Already unhappy over the size of the measure, Republicans insisted additional infrastructure projects be paid for with cuts elsewhere in the bill. But the Democratic amendment garnered 58 votes, just shy of the supermajority needed under Senate budget rules, and many more efforts to increase the measure’s size are sure to follow.

Senate GOP’s ’stimulus plan’ costs 3.5 times as much as Obama’s. (Think Progress)
This morning, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that President Obama’s recovery package, priced at roughly $819 billion, is too expensive. GOP “members” believe that they can pass a “very robust” stimulus at a cheaper price, he said… But McConnell’s cheaper plan doesn’t exist. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is pushing the Senate GOP’s only alternative, “American Option: A Jobs Plan That Works.” A new Wonk Room analysis finds that DeMint’s plan will cost $3.1 trillion over ten years, more than 3.5 times the cost of Obama’s.
Click through to watch the video.

How Quickly Will the Stimulus Package be Spent? (Political Wire)
The Congressional Budget Office released its official scoring of President Obama’s economic stimulus package and finds that a little more than 78% of the funding will pay out over the first two fiscal years.

Barney Frank: ‘The largest spending bill in history is going to turn out to be the war in Iraq.’ (Think Progress)
[Sunday] on ABC’s This Week, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) criticized the economic recovery package currently before the chamber as “the largest spending bill in history.” Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) shot back that in reality, the largest spending bill in history “is going to turn out to be the war in Iraq.”… The Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo notes that while the Iraq was was financed with borrowed money and turned “a budget surplus into a record deficit and debt,” the economic recovery package will “boost consumer demand and put people back to work, while simultaneously investing in long-term strength through infrastructure, health care, and education.”

Steele’s Uninformed New Talking Point: No Government Has Ever Created A Job (Think Progress)
Since his election as RNC Chairman last Friday, Michael Steele has been on a public relations offensive. His first order of business: urge his colleagues on Capitol Hill to reject President Obama’s economic recovery plan… Steele is arguing that the bill will not create jobs. In fact, a new talking point has emerged from Steele’s rhetoric — that no government, local, state or federal, has ever created a job… [A]side from noting the myriad government sponsored job creation programs starting from at least the New Deal era, CBO estimates that the recovery plan as passed in the House last week will create up to 3.6 million jobs by the end of next year.
Click through to watch the video.

Joe the Economist. (Think Progress)
The ubiquitous Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka “Joe the Plumber” and “Joe the War Correspondent,” will soon add a new moniker to his profile — “Joe the Economist.” Politico reports that House GOP congressional aides decided to invite Wurzelbacher to a meeting on the stimulus in hopes that it will attract some media attention: “Wurzelbacher, who became a household name during the presidential election, will be focusing his talk on the proposed stimulus package. He’s apparently not a fan of the economic rescue package, according to members of the group. If nothing else, GOP aides are using the appearance to get staffers to attend the … meeting.”

Joe Scarborough: Obama’s Trying To ‘Buy Off People’ With ‘Pure, Straight Socialism’ (Think Progress)
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough went off on a tear against President Obama’s proposed stimulus plan [Monday] morning… “You’re not going to get Republicans to line up and support tax cuts for people who don’t pay taxes. That’s taking you to a position now where you have the federal government — and this is very dangerous — just writing checks to people for doing nothing. It’s not even welfare. … If you want pure straight socialism, if you want to buy off people, do that.”
Because it’s better to buy off BANKERS with pure, straight socialism.  Click through to watch the video.

Hannity on economic recovery bill: “I actually have a new name for it, The European Socialist Act of 2009 or The End of Capitalism as We Know It Act of 2009″ (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

400 richest Americans’ incomes doubled under Bush. (Think Progress)
Bloomberg reports that, according to recently released IRS data, “the average tax rate paid by the richest 400 Americans fell by a third to 17.2 percent through the first six years of the Bush administration and their average income doubled to $263.3 million.” Much of their income came from capital gains resulting from the Bush tax cuts… The Wonk Room has noted how “the conservative approach of putting big corporations and the very wealthy ahead of the middle class has failed to create prosperity that can be shared by all Americans.”

What Now Cartoons

Carville gives Rush Limbaugh a history lesson (County Fair, Media Matters for America)
James Carville, former Clinton advisor and current CNN Contributor, is up [Monday] with an op-ed that eviscerates the laughable economic recovery plan offered up by radio host Rush Limbaugh in last week’s Wall Street Journal.  In particular, Carville notes: “Limbaugh proposes that because the Democrats got roughly 54 percent of the votes to the Republicans’ 46 percent, the stimulus package should be allocated along his definition of ideological lines, i.e. 54 percent towards infrastructure improvement and 46 percent toward tax breaks for Limbaugh and his friends.”

Get that?  Now that Democrats are in power, they should only get to enact the same percentage of their agenda as they won in the popular vote. Isn’t Rush generous?  As Carville points out, Limbaugh wasn’t nearly as generous when Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000.

WHO GETS WHAT: Billions for health care insurance (AP)
It will get vastly cheaper for most people to keep health insurance after losing a job if the government’s stimulus plan becomes law. Some nickel and dime cuts in health coverage for the poor will be reversed, too. Geek jobs in medicine will grow. The billions to be poured into health care from the economic stimulus package will do little if anything about the chronic conditions behind the nation’s stubbornly large ranks of uninsured. Instead the plan is a temporary lifeline, hasty measures for nearly desperate times.

First-of-Its Kind Study: Medicare for All (Single-Payer) Reform Would Be Major Stimulus for Economy (Progressive Democrats of America, thanks to DCblogger at Corrente)
Establishing a national single-payer style healthcare reform system would provide a major stimulus for the U.S. economy by creating 2.6 million new jobs, and infusing $317 billion in new business and public revenues, with another $100 billion in wages into the U.S. economy, according to the findings of a groundbreaking study released today. It may be viewed at CalNurses.org.

Fed’s Fisher warns against Buy American provision (Reuters)
Richard Fisher, the president of the Dallas Federal Reserve, on Monday warned against “Buy American” provisions in a proposed stimulus law, saying such provisions would lead to protectionism. Fisher called protectionism “the crack cocaine of economics,” and said the country couldn’t afford to go down that path.

EU warns Obama on protectionism in stimulus bill (AP)
The European Union’s top diplomat in Washington is warning the Obama administration and Congress that protectionist measures under consideration in a massive U.S. economic stimulus bill would backfire if enacted.

Obama Foreclosure-Relief Plan May Guarantee Rewritten Loans (Bloomberg)
The Obama administration is considering government guarantees for home loans modified by their servicers, seeking to stem the record surge of foreclosures that’s hammering U.S. property values… “We need to help more people stay in their homes” through helping mortgage lenders make more loan modifications, James Lockhart, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television yesterday. “I’m pleased that the new administration is starting to work on that area.”

New Terms in Bailout Funding Talks Go Beyond ‘Bad Bank‘ (CNBC)
Discussions between the Obama administration and financial industry representatives continued for a third day Sunday with the focus moving to new terms on lending, transparency and executive compensation for companies receiving financial aid, according to a source familiar with the situation… It would appear that the ongoing talks represent a restructuring of the TARP as well as new measures to aid business, such as a bad bank.

Stiglitz Criticizes Bad Bank Plan as Swapping ‘Cash for Trash’  (Bloomberg)
Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz said any decision by President Barack Obama to establish a so-called bad bank to rid financial companies of toxic assets … amounts to swapping taxpayers’ “cash for trash,” Stiglitz said [Saturday] in a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “You shouldn’t chase good money after bad. We’re talking about a national debt that’s very hard to manage.”

Sound Banking: Still Found at Credit Unions (by chicago dyke at Corrente)
I’m getting really sick and tired of hearing about how “no one knows the solution” to the mess for-profit bankers have gotten us into. The success of many credit unions demonstrates that the solution is right there in front of our eyes. There are likely thousands of competent credit union fund managers and investors who could be called upon to reorganize the “bad” banks, but of course the TARP-loving Democrats won’t appoint or elevate any of those people, as they aren’t proper Villagers. The solution to the banking crisis is simple: regulation, nationalization of insolvent banks, and removing those who mismanged us to economic meltdown from their positions. This won’t happen any time soon, mainly because for some time now, the new administration has been taking its financial cues, and checks, from the very people who’ve proven least able to do their jobs.

Hazardous Materials? (by James Surowiecki, The New Yorker)
In the course of the ongoing financial crisis, we’ve been ceaselessly reminded of the dangers of moral hazard—the idea that if people are insulated from the negative effects of their gambles they are more likely to act rashly… [T]he biggest reason that moral hazard matters less than it might is that it can operate only if people actively countenance the possibility that their decisions could lead to complete disaster. But it’s well documented that people generally, and investors particularly, are overconfident and significantly underestimate the chances of being wiped out. The moral-hazard fundamentalists argue that banks and other financial institutions will act recklessly if they think they’ll be rescued in the event of failure. But Wall Street was reckless because it never believed that failure was even a possibility.

A Trillion Bucks For Purple Fingers (by Steve at The Left Coaster)
Purple fingers, and it only cost us 4,000 dead and over a trillion dollars

Rendition might expand in anti-terrorism efforts (Baltimore Sun)
The CIA’s secret prisons are being closed. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being just a naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.
But even while dismantling these discredited programs, President Barack Obama left an equally controversial counterterrorism tool intact. Under executive orders issued by Obama on Jan. 22, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as “renditions,” or the secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program is poised to play an expanded role because it is the main remaining mechanism – aside from Predator missile strikes – for taking suspected terrorists off the street.

Kinder, gentler banditry, and its domestic chaplains (by Michael J. Smith at Stop Me Before I Vote Again)
[M]y incurable-Obamaphile friends … won’t actually defend any of the things I enjoy mentioning to them — rocket attacks on Pakistani villages, for example. But there’s a look on their faces that suggests I’m somehow being pedantic, or silly, or rude. This is why I’m sometimes tempted to argue that people like Obama are actually worse than people like Bush, at least for the moral character of liberals. Back when Bush was kidnapping and torturing pro imperio, my liberal friends were quite willing to deplore these things. But now that Obie is doing it, it’s sorta tacky to bring it up in good society, and there seems to be a tacit agreement that it would be asking far too much to demand that he stop it… It will be interesting to see how long they can keep this up.

Still a Flip-Flop: My Fellow Liberals Push Back Against Allegations of Inconsistency Concerning Rendition (by Darren Lenard Hutchinson at Dissenting Justice)
Liberals condemned rendition during the Bush administration because it lacked judicial oversight, did not afford individuals access to counsel, and because it often subjected persons to torture and longterm detention. Because Obama has ordered governmental interrogators not to engage in torture and has ordered the CIA to close its longterm detention centers, liberals now say that rendition does not raise any problems. Apparently, snatching someone without a court order, not giving them a lawyer, and then placing them in a remote country were never too much of a problem after all.

Admittedly, liberal opposition to rendition became most intense during the Bush administration because of the torture issue, but human rights activists condemned other aspects of the program as well. Perhaps they now believe they overreached in their criticism, but that’s very different than having not taken the position in the first place.

Michelle Obama Rallies the Education Troops (by Yunji de Nies at Political Punch, ABC News)
Michelle Obama made her first solo foray as first lady into public policy advocacy [Monday], with a visit to the Department of Education. The first lady, who was joined by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, spoke briefly to a group of employees. “I’m a product of your work,” she said, referring to her own education in the Chicago public school system… She thanked the group for their work, and said there would be much more ahead… Her visit … could provide insight where she will dedicate her energies as First Lady. Mrs. Obama has yet to formally announce her platform, but has said she intends to focus on military families and working women.

Education chief: Schools crucial to recovery (AP)
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the economy won’t improve without the billions of dollars for schools in President Barack Obama’s recovery plan.

Senate confirms Holder as first black AG (AP)
Eric Holder won Senate confirmation Monday as the nation’s first African-American attorney general, after supporters from both parties touted his dream resume and easily overcame Republican concerns over his commitment to fight terrorism and his unwillingness to back the right to keep and bear arms.

Daschle withdraws his nomination after failure to pay taxes (AP)
WASHINGTON – Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination on Tuesday to be President Barack Obama’s Health and Human Services secretary, faced with problems over back taxes and potential conflicts of interest.
Good.  I like Margie Burns’s idea.  See below.

Daschle Should Step Aside in Favor of Howard Dean (by Margie Burns)
Now is the time for Daschle to bow out gracefully, to withdraw his name for consideration for a Cabinet post. Ideally, he would do well to express gracious support in stepping aside for Dr. Howard Dean as head of Health and Human Services instead. Dr. Dean—also the repeatedly reelected and popular former governor of Vermont, former presidential candidate, and former head of the Democratic National Committee in its most successful era in decades—is not only a physician himself. He has also shown sufficient independence of the political world and the financial industry to merit appointment where matters of health are at stake. Just for lagniappe, Dean’s wife is also a physician, rather than a lobbyist.

Action Alert: A Serious Reformer Needed for Surgeon General (by DCblogger at Corrente)
Letter from John Conyers: “Earlier this month I raised concerns about the trial balloon floated for Surgeon General, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. The doctor is a health commentator for CNN who dispenses medical advice with a breezy style appropriately suited to the brief two-minute segments of television… The TV Doctor has been criticized by many for his close ties to the pharmaceutical and health care industries and for not disclosing the sources of his speaking fees which command up to $50,000 per appearance. His strong criticisms of reform beg the question whether his cozy relationships with the health care industry would compromise his ability to lead the U.S. Public Health Service and serve as a vocal advocate for change.”

Act Now. Demand a Serious Reformer for Surgeon General.

Obama Picks Gregg for Commerce (Political Wire)
The White House will announce Tuesday morning that President Obama is nominating Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) to serve as Commerce secretary, according to Politico. “The run-up to the nomination has focused on backroom deals, from New Hampshire’s statehouse to Washington, to preserve the balance of power in Congress. And Tuesday’s White House announcement is expected to be accompanied by one by New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch that will ensure that Gregg’s seat won’t switch to the Democrats before the 2010 elections.” CQ Politics says that even if Lynch appoints another Republican to replace Gregg, Democrats “would be in a better position in the 2010 Senate campaign.”

Flashback: Judd Gregg voted to abolish Commerce Dept. (Think Progress)
President Obama nominated Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) to head the Department of Commerce. CQ notes that Gregg has worked in the Senate “to trim the department’s budget as head of the Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee.” In fact, in 1995, Gregg “voted in favor of abolishing the agency”… Gregg also opposed President Clinton’s efforts to increase funding for the Department to run the 2000 census.

Judd Gregg’s Plan To Destroy Social Security (by Chris Bowers at Open Left)
Judd Gregg himself has said he will oppose the stimulus package. That is certainly an, um, interesting way for the Obama administration to incentivize Republican opposition. Oppose President Obama, and he will reward you by giving you a cabinet position. It is worth noting what sort of ideas Judd Gregg has for the economy: a commission of center-right insiders operating in secret and circumventing Congress in order to destroy Social Security and Medicare.
Click through for details.

J. Bonnie Newman called tough, smart (New Hampshire Union Leader)
Politico.com reports that Republican J. Bonnie Newman, a veteran of state and national politics, is Gov. John Lynch’s choice for U.S. senator. Newman was described yesterday as tough, independent and smart by longtime associates excited that she was in position to become the next U.S. senator from New Hampshire. Newman, 63, was Sen. Judd Gregg’s chief of staff when he was in the U.S. House in the 1980s. She has a long resume in the private and public sectors, highlighted by her roles as assistant to the President for management and administration in the George H.W. Bush White House, an assistant commerce secretary in the Reagan administration, interim president of the University of New Hampshire and executive dean at the Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Killefer withdraws her nomination as Obama’s ‘chief performance officer.’ (Think Progress)
On the heels of tax controversies involving Teasury Secretary Tim Geithner and HHS Secretary-nominee Tom Daschle, Nancy Killefer, who was President Obama’s choice to be the administration’s ‘chief performance officer,” has withdrawn her nomination. Though Killefer “will detail her reason for pulling out later” today, the AP notes that “in 2005 the District of Columbia government had filed a more than $900 tax lien on her home for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help.”

Opposition Mounts Against Lynn Nomination as Deputy Defense Secretary (CQ Politics)
Senate opposition is mounting to President Obama’s nomination of William Lynn to be deputy Defense secretary, with senior Republicans now questioning his competence in addition to his recent lobbying activity.

Richardson Probe Expands (Political Wire)
According to the Albuquerque Journal, federal authorities have asked for information involving the Democratic Governors Association as part of the “pay-to-play” investigation that derailed New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson’s (D) nomination for U.S. commerce secretary.  Richardson’s tenure a leader of the DGA gave him “prestige, coast-to-coast travel and national exposure that would help fuel his presidential bid, while the DGA basked in his growing notoriety and fundraising prowess.” “Now, that political shine could be tarnishing.”

Dodd Will Refinance Sweetheart Mortgages (Political Wire)
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, says he’ll refinance two mortgages that he received through a VIP program from Countrywide Financial, the Hartford Courant reports. “Dodd has acknowledged receiving mortgages in 2003 through a VIP program at Countrywide, which was sold to Bank of America Corp. earlier this year and has been the focus of allegations that it gave favorable loan terms to lawmakers… Dodd says he never sought special treatment.” Of course, with interest rates at historic lows it may make financial sense for Dodd to refinance anyway.

Blagojevich successor to control stimulus funds (AP)
So it looks like the governor of Illinois will have control over billions of dollars in state aid from President Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan after all — now that disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been kicked out of office.
And that may well have been one of Fitzgerald’s objectives in arresting Blagojevich.

Seven GOP donors fined for illegal contributions (AP)
Seven GOP contributors have agreed to pay civil fines for making illegal contributions to President Bush’s re-election campaign, the Federal Election Commission said Monday.

GOP picks its first black chairman, but will change follow? (McClatchy)
Republican leaders from across the country on Friday chose former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele as the party’s first black national chairman in what many said was a necessary response to President Barack Obama’s historic election.

That Was Close (Political Wire)
Chuck Todd: “The GOP averted a P.R. disaster after the race came down to Steele and Dawson. It was a pretty obvious choice: Pick the African American or the guy who had to quit an all-white country club. Had Dawson not had that negative mark on his resume, he would have won because he was a party insider.”

Winning strategy? GOP stakes its future on opposing Obama (McClatchy)
Has the Republican Party, whose presidential candidate and dozens of congressional hopefuls were rejected by voters in November, already been reinvigorated by its opposition to President Barack Obama?

House GOP Hopes to Continue United Front (CQ Politics)
The Homestead resort is a far cry from the cruel setting of Valley Forge, but it is playing host to a battered contingent on winter retreat. House Republicans arrived Thursday in search of a winning strategy for coping with a popular Democratic president pursuing an ambitious agenda.

Palin Stiffs House Republicans (Political Wire)
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) “politely declined” an invitation by House Republicans to give a speech at their annual conference this weekend because she said had to attend to state business, ABC News reports. Of course, she’s actually keeping a low profile in Washington, D.C. this [past] weekend. When asked about Palin’s no-show, House Republican leader John Boehner shrugged, saying, “Whatever.”

Poll: Republicans want Palin as model for GOP (by Alex Koppelman at War Room, Salon)
Republican voters who responded to a recent Rasmussen poll have a solution for the GOP’s woes: Become more conservative, and more like Sarah Palin. 43 percent of Republicans say the party has been too moderate over the past eight years. 55 percent say they think Palin should become the model for the national GOP. This is the kind of thing that can lead to a cycle of defeat. The Republican Party has, for some time now, been getting older, whiter and more conservative, in direct contrast to trends in the country as a whole. The GOP’s remaining partisans, then, naturally want their party to look more like them. That, however, only means a further contraction of its appeal.

Gingrich Now Sees Palin as “Formidable” (Political Wire)
Newt Gingrich said he sees “an open Republican field” for the 2012 Republican presidential race, The Hill reports. But he made special mention of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R). Said Gingrich: “If Sarah Palin seeks out a group of very sophisticated policy advisers and develops a fairly sophisticated platform, she will be very formidable.” According to The Hotline, he says Palin would have a “substantial advantage” in Iowa, the first-in-the nation caucus state, where she has “a very big base.” Just after the presidential election, Gingrich downplayed Palin’s strength in the Republican party.

Obama Wants to Control Commercial Use of His Image (Political Wire)
White House lawyers “want to control the use of the president’s image,” according to Bloomberg, “recognizing the worldwide fascination about Obama’s election, First Amendment free-speech rights and easy access to videos and photos on the Web.” Said a spokesman: “Our lawyers are working on developing a policy that will protect the presidential image while being careful not to squelch the overwhelming enthusiasm that the public has for the president.”
Yes, well, good luck with that, Mr. Prez.  You’re going against an awful lot of precedent.  I hope we taxpayers aren’t paying these lawyers.

Ex-Journalists’ New Jobs Fuel Debate on Favoritism
An unusual number of journalists from prominent, mainstream organizations started new government jobs in January, providing new kindling to the debate over whether President Obama is receiving unusually favorable treatment in the news media.

Vanity Fair Recycles Obama Photo for March Cover
Barack Obama is on the cover of the new Vanity Fair as part of the magazine’s photo portfolio of his team and supporters taken by Annie Leibovitz. If President Obama’s sideways position and stern expression look a little familiar, they should: It’s the same photo that ran on the cover in July 2007.

HBO Buys Book About Financial Crisis
HBO is bringing the financial meltdown of 2008 to the small screen. The pay network has acquired rights to a book that just sold for seven figures to the Penguin imprint Portfolio. The book will be written by New York Times business writer Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean.

A Guide To Bailout Transparency Sites (Columbia Journalism Review)
Now that taxpayers have become financiers, we have a right to know where the money is going. In search of organizations with the curiosity and resources to help figure that out, CJR trolled the Internet for good, easily available bailout information and came up with several sites worth looking at.

Who Should Replace Bill Kristol at the NYT? (by Jennifer Senior, New York Magazine)
Last week, Bill Kristol wrote his final column for the New York Times, and it’s probably safe to say that no one will miss him. If the paper is smart, it’ll capitulate to its destiny and hire the ultimate nonconservative conservative, Stephen Colbert.

Bartiromo Goes in For the Kill (by David Folkenflik, Media Circus, NPR)
Last week, John Thain, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch, submitted to an interview with CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo earlier this week to give context to why he was thrown out on his ear by his new boss. Consider what Bartiromo does in this interview: she strips him bare.

Pajamas Media, Rightblogger Meal Ticket, Pulls the Plug (Runnin’ Scared, Village Voice)
Pajamas Media, a consortium of mostly rightbloggers, was founded in 2005. Its “eventual goal,” reported National Reviewat the time, was “to replace the established media sources with a network of what [co-founders Charles Johnson and Roger L. Simon] call ‘citizen-journalists.’”…  Last week Simon told Pajamas affiliates that “we have decided to wind down the Pajamas Media Blogger and advertising network effective March 31, 2009,” and thereafter they would be free to hustle up ads as best they could.

Liberal Flameout (by Howard Kurtz)
President Obama may be riding high in Washington, but OBAMA 1260 is not. The area’s only progressive talk station is changing formats, dropping such syndicated liberal hosts as Ed Schultz, Stephanie Miller and Bill Press in favor of financial news, starting next week. The move by Redskins owner Dan Snyder, who purchased the station, WWRC, and others in Washington last summer, leaves the city without a liberal radio outlet. Program Director Greg Tantum says he thought the station could work because of enthusiasm over Obama, but that ratings collapsed to a level that could not be measured after the election. But ratings nearly doubled, he says, at Snyder’s conservative station.

Why Did The NFL And NBC Ban A Marriage Equality Ad From Running During The Super Bowl? (Think Progress)
The group GetToKnowUsFirst.org has been running 30-second public service announcements around the state of California to get the word out about marriage equality in the wake of the passage of Prop. 8. The ads typically feature a gay or lesbian couple and their children, emphasizing the commonalities between gay and straight families. [Sunday], however, GetToKnowUsFirst.org’s ad did not run on Los Angeles NBC affiliate KNBC. GetToKnowUsFirst.org attempted to purchase a slot for one of its ads during the Super Bowl. On Friday, KNBC informed GetToKnowUsFirst.org that the the NFL legal department had rejected the ad because they were banning all “advocacy” ads during the entire day of programming — from Road to the Super Bowl at 9:00 a.m. through the end of the game.

[Click through to watch] the rejected GetToKnowUsFirst.org ad, which features two married African-American men, Xavier and Michael, who are raising five children.

U.S. Property Owners Lost $3.3 Trillion in Home Value (Bloomberg)
The U.S. housing market lost $3.3 trillion in value last year and almost one in six owners with mortgages owed more than their homes were worth as the economy went into recession, Zillow.com said. The median estimated home price declined 11.6 percent in 2008 to $192,119 and homeowners lost $1.4 trillion in value in the fourth quarter alone, the Seattle-based real estate data service said in a report today.
But the real value was never as high as the bubble made it out to be.  Except for those who are under water on their mortgages, these are phantom losses.

$40 billion increase in proposed Pentagon budget spun as ‘defense cuts’ by right wing. (Think Progress)
The Obama administration is reportedly capping the Pentagon’s 2010 budget for non-war spending at $527 billion, a level previously recommended by Bush administration officials. Despite the fact that this will represent an 8 percent increase over 2009 funding levels, conservative commentators are painting the cap as a budget cut.

Limbaugh: Bush wasn’t partisan. (Think Progress)
While much of the attention on Rush Limbaugh has focused on his stated desire to see President Obama fail, he has also been going around trying to secure President Bush’s legacy. Yesterday, for example, he appeared on Fox’s Hannity’s America and tried to argue that Bush wasn’t at all partisan.
Click through to watch the video.

Peanut Product Recall Took Company Approval (New York Times, thanks to lambert at Corrente)
Even though federal health officials have begun a criminal investigation into whether the Peanut Corporation of America deliberately sold contaminated products, the government still needed the company’s permission last week before announcing a huge recall of its products. The wording of the recall statement had to be approved by the company before the Food and Drug Administration could publish it under current rules. The agency relies on cooperation from food makers to ensure the safety of the food supply even when those makers are suspected of crimes.

Media Matters for America headlines

• Hannity falsely claimed CBO “say[s]” economic recovery plan is “not a stimulus bill”

• Ignoring stimulus effects, CNN’s Romans uncritically reported “safety net spending doesn’t necessarily create new jobs”

• Brzezinski persists with food stamp claim, despite economists’ flat rejection

• Wash. Post’s Kagan claimed OMB “has ordered a 10 percent cut in defense spending”

• Boehlert: Obama, the press, and the “bipartisan” trap

• WSJ ignored effective tax rate in claiming U.S. corporate tax rate “is higher than in all of Europe”

• Politico cropped Pelosi’s comments on Republican participation in House bill

• Experts dispute claim by CNBC’s Burnett that size of Wall Street bonuses is unrelated to TARP money

• Echoing her previous claim, Brzezinski said that food stamps don’t stimulate economy, but economists disagree

• After mocking a bill he doesn’t understand, Glenn Beck now ridicules acronym that doesn’t exist

• ABC’s Tapper ignored CBO report, advanced GOP claim that recovery bill is “not a stimulus plan”

Senate Passes Second Bill Making The Digital TV Switch Voluntary For Broadcasters (Paid Content)
The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a second bill on Thursday that would allow broadcasters to drop their analog signals on Feb. 17 as originally planned—or not. The first bill passed on Monday would require all broadcasters to wait until June 12 to move over to the digital signals exclusively, but the House squashed the plan by voting against the bill earlier this week. As a compromise, Reuters reported that the Senate modified the bill, so that the delay would be voluntary and TV stations could go ahead with the switch if they wanted. The measure now goes back to the House.

Google Execs Face Italian Trial For Offensive Video (Paid Content)
Four Google execs, including its own chief legal officer, stand trial today in an Italian case that could break two new boundaries. David Drummond, privacy counsel Peter Fleischer, ex CFO George Reyes and an unnamed London-based Google Video exec appear in Milan, accused of defamation and privacy violation, after a 2006 incident in which a video was posted to Google Video depicting Italian youths mocking a Turin boy with Down syndrome.

Google removed the video at the the time after an advocacy group, Vividown, complained, but prosecutors argue the video should not have appeared in the first place. The case is noteworthy because defeat for Google would suggest internet companies should screen user-generated content before it is published (a model Google has forcefully lobbied against) and because the executives themselves, and not their employer, are in the dock.

Keller: ‘Incurable Optimist About the Future of Good Journalism’
“There is a diminishing supply of quality journalism, and a growing demand,” writes New York Times executive editor Bill Keller in a Web Q&A. “The law of supply and demand suggests that the market will find a way to make the demand pay for the supply.”
But when supply exceeds demand, producers have to reduce the price to sell the products.  I look forward to the day when we have no journalists making millions of dollars a year.

Media Business Models a Hot Topic at Davos
With so many journalists, technologists, and investors running around Davos this week, the financial state of journalism, especially newspapers, invariably bubbles up as a major topic of conversation. There was not much good news, but give credit where credit is due: The focus was on finding solutions.

NYT readers react to “News You Can Endow” op-ed
“The writers don’t seem troubled by the rule that endowed status would prevent newspapers from attempting to ‘influence legislation,” writes Lynn Klyde-Silverstein. “Candidate endorsements are not the only thing this would suppress. Wouldn’t this also prevent newspapers from editorializing about any pending legislation? Isn’t that one of the most important jobs of a newspaper?”

‘Long Tail’ Author Anderson: Free Doesn’t Work As A Standalone Business Model (Paid Content)
Long Tail author and Wired EIC Chris Anderson explains why the “zero sum” model doesn’t work alone in this economy—and teases his next book Free—in [last] Saturday’s Wall Street Journal. The argument: “free” wasn’t enough before for all but a few and it’s not going to work now without a pay component, whether it’s “freemium”—”free as a form of marketing to put the product in the hands of the maximum number of people, converting just a small fraction to paying customers” or flat out charging for the bulk of goods and services… “The Web has become the biggest store in history and everything is 100% off.” Of course, that’s until the products they use disappear because the money isn’t there.

Will Google Save the News? (by Peter Osnos at the Daily Beast)
News and information enterprises have to start demanding payment for use of their material, or they will disappear. The notion that “information wants to be free” is absurd when the delivery mechanism is making a fortune and the creators are getting what amounts to zilch.

UC-Berkeley j-school dean search draws 365 applicants
The head of the search committee says of the large number of applicants: “It is not surprising given the nature of the [journalism] field. You are drawing from a lot of different places.”

Publishers And Online Community Values: What Have We Learned? (by Steve Smith, MIN)
Online community continues to be the nut that just won’t crack for publishers and their business models. I am on a personal mission of late to uncover successful ways in which media are learning to embrace some of this community energy within their brands.

The All-Digital Newsroom of the Not-So-Distant Future (by Steve Outing, Editor & Publisher)
During 2009 and beyond, some communities will lose their newspapers. Some of those newspapers will live on purely in digital form, reinvented, so it’s worth imagining what a newspaper will look like after it’s transformed into a digital-only news entity.

Almost every newspaper still needs its print edition if it wants to stay in business
Consider the Los Angeles Times: If it stopped publishing the print newspaper and moved to web, 90% of its ad revenues would go away and something like $65 million of its cash flow would disappear, according to Alan Mutter. “But wait, you say, wouldn’t a web-only operation be more profitable than a combo operation? Not necessarily.” He explains.

Newspapers Fight Negative Perceptions in New Ads
Several newspaper executives launched a public relations campaign Monday to counter what they call “gloom-and-doom” reports of the industry’s demise. With the ads, commentary pieces and a Web site, the industry is painting itself as the best place for advertisers to sell anything from grapes to a house.

Staffers Asked to ‘Reapply’ for Jobs Amid Reorganization at Johnson Publishing
Ebony and Jet publisher Johnson Publishing is undergoing a “multi-phased” staffing reorganization in which employees will be required to reapply for new positions within the company. A spokesperson indicated that “current employees are eligible to be considered for new positions.”

Doubledown Media Shuts Down
Doubledown Media, the once-rising publisher of magazines aimed at the Wall Street elite, has shut down. “The combination of the media depression, the Wall Street implosion, and the credit slowdown were collectively too much for our company … to overcome,” president Randall Lane wrote.

Baltimore Examiner Can’t Find Buyer, Will Close)
Less than three years after its debut, the Baltimore Examiner free newspaper will cease publication next month. The decision comes after months of unsuccessful attempts to find a buyer for the paper and failed efforts to package ads with a sister publication in Washington.

Recession Rocks Hollywood’s Showbiz Papers
Honolulu Advertiser unions tentatively agree to 10% pay cut
The accord, which has to be approved by members of six unions, calls for a 10% pay reduction for workers as long as the Gannett paper’s expenses are more than revenues, while preserving employees’ pension, vacation, hours and overtime provisions.

For more than 75 years, Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter have battled to be the movie industry’s top newspaper, but recent layoffs due to the recession and competition from Internet blogs has Hollywood wondering if it will soon become a one paper town.

LAT Cutting 300 Jobs, 70 In Editorial; Local News Folded Into Main Section (Paid Content)
Tribune Company’s Los Angeles Times just keeps on cutting. On its third round of layoffs in less than six months, LAT is cutting 300 positions and putting the separate local coverage into the print daily’s main section,  Publisher Eddy Hartenstein wrote in a staff memo on the LATimes’ blog… About 70 newsroom jobs will be lost, representing 11 percent of the editorial staff. In a separate memo, LAT editor Russ Stanton warned: “Other departments at The Times will be undertaking similar cost-saving measures, some more painful than the ones we will experience.”

LAT boss thought killing business section would do more harm than axing local news section
‘It seems a tone-deaf stance by [Publisher Eddy] Hartenstein, given how little actual news the Business section offers most days,” writes former LAT staffer Kevin Roderick.

AMI Restructures Debt, Avoids Bankruptcy
American Media Inc. has come to a financial agreement with bondholders that keeps the National Inquirer publisher out of bankruptcy. The agreement, which reduces the company’s debt by $227.2 million, transfers ownership of 95 percent of AMI’s common stock to bondholders.

Gannett to Book Huge Write-Down
Gannett Co. said it will write down the value of its newspapers by as much as $5.9 billion to reflect the accelerating erosion of newspaper advertising. Excluding the impairment, its fourth-quarter earnings fell 36%. Gannett, which publishes 85 newspapers, said ad revenue at its publishing division fell 23%.

Wasserman scolds NYT for taking Slim’s money
“Carlos Slim is a player, one of the biggest,” writes Edward Wasserman. “It’s impossible to report on social, political and economic realities of the Western Hemisphere, where independent journalism is notoriously rare, without bumping into his interests or addressing the same polarities and injustices that he has prospered from.”

Pension Deficit Adds to Gray Lady’s Woes
Just when it started to look as if The New York Times Co. had found a way to dig itself out from under its massive debt load, the beleaguered newspaper company may be on the verge of getting knocked down again. The publisher’s pension plan was facing a $625 million shortfall at the end of 2008.

Page Six Magazine Goes Quarterly
The entire staff of Page Six Magazine will be packing up their desks on the heels of [the] announcement that the weekly New York Post insert would move to a quarterly publication schedule. The only full-time employee left will be editor-in-chief Margi Conklin.

WaPo and the Onion: Splitsville
The Washington Post and satirical mag the Onion are ending their nearly two-year-old publishing partnership for the Washington market. The Post has handled printing and local ad sales for the Onion under a cooperative arrangement that hasn’t withstood the test of time, recession, ad depression, etc.

Report: Editorial Cuts Coming at the WSJ (Paid Content)
That’s according to Jeff Bercovici, reporting on Portfolio.com: the until-now relatively insulated Wall Street Journal newsroom may be in for a round of cuts and it may be announced later this week. The number could reach as high as 50, though with buyouts the actual number of layoffs could be much lower. Dow Jones Newswires, the wire service in the process of being better integrated with other DJ properties, and some Journal bureaus may be closed as well, the story points out. No comment from Dow Jones yet.

Analyst Downgrades News Corp
Pali Research analyst Rich Greenfield downgraded News Corp to sell from buy. His reasons include decreased earnings per share estimates; the possibility that COO Peter Chernin may not renew his contract; and a suspicion that Rupert Murdoch is without a strategy for the company’s core businesses.

Analyst: News Corp. Should Separate Assets
The idea of the U.S. government shoring up the financial system and financial-services giants by separating assets into “good banks” and “bad banks” has captured the imagination of Michael Nathanson of Sanford C. Bernstein. He suggests News Corp. would benefit from a similar approach.

Watched Any Good Books Lately? HarperCollins Tries ‘Video Books’ (Paid Content)
For those who don’t have the time to listen to an audiobook, let alone read a hardback or e-Book, HarperCollins brings you: the video book. Perhaps fittingly, the first author to get the video treatment is BuzzMachine’s Jeff Jarvis, whose book, What Would Google Do?, will be available in all the other formats as well, WSJ notes…

Jarvis’ video book goes on sale Tuesday and retails for $9.99. The 23-minute video has Jarvis speaking into a single camera with a white background. Instead of reading directly from the book, which was published last month by the company’s Collins Business imprint, Jarvis runs through the basic concepts in the book, such as how Google has been able to compete so successfully on the web and what can be learned from its practices. If HarperCollins can make a go of v-books, perhaps Google will be the one to pick up a few tips for generating revenue from YouTube.

Some Fear Google’s Power in Digital Books
Google Book Search and its millions of works, aided by a recent class-action settlement, promise to transform the way information is collected.

Slate Editor Sends Staffers on Sabbaticals
In a season of media cutbacks, thus far the staffers at Slate have escaped the scythe. Editor David Plotz has made no layoffs. Even more remarkably, Plotz is sending his writers out of the office to go work from home and pull together a big project and all the while still get paid for it.

Portfolio Editor’s Expensive Trip to Davos
Eyebrows were raised last week when Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman insisted on flying first class to the World Economic Forum in Davos. “It’s just jaw-dropping,” an insider said. “Not only is her magazine not profitable, but she just laid off almost the entire Web site and fired many others on the print side.”

Conde Nast may not be able to keep all 23 of its magazines in business
David Carr points out: “The company has two food magazines, Gourmet and Bon Appetit, two men’s fashion magazines, GQ and Details, and a raft of magazines that take women’s fashion and cosmetics as a central concern, including Vogue, Teen Vogue, W, Allure and Lucky.” They’re hard to support in a tough ad climate.

Two New Local Parenting Magazines to Launch
And now for something new! Literally. NYMetroParents has announced they are launching two new local magazines, Nassau Parent and Suffolk Parent, beginning with an April 2009 edition and with advertising sales commencing immediately.

Sirius Faces Debt Payment in Test of Its Viability
Sirius XM Satellite Radio Inc. is facing an important test of its viability this month: how it handles $174.6 million in debt coming due Feb. 17. Questions over how the company can pay it, along with $750 million more in debt due later in the year, have been dogging the company for months.

Super Bowl Scores Third-Largest Audience in TV History
A whopping 95.4 million people watched the Pittsburgh Steelers’ dramatic win over the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII — the second-most-watched Super Bowl broadcast ever and the third-most-watched broadcast in U.S. television history.

30-Second Porn Clip Interrupts Super bowl in Tucson
Just as [Sunday] night’s Super Bowl neared a thrilling climax, TV viewers in Tuscon, Ariz., were astonished to see a woman unzipping a man’s pants to reveal “full male nudity” followed by what was described as “a graphic act.” Comcast and local NBC affliate KVOA are investigating what happened.

Can YouTube help save classical music?
Milan Curro auditioned for Carnegie Hall from his bed in Milwaukee, wearing a flannel shirt and blue jeans… Thousands of musicians from 40 countries submitted audition videos through Wednesday’s deadline, and YouTube users will soon have a chance to vote on their favorites to send to New York for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra’s April 15 performance.

Google Earth to Go Underwater (Mashable)
Google’s mission is famously to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Apparently, that mission really does include theentire world, as the company is set to roll out an update to Google Earth that will include imagery and maps from the planet’s oceans… Unlike Google Street View, where Google obtains street-level imagery by sending vans around the country gathering photos, it doesn’t sound like the company is deploying its own submarines to explore the ocean (cue shareholder sigh of relief). Rather, Google is developing partnerships with others that already send vessels underwater.

Facebook Aims To Market Its User Data Bank To Businesses
Facebook intends to capitalise on the wealth of information it has about its users by offering its 150 million-strong customer base to corporations as a market research tool.

Super Bowls Ads Run Amok: Hulu Gets The ‘Where To Watch’ Push From NBC—And Buys Its Own Ad (Paid Content)
If you absolutely, positively feel compelled to watch the surreal Super Bowl commercial with monkeys detailing cars to the tune of In-A-Gada-Da-Vida or see Mrs. Potato Head lose her lips again, Hulu has it covered. The NBC Universal-News Corp JV is posting full video of ads almost as they appear. NBCU, of course, is airing Super Bowl XLIII and just gave Hulu a second-quarter shout out as “the” place to watch the ads. Hulu actually has advertisers for the ads—clicking on the Castrol Oil ad brought up a Coke Zero pre-roll; Coke Zero’s logo and graphics remain on the screen during and after the play. (H&R Block sponsored another view.) Users can vote for their favorite ad; the results will be posted Tuesday. The ad page is refreshed every 10 minutes.

Super Bowl Ads Pushed Our Usual (Well-Worn) Buttons (by Stuart Elliott, New York Times)
Although the country’s circumstances are far different than in previous years, many of the 50+ spots shown on Sunday would not have seemed out of place in any Super Bowl of the last decade or two. It was regrettable that so few of the two dozen sponsors dared to be different on Sunday.

Super Bowl ads showed us just how bad the U.S. economy is
How bad is the American economy? So bad that we’re having to import our punch lines from Sweden. When you watch 32 Super Bowl commercials and the most memorable slogan is Skillnaden ar drinkability, you know you’ve got a problem.

A Bumpy Road Ahead For Yahoo Search? (Paid Content)
[A]ccording to Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan, Yahoo has been making changes to advertisers’ campaigns—including adjusting the keywords they bid on and creating ad copy—without the marketers’ express consent. Some outspoken search pros say they’ve shut down their YSM accounts completely as a result, and others say they’ve shifted their budget to Microsoft. Sullivan says the main problem is that the campaign optimizations are opt-out—not opt-in—and the changes are driving up advertisers’ costs without delivering a solid ROI.

When you watch these ads, the ads check you out
Watch an advertisement on a video screen in a mall, health club or grocery store and there’s a slim — but growing — chance the ad is watching you too. Small cameras can now be embedded in the screen or hidden around it, tracking who looks at the screen and for how long. The makers of the tracking systemssay the software can determine the viewer’s gender, approximate age range and, in some cases, ethnicity — and can change the ads accordingly. That could mean razor ads for men, cosmetics ads for women and video-game ads for teens.

And even if the ads don’t shift based on which people are watching, the technology’s ability to determine the viewers’ demographics is golden for advertisers who want to know how effectively they’re reaching their target audience.

How to Get a Brand on NBC’s Today for Nothing
In this age of branded entertainment and sponsored integrations, NBC is inadvertently giving away tens of thousands of dollars in commercial time on its flagship morning program — by letting fans in Rockefeller Plaza stand in the window behind the broadcast.

Bringing the Internet to Remote African Villages
When Internet connections arrive in small towns like Entasopia, Kenya, they put new tools into the hands of people hungry to use them, and for some there, that has had wide repercussions.

Comcast Testing Free WiFi Services In New Jersey (Paid Content)
Cable provider Comcast is testing a free WiFi service for its cable customers at around 100 New Jersey Transit commuter rail stations and parking lots, reports Broadband Reports. The country’s largest cable operator launched the trial on Friday, after sizing up the free WiFi services from its competitor Cablevision. Cable operators are under increasing pressure to provide consumers with wireless services, lest they defect to phone providers who can.

India set to follow cheap car with £7 laptop
Indians may soon be able to buy the ultimate in credit-crunch computing – a laptop that costs only 500 rupees (£7). The government-developed laptop is the latest in ultra-cheap engineering to emerge from the sub-continent. It is also the most ambitious attempt yet to bring the internet to the developing world and bridge the “digital divide” between rich and poor. India has already given the world the 100,000-rupee (£1,450) Tata Nano car and a no-frills mobile telephone that costs less than 800 rupees. The laptop that may be sold for less than the cost of a paperback book has been more than three years in the making.
That’s about $10.50.  Combined with free wireless, just about everyone who wants it can have internet access.