Permanent link to MTA daily media news

The Rich are not different from you and me… (by Tengrain at Mock, Paper, Scissors)
…they eat ramen noodles too. Harrod’s Pot Noodles ($43) come in a hand-flocked gold leaf cup.

America Is in Need of a Moral Bailout (by Chris Hedges at TruthDig, thanks to Susie at Suburban Guerilla)
We live in an age of moral nihilism. We have trashed our universities, turning them into vocational factories that produce corporate drones and chase after defense-related grants and funding. The humanities, the discipline that forces us to stand back and ask the broad moral questions of meaning and purpose, that challenges the validity of structures, that trains us to be self-reflective and critical of all cultural assumptions, have withered. Our press, which should promote such intellectual and moral questioning, confuses bread and circus with news and refuses to give a voice to critics who challenge not this bonus payment or that bailout but the pernicious superstructure of the corporate state itself. We kneel before a cult of the self, elaborately constructed by the architects of our consumer society, which dismisses compassion, sacrifice for the less fortunate, and honesty. The methods used to attain what we want, we are told by reality television programs, business schools and self-help gurus, are irrelevant. Success, always defined in terms of money and power, is its own justification. The capacity for manipulation is what is most highly prized. And our moral collapse is as terrifying, and as dangerous, as our economic collapse.
Click through to read more.  Moral decay is what destroyed the Roman Empire, and I don’t mean sexual moral decay.  We have to address this problem, and we have to address it now.  NOW NOW NOW, as Lambert would say.

Can Democrats Govern? (Political Wire)
Jonathan Chait: “George W. Bush came to office having lost the popular vote, with only 50 Republicans in the Senate… [Nonetheless,] Bush managed to enact several rounds of tax cuts that substantially exceeded those in his campaign platform, along with two war resolutions, a Medicare prescription drug benefit designed to maximize profits for the health care industry, energy legislation, education reform, and sundry other items… Obama has come into office having won the popular vote by seven percentage points, along with a 79-seat edge in the House, a 17-seat edge in the Senate, and massive public demand for change. But it’s already clear he is receiving less, not more, deference from his own party.”
Some Democrats did their best to help right wingers derail the Bill Clinton presidency.  They pushed him as far as they could to the right.  Oddly enough, many of those anti-Clinton folks were early Obama supporters.  But now Obama has his own set of Blue Dogs to deal with.  Remind me again why it’s supposed to be a good thing to have conservatives in the Democratic Party?

Will the Grassroots Drop their Anti-Blue Dog Campaigns? (by Brian Beutler at TPMDC)
On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid laid the smackdown on progressive grassroots groups that are marshaling their efforts against a group of conservative Democrats. But did the grassroots get the message?… AUC has been running ads in the states of conservative Democrats urging constituents to “call congress” and “tell them to support President Obama’s budget”. Late Friday, they sent me a statement saying, “we agree with Senator Reid that Democrats should not be impeded from moving forward on this transformative budget and this is not a fight between Democrats.”…

CAF, meanwhile, declines to comment on Reid’s remarks altogether. Last week, the group featured their “Dog the Blue Dogs” campaign prominently on their website’s home page, but today it’s nowhere to be seen. For their part, MoveOn did not respond to a request for comment. They’ve been running similar ads in many of the same districts as AUC, though MoveOn calls out the targeted senators and congressmen by name.

Financial Rescue Approaches GDP as U.S. Pledges $12.8 Trillion (Bloomberg)
The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or guaranteed $12.8 trillion, an amount that approaches the value of everything produced in the country last year, to stem the longest recession since the 1930s. New pledges from the Fed, the Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. include $1 trillion for the Public-Private Investment Program, designed to help investors buy distressed loans and other assets from U.S. banks. The money works out to $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. and 14 times the $899.8 billion of currency in circulation. The nation’s gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion in 2008.
Why don’t they just give us (well, why don’t we lend ourselves) the $42,105?  Oh, I know.  We’re not BANKERS.

Obama and Wall Street, Part 2 (by Susie at Suburban Guerrilla)
Thomas Ferguson: [“Obama should save the banks, not the bankers.”]
Click through to watch the video.

Would thou were living at this hour (by Owen Paine at Stop Me Before I Vote Again)
“The Bank is trying to kill me — but I will kill it.” And Old Hickory did just that, unlike someone kooling it up in the White House now. President Jackson took on the financial octopus of his era, and despite the bank’s aura of invincibility, he did kill it, after getting re-elected over the bank’s peacock, Henry Clay, by a rampant 18-point margin and running off two money-stooge Treasury secretaries. He stood against it and its invisible fortune, its circle of bought men, and the London banks behind it; dared it “take your best shot,” then after the bank did its damnedest, took steady aim — bang! Made of adamantine stuff, that towering bastard.

Hey, he gave ‘em fair warning. During his first year in office, king Andy set the bank’s president — the soft-handed fork-tongued slickster Nicholas Biddle, shown left — straight: “I never trusted banks — not after I read about the South Sea bubble.” Words to live by.

Obama’s Banking Rescue: O for Opaque (by Robert Kuttner, Co-Founder and Co-Editor of The American Prospect, writing at the Huffington Post)
It’s possible that the Geithner plan will “work” in the sense of re-starting the Wall Street bubble machine, this time with a limitless line of direct credit from the Federal Reserve. If that happens, it will defer an even more serious day of reckoning, as the cost of the Fed’s immense credit creation comes due. But the greater likelihood is that the plan will merely enrich some speculators, but neither bring zombie banks back to life, nor get a normal banking and credit system operating again. And then the administration will need to come back to Congress, this time with less credibility, with the economy in even worse shape, having burned through more than a trillion dollars.

We were promised unprecedented openness. In the most momentous area of policy for getting the economy functioning again for ordinary Americans, we have instead unprecedented secrecy, designed by and for Wall Street. We expected better of Obama.
Some of the Obamaphiles are finally waking up, and Joe Cannon wants apologies—from Bob Fertik of Democrats.com and from Robert Kuttner, quoted above.  Me, I want them to crawl on their bellies like reptiles and THEN beg forgiveness.

Tuesday: Reboot (by riverdaughter at The Confluence)
Nicholas Lemann, who I know nothing about, has written Mad and Madder in The New Yorker that hints at why Obama may be reluctant to nationalize the banks.  Well, *another* reason that is independent from the fact that his banker backers have him by the junk: “Bank nationalization would drive the stock market down and increase the agita of people with 401(k) plans. Moderate Democrats in Congress would further soften in their support for the Administration’s legislation.”…

So, maybe Obama’s strategy, and we have to assume their is a point to all of this even though there is no policy that we can detect, is to make sure that the middle class doesn’t lose its temper.  Plunging 401k’s would definitely make some people peevish, including moi.  However, if we descend into the semi-darkness of a Japan style “lost decade” where the already devalued 401k’s do not regain any of their value, just so that the bankers don’t have to eat their losses, that would piss me off more.  Maybe Obama figures that his chances of being a president when that happens are very slim.  Fine.  But don’t expect your picture on any stamps or money.  Your name will be “Bush”.

Hard Line on Auto Aid Puts Bailed-Out Firms on Notice (Washington Post)
The administration’s decision to oust G. Richard Wagoner Jr. sharply ratchets up its control over companies receiving government assistance in the face of criticism about a lack of accountability over billions of taxpayer dollars. The government demanded Wagoner’s departure even though it does not own a stake in the automaker… Now the president’s aggressive move against GM has left some banking executives wondering whether they are next in line.
I’ll believe it when I see it.

They all have cushions like this:
ABC News: GM’s Rick Wagoner will receive a $20 million retirement plan. (Think Progress)
ABC News reports that Rick Wagoner, outgoing CEO of General Motors, will be eligible to collect $20 million in retirement benefits from GM, the company that lost tens of billions of dollars under Wagoner’s leadership… However, the Washington Post reported this morning that Wagoner would not be leaving GM immediately, “because if he leaves the company he is entitled to a multimillion-dollar pension that the government does not want to pay.” Additionally, under the already-standing TARP agreement between GM and the Treasury Department, GM Is not allowed to pay severence fees to senior executives. “That ban does not appear to apply to retirement benefits, however.”

Are there any other ways they’ve robbed ordinary citizens?  Glad you asked:
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation: A Case of Outright Theft (by Mary at The Left Coaster)
The Boston Globe says that three of Bush’s Cabinet Secretaries approved the scam to switch the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation investment model from a conservative model (15-25% in Stocks and Real Estate) to a highly risky investment model (55% in Stocks and Real Estate) in February 2008. The Cabinet Secretaries that approved this switch? Treasury, Labor and Commerce. And who was Secretary of Treasury then? Why, that would have been Mr. Paulsen, the ex-CEO of Goldman, Sachs. And why was that a problem? Because it would be hard to believe that he and his friends wouldn’t have know about what had been happening in the late stages of the mortgage bubble.

Kick-Starting Employment (by J. Bradford DeLong, thanks to Economist’s View)
Unemployment is currently rising like a rocket… In response, central banks should purchase government bonds for cash in as large a quantity as needed to push their prices up as high as possible. Expensive government bonds will shift demand to mortgage or corporate bonds, pushing up their prices. Even after central banks have pushed government bond prices as high as they can go, they should keep buying government bonds for cash, in the hope that people whose pockets are full of cash will spend more of it… In addition, governments need to run extra-large deficits. Spending … boosts employment and reduces unemployment. And government spending is as good as anybody else’s.

Finally, governments should undertake additional measures to boost financial asset prices, and so make it easier for those firms that ought to be expanding and hiring to obtain finance on terms that allow them to expand and hire.

Asian Stocks Fall, Paring March Rally, on Policy Skepticism (Bloomberg)
(Bloomberg) — Asian stocks fell, paring the regional benchmark index’s rally this month, amid concern government stimulus plans worldwide will take longer than some investors expect to revive global growth.

Russia backs return to Gold Standard to solve financial crisis (The Telegraph, U.K.)
Arkady Dvorkevich, the Kremlin’s chief economic adviser, said Russia would favour the inclusion of gold bullion in the basket-weighting of a new world currency based on Special Drawing Rights issued by the International Monetary Fund. Chinese and Russian leaders both plan to open debate on an SDR-based reserve currency as an alternative to the US dollar at the G20 summit in London this week, although the world may not yet be ready for such a radical proposal.

China, Argentina to settle trade in yuan (MarketWatch)
China and Argentina have agreed to set up a 70 billion yuan ($10.24 billion) currency swap system that will enable trade between the two nations to be settled in the Chinese currency, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Monday… The agreement marks Argentina as the fifth nation to sign currency swap agreements with China following similar agreements with South Korea, Malaysia, Belarus and Indonesia. China ranks as Argentina’s second-largest trade partner.

Nicolas Sarkozy’s threat to walk out of global summit (The Times, U.K.)
President Sarkozy yesterday threatened to wreck the London summit if France’s demands for tougher financial regulation are not met… The French threat dramatically raised the temperature hours before President Obama arrives in London today. If carried through, it would ruin a summit for which Mr Brown and Mr Obama have high ambitions, believing it vital to international recovery. Mr Sarkozy, who blames the “Anglo-Saxons” for causing the economic crisis, told his ministers last week that he would leave Mr Brown’s summit “if it does not work out”.

A Rookie President (by Thomas Sowell, a conservative)
Barack Obama is a rookie in a sense that few other Presidents in American history have ever been. It is not just that he has never been President before. He has never had any position of major executive responsibility in any kind of organization where he was personally responsible for the outcome. Other first-term Presidents have been governors, generals, cabinet members or others in positions of personal responsibility. A few have been senators, like Barack Obama, but usually for longer than Obama, and had not spent half their few years in the senate running for President.

What is even worse than making mistakes is having sycophants telling you that you are doing fine when you are not. In addition to all the usual hangers-on and supplicants for government favors that every President has, Barack Obama has a media that will see no evil, hear no evil and certainly speak no evil. They will cheer him on, no matter what he does.
It’s a dangerous situation.

Few Blame Obama for Economy (Political Wire)
A new Washington Post/ABC News poll finds that the number of Americans who believe that the nation is headed in the right direction has roughly tripled since President Obama’s election, and the public overwhelmingly blames the excesses of the financial industry, rather than the new president, for turmoil in the economy. Interesting: “There is now a pronounced divergence between Democratic and Republican perceptions of the economy, a bigger partisan divide than the one that occurred 16 years ago after Bill Clinton took office. In early 1993, people in both parties were about equally likely to see the economy as improving, but now the number of Republicans who say it is souring is more than double that of Democrats.”
Yet.  Few blame him YET.

Obama’s Popularity Matters More in the Midterms (Political Wire)
Nate Silver built a statistical model that shows a president’s approval rating matters more than the economy — or the popularity of Congress itself — in determining his party’s fate in midterm congressional elections. According to past trends, Obama will need to sustain an approval rating in the range of 65 percent to avoid losing any ground in the House.

Obama signs massive wilderness bill (McClatchy)
President Barack Obama on Monday signed into law a giant public lands bill that puts former Fresno-area congressman John Krebs in rare and exalted company.

Guantanamo detainee to go free after Obama-ordered review (McClatchy)
The U.S. government on Monday agreed to release a Yemeni surgeon who reportedly treated al Qaida wounded at Tora Bora in Afghanistan under a new review ordered by President Barack Obama meant to empty the prison camps here by January 2010.

DHS secretary proposes forgiving post-Katrina, Rita loans (McClatchy)
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, acting on her recent trip to the Gulf Coast, proposed Monday that $1.27 billion in post-Katrina and Rita community disaster loans be forgiven.

DSCC: Republicans Pulled A “Hit And Run With Our Economy” (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
Touching all the spots still sensitive from the Bush years, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee launched a new online effort on Tuesday pinning the economic malaise squarely on the shoulders of the Republican Party. Titled “They Broke It And Won’t Fix It,” the campaign is a clear reminder that the Democratic Party still sees political capital to gain from the previous administration. The accompanying video accuses Republicans of pulling a “hit and run with our economy” by following the policies of the George W. Bush.
Click through to watch the video.  I can’t get excited by these kinds of attacks.  I think we need to be educating, not attacking.

The He-Man Woman Haters Ride Again! (by myiq2xu at The Confluence)
Misogyny never dies.  From Greg Sargent: “Is the Rush Limbaugh strategy giving way to the Sarah Palin strategy? Multiple Democratic strategists say the party plans to increasingly elevate Palin in the same manner it has employed Rush for weeks, using her high-visibility, her social conservatism, and memories of her harsh attacks on Obama during the campaign to tar the GOP as partisan, obstructionist, and backward-looking…”

I guess this is part of the neverending campaign.  Obama needs to run against somebody so he can tear them down to make himself look good.  But Rush was apparently too tough for Teh Precious so he’s gonna try beating up on a woman instead.  Last time I checked the strategery of targeting the Big Fat Idiot only succeeded in pushing Limbaugh’s ratings through the roof. Let’s hope this plan is equally successful.

Murtha: ‘If I’m corrupt, it’s because I take care of my district.’ (Think Progress)
Criticism of Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), whom Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) calls one of the “most corrupt members of Congress,” has been mounting recently over his aggressive efforts to steer money to his district. In a recent interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Murtha used stark language to defend himself against charges of corruption: “…‘If I’m corrupt, it’s because I take care of my district,’ Mr. Murtha said.”

In Minnesota, it’s still November (Politico)
Texas Sen. John Cornyn is threatening “World War III” if Democrats try to seat Al Franken in the Senate before Norm Coleman can pursue his case through the federal courts. Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, acknowledges that a federal challenge to November’s elections could take “years” to resolve. But he’s adamant that Coleman deserves that chance – even if it means Minnesota is short a senator for the duration.

Party Leaders Worried About Dodd (Political Wire)
Interviews with Democratic party officials and operatives in Connecticut “indicate there is deep concern back home over whether the incendiary American International Group bonuses issue has delivered a mortal blow to Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT),” reports Politico. “Many of them describe a palpable fury among the party rank and file — anger that’s led some to wonder if the party would be better served with a different Democratic nominee in 2010 — though they note that, at the moment, Dodd still retains the loyalty of Democratic activists and the political class.” Meanwhile, the Hartford Courant notes that Dodd faced a “flurry of questions” yesterday about a report in the Washington Times that AIG executives solicited campaign contributions for him.

Despite McCain’s Comments, Senate GOP Not Offering Detailed Budget (by at The Note, ABC News)
Much has been made in recent days about divisions inside the House Republican caucus over how to frame the party’s opposition to President Obama’s budget. On Thursday, House Republicans did wind up offering the frame of an alternative budget — but then they were widely panned for not releasing a more detailed alternative to the Democratic proposals… According to a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate GOP’s plan remains the same: Republicans are planning to offer individual amendments to the Democratic budget but not a detailed, comprehensive budget of their own.

Quote of the Day (Political Wire)
“It was not a budget in the sense that it had numbers. It was more budget-ish.” — From the Urban Dictionary.

Rep. Paul Ryan Concedes GOP Alternative Budget Would Increase The Deficit ‘A Lot’ (Think Progress)
Last week, the House GOP presented its alternative budget proposal. Members of the media, including conservative commentators, widely panned the document for being scant on details and appearing more as “campaign-style talking points.” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), ranking member of the House Budget Committee, has said he will release yet another budget proposal, but this time with more specifics. Though Ryan has been most critical of the deficit impact of Obama’s budget, he has been unable to assess the deficit impact of his own budget. After being repeatedly asked this weekend by Bloomberg’s Al Hunt about “how large” the deficit would be under the Republican plan, Ryan finally respond, “A lot”.

S.C. Gov. Sanford proposes stimulus deal (McClatchy)
Gov. Mark Sanford has proposed a compromise with state lawmakers over accepting $700 million in federal stimulus money – one that would require diverting state funds to pay off debt and accepting Sanford’s suggested budget savings.

Former Cheney Aide Suggests That Hersh’s Account Of ‘Executive Assassination Ring’ Is ‘Certainly True’ (Think Progress)
Last month, The New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh revealed in Minnesota that former vice president Cheney presided over an “executive assassination ring.” “Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving,” Hersh explained. [Monday], CNN interviewed Hersh and former Cheney national security aide John Hannah. Although he expressed regret for revealing the story (calling it a “dumb-dumb”), Hersh stood by his initial statements. “I’m sorry, Wolf, I have a lot of problems with it,” he said about the assassination scheme…

Hannah replied that Hersh’s account of the assassination scheme “is not true.” Yet in the same breath, when asked about a “list” of assassination targets, Hannah echoed Hersh’s statements. Hannah said that “troops in the field” are given “authority” to “capture or kill certain individuals” who are perceived as a threat. “That’s certainly true,” he said.. Hannah didn’t directly dispute Hersh’s claim that Congress wasn’t informed about the assassinations. “It is extremely hard for me to believe,” he said.
Click through to watch the video.

GOP Convention Arm Sued For Allegedly Bilking Firm Out Of $760,000 (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
The Republican National Committee entity in charge of coordinating this past summer’s convention in Minnesota is being accused by one of its vendors of failing to pay nearly $800,000 in expenses. In a complaint filed in January 2009…, 3 Dog Consulting, Ltd., alleges that it was not paid roughly $760,000 for fundraising services it did for the Minneapolis/St. Paul 2008 Host Committee, the non-profit group tasked with overseeing the convention.

Romney Already Laying Groundwork (Political Wire)
Mitt Romney “is building toward a White House bid in 2012 by judiciously engaging and disengaging with the national debate,” the AP reports. Though Romney insists “this is a quiet time,” Republican strategist Mary Matalin says she “can easily see a second campaign — and a more successful one, at that.”

Jindal may not like volcano monitoring, but this Republican does (McClatchy)
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said Monday she’ll introduce legislation this week to establish regular funding for the Alaska Volcano Observatory, just one month after fellow Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal criticized the stimulus bill pushed by President Baack Obama for containing spending for volcano monitoring.

Alaska Air cancels Anchorage flights as Redoubt spews ash (McClatchy)
With Mount Redoubt volcano continuing to spew a steady flow of black ash into the atmosphere, Alaska Airlines announced Monday afternoon that it is once again canceling all flights in and out of Anchorage until further notice.

Some Apologies from the Obamamedia Are in Order for Falsely Accusing New Hampshire Primary Voters of Racism (by Concerned Mother at No Quarter)
Today the American Association for Public Opinion Research Ad Hoc Committee on the 2008 Presidential Primary Polling released a pdf report on the methodologies utilized by pollsters during the Democratic primaries. It is a long report, and a cursory analysis of it is available at Pollster.com. Much of the report focuses on the discrepancy between the polls and the actual vote of the New Hampshire Democratic Primary. Many variables were operative, according to the American Association for Public Opinion Research, but the Bradley Effect was NOT one of them. In other words, all those claims from the media and political pundits that New Hampshire primary voters are racist are UNFOUNDED. It was so much race baiting by the Obamamedia.
So where’s my apology, David Sirota, for calling me a racist?

Silber is Gold: Keep a Valued Voice Going (by Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque)
Arthur Silber is back, after another terrible downturn in his health which kept him from posting for almost a month. As readers here know, Arthur depends on his blog to keep body and soul together in grinding circumstances of illness and poverty (thanks to the wonderful “safety net” our society provides; but hey, at least we’re not France, right?). It’s a touch-and-go, month-to-month existence, and several weeks of enforced silence are devastating in that regard.

I know you are probably saving all your money to help those poor execs at AIG who are suffering so much without their bonuses, or maybe you’re patriotically contributing your income to the trillion-dollar nest egg that Obama and Geithner have set aside for hedge fund gamesters to squeeze even more of our blood from the toxic-paper turnip. But if you do have any spare cash left over from the administration’s noble, progressive crusade to keep rapacious elites rolling in clover, then please consider sending something to help support Silber’s work. His is a truly unique, genuinely insightful, humane and provocative vision that we can’t afford to lose.  So scoot on over there and throw some coins in the hat, so we can hear that brave voice ringing out once more.
Susie Madrak could use your help, too.

‘Secret’ Tribune/Blago Talks Revealed — But Little Information Emerges
Based on newly released Illinois government documents, the Chicago Tribune Tuesday reported new details of the secret talks now-impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich held with Tribune Co. on a state purchase of the landmark Wrigley Field. 
The U.S. Attorney in Chicago has accused Blagojevich of using the possibility of a state purchase of the Chicago Cubs stadium — potentially saving the financially strapped Tribune Co. $100 million or more in taxes — as leverage to force out certain Chicago Tribune editorial writers. No writers were ever fired during the period that coincided with widespread newsroom layoffs and buyouts, and the editorial board and editors have said they never felt any pressure to change their editorial stance.

Tuesday’s story by Chicago Tribune reporters Todd Lighty and Robert Becker — posted on its Web site – adds previously unreported details to the back-and-forth between Blagojevich and is aides and Tribune Co. Chairman and CEO Sam Zell and his negotiators. The Tribune obtained the records through Freedom of Information requests. But the story is no smoking gun pointing to any inappropriate actions by Tribune Co., as the reporters acknowledge: “The documents leave much unsaid, and most of the people who could fill in the blanks would not comment.”

Did we mention the media don’t care about epic gun violence? (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair at Media Matters for America)
And that the press, aside from downplaying what have now become routine, gun-related killing sprees that dot the nation, has completely walked away from even raising the issue of gun control in the wake of the rampages? The latest proof came in the wake of the carnage that unfolded in Carthage, North Carolina, on Sunday when a heavily armed suspect, Robert Stewart, entered a local retirement home and began randomly shooting patients and employees with a high-powered rifle… The thin coverage the story has received nationwide has been rather astounding… By contrast, the flood that didn’t materialize as feared in Fargo, North Dakota, over the weekend received nearly 250 mentions during the same time span. So the flood that didn’t happen got more coverage than than the killing rampage that left eight people dead in North Carolina.

Matthews calls “very correct” McCain’s false claim that “firing” of Wagoner was “unprecedented in the history of this country” (video at County Fair at Media Matters for America)

MSNBC finding rerun is wise prime-time strategy
MSNBC will continue airing Keith Olbermann’s talk show twice each weeknight in prime time, putting on indefinite hold a search for a new 10 p.m. program. That time slot has attracted attention ever since MSNBC chief executive Phil Griffin suggested earlier this year he was on the lookout for a new show. Fans of the Internet show “The Young Turks” and of Air America’s Sam Seder have openly campaigned for their favorites… MSNBC may give up entirely on the idea of putting a new live show in that time slot, Griffin said.

Buchanan: Japanese and Koreans have taken down US auto industry “the same way the Japanese military took all those islands” (video at County Fair at Media Matters for America)

After advocating death for AIG executives, Krauthammer rips Obama for ‘demanding’ GM CEO’s ‘head on a pike.’ (Think Progress)
Earlier this month, after the AIG bonuses controversy broke, Charles Krauthammer advocated unusual capital punishment for AIG executives, suggesting “an exemplary hanging or two” in Times Square and even a guillotine “party.” But today, after President Obama compelled GM CEO Rick Wagoner to resign, Krauthammer regained his sense of civility, criticizing the administration for “demanding” Wagoner’s “head on a pike”… Like many other Fox pundits who have been railing against unions today, Krauthammer added that organized labor has “utterly destroyed the auto companies.”
Click through to watch the video.

In light of Spanish court’s considering investigation of Bush administration officials, O’Reilly asks his audience: “Should we boycott Spain?” (video at County Fair at Media Matters for America)

Hannity on auto bailout: “The administration is on a mission to hijack capitalism in favor of collectivism… The Bolsheviks have already arrived” (video at County Fair at Media Matters for America)

Beck portrays Obama, Democrats as vampires “going after the blood of our businesses,” suggests “driv[ing] a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers” (video at County Fair at Media Matters for America)

Beck blasts studio lights “to show that I am such a supporter of Earth Hour” (video at County Fair at Media Matters for America)

FNC’s Napolitano says Wagoner’s resignation is “an absolute power grab and it’s the road to fascism”, “this is Mussolini on the Potomac” (video at County Fair at Media Matters for America)

Fox News Blames Unions For Auto Companies’ Demise, Suggests Firing UAW Head (Think Progress)
When Detroit’s Big Three auto companies first came to Washington last fall to ask for bailout funds, conservatives immediately insisted the companies’ woes were the fault of the United Auto Workers (UAW). Even though the Senate Republicans effectively blocked a fair bailout deal, they pointed the finger at the UAW, falsely claiming it was “willing to make no concessions — zero.” [Monday], President Obama announced that the government will recommit to providing assistance to General Motors and Chrysler — but only if the companies presented restructured plans, including the firing of GM CEO Rick Wagoner. Fox News and Fox Business was apoplectic, insisting that the UAW had never been forced to make concessions (a false claim) and that the union’s leader, Ron Gettelfinger, should be fired instead.
Click through to watch a compilation of the comments.

Howard Kurtz dictates quotes from Fox News execs (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair at Media Matters for America)
This gave us a good chuckle, reading the WashPost’s Kurtz. It’s in an article about Fox News and Kurtz faithfully goes through the pointless ritual of giving FNC bosses a chance to explain how the entire operation isn’t really a GOP movement-driven organization: “Fox executives maintain that the channel’s reporting is aggressive but not ideological. Senior Vice President Bill Shine says that ‘our reporters, people like Major Garrett, have been asking tougher questions’ than their rivals, such as scrutinizing efforts to increase White House involvement in the 2010 Census. As for the commentators, Shine says Hannity still has some liberal guests.”…

We just did a three-minute search on Nexis and found Hannity’s list of guests for the past week. We couldn’t find a single liberal. (A couple of Dems, yes. Liberals? No.) But we did see that Michele Bachmann, Mike Huckabee, Ann Coulter, J.C. Watts, Karl Rove, Hugh Hewitt, Newt Gingrich, Judd Gregg, Dick Morris, (radio nut) Mark Levin, and the WSJ’s Stephen Moore appeared on the show. Maybe when Hannity actually does have “some liberal guests” on his program Kurtz can publish an update.

On Fox Business, Varney predicts that government will “jack up the price of gas to make sure we buy the government car” (video at County Fair at Media Matters for America)

Fox Business contributor compares news of Wagoner resignation to “when you read Russia Today or the Moscow Times” (video at County Fair at Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh: “[A] lot of this stuff that’s happening right out of Rev. Wright’s sermons…and a lot of what’s going to happen in education, right out of Bill Ayers’ curriculum“ (video at County Fair at Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh: “Based on what we’ve seen with General Motors and the banks, if he fails, America is saved. Barack Obama’s policies and their failure is the only hope we’ve got to maintain the America of our founding.” (video at County Fair at Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh on requirements for federal aid to GM: “This is a union coup at the behest of the president. This is payback” (video at County Fair at Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh: “Is Hugo Chavez able to possess this man and go out and make speeches?” (video at County Fair at Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh: The Man Who Ate the G.O.P. (by Michael Wolff, Vanity Fair)
In an ailing radio industry, with a graying audience and a pro-government landscape, Rush Limbaugh should be shuffling off into irrelevancy. Instead, his outrageous attacks have everyone debating whether he’s the G.O.P.’s de facto leader, while the party shapes its ideology to fit his needs.

Nonprofit organizations seek federal stimulus funds (McClatchy)
The lure of millions of dollars of federal stimulus and recovery money drew nearly 200 nonprofit representatives to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation on Monday.
EVERYbody wants a handout.

AHIP and Blue Cross: We will treat everyone fairly if we can define fair (by DCblogger at Corrente)
Health insurers pull a fast one in proposed reform[:] “The industry says it will treat all people fairly in return for a government requirement that everyone has to buy their product. But they want to charge different prices for different levels of coverage… et if you read the fine print in their plan, it turns out that they’re reserving the right to charge different prices for different levels of coverage — a practice that would effectively keep us where we are, with sick (or potentially sick) people paying more for insurance.”

To keep workers, Kansas companies cut everyone’s salary (McClatchy)
Everybody at Pretech Corp. has taken a pay cut — but all the employees are working.

States aren’t spending funds to help rescue workers talk (McClatchy)
Nearly $1 billion intended to improve the ability of emergency workers to talk to each other has been sitting in the federal Treasury for 18 months.

Idaho Teacher Sells Advertising Space on Tests
In a cash-strapped Idaho high school where signs taped near every light switch remind the staff to save electricity, an enterprising teacher has struck a sponsorship deal with a local pizza shop: Every test, handout and worksheet he passes out to his students reads MOLTO’S PIZZA 14″ 1 TOPPING JUST $5 in bright red, inch-high letters printed along the bottom of every page.
Why won’t we provide the supplies necessary for educating the next generation?

KFC wants to sponsor pothole repairs
KFC, the fried chicken franchise, is offering itself as a corporate sponsor for pothole repair. An actor dressed as KFC founder Colonel Sanders and a road repair group got started this week in the franchise’s hometown of Louisville, Ky., filling up hundreds of holes. Many of the repairs are decorated with a white stencil saying the spot was “Re-freshed by KFC” — a play on KFC’s ad campaign stressing the freshness of their chickens. KFC spokesman Russell Dyer said the crew is using “regular asphalt,” not day-old biscuits. The franchise has issued an offer to mayors of cities nationwide, asking them to describe their street’s state of disrepair, with the intent of doing repairs in five cities.
Why won’t we provide the funds necessary to repair our streets?

Media Matters for America headlines

• Ignoring AIG, Fannie, and Freddie, Wash. Times editorial labeled Wagoner’s departure “unprecedented”

• Fox News’ La Jeunesse ignores effective tax rate to claim U.S. corporate tax “second highest in the world”

• Fox Nation says “yes” to “biased media” — calls Frank and Dodd a “[d]angerous duo”

• Fox & Friends graphic falsely claims, “Bill lets government set your salary”

• LA Times, Dobbs uncritically forward McCain’s false claim that Wagoner’s departure was “unprecedented”

• Boehlert: Norm Coleman’s a sore loser. Why won’t the press say so?

• Special Report allowed Fiorina to attack Obama without noting her role with McCain campaign

• Media promote claims of global cooling despite overwhelming consensus to the contrary

N. Korea to Indict Detained American Reporters
North Korea will indict two American reporters it detained this month on suspicion of illegally entering the country. “The illegal entry of U.S. reporters into the DPRK and their suspected hostile acts have been confirmed by evidence and their statements,” North Korea‘s official state news agency reported.

China rejects computer spy claims as “ghost of Cold War”
China on Tuesday rejected a report suggesting it may be involved in using computer networks to spy on exiled Tibetans and foreign governments, accusing its authors of being possessed by “the ghost of the Cold War.”

E.U. Poised to Establish Telecommunications Regulator
Starting in 2010, the new agency, together with the European Commission, will be able to reverse policies made by national regulators in E.U. countries.

High Court Won’t Consider Va. Decision That Barred Anti-Spam Law (American Constitution Society)
The U.S. Supreme Court today turned away Virginia’s request to review a lower court decision that invalidated the state’s anti-spam law. The Virginia Supreme Court concluded that the anti-spam law violated the First Amendment because it also prohibited political and religious messages from being sent via e-mail. The law in Virginia v. Jaynes was intended to bar unsolicited commercial e-mail.

Study: Enforcement spurs rise in Web sex arrests
More people have been arrested in recent years for sexually soliciting youths online, but the sharp increase comes from better enforcement, and the Internet remains a relatively safe social environment, researchers said in a new study.

Federal judge blocks charges in Pa. ‘sexting’ case
A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a prosecutor from filing child pornography charges against three northeastern Pennsylvania teenagers who appeared in racy photos that turned up on classmates’ cell phones.

Google Publishing Settlement Would Re-Write Nation’s Copyright System (American Constitution Society)
The Volokh Conspiracy’s Jonathan Adler notes recent commentary exploring a legal settlement that if approved by a federal court, would grant Google vast power to control digital publishing rights. Lynn Chu, with Writers Representatives LLC, maintains that if the legal framework were approved by a federal court, it “would permit Google to post out-of-print books for reading, sales, institutional licensing, ad sales, and other publishing exploitations,” by the online search engine giant. Chu notes that the settlement is fashioned between Google and only a “handful of authors and publishers,” but would cover every author and publisher in the nation…

Chu says the court should reject the Google settlement: “We already have a good system. It’s called the system of private property and free contract, designed for dispersed, autonomous individuals – not command-and-control centers. The U.S. Constitution grants authors small monopolies in their own copyrights. Author market power is talent-based and individual, not collective. The class action seeks to wipe all this out – just for Google. But U.S. law does not grant any single publisher monopoly power to herd all of us into its list.”

Check out the winners of the Investigative Reporters and Editors Awards
This year’s top prize, the IRE Medal, was given to WWL-TV in New Orleans for its investigation of a city-run housing nonprofit that falsely claimed to have fixed homes in need of repair after Hurricane Katrina, and the contractors who pocketed the money without doing the work.

Strib’s best journalism goes to paying customers first
Editor Nancy Barnes says the Strib wants to let print customers know that they’re getting something that others aren’t; thus, investigative projects, deeply reported nonbreaking news stories, and “beautifully written feature stories” won’t be rushed to the web. This is an experiment, notes the editor.

Bring Back Yellow Journalism (by Jack Shafer at Slate)
I wish our better newspapers availed themselves of some of the techniques of yellow journalism. Being rambunctious to the extreme, yellow journalism is misunderstood. At its best, yellow journalism was terrific, and at its worst, it really wasn’t all that bad.
I guess Shafer never watches Fox News or reads the Weekly Standard.

MIT cops suspended for dumping student newspapers
The two officers didn’t like the story about a colleague getting arrested for trafficking in prescription painkillers, so they put 300 papers in the recycling bin.

“This morning, I felt like something was missing,” says Detroit newspaper reader
Nancy Nester, 51, who has subscribed to both Detroit papers for four years, says “there was this feeling of emptiness” on Monday when there was no home delivery. She didn’t even bother to pick up the condensed print versions that were offered free. “I don’t have time to stop at the store.”

Auto Industry News Hits Just as Detroit Papers Begin Limited Delivery
Under a new distribution model, Gannett’s Detroit Free Press and MediaNews’ Detroit News this week limited their home delivery to Thursday and Friday, while only the Free Press arrives Sunday.

Philly newspaper union blasts execs’ “shocking” bonuses
The Inquirer and Daily News union says it now regrets encouraging members last summer to postpone their $25 raise. “Surely by December [when the bonuses to three senior execs were awarded], Philadelphia Media Holdings knew the company would soon declare bankruptcy, as it did last month, so the year-end cash rewards are shocking,” says the union.

NYT to Eliminate City Section
The New York Times plans to eliminate several weekly sections, including its stand-alone City Section, as well as possibly the regional weeklies in New Jersey, Long Island, Westchester, and Connecticut, and the Friday Escapes section. The timeline is unclear, but a staffer said that City has only four issues left.

Hartford Courant, 2 TV stations combine operations
Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co. said Monday that it is bringing together the operations of its newspaper and two television stations in Hartford, Conn. Richard Graziano, senior vice president and general manager of Tribune Co.’s WTIC-TV and WTXX-TV who also oversees Tribune Co. stations in Philadelphia and Washington, has been named publisher of the Hartford Courant, effective immediately.

The only US newspaper reporter in Havana is leaving Cuba
Tribune’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel is closing its Havana bureau and returning reporter Ray Sanchez to Fort Lauderdale.

Sun-Times Media Group Files For Bankruptcy Protection (Paid Content)
Chicago’s other big newspaper publisher, The Sun Times Media Group, has filed for bankruptcy protection… The company says it will continue to operate its 59 newspapers, including The Chicago Sun-Times. The Sun Times has been going through a great deal of turmoil lately, even by newspaper industry standards. In January, the company’s board was ousted by dissident shareholder, as The Sun Times’ stock price hovered around 8 cents.  The company’s last trade on March 30 was for 5 cents.

Jeremy Halbreich, chairman and interim CEO cited the “deteriorating economic climate, coupled with a significant, pending IRS tax liability dating back to previous management,” as the reason for the Chapter 11 filing. He said the company expects to exit the restructuring process sometime this year. In Feb. ’08, The Sun Times had hoped to put itself up for sale or find a joint venture as it attempted a major turnaround. But none of that came to pass

Charter files for prearranged bankruptcy
Charter Communications Inc. on Friday filed for a prearranged Chapter 11 bankruptcy to get relief from its creditors, as the nation’s fourth-largest cable operator strives to keep its head above water and still compete with phone companies and satellite TV providers.

More Layoffs, Extended Furloughs At ‘Tampa Tribune,’ Siblings 
Media General Inc.’s Florida Communications Group (FCG) on Monday laid off 53 employees at The Tampa Tribune and its media siblings in the market.

“The Soloist” has a grim state-of-the-newspaper subtext
The average moviegoer probably won’t be touched by it, but people in the news business will be. “I know I was,” writes Roger Moore. “I left a preview of ‘The Soloist’ last night, sat in my car, punched the CD changer to a Beethoven piano concerto and fought off the tears.”

The AP Daily without the AP (by Jeff Jarvis)
Amazing that even the free Metro papers – which were pretty much the Associated Press freeze-dried onto paper – are dropping the AP. Even though they’re nothing but a bus-read, they don’t want – or can no longer afford – commodity content.

Detroit Media Partnership in E-reader Deal with Plastic Logic
Detroit Media Partnership, the joint operating agency of the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News, and Plastic Logic, in Cambridge, England and Mountain View, Calif., have announced a partnership for a digital content delivery program using the Plastic Logic reader. To be generally available in early 2010 following pilot projects later this year, the electronic reader features a large, thin, plastic display about the size of an 8.5 x 11-inch pad of paper and weighing less than many print magazines. The e-reader is based on the company’s plastic electronics technology and intuitive touch screen interface, among other as-yet-unannounced features.

The Plastic Logic reader will be offered for purchase or lease to the Detroit dailies’ subscribers as an alternative to paper delivery. The Detroit newspapers will also be among the first publications to test the new e-reader later this year. “Our goal is to provide a superior digital reading experience for users while also offering a versatile new delivery platform for the publishing industry,” Plastic Logic CEO Richard Archuleta said at yesterday’s announcement.

Life’s Revival Continues; Time Inc. JV With Getty Images Goes Emerges From Beta (Paid Content)
Time Inc.’s Life magazine gets its full rebirth as a website today, as the company’s joint venture with Getty Images comes out of beta with 7 million images… The site, which is being sponsored entirely by Rolex for its first month, is organized along 1,000 galleries. “Curation” is Life.com’s underlying philosophy. Blau sought to emphasize that that the stress would be on professional photographers and content; the only real user-generated involvement would be celebrity curators like talk show host Ellen DeGeneres. As for Life’s other partnership with Google, an image archive launched in November, Blau also notes the key differences. “Google’s about image storing,” he said. “Life.com is about image finding… We deliberately wanted to make sure that this wouldn’t be seen as an ‘archival’ site. The photos are updated constantly and reflect the news, such as the recent flood fears on the midwest. It draws back to what the magazine originally was: capturing what was happening, but through photos, not text.”

While other sites struggle with paid content, Blau and company have that issue nailed down as well. The site will make most of its money from advertising—in addition to sponsorships like Rolex, within the next three- to six months Blau wants to have galleries that are specially sponsored by marketers. It will also have a major e-commerce function, whereby users create their own photo books from site images and then order them online.

Life.com

Esquire’s Latest Cover Stunt: A Mix-and-Match Flip Book
Meet President Barack George Timberlake

Forbes To Hand Out More Pink Slips; Second Round Of Cuts Targets 50 (Paid Content)
Forbes Media is planning on cutting another 50 jobs, MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka reports… The business mag has already slashed more than 60 jobs since last fall. Those job losses were attributed to the two phase process of combining the digital and print staffs. With that process completed about three months ago, it appears that this latest round can only be laid at the feet of the foundering economy.

It’s official: Internet surpasses radio.
Radio’s $100 million lead in 2007 evaporated last year as internet revenues grew 11% to $23.4 billion. That’s $3.9 billion more than radio. The internet is now the third largest ad-supported medium, behind television and print. But radio is fighting back, targeting online ad growth. The RAB says off-air dollars accounted for 9% of last year’s radio revenue.

Senate joins the royalty fight.
Senators Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and John Barrasso (R-WY) have introduced a resolution which, like its House counterpart, opposes any new royalty-based fee on radio. The effort comes as roughly 500 local broadcasters descend on Capitol Hill this week.

Radio One wants Sirius XM spectrum.
The FCC is trying to figure out how it will distribute 12 satellite channels set-aside for outside programmers as a condition for last year’s Sirius-XM merger. Radio One has a suggestion on how those channels should be divvied-up.

Local TV, Radio Face Even Tougher 2009
SNL Kagan Forecasts Ad-Revenue Slides of at Least 15%

CNN in Third Place in Prime Time for First Time
CNN is poised to finish March third in the prime-time weeknight ratings behind Fox News Channel and MSNBC, the first time this has ever happened for the channel that pioneered the cable news genre nearly three decades ago.

Disney, YouTube Announce Clips Deal For ESPN, Disney/ABC (by Staci D. Kramer at Paid Content)
It’s official—Disney Media Networks and YouTube have announced the revenue-sharing short-form deal we first reported last night. The deal with the Google video portal covers the launch of multiple ad-supported U.S.-only channels featuring content from ESPN and the Disney/ABC Television Group. Previews are up now; the ESPN channel will launch mid-April, ABC in mid-May.

—Full episodes still on the table…
—We were told emphatically that Disney would control the ad inventory…
—The ESPN video player, which share DNA with the ABC player, will be integrated into the ESPN channel and “will anchor a wide variety of exciting sports content and highlights” on YouTube Sports. But some ESPN content will be available through YouTube’s player…
—It’s not in the release but I’ve confirmed (again) that ABC and ESPN will be able to link back to long-form content on their own sites.

Microsoft Encarta Officially Succumbs to Wikipedia (Mashable)
Do you remember what came in between printed encyclopedias and Wikipedia? For many, the answer is Microsoft Encarta, which was distributed starting in the 90s via CD-ROM and more recently on the Web via MSN. Today, Microsoft announced that it’s discontinuing Encarta later this year, offering symbolic confirmation that Wikipedia is the world’s definitive reference guide… As PaidContent points out, the crowd-edited Wikipedia boasts 2.7 million entries in English versus just 42,000 for Encarta. Need further confirmation of why Wikipedia is simply a better model? News of Encarta’s discontinuation has already reached the product’s entry on Wikipedia.

Climate Culture Employs Social Media to Turn America’s Universities Green (Mashable)
Social media has been a great tool for spreading awareness about environmental and green issues. Most recently, social media was used to spread the word about Earth Hour and the cost of electricity use. Once again, social media is being used to make an impact on the environment, this time through college campuses across the U.S. Climate Culture, a green tech startup that helps people manage their energy usage and carbon footprint, and SmartPower, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting efficient and clean energy, have teamed up to officially launch the America’s Greenest Campus contest, which pits college campuses against each other to reduce their carbon footprint.

Mydeco: An All-in-One Tool for Home Design and Shopping (Mashable)
Mydeco is a comprehensive portal for home decorations and design. In terms of its shopping features, it has the essentials for every room of the house: everything from bedding to cutlery is available for purchase. Purchases are not made on Mydeco; they are completed through third-party vendors such as the UK’s B&Q (home improvement supplies). What makes the website stand out, however, is its vast array of tools for designing the perfect home, as well as its dedicated community.

20 Twitter Badges to Show Off Your Tweets (by Sean P. Aune at Mashable)
There are a number of ways to promote your Twitter account. You can add yourself to one of the many growing Twitter directories, advertise your brand, or, as I’ll discuss in this post, feature a badge with your Twitter information on your website, blog, or even in your email. Here are 20 embeddable badges and widgets that you can customize to include your tweets and, in some cases, those of your friends.

Daily Beast Still Has No Sales Staff
In the nearly six months since the Beast launched, the site has flirted with ads, running a number in the fall and some sponsored sections in February. But it hasn’t made a lasting commitment to an advertiser. For the past month, the site has remained chaste, carrying no ads at all.

Web ad revenue grew in 4Q but slower than in past
U.S. Internet advertising revenue climbed in the fourth quarter in spite of the poor economy, but the growth rate was sluggish compared to previous years, according to an analysis released Monday.

Reckitt-Benckiser to Shift $20 Million to Web From TV
Decision Driven by Need for More-Efficient Ad Rates

Mobile Ad Platform AdMob Launches iPhone Download Exchange (Mashable)
The AdMob exchange program works just like an advertising campaign – members of the network have ad spots for displaying either paid advertising or ads that are through the iPhone Download Exchange. AdMob already has over 1000 iPhone applications in its network, giving it a good starting point for its program. It’s also a smart program – it does not advertise applications that the user already has installed, targets based on geography and device (so iPod touch users don’t get apps that are only for iPhones), and generates detailed reports on the impression and success of the campaign. Members of the AdMob network can also control how often ads are either paid ads or Download Exchange ads.

Microsoft unveils partners for applications store
Microsoft Corp has signed up multiple software partners for its upcoming cellphone software marketplace, including Web music service Pandora, game publisher Electronic Arts Inc and social site Facebook.

Unpaid bills? Good luck starting future laptops
As wireless carriers begin to subsidize computers that come with wireless Internet access, they’re faced with a quandary: What do they do if the buyer stops paying his bills?… LM Ericsson AB, the Swedish company that makes many of the modems that go into laptops, announced Tuesday that its new modem will deal with this issue by including a feature that’s virtually a wireless repo man. If the carrier has the stomach to do so, it can send a signal that completely disables the computer, making it impossible to turn on.

Small-screen browsers get bigger role
At CTIA, the wireless industry’s trade show this week, expect chatter about the mobile browser “wars,” with Opera Mini, long popular in Europe, expected soon to have more of a presence in the United States and a test mobile version of Firefox underway.

Google Starts Venture Capital Fund (Mashable)
Google has announced Google Ventures, a venture capital fund that “seeks to discover and grow great companies” in a “broad range of industries, including consumer Internet, software, hardware, clean-tech, bio-tech and health care.”… [T]he official site claims that the fund is “able to invest amounts ranging from seed funding to tens of millions of dollars.” In other words, anything goes, and Google probably won’t be cheap if they see a good opportunity. On the other hand, Google has always been somewhat careful, acquisition-wise, so don’t expect Google Ventures to be burning money; as they say, their goal is to “build great companies” but also to generate “long term financial return.”

Permanent link to MTA daily media news

Photo of the Day (by Susie at Suburban Guerrilla)

America the Tarnished (by Paul Krugman)
[A]n article in [Saturday’s] Times about the response President Obama will receive in Europe was titled “English-Speaking Capitalism on Trial.” Now, in fairness we have to say that the United States was far from being the only nation in which banks ran wild. Many European leaders are still in denial about the continent’s economic and financial troubles, which arguably run as deep as our own — although their nations’ much stronger social safety nets mean that we’re likely to experience far more human suffering. Still, it’s a fact that the crisis has cost America much of its credibility, and with it much of its ability to lead. And that’s a very bad thing.

The financial crisis has had many costs. And one of those costs is the damage to America’s reputation, an asset we’ve lost just when we, and the world, need it most.

No Givens As Obama Steps Onto World Stage (Washington Post)
[I]f the U.S. president thought his popularity would cause foreign governments to fall quickly into line behind a new American leadership, experts warn, he could be in for a rude awakening. The German government has resisted calls to deploy more combat troops to Afghanistan. Russia is pushing back against a NATO missile defense system in Poland. And the Czech prime minister last week described the U.S. plans for global economic recovery as the “road to hell.”

Rising Powers Challenge U.S. on Role in I.M.F. (New York Times)
The Obama administration has made fortifying the I.M.F. one of its primary goals for the meeting of the Group of 20, which includes leading industrial and developing countries and the European Union. But China, India and other rising powers seem to believe that the made-in-America crisis has curtailed the ability of the United States to set the agenda. They view the Western-dominated fund as a place to begin staking their claim to a greater voice in global economic affairs.

UN backs new new global currency reserve (The Sunday Telegraph, U.K.)
A UNITED Nations panel of economists has proposed a new global currency reserve that would take over the US dollar-based system used for decades by international banks. The proposal follows the controversial call by China’s central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, to create a new world currency reserve to replace the greenback as part of an overhaul of global finance. China and many developing countries blame the global crisis on US mishandling of over-extended mortgage loans and investments in them.

With the US also borrowing trillions of dollars, it risks hyperinflation, which would considerably weaken the dollar. An independently administered reserve currency could operate without conflicts posed by the US dollar and keep commodity prices more stable.

London protesters march in 1st of many G20 rallies (AP)
Thousands of people marched through European cities Saturday to demand jobs, economic justice and environmental accountability, kicking off six days of protest and action planned in the run-up to the G20 summit… In London, more than 150 groups threw their backing behind the “Put People First” march. Police said around 35,000 attended the demonstration, snaking their way across the city toward Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park. Protest organizers said they wanted leaders from the world’s top 20 economies to adopt a more transparent and democratic economic recovery plan.

I’m mad as hell, and I’m gonna… talk about it (by Michael J. Smith at Stop Me Before I Vote Again)
The New York Times today published some ruminations – by a professor — of sociology! — at Columbia – on the absence of insurrection in America today. The sense of a sweaty brow relievedly wiped was palpable… “Fury, after all, can manifest itself in more productive ways than urban rioting or cable-TV ranting. Fury can inspire real protest, nonviolent civil disobedience, even good old-fashioned, town-hall meetings. That’s how we’ll recover our public life and perhaps help one another through this crisis — storming angrily into the streets and then, once we’re out there, actually talking to one another.”

People might get mad. They might even go out into the street! — It’s been known to happen. But with any luck at all, maybe they’ll just… talk.

Here’s someone willing to do more than just talk:
Huffington Site Starts Project to Investigate the Economy (AP)
The new group would have an initial budget of $1.75 million, estimated to be enough for 10 staff journalists who would coordinate coverage with freelancers.

Is Obama wrong? (by Joan Walsh, Salon)
I’ve had [a feeling] for a while, that the Democrats can’t get us out from under this mess until they are forced to reckon with their role in creating it. Every time I see Chuck Schumer on television pretending to be a populist scourge of Wall Street, I remember his role in blocking higher taxes for hedge fund managers and repealing Glass-Steagall. I can’t help thinking that Tim Geithner is too close to the industry that took over — and took down — the economy to tame it. A large part of the Democrats’ resurgence in the last four years, ironically, has been its success raising money from Wall Street, which undermines its populist street cred at a time like this. Fortunately for the party, Republicans are just as compromised, so it’s not too late to for Democrats to take leadership in bucking the financial oligarchy and develop real solutions to the financial crisis.
Salon could take a lead role, too, Joan.

And these folks are more than just talk, too:
Our plan: Real structural change of Wall Street (A New Way Forward)
DECENTRALIZE: Any bank that’s “too big to fail” means that it’s too big for a free market to function. The financial corporations that caused this mess must be broken up and sold back to the private market with new antitrust rules in place — new banks, managed by new people. As Wall St. corporations grew bigger and bigger until they were “too big to fail,” they also became so politically powerful that they led to distorted and unfair policies that served companies, not citizens. Its not enough to try to patch up the current system. We demand serious reform that fixes the root problems in our political and economic system: excessive influence of banks, dangerous compensation systems, and massive consolidation. And we demand that the reform happen in an open and transparent manner.
Some of the sponsors are Joe Trippi and William Greider.

What to Watch For In Obama’s Financial Sector Reforms (by Ian Welsh)
Is Obama going to regulate Collateralized Debt Swaps like insurance, meaning that you can’t insure something if you can’t pay it back and you have to use government mandated tables, make sure there’s insurable interest, not allow over-insurance and so on?… He may do some of it, but I doubt he’ll do all of it.
Is he going to limit leverage properly, by which I mean not just not allowing leverage rations above 10:1, for anyone, but not allowing leverage on leverage – not allowing someone to use a leveraged asset to leverage off of… Maybe, maybe not.
Is he going to properly regulate securitization? By which I mean not allowing securitization of already securitized assets, full reform of the ratings agencies so they have no incentive to over-rate securities, not allowing collateralized assets to have higher ratings than the underlying securities, and not allowing financial innovation which is not approved by regulators? Will Obama do this?  We’ll see.
Move to highly progressive taxation. If he doesn’t do this executives will always have an incentive to create bubbles because they will be able to make so much money in a few years that it doesn’t matter what happens to their companies in the long term. Will Obama do this?  No…
Is he going to break up the “too big to fail” banks and other financial firms so that in the future failed financial firms can just be put into receivership and can’t hold the economy bankrupt?… Don’t make me laugh.
Click through for much, much more.

So what do you do when you don’t want to do what makes sense to un-bought economists?  Why, exaggerate, of course!
8000 banks (by Joseph Cannon at Cannonfire)
[T]he Newsweek piece on Paul Krugman … irked me: “Krugman’s suggestion that the government could take over the banking system is deeply impractical, Obama aides say. Krugman points to the example of Sweden, which nationalized its banks in the 1990s. But Sweden is tiny. The United States, with 8,000 banks, has a vastly more complex financial system. What’s more, the federal government does not have anywhere near the manpower or resources to take over the banking system.” Has anyone talked about taking over 8000 banks? In point of fact, the FDIC has put an awful lot of smaller banks in receivership. Somehow, it has found the manpower.

Tom Toles

In case you can’t read the blurb at the bottom, it says,
“But still big enough to fund a bailout.”

William Greider on the Geithner Plan (Bill Moyers Journal, PBS)
Greider worries the Obama administration won’t seize the chance for change without pressure from citizens. Referring to the stimulus package and Secretary Geithner’s new bailout proposal, Greider tells Bill Moyers on THE JOURNAL, that President Obama “does seem absolutely committed to restoration of the old order.”

Krugman and Newsweek (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
The Times’ liberal columnist is on the cover this week, with a provocative story headlined: “OBAMA IS WRONG: The Loyal Opposition of Paul Krugman.” It’s about Krugman’s criticism of Obama’s economic policies made from the left… During the Bush years, Krugman, from his same perch on the pages of Times’ opinion pages, waged about as vocal a campaign as humanly possible to warn readers and the country about what he considered to be the perilous policy decisions the Bush administration was embracing, and what the disastrous results for America would be…

But now a Democrat is in the Oval Office, Krugman is still hitting the president from the left, and suddenly the Beltway press thinks Krugman’s work is fascinating and newsworthy. Trust us, it is. (For years he’s been our pick as the country’s premier columnist.) We just think everyone would have been better off if the press had paid this much attention to Krugman’s work between, say, 2002 and 2006.

The magazine cover effect (by Paul Krugman)
I’ve long been a believer in the magazine cover indicator: when you see a corporate chieftain on the cover of a glossy magazine, short the stock. Or as I once put it (I’d actually forgotten I’d said that), “Whom the Gods would destroy, they first put on the cover of Business Week.” There’s even empirical evidence supporting the proposition that celebrity ruins the performance of previously good chief executives. Presumably the same effect applies to, say, economists. You have been warned.

Obama Officials Think Krugman Is Naive: Newsweek’s Evan Thomas (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
Newsweek’s Evan Thomas, who has the big cover story on the rather prickly relationship between the White House and Paul Krugman, offered a rather surprising insight into the relationship between the two. Speaking to MSNBC on Monday, the longtime magazine scribe said that the Obama administration is not “too crazy about Krugman”… “You know, I think the administration is trying to ignore Krugman, quite frankly,” Thomas went on. “But they can’t entirely because he has a big voice…” This is telling, not least because Krugman, a Nobel Prize winning economist, was more prescient about some of the current financial and economic woes than key members of the Obama brain-trust.

KRUGMAN OPENS THE OVERTON WINDOW… (by dday at Political Animal, the Washington Monthly)
[Y]ou don’t have to agree with everything Krugman says – I’ve seen some very good critiques of things he’s said recently. But he is a serious thinker and this is his area of expertise, and he performs an important function. It’s an odd quirk of fate that Krugman has as big a megaphone as he does, and so using it to put pressure on the Obama Administration from the left does several things: 1) provides a counter-weight to the conservative critiques of the President, which are usually so nutty that they pale in comparison to reasoned dissent, 2) forces Obama to at least debate the merits of his proposals rather than dismiss all critics, and most important, 3) gives Obama space on the left to put out an more progressive agenda than otherwise.
But those of us trying to pressure Obama from the left are considered the bad guys by many of the so-called progressive blogs.

Uncle Sam’s Hedge Fund (by Robert Samuelson)
Call it Uncle Sam’s hedge fund. The rescue of the American financial system proposed by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is, in all but name, a gigantic hedge fund. The government would lend vast sums to private investors to enable them to buy loss-ridden assets at discounts from banks with the prospect of making sizable profits. If that’s not a hedge fund, what would be? The hope is that the $14 trillion U.S. banking system would expand lending if it could get rid of many of the lousy securities and loans already on its books…

[S]ucceed or fail, Geithner’s plan illuminates a fascinating irony. “Leverage” — borrowing — helped create this mess. Now it’s expected to get us out.

Geithner Says Some Banks to Need `Large Amounts’ of Aid, Warns Against Tax  (Bloomberg)
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said some financial institutions will need substantial government aid, while warning against any attempt to tax investors who join a federal program to buy tainted assets from banks.

Feds declare GM, Chrysler not viable, refuse more aid (McClatchy)
President Barack Obama on Monday will reject requests for almost $22 billion in new taxpayer bailout money for General Motors Corp. and Chrysler, saying the car makers have failed to take steps to ensure their viability.

G.M. Chief Forced Out as Chrysler Gets Merger Deadline (New York Times)
The White House asked Rick Wagoner to resign and instructed Chrysler to form a partnership with Fiat as a condition for new aid to be detailed Monday.

White House Asks GM CEO to Quit (by Alegre)
So I guess we can expect the White House to start demanding the resignation of all those Wall Street CEOs in exchange for bailouts and loans then, right?  Maybe even demand that those “retention bonuses” be returned to the taxpayers? Or does the White House have a two different sets of rules – one for Main Street, and another for Wall Street?
You know the answer to that question, of course.

Asian Stocks, US Futures Decline Amid Renewed Bank Concerns (Bloomberg)
Asian stocks and U.S. index futures slumped as the Obama administration warned that some banks will need more government aid and bankruptcy may be the best option for General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC.

Good capitalism, bad capitalism (by Joseph Cannon at Cannonfire)
“Industrial capitalism” refers to the manufacture of stuff – cars, shoes, toothbrushes, condoms, TVs, pig iron. Stuff. “Finance capitalism” refers to stocks, bonds, financial instruments. Numbers. Concepts. Abstract intangibles. Anti-stuff, if you will. Financial capitalists got us into our current mess. You can’t blame the industrial capitalists, and you can’t blame labor (unless you’ve been programmed by ideology to do so). Obama, like Bush, clearly loves the financial capitalist and hates the industrial capitalist…

In the 20s, fascist economic theorists such as Gottfried Feder posited a simple argument: Industrial capital is good, finance capital is bad. Today, Obama and Geithner argue the exact reverse: Finance capital is good, industrial capital is bad. Both ideologies are dangerous because neither seeks balance. Fascism could not destroy this country. Obamaism might just manage the trick.

Shutting Detroit Down (by Susie at Suburban Guerrilla)
Billionaire bankers (and their investors) walk away from the table with their pockets stuffed with taxpayer cash while members of the auto workers union are told they’ll have to sacrifice even more – in this case, the Obama administration wants the companies to get rid of “old liabilities” – i.e. retiree pensions. (You know, while bankers complain about having to sell the house in the Hamptons.) No, Obama’s not talking about the insolvent banks. He’s talking about Detroit. Could he make it any more obvious that the wealthy are a protected class?

Obama: bankruptcy for Big Auto makes it easier to clear away “old liabilities” (by lambert at Corrente)
So, it really is about fucking the unions over, isn’t it? “‘Unlike a liquidation, where a company is broken up and sold off, or a conventional bankruptcy, where a company can get mired in litigation for several years, a structured bankruptcy process — if needed here — would be a tool to make it easier for General Motors and Chrysler to clear away old liabilities,’ the government said in a fact sheet [snort] outlining a ‘surgical bankruptcy’ of 30 days or less.” Because we know what those “old liabilities” are, don’t we?

The secret war against American workers (by Robert Eshelman, Salon)
In some cases, under the guise of “recession” pressure, they may be waging a secret war against their own workers, using even the most innocuous transgressions of workplace rules as the trigger for firings — and so, of course, putting the fear of God into those who remain. In this way, company payrolls are not only being reduced by mass layoffs, but workers are being squeezed for ever greater productivity in return for lower wages, worse hours and fewer benefits. The weapon of choice is the specter of unemployment, a kind of death by a thousand (or a million) cuts.
That war has been going on for most of my working life, Mr. Eshelman.

Fox’s Kilmeade begrudgingly admits Japan’s national health care gives their auto companies an advantage. (Think Progress)
This morning on Fox and Friends, host Brian Kilmeade admitted that, despite conservatives’ repeated claims to the contrary, United Auto Workers’ salaries are in line with workers’ salaries at foreign auto plants. The real problem, Kilmeade said, was health care costs. At first, he claimed that Japanese car companies would face those same “legacy costs” in 40 years, but then acknowledged Japan’s “nationalized health care” will spare them those costs.
Click through to watch the video.

Mathmagical Formulas (by myiq2xu at The Confluence)

Bank of America to use bailout money to increase bankster’s salaries by 70% (by lambert at Corrente)
Looks like that meeting with Obama was very productive! “…Bank of America Corp. plans to increase some investment bankers’ salaries by as much as 70 percent following the takeover earlier this year of Merrill Lynch & Co., people familiar with the proposal said… ‘[W]e believe it is responsible, and consistent with the emerging public consensus, that a greater percentage of overall compensation come from fixed base salary.’…” No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You’re not getting it. Here’s the “emerging public consensus”: What we want is for banksters to be paid less money…. PAID LESS MONEY.

Regulators see new role for Fannie, Freddie: report (Reuters)
The regulator of U.S. government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is looking at ways the two firms might help finance small mortgage banks hobbled by a dearth of credit, the Wall Street Journal reported. The WSJ, quoting a Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) spokeswoman, said the regulator is exploring options through which the two mortgage finance companies might help revive the market for warehouse loans – a key source of funds to mortgage banks.

Dirty bomb threat looms over G20 meet (Times of India)
[J]ust days before world leaders gather here for the Group of 20 meeting — a warning was given this week that a so-called dirty bomb on a British city is more likely than ever. The government alert accompanied the launch of a major new anti-terrorist strategy that encourages ordinary citizens to offer Britain an additional layer of security. The new approach aims to train some 60,000 retail, hotel, and service industry staff to recognize terrorist threats.
Hey, don’t forget the meter readers and repairmen who go into people’s houses.  We want them reporting our neighbors’ pornography preferences, too.

Obama’s domino theory (by Juan Cole, Salon)
President Barack Obama may or may not be doing the right thing in Afghanistan, but the rationale he gave for it on Friday is almost certainly wrong. Obama has presented us with a 21st century version of the domino theory. The U.S. is not, contrary to what the president said, mainly fighting “al-Qaida” in Afghanistan. In blaming everything on al-Qaida, Obama broke with his pledge of straight talk to the public and fell back on Bush-style boogeymen and implausible conspiracy theories.

Tom Hayden on March 27, 2009
Don’t Go There Mr. President! (by Tom Hayden, writing in The Nation)
17,000 or 21,000 more US troops will not protect Americans against Al Qaeda attacks. The Obama plan instead will accelerate any plans Al Qaeda commanders have for attacking targets in the United States or Europe. The alternative for Al Qaeda is to risk complete destruction, an American objective that has not been achieved for eight years. A terrorist attack need not be planned or set in motion from a cave in Waziristan. The cadre could already be underground in Washington or London. The real alternative for President Obama should be to maintain a deterrent posture while immediately accelerating diplomacy to meet legitimate Muslim goals, from a Palestinian state to genuine progress on Kashmir.

Tom Hayden on January 28, 2008:
Endorsing Obama (by Tom Hayden, writing in The Nation)
Barack Obama is giving voice and space to an awakening beyond his wildest expectations, a social force that may lead him far beyond his modest policy agenda. Such movements in the past led the Kennedys and Franklin Roosevelt to achievements they never contemplated. (As Gandhi once said of India’s liberation movement, “There go my people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.”) We are in a precious moment where caution must yield to courage. It is better to fail at the quest for greatness than to accept our planet’s future as only a reliving of the past. So I endorse the movement that Barack Obama has inspired and will support his candidacy in the inevitable storms ahead.
And the betrayals, Tom?  How about those?

There’s the betrayal on war:
Major Anti-War Groups Staying Quiet About (Or Supporting) Obama’s Afghan Escalation (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
Don’t look now, but President Obama’s announcement today of an escalation in the American presence in Afghanistan is being met with mostly silence — and even some support — from the most influential liberal groups who opposed the Iraq War… The relative silence on the left about Obama’s Afghan strategy is understandable. The politics of Afghanistan are murky because of September 11th. The argument against staying isn’t as clear cut as with Iraq. Liberal groups don’t want to distract from passing Obama’s enormous domestic agenda. Obama’s Afghan moves are part of a larger regional strategy that rests heavily on diplomacy — a major break from the past. And officials with some of these groups don’t want to lose inside influence with the White House. Times do change.

Not Exactly The Straight Dope (by Paul Rosenberg at Open Left, thanks to Lambert at Corrente)
Obama’s blowing off of [the question of pot legalization] question was fundamentally no more egregious than his blowing off of those who challenged his FISA flip-flop… The simple fact is that laws must be rooted in some sort of morality–not moralism.  If too many people just think that a law’s absurd, unfair, or out of touch, it will be very difficult to enforce, and it will undermine respect for law in general–it will erode the foundations on which it is supposed to stand.  Drug laws–at least as they presently exist–are a danger to our Constitutional order, not just because enforcing them leads to all sorts of Constitutional violations on a daily, even hourly basis, but also because it erodes popular respect for the law in general, and cynicism about the Constitution.

Thus, the question about legalizing pot really was a very serious question on any number of levels.  And President Obama bumbled it very badly, in just the way that our clueless overlords heartily approve of.
Lambert asks, “If it’s bad to govern out of anger, why is it good to govern out of snickering?”

There’s the betrayal on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”:
Gates: No change soon on ‘don’t ask, don’t tell‘ (AP)
Don’t expect any change soon to the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about gays in the military. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says both he and President Barack Obama have “a lot on our plates right now.” As Gates puts it, “let’s push that one down the road a little bit.” The White House has said Obama has begun consulting with Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on how to lift the ban. Gates says that dialogue has not really progressed very far at this point in the administration.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Patronize Me (by Tengrain at Mock, Paper, Scissors)
Once again, the gay-phobic Carebear throws another campaign promise under the bus, and the perennially (and with California’s Proposition 8, legally-defined) second-class gay and lesbian citizens of the US are short changed by another Democratic administration. But as Warren Beatty says in Bullworth, “what are you going to do? Vote for the Republicans?”

Gay Rights Activists Chagrined at Obama Administration Foot-Dragging on Overturning Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (by Jake Tapper at Political Punch, ABC News)
Gay and lesbian rights advocates expressed chagrin Sunday at the lack of urgency President Obama seems to be giving his campaign promise to overturn the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the armed forces… [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates said the “dialogue” about overturning the ban “has really not progressed very far at this point in the administration.  I think the president and I feel like we’ve got a lot on our plates right now, and let’s push that one down the road a little bit.”… Eighty-one percent of the public, according to a December CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, believes openly gay and lesbian Americans should be allowed to serve in the U.S. military.

There’s the betrayal on card check:
DiFi flips on card check, fucks the unions over (by lambert at Corrente)
That’s because, says DiFi, ”feelings are very strong on both sides of the issue.” No doubt.
And we must not, no matter what, tackle any issues where the feelings are very strong on both sides.  We must not stand up for what we believe.  We absolutely must cower in the corner like the cowards that we are.

There’s the betrayal on the middle class tax cut:
Middle class tax cut will “not likely survive” (by J –SOM at Liberal Rapture)
ABC News: Promised middle class tax cut now up for debate. Obama’s budget chief today indicated that it will “not likely survive”. Now, I must wonder, how will Huffington, MSNBC, The New York Times, and the rest of the Obamamedia excuse this whopper? This would be a broken promise to 95% percent of the population who are not likely to accept the 2 year sunset clause on the cut in the stimulus bill as a “promise kept.” Pretty shady, Barry.

And there’s the betrayal on health care:
Obama’s version of universal health care probably won’t look like Canada’s (Canadian Press, thanks to Lambert at Corrente)
U.S. President Barack Obama is intent on providing affordable health care to every American, he said Thursday, but emulating Canada’s system isn’t necessarily the route he wants to take… “A lot of people think that in order to get universal health care, it means that you have to have what’s called a single-payer system of some sort,” he said. “And so Canada is the classic example. Basically, everybody pays a lot of taxes into the health-care system, but if you’re a Canadian, you’re automatically covered … you go in and you just say ‘I’m sick’ and somebody treats you and that’s it,” he said. Implementing such a system in the U.S., however, would likely present an overwhelming challenge to politicians, employers and working Americans alike, he said.
It’s not that hard.  This is the time for it.  Americans are not only ready for single payer, they want it.  Why is Obama against it?  Is it another one of his right-wing hang-ups?

What the Teleprompter Teaches (by Michael Gerson, not my favorite columnist)
For politicians, the teleprompter has always been something of an embarrassing vice… But it is a mistake to argue that the uncrafted is somehow more authentic. Those writers and commentators who prefer the unscripted, who use “rhetoric” as an epithet, who see the teleprompter as a linguistic push-up bra, do not understand the nature of presidential leadership or the importance of writing to the process of thought. Governing is a craft, not merely a talent. It involves the careful sorting of ideas and priorities. And the discipline of writing — expressing ideas clearly and putting them in proper order — is essential to governing… Leaders who prefer to speak from the top of their heads are not more authentic, they are often more shallow — not more “real,” but more undisciplined.
Except that Hillary doesn’t need a teleprompter to speak clearly, concisely, and eloquently. Nor does Bill. Nor does Chelsea, for that matter. Because they care. Because they’re actually engaged in the process and the issues. Obama, on the other hand, is playing at being president. Just like his predecessor.

Poll: More Now Think Obama Is “Partisan Dem” — And His Approval Rating Is Up! (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
Not that you needed it, but here’s yet another possible sign that the public doesn’t tend to want our politicians to engage in “bipartisanship” for its own sake. A new Rasmussen Reports poll finds that 50% now think President Obama is “governing as a partisan Democrat,” up seven points from last month and up 11 points from two months ago. So has that shift hurt his approval rating? Nope. If anything, it’s the opposite. Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll finds that Obama’s approval rating is up, at 58%. It finds that the number who “strongly approve” of his performance is also up, to 37%.
If it were only true.  If only he WERE turning into a Democrat.

Holder Reaffirms Commitment To Cherished Values (American Constitution Society, where Holder was on the Board of Directors)
In a symbolic swearing-in ceremony today, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder again signaled his intention to lead the department in a new direction. Holder, the 82nd attorney general and a former member of the ACS Board of Directors, said during the ceremony at the Justice Department headquarters that he would strive to be guided by the nation’s cherished principles, such as equality before the law. The Washington Post also reported that Holder tried to “inspire career prosecutors demoralized by political hiring scandals during the Bush years.”

Politicization Charges at DOJ over Brazile Appearance (Washington Wire, Wall Street Journal)
New leadership at the Justice Department is aiming to erase memories of the highly-charged political controversies from the previous administration. But already some of the same “politicization” charges are being flung at the Justice Department, under Attorney General Eric Holder, as the department prepares to host veteran Democratic Party strategist Donna Brazile for a “Women’s History Month” event. Brazile has built a long career as an election campaign strategist for candidates from Walter Mondale to Bill Clinton and Al Gore. A flyer sent to Justice Department employees advising of the March 31 Brazile appearance, says “Supervisors are encouraged to grant official time to employees to attend this event.”

Reid To Critics Of ‘Moderate’ Democrats: You’re ‘Very Unwise And Not Helpful’ (Think Progress)
In recent weeks, a number of progressive groups and commentators have criticized Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) for his attempts to organize his fellow Conservative Democrats into a new Blue Dog-style caucus that will work to “restrain the influence of party liberals in the White House and on Capitol Hill.” Now, however, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is telling the Bayh critics to back off. This morning at a breakfast briefing with reporters, Reid called the critiques “very unwise and not helpful“… Reid’s comments appear to grow out of a fear that progressive criticisms of Bayh and his fellow Conservative Democrats might upset them so much that they would vote against Obama’s agenda out of anger. But some of Bayh’s allies are already indicating that they may be opposed.

Rep. Issa pushing to limit first lady’s power to ‘protect’ her ‘historic role.’ (Think Progress)
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and his conservative allies are pushing for legislation that would limit the first lady’s ability to do substantive policy work. Issa had originally proposed the bill last year, in fear of Bill Clinton moving back in to the White House. But he insists the bill is only about ensuring “transparency” for the work of first ladies, adding, “We are trying actually to protect the historic role of the first lady.” Or, as Gawker summed up Issa’s proposal in its headline, “Congressman Wants Michelle Obama To Shut Up And Look Pretty.”
Yeah, he’s just trying to help.

A Prop 8 Crusader Leaves the GOP (by Kathleen Parker, a conservative columnist, interviewing Howard Ahmanson, a crazed, right-wing anti-gay, uh, person, at the Daily Beast)
[Ahmanson, upon switching from the Republican to the Democratic Party:] I’ve been part of the religious right and I don’t go to great lengths to hide that… I expect to do the same things but in a slightly more bipartisan format. In case someone asked, “intelligent design” is neither Republican nor Democrat. And what I expect the Democratic Party to offer me is knowledge of people—admittedly a fringe—who know that. And of course, though Proposition 8 is a sideline, it won with the support of lots and lots of Democrats…

Sarah Palin?… I like her, though I’ll have to confess that I like Bobby Jindal better. I’m now a blue-dog Democrat for Bobby Jindal for 2012…

It’s a bit early for Obama, and he may do well or he may not do well. It’s a bit too early. There were some things I was disappointed about. I was disappointed in his position on abortion and stem cells, but I knew he was going to do that, so I wasn’t surprised. Something I’m pleased with is, if he dares to uphold the voucher program in D.C. and go on from there, that would be a very good thing and I will actually have an opportunity to say something nice about our president…

I think Christians should be environmentalists. According to theology, God is the landlord and we are the responsible tenants. But to believe in environmental stewardship doesn’t mean you have to believe in some of the schemes of elitists to gain control in the name of environmentalism.
Ain’t it great that Obama attracts people like this?

And speaking of blue dogs,
Bayh Household Finance Update (State of the Division, thanks to Susie at Suburban Guerilla)
Mrs. Bayh currently sits on the board of five health care corporations. Add two prior health care directorships and Susan sat on seven health related corporate boards… Susan Bayh’s health care board pay for 2007 equalled $770,000. All board pay roughly totalled $840,000. That’s over four times Evan’s Senatorial pays… With over $1.1 million in potential family holdings, what kind of health care reform can the public expect from Senator Evan Bayh? One that maintains private sector profits and executive pay for performance? Highly likely.

The REAL GOP plan revealed! (by Tengrain at Mock, Paper, Scissors)

McConnell: Bush was a ‘millstone’ around Republicans’ necks. (Think Progress)
[Friday], Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told reporters he is convinced that the public will again embrace conservatives now that President Bush is gone: “President Bush had become extremely unpopular, and politically he was sort of a millstone around our necks in both ‘06 and ‘08. We now have the opportunity to be on offense, offer our own ideas and we will win some.” McConnell hasn’t always rejected Bush. As Matt Yglesias has noted, “It’s McConnell, after all, who was architect of the unorthodox notion that Senate Republicans should respond to losing their majority in 2006 by launching a lot of filibusters in defense of the unpopular incumbent president’s agenda.” So who is the new leader of the party? In the same interview, McConnell said, “Newt Gingrich, for example, has an idea a minute. Many of those are quite good. Many of those become amendments.”

Cornyn: GOP Prepared To Fight ‘World War III’ To Keep Franken Out Of The Senate For ‘Years’ (Think Progress)
Last week, the ongoing legal battle between Democrat Al Franken and Republican Norm Coleman officially became the “the longest recount in Minnesota history.” Though Franken leads Coleman in the current vote tally, according to the Minnesota Supreme Court, he can’t be certified until after election challenges have been decided in the state courts. If Coleman loses in the state courts, he and his Republican backers are indicating that they may seek to bring it to the federal level, which could keep the Senate seat vacant for much longer. National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn told Politico recently that the party is willing to keep the seat empty for “years“.
Republicans are scorched-earth fighters.  They’ve been scorched-earth fighters for years.  Why haven’t Democrats learned to fight back in meaningful ways?

McCain Says Public Financing is Dead (Political Wire)
Sen. John McCain, “an architect of sweeping campaign-finance reform who got walloped by a presidential candidate armed with more than $750 million, predicts that no one will ever again accept federal matching funds to run for the nation’s highest office,” the Washington Times reports. Said McCain: “No Republican in his or her right mind is going to agree to public financing. I mean, that’s dead. That is over. The last candidate for president of the United States from a major party that will take public financing was me.”

Conservative Think Tank Adjusts to Tough Times (Washington Independent, thanks to Susie at Suburban Guerilla)
The details of AEI’s financial picture are private, and spokespeople for the think tank do not discuss fundraising or financial specifics. Much of its donor information is privileged, although some foundations reveal the size and purpose of the grants they have given AEI. But it is clear that the foundation grants and large corporate donations that go to AEI have changed, in ways that have affected the bottom line, overall spending, and individual scholars. Companies that have given generously to AEI in the past, such as General Motors, are facing harder times.

“We’ve contacted AEI,” said Greg Martin, a spokesman for the General Motors Foundation, “and we’ve told them that this is a very tough time for General Motors and we’re either cutting or closely reviewing the contributions we’re giving to think tanks.”

Joe The Plumber To Campaign With Specter’s Conservative Challenger (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
Okay, now the pressure on Senator Arlen Specter from his right is really gonna get intense. It turns out that his main conservative primary challenger, Club for Growth president Pat Toomey, is going to get the ultimate in blessings from the right: He’s campaigning alongside Joe the Plumber!… This doesn’t necessarily mean that Mr. Plumber is endorsing Toomey. But you can bet that the last thing Specter wants to see is Toomey and Mr. Plumber, side by side, railing in unison against the Employee Free Choice Act.
They’re keeping the pressure up.  It’s what you do when you’re serious about your issues.

Alaska Democrats aim to block Palin’s state Senate pick (McClatchy)
Gov. Sarah Palin has appointed legislative aide Tim Grussendorf to the state Senate seat that opened when Juneau Democrat Kim Elton resigned. It’s a controversial pick that Grussendorf’s own party says it will try to block.

Palin won’t budge on parental-consent abortion bill (McClatchy)
State legislators are talking about compromising on a major abortion battle over parental consent, but Gov. Sarah Palin isn’t interested in the deal… The compromise under discussion would be legislation that requires parental notification but not consent. That means parents would have to be told about their teenager’s plan to have an abortion but wouldn’t have to give their permission for it to happen.

Obama Brings Flush Times for Black News Media
For the nation’s black magazines, newspapers, and television and radio stations, the arrival of the Obama administration has ushered in an era of unprecedented access to the White House. “We have, at last, an equal seat at the table,” said Bryan Monroe, the VP and editorial director of Ebony and Jet.

COMFORT FOOD: (by Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler)
MSNBC’s cable shows largely exist to serve certain types of canned comfort food, as they did all through the 1990s. There is one obvious differene, of course. In that decade, cynical, overpaid, corporate-picked hosts fed you endless manufactured crap about both Clintons, then Gore. Now, they feed you crap about Palin–and about Blagojevich’s hair. The targets have changed, but the process has not. You’re still inside a house of games, consuming that comfortable drivel. For the record, our increasingly clownish liberal news orgs have become impressively skilled at turning jokes into scandals.
And isn’t that exactly what we’ve objected to all these years in how right-wing media behaves?  How pitiful is it that we are now them?

Brzezinski asks: “Is America the Bernie Madoff of all economies?” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

A Very Serious Non-Partisan Voice Speaks (by Susie at Suburban Guerrilla)
Shorter David Broder: Although I didn’t criticize President Bush for running up a huge deficit to give tax cuts to the wealthy, it really, really worries me if Democrats do it.

Let’s Not Argue About Who Killed Who (by Dean Baker)
Sorry, but I couldn’t resist. When a New York Times columnist tells us that we shouldn’t bother to try to assign blame to the millionaires and billionaires who wrecked the world economy and created a situation in which tens of millions of people will go unemployed and hungry, what else can you say?

Biden’s Daughter Targeted (Political Wire)
A “friend” of Vice President Joseph Biden’s daughter, Ashley, is attempting to hawk a videotape that he claims shows her snorting cocaine at a house party this month in Delaware, the New York Post reports. Craig Crawford doesn’t buy it: “The newspaper’s editors act as though they took the high ground by stating ‘the Post refused to pay for the video.’ But then they go on to speculate in print about what’s on it — despite being unable to confirm that Ashley is on the tape.”
There is no excuse for this kind of behavior by the media.  None.

WSJ’s Fund claims Obama administration wants “to micromanage the car industry towards the social engineering goals that they want” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Kurtz cites Media Matters on Kudlow; says he “wouldn’t be very credible on CNBC if he were openly shilling for one party” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Kudlow: “Do you really want one dictatorial Soviet-style Politboro central planning regulator?” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Fox News’ Mad, Apocalyptic, Tearful Rising Star (New York Times)
“You are not alone,” Glenn Beck likes to say. For the disaffected and aggrieved Americans of the Obama era, he could not have picked a better rallying cry. Beck, an early-evening host on the Fox News Channel, is suddenly one of the most powerful voices for the nation’s conservative populist anger.

The NYT plays dumb about Glenn Beck (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
No surprise, since this is the Beltway press’ standard operating procedure when covering leaders of the conservative media:  categorically refuses to spell out to readers what they actually say that makes them so controversial. In its Beck profile on Monday, the Times dutifully follows those guidelines while adding in the twist of not quoting a single liberal who’s critical of Fox News’ coo-coo, pseudo-End Times host.

Beck claims Americorps bill “basically indoctrinates your child into community service through the federal government” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Fox News Sees Its Site as a Place for Public Venting (Washington Post)
With Fox Nation, an opinionated HuffPo-like Web site that launches this morning, Fox News is hoping to leverage its brand online. “We felt that giving people a real destination to go and express themselves would give them a feeling of belonging,” says SVP Joel Cheatwood.

Hannity praises House GOP budget blueprint, claims media “excoriates” it because “they want the 2,000 pages” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Hannity falsely claims “we actually have from the Pentagon, 61 people that we released from Gitmo, 61 have gone back to the battlefield” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

On Hannity, McCaughey falsely claims stimulus provision would “deliver protocols that will tell your doctor to limit care to what the government’s advisers deem cost-effective” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Cavuto says Geithner “is building himself the kingdom, grabbing for more power over companies;” caption reads “Geithner’s Power Grab: A Grab for Your Wallet?” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

O’Reilly identifies ‘the far left blogs’ as his #1 enemy. (Think Progress)
In their interview with Bill O’Reilly this morning, the ladies of The View failed to question him about his comments on rape or his record of stalking and harassing his perceived enemies. Instead, they let O’Reilly make a series of attacks that went unchallenged [for example]: “…And if they do stuff that’s dishonest, I’m going after them. And we do.” Of course, that would have been a perfect opening to ask O’Reilly about whether his “harassment machine” is the right way to go after his opponents. But O’Reilly escaped unscathed.
Click through to watch the video.

Chrysler responds to our campaign: ‘We currently do not have the O’Reilly Factor in our media rotation.’ (Think Progress)
Chrysler LLC spokeswoman Carrie McElwee has responded to our Stop Supporting The O’Reilly Harassment Machine campaign with this statement: “We appreciate the diverse audience that television programming allows us to reach. Chrysler buys network cable as a package but we currently do not have the O’Reilly Factor in our media rotation at this time.” Please join our campaign.

One more reason to use UPS (by lambert at Corrente)
Not only have they pulled their advertising from Stalker O’Reilly’s show, they’re union, and, unlike FedEx, they’re not using extortion tactics against the government to fight card check.

As one of “Fred’s points to ponder,” Barnes claims the “power grab by Obama is even more than FDR tried in the New Deal” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
If only.

Bruce claims recovery act “crap sandwich” created a “Nazi, fascist health czar” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Kristol on whether he owes the American public an apology for hyping Iraq WMD claims: ‘No.’ (Think Progress)
On Friday, the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol appeared on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal. A caller criticized his publication for hyping President Bush’s pre-invasion lies about WMD in Iraq, and asked him to apologize to the American public. Kristol refused, saying that the war has been a smashing success… Kristol then tried to switch the topic, saying, “And also in Afghanistan, incidentally, it’s President Obama who’s announcing the increase in troops today. It’s not something he was forced into by the Weekly Standard or anyone else.” (As ThinkProgress noted [earlier], Obama’s strategy for Afghanistan-Pakistan is not the same as Bush’s surge in Iraq.)
Click through to watch the video.

Limbaugh on Obama: “It’s like I said yesterday: cheat on me but don’t tell me … He’s a cult leader. Battered liberal syndrome. Cheat on me, just don’t tell me” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh again repeats falsehood that Obama “voted for infanticide” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh on Pelosi: “The third person in line for the presidency in this country is a complete airhead” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Detainee’s Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots (Washington Post)
[N]ot a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida’s tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida — chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates — was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said… “We spent millions of dollars chasing false alarms,” one former intelligence official said.

Despite the poor results, Bush White House officials and CIA leaders continued to insist that the harsh measures applied against Abu Zubaida and others produced useful intelligence that disrupted terrorist plots and saved American lives… Since 2006, Senate intelligence committee members have pressed the CIA, in classified briefings, to provide examples of specific leads that were obtained from Abu Zubaida through the use of waterboarding and other methods, according to officials familiar with the requests. The agency provided none, the officials said.

Spanish court agrees to consider criminal case against former Bush administration officials. (Think Progress)
A Spanish court “has agreed to consider opening a criminal case against six former Bush administration officials…over allegations they gave legal cover for torture at Guantanamo Bay.” The officials include former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, former undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith, former Cheney chief of staff David Addington, Justice Department officials John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee, and Pentagon lawyer William Haynes. The AP has more details on the case.
Somebody has to do it.  Lambert says this is the same judge who indicted Chilean dictator and murderer, Augusto Pinochet.

Effort to Bypass Electoral College Gains Ground (Political Wire)
The National Popular Vote initiative — which aims to make the Electoral College irrelevant without going through the arduous process of amending the Constitution — “is making slow but steady progress across the country,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “States are asked to enact laws pledging their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, no matter who wins the state. The pledge takes effect only when states holding at least 270 electoral votes — a decisive margin in the Electoral College — agree to participate. That would ensure that the winner of the popular vote would take the election… So far, four states representing 50 electoral votes have adopted the pledge: Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland and Hawaii.”

Health insurance is not the same as health care (by DCblogger at Corrente)
Health Reform Lessons from Massachusetts, Part I “Dr. Rachel Nardin, who heads the Massachusetts chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program, noted that having health insurance was not the same as getting health care. Thirteen percent of people in the state who had insurance still could not pay for some health services, and 13 percent could not pay for their medicines, she said. Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a professor at the Harvard Medical School, explained how the law encouraged the overuse of costly high-tech care while damaging the finances of safety-net hospitals.” [Emphasis added.]

Now The Real Fun Begins (by Susie at Suburban Guerrilla)
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it does. But hey, isn’t it great that lobbyists have managed to prevent Congress from letting bankruptcy judges lower mortgage payments? Go, Harry! Win-win!… “City officials and housing advocates here and in cities as varied as Buffalo, Kansas City, Mo., and Jacksonville, Fla., say they are seeing an unsettling development: Banks are quietly declining to take possession of properties at the end of the foreclosure process, most often because the cost of the ordeal — from legal fees to maintenance — exceeds the diminishing value of the real estate. The so-called bank walkaways rarely mean relief for the property owners, caught unaware months after the fact, and often mean additional financial burdens and bureaucratic headaches.” [Emphasis added]

An Ugly Consequence of the Recession – Domestic Violence up 37% in FL (by campskunk at Alegre’s Corner)
I don’t have a lot of fancy analysis for this one; it’s just another bleak signpost on our way into this economic mess.  In Florida, where 10% of the population is already on food stamps and unemployment is higher than 10%, demand for domestic violence shelters has increased by 37%. “The darkest side of the grinding recession is showing up in a spike in domestic violence, including a 37-percent increase in the demand for emergency shelter services across the state. ‘It’s the worst I’ve seen in years,’ said Department of Children and Families Secretary George Sheldon.”

Commentary: Schools are not businesses (by Wayne Au, Bill Bigelow and David Levine, editors of Rethinking Schools (www.rethinkingschools.org), a quarterly magazine based in Milwaukee)
We should stop treating our schools as businesses… We have to remember, education is a humane and human process with social values beyond the bottom line. Business leaders have no expertise in this quest, and business models do not apply. For that matter, now that casino capitalism has imploded, isn’t it time to stop looking to the corporate elite for advice on how to run the schools? These “experts” – the bankers and corporate CEOs – couldn’t even manage the one thing they are supposed to be good at: running their own businesses.

Educators should shed their subordinate status and sense of inferiority. Schools work best when teachers – in dialogue with parents and other citizens – design the educational experience, not corporate officials.
Gee, too bad business itself can’t be a humane and human process.

Needed: A New Commission To Probe Corporate Crime (by Danny Schechter)
Why Hasn’t Obama Targeted The Ongoing White Collar Crime Wave?

Freedom Tower name changed to One World Trade Center (New York Newsday)
The Port Authority, the agency that owns the building at Ground Zero, said Thursday that the signature skyscraper replacing the Twin Towers destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, will be more commonly known as One World Trade Center. The reason for the name swapping? One World Trade Center is more marketable, said Steve Sigmund, a spokesman for the Port Authority. “We believe there’s been a good response in the marketplace toward it,” Sigmund said Thursday.
Why not just paint a bullseye around it?

Texans forge compromise on evolution
State education leaders forged a compromise Friday on the teaching of evolution in Texas, adopting a new science curriculum that no longer requires educators to teach the weaknesses of all scientific theories.

Texas universities voice opposition to bill that would allow guns on campuses (McClatchy)
Texas universities are firing back against a bill that would permit students to carry handguns on campus.

Virginia legislature passes bill restricting state funds for embryonic stem cell research. (Think Progress)
The Virginia politics blog Not Larry Sabato notes that Virginia’s GOP-led House of Delegates and Democratic-controlled Senate passed a bill earlier this month that prevents the state’s Commonwealth Research Commercialization Fund from financing research involving embryonic stem cells.

Red State Update:Legalize Drugs, Save Mexico (video)
Jackie and Dunlap’s solution to the Mexican drug wars. Well, Dunlap’s, at least.
Don’t go making sense, now!

Media Matters for America headlines

• Fox News invokes Canadian health care bogeyman in talking about Richardson’s death

• Hannity falsely claimed NI director plans to “release … enemy combatants on American soil”

• USA Today uncritically reported GOP charge that stimulus advocates supported “provision that allowed the [AIG] bonuses to be paid”

• Fox Business’ Varney mischaracterizes Wagoner’s departure

• Question for Bill Shine: Is Fox News “the voice of opposition” or “not ideological”?

• Fox News’ Henneberg falsely claimed “[r]econciliation was last used in 2001″

• Gregory falsely equated Obama remark with McCain’s “fundamentals of our economy are strong” comment

• Limbaugh challenged: In LA Times op-ed, Klavan claimed he’s “never heard” Limbaugh “utter a single racist, hateful or stupid word”

• CNN’s Keilar, caption falsely claimed Geithner’s financial takeover request was “unprecedented”

• Media Matters: Pay no attention to the GOP “power grab” behind the curtain

• Hill piece, touted by Drudge, advanced Gregg’s false comparison between “debt levels” of U.S., EU members

• Ignoring ATF data, Fox’s Bream advanced “gun advocates” claim that “vast majority” of Mexican cartel weapons not from US

• Deficient budget coverage

• Wash. Post, LA Times reported Boehner criticism of Geithner plan, but not his support for similar GOP plan

• Media use announcement of new Afghanistan strategy to revive “Obama’s war” label

Some Media Stocks Take Beating On Auto Bailout News (Paid Content)
President Obama made it clear today that he does not plan to cut the auto industry a blank check—and that’s bad news for media companies. That sentiment is playing out in the market this morning, as some big media stocks are taking a hit. The media companies with the most exposure to national ad dollars (that’s where the auto companies spend a lot of their marketing budgets) are suffering largest percentage declines: CBS (which owns national TV and radio assets) was down 18 percent as of noon EST; Gannett (publisher of USA Today) was down 10 percent. A dour report by SNL Kagan on the prospects for the radio and TV industries is probably also contributing to today’s decline.

The car industry is the single-biggest source of subscribers for Sirius XM, which is certainly part of the reason the stock was down 10 percent this morning (though even in normal times Sirius tends to swing more widely than most media companies).

Radio shines in Fargo flooding.
As the Red River kept rising, the stations that serve the Fargo-Moorhead market rose to the task, delivering around-the-clock news and information. There are no reports of damaged tower sites even though several AM sites are close to the river, where sandbags and levees have held.

Google, music labels launch China download service
Google Inc. and major music companies launched a free Internet music download service for China on Monday in a bid to help turn a field dominated by pirates into a profitable, legitimate business.

Researchers: Cyber spies break into govt computers
A cyber spy network based mainly in China hacked into classified documents from government and private organizations in 103 countries, including the computers of theDalai Lama and Tibetan exiles, Canadian researchers said Saturday. The work of the Information Warfare Monitor initially focused on allegations of Chinese cyber espionage against the Tibetan community in exile, and eventually led to a much wider network of compromised machines, the Internet-based research group said.

House Communications, Technology & Internet Subcommittee chair outlines his agenda
Virginia Democrat Rick Boucher, the recently appointed chairman of the powerful House Communications, Technology & Internet Subcommittee, says that his top legislative priorities include reauthorizing the law that allows satellite to import TV station signals into a market, and coming up with a new law that would restrict how behavioral marketers can target potential online customers.

Shepard Fairey Goes To HuffPo to Plead His Case Against The AP (UnBeige, Media Bistro)
As his ongoing battle with the Associated Press continues, Shepard Fairey, as a man of the people, has decided to go to the most “of the people”-esque outlet, The Huffington Post, to file [a] lengthy essay, pleading his case. Along the way, he described his process, his problems with the AP’s complaints over his Obama poster, and describes his battle as a fight “to protect the rights of all artists.”

Hey, Nanoblog This! The New New-Media Lexicon Decoded (by Simon Dumenco, Advertising Age)
AdSense – n. An automated, senseless act of violence against the traditional advertising industry.
Ballmer – v. To endlessly pursue someone who is not interested (after Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer’s endless pursuit of Yahoo). Usage: That dude was totally ballmering me, so finally I ended up giving him a fake cellphone number.
Content – n. 1. A deposed ruler. 2. A king-turned-pauper.
Click through for much, much more.

European Newspapers Find Creative Ways to Thrive in the Internet Age
A few newspaper publishers are providing news on the Web for free, but are relying more on readers than advertisers, turning a profit by charging for associated services and online activities.

Aggregation Forces Journalistic Evolution
News Outlets Must Accept That Consumers Want More Content Faster — and Don’t Care Who Creates It

Slate botches Pew poll about newspapers (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
From Slate’s Jack Shafer…: “a majority of Americans don’t care whether their local newspaper lives or dies” … [T]hat’s just flat out wrong, and therefore kicks a significant leg out from the Slate argument. As we already noted in detail, what the Pew poll actually found was that a majority of Americans (58%) would care if their newspaper folded: 33% would miss it a “lot,” and 25% would miss it “some.”  That’s 58%.  And among those polled who called themselves regular newspaper readers, a whopping 80% said they would miss their daily if it folded… As for Slate’s larger point that newspapers aren’t important to democracy, Pew found that an overwhelming majority of American rejected that claim: 74% say losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community. (81% among regular newspaper readers.)

Late Editor Blames Three Key People for Newspapers’ Demise (by John Walter at Poynter Online)
There are three people in the world responsible for [newspapers'] demise, and — because I have always loved newspapers — I want to say I’m mad at them about it. And, therefore, I want to record for posterity who they are, and why we should be mad at them.
To me, the third person Walter names, and the mindset he represents, is infinitely more responsible than the first two.  And media businesses aren’t the only ones that have been ruined by the elite business school get rich quick and damn the consequences mentality.

Slices of a new journalism pie (by Jeff Jarvis)
The AP reports that Huffington Post is going to announce … the creation of a $1.75 million fund with various donors to pay for investigative reporting. First target: the economy. This, I’ve long held, is where foundation and public support will enter into the new ecosystem of journalism: not by taking over newspapers but by funding investigations and other slices of a new journalistic pie… Now to touch the third rail in the debate over the future of news: This is how paid content will work, how news will get money from its public — not by putting content behind walls and charging all readers (the few who’ll remain) to see it but instead by setting up systems to take advantage of the 1 percent rule online that decrees you need only a limited number of contributors (of money or effort) to support great things in a gift economy. See: Wikipedia and NPR. But the public’s contributions won’t go to lifting the sinking Titanics of the old-media failures.
So a bunch of rich white guys, probably owners of major corporations, will get to decide what’s investigated?

Tracking The Online-Only Seattle P-I: Traffic Down 20 Percent (Paid Content)
It makes some sense: Cut your editorial staff by 80 percent, and there’s at least a decent chance that Web traffic will tumble. And that’s just what has happened at the new online-only Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Page views are down about 20 percent in the week since the newspaper killed its print edition and became an online-only publication, according to internal numbers… Clearly, the P-I’s online experiment is still in the early days, but the company itself has fanned heady expectations: A day after the new Seattlepi.com launched, Hearst Spokesman Paul Luthringer told the Associated Press that the company was encouraged by the website’s traffic on its first day, when it got 1.9 million page views. The dirty little secret: a good chunk of that traffic probably went to content created by staffers who had already left. 

As you may remember, in ceasing publication of the paper’s print edition, Seattle P-I owner Hearst Corp. laid off 160 of its employees, including most of its long-time beat reporters, and replaced them with 20 full-time “news gatherers,” who write on a myriad of topics. The site now depends heavily on local AP stories and to a lesser extent on third-party sites it links to for content. According to one report, Hearst expected that traffic would drop between 25 percent and 30 percent initially, before increasing within three months, though the company hasn’t offered such figures publicly.

Online Journalists Show ‘Uneasy Optimism’ For the Future 
Most of the 300 respondents to the survey by the Online News Association and the Project for Excellence in Journalism did not believe journalism was headed in the wrong direction, the report said. But more than half believe the Internet is changing the “fundamental values of journalism¿more often than not for the worse.”

It’s Not The New York Times (by Michael Wolff at Newser.com)
The New York Times, as we know it, has been disappearing for some time. It may — diminishing as though by half-lives — have degraded to the point where, in any practical sense, it has long since ceased to be the leading voice in either journalism or the establishment.

Bowden: Sulzberger seems clever enough, but he fails to impress
NYT publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. “comes off as a lightweight, as someone slightly out of his depth, whose dogged sincerity elicits not admiration so much as pity,” writes Mark Bowden. “While no one blames him for what is clearly a crisis afflicting all newspapers, he has made a series of poor business moves that now follow him like the tail of a kite.” Friend Peter Osnos says: “Sure, Arthur has made his share of mistakes. But they get recycled all the time, and he rarely gets the credit he deserves for what he’s done right.”

Setbacks in Bay Area Add to Pain for The Chronicle
Geography, demographics and competition in the Bay Area are posing challenges beyond the headwinds facing all newspapers.

SF powerbrokers discuss restructuring Chronicle as a philanthropic venture
SF Mayor Gavin Newsom and others met last week to discuss the possibility of converting the Chronicle into a nonprofit or into an L3C — a low-profit limited liability company whose main role is helping society rather than making money. Publisher Frank Vega says: “At this time, I feel talk of creating a nonprofit umbrella is premature. We’re in negotiations with our unions to assist us in developing a viable future.”

Star Tribune Begins Holding Back Free Online News Stories Next Week (Paid Content)
[T]he Twin Cities’ StarTribune.com will begin what it’s tentatively calling an “experiment” in offering certain stories to print readers first. In an editorial, Star Tribune Editor Nancy Barnes admits that the move may seem counter-intuitive. But she alludes to the challenges of extracting necessary report mostly from online advertising, and says that the paper might as well at least reward paying readers. The paper will continue to make breaking news immediately available for free. But for those interested in reading dispatches from Star Tribune’s investigative projects, “deeply reported” non-breaking news stories and features, they’ll have to buy the paper.

AP Lists Dailies That Have Cut Editions in Past Year 
And it’s a long list, in 31 states, as the Christian Science Monitor and the two Detroit papers join the trend on Monday.

Detroit Papers: First Monday Without a Home-Delivered Edition 
Missing from the doorsteps and driveways of many Michigan homes Monday morning: newspapers. In a bold but risky move aimed at ensuring their survival in the digital age, The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press are reducing home delivery to the three days a week most popular with advertisers.

IHT.com Folds In To NYTimes.com, Paper Redesigned For Closer Integration (Paid Content)
The New York Times Company is tightening the leash on its International Herald Newspaper by folding its well-respected IHT.com in to a NYTimes.com global section and redesigning the paper to look more like its stablemate.

Boston Herald Loses 24 Staffers
The Boston Herald has announced 24 layoffs — 13 voluntary and 11 involuntary — for a 6 percent work force reduction that primarily hit the business side of the paper. The Herald’s newsroom was largely unscathed, losing one photographer to a voluntary buyout.

Philly newspaper execs got bonuses just before bankruptcy filing
Steve Volk reports Philadelphia Media Holdings awarded a total of $650,000 in bonuses to CEO Brian Tierney, vice president of finance Richard Thayer and Daily News publisher Mark Frisby last December — two months before the company declared bankruptcy. It was reported earlier that Tierney received a raise in December that boosted his pay roughly 40%.

Metro USA papers will no longer use AP content
“Encouraging existing staff to write more and employing new writers gives us a higher degree of flexibility and results in a product which is more relevant to the young, professional audience we, and our advertisers, seek,” says Tony Metcalf, editor-in-chief of Metro USA, which has papers in New York, Boston and Philadelphia.

With The Weeklies/Biweeklies, There Is Some Advertising Hope In People
Nothing new in the overall poor advertising first quarter, which for most, concludes today but People has emerged from the cold a little bit with a +9.57% ad-page differential in the March 23 issue, followed by today’s +26.60%.

Prevention Cuts Rate Base 15 Percent
Rodale said it would lower the rate base of Prevention from 3.3 million to 2.8 million — a decrease of 15 percent. Last year, Prevention saw its total paid and verified circ drop slightly, down 1.3 percent, from 2007, according to FAS-FAX figures.

Do-It-Yourself Magazines, Cheaply Slick
Traditional printing houses charge thousands of dollars for a few hundred copies, but a new service hopes to cost less than making photocopies.
Why not download to an ebook?

The Kindle is Great (by Taegan Goddard at Political Wire)
For months, I’ve read the morning newspapers on the Kindle. I find it’s more convenient, it’s easier to read and it saves trees.  And I’m not alone: On a commuter train into New York City last week I counted 17 people using the Kindle. But the real sign I’m hooked is when I got a review copy of a really great book a few days ago in the mail and was disappointed I couldn’t put it on my Kindle.

NPR says it’s still subscribing to some newspapers
NPR says it still gets seven subscriptions to the New York Times, two to the Washington Post and seven Wall Street Journal subs, plus five online accounts. “It’s not a blanket no newspapers are coming into the building,” says NPR News deputy managing editor David Sweeney. “It’s more being prudent about how many we are bringing in.”

Ag radio growing revenues.
There have been double-digit increases in agricultural ad spending and some operators say they can hardly tell there’s a recession. More dollars are being made online too. The National Association of Farm Broadcasters says there are 1,815 stations in 43 states airing some form of ag programming.

Katz reaches deeper into agencies.
Katz Marketing Solutions president Bob McCurdy calls his team “marketing ninjas” whose mission is to bring new ad dollars to radio. They’re doing that by going upstream in the process and using new software weaponry.

Serious Threats to Sirius Radio
Since its inception, satellite radio bragged that unique content represented a key competitive weapon in the crowded digital media market. But as Web radio and mobile radio applications flourish, they are beginning to erode the value of Sirius’s pricey content deals.

One place the recession isn’t showing: at the box office
While everything else in our economy has been tanking, the movie industry is on a roll. Ticket sales for the first quarter of 2009 are up 14 percent… “This is exactly what happened after the collapse of 1929 and 1930,” [Paul Degaraberian of Media by Numbers] said. “Escapist movies were really paying off, and they were running theaters around the clock. Seventy million people a week were going to the movies.”

Ratigan: “People think I’m some kind of Che Guevara!”
Dylan Ratigan, who abruptly quit CNBC last week, says he still wants to communicate his concern for America’s financial mess. “I’m leaving CNBC in order to pursue this story with the broadest possible footprint,” he tells Jon Friedman. He insists he doesn’t know for which network he’ll be pursuing the story.
Maybe he should go to work for Arianna.  Or Mark Cuban.

O’Reilly: There have been convictions for threats against Fox News
From Paul Bond’s interview with Bill O’Reilly:
THR [The Hollywood Reporter]: Do you need bodyguards?
O’Reilly: On occasion, if I have to go into a large crowd and be stationary. …We have had death threats here, and Fox security people are excellent. We know that the far-left loons bait on the Internet, and they would do damage if they could.
THR: Any of those death threats result in arrests?
O’Reilly: We’ve had a few people convicted of crimes. I’m not going to get into descriptions.

MTV to Put a Bit More Music Back, in the A.M.
In an experiment that harks back to its origins, MTV will use 3 to 9 a.m. Monday through Thursday to show music videos, news, interviews and performances.

Video Game Makers Challenged by the Next Wave of Media
Games for the Web and smartphones are far cheaper to produce than the titles for the major consoles, whose makers must hope for blockbusters.

Popular Science, Science Channel Team for ‘Future’ Series
Print-TV Partnership to Sell Ads, Produce Shows

Analyst: Online Health Category Still Healthy (Paid Content)
Not every online sector is getting crushed in the economy. Health sites continues to thrive, even in the midst of the larger drop in online ad sales. In a report this morning on WebMD, Citi Analyst Mark Mahaney notes that “we believe the online health category should be poised for double-digit revenue growth in ’09.” Why? Mahaney notes that there is a “flight to quality sites among Pharma advertisers” and says that “premium online health companies” like WebMD are increasingly selling long-term sponsorship ads instead of display ads. When WebMD reported its fourth-quarter earnings last month, the company said that it expected its revenue to grow 15 percent this year. Mahaney notes that that estimate, which he says is reasonable, “stands in sharp contrast” to the display-advertising outlook at other companies, including Yahoo.

AOL Wants To Replace Your Newspaper’s Sports Section: FanHouse Adds Half-Dozen Journalists (Paid Content)
Despite AOL’s recent layoffs, the Time Warner unit is beginning to staff up on its programming side. FanHouse, the all-encompassing sports blog that operates under AOL’s MediaGlow programming unit, has just hired five former newspaper journalists and one senior editor as it tries to take advantage in the coverage holes that many cities are experiencing as news staffs have slimmed down… In addition to the new hires, who include erstwhile Chicago Sun-Times sports columnist Greg Couch, former Newark Star-Ledger baseball reporter Dan Graziano and Jeff Fletcher, who previously worked for the NYTCo’s Santa Rosa Press Democrat and Tribune Company’s LAT, FanHouse could hire more as it focuses on ramping up its baseball coverage, Moe said.

FanHouse isn’t the only MediaGlow unit that’s doing some hiring. StyleList.com, which is part of the AOL Living network, is also expected to announce three new staffers this morning, with two new faces coming from the AP and Harper’s Bazaar.

How Sites Like ESPN 360 Can Alleviate ‘Cord Cutting’ (by Andrew Hampp, Advertising Age)
Time Warner’s TV Everywhere initiative and others like it all seek to answer the same question: Will consumers pay for cable content online? If you ask George Bodenheimer, the answer is already yes. ESPN’s president launched ESPN360.com in the halcyon, pre-Hulu days of 2005 as a broadband product where sports fans could catch live streams or recaps of more than 3,000 games both mainstream (the NCAA Tournament) and obscure (the Bassmaster Elite). The catch: Unlike with Hulu and other ad-supported video sites, users can watch only if they’re verified, paying subscribers to one of ESPN 360′s internet-service-provider partners.

Some Online Shows Could Go Subscription-Only
Time Warner Cable is working with customers here to test a subscriber model for online TV viewing. Residents who pay for HBO can watch Big Love, Entourage and other programs on their computers, using special software and a personal log-in. People who are not HBO subscribers are barred.

Disney Finalizing Deal For Clips On YouTube; Full-Episode Talks Ongoing; Could Hulu Lose Out? (Paid Content)
The Walt Disney Company and Google are close to one programming deal for video portal YouTube, and are in discussions about another—also involving YouTube—that would preclude a deal with Hulu, paidContent has learned. Disney and YouTube are in the final stages of negotiations to put clips from ESPN, ABC and other Disney assets on YouTube, according to sources familiar with the situation. The two companies would share revenue, with Disney controlling the ad inventory; YouTube and Google could get some inventory to sell. As important, YouTube would refer back to ESPN.com, ABC.com and the other Disney sites. Disney declined comment; a YouTube spokesman said the company does not comment on rumor or speculation.

In addition, the two are discussing a full-episode deal—a multi-year pay-for-play deal that would put ABC and some other Disney programming on YouTube instead of NBC Universal-News Corp joint venture Hulu.

Coming Soon: The Hulufication of YouTube? (Mashable)
YouTube has been moving to bring in legitimate, licensed content from TV networks and movie studios for some time, inking deals with the likes of CBS and MGM, among others. Now, that professionally produced content is going to become the focal point of the site, as Google plans to launch a major redesign within the next month. According to ClickZ, YouTube’s main navigation will soon be switched to “Movies, Music, Shows, and Videos. The first three tabs will display premium shows, clips, and movies from Google’s network and studio partners, all of which will be monetized with in-stream advertising.”

Torrent Sharing Comes to Facebook: Will the RIAA Step In? (Mashable)
Soon you may be seeing links to download copies of Star Wars or the newest Britney Spears album pop up your Facebook news feed. This is because The Pirate Bay, one of the world’s most popular websites for file sharing and torrents, now allows you to share links to download these files right from your Facebook profile. It works simply: The Pirate Bay site now includes links under torrents to “Share on Facebook”. Once posted to your profile, your Facebook friends can click the link on Facebook to begin the download right away, provided they already have a torrenting client installed.

Careless Copyright Owners, Automated Takedowns: A Disaster for Online Creativity (y Corynne McSherry, Staff Attorney and Kahle Promise Fellow with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which champions civil liberties in the networked world)
As a result of a dispute between Warner Music and YouTube, Warner has set YouTube ‘s “Content I.D.” filter to remove all videos identified as containing any Warner music. (For more than two years, Warner permitted these uses and silently shared in the advertising revenue for the videos that included a “match” to its music.) As a result, thousands of videos are being disappeared from one of the Internet’s most popular and accessible arenas. In fact, according to statistics kept by YouTomb, there were twice as many videos removed from YouTube in January 2009 as in the entire previous year combined.

[Some] censored videos … are clearly non-infringing fair uses… This is copyright-as-censorship at its worst and it must be stopped. First, YouTube must fix the Content I.D. system so that it does not remove videos unless there is a match between the video and audio tracks of the work alleged to be infringed. Second, Warner should use the filter solely to identify infringing works, bringing a human into the loop before videos are taken down… Until these steps are taken, YouTube’s potential as a platform for free speech and new creators will remain unrealized.

Top 20 Ways to Share a Great Blog Post (Mashable)
One of the best things about the web and social media is how much great information is written and produced every single day. If you’re a regular reader of blogs, you probably come across great articles that you just want everyone to know about. But what’s the best way to share these posts? Luckily, there’s no shortage of ways to spread the word. Blogs, social networks, instant messenger, and mobile phones are some of the many ways to let others know about the best content on the web. Here are our 20 favorite ways to share a great blog post:

FacePal: How Facebook Could Rival PayPal (Mashable)
Facebook continues to advocate and advance the platform, most recently by launching Facebook Connect for the iPhone. Facebook Connect has massive reach, and Facebook has yet to monetize it. But the confirmation that Facebook is looking at creating a virtual currency may open up the possibility of a radically new business model for Connect. By combining this virtual currency with Facebook Connect, Facebook could be the center of a new Internet marketplace for micro-payments, one no longer reliant on credit card transactions. It could accomplish the original vision of the PayPal founders: to be a universal currency.
Click through for more information.

Fring Launches a Better Twitter Mobile Experience for non-iPhone Users (Mashable)
Fring is a mobile platform that allows its users to chat and connect with friends via Skype, Google Talk, MSN, ICQ, and through Fring Add-ons, which connects your phone to Facebook and Gmail, among others. Fring offers everything from email updates to international Skype calling within iPhones, Windows Mobile devices, Nokia phones, and others.

Retweet iPhone App for Twitter: Free for 24h (Mashable)
“Retweeting” is a natural way of finding the best and most useful content on Twitter. By reposting a tweet and putting “RT” plus the originator’s username at the start (eg. “RT @mashable”) Twitter users can share tweets that interest them. On the web, there are several great tools for following retweets - RetweetRadar and Retweetist, for example. There are also blog buttons, like the one on this post, to make retweeting easier. For those who are on the go and still want to know what’s popular on Twitter, however, then Retweet … for the iPhone is a new app that’s worth a try.

BBH Offers A Deal To Employees Rather Than Lay Them Off (AgencySpy, Media Bistro)
Bartle Bogle Hegarty UK is asking its staff to take nine days unpaid leave a year, equivalent to a 3.5 per cent pay cut, to stave off the need for redundancies according to Brand Republic… Kudos to BBH for figuring out how make the money work without having to let anyone go. The agency’s US office has already seen a round of lay-offs. A spokesperson told us that “BBH New York’s business is strong, especially having won new assignments early this year. We are not considering any pay cuts at this time.” Now, there’s some good news. In the future let’s hope they follow mothership London’s lead and offer a similar deal.

A White Block Where an Ad Ought to Be
A Nascar driver raced with a large white rectangle on his car’s hood in an attempt to secure a sponsor.

Ad watchdog: Cablevision Internet not ‘fastest’
Cablevision Systems Corp. should stop saying its Internet service is “the fastest around,” the advertising industry’s self-regulatory body said Thursday, in response to complaints from competitor Verizon Communications Inc.

Permanent link to MTA daily media news

Despite Huge Push, Support For Obama’s Budget Slips A Bit (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
Despite the huge push by Obama and Dems to sell his budget over the past several weeks, a new Gallup poll finds that public support for it hasn’t budged and may have even slipped a bit… At the end of February, 44% of national adults hold a generally positive view of the budget; now that number stands at 39%. Gallup says this shows that support for the budget has “held steady,” probably because the shift is within the margin of error. But Gallup, interestingly, also says that there has been a “noteworthy” drop in support for it among moderates and liberals.

Washington Dems To Blame For Slip In Support For Budget? (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
- One reader writes: “Since the first poll was taken, Congress has taken steps to make this budget more conservative. And support for the budget has dropped amongst liberals and moderates. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the problem here is D.C. Democrats are listening to Republicans’ concerns instead of voters’ concerns.”
- A second reader opines: “I am sure there are some Democrats/liberals/progressives whose view of the budget might be negative now because of the fact that Kent Conrad and the rest of the ConservaDems have watered it down and taken out the health care money and the cap and trade provisions.”…
Given that the new Gallup poll finds that support for the budget has slipped nine points among liberals and eight points among moderates, these takes sound pretty plausible.

House GOP offers budget blueprint but scant detail (AP)
House Republicans have released their response to President Barack Obama’s deficit-laden budget, but their glossy pamphlet offers little beyond campaign-style talking points.

GOP Releases Problem-Laden Alternative “Budget” Preview (Dissenting Justice)
Highlights from the Blueprint
Politics, Politics, Politics
The blueprint reads like a political document, rather than a budget (or budget preview)…
Questionable Statements
As with most political documents, the blueprint distorts the record…
Fiscally Troubling
The Republican blueprint suffers from the same problem as the Obama budget: It promises to do many things with insufficient funds.

Comparing the U.S. to Russia and Argentina (by Glenn Greenwald at Unclaimed Territory, Salon)
Desmond Lachman — the former chief strategist for emerging markets at Salomon Smith Barney and a long-time official with the IMF (no raving socialist he) – argues [Thursday] that the most apt comparison for the U.S. now is not Japan’s ”lost decade,” but rather, “that the United States is coming to resemble Argentina, Russia and other so-called emerging markets, both in what led us to the crisis, and in how we’re trying to fix it.”…

Despite the limitless gorging on public funds by the very oligarchs (government owners) who caused the financial crisis in the first place, the predominant sentiment from our establishment media now is that Obama needs to force ordinary Americans to “sacrifice more.”…

When I first heard Chuck Todd questioning Obama at Tuesday’s Press Conference about why Obama wasn’t demanding “sacrifice” from ordinary Americans — as though the massive loss of jobs, homes, retirement security and financial opportunities isn’t sufficient “sacrifice” – I mistakenly attributed Todd’s question to the standard vapid ignorance and insularity of our media stars.  I assumed that Todd was just mimicking a question he heard about 9/11 and decided to repeat it seven years later without realizing what a complete nonsequitur it is when applied to the financial crisis. 

But there was actually a more pernicious aspect to his question.  He was basically demanding of Obama:  shouldn’t you be telling those dirty masses that they can’t have health care and education improvements and that they’re also going to have to give up their Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits (while Citibank and BoA use taxpayer money to buy up distressed assets that they will then sell at a huge profit, also to the taxpayer under the Geithner plan)?…

The key dynamic underlying all of this — the linchpin that allows it all to happen and, historically, the primary hallmark of a deeply broken nation — is the total elimination of the rule of law for the ruling class, with a simultaneous intensification of the law as a weapon against the citizenry… There is fundamental corruption in our political system that has led to all of this, and that corruption, in so many ways, is now being exacerbated and fortified rather than uprooted.

The Quiet Coup (The Atlantic)
The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, [Simon Johnson,] is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.
So why do we put up with this? WHY AREN’T WE TAKING THE BRIBERY MONEY OUT OF THE POLITICAL PROCESS?

Instead, Congress is working to get MORE bribery money into the political process:
House Democrats Track Who’s Helping Party (Political Wire)
“It’s never too early in election cycle to start fundraising — or to shame your colleagues into contributing,” CQ Poltics reports. “The campaign arm of Democrats serving in the House is privately circulating a tally showing members of that caucus where they stack up in fundraising for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).” “With a quarterly filing period coming to an end next week, the internal list provides an early look at which members of the majority are looking to flex fundraising muscle within the party — and earn favor with the leadership while they’re at it.”

So this is good news:
Parties See Drop in Fundraising (Washington Post)
Between economic turmoil and a campaign that endlessly taxed donors, political giving slows.

Flashback, 1999 (by Susie at Suburban Guerrilla)
Sen Byron Dorgan on the floor opposing Gramm-Leach-Bliley: “I bet some day someone’s going to look back at this and say ‘How on earth could we have thought that it made sense?’”
Click through to watch the video. Wikipedia: “The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act … repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, opening up competition among banks, securities companies and insurance companies. The Glass-Steagall Act prohibited a bank from offering investment, commercial banking, and insurance services.”

“It’s a great economy — FOR ME TO POOP ON!” (by Joseph Cannon at Cannonfire)
It’s going to be difficult to write the history of this era, since partisans on both sides are already distorting what has occurred and is occurring. We must make clear to future generations that Dubya — and no-one else — created this problem by allowing the mortgage lenders and the derivatives market to go unregulated. But Obama has ruined his historic opportunity to solve the crisis. As Triumph the Insult Comic Dog might put it, replacing Bush with Obama is like pooping on poop.

Obama’s bank plan could rob the taxpayer (by Jeffrey Sachs, director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University)
The Geithner-Summers plan, officially called the public/private investment programme, is a thinly veiled attempt to transfer up to hundreds of billions of dollars of US taxpayer funds to the commercial banks, by buying toxic assets from the banks at far above their market value. It is dressed up as a market transaction but that is a fig-leaf, since the government will put in 90 per cent or more of the funds and the “price discovery” process is not genuine. It is no surprise that stock market capitalisation of the banks has risen about 50 per cent from the lows of two weeks ago. Taxpayers are the losers, even as they stand on the sidelines cheering the rise of the stock market. It is their money fuelling the rally, yet the banks are the beneficiaries.

Conflucians Say: Do you think we *like* being right? (by riverdaughter at The Confluence)
[C]ommenter Diego Mamani at Naked Capitalism gives us this example of what is likely to happen under Geithner’s Plan:
Summary:
Peter puts in $6, makes $2 profit
Paul puts in $48, makes $2 profit
U.S. puts in $84, makes a $36 LOSS
Bank had paper that was really worth $58 but got $90 for it, makes a $32 profit

The Heretik

The Market Mystique (by Paul Krugman)
[T]he administration seems to believe that once investors calm down, securitization — and the business of finance — can resume where it left off a year or two ago. To be fair, officials are calling for more regulation. Indeed, on Thursday Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, laid out plans for enhanced regulation that would have been considered radical not long ago. But the underlying vision remains that of a financial system more or less the same as it was two years ago, albeit somewhat tamed by new rules. As you can guess, I don’t share that vision. I don’t think this is just a financial panic; I believe that it represents the failure of a whole model of banking, of an overgrown financial sector that did more harm than good. I don’t think the Obama administration can bring securitization back to life, and I don’t believe it should try.

The Problem of Protectionism: Post Ignores Bank Subsidies (by Dean Baker)
Remarkably, even as the federal government is dishing out hundreds of billions of dollars to the financial industry, the Washington Post still refuses to note this dangerous act of protectionism. In an article discussing warnings from the WTO about the dangers of protectionism, the Post only mentions completely trivial acts of government protection. The inefficiencies caused by the government’s subsidies for the financial industry are almost certainly hundreds of times larger than sorts of protection discussed in the article.

President Obama Holds Virtual Town Hall Meeting (by Jake Tapper at Political Punch, ABC News)
In an event the White House billed as the first virtual presidential town hall meeting in American history, President Obama today took six out of 104,097 questions submitted online from citizens, and six from regular people gathered in the East room… The six questions chosen from those submitted to Whitehouse.gov were the top vote-getters in their categories… In the second part of the town hall meeting, individual citizens chosen by unions and the Chamber of Commerce to attend, asked questions about health care, education, and taxation on small businesses.
Real Clear Politics has a transcript of the entire event.

President Expresses Anger with Automakers, Plan for Industry to be Announced Likely on Monday (by Jake Tapper at Political Punch, ABC News)
A woman from Michigan whose family members who work for GM and Ford prompted President Obama to provide a sneak preview of an announcement about automakers to likely take place on Monday. “What specific steps do you see your administration taking about the health of the auto industry?” he was asked at a town hall meeting… Mr. Obama said as a “general philosophical approach” he believes “we need to preserve a U.S. auto industry…but the price is that you’ve got to finally restructure to deal with these long-standing problems. And that means that everybody is going to have to give a little bit — shareholders, workers, creditors, suppliers, dealers — everybody is going to have to recognize that the current model, economic model, of the U.S. auto industry is unsustainable.”

Obama to netroots: “I don’t know what that says about the online audience” [snicker] (by lambert at Corrente)
“THE PRESIDENT: Three point five million people voted. I have to say that there was one question that was voted on that ranked fairly high and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy — (laughter) — and job creation. And I don’t know what this says about the online audience – (laughter) — but I just want — I don’t want people to think that — this was a fairly popular question; we want to make sure that it was answered. The answer is, no, I don’t think that is a good strategy — (laughter) — to grow our economy. (Applause.)”

Now, I’m betting that the drive for marijuana, er, reform skews young — and it certainly doesn’t skew Conservative (though possibly libertarian). In other words, Obama just dissed his own base, all for the sake of a few laughs from his new found buddies in the East Room’s gilt chairs. Hilarity ensues at The Obama 527 Formerly Known as Daily Kos, where the number one diary as of 11:00PM tonight is a terrific defense of marijuana legalization, which somehow fails to mention The One’s views on the subject, expressed that very day.

Now Hillary has been talking to ordinary people for many years.  She never got any credit for it, though, because she hasn’t used shiny new toys to do it.  See, Hillary’s more interested in what the people have to say than what new technologies can be used to hear them say it.
Roundtable Visit with Students in Mexico (by Alegre)
As many of you know, Hillary visited over 80 countries as First Lady and Senator, and that was before she became our Secretary of State.  Now I’ve met a few of the folks who made those trips with her and they said she makes a point of getting outside the bubble to hear what folks like us have to say.  It’s important to her to get the full picture of what’s happening in a country and you can’t do that by just talking with heads of state.

To anyone who’s paying attention, it won’t come as a surprise to hear that she’s still in touch with a lot of the people she’s met at those round-tables and living room chats.  I would imagine the information she gets from her friends will help her immensely as she travels the world as out top diplomat. On her latest trip to Mexico City and Monterrey, Hillary sat down with some students and got their take on what’s happening in their country, and to answer a few questions.
Click through to read the transcript of the discussion.

Kyl, McConnell skip Obama’s briefing on Afghanistan. (Think Progress)
President Obama has long refrained from detailing the particulars of his plans for Afghanistan and Pakistan, saying he will only do so after conducting a strategic review of the situation. This week, the administration announced that it will will soon release the details of the review. But Senate GOP leaders skipped Obama’s briefing on the strategic review [Thursday], opting for a “multi-member meeting”… “This was nothing more than a snub — pure and simple,” said a senior Senate Democratic aide.

In New Afghan Strategy, Obama Will Add Troops (New York Times)
The president plans to further bolster U.S. forces in Afghanistan and will set benchmarks for progress in fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, officials said.

Pakistani and Afghan Taliban Unify in Face of U.S. Influx (New York Times)
Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Afghan Taliban leader, persuaded the Pakistani Taliban to focus their efforts on the fight in Afghanistan against American troops.

Bomb kills nearly 50 at Pakistan mosque (AP)
A suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque packed with hundreds of worshippers for Friday prayers in a town near the Afghan border, killing at least 48 people and injuring scores more, officials said.

Commentary: How U.S. aid ends up financing the Taliban (McClatchy)
Mirahmad, who like many Afghans uses only one name, was delighted when he learned that the state-sponsored National Solidarity Program was about to provide $40,000 to dredge an irrigation canal.

Freddie Mac’s Duel With Regulator: Does It Report Government’s Role in Its Losses? (Washington Post)
Half a year after the government seized Freddie Mac, confusion about its role is stoking tensions between the company and its regulator, including a dispute this month over how much the mortgage giant should reveal to private investors about its financial troubles. Federal officials who took over Freddie Mac stopped short of nationalizing the company, leaving it partly in private hands. This means Freddie still has to answer to investors and file financial disclosures.

But when Freddie Mac’s executives concluded a few weeks ago that they had to disclose that the government’s management of the McLean company was undermining its profitability and would cost it tens of billions of dollars, the firm’s regulator urged it not to do so, according to several sources familiar with the matter. Freddie Mac executives refused to bend. The clash grew so severe that they threatened to go to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees corporate disclosures, to secure a ruling that the regulator’s request was out of line. The company’s regulator backed down, the sources said.

Top Risk Officers Remain at Insurer’s Helm (Wall Street Journal)
Inside American International Group Inc., a group of top executives called the Credit Risk Committee oversaw some of the company’s biggest bets, such as the insurer’s foray into credit-default swaps. But even after a $173 billion government bailout, this group, which reviewed and approved risk-taking decisions, remains largely unchanged. At least five of the 10 committee members have served for years, according to internal company documents. Some served as far back as 2003 and 2004, the documents show.

Drug Agents Raid SF Medical Marijuana Clinic (CBS 5)
One week after President Barack Obama’s top law enforcement official seemed to indicate the feds would no longer raid pot clubs, DEA agents busted a medical marijuana facility in San Francisco Wednesday night. As agents carried large plastic containers of marijuana plants out of Emmalyn’s California Cannabis Clinic at 1597 Howard Street, a small crowd of protesters formed a gauntlet outside the door, booing the agents and chanting, “our medicine is marijuana … listen to Obama!” DEA spokeswoman Casey McEnry told CBS 5 the documents regarding the raid are sealed, so the DEA was not able to give any details.

I.R.S. to Ease Penalties for Some Offshore Tax Evaders (New York Times)
The Internal Revenue Service, under pressure to bring in money to the faltering economy, plans to give offshore tax evaders a big break. The agency announced on Thursday a plan that lowers a penalty levied on wealthy Americans who stash billions of dollars overseas to evade taxes… The goal, Douglas Shulman, the I.R.S. commissioner, said during a briefing “is to get taxpayers who have been hiding assets offshore back into the system.”
I don’t see what’s in it for the tax cheats.  Why should they do anything but keep on cheating?

Can Congress afford to keep Bush tax cuts for middle class? (McClatchy)
The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee said he intends to introduce a bill Thursday to make Bush-era tax cuts aimed at the middle class permanent, despite warnings from tax experts who questioned the cuts’ effectiveness and whether the country can afford them.

Ex-Lobbyist in Running for U.S. Attorney’s Job in Alexandria (Washington Post)
A former corporate lobbyist has emerged as a top candidate for U.S. attorney in Alexandria, raising questions about how his appointment would square with the Obama administration’s efforts to change the culture of Washington, according to legal and political sources.

We can sentence a shortstop for lying to Congress, but Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, and Yoo are still on the street (by lambert at Corrente)
Shortstop Miguel Tejada gets a year’s probation for misleading Congress in a steroids investigation. Fucking pitiful. Just pitiful.

Fighting Bad Press with Google (Political Wire)
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) is using Google Ad Words to respond to an unfavorable New York Times story this morning on her history of defending tobacco companies as a young lawyer. If you enter “gilibrand tobacco” or “kirsten gillibrand” into Google you’ll get an ad at the top of the search results proclaiming, “Gillibrand Fights Tobacco.” The ad links to a page on her campaign website highlighting her anti-tobacco record. Phil Singer: “This is the future of rapid response.”

Coleman Donor Ordered Payments (Political Wire)
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that a former CFO of a Texas company controlled by a close friend of Norm Coleman said in a deposition last week that he was ordered to pay $100,000 to a Minneapolis insurance agency where Coleman’s wife was employed — even though their was no indication of any services received.

Carnahan Leads Both Potential Rivals (Political Wire)
A new Wilson Research Strategies (R) poll in Missouri finds Robin Carnahan (D) leading both of her potential Republican opponents in the 2010 U.S. Senate race. Carnahan edges Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), 47% to 44%, and tops Sarah Steelman (R), 47% to 39%. The survey’s margin of error is four points.

Stimulus tensions rise between Palin, state GOP lawmakers (McClatchy)
Tension is rising between Gov. Sarah Palin and state legislators over the federal economic stimulus money, with lawmakers saying there is a communications breakdown with the governor over what money the state should take.

Real plumbers rip Joe the Plumber for shilling against the Employee Free Choice Act. (Think Progress)
Greg Sargent reports that Joe the Plumber has been tapped by the anti-labor Americans for Prosperity to do “a series of events throughout Pennsylvania rallying opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act… Joe the Plumber may not represent the average worker — or at least not the average plumber. Remember that Joe never had a plumbing license, and many of the people in that profession are members of the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry (UA). UA political and legislative director Rick Terven responded to the latest news, saying, “Real plumbers want and need the Employee Free Choice Act as a way to empower themselves to join a union, without fear of intimidation or losing their jobs. Joe the Plumber doesn’t speak for real plumbers.”

A DREAM DEFERRED: (by Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler)
Ten years ago, it would have seemed like a dream–the notion of having two nightly cable programs driven by progressive outlooks… Countdown and Maddow are now on the air–and the clowning and dumbness are sometimes quite massive… The one show is now a cathedral to dumb. The other show could still rule the planet. But progressives have to pressure their broadcasters, just as Maddow has (correctly) said that progressives should pressure their pols.

Then again, it might not (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
Boy, the press never tires of reporting on what might pop up as a problem for the president, does it? Especially in terms of how the public might react to X,Y, or Z… Might be helpful for the press to simply, y’know, see what happens and then report it as news.

Interviewing woman who “turn[ed] to exotic dancing to get [herself] out of financial trouble” Fox News aired titillating photos (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Your World captions ask if Geithner “call for regulation” is a “power grab,” attempt to “create his own ‘regulatory’ kingdom” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

The Red Scare Index: 63 (by Karl Frisch at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
Here are the numbers for yesterday, Wednesday, March 25, 2009:
TOTAL: 63
Socialism, Socialist, Socialistic: 45
Communism, Communist, Communistic: 17
Marxism/Marxist: 1

Coulter still smearing Soros as Nazis collaborator (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Morris claims media put “mob hit” on Palin (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
It was very similar to Morris’ “mob hit” on Hillary.

Beck calls Cuomo a “poster child” for “mob tactic,” claims Geithner sounds like he’s in the “Corleone administration” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Hannity promo asks if Obama budget is “a way for the government to completely control our lives” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Hannity graphic declares Obama “Commissar-In-Chief” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Controversy lifts Rush’s ratings.
Rush Limbaugh says attacks on him by democrats have “backfired.” The proof is in the PPM data from several large markets. “These audience growth rates are phenomenal,” he says. Limbaugh’s show has seen cume and share gains in every PPM market.

Limbaugh: Obama “is a gutless wonder; he is seeking as much chaos and depression among average Americans as he can get” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh: “They know [Obama is] lying through his teeth and they still support him. It just mean this: what women have always known, ‘cheat on me, just don’t tell me about it’ “ (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Discussing upcoming “Earth hour,” Limbaugh calls Obama “an extremist tyrannical president” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh refers to MSNBC’s Brewer, Francis as “info-babes,” then amends to “anchors” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh: Geithner testified about “how he intends to destroy our capitalist system with Barney Frank banging the gavel in support” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Steyn on Abu Ghraib: “Yeah, it was a guy, whatever it was, the banana and the Victoria’s Secret panties. I mean, big deal” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Kudlow claims global warming “is now being disputed for global cooling” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Savage: A “progressive is, basically a pervert covering it up with liberal politics” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
Actually, when it comes to sex scandals, perverted or otherwise, Republicans have Democrats beat by miles and miles and miles (click here and scroll down).

Jobs or lives? Tobacco makes its case against regulation (McClatchy)
Tobacco manufacturing jobs, which pay more than twice the average salary of other private industries in North Carolina, are “under siege” by tax increases and other government proposals, growers and their advocates told lawmakers here Thursday.

Media Matters for America headlines

• CNN ignores GOP contradiction in criticizing Geithner’s proposal as “power grab”

• Michael Reagan falsely claimed Dems’ law told AIG to “pay the bonuses”

• AP ignores GOP contradiction in criticizing Dem plan similar to its own

• Hannity falsely claimed Obama has proposed UK-style nationalized health care

• LA Times touts McCain as a “key Republican” in immigration debate, but ignores campaign flip-flop

• NY Times mag sends a sports and music writer to do a science writer’s job

• Will media note House GOP has proposed a plan that its own leader called a power grab?

• NY Times mag profile of global warming skeptic uncritically repeats false comparison with ’70s global cooling theory

• The right’s toxic assets

• After devoting extensive coverage to Geithner hearing on AIG, cable networks all but ignore live testimony on Treasury powers

• Return to (poor) form: MSNBC again drops the ball on disclosing McCaffrey’s DynCorp ties

Fargo uses social networks to fight floodwaters
When Kevin Tobosa got word Thursday that a friend needed help building a sandbag dike, he immediately posted a status update on his Facebook page: “Heading to 2825 Lilac Lane in North Fargo — needs to be raised another 2 feet.”

Australia says Web blacklist combats child porn
Australia’s communications minister has defended a proposed Internet blacklist as necessary to combat child pornography but admitted that at least one site had been wrongly blocked during trials.

E.U. Telecom Law Set to Enshrine the Right to Information
A Europe-wide law forcing Internet service providers to cut subscribers off from the Internet if they illegally download copyright-protected music or movies isn’t going to happen as part of an ongoing review of telecom rules, telecom commissioner Viviane Reding said in an interview.

AT&T to start sending copyright warnings
AT&T Inc., the nation’s largest Internet service provider, will start sending warnings to its subscribers when music labels and movie studios allege that they are trafficking in pirated material, according to an executive. The phone company thus joins other major ISPs that either go beyond legal requirements or interpret their duties under the law to mean that they have to forward such notices.

Canada makes 57 arrests in child porn crackdown
Nearly 60 people have been arrested in what Canadian police said on Thursday was the country’s largest investigation into child pornography on the Internet.

Newspaper Ad Revs Dropped 16.6 Percent In ’08; Online Slipped 1.8 Percent (Paid Content)
The figures are in, and last year was the worst in newspaper history: Ad revenues fell 16.6. percent to $37.8 billion in 2008, according to the latest figures from the Newspaper Association of America. As for the online slice, 2007′s 18.8 percent gain feels very far away, as website sales slipped 1.8 percent to $3.1 billion.

Newspapers Need a New Business Model — Now (by Jon Friedman at Marketwatch)
Now that two of the nation’s best-regarded newspapers are taking dire actions, all bets are off. From now on, bad news across the newspaper spectrum will have to be accepted as more than simply a risk of doing business. It will be treated as routine.

How to Become a ‘Death of Newspapers’ Blogger (by Paul Dailing at the Huffington Post)
Times are tough, my freelance work is drying up. That’s why I’ve decided to become a “Death of Newspapers” blogger. I’ll join the ranks of Jeff Jarvis, Paul Gillin, Jay Rosen, and Clay Shirky in competing to see who can use the most jargon to describe something everyone knows is happening.

A Look at GlobalPost’s Business Model, Site Navigation (by Barbara Iverson at Poynter Online)
GlobalPost launched in January with an ambitious mission, proclaiming on its home page to be “a new voice for global news,” and an interesting revenue stream that combines advertising, syndication and premium membership. In an introductory video, the site pledges to “fill the void left as traditional media cuts back and in many cases abandons the mission of international reporting.” Its business model is like the “freemium” model that Chris Anderson described in Wired magazine last year.” A small percentage of paying users, he explained, make it possible for content to be free for most of the audience.

GlobalPost stories are free to everyone, but premium subscribers ($199 a year) get extra features, one of which is the ability to submit story ideas that the site’s correspondents may or may not pursue…
Click through for more.

Lachlan Murdoch Mulling Investments; Not Ruling Out News Corp Return (Paid Content)
In danger of becoming the forgotten man of the Murdoch family after stepping down as a senior News Corp executive in 2005, Lachlan Murdoch is keen to tell the world he’s still there and still interested in media investments… For him, perhaps not surprisingly, the best online model is the News Corp-owned Wall Street Journal—”all newspapers have struggled aside from that.” Echoing what many newspaper executives think about the rise of free news, he worries that “consumers have now got used to that, so it’s difficult to get people to pay, and that’s what we have to—as an industry—correct.”

‘Christian Science Monitor’ Publishes Final Daily Edition 
As the final daily issue of the 100-year-old Christian Science Monitor was put to bed Thursday, the newspaper was planning its rebirth as a spruced-up weekly — and bigger Web player.

Changes at the Christian Science Monitor
Editor’s Note: As of today, we are shedding print on a daily basis. But the Monitor itself — the century-old journalistic enterprise chronicling the world’s challenges and progress — is becoming more daily than ever. And with our new weekly print edition, the Monitor is becoming more vital than ever.

Imagine There’s No Sports Page
The future of newspapers is uncertain, and that makes a difference for fans. While there’s a growing number of blogs and other online outlets devoted to covering Philly sports, many of them rely on the reporting provided by the Inquirer and Daily News as a key foundation of their own work.

Washington Post, New York Times seek new cost cuts
Two of the most respected U.S. newspaper publishers, The Washington Post Co and The New York Times Co, are embarking on new cost cuts in the face of dramatic declines in advertising revenue. The Times said it laid off 100 workers and is cutting non-union salaries. It is also asking unionized employees to accept similar concessions to avoid layoffs in the newsroom. The Post is offering a new round of buyouts to newsroom, production and circulation employees, and said it could not rule out laying off staff.

Washington Post Publisher: Buyouts Could Deplete Talent
Katharine Weymouth, publisher of The Washington Post, admits she is concerned that this latest round of buyouts could further reduce the paper’s veteran talented staffers. But at a time when newspapers are seeing some of their worst financial problems ever, she contends it is necessary.

Former P-I staffers hope to launch new journalism Web sites
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s print death has spawned at least two local initiatives to launch new Web sites devoted to in-depth journalism, and to explore new ways to pay for it. Laid-off P-I reporters and editors are involved in both efforts. One group has been talking with public broadcasters, the other with academics.

Is That an Ad on the Cover of ESPN?
Having seen Esquire applauded by the American Society of Magazine Editors for implanting an ad within its cover, ESPN The Magazine is taking things further with an ad unit that, on the face of it, would seem to violate the group’s guidelines governing the independence of editorial content from advertising.

Looking for Someone to Blame for the Magazine Industry’s Implosion? Try Editors (by Mark Newman, Folio)
What has always baffled me is when editors are content with the status quo. However dynamic a magazine is, if it’s not growing or changing then it’s dying. I’ve seen that time and time again, especially at some of my past publications, many of which have died painful, pitiful deaths.

Nonprofit Hits JAMA Editors, Urges Inquiry
A nonprofit group that monitors industry links to medical research called for the suspension of the top two editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association, and an investigation into allegations that they threatened a researcher who criticized a study published in the journal.

Blender Magazine Folds
Blender is no more. The music magazine has followed so many other publications into the ether amidst a restructuring at parent company Alpha Media Group. It will continue to live online. Alpha also announced that Maxim and Maxim.com are merging their editorial operations.

As economy slumps, arts groups suffer, Congress told
Though audiences are flocking to plays and musical performances, the slumping economy could dim the stagelights, arts advocates told Congress Thursday in a bid to shore up support for arts funding.

CBS Radio’s online cume jumps 13%.
The AOL Radio and Yahoo-Launchcast alliances keep CBS Radio at the top of the streaming heap. Its webcasts were heard by 5.2 million people last month, an increase of 600,000. Ando Media says Entercom also saw a big (52%) jump in audience.

BIA: Online up $132 million a year.
Radio spot revenues will remain challenged for the next several years, but BIA economists are calculating an average growth rate in digital dollars of 30%. That would give radio $908 million of online revenues by 2013, up dramatically from last year’s $247 million.

Station picks people over streaming.
In an era where every dollar counts, two of Journal’s four Boise stations are no longer streaming. GM Bob Rosenthal says savings could go to keep a part-timer. Plus there’s not much revenue from in-stream ads.

Ugly Betty’s Mode After Hours: A Missed Opportunity (by Liz Shannon Miller, Salon)
Mode After Hours, a webseries spun off from the popular ABC seriesUgly Betty, consists of five-minute wacky adventures with Marc (Michael Urie) and Amanda (Becki Newton), two assistants at the fashion magazine around which the soap opera/comedy hybrid revolves. The first episode, Big Package, reveals what Amanda does with many of the packages that come across her desk; in the second, April Fools (released, oddly, a solid week before April 1), the two plot nasty pranks to pull on Betty. The “after hours” gimmick boils down to setting the two actors loose on the show’s pre-existing sets for five minutes of bantering. It’s a low-budget enterprise, well-produced and cleverly written…

[T]he series is being updated weekly to bridge the six-week gap between Betty’s last new episode, March 17, and its return on May 7 — a clever way to keep the show alive in the minds of its audience… The first season of Mode After Hours, according to Alexis Rapo of ABC.com at NewTeeVee Live, racked up 8.5 million views last September, and there’s no reason to think that this new run of episodes won’t be just as successful. But I do wish that this had been seen as a two-part opportunity — a chance to make new friends, even while they kept the old.  Website for this show »

Here’s another way ABC is raising money:
Ugly Betty ”Guadalajara” Jersey Tee
Share Betty’s love for Guadalajara with this festive “Guadalajara” tee. This tee features the words “Guadalajara” along with the Ugly Betty logo and other images.

Could Disney Join Hulu? Sources Say Talks Are Serious (Paid Content)
The Walt Disney Company could wind up with an equity stake in Hulu in exchange for adding ABC programming to the NBC Universal-News Corp joint venture, a source familiar with the situation tells paidContent. It’s not clear how much of Disney’s television programming is involved beyond ABC—a second source says all Disney content has been discussed but it centers on ABC; other possibilities could include ESPN and, if not the Disney Channel, some offshoots. The discussions, dormant for a while, have picked up again recently and are described as “serious” by both sources.

Research Report: Youngsters Not Abandoning Live TV
According to the Video Consumer Mapping Study .. people aged between 18-24 watched only 5.5 minutes of ‘computer video,’ daily compared with 209.9 minutes of live television. DVR playback accounted for 17.2 minutes a day. Across all ages groups, live television still accounted for 309.1 minutes of viewing a day compared to only 14.6 minutes of playback TV and 2.4 minutes daily spent watching online video.

Who Watches the Most TV and Video? Young Boomers
New Study Parses 952 Days of Watching Screens

Cable News Blues (Center for American Progress)
Cable news may be the only healthy part of the journalism business, but that’s bad news for the rest of us, write Eric Alterman and Danielle Ivory.

Dylan Ratigan Out at CNBC After Flare-Up
There was high drama at CNBC yesterday as Fast Money anchor Dylan Ratigan quit — today will be his last day on-air — and an insider is blaming his battles with network big Susan Krakower. “She’s been ignoring him for months and he couldn’t get the attention he deserved,” the insider said.

‘Trivial Pursuit’ goes high-tech
The arrival of Trivial Pursuit on the Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 2 and PS3, and Microsoft Xbox 360 brings the classic Hasbro board game to a new generation of gamers in high-tech fashion.

@ GDC: NeuroFocus Sells Gaming Companies On Brainwave Research (Paid Content)
At GDC, neuroscience-based marketing firm NeuroFocus rolled out NGame, a suite of products that apply brainwave research principals to game design. The idea is to help developers home in on factors like which characters, game-play mechanics and graphic designs appeal most to their target demographic in advance, so that the game stands a better chance of success… The cost of an average neuromarketing research project starts out at about $50,000, with more expensive tests topping the six-figure mark.

Loudcrowd: Discover New Music While Playing Games in a Virtual World (Mashable)
What Loudcrowd does extremely well is pair interactive game play with indie tracks for a fun-loving music-driven experience. Loudcrowd has a virtual world feel and game play that reminds us of Playfish Facebook games. With music in the mix and a part of each game, challenges become an entertaining way to pimp out your character.

TheKnot Sends Out Invitations For Hyperlocal Gatherings; 75 Microsites Unveiled (Paid Content)
As part of its continuing efforts to expand its social media offerings, weddings-related content website The Knot is creating 75 hyperlocal sites to attract small businesses as national advertising dries up, WSJ reports. The sites will have the name of the locality and end with “.weddings.com,” as Ozarks Weddings and Orange Count Weddings.

Hyperlocalism isn’t exactly a new thing for TheKnot. In print at least, it has long published 17 regional mags. Apart from building on that aspect of its business, TheKnot’s strategy can also be seen as a way to organize some of the purchases it has made this past year, such as recent acquisitions WedSnap, developer of Weddingbook, a Facebook app, and the community site Breastfeeding.com, as well as last year’s local pregnancy guide, The Bump.

Online Age Quiz Is a Window for Drug Makers
Takers of the popular online RealAge test are handing out valuable data to drug companies.

Boomers zero in on social networks
Whether it’s congressmen Twittering during presidential speeches, parents connecting with high school flames on Facebook or empty-nesters planning group outings on grown-up sites such as Eons.com, Baby Boomers are speeding up the Web’s ongoing metamorphosis from limitless void to global watering hole.

Facebook Seeking Up To $100 Million In Financing (Paid Content)
Facebook has raised $500 million so far, but with costs mounting and ad-revenue growth slowing, that’s not enough. BusinessWeek reports that the social-networking site is looking for credit lines of up to $100 million to finance the lease of new servers, which it needs to support its growing membership… As the ranks of Facebook members have grown, so have the company’s costs. But the company’s revenue hasn’t kept up.

When Stars Twitter, a Ghost Writer May Be Lurking
In its short history, Twitter has become an important marketing tool for celebrities, politicians, and businesses, promising a level of intimacy never before approached online. But in many cases, celebrities and their handlers have turned to outside writers — ghost Twitterers, if you will.

10 iPhone Apps to Manage Your Job Search on the Go (Mashable)
These days, the job search is happening 24/7, and it’s important to arm yourself with tools that can help provide you with an advantage. You can create a social media resume, connect with recruiters on Twitter, and if you have an iPhone, there are several useful applications you can use to track job listings and networking opportunities on the go. [Click through for reviews of] ten apps that will help you own your online identity, build a strong database of professional contacts, and locate a job in your area in a flash.

Google Mobile App For BlackBerry Gets Voice Search
BlackBerry users can join the Google search using your voice party now according to the Google Mobile blog… The service supports both U.S. and British English according to the announcement.
Click through for a download link.

Google Plans to Lay Off 200 Workers
Google said Thursday that it would cut about 200 employees from its sales and marketing organization, the third and most significant round of layoffs at the company this year. Google, which announced the layoffs in a blog post, said that the cuts would reduce overlap between different groups and speed up decision making. Omid Kordestani, Google’s senior vice president for global sales and business development, said the cuts were meant to address mistakes the company had made during its phase of rapid growth.

Google Aims to Connect Ads for TV, YouTube
Google’s director of television ads, Michael Steib, said in an interview that the company is working on technology that allows advertisers to buy ads across Google TV, which sells on-air commercials; YouTube; and video on other Web sites through the same interface.

The New Ad Frontier for Filmmakers (by Jon Fine. Business Week)
When the big ad agencies and media companies contract, gaps in the landscape form wherein new blossoms can sprout. One such newcomer is Maximum Entertainment, a production company that makes video ads using a stable of directors, almost all of whom come from the world of film.

Eight Hours a Day Spent on Screens, Study Finds
In a world with grocery store television screens, digitally delivered movie libraries and cellphone video clips, the average American is exposed to 61 minutes of TV ads and promotions a day. In fact, adults are exposed to screens — TVs, cellphones, even GPS devices — for about 8.5 hours on any given day.

Permanent link to MTA daily media news

@BarackObama Updates His Twitter! (by Adam Ostrow at Mashable)
Barack Obama, Twitter’s second most popular user (CNN has passed him), updated his Twitter account [Wednesday] for the first time since taking office. The update is to promote the President’s online town hall, which encourages citizens to submit questions via The White House website. Obama will be responding to some of the most popular questions – determined by users voting them up ala Digg – via video on Thursday.

Obama turns to Web to bypass news media (AP)
President Barack Obama took questions from the White House press corps on Tuesday.. On Thursday, he is taking to that same room for another public grilling — this time by regular folks armed with questions submitted via the Internet and in person, as part of a political strategy to engage Americans directly. “It’s a way for the president to do what he enjoys doing out on the road, but saves on gas,” press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Wednesday.

Obama’s Prime Time Pitch (FactCheck.org)
President Obama sometimes strayed from the facts or made dubious claims during his hour-long evening news conference March 24.

• He said his budget projections are based on economic assumptions that “are perfectly consistent with what Blue Chip forecasters out there are saying.” Not true. The average projection by leading private economists is now for substantially less economic growth than the administration’s forecast assumes.
• He said he is reducing “nondefense discretionary spending” to less than it was under the past four presidents. Not true. His own forecast for the final budget of his four-year term puts this figure higher than in many years under Reagan, Clinton or either Bush.
• He said he was “angry” about “inexcusable” bonuses paid to AIG executives. But he glossed over the fact that his own aides insisted on watering down a Senate-passed amendment that might have prevented payment of such bonuses.
• He repeated that his budget is projected to cut the federal deficit in half by the end of his term. That’s true, but deficits also are projected to shoot up again later unless big policy changes are made.

One of the most dramatic claims came not from Obama but from a reporter who asked about children “who are sleeping under bridges and in tents across the country” and who said 1 child in 50 is “homeless.” The truth is far less dramatic. The study he cited doesn’t just count children with no roof over their heads. It also includes those whose families are staying with friends or family members, in hotels and motels, in trailer parks or in housing deemed to be “substandard.”
You’re not homeless if you’re forced to live with relatives, or in a lean-to?  Why no, you’re a lucky ducky, ripe for being mocked by a man who makes more than $20 million a year.  See below.

Limbaugh on “bogus statistic that 1 of 50 American children are homeless”: “Would somebody tell me the last time you saw a kid sleeping under a bridge?” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Cities Deal With a Surge in Shantytowns (New York Times)
FRESNO, Calif. — As the operations manager of an outreach center for the homeless here, Paul Stack is used to seeing people down on their luck. What he had never seen before was people living in tents and lean-tos on the railroad lot across from the center. Like a dozen or so other cities across the nation, Fresno is dealing with an unhappy déjà vu: the arrival of modern-day Hoovervilles, illegal encampments of homeless people that are reminiscent, on a far smaller scale, of Depression-era shantytowns.
And who was talking about this problem before the Ebony reporter asked his question at the press conference?  Nobody.

Homesteaders in the Hood (Slate)
To survive, everyone needs to have a place to be and to sleep, eat, and, let’s face it, go to the bathroom. For most of us, that place is the home. As rising unemployment pushes more people out of their houses and apartments, however, and growing numbers of Americans cannot find a place to perform these essential functions legally, they will have little choice but to break the law. And so some of them are turning to a strategy that has cropped up repeatedly in American history—squatting.

On the other hand, Rush has a lot of sympathy for Wall Street former millionaires and billionaires:
Limbaugh on people who work on Wall Street: “People want families like yours to suffer. They want you to understand how hard life is for them and that’s why they support Obama” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Hannity, too, is worried about the rich (like himself)
Hannity fear-mongering: “If the government takes too much money … just like if it was a terror attack against America, Americans will get hurt.” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Joel Pett

Cue the world’s smallest violin, cont’d (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
[T]he notion that networks automatically lost that ad money [because of Obama’s prime-time news conference] just isn’t true. That’s not how the business works because television advertising is not a zero sum game. Combined, networks control more than one hundred hours of primetime programming each week. Obviously, if some ads get bumped for breaking news (i.e. a White House press conference), networks have the ability to air a those handful of lost ad slots on other programs, just as networks have done for decades.

Presidential Press Conference, ‘Biggest Loser’ Win Tuesday (Advertising Age)
Rash Report: But 19% Fewer Viewers Tuned in for Obama Than in February

Unified Democrats mirror Obama budget priorities (AP)
In a springtime show of unity, congressional Democrats welcomed President Barack Obama to the Capitol Wednesday and unveiled budget blueprints that embrace his key priorities and point the way for major legislation this year on health care, energy and education.
Well, kinda unified.  These are DEMOCRATS we’re talking about.

Senate Democrats tell Obama they’ll cut his budget plan (McClatchy)
Senate Democrats gave President Barack Obama a warm welcome on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, even as they prepared to cut as much as $180 billion from his proposed $3.55 trillion fiscal 2010 budget.

Bayh: My Group Of Blue Dogs ‘Literally Has No Agenda’ Other Than Blocking Obama’s (Think Progress)
Yesterday, MoveOn.org, Americans United for Change, and several other progressive groups began running ads urging “moderate” Democratic members of Congress to “get on board with the president’s budget.” The ads are, in part, a response to Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) and 14 of his Democratic colleagues who are creating what they call a “moderate coalition that will meet regularly to shape public policy.” Bayh responded to the new ads late yesterday, telling Politico that his group of “moderates” should not be targeted because they have “no agenda”.

Obama Budget Chief on Hill Dems Plan to Scrap Middle Class Tax Cut: “We have two years to figure this out” (by Sunlen Miller at Political Punch, ABC News)
President Obama’s budget chief hinted that the president’s signature campaign issue – a middle class tax cut – will not likely survive a budget battle with Democrats on Capitol Hill… OMB Director Peter Orszag indicated that while 98% of the budget mark-ups in the House and Senate are on par with the administration’s budget blueprint, some campaign trail promises, like middle class tax cuts, may get left on the cutting room floor… President Obama ensured his middle class tax cut is locked in place for the next two years as a part of the stimulus package he signed into law last month, but OMB Director Peter Orszag told reporters … that the White House will have to use those two years to figure out how to keep that tax cut in place for middle class families beyond 2010.

Obama makes bold climate bill prediction: ‘We’ll get it done’ (New York Times)
President Obama struck an optimistic note [Tuesday] night on the prospects for signing a major global warming law, pledging also to craft a bill that takes into account economic concerns and the country’s regional differences over energy production. In his second primetime news conference since taking office, Obama nudged Congress to focus its attention on passing cap-and-trade legislation through regular order rather than get tangled up on the measure during a preliminary debate this month over the nonbinding budget resolution.

Reid open to fast-tracking health overhaul (AP)
Majority Leader Harry Reid indicated Wednesday he’s willing to move sweeping health care legislation through the Senate with a procedural maneuver that would block a GOP filibuster.

Obama Keeps Selling Budget (Political Wire)
“After several e-mail pleas and a nationwide door-knocking campaign, President Obama’s political arm will start airing a television commercial Thursday, urging voters to pressure Congress to approve his budget,” CNN reports. Said a spokeswoman: “The ad will run on national and D.C. cable — primarily MSNBC and CNN. This is just one of the many tools we’ll provide our supporters with, to help them make their voices heard and send a strong signal to Washington that the time for change is now.”

House GOP Will Introduce Its Own Budget (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
One day after being ridiculed by President Obama for not having a budget of their own, the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives announced that they would unveil their proposal on Thursday… What the content of the proposal will include is not yet known. What is known is this: the DNC might have to finally adjust its “Party of No” clock. Though, to be fair, there don’t appear to be plans for the Senate GOP to follow their House counterparts.

GOP Budget’s Attack On Obama Health Care Plan Echoes 1993 Harry And Louise Ads (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
The House GOP’s alternative budget released today is striking in one key way: It contains an attack on the Obama health care agenda that’s eerily reminiscent of the infamous 1993 “Harry and Louise” ads targeting Bill Clinton’s approach. The similarities will give the Dems fodder to argue that the Republicans want to rehash old debates and aren’t serious about advancing new ideas suited to the moment. The GOP attack could also undercut the party’s claim that it wants to work in good faith with Obama and Dems to fix health care. It’s also unclear what specifically the GOP is targeting, as Obama and Dems have not settled on an official plan yet.
And Obama’s attack on Hillary’s health care plan was “eerily reminiscent of the infamous 1993 ‘Harry and Louise’ ads”.  Sort of symmetrical, don’t you think?

Blaming Obama for a Bush Economy (by Joe Conason)
Ever since Election Day 2008, the usual suspects have been hard at work, deflecting responsibility from the Bush administration (and the Republicans in Congress) for the catastrophic effects of conservative policy enacted during the past eight years… But there is a double standard at work here. When a Democrat is elected president, he is responsible for economic contraction even if he has yet to be inaugurated for three months. When a Republican is actually president, he need not be held responsible, even well after he takes office. If that strikes you as inconsistent, then you are beginning to notice how blatant deception passes for conservative ideology…

[E]ven as critics roast President Obama and his Treasury secretary, honesty requires that they acknowledge that the problems faced by President Obama and Mr. Geithner are not of their making. He has held office since Jan. 20 — and if held to the Reagan standard, he deserves at least a year to begin correcting the Bush recession.
But requiring honesty would require honesty, Joe.

EU presidency: US economic plans ‘a road to hell’ (AP)
The head of the European Union slammed President Barack Obama’s plan to spend nearly $2 trillion to push the U.S. economy out of recession as “the road to hell” that EU governments must avoid. The blunt comments by Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek to theEuropean Parliament on Wednesday highlighted simmering European differences with Washington ahead of a key summit next week on fixing the world economy. It was the strongest pushback yet from a European leader as the 27-nation bloc bristles from U.S. criticism that it is not spending enough to stimulate demand.

Bad Czech (by Paul Krugman)
[T]he utter unwillingness of many European leaders to come to grips with the scale of this crisis is a very real obstacle to action.

Inflation in a Downturn, Snow in Summer (by Dean Baker)
It may have been rude, but it would have been appropriate to include some expert commentary when reporting on the criticism of the U.S. stimulus package by Mirek Topolanek, the prime minister of the Czech Republic and current holder of the rotating presidency of the European Union. Mr Topolanek complained that the stimulus package would lead to inflation. At the moment, the enormous amount of unemployment and excess capacity is putting enormous downward pressure on prices raising serious concerns of deflation. It is difficult to construct a scenario in which inflation will be a serious problem in the current environment.

Buying Toxic Assets with Bailout Money (by Barry Ritholtz at the Big Picture)
The NYPost reports the two biggest banking wrecks, CitiGroup amnd Bank of America, have been aggressively buying toxic assets with bailout money, and goosing the MBS auctions. You can imagine why this might get people upset. I suspect its rather unavoidable. These banks have investment wings, and they are trolling for opportunities… If anything, this argues against bailouts and in favor of nationalization, firing management, wiping out S/Hs, zeroing out debt, haircutting bond holders, etc.
When will we ever learn?

Banks eager to pay back TARP loans (McClatchy)
For relatively strong banks, doing business with the government may be more trouble than it’s worth. Banks are publicly declaring their intent to pay back loans from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, as quickly as they can. They range from Charlotte-based Bank of America Corp., which is the country’s biggest bank, to tiny Iberia bank Corp. in Lafayette, La. The banks complain about the rules that the U.S. Treasury keeps imposing on them retroactively, sometimes in ways that seem arbitrary or driven by constituents’ anger. Some say they never needed the money but were cajoled into taking it by the Treasury, which wanted a show of industry support for its program.
They were just doing us a favor, taking our money!

Geithner to Outline Major Overhaul of Finance Rules  (New York Times)
The Obama administration will detail on Thursday a wide-ranging plan to overhaul financial regulation by subjecting hedge funds and traders of exotic financial instruments, now among the biggest and most freewheeling players on Wall Street, to potentially strict new government supervision, officials said… [T]he most striking new proposals, and the ones that may provoke the most heated opposition from the industry, would regulate so-called private pools of capital — hedge funds, private equity funds and venture capital funds — and the gigantic market in financial derivatives, including instruments like credit-default swaps, the insurance like instruments that allow investors to hedge against bond defaults…

[A] growing number of lawmakers and policy makers are worried that hedge funds have become too big a part of the financial market to operate without government monitoring. Administration officials also want to prevent a repeat of the gigantic Ponzi scheme perpetrated by Bernard L. Madoff.

The Fed is the Systematic Risk Regulator, Although Perhaps Not a Good One (by Dean Baker)
The Fed has been acting as the systematic risk regulator for the U.S. financial system. How else can we explain the decision of Alan Greenspan to intervene in the unraveling of the Long-Term Capital Hedge Fund or his intervention to stop the 1987 stock market crash? Obviously, the Fed fell down on the job big time in the current crisis, but that is no reason to pretend that we did not have a risk regulator. If we want to avoid having this sort of problem happen again, we have to start by acknowledging that we did have a risk regulator who was unable to perform its job for some reason, just as the problem for the bank was that its security guard was for some reason unable to prevent the robbery.

Lender of last resort: Put it on the agenda! (by Guillermo Calvo, thanks to Economist’s View)
[F]inancial regulations have to be accompanied by liquidity facilities mimicking a global lender of last resort. Without them, financial regulations could even become counterproductive. Moreover, in the short run, large liquidity facilities should be put in place to protect emerging market economies from possible sudden stop episodes associated with the current crisis and consequent deleveraging.

During Fox News report on Geithner asking for “sweeping new powers,” Napolitano claims, “This is Josef Stalin without the bloodshed” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Emanuel’s Profitable Stint at Freddie Mac (Political Wire)
The Chicago Tribune reports that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel “made at least $320,000 for a 14-month stint at Freddie Mac that required little effort.” Though his involvement with the troubled mortgage giant “has been a prominent point on his political résumé,” what is less known “is how little he apparently did for his money and how he benefited from the kind of cozy ties between Washington and Wall Street that have fueled the nation’s current economic mess.”

Obama nominee for deputy EPA chief withdraws (Reuters)
President Barack Obama’s nominee for the No. 2 position at the Environmental Protection Agency, Jon Cannon, removed himself from consideration on Wednesday, the latest in a string of withdrawals among nominees for administration posts.

Clinton: U.S. shares blame for Mexican drug violence (McClatchy)
The U.S. bears much of the blame for violent drug wars roiling Mexico because of its demand for drugs and its failure to stop illegal weapons from crossing the border, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday, accepting “shared responsibility” for the problem.
Somebody had to have the guts to say it.  But I assure you the right wingers will be demanding to know why she hates America.

Obama to Appear on Univision Awards Program (Variety)
With Mexico in the headlines of late, President Obama will talk directly to a massive Hispanic aud when he makes an historic appearance on Premio Lo Nuestro, Univision’s longest-running and most popular music awards show today.

Obama Raps Cable TV “Chatter,” Hits D.C. Culture As “Petty” (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
President Obama took a direct shot at Washington’s cable-driven inside-game culture during a speech he gave at a DNC fundraiser last night. From the White House transcript: “I know it can be easy, especially in Washington, to get caught up in the day-to-day chatter of cable television; to be distracted by the petty and the trivial, and to fall into the trap of keeping score about who’s up and who’s down…” Of course, calling on the cable talking heads at your press conference only empowers cable to drag down our discourse. Just saying…

But really, aren’t the big Dem power players who Obama needs to help pass his agenda — and who are easily distracted by cable-D.C. inside chatter, even when it’s way out of touch with public opinion — exactly the audience that needs to hear this?

Good Global News! (by Ann Lewis at NoLimits.org Blog)
Here’s news worth cheering: The State Department has announced it will resume funding for the United Nations Population Fund, an agency that provides reproductive and maternal health care around the world. For all of us who have followed the heartbreaking stories of women in developing countries suffering from problems like obstetric fistula, and the too-high rate of maternal deaths, this is a truly important moment.

Can BHO Quiet _________ ? (by Alegre)
Now I’m no fan of Nancy Pelosi, but I get a knot in my gut every time I see the press or the media ask the above question about a woman.  ANY WOMAN. Sure she led the charge in trying to shut Hillary up during the final months (ok throughout all) of last year’s primary season.  There are plenty of reasons to criticize Pelosi and gawd knows I’ve chimed in on that score – but there have got to be more legitimate ways of going about this than using the worn out notion of putting a gag in a woman’s mouth and shutting her up for the benefit of some guy.

In reading some of the articles linked from the … Daily Beast post (especially Cohen’s) I find myself liking Pelosi a bit more (ok some).  She’s standing up to BHO on some of the more progressive issues (like getting us out of Iraq sooner rather than later) and it’s reassuring to think maybe someone in Congress isn’t going to be so quick to toe the line as Hastert did for Bush. 

AFL-CIO May Work Against Specter In Republican Primary (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
One of the highest-ranking political operatives in the labor movement offered a none-too-subtle electoral threat to Sen. Arlen Specter on Wednesday, saying that the Pennsylvania Republican’s opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act could come back to bite him in his upcoming primary… Going forward, the AFL-CIO will be flooding Specter’s office with calls, letters, and delegations, urging him to reconsider his position. The union also will be stepping up its lobbying effort in favor of the legislation. One individual who could prove instrumental in the cause is President Barack Obama, who, reports say, is privately content with the notion that EFCA is now off the legislative table.

Joe The Plumber Campaigning On Specter’s EFCA Vote (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
Even though Sen. Arlen Specter has let it be known that he will opposed the Employee Free Choice Act if that legislation comes to a vote, the battle to persuade him rages on. On Wednesday the AFL-CIO issued not-so-subtle political threats to the Pennsylvania Republican. The labor federation announced plans to flood Specter’s office with letters, calls and visits and potentially run advertisements pushing the Senator to change his mind. On Thursday, the opposing side followed suit, bringing out Joe the Plumber (among others) to urge Specter to vote against the union-backed legislation.

FedEx threatens to cancel Boeing jet orders: report (AP)
FedEx Corp is threatening to cancel the purchase of billions of dollars worth of new Boeing Co cargo planes if Congress passes a law that would make it easier for unions to organize at the package-delivery company, the Wall Street Journal said. FedEx may cancel plans to buy as many as 30 new Boeing planes should Congress pass a bill that would remove truck drivers, couriers and other employees at FedEx’s Express unit from the jurisdiction of the federal Railway Labor Act of 1926, the paper cited the company spokesman as saying.
Lambert dares to call it blackmail.

Lieberman Remains Unpopular in Connecticut (Political Wire)
The latest DailyKos/Research 2000 poll in Connecticut finds that Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) is the most unpopular politician in the state, with 54% viewing him unfavorably. In potential 2012 re-election matchups against two Democrats — Ned Lamont (D) and Richard Blumenthal (D) — with Lieberman running as an independent, Gov. Jodi Rell (R) wins both hypothetical races. The results: Rell 42%, Lamont 30%, Lieberman 25% and Rell 43%, Blumenthal 28%, Liemberman 25%.

Patrick Tanks in New Poll (Political Wire)
In Massachusetts, a new Suffolk University poll finds Gov. Deval Patrick (D) in deep political trouble. While Patrick’s favorability ratings are split — 44% to 43% — just 34% of state residents believe the governor deserves reelection while 47% think it’s time to elect someone else. Patrick is so weak that he loses to State Treasurer Tim Cahill in a Democratic primary, 35% to 30%, even though the Boston Herald notes Cahill says he’s not running.
That’s the guy who won using the oh so inspirational phrases created by David Axelrod’s before Obama prevailed using those same inspirational phrases.  Deval is having his “The Candidate” moment.

Steele Open To Running For President, Claims Limbaugh Blow-Up Was Planned (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
Emerging from his self-imposed cone of silence, RNC Chairman Michael Steele gave an interview Wednesday in which he said he would consider a run for president and claimed to have strategically planned his recent confrontation with radio talk host Rush Limbaugh. Speaking to CNN’s Don Lemon, Steele said he “would think about” running for the White House but only if “that is where God wants me to be at that time.”

Jindal Sides With Limbaugh On Whether He Wants Obama To Fail: ‘It Depends’ (Think Progress)
[Tuesday], as President Obama was delivering his second press conference, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) spoke at the NRCC’s largest fundraiser of the year to an audience of more than 1,200 Republicans — including prominent luminaries like House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH). In his speech, Jindal turned to one of the major issues facing the GOP: whether it agrees with Rush Limbaugh’s statement that he wants Obama to fail. Without mentioning Limbaugh, Jindal criticized the recent focus on the remarks, claiming that anyone who disagrees with President Obama is treated as committing “treason.” On whether he personally wants Obama to fail, Jindal simply said, “it depends“.

Fred Thompson: Don’t Forget Me, I Want Obama To Fail, Too (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
Fred Thompson (R-Tennessee Retirement Community) gets in on the act in an interview with CNN’s John Roberts: “‘“I want his policies that I believe take us in the wrong direction to fail,’ Thompson told Roberts on CNN’s American Morning…” I asked DNC spokesperson Hari Sevugan for a response. “After that presidential campaign, Fred Thompson knows a thing or two about failure,” Sevugan joked. Calling for Obama to fail does seem to guarantee airtime even to retired Republicans these days.

Schwarzenegger says he’s not seeking another office (McClatchy)
Kill the Arnold Schwarzenegger-for-U.S. Senate rumors – for now.

Donna Brazile Discovers Women (by Pacific John at Alegre’s Corner)
Posted without comment: “‘While I was on the platform watching Barack Obama take the oath of office, for the first time in my life I visualized a woman there,’ Brazile tells us. ‘I want to help chart that course.’“
It’s just breathtaking that she would say such a thing.  She broke the rules of the DNC to steamroll over the only woman ever to come close to winning the presidential nomination.

Happy (75th) Birthday Gloria! (by Alegre)
I’m delighted to learn that today is Gloria’s seventy-fifth birthday.  She blazed a trail for my generation and many more to come, and I hope you’ll all join me in wishing her a happy birthday today – and many more… We’ve come a long way baby, but there’s still a lot of work to do (she reminds us that despite Roe, abortion services are not available in 85% of US counties).  [Click through for a link to] a great interview [that] touches on issues like unequal pay, abortion rights, gender-based violence and same sex marriage, so check it out. 

Badge of Courage (by Liz Wing at NoLimits.org Blog)
Every now and then you are completely blown away by the courage and tenacity of a brave woman. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is one of those women. Rated the 24th Most Powerful member of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2008 Congress.org Power Rankings, passing important legislation protecting our children, and making countless appearances on news programs, at age 42 she has become a powerful force. This week she released the startling news that last year she battled breast cancer, going through seven surgeries, including a double mastectomy and the removal of her ovaries, all while running for re-election, campaigning on behalf of Hillary Clinton, then, later Barack Obama and raising 3 children.

Wasserman Schultz is sponsoring legislation to help educate young women about the risk of breast cancer. The EARLY (Education and Awareness Requires Learning Young) Act is meant to bring education and awareness to young women and their doctors. “The EARLY Act will teach both young women and medical professionals alike about risk factors, warning signs of breast cancer and predictive tools such as genetic testing that can help women make informed decisions about their health” said Wasserman Schultz.
Click through for more information.

Shriver, Gingrich push for Alzheimer’s ‘Manhattan Project’ (McClatchy)
It was for her dad and millions like him that [Maria] Shriver testified Wednesday, pushing for increased attention to Alzheimer’s in the wake of a new report that suggests the disease “could very easily surpass even the current economic crisis in the damage it inflicts on individuals and our economy.” The report by the Alzheimer’s Study Group projects that Alzheimer’s-related costs to Medicare and Medicaid alone will top more than $1 trillion annually by 2050. “We have to put Alzheimer’s on the front burner, because if we don’t, Alzheimer’s will not only devour our memories, it will cripple our families, devastate our health-care system and decimate the legacy of our generation,” Shriver told the Senate’s Special Committee on Aging.

Her words on her father’s behalf earned her a standing ovation from the dozens of Alzheimer’s advocates who’d packed the ornate Senate hearing room, many of them wiping away tears as she spoke.

Health Insurers Owe Policyholders, But Pay Congress Instead (Capital Eye)
Members of a Senate Committee that today held the first part of a hearing to examine whether health insurance companies are failing to fully pay reimbursements to policyholders haven’t had any trouble themselves collecting money from these companies. In total, health insurance companies’ PACs and employees have given 25 members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation $3.3 million in campaign contributions since the 1990 election cycle, with 53 percent of that going to Democrats*. 

Rep. Barton: Climate change is ‘natural,’ humans should just ‘get shade.’ (Think Progress)
In a hearing [Wednesday] on adapting to climate change, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) denied the consensus on man-made climate change, saying it is “natural.” His solution to the warming planet? Just get some “shade”… “Nature doesn’t seem to adjust to people as much as people adjust to nature,” he added. “Adaptation to shifts in temperature is not that difficult.”
Click through to watch the video.

Dead-Eye Dick Cheney (Mis)fires Again (by Scott Horton at No Comment, Harper’s)
Sunday evening, President Obama responded in some detail to Dick Cheney’s claims that the security of all Americans depends upon imprisoning innocent people in depraved conditions outside of the rule of law. As Professor Jonathan Turley notes, the curious thing about Obama’s response is that it is so mild. Cheney’s statements are tantamount to an admission of his involvement in a serious criminal conspiracy. Moreover, Cheney actually brags about his criminality—he insists that he’s doing it because it’s good for us. When prosecutors decide which cases to charge, one concern is whether the crime has been committed in an open and notorious way. Cheney’s conduct on this score is off the charts.

As Turley says, “This is the best defined and most public crime I’ve seen in my lifetime.” Cheney is effectively building the case for his own criminal prosecution. It needs to happen, preferably before another coronary incident robs us of the opportunity to bring a serious criminal to justice.

Learning How to Think (by Nicholas D. Kristof)
Ever wonder how financial experts could lead the world over the economic cliff? One explanation is that so-called experts turn out to be, in many situations, a stunningly poor source of expertise… The expert on experts is Philip Tetlock, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His 2005 book, “Expert Political Judgment,” is based on two decades of tracking some 82,000 predictions by 284 experts. The experts’ forecasts were tracked both on the subjects of their specialties and on subjects that they knew little about. The result? The predictions of experts were, on average, only a tiny bit better than random guesses — the equivalent of a chimpanzee throwing darts at a board…

[T]he only consistent predictor was fame — and it was an inverse relationship. The more famous experts did worse than unknown ones. That had to do with a fault in the media. Talent bookers for television shows and reporters tended to call up experts who provided strong, coherent points of view, who saw things in blacks and whites. People who shouted — like, yes, Jim Cramer!… So what about a system to evaluate us prognosticators? Professor Tetlock suggests that various foundations might try to create a “trans-ideological Consumer Reports for punditry,” monitoring and evaluating the records of various experts and pundits as a public service. I agree: Hold us accountable! [Emphasis added.]

DUMB KILLS: (by Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler)
Here at THE HOWLER, we hold an odd view. At present, we think the most interesting problems afflicting the media are those within our emerging liberal media… For one small taste of what we mean, let’s start with a weak news report in the mainstream press–in this morning’s Washington Post. Scott Wilson authored the report, with Al Kamen. Here’s how he began: “…The Obama administration appears to be backing away from the phrase ‘global war on terror,’ a signature rhetorical legacy of its predecessor.”… The headline writer made things a bit stronger: “‘Global War On Terror’ Is Given New Name”…

According to Wilson, someone in a DOD office sent an e-mail with a directive, saying it came from the OMB. Kenneth Baer, the OMB spokesman, said no such guidance had been given–that the e-mail was sent by a career civil servant who was stating his own opinion… Wilson at least lets readers know that his claim only “appears” to be true–and he quotes Baer’s denial. By way of contrast, on one of our biggest cable shows, we were treated to a long riff on the topic–and the riff offered no such disclaimers… [I]f progressives and liberals don’t save us from dumb, it’s fairly clear nobody will.
I’m proud to say that I saw this story, saw how weak it was, and didn’t post an excerpt.

Life inside the Village. Or, the Ed Henry debacle by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
CNN Headline: ”Behind the scenes: Ed Henry’s take on exchange with Obama.” (Isn’t the “behind the scenes” part priceless? Very VH1, we think.) The piece is all about Henry’s pre-debate “strategy” regarding which “provocative” question he was going to ask, and how he wanted to “make news” that night. See this Politico piece from earlier this week, which glorifies the pre-game stretching and warm-ups WH scribes now do before press conferences and how we’re supposed to actually care what goes into reporters forming and crafting their rather ordinary White House queries.

Interesting omissions… (by Jamison Foser at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
Politico editor and co-founder John Harris muses about his publication’s role and future in CJR.  Unless I’m missing something, there are a couple of concepts he pretty much ignores: focusing on what’s important, and getting the story right. There is, however, a lot about “driving the conversation” and “building franchises” and appealing to advertising.

Defaults In Commercial Real Estate Soar: Who Could Have Known? (by Dean Baker)
There’s nothing more entertaining that sight of surprised economists and economics reporters in the morning. There was a bubble in commercial real estate which is now collapsing, leading to record levels of bad loans. Who could have known?

USA Today Imagines a Surge of Homebuying (by Dean Baker)
USA Today told readers that low mortgage rates “trigger race to buy, refinance.” The second part of this sentence is true. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) index for applications for refinancing has soared in recent weeks. However, the MBA purchase applications index remains near its low point for this downturn.

Ford employee responds: ‘I agree with you about the rantings of the hopelessly pig-headed Mr. O’Reilly.’ (Think Progress)
Mark Schirmer, a spokesman for Ford Motor Company (which owns Lincoln and Volvo), contacted ThinkProgress this afternoon, in response to your emails calling on O’Reilly’s corporate advertisers to stop supporting the O’Reilly Harassment Machine. Schirmer — speaking for himself and not on behalf of Ford — said he agrees with the thrust of ThinkProgress’ criticisms of O’Reilly, but explained that Ford advertises on the show because it has high ratings… “I saw the tapes of O’Reilly ambushing Hertzberg of the New Yorker a few month back. It demonstrated how moronic O’Reilly really is.” He concluded that “what Bill O’Reilly does or says is not important.” Getting Ford back on its feet though, “that is important.”
No matter how you do it.  Principle be damned.

Fox & Friends hosts former mob boss to discuss “how Washington and the mob are acting alike” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Beck: Obama Is A ‘Manchurian Candidate’ Because He Uses A Teleprompter — But I Use One Too (Think Progress)
If there are two things Fox News’ Glenn Beck loves, it’s conspiracy theories and a good right-wing attack line on President Obama. So it’s no surprise that he embraced the conservatives’ current outrage over Obama’s use of a teleprompter, spending the first 10 minutes of his radio show today railing about it. Beck being Beck, he took it a step beyond others’ complaints, declaring that Obama’s use of a teleprompter is evidence that he’s a “Manchurian candidate”… Within seconds, however, Beck reversed course and insisted he’s “totally fine” with the use of a teleprompter, and admitted, “I do use a teleprompter from time to time”.
Click through to listen to the audio.

Gingrich says Democratic proposals “absolutely moves you towards a political dictatorship” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Discussing Obama “power grab,” Gingrich says Goldberg’s “frighteningly prescient” Liberal Fascism describes “how the left is thinking this year” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh repeats analogy that hoping Obama fails is like Steelers fan wanting Cardinals’ QB to fail in Super Bowl (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

On Savage Nation, Washington Times columnist Kuhner declared: “The pill and the condom have been the hammer and sickle of cultural Marxism, and in its path, it is now destroying American culture” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Targeting the Poor: Some States Propose Drug Testing for Unemployment, Welfare Benefits (Dissenting Justice)
Several states are considering whether to test recipients of unemployment or welfare benefits for drug use. Although the federal government is contemplating giving a second trillion-dollar package to the banking industry, these states are targeting poor and middle-class individuals under the guise of fiscal responsibility… Proponents of the legislation … have linked the tests to fiscal soundness and protection of taxpayers.

But I have a question for legislators who believe the drug tests will protect taxpayers: Why not sponsor legislation requiring anyone — including legislators, governors, judges, recipients of small business assistance or “farm aid,” pensioners, owners of companies receiving tax abatements, participants in state-sponsored health care for the elderly, students receiving financial assistance or scholarships, and university professors — who receives state subsidies, financial assistance, or tax dollars to submit to drug screening? In order to avoid the very reasonable claim that they are targeting poor people, they should broaden their proposals.
Because it’s about humiliation, DJ.  You don’t humiliate members of the power structure, only the weak and helpless.

Albany Reaches Deal to Repeal ’70s Drug Laws (New York Times)
Gov. David A. Paterson and New York legislative leaders have reached an agreement to dismantle much of what remains of the state’s strict 1970s-era drug laws, once among the toughest in the nation. The deal would repeal many of the mandatory minimum prison sentences now in place for lower-level drug felons, giving judges the authority to send first-time nonviolent offenders to treatment instead of prison. The plan would also expand drug treatment programs and widen the reach of drug courts at a cost of at least $50 million.

Goodbye, homo economicus (by Anatole Kaletsky, thanks to Economist’s View)
Economics today is a discipline that must either die or undergo a paradigm shift—to make itself both more broadminded, and more modest. It must broaden its horizons to recognise the insights of other social sciences and historical studies and it must return to its roots. Smith, Keynes, Hayek, Schumpeter and all the other truly great economists were interested in economic reality. They studied real human behaviour in markets that actually existed. Their insights came from historical knowledge, psychological intuition and political understanding. Their analytical tools were words, not mathematics. They persuaded with eloquence, not just formal logic. One can see why many of today’s academics may fear such a return of economics to its roots.
About damn time.  Homo economicus is man as a consumer only.  He is totally amoral.

Media Matters for America headlines

• CNBC allows Gregg to forward small-business tax falsehood

• Denouncing death threats to AIG execs, Fox’s Kelly ignored colleagues’ violent rhetoric

• Fox & Friends hosts former mobster to compare Dems to crime family

• Hannity, Gingrich spread falsehoods to bolster Gingrich’s claim that Dems are moving U.S. toward “dictatorship”

• Conservative media run with dubious SkyNews claim of Obama “teleprompt blunder”

• LA Times erased word “torture” in describing Obama nominee’s criticism of Bush administration

Emergency Call on EU to Save Journalism
The European Federation of Journalists, (EFJ) has made an emergency call to the heads of all the political groupings in the European Parliament, warning that if the EU does nothing to save journalism, the sector is doomed.

Iran considering the death penalty for ‘offensive’ bloggers. (Think Progress)
Al Jazeera’s Nazanin Sadri reports that Iran is considering a new law that would allow the death penalty for “offensive” bloggers.
Click through to watch the video.

Police raid Wikileaks.de domain owner Theodor Reppe’s home home over ‘censorship lists’
POLICE have raided a Wikileaks associate’s homes in Dresden and Jena after the website published a list of banned websites… “Police raid home of Wikileaks.de domain owner over censorship lists – stay tuned.” Wikileaks, which offers an anonymous service, has previously published alleged web censorship lists from Thailand, Denmark, and Australia. A statement on Wikileaks’s website claims police were investigating the “distribution of pornographic material” and “discovery of evidence”.

With Limited Resources, UK Vows to Battle E-crime
A new U.K. police force dedicated to tracking down cybercriminals is gearing up to make the most of what one senior police official acknowledges is limited funding.

Facing a Shortfall, CBC Will Cut Jobs
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation will cut about 800 jobs and try to sell assets to fight a growing financial shortfall caused by an advertising downturn.

Prosecutor sued over semi-nude teen photos case
The American Civil Liberties Union sued a Pennsylvania prosecutor on Wednesday over his threats to charge three teenage girls with child pornography for allowing themselves to be photographed partly clothed with cell phone cameras.

Pennsylvania ethics panel fines activist for talking to reporters
The founder of a taxpayers’ activist group was fined $500 by the Pennsylvania Ethics Commission for publicly discussing his complaint against politicians with newspaper reporters. He suing, saying the fine is “very, very chilling.”

My First Day on Twitter (by Greg Mitchell, Editor & Publisher)
A surprisingly useful experience. The “dumbing down” factor can’t be ignored, but I also came across numerous scoops that soon made their way to our main site or blogs. And don’t miss the Chris Walken page.

Flying Seminar in the Future of News (by Jay Rosen at PressThink)
As the crisis in newspaper journalism grinds on, people watching it are trying to explain how we got here, and what we’re losing. Lately, the pace has picked up. Here are twelve links to recent pieces about this process that form a kind of flying seminar on the future of news, presented in real time.

Reinvention, not rescue (by Jeff Jarvis)
I doubt it will get very far, but there’s another well-meaning but ultimately dangerous attempt to provide a government rescue for newspapers: a bill to enable papers to switch to not-for-profit, tax-free status from Sen. Benjamin Cardin… The obvious danger is government certifying what is and isn’t news and who does and doesn’t do it. Should my blog get to be a tax-free, not-for-profit enterprise? Who gets certified?

Further, Cardin’s proposal also would forbid papers as charities from endorsing political candidates. That takes more voices out of the democracy. Not good. But the real danger here is that these rescue attempts delay the inevitable. The sooner that papers reinvent themselves for the new age, the better. If this delays that inevitability, papers will only languish in the past and others will come and overtake them.

Do Some Good: Create Newspaper Ads (by Mike Hughes, The Martin Agency, writing in Advertising Age)
It’s time the advertising industry did something important. For our own self-interest — and for the common good — we need to start paying attention to newspapers again… I don’t think the newspaper industry is going to die anytime soon. With some well-publicized exceptions, most papers are surviving the economy’s near collapse. They might be holding on by their fingernails, but at least they’re holding on. But if the newspaper business is going to give us the content our industry feeds on — and if it’s going to give us the journalism the world needs — newspapers need to be robust.

If we don’t give them a fair shot at our budgets, they might never be healthy enough to do the job we want them to do. And we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves.

The Motley Fool Uses Exclusivity, Verbiage To Pitch Pricey Pro Product (by Staci D. Kramer at Paid Content)
David Gardner has a deal for me as a member of The Motley Fool: for just $1,499—a savings of $500 over the real $1,999 price—I can be one of the few, the proud, the members of Motley Fool Pro. While newsrooms and startups stress over whether people will pony up $120 or so a year for news and information, Gardner is using exclusivity (only a fraction of the 20,000-plus who already have “indicated interest” can sign up), time pressure (limited window that closes at midnight Wednesday) and hype (an e-mail totaling thousands of words, stuffed with charts and bold-faced factoids) to sign up subscribers to what essentially is a stock-picking service. Far be it for me to pass judgment on its value…

What if we pitched news like that? At those price points, not much but hysterical laughter. People pay for services like this because they convince themselves it’s an investment that can pay off. The newspaper campaigns that promise a certain dollar value of savings in Sunday coupons—one ad concept that so far doesn’t translate well online —probably come the closest, but they also sound like an encouragement to keep the inserts and dump the rest.

Another Industry Association, INFE, Cancels Annual Convention 
Add INFE, the association for financial executives, to the lengthening list of newspaper industry groups scrubbing their annual meetings this year. This is the first time in the 62-year history of INFE it is effectively cancelling a convention. 

Abrams Research to Launch Media Blog
Dan Abrams wants in on the media blogging and aggregation business. For the past several months, Abrams has been meeting with various New York-based media reporters, editors, and bloggers about the potential editorial venture. To date, nobody has signed on.
Dan Abrams was the only reporter on the O.J. trial who didn’t fall under the spell of the defense team.  Maybe he should go back to reporting.

‘AJC’ to Eliminate 30% of News Staff 
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on its Web site today that it will slash its full-time news staff by about 90 people. The company also will eliminate distribution to seven more outlying counties, reducing its circulation area to 20 metro Atlanta counties effective April 26.

Washington Post offers more buyouts
Publisher Katharine Weymouth says if the Post doesn’t “achieve meaningful staff reductions” through voluntary buyouts, there could be layoffs in the future. (She gave the same warning when buyouts were offered last March.) Memos to the staff don’t say how many buyouts the paper wants.

NYT Lays Off 100 On The Business Side; Cuts Salary For All Non-Union Staff, Including Sulzberger (Paid Content)
The New York Times Company is laying off some 100 NYT business-side employees and cutting non-union salaries across the board. NYFishbowl has the memo, which also outlines a “temporary” 5 percent salary reduction for all non-union employees at the NYT.  In an attempt at softening the blow, NYT execs say staffers can take an additional 10 personal days off over the next nine months. The memo contains a promise that salaries will return to current levels next year, adding, “Of course, such a decision depends on the state of our business.”

Sun-Times sports columnist Couch joins AOL
“I just wanted to start playing offense,” says Greg Couch. “All newspapers, not just the Sun-Times, you’re playing defense, you’re hanging on for dear life. AOL seems to have found their niche, and they’re thinking big.” Couch’s former colleague, Jay Mariotti, went to AOL last summer.

Hearst Makes Bid To Buy Remaining Stake In Hearst-Argyle (Paid Content)
Hearst Corp. wants to buy the remaining stake in local TV operator Hearst-Argyle. The company is offering $4 per share in cash, which Hearst says represents a 91 percent premium over Hearst-Argyle’s closing price on Tuesday. Just after Hearst’s announcement, Hearst-Argyle was up about 1.9 percent to $2.13. Trading was halted shortly afterward, MarketWatch reported. Hearst currently owns about 67 percent of the Hearst-Argyle’s outstanding shares of Series A common stock and 100 percent of its Series B common stock. That represents 82 percent of both the outstanding equity and general voting power of Hearst-Argyle.

Murdoch Tops Rich List, but Crisis Decimates His Wealth
Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch is once again Australia’s richest executive, but the financial crisis has halved his wealth. While Murdoch holds shares worth $3.4 billion, the value of his holdings is down $4.5 billion on last year.
Down more than 50%.  Wow.

E-Book Market Heats Up
Barnes & Noble Inc. has launched a free electronic-reader application for Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry as general book sales flag and the e-book market heats up. The launch, by the bookseller’s Fictionwise e-book retailing unit, comes as consumers are increasingly using mobile devices as e-book readers. BlackBerry is releasing larger-screen devices that make reading easier.

Apple sued for promoting iPhone as eBook reader
An overseas communications firm is suing Apple for promoting its iPhone handset as a touchscreen digital book reader, a concept it claims to have patented over seven years ago.

Report: Celebrity Magazines May Never Recover from Recession
The consumer appetite for celebrity news has exploded in recent years. But shortsighted strategies, poor management and the recession have hit traditional celebrity media hard — so hard the nine magazines covering the space is too many, and consolidation is inevitable, says a new report.

In-car competition grows.
AT&T describes its CruiseCast service as a “total in-car entertainment” system. It will begin targeting drivers of all car models later this spring with a service that gives subscribers access to 20 channels of satellite radio and 22 television channels. But unlike radio, it’s far from free. AT&T says the equipment will cost $1299 and the monthly fee will be around $28.

Emmis sites add web TV.
It comes as a result of hooking up with Gen2Media which is developing online television outlets for Emmis New York and Los Angeles stations. Emmis VP Benjamin Finley says it gives advertisers targeted, quantifiable and measurable on-air and online exposure.

Station sells iPhone app.
Trend to Watch: A number of broadcasters have created free applications allowing listeners to tune into their station on their iPod. But Washington’s WAMU becomes the first to sell theirs. They’ll charge $1.99 for an app to access their popular bluegrass format.

CBS gives NTR an executive upgrade.
Off-air revenues continue to be one of radio’s growth areas so CBS Radio appoints its first-ever executive to oversee those efforts. Helen Leisengang has been named vice president of sales for integrated marketing. She’ll work with the company’s top ten markets to create concerts, business seminars and other off-air events.

LPFM bill takes on translators.
Senator Maria Cantwell (R-WA) has introduced a bill that would remove third-adjacent signal protection allowing as many as 3,000 new LPFMs. Her bill would also put LPFMs on equal footing with translators, which have had preference in the past.

Couric’s Comeback (by Rebecca Traister, Elle)
“People seem to take some sort of perverse joy in it,” Katie Couric says of last year’s premature grave-dancing. But after this election season, Couric’ ratings have risen modestly and she is receiving hosannas from those who not long ago were throwing matches on her pyre.

At 10 p.m., Jay Leno and the Newsmakers
NBC Starts Floating Ideas, Like One Guest a Night

NBC News Begs Its Employees Not to Make Them Pay Raises
NBC News has instituted an across-the-board freeze on raises for its executives and talent, even those with contracts guaranteeing them salary bumps. NBC News — and probably all of NBC Universal — is discreetly calling around and asking its on-air and off-air employees to take one for the team.

‘Motherhood’ Viewers: Hold the Ideas
“In the Motherhood,” which has its debut on ABC on Thursday, has been transformed from Web series into a traditional network sitcom.

Cartoon Network Embraces Live-Action Shows
Road to the Upfront: Network Enters Phase 2 of Rebranding

German Retailer Expected to Buy Music Download Firm
Metro, a German retailer, is expected to announce that it is buying a controlling stake in 24-7 Entertainment, which provides technology for online music downloads.

Project Playlist Adds EMI Music But No Facebook, MySpace; Still Being Sued (Paid Content)
Music social net Project Playlist is still barred by Facebook and MySpace but a deal with EMI Music adds considerably to the startup’s legit music firepower—and drops the number of majors still suing the startup to two. EMI Music is the second major to sign on, following a December deal with Sony Music Entertainment.

Hulu Gets Its First UK TV Shows, But For U.S. Eyes Only (Paid Content)
US VOD website Hulu has acquired its first set of rights to UK TV shows. The NBCU/News Corp venture signed a deal for distributor Digital Rights Group’s Channel 4 International and Portman repertoires, giving it series including Peep Show (pictured), Rude Tube, Underbelly, Queer As Folk and Green Wing. But while Hulu has stated its ambitions to launch in the UK and internationally, the shows will still only be available to Hulu’s viewers in the US, where the service is limited at present. Digital Rights Group (DRG) says more of its series will be added to Hulu “in due course”—and ”the company (Hulu) is actively seeking more current UK broadcast content to add to the service.”

MySpace Does Reality TV with Married on MySpace (Mashable)
MySpace is getting into reality TV with a new Web-based series called “Married on MySpace” that will chronicle one couple’s journey to their wedding day, with MySpace members driving much of the decision-making in planning the event. The process starts with couples submitting videos to MySpace and users voting on who should be featured. Once that has been determined, MySpace users vote on other aspects of the event, like selecting what the bride and groom wear, where they celebrate their bachelor and bachelorette parties, and the wedding location.

In all, there will be 13 websidoes of Married on MySpace, culminating in the selected couple’s wedding day. The series is being produced by Endemol USA, the company behind reality TV shows like Big Brother, Fear Factor, and Deal or No Deal.

Wikirank: Find What’s Trending on Wikipedia (Mashable)
Wikirank does for Wikipedia what sites like Compete do for websites. It’s a nifty analytics tool that tracks trending topics on the world’s largest online encyclopedia, displays the 10 most read articles in the last 30 days, and gives users the ability to compare stats for up to four different topics. Wikirank uses the actual usage data from Wikipedia servers to give visitors a better global or custom view of what’s happening across the information hub. Cooler features include the ability to graphically compare impressions on four different articles, embed graphs, view Wikipedia entries, and quickly search for related content on Google News, Twitter, or The New York Times.

Facebook survival guide for awkward adults
Since grown ups have quadrupled their likelihood of using these sites in the last four years, you might find this orientation guide to Facebook useful.

Google Moderator Gets White House Endorsement (by Joseph Tartakoff at Paid Content)
The White House has given its stamp of approval to Google Moderator, which it [used] to pick questions for President Barack Obama’s online town-hall meeting Thursday.

Meebo Comes to the Desktop (by Adam Ostrow at Mashable)
Web-based instant messaging service Meebo is coming to the desktop, by way of a downloadable notifier application. The Windows-only app sits in your taskbar, signs you into your various IM accounts, alerts you to new IMs, and optionally notifies you when friends sign online and off… For me – who has replaced a desktop IM client in favor of Meebo – the notifier makes a lot of sense, since it’s one less tab I need to keep open constantly. Which, makes me question the logic of this move on Meebo’s part from a business perspective, since it means I’ll likely be loading a few less of the full-page brand advertisements (see below) that the company seems to be placing inside of the Meebo Web experience.

New Report From Lauren Rich Fine: ‘What The Changing Mobile Industry Means For Media Executives’ (Paid Content)
In her latest report, ContentNext Research Director Lauren Rich Fine provides insights into the future of mobile, looking at patterns in M&A and VC-funding activity, and assessing the potential for mobile content, from games to music to social networks, to thrive. 

Crystal Cathedral: OMG! Poser tweets as Schuller
Televangelist Robert H. Schuller has reached millions worldwide with his weekly “Hour of Power” TV broadcasts, but when it comes to the Internet, he had a high-tech headache: an online impostor.

Your Online Clicks Have Value, for Someone Who Has Something to Sell
Two new Internet companies, BlueKai and eXelate Media, are tracking who is interested in what through a cookie.

Nielsen’s looks for high-tech option.
Nielsen is using a low-tech sticker diary for its just-launched small market ratings. That could change if or when Nielsen goes after big market business. But unlike Arbitron, it’s likely to seek a software-based system that could work on a wider range of devices than just a pager.

Electronic Arts Bringing Popular Sports Titles to iPhone (Mashable)
Can the experience of playing Madden on a big screen TV with surround sound be matched or at least emulated by handheld devices? That’s the bet Electronic Arts is making, as the company prepares to bring the classic video game football franchise and a host of other popular titles to the iPhone.

UK iPhone users lead way in Web, email use: survey
Over 90 percent of Apple Inc’s British iPhone users accessed mobile media in January including websites, e-mails, social networks and games, far higher than users of other mobile phones, research showed.

Patent infringement lawsuit may affect iPhone
Accolade Systems sued Micron Technology and its subsidiary Aptina Imaging for infringing on one of its patents, according to documents filed with the courts on Tuesday. While Apple isn’t named in the suit, components in the iPhone are part of the lawsuit.

Streaming games: Bane or boon for ISPs?
Parents might get a new reason to yell at their kids for playing video games too much: In the future, it could rack up their Internet bills.

Permanent link to MTA daily media news

Weird. At Press Conference Ebony Reporter Asks Obama About Tent Cities and Children Sleeping Under Bridges (Gateway Pundit, a right-wing blog)
This was strange. Obama did not call on The New York Times, Wall Street Journal or The Washington Post at his second press conference [Tuesday night]. He did call on Kevin Chappell from Ebony Magazine who asked a weird question about tent cities and children sleeping under bridges… It’s not clear what country Kevin was talking about.
Maybe it’s the country of California Chappell was talking about, Gateway (see below).  How strange that a right winger wouldn’t know that some Americans are living out of their cars and in tents.

And it was not such a strange question to ask, when it gave Obama the chance to show his compassionate side:
Obama “Heartbroken” Over Homelessness (Homelessness.Change.gov)
[Tuesday night], President Obama directly addressed the growing homelessness crisis during a prime time press conference, saying he’s “heartbroken” that any child is without a roof over their heads. In a bold and noteworthy move, he also called for a shift in the national perception of homelessness and an overhaul of our embedded judgments and beliefs. Do I sense change in the air?

This is the graphic posted at the website,
so don’t blame me for the overhype.

So if Congress refuses to help the poor, well, hey, they can take comfort knowing that their president is heartbroken  about it:
Senate Dems propose cutting Obama budget by billions (CNN)
Hours before President Obama was to hold a prime time news conference — in part to boost his $3.6 trillion budget plan — a key Democratic senator Tuesday unveiled a scaled-down budget proposal. Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota said the Senate Budget Committee, which he chairs, will vote on his version Wednesday. “We’ve made hundreds of billions of dollars of changes to make this work to get down to the deficit goal and at the same time maintain the president’s priorities — education and energy and health care,” Conrad said as he left a closed meeting in the Capitol, where he briefed Senate Democratic colleagues on his plan.

Conrad and other centrist Democratic senators — whose support is critical to passing the legislation — have raised concerns about the long-term impact of the president’s spending plan on the deficit.
Tell me again why it was supposed to be a GOOD thing that Obama attracted votes from the right?

And oh, pooh, we can’t afford to leave Iraq, either:
Iraq Withdrawal Will Be a A Massive and Expensive’ Effort, GAO Says (Washington Post)
The removal of about 140,000 U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011 will be a “massive and expensive effort” that is likely to increase rather than lower Iraq-related expenditures during the withdrawal and for several years after its completion, government investigators said in a report released yesterday. “Although reducing troops would appear to lower costs,” the Government Accountability Office said, withdrawals from previous conflicts have shown that costs more often rise in the near term. The price of equipment repairs and replacements, along with closing or turning over 283 U.S. military installations in Iraq, “will likely be significant,” the GAO reported.

Obama to critics: I’ll bend, but not break (AP)
With Congress pushing back against his proposals for energy, taxes and other matters, President Barack Obama is taking a bend-but-don’t-break posture.

Obama to answer questions on the Web tomorrow (AP)
President Barack Obama is planning an online town hall-style meeting on the White House’s Web site this Thursday.

Toxic Asset Plan Foresees Big Subsidies for Investors (New York Times)
The Treasury Department is expected to unveil early next week its long-delayed plan to buy as much as $1 trillion in troubled mortgages and related assets from financial institutions, according to people close to the talks. The plan is likely to offer generous subsidies, in the form of low-interest loans, to coax investors to form partnerships with the government to buy toxic assets from banks. To help protect taxpayers, who would pay for the bulk of the purchases, the plan calls for auctioning assets to the highest bidders.

Below is the best explanation I’ve seen of the Geithner plan for handling the big shitpile:
A remedial theatre take on the Geithnerist bailout [video] (by Mandos at Corrente)
Language a bit NSFW for workplaces where you are forbidden from using vernacular terms to discuss excrement:

Krugman: Economic Expectations – New Toxic Asset Plan “Won’t Work” (video, Bloomberg, thanks to Economist’s View)

Hey Paul Krugman (A song, A plea) (video,  therockcookiebottom)
It is very, very good.  You will enjoy it.

The Geithner Plan Won’t Work (by James K. Galbraith)
The ultimate objective, and in President Obama’s own words, the test of this plan, is whether it will “get credit flowing again.” (I have dealt with that elsewhere.) Short answer: It won’t. Once rescued, banks will sit quietly on the sidelines, biding their time, until borrowers start to reappear. From 1989 to 1994, that took five years. From 1929 to 1935—you get the picture… Let’s not forget: Behind all of this are mortgages and derivatives, which were called “liars’ loans,” “neutron loans,” and “toxic waste” by the people who issued them. There was fraud in the inducement, fraud in the conveyance, and fraud in the ratings process. The incumbent top management of the biggest banks either did this, or is complicit, or is complacent. And they all did very well, while the money was good.

And the reality is, if the subprime securities are truly trash, most of the big banks are troubled and some are insolvent. The FDIC should put them through receivership, get clean audits, install new management, and begin the necessary shrinkage of the banking system with the big guys, not the small ones. It should not encumber the banking system we need with failed institutions. And it should not be giving CPR to a market for toxic mortgages that never should have been issued, and certainly never securitized, in the first place.

Martin Wolf: “Successful bank rescue still far away” (Calculated Risk)
Martin Wolf writes in the Financial Times: … “[W]ill it work? That depends on what one means by “work”. This is not a true market mechanism, because the government is subsidising the risk-bearing. Prices may not prove low enough to entice buyers or high enough to satisfy sellers. Yet the scheme may improve the dire state of banks’ trading books. This cannot be a bad thing, can it? Well, yes, it can, if it gets in the way of more fundamental solutions, because almost nobody – certainly not the Treasury – thinks this scheme will end the chronic under-capitalisation of US finance.”

Why a second best bailout may not be good enough (by The Compulsive Theorist, thanks to Economist’s View)
I sympathize with the point of view which says that the political window of opportunity is narrow and the need for action urgent, so let’s accept the bailout plan for now, and deal with these wider issues later on. But the very fact that political momentum is limited means that if these wider changes are to be brought about, the process has to begin in earnest at once. Does anyone seriously believe that in a years time, if following massive government support the banks are stable – or can be made to appear stable – there will be any political will to break up very large institutions, or any real change to underlying norms in the financial sector?

However, absent these deeper changes, it is entirely possible that we will see a replay of the crisis – but on a larger scale – in a few years time.

Will Geithner and Summers Succeed in Raiding the FDIC and Fed? (by Jeffrey Sachs, thanks to Economist’s View)
Geithner and Summers have now announced their plan to raid the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Federal Reserve (Fed) to subsidize investors to buy toxic assets from the banks at inflated prices. If carried out, the result will be a massive transfer of wealth — of perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars — to bank shareholders from the taxpayers (who will absorb losses at the FDIC and Fed). Soaring bank share prices on the morning of the announcement, and in the week of leaks and hints that preceded it, are an indication of the mass bailout at work. There are much fairer and more effective ways to accomplish the goal of cleaning the bank balance sheets.

Why are we bailing out foreigners? (by Andrew Leonard, thanks to Economist’s View)
Why did American taxpayer money help AIG pay its debt to foreign counterparties? Representatives from both parties raised the question during Tuesday’s House Financial Services committee hearing on AIG. On the surface, the question seems perfectly reasonable. Why are American taxpayers bailing out foreign companies? Shouldn’t their own governments be taking responsibility for their welfare?

Foreign Firms Eye Stimulus Dollars (Washington Post)
U.S. firms are not the only ones hoping to cash in on the $787 billion stimulus program. Foreign nations and companies are stepping up their lobbying efforts in Washington and in state capitals, hoping to gain vital business in hard times. Hundreds of foreign-owned companies, many of them with significant operations in the United States, are selling their expertise in clean energy, high-speed transit and other technologies that undergird key aspects of President Obama’s stimulus efforts.

Unrepentant, to the last:
Money For Nothing (by Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Forbes)
An honest politician, as an old saw has it, is one who stays bought. If this is true, then we have the most dishonest bunch of officeholders ever, and it may lead Wall Street to reconsider its donations in the future. AIG, for example, was a huge donor to politicians, as CNS News reports… And it wasn’t just AIG: Wall Street in general gave profligately to Barack Obama, and to Democrats generally, in 2008. Yet now, when the polls shift, all of those politicians who were so happy to take the cash are suddenly pretending they have never even heard of Wall Street. Instead they’re getting behind punitive taxes, protesters steered to executives’ homes and what both the Financial Times and the New York Daily News have called a “witch hunt” against bankers and brokers.
They made donations, damn it!  They should be able to rape and pillage at will.  They’re ENTI’LED, don’t you see?

Brain-Dead Economic Reporting: If Wall Street Approves of Obama’s Plan, It Must Be a Winner! (by Brad Reed, AlterNet)
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: The corporate media’s coverage of the administration’s bank rescue plan comforts the comfortable.

Obama’s New Monopoly Set (by William Greider, The Nation, thanks to Susie at Suburban Guerilla)
President Obama has invented a new board game for Wall Street money guys to play that promises to be a lot of fun. It’s very much like the regular Monopoly game that kids play–only better–because this one uses real money, provided courtesy of the taxpayers. The best thing about Obama’s game is nobody loses. Usually, the winner in Monopoly is the one who winds up with the most money. In the Obama version, the losers get any losses back from the government at the end of the game. The president has promised.

The guy is a genius. He located these two whiz kids–Tim and Larry–who are smarter than God about financial matters. President Obama commanded the advisors to solve the financial mess, raise the zombie banks from the dead and start the good times rolling again. This game is what they came up with. It’s a very complicated game and not everyone can understand it. But the Wall Street titans smell hope. For this Monopoly set has no “Go to Jail” card in the deck.
So, good thing The Nation didn’t choose Obama as its candidate during last year’s primary, huh?  Oops, they did?  Below are some of the results of a search on The Nation’s website for “obama endorse” (without the quotes):

MoveOn Endorses Obama
Feb 1, 2008 … MoveOn makes its first presidential endorsement in history, backing Barack Obama after an overwhelming vote from its members.

The Choice
CHRISTOPHER HAYES | February 18, 2008 issue
Here’s why Obama is the left’s best chance to take back the country. … (Full disclosure: my brother is an organizer on the Obama campaign.) …

Endorsing Obama
TOM HAYDEN | posted January 28, 2008 (web exclusive)
The movement he’s inspired holds the promise of a new cycle of activism, reform and fresh thinking. So I will support him through the inevitable storms …

ACORN: Obama Gets It
Feb 23, 2008 … Yesterday, ACORN’s political action committee endorsed Barack Obama for President. This is an important nod from a group that understands …

Hightower: Obama Can Govern as a Progressive
Texas populist Jim Hightower’s endorsement of Barack Obama is an important … In endorsing Obama, Hightower has actually given his blessing — no small …

Ted Kennedy Prepares to Pass the Mantle to Obama
Of all the endorsements that Obama has received, these two may be the most important. And they come at precisely the right moment. …

Christophers for Obama: Buckley and Hitchens
A year ago, when everyone, including the man I’m about to endorse, … Vote for Obama: McCain lacks the character and temperament to be president. …

What Obama Activism Looks Like
Feb 4, 2008 … In an independent effort, MoveOn is backing up its recent endorsement of Obama with an online Endorse-O-Thon, tapping Facebook and other …

Obama’s GOP Base
JOHN NICHOLS | June 2, 2008 issue
Prominent Republicans who have endorsed Obama sound themes I’ve heard from crossover voters in numerous states. Former Senator Lincoln Chafee says Obama is …

The Audacity of Oprah
PATRICIA J. WILLIAMS | December 24, 2007 issue
I say all this because I’m intrigued by the brouhaha attending Oprah Winfrey’s decision to endorse BarackObama’s candidacy. The Internet is positively …

Why I’m Supporting Barack Obama
AND ANOTHER THING
The election of Barack Obama would send a signal to the world that the United … Obama may not be as progressive as we wish over here at The Nation– and …

Another Republican for Obama
Susan Eisenhower was a Republican until this year, when she endorsed Obama and switched her party registration to independent. …

More from The Nation, with commentary:
The bourgeois virtues (by Michael J. Smith at Stop Me Before I Vote Again)
[F]rom one of The Nation’s stable of secular parsons: “Tonight President Obama presents his budget to the American people. The budget is more than a balance sheet. President Obama will ask us to evaluate our priorities in the face of economic crisis. He will question our resolve to improve education, offer equal opportunities, and provide for our neighbors despite the the terrifying deficits. He will ask us what we really believe. Each of the stories I have told here could be eased with a collective national effort. All families should have quality public schools for their children. College should be more affordable for high achieving students.”

How do you “ease” a “story”? Do I want to know? Sounds like it might involve a laxative. And why, I wonder, are deficits “terrifying”? They don’t scare me a bit. And as for the “low achieving” students — well, fuck ‘em, I guess. Really, if this is what passes for left discourse in this country, it’s no wonder people are reactionaries.

U.S. Seeks Expanded Power to Seize Firms (Washington Post)
The Obama administration is considering asking Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, according to an administration document… Giving the Treasury secretary authority over a broader range of companies would mark a significant shift from the existing model of financial regulation, which relies on independent agencies that are shielded from the political process. The Treasury secretary, a member of the president’s Cabinet, would exercise the new powers in consultation with the White House, the Federal Reserve and other regulators, according to the document.

Labor Agency Is Failing Workers, Report Says (New York Times)
The federal agency charged with enforcing minimum wage, overtime and many other labor laws is failing in that role, leaving millions of workers vulnerable, Congressional auditors have found. In a report scheduled to be released Wednesday, the Government Accountability Office found that the agency, the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division, had mishandled 9 of the 10 cases brought by a team of undercover agents posing as aggrieved workers… Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis said she took the report’s findings seriously. “I am committed to ensuring that every worker is paid at least the minimum wage,” Ms. Solis said, “that those who work overtime are properly compensated, that child labor laws are strictly enforced and that every worker is provided a safe and healthful environment.”
Good.  Because the Bush administration wasn’t at all committed to those things.

Specter’s Defection From EFCA Upends Labor’s Strategy, Gives Foes New Weapon (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
It’s hard to overstate how dramatically Arlen Specter’s announcement that he’s voting against Employee Free Choice changes the landscape of this fight. Business-backed groups lining up against the measure have a powerful new weapon. They can tell the half-dozen or so centrist Senators who haven’t made up their mind that Specter has given them cover to oppose the measure, by pointing to Specter’s claim that passing EFCA in a recession risks more job loss. Foes of the measure will also try to whip up media pressure on the remaining undeclared Senators to say whether they agree with 

White House Pleased to Have “Card Check” Pushed Off (Political Wire)
With the “card check” legislation now dead for this Congress, First Read notes the White House “appears to be happy (but very quietly so) to have this debate out of the way. No doubt they were for it. But it was always more of a Biden cause than a Barack cause. At this point in time, with everything else on their plate, sticking a finger in business’ eye wasn’t something the White House was looking forward to. Would Obama have signed it? Yes. But he doesn’t have to worry about it now, at least maybe not until 2011.”
So there you go, all you labor unions who endorsed Obama in the primary, you’re under the bus, too.  Welcome.  There’s plenty of room now that we’ve replaced that Greyhound with an Airbus.

National Service Corps Bill Clears Senate Hurdle (The Caucus, New York Times)
Following overwhelming House passage last week, the Senate tonight voted74 to 14 on a procedural move that essentially guarantees a major expansion of a national service corps, a cornerstone of volunteerism that dates back to the era of President Kennedy. It’s akin to a call to arms by President Obama, who has harkened back to those early days to demand giving back by those who voted for him… From President Kennedy’s days to the creation of Americorps by then President Bill Clinton, the notion of public service has become a rallying cry. Tonight’s vote, propelled by President Obama’s urging of an expansion, would mean a growth in such work from 75,000 community service jobs to 250,000.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cost of the Senate bill at least would be an outlay for the fiscal year 2010 of $418 million to about $5.7 billion from 2010 through 2014.
For some reason, the conservatives are claiming that national service will be mandatory because of this bill.  Nobody else seems to think that’s what it says.

Obama bolsters Mexico border in new drugs strategy (AFP)
President Barack Obama Tuesday announced extra agents for the southern US border and vowed to staunch narcotics demand as officials pledged full support for Mexico’s battle against drug cartels.

EPA moves to halt ‘mountaintop removal’ coal mining (McClatchy)
Using a proposed mine in Kentucky and one in West Virginia as examples, the federal Environmental Protection Agency signaled Tuesday that it is cracking down on mountaintop removal coal mining.

Most electronic voting isn’t secure, CIA expert says (McClatchy)
The CIA, which has been monitoring foreign countries’ use of electronic voting systems, has reported apparent vote-rigging schemes in Venezuela, Macedonia and Ukraine and a raft of concerns about the machines’ vulnerability to tampering.

Poll: Clinton has high job approval (CNN)
As Hillary Clinton flies to Mexico for a high-level summit, a new national poll indicates seven in 10 Americans are happy with the job she’s doing as secretary of state. Seventy-one percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Wednesday said they approve of how Clinton is handling her job as America’s top diplomat. Fewer than one in four disapprove.

Senate unanimously approves Locke as commerce secretary (McClatchy)
Former Washington state Gov. Gary Locke was confirmed late Tuesday as the 36th secretary of commerce. Only Washington state’s two senators spoke as the full Senate approved Locke’s nomination by unanimous consent.

Coleman Considering Federal Appeal (Political Wire)
Norm Coleman (R) is still considering taking his election lawsuit to the federal court if he’s unsuccessful in reversing Al Franken’s (D) 225-vote lead in the Minnesota courts, according to Politico. He also said he wants to talk with Franken. Said Coleman: “At some point it is worth a conversation for the both of us and our families, it’s pretty surreal. Here we are in the end of March, moving into April, not done yet.”

FEC: DSCC can raise money for Franken’s recount (On Politics, USA Today)
The two parties battling over Minnesota’s second Senate seat now have approval to tap their supporters for fresh cash to pay for the prolonged legal fight. In an advisory opinion, the Federal Election Commission said national party committees can create recount funds to pay for costs stemming from the recount involving Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken.

Dodd Hits Back As Wife’s Ties To AIG Are Scrutinized (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd is batting back claims from a conservative-leaning publication that his wife — like he — has questionable financial ties to AIG… An independent ethics counsel review looked into the senator’s wife’s position and found no conflict of interest. The senator, moreover, disclosed his wife’s employment status on his financial disclosure forums for each year she served with IPCRe… That Clegg Dodd’s position with IPCRe would become an issue five years after her time at the company ended is a testament to just how toxic AIG has become in the current political climate and how problematic the senator’s own ties to the company are for his reelection effort.
Dodd dared to say he put the exception wording for bonuses in the TARP bill at the behest of the administration.  Nobody ever asked about Charlie Rangel’s finances until he stuck with Hillary to the bitter end.

Lincoln Could Be Vulnerable (Political Wire)
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Arkansas finds Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) “not necessarily in danger of losing reelection next year, but certainly not unbeatable either.” Key finding: “Just 45% of voters in the state approve of her job performance, with 40% dissenting… Lincoln is struggling with independent voters in the state, 50% of whom say they disapprove of her work compared to only 31% approving.”

Specter’s Defection On EFCA Fails To Win Over Right Wing (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
If Senator Arlen Specter had hoped that bailing on the Employee Free Choice Act yesterday would make him the toast of the town among his right winger critics, he probably woke up this morning feeling like he has a pretty crushing hangover — after doing a lot of drinking alone. Conservative groups and politicians, far from won over by Specter’s announcement, continue to hammer away at the embattled Senator, suggesting that his abrupt move on EFCA will do little or nothing to reduce his vulnerability to a primary challenge from the right.

Specter Would Lose GOP Primary (Political Wire)
A new Quinnipiac poll shows former Rep. Pat Toomey (R) crushing Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) in a Republican primary, 41% to 27% with 28% still undecided. Overall Pennsylvania voters have a 45% to 31% favorable opinion of Sen. Specter, but he gets a 47% to 29% unfavorable score from Republicans. 

GOP Senators Who Used Budget Reconciliation To Pass Bush Agenda Items Now Calling It ‘Chicago Style Politics’ (Think Progress)
[Tuesday], Politico reported that Republican senators are prepared to go “nuclear” — essentially shutting down the Senate through the use of parliamentary maneuvers — if President Obama attempts to use budget reconciliation to pass key parts of his legislative agenda, such as health care reform and and cap-and-trade. Reconciliation allows some legislation to be protected from filibusters and passed by a simple majority. On NPR this morning, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) repeated a now familiar attack on budget reconciliation: “…I guess in Chicago, they coat them in cement and drop them in the river…”
Click through for the list of items the Republicans forced “reconciliation” on.  Why don’t they just can the damn filibuster rule?  It was instituted to help preserve slavery, for goddess’ sake.

Gregg: ‘This country will go bankrupt’ (Political Ticker, CNN)
Even though he was almost a member of the new Obama administration, New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg Sunday slammed President Obama’s approach to handling the country’s fiscal outlook. “The practical implications of this is bankruptcy for the United States,” Gregg said of the Obama’s administration’s recently released budget blueprint.

Napolitano: “[T]he Obama administration is trashing the Constitution in order to micromanage the economy, Soviet-style” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Jindal’s List (Gambit, New Orleans’ alternative newspaper)
Since taking office last year, Gov. Bobby Jindal has appointed more than 200 of his top contributors to influential boards and commissions, proving that ‘ethics’ has a limit — and a price.

Palin’s logo snowsuit draws an ethics complaint (McClatchy)
The second ethics complaint in a week filed against Gov. Sarah Palin alleges a conflict of interest when she wore Arctic Cat logo gear during this year’s Tesoro Iron Dog snowmachine race.

Alaska legislators say they’ll take stimulus funds Palin rejected (McClatchy)
Top Alaska legislators said Tuesday they’re likely to accept at least most of the federal economic stimulus money that Gov. Sarah Palin did not.

Go back into hiding, GOP begs Dick Cheney (The Hill)
Congressional Republicans are telling Dick Cheney to go back to his undisclosed location and leave them alone to rebuild the Republican Party without his input. Displeased with the former vice-president’s recent media appearances, Republican lawmakers say he’s hurting  GOP efforts to reinvent itself after back-to-back electoral drubbings. The veep, who showed a penchant for secrecy during eight years in the White House, has popped up in media interviews to defend the Bush-Cheney record while suggesting that the country is not as safe under President Obama.

NRCC raises more than $6M at fundraiser (On Politics, USA Today)
The National Republican Congressional Committee just put out a press release boasting that it “surpassed its fundraising goal and raised more than $6 million” at its annual March fundraiser. But it didn’t surpass last year’s total of $8.6 million

Do the Secret Bush Memos Amount to Treason? Top Constitutional Scholar Says Yes (by Naomi Wolf, AlterNet)
Rights and Liberties: Legal expert Michael Ratner calls the legal arguments made in the infamous Yoo memos, “Fuhrer’s law.”

Government: There Is No Alternative (Center for American Progress)
Public support for government oversight of the economy is growing, and it’s not helping the conservative cause, writes Ruy Teixeira.

Karen Ignagni: health insurance parasites could never compete with a public system (by DCblogger at Corrente)
“‘There’s no way to run a side-by-side competition within the current structure,’ said Karen Ignagni, the chief executive of America’s Health Insurance Plans, the industry’s trade association. If the unstated and eventual goal of the public plan is to push private insurers out of the way — a de facto nationalization of health care — ‘let’s have a debate on a government-run system,’ Ms. Ignagni said.” You know what? She is absolutely right.
But that would destroy the profits of the insurance companies, which they are ENTITLED to, aren’t they?

Report: Alzheimer’s costs could be more damaging than recession (McClatchy)
A report being released Wednesday morning warns that unless the United States takes quick action now, Alzheimer’s “could very easily surpass even the current economic crisis in the damage it inflicts on individuals and our economy.”

Dean to Announce Health Care Effort (Political Wire)
Greg Sargent reports that former DNC Chairman Howard Dean “will make a surprise announcement, unveiling a major new health care campaign that will gear up his political operation to pressure the White House and Congress to preserve a public insurance option as part of health care reform.”.. Today’s announcement is keyed to the fifth anniversary of Democracy for America, which debuted during Dean’s 2004 campaign as Dean for America.
Now, you’re talkin’!

Gore to pen new book on climate change (AFP)
Former vice president and Nobel laureate Al Gore Wednesday announced the November release of “Our Choice,” his new book on climate change that proposes solutions to global warming and our present climate crisis… “Now that the need for urgent action is even clearer with the alarming new findings of the last three years, it is time for a comprehensive global plan that actually solves the climate crisis. ‘Our Choice’ will answer that call,” he added… “Our Choice” will go on sale November 3.

Report on Teen Dating Violence: States Must Do Better (by Alegre)
“Report: Few states responding to teen dating violence [-] The report by Los Angeles, California-based Break the Cycle includes state-by-state report cards that measure how each state treats teen victims of dating violence in comparison with the treatment of adult domestic violence victims.”… As parents we can only do so much to raise our daughters with a strong sense of self-worth.  There will always be some bastard out there who hits girls and women – we can’t be there 24/7 to protect them.  That’s where the police, the courts and the laws come in to play.  Without those resources and backup, our kids are left to fend for themselves.

A major difference between conservatives and progressives (by Glenn Greenwald at Unclaimed Territory, Salon)
One of the linchpins of the Bush presidency, especially during the first term (and well into the second, until he became a major political liability), was the lock-step uncritical reverence – often bordering on cult-like glorification – which the “conservative” movement devoted to the ”Commander-in-Chief.”  An entire creepy cottage industry arose – led not by fringe elements but by right-wing opinion-making leaders – with cringe-inducing products paying homage to Bush… Even though Obama unsurprisingly and understandably remains generally popular with Democrats and liberals alike, there is ample progressive criticism of Obama in a way that is quite healthy and that reflects a meaningful difference between the “conservative movement” and many progressives.
But there are definitely places where you cannot say a discouraging word about the president—Democratic Underground and MyDD, for two.

Life inside the Village (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
Because it’s all about them. Even presidential press conferences. From Politico (of course): “Like athletes limbering up for the big game, White House reporters have been going through elaborate preparatory rituals as they bone up for tonight’s prime-time news conference with President Obama, the second formal ‘presser’ of his presidency.” How long before Politico starts printing up baseball cards featuring their fave Beltway reporters?
Okay, cartoonist friends, let’s see your best media baseball cards.

For the Politico, there’s one side to every story (by Jamison Foser at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
A month ago, Stuart Rothenberg used his Roll Call column to tout the possibility that 2010 could be “the start of a comeback for the GOP in the Northeast.” Today, Politico runs what is essentially the same article, headlined “GOP sees signs of life in Northeast.” Though he devoted nearly 1,300 words to the article, Politico reporter Josh Kraushaar couldn’t find space to quote or paraphrase a single Democrat. That would be bad enough if the article simply included comments from Republicans predicting electoral success. But Kraushaar includes Republican attacks on Democrats.

Imagine what a good week for Obama looks like (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
We already mocked the NYT for echoing the chattering class’ claim that Obama, thanks to the  AIG story, suffered a “cataclysmic” week, last week. That sky-is-falling meme was everywhere… So how bad was Obama’s week? Fact: his approval ratings actually inched up.

The early frontrunner for worst question at [Last night’s] Obama presser … (by Jamison Foser at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
Marc Ambinder: “One Question I Might Ask Obama… Are you concerned that your rhetoric about anger, and particularly, anger against Wall Street, helped enflame public anger and distract attention from the economy’s real problems?” Wouldn’t it be better to ask a question that focuses on “the economy’s real problems” rather than one that distracts attention from them?

Why Is “Buy America” Okay for Banks, but Not Steel? (by Dean Baker)
Those damn protectionists in the Obama administration obviously don’t know anything about economics. How else can we explain the decision to require that the fund managers in their bank bailout plan must be headquartered in the United States. I can’t wait to see the outraged and condescending editorials in the Washington Post and elsewhere explaining how protectionism is not the way to promote jobs and growth.

Bartiromo falsely claimed the recovery act “actually gave AIG money and allowed the bonuses to go through” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Dobbs: Chavez’s “little love affair with his fellow socialist Barack Obama didn’t last long” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

CNN’s Cooper asks if Obama is “over-exposed” like game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Still waiting for Bloomberg News to update its ‘Obama Bear Market’ reporting, cont’d (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
It was [a] Bloomberg article that legitimized the simplistic right-wing claim that Obama, in office for just a few weeks, was personally responsible for the Dow’s decline; a Dow that had already fallen 6,000 points under Bush. But since that hit piece, the stock market  has rebounded strongly, capped off by [Monday’s] nearly 500-point rally. Still nothing though, from Bloomberg’s Eric Martin about the ‘Obama Bear Market.’

Slow news day? (by Tengrain at Mock, Paper, Scissors)
This is the best made-up controversy they could come up with? Surely Rush must have demanded the blood of a virgin, or the still-beating heart of a GOP chairman, or something…
Click through to watch the video.  I think we should suspend politicians who break “windy.”  Oops, that would be all of them all of the time.

Shady AIDS Charity Running Prominent Times Ads (Pro Publica)
The Center for AIDS Prevention has mobilized a nationwide fundraising campaign — including prominent ads in the NYT – but the group’s history is shrouded in mystery, and its Web site offers incorrect information about AIDS prevention and treatment.

The Red Scare Index: 55 (by Karl Frisch at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
Here are the numbers for yesterday, Tuesday, March 24, 2009:
TOTAL: 55
Socialism, Socialist, Socialistic: 45
Communism, Communist, Communistic: 9
Marxism/Marxist: 1
Wow, it’s been in the high teens.  I guess they’ll roll out the scare words whenever Obama gets on national television.

Fox News’ Carlson asks, “Are we headed toward socialism?” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

MacCallum on Rep. Bachmann’s claim that Obama proposals are a “lurch toward socialism”: “I think you’re absolutely right about that” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh on Obama administration: “They are focused on the destruction of the private sector. This is an all-out assault on capitalism” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh on Obama: “He’s a bad guy. He’s one angry guy. His wife is angry as well.” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh refers to “Barack Ogabe,” drawing comparison between Obama and Robert Mugabe (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh says ACORN “got three and a half billion dollars from the stimulus bill” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Fox Business anchor compares tax on AIG bonuses to sexual abuse. (Think Progress)
[Tuesday], Fox Business Network anchor Dagen McDowell appeared on Fox News to make the case against the tax on AIG bonuses by comparing it to sexual abuse: “You don’t want to think if you get in bed with Uncle Sam he’s going to strip you naked, chain you to the bed, leave you there and then take nasty pictures of you and then put them on the Internet. Because that’s what’s been happening.”
Click through to watch the video.

O’Reilly: Obama “didn’t inherit AIG” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Bruce: “[I]t’s hysterical” that she’s “getting emails of people upset of me calling the Obamas trash” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

To GIVE and To SERVE: The $6 Billion National Service Boondoggle (by Michelle Malkin, a right winger)
Maybe it’s just me, but I find federal legislation titled “The GIVE Act” and “The SERVE Act” downright creepy. Even more troubling: the $6 billion price tag on these bipartisan bills to expand government-funded national service efforts. Volunteerism is a wonderful thing, which is why millions of Americans do it every day without a cent of taxpayer money. But the volunteerism packages on the Hill are less about promoting effective charity than about creating make-work, permanent bureaucracies and left-wing slush funds.
But USA PATRIOT Act was just fine with you, Michelle.  As are all the make-money permanent bureaucracies and right-wing slush funds of the Bush years.

Does Drudge Have a New Understudy? (Gawker)
Andrew Breitbart has been Matt Drudge’s little helper for more than a decade. But he’s told people that he’s no longer doing regular shifts at the Drudge Report, and hasn’t been for nine months or so. Who are editors going to go to for links now? And can Drudge really do it all by himself?

Many Younger Americans See Colbert, Stewart As Alternatives to Traditional News Outlets (Rasmussen)
Nearly one-third of Americans under the age of 40 say satirical news-oriented television programs like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart are taking the place of traditional news outlets. Thirty-two percent (32%) of adults ages 30-39 believe this to be true, while 42% disagree.

Media Matters for America headlines

• Fox’s Cavuto, Baier repeat falsehood that Employee Free Choice Act would eliminate secret ballot

• Suggesting inconsistency on Obama’s part, Todd expands on his flawed “sacrifice” analogy

• Fox’s Carlson repeated executive pay claim that Gibbs told her was false the day before

• Media find Obama news conference insufficiently entertaining

• NBC Nightly News ignores Goolsbee rebuttal in reporting GOP “power grab” attack

• Dobbs falsely claimed Pelosi said “immigration law enforcement is, quote-unquote, ‘un-American”

• On Fox, Cavuto and Levin falsely claimed Obama administration wants to limit executive pay for all companies

Journalists decry Afghan arrests
Afghan journalists have condemned the arrest of two TV reporters over material they broadcast.

China: Tibet Video is Fake, But We’ll Block Entire YouTube Anyway (by Stan Schroeder at Mashable)
This is not the first time that China has blocked YouTube (the ban usually gets lifted within a couple of days), and it’s probably not the last. But one has to wonder how effective these bans are, since tools like Twitter make it incredibly easy for people to spread the news about incidents like this one. Proving that a video is fake would probably be a much better tactic than banning a site viewed by millions of people every day, and then claiming you’re not afraid of the Internet; it just doesn’t hold water.

Islamic States Push to Criminalize ‘Defamation of Islam’
A powerful bloc of 57 Islamic states is again pushing for the UN to make it a criminal offense to criticise or ‘defame’ Islam… [A new] resolution deems offending Islamic sensitivities a “serious affront to human dignity” which could lead to “social disharmony”, “violations of human rights” and “incitement to religious hatred in general and against Islam in particular”.  If passed, the resulting binding resolution would find its way into various UN documents all of which would require that UN member states at “local, national and international levels” start restricting the free speech of citizens to prevent public criticism of religious beliefs, particularly Islamic belief.     

Privacy Group Wants Google Maps Feature Shut Down In Britain (Paid Content)
The fury in the UK over Google’s effort to introduce its Street View feature to Google Maps continues to escalate. The latest twist: A privacy group has filed a formal complaint with the British Information Commissioner, asking that the service be shut down pending an investigation, because it says more than 200 people could be identified in the street-view images. Privacy International says that Google’s privacy safeguards, which include the automatic blurring of faces in Street View photos, haven’t worked well enough.

Senate Bill Would Allow Tax-Exempt Status for Newspapers
Newspapers perform a public service for democracy and should be allowed to operate as tax-exempt non-profits, U.S. Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D.-Md., proposed Tuesday. The non-profit status is the same that public radio and television have now.

Former WSJ.com Editor: What Papers Can—And Can’t—Charge For (Paid Content)
In a two-part series on the Reflections of a Newsosaur blog, former WSJ.com managing editor Bill Grueskin argues that once newspapers decided to put their news online there was no going back because, in his opinion, readers won’t pay for news that was once free… Where papers do have the option to charge, Grueskin says, is for non-news content, including the following:
—Daily emails with actionable information, like the best-and-worst traffic routes during rush hour.
—Sites that offer real-time intelligence about the real-estate market.
—Survey sites that accept user submissions about the best-and-worst teachers in local markets.
—In-depth coverage of local government, including publishing bills and video.

The Daily We (by Rory O’Connor)
With mainstream media brands in tatters, a tsunami of information inundating us online, and “quality journalism” in decline (at least as defined by legacy media executives such as New York Times editor Bill Keller), how can we be sure that the news we see and hear is really true? Facing what some still term, “The Daily Me,” that scary online universe where “each of us is our own editor, our own gatekeeper,” the question remains: are average citizens interested in and capable of decoding that which is useful, credible, “quality journalism” — and that which is not? And even if they are, will they take the time to do so?

Newspapers: 5 Ways to Avoid Extinction (by Woody Lewis, a Social Media Strategist and Web Architect, writing at Mashable)
In a post titled “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable,” Clay Shirky, who teaches interactive telecommunications at New York University, makes what many would consider a heretical statement: “Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism.” It’s clear the newspaper business will never be the same. Here are five best practices publishers should consider to increase their odds of survival:
1. Embrace chaos…
2. Devise a new strategy that emphasizes alliances and collaboration..
3. Find a strong technology partner…
4. Create a Twitter taxonomy…
5. Explore micropublishing solutions.
Click through for details.

J-students have produced 11 front page Boston Globe stories in 20 months
“In Boston, there are so many investigative story prospects that even a standard-issue class assignment can bear fruit,” writes Northeastern University professor and ex-Globe reporter Walter Robinson. Students don’t have to wait for newsroom internships or graduation to do reporting that gets published in a metro newspaper, he notes. “And savvy newspaper editors ought to welcome the help.”

Chicago Tribune, LA Times Combine International Coverage
The Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times are combining their international reporting operations as their corporate parent tries to save money while reorganizing in bankruptcy court. The international cooperative, to be based in Los Angeles, will serve all newspapers owned by the Tribune Co.

‘Historic’ Memo Leaves Feathers Ruffled at WSJ
The memo from editor Robert Thomson last Thursday to the staff of the Wall Street Journal has “a historic-moment kind of feel about it,” said one reporter. That momentousness lay in Thomson’s declaration of a “fundamental shift in orientation” within the newsroom.

Revolving Door Newsletter: Another Round of Cuts at LAT
More job losses have hit the editorial staff of the Los Angeles Times, with at least 50 employees seeing pink slips. Expect big-name editors to be among the casualties.

‘Houston Chronicle’ Announces Staff Cuts 
In a story posted Tuesday on the Chronicle’s Web site, the Houston daily said it is laying off about 12% of its work force. Publisher Jack Sweeney blamed the cuts on the troubles of the newspaper industry, though he noted that all kinds of companies are being forced to slash expenses.

4 Michigan Markets Will Lose Daily Newspapers, as Ailing Industry Tries to Cope
The 174-year-old Ann Arbor News will shut down and become primarily Web-based. Three other publications will publish print versions three days a week.

Conde Execs Take the Subway
A number of Conde Nast’s most prominent editors and executives are shunning the chauffeur-driven Mercedes and taking the subway instead. Among them: New Yorker editor-in-chief David Remnick, Gourmet editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl, and Portfolio publisher William Li.

Westwood One shrinks staff, pay.
As part of a widening restructuring, about 30 employees, mostly in network sales, were laid-off yesterday. Remaining staffers will see their paychecks shrink and their 401(k) match end. The company’s San Francisco sales office will also close.

Warner Bros launches “made-to-order” DVD service
Warner Bros on Monday became the first studio to open its film vault to “made-to-order” DVDs, as it sought new revenues in a slumping DVD market by making it possible for fans to buy decades-old films.
They might ought to be thinking about made to order downloads and/or streams instead of DVDs.

Blockbuster to sell, rent movies through TiVo
Blockbuster Inc. plans to rent and sell its movies and TV showsthrough TiVo Inc.’s digital video recorders in the second half of this year. The Dallas-based video rental company is playing catch-up to rivalNetflix Inc., which already offers free instant streaming of its movies and TV shows through TiVo DVRs and other devices with its “Watch Instantly” service. But unlike Netflix, Blockbuster’s fee-based TiVo offering will include new releases available two to four weeks after they hit video rental stores — ahead of pay-per-view.

Expired TV converter box coupon? Try again
People who got digital TV converter box coupons but let them expire can now apply for new ones.

Local broadcast news staffs buck trend with stable levels
The local [Buffalo] television news departments have maintained a relatively stable workforce in the face of a tough economy and nationwide trend toward downsizing.

Local TV Is New Weapon
In the marketing battle between telephone and cable companies, both sides have found a surprisingly simple weapon: local-television offerings such as community news, traffic alerts and weather. This summer, Verizon Communications Inc. plans to launch its own local TV channel in New York City, according to people familiar with the matter. The move is a response to Cablevision Systems Corp. and Time Warner Cable. Their round-the-clock local news channels, News 12 and New York One, have helped the companies keep some customers in Long Island and New York City from bolting for Verizon.

Lamb’s C-SPAN Turns 30
For political junkies, C-SPAN is Must See TV and the network is celebrating its 30th anniversary this month (yes, that means 28,000+ hours of U.S. House debate later…). In the latest POLITICO Podcast, we chat with C-SPAN founder and CEO Brian Lamb about the network’s past, present and future. Lamb says that he was confident from the beginning of C-SPAN’s potential. How did he know it would take off? “I did a very scientific study: I talked to my friends.”

NASA might name toilet for Stephen Colbert
Space agency doesn’t want to flush away good will following online poll

OnLive promises video games without the hardware
A new online video game distribution network hopes to free players from buying game discs or the console systems and high-priced computers needed to play them.

iStopOver: Skip the Overpriced Hotel and Rent a Local Pad Instead (Mashable)
If your travel budget has gone the way of the stock market, but you still want to traipse around the world and take a mini-vacay, you’ve got more options than you think when it comes to affordable accommodations — especially if you’re trying to avoid paying inflated hotel prices in metropolitan cities. Sure, you could peruse Craigslist for people willing to rent their place out for a weekend, but for more search options, higher quality information, and safer financial transactions you can turn to iStopOver for finding (or renting out) the perfect place to stay.

Road rage goes virtual on Aussie motoring website
Australian motorists are being encouraged to vent their anger on the Internet, and not on each other, via a new website that aims to make roads safer.

Quickly Create Media-Rich Chat Rooms with Conference.io (Mashable)
Let’s take a moment to reflect on the early 90s, a time when AOL was massively popular and chat rooms of all varieties were all the rage. Chat rooms have since evolved and taken on many different forms and shapes with microblogging supplanting the hearts and minds of today’s Web-obsessed. With FriendFeed rooms and Twitter groups applications springing up, could it be that real-time chat rooms are reemerging as a popular online trend? Drop.io, the site mainly known for fast and easy file sharing, is testing that very notion with their brand new service, conference.io, which is designed for group-oriented rich media chat.

Facebook Responds to Criticism Over Latest Redesign (Mashable)
Facebook users have been very vocal about protesting the latest changes to the social networking site, which were rolled out earlier this month. Some wondered whether or not the company would even respond at all, after it was reported that CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees that “the most disruptive companies don’t listen to their customers.”… [T]he company has responded to those customers, issuing a lengthy blog post describing how they make product decisions, as well as describing some upcoming changes intended to appease user concerns.
Click through for Mashable’s synopsis of the Facebook blog post.

Google Invests in Pixazza, An AdSense for Images (Mashable)
If you’re a publisher using images in your site or blog, and you’re willing to sacrifice a little real estate inside your images, you could be poised to make a nice little chunk of change from Pixazza. The site, which … hopes to be the AdSense for images, uses crowdsourcing to match products in photos on participating sites with similar products available for purchase, and essentially turns bloggers and content creators into affiliate marketers who can cash in on Pixazza’s merchant network.
I wish cartoonists would use this feature, and allow me to post their cartoons freely.

iList Micro: Create and Browse Classified Ads Without Ever Leaving Twitter (Mashable)
iList, the classifieds site for instantly broadcasting your listing to your friends across your favorite social sites, has just made itself incredibly useful to Twitter users who hate to go anywhere else with iList Micro. With iList Micro now all you have to do to create a classified listing is tweet what you are offering and use the hashtag #ihave in your tweet. Likewise, you can tweet that you’re interested in something by using the hashtag #iwant. Your #ihave and #iwant tweets will automatically get picked up by iList and added to their microlisting site, where anyone can search from the available assortment of twittered classified ads.

Turning a Bus Into a Batmobile
In Germany, a Clever Movie Promotion

Arbitron lays-off 100.
CEO Michael Skarzynski’s ongoing “strategic realignment” has led to the dismissal of 10% of Arbitron’s workforce. Other non-salary expense cuts are also being implemented companywide in an effort to slice $10 million from the budget.

Nokia invests in mobile money firm Obopay
The world’s top cell phone maker Nokia has bought a minority stake in Obopay, enabling the U.S. mobile money firm to extend its product offering and geographical presence… Mobile banking services are expected to match those of onlineretail banking and eventually go beyond that with technologies like near-field communications (NFC), which enables payments by just waving a phone.

T-Mobile gets into the game of laptop connections
T-Mobile USA is opening up its new cellularbroadband network to laptops for the first time, with Wednesday’s launch of a USB “dongle” that lets portable computers get wireless Internet access. The plug-in device costs $50 with a two-year contract, or $100 if the buyer is signing up for one year. From then, service costs $60 per month for up to 5 gigabytes of traffic. The prices are similar to those at the three larger cellular carriers. 

Wacom introduces Intuos4 tablet
Tablet-maker Wacom on Wednesday introduced its next generation of pen tablets designed for the creative professional. The Intuos4 brings new features and improved pen performance, the company said.

Spark Capital To Offer Seed Funding For Digital-Media Companies (Paid Content)
VC fund Spark Capital today announced a new program called Start@Spark that will provide entrepreneurs with up to $250,000 in seed financing to get their companies through the development stage. The funding will mainly go to entrepreneurs in New York City and Boston, and primarily in the areas of content, online services and applications, technology platforms and infrastructure… Details about the size of the Spark’s new program (and whether it will even be a separate fund) weren’t disclosed, but it currently manages about $600 million and has a strong track record in digital media, having funded companies like Twitter, Akamai Technologies, thePlatform and Novatel Wireless.

Permanent link to MTA daily media news

I present the first bumper sticker (by Joseph Cannon at Cannonfire))

Uprising on Main Street (by Gary Kamiya, Salon)
Today’s populist rage could regenerate America — if Obama handles it right.
And this is the damn shame, the sad waste of the Obama administration.  He started with the good will to really make some fundamental changes in how our country does business, and he’s squandering more and more of it every day.

One Story Dominates: AIG In The Crosshairs (Project for Excellence in Journalism)
Last week, the media narrative for a complex economic crisis got much simpler. The coverage focused on one corporate villain and one angry public.

AIG Changes Its Name (by Jake Tapper at Political Punch, ABC News)
Valujet became ATA. Blackwater morphed into Xe. And New Kids on the Block changed to NKOTB. Plus, as we noted earlier, “toxic assets” today became “legacy loans.” Amidst all this re-branding, AIG has emerged as AIU Holdings. Enjoy!
Because in America, it’s not what you do, only what people think of what you do that is important.

Bailout Money Turning Into Campaign Contributions (Political Wire)
“There was plenty of outrage on Capitol Hill last week over the executive bonuses paid out by AIG after getting federal bailout money. But another money trail could make voters just as angry: the campaign dollars to members of Congress from banks and firms that have received billions via the Troubled Asset Relief Program,” Newsweek reports. “While a few big firms, such as Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase, have curtailed their campaign giving, others are quietly doling out cash to select members of Congress, particularly those who serve on committees that oversee TARP.”
Wow, gee, who could possibly have foreseen that?

Cuomo Says Most Huge A.I.G. Bonuses Were Returned (Deal Book, Wall Street Journal)
Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York announced late Monday afternoon that 9 of the top 10 bonus recipients at the American International Group were giving back their bonuses. He also said 15 of the largest 20 bonus recipients in A.I.G.’s financial products division had agreed to give back the money, for a total that he estimated at about $30 million. “Those bonuses will be returned in full,” Mr. Cuomo said during a conference call with reporters. The attorney general noted that about 47 percent of $165 million in retention bonuses was awarded to Americans, accounting for nearly $80 million. All told, Mr. Cuomo said, A.I.G. employees have agreed to return about $50 million in bonuses.
Thank you, Andrew, it’s obvious that you, for one, care about the taxpayers.

Criminals: Wall Street vs. Main Street (by Pat Racimora at No Quarter)
Can you imagine the scenario in my toon actually happening? It seems ludicrous beyond words. The police would probably make a quick stop at the nearest mental facility just to assess how delusional this dumb sap is before booking him for robbery. And yet it is exactly parallel to what is happening at AIG. I was stunned when Edward M. Liddy said that he asked his executives who ran the company into the ground to give back at least half of their bonuses if they were more than $100,000. Like that would make everyone happy. (Oh, and leave those poor babies alone whose bonuses were still more than what most of us make in an entire year.)

Ivy Smackdown? Another Legal Prof Gives House AIG Plan The Thumbs Up (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
A second legal scholar is differing with the interpretation of the House plan to tax those AIG bonuses that was offered … by Harvard’s Laurence Tribe, who argued that the plan could be unconstitutional… Jack Balkin of Yale (a brewing Ivy smackdown?) has weighed in on his blog. He says the bill of attainder argument poses “no problem”… Whatever the reality, the larger political context is that worries about the constitutionality of the measure could give Obama and his advisers, who appear increasingly uncomfortable with a measure this draconian, the cover they need to oppose it.

We humans have hated unfairness since before we were human:
Monkeys Hate Others’ Bonuses, Too (Scientific American, thanks to Economist’s View)
Even monkeys know when they’re getting a bad deal, said primatologist Frans de Waal… Give two side-by-side monkeys a piece of cucumber for performing a simple task and there’s no problem. But if one sees his neighbor get a more desirable grape—“now grapes are far better than cucumber and the monkeys know that”—for doing the same thing, “they become agitated. They don’t like this experiment anymore, even though they get exactly the same food as before. But the partner is now getting grapes. And if you give the partner a grape without any task, then they really don’t like it anymore. So this is, I usually call it an egocentric sense of fairness, it’s like resentment or envy. It’s very similar actually to the response that we have currently to Wall Street bonuses. I always say we live in Cucumberland and they live in Grapeland, basically.”

Republican Party Video Slams Obama For Only Helping Those “At The Top” (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
In what may be the GOP’s most direct shot at President Obama yet, the NRSC has cut a new Web video that slams Obama over the AIG mess, suggesting that the administration’s failure to halt the huge bonuses shows that he’s reneged on his vow not to only help those “at the top.” “If seeing is believing, is this change you can believe in?” the vid asks. An NRSC official says the video, which will go out today to the NRSC’s three-million email list, is intended to frame the debate in advance of Obama’s prime-time presser tonight.
But they’re speaking out of both sides of their mouths, as usual.  See below.

Limbaugh guest host Steyn on Wall Street bankers: “They’re not fat cats. They’re emaciated, cadaverous cats. They’ve got … that cat version of AIDS that the cats get — the feline immunodeficiency virus.” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

CNBC’s Haines on executive pay limits: ‘It’s getting scary.’ (Think Progress)
As ThinkProgress first reported, CNBC’s Mark Haines offered a spirited defense of the wealthy last week, saying that Wall Street companies shouldn’t be managed by anyone making under $250,000 per year. Today, Haines defended exorbitant executive pay, saying that new compensation limits from the Obama administration are “scary”… CNBC’s Erin Burnett agreed, simply responding, “Yes.”
Click through to watch the video.

Burnett claims bailout recipient bonus tax “to some echo[es] the Russian and French Revolutions,” asks: “[I]s America starting to look like Venezuela?” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Bank Plan Out, Dow Up (by Jake Tapper at Political Punch, ABC News)
The Dow Jones Industrial average shot up 497.48 points today, to close at 7,775.86. ABC News’ Charlie Herman tells us this was the biggest point gain since November 13, 2008, and the 5th biggest point gain in its history.
What makes Wall Street happy is NOT necessarily what makes me happy.

Can GOP Gain Traction By Hitting Dems Over AIG Mess? (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
Two new polls out today suggest that the answer to this one is mixed. First up: A new Rasmussen poll finds that nearly three out of four (74%) say Congress and the President should have acted sooner to nix those AIG bonuses… But the Ras poll also finds a solid majority of 57% back the House Dems’ plan to fix the mess by slapping a massive tax on some of the bonuses — a plan that many Republicans voted against… [A] new Gallup poll finds that less than one in five blame Congress for the bonus disaster, with only eight percent blaming Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and only seven percent blaming Obama.

So even if majorities think the White House and Congress should have moved to block those bonuses faster, folks just don’t seem to be ready to point fingers directly at Obama and Dems over it.

Poll of change: Obama’s job approval slipping to ‘50-50’ (Boston Herald)
The honeymoon is over, a national poll will signal today as President Obama’s job approval stumbles to about 50 percent over the lack of improvement with the crippled economy… Pollster John Zogby said his poll out today will show Americans split on the president’s performance. He said the score factors out to “about 50-50.” Some polls show Obama coasting with a 65 percent job approval, but not in Zogby’s tally.
I don’t know, though.  Sometimes I think Zogby reports outlier results as a way of getting attention.  It remains to be seen whether other polls will begin to show the same results.

Geithner Goes On Media Blitz But Questions Over Strategy Persist (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
[The “bankers get the mine and taxpayers get the shaft” toxic asset purchase] plan has engendered positive reviews from both key and surprising constituencies. Wall Street approved by following suit with the biggest one-day gain in stock prices since October. On the political front, some GOP leaders offered support for the proposal… And while liberal economists, notably Paul Krugman of the New York Times, took Geithner to task for a plan that he termed an “awful mess” that would create a “massive moral hazard,” observers on the conservative side were more sympathetic.
I worry when my government generates plans that please today’s conservatives, and that includes Harry Reid (see below).

U.S. Senator Reid backs Treasury “bad asset” plan (Reuters)
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Monday backed the Treasury Department’s plan for buying banks’ “toxic assets” to help encourage lending, saying it was based on “sound principle.”

The Politics Might Be Harder Than the Economics (Political Wire)
John Heilemann notes a “vexing dilemma” for President Obama: “Saving the banks is the sine qua non for the country’s emergence from its ever-deepening miasma, but in doing so, Obama risks incurring a tsunami of bailout rage. If, on the other hand, he appeals too much to populism, he risks driving elites away. Either outcome could deny him the support he needs for the rest of his agenda. Getting the economics right may be devilishly difficult — but the politics are even trickier, and just as crucial.”

Slow Walking Over The Cliff (by digby, thanks to Susie at Suburban Guerilla)
“‘It’s almost like they’ve got — they’ve got a bomb strapped to them and they’ve got their hand on the trigger,’ President Obama said on Thursday of the banks he’s chosen to bail out. ‘You don’t want them to blow up. But you’ve got to kind of talk [to] them, ease that finger off the trigger.’”… And you can bet that the fucking bond traders [as Bill Clinton called them] are getting ready to strap on the IED over health care and energy…) The owners of America will be appeased or they will destroy everything in their wake. In another world, they would call this economic terrorism.

I am not averse to Wall Street making money. It’s capitalism and god bless them for it. But this is a crisis. But these people is so arrogantly grasping that it defies reason. But then this isn’t a rational situation. They are telling the US Government to sit down and shut up — and getting away with it:

Another Noble hates the Geithner plan (by Tengrain at Mock, Paper, Scissors)
The U.S. government is basically using the taxpayer to guarantee against downside risk on the value of these assets, while giving the upside, or potential profits, to private investors. “Quite frankly, this amounts to robbery of the American people. I don’t think it’s going to work because I think there’ll be a lot of anger about putting the losses so much on the shoulder of the American taxpayer.” – Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz

A ponzi scheme that would make Charles Ponzi blush. (by J –SOM at Liberal Rapture)
The massive debt the banks are now holding will be transferred to you and me and everyone we know, and for that matter, every American we don’t know. Even Charles Ponzi would not have the balls to try a stunt like this… Simply because the government (you and me) now owns this mountain of crap does not mean that is is suddenly not a mountain of crap. It is. The difference is that now WE will own it all. The intention is to have us pay 100 cents on the dollar for bundled mortgage feces that is worth 30 cents on the dollar. If that… Anyone who still believes that Obama is anything but an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill – is in a coma.

Tuesday: It’s official. Obama gave the country to the bankers (by riverdaughter at The Confluence)
What’s the difference between Democrats and Republicans these days?  Last year, the party traded in its guiding principles for Republican Lite.  Barack Obama is definitely pro-”money class”.  He’s proven that now by Geithner’s plan where the only people to benefit already have money.  We can rage against Congress but they are feckless… Meanwhile, the left seems paralyzed.  Those of us who would rally the troops are trying to keep our jobs.  Those on the left who sold out to Obamamania last year seem like bewildered children who discovered something nasty about their parents.  They just can’t believe it.  But it’s worse than that.  Obama has effectively neutralized the left with the left’s help.  His campaign attacked it from within and made it helpless.

Which Bailout Plan is Best? (by Mark Thoma at Economist’s View)
Which plan is best, the original Paulson plan where the government buys bad paper directly, the Geithner plan where the government gives investors loans and absorbs some of the downside risk in order to induce private sector participation, or straight up nationalization?… What’s important to me is that we do something, that we adopt a reasonable plan that has a decent shot at working and that satisfies the political test it must pass (though the administration could certainly do more to sell the plan to the public and help with this part, so passing the test is partly a reflection of the effort that is put into selling it). We’ve been spinning our wheels for too long, and it’s time to get this done. We can’t wait any longer.

So I am willing to get behind this plan and to try to make it work. It wasn’t my first choice, I still think nationalization is better overall, but I am not one who believes the Geithner plan cannot possibly work. Trying to change it now would delay the plan for too long and more delay is absolutely the wrong step to take. There’s still time for minor changes to improve the program as we go along, and it will be important to implement mid course corrections, but like it or not this is the plan we are going with and the important thing now is to do the best that we can to try and make it work.

Some Positive Comments on the Geithner Toxic Plan (Calculated Risk)
I tend to agree with Mark on this. The Geithner plan is suboptimal, but it is probably the best we can get in the current environment. I’d add a caveat: this plan is easy for the banks to game or arb – and if a bank is caught gaming this plan, the AIG bonus flap will seem like a light Summer breeze… I think this is a myth that banks will lend “more aggressively” once the toxic assets are off their balance sheets. To whom?…

The key problem with the Geithner plan is that it incentivizes investors to pay more than market value for toxic assets by providing a non-recourse loan and with below market interest rates… The investors do not receive this incentive, the banks do. And the taxpayers pay it, so this is a transfer of wealth from taxpayers to the shareholders of the banks… Oh well, Paul Kedrosky quotes T. Boone Pickens today: “My dad said a fool with a plan can beat a genius with no plan.”

Dark musings (by Steve Waldman at Interfluidity, thanks to Economist’s View)
I often wish I were Mark Thoma. If I were Mark Thoma, I could be smart and paying attention without being bitter… Unfortunately, I have a darker temperament, a spirit less generous and optimistic than Mark’s. I am filled with despair, not because what we are doing cannot “work”, but because it is too unjust. This is not my country. The news of today is the Geithner plan. I think this plan might work very well in terms of repairing bank balance sheets. Of course the whole notion of repairing bank balance sheet is a lie and misdirection.

The balance sheets we should want to see repaired are household balance sheets. Banks have failed us profoundly. We want them reorganized, not repaired. A world in which the banks are all fixed but households are still broken is worse than what we have right now. Too-big-to-fail banks restored to health are too-big-to-fail banks restored to power. The idea that fixing legacy banks is prerequisite to fixing the broad economy is a lie perpetrated by legacy bankers.

McCain Economic Adviser: Let Insolvent Banks Fail (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
Sen. John McCain’s chief economist during the campaign is sounding a tune on the financial crisis that endears him to some of the progressives he once irritated. Appearing on NPR Tuesday morning, Douglas Holtz-Eakin argued (in contrast to Obama’s bank plan) that insolvent institutions should be allowed to fail, and taxpayer money should be geared towards managing the fallout of those failures. “To really get financial stability, we have to acknowledge that some of these institutions have failed, for example AIG has failed, and move past simply keeping them upright — and pumping money in to do it — to winding them down in an orderly fashion, selling down their assets to new institutions that have a chance to make a profit in the future. That’s the only way we will effectively clean out the bad assets in the system,” said Holtz-Eakin.

Tell me again how a government that gives ANYBODY trillions of dollars with no transparency and no accountability is legitimate? (by lambert at Corrente)
William Buiter: “…The opaqueness of the financial operations of the Fed in support of the financial sector (which are expanding in scale and scope at an unprecedented rate) and the lack of accountability for the use of tax payers’ resources that it entails, threaten democratic accountability. Even if it enhances financial stability, which I doubt, democratic legitimacy and accountability are damaged by it, and that is too high a price to pay.

Indeed. Let me check the operating manual here: “Article I… Section 9 Clause 7: No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time” I hate to sound like I’m joining the black helicopter crowd here, but whatever the Founders had in mind, it certainly wasn’t the Executive branch throwing trillions of dollars into an enormous hole, with nobody the wiser as to where it ultimately ended up.

After Mitchell says criticism of Obama laughing is “a little bit overboard,” Todd comments, “Matt Drudge, there you go” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Punch Drunk on Tax Funded Bailouts (by dakinikat at The Confluence)
While the Right Wing is off having tea parties and screaming class war, there appears to be some legitimate soul searching going on  in left Blogistan about our “punch drunk” POTUS and his continual campaign-like appearances.  A lot of the discussion is focused on his dogged support of Turbo Tax Timmy and his bailout of the Suckers who created this bad economy for the rest of us.  We’ve been overwhelmed with “heckuva-job-Timmy moments and distasteful ‘gallows humor’.  When is enough enough?

Lucidity, however,  is on the rise in other places.   I’m finding it in interesting places like the second episode of South Park where the lampoon on the Dark Knight included this little back ground gem;  a satire of the famous Obama poster featuring a deer-caught-in-the-headlights appearing  Obama with the change mantra tagged by a bright red WHEN? My answer to the WHEN question is probably never.

Take note, Timmy (by Joseph Cannon at Cannonfire)
How much time elapsed between “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of job” and “Brownie, you’re fired”? Not much. And as long as we’re checking our watches, let’s see how much time passes before a Kos commenter writes: “Obama’s a fraud? OMG! Get this to Keith!”

Geithner = Warren? (bby Paul Rosenberg at Open Left, thanks to J -SOM at Liberal Rapture)
“Is Tim Geithner another bad choice, like Rick Warren, that Barack Obama is simply incapable of recognizing, admitting and acting on?  And is his unwillingness to recognize this a symptom of some much deeper problem with how he will govern?  I fear it very well could be.”

There was a headline at Huffington Post, it’s gone now–I blinked and it went away–but it made a sharp impression before it was replaced with something far more benign.  I forget the exact wording, but basically it was the Obama told 60-Minutes there was no way he was letting Geithner go… I’m having a flashback right about now, to Barack Obama posting a diary at Daily Kos, telling all us dirty fucking hippies to lay off his buds in the Senate.  That was the first instance when Obama used his popularity with the Democratic base to shield his personal friends from justly earned criticism–criticism that had nothing, necessarily, to do with them as private people, and everything to do with their public duties. Then, there was his still-unexplained infatuation with Rick Warren….  

Analysis: Clinton’s mockery of Obama proves true (CNN)
During the most contentious stretch of the Democratic presidential primary campaign last winter, then-candidate Hillary Clinton mocked Barack Obama for his pledge to transcend Washington’s entrenched partisanship. “The sky will open. The lights will come down. Celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect!” Clinton bellowed. Obama dismissed Clinton’s sarcasm as overly cynical and further evidence she was a creature of Washington. But as President Obama prepares to make his first major address to Congress, Clinton’s comments are borne out.

For a candidate who won the White House on a mantle of bringing the country’s two political parties together, Washington could not be more divided on Obama’s initial weeks in the Oval Office and the policies he has put in place… “Clinton’s earlier critique of change has quickly become very valid,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. “The Washington of George Bush is the same Washington of Barack Obama. The promise of bipartisanship and hope in Washington is difficult to actually achieve.”

Another Vetting Problem? (Political Wire)
CQ Politics: “In another potential vetting embarassment for the Obama administration, White House urban policy czar Adolfo Carrión is being targeted in a probe of whether he received a cut-rate deal on the renovation of his home on City Island, N.Y.”

Dodd’s Wife a Former Director of Bermuda-Based IPC Holdings, an AIG Controlled Company (by Kevin Rennie, a former Republican state senator and now a columnist for the Hartford Courant)
No wonder Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn) went wobbly last week when asked about his February amendment ratifying hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to executives at insurance giant AIG. Dodd has been one of the company’s favorite recipients of campaign contributions. But it turns out that Senator Dodd’s wife has also benefited from past connections to AIG as well. From 2001-2004, Jackie Clegg Dodd served as an “outside” director of IPC Holdings, Ltd., a Bermuda-based company controlled by AIG.
No evidence of wrongdoing, apparently, but I just HATE these incestuous relationships among the elite.

Was ‘Hillary: The Movie” wrongly censored? (Yahoo News)
The US Supreme Court takes up a closely watched case on Tuesday examining when a documentary film may violate election law and become an illegal form of campaign advocacy.

Breaking: Specter Confirms He’ll Vote Against Employee Free Choice (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
Senator Arlen Specter has just confirmed that he’ll vote against cloture for the Employee Free Choice Act, his office confirms to me, potentially dealing a real blow to labor’s efforts to get the key 60 votes for the measure in the Senate.

Gillibrand Would Face Tough Race Against Pataki (Political Wire)
A new Siena Research Institute poll shows Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) handily defeating Rep. Peter King (R-NY) in a possible U.S. Senate match up, 47% to 23%. However, Gillibrand would face a tough challenge if former New York Gov. George Pataki (R) ran against her as the two are currently tied at 41% support.

Poll Shows Paterson Sinking Further (Political Wire)
A new Siena Research Institute poll in New York finds Gov. David Paterson (D) behind in both primary and general-election matchups and with record low job approval ratings. In the Democratic primary, Andrew Cuomo (D) blows away Paterson 67% to 17%. As recently as January, Cuomo and Paterson were deadlocked. In the general election, Rudy Giuliani (R) crushes Paterson 56 to 33%. However, Cuomo would beat Giuliani, 51% to 41%. Just 19% of New Yorkers say Paterson is doing an excellent or good job.

Palin — Who Whacked Obama’s Special Olympics Crack — Turned Down Nearly $40 Million For Kids With Disabilities (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
On Friday, Sarah Palin hammered President Obama for his careless remarks about the Special Olympics, professing herself “shocked” at Obama’s “degrading remark” about “precious and unique people.” But less than 24 hours before hitting Obama this way, Palin turned down nearly $40 million in Federal funding for programs catering to special education kids. The funding for special needs kids, it turns out, is buried in all that stimulus money for Alaska that Palin drew national criticism for turning down last week (though there are now doubts about whether she’s made a final decision on them).

Jindal Versus The Volcano (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
With Monday’s massive volcano eruption in Alaska likely to leave Anchorage and Gov. Sarah Palin’s hometown covered in ash, a Democratic strategist sends over the reminder that just a month and a half ago, another up-and-coming Republican star, Gov. Bobby Jindal, mocked the very notion of volcano monitoring. Speaking in the non-State of the Union rebuttal, the Louisiana Republican said that instead of spending $140 million “for something called ‘volcano monitoring,’” Congress “should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.”… Many Alaskans took issue with Jindal’s comment, the Anchorage Daily News reported. “Of course Alaskans want to know if a volcano is going to blow,” a Palin press aide told the paper.

Pods on Parade. (by J –SOM at Liberal Rapture)
Obama’s cult is trying to rally his minions to get out and hector the rest of us to sign pledge cards (acceptable, but still creepy.) in support of THE ONE’s agenda… On its face I have little problem with this part of the permanent campaign. I doubt el Presidente has occupied a millisecond of thinking about it. At least I hope not. People out in the streets canvassing for something they believe in is a good thing in a democracy. The trouble is, of course, it is painfully apparent that what these types believe in is not an idea, or a set of principles, but a person. It’s not like any of Obama’s ideas are, in fact, his…

I could work up a rant here – but I suspect this project will fail. The vast majority of the most engaged pods were in it to smugly prove a point. “Look what we elected!” Last month Obama’s peeps tried this trick with house parties supporting the stimulus bill and participation was next to nil. Besides, blowback is everywhere. It is one thing to defend a candidate with delusions, “hope”, and screams of racism. It is quite another for a Pod to willingly put himself out side a grocery store to endure snarking comments about Obama being a con man. Most of us know the campaign is over – even if the pods do not.

Congress isn’t feeling much heat from Obama’s ‘army’ (McClatchy)
President Barack Obama’s army of canvassers fanned out across the nation over the weekend to drum up support for his $3.55 trillion budget, but they had no noticeable impact on members of Congress, who on Monday said they were largely unaware of the effort.

Orlando ‘Tea Party’ rally draws more than 4,000 (Orlando Sentinel)
Singer Lloyd Marcus told the crowd assembled in Lake Eola Park on Saturday that he was going to give them his take on the first days of the Obama administration. Then he shrieked. That pretty much summed up the mood in the park Saturday afternoon, when more than 4,000 people attended the Orlando Tea Party, a conservative rally aimed at expressing discontent with Washington… “We’re really scared about what’s happening in our country,” said Debby Whisenand, 71, of Largo in Pinellas County. She waved a sign that read “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money” on one side, and “You can’t blame Bush anymore” on the other.

Progressives Launch Campaign Targeting Centrist Senate Dems (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
A coalition of progressive groups and officials announced the launch of a media and grassroots campaign Tuesday to target conservative Democrats they deem obstructionist. The impetus of the campaign was a recent move by some Democrats, led by Sen. Evan Bayh, to form a working group that would ostensibly move the president’s agenda in a more conservative direction. Calling their work — particularly the preemptive call to not consider major legislative reforms in the budget reconciliation process — “very bad politics and very bad policy,” Robert Borosage, the co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, said that the Senate group was obstructing the president’s agenda.

“We have been pretty unhappy to see many conservative Democrats, new Democrats, Blue Dogs, etc., suggesting that they are beginning to have doubts about the president’s program and are ready to move against it,” he said.
Well, that’s some good news.  But what happens when they find out they have to move President Obama to the left, too?

McCaskill Says We Need “Entitlement Reform” For Social Security ASAP (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
Critics on the left don’t like the phrase “entitlement reform” used to describe proposed reforms to Social Security — and want Obama and Dems to refrain from “fixing” Social Security in the short term and preserve their political capital for bigger, more urgent problems. So these folks won’t like what Senator Claire McCaskill had to say on her Twitter feed this morning. On it, she said she’d just attended a “bipartisan breakfast” and had come away persuaded that Social Security — which she described as “entitlement reform” — needed to be fixed ASAP.

Obama Administration: $150K Fine Per Downloaded Song Warranted (by Susie at Suburban Guerrilla)
[T]he Founding Fathers called for a ten-year limit on copyrights… “The Obama administration for the first time is weighing in on a Recording Industry Association of America file sharing lawsuit and is supporting hefty awards of as much as $150,000 per purloined music track… Two top lawyers in President Barack Obama’s Justice Department are former RIAA [Recording Industry Association of America] lawyers.

DNC’s Kaine picks panel to reform Democrats’ entire nominating process (by Andrew Malcolm at Top of the Ticket, Los Angeles Times)
Last year’s Democratic primaries were hard fought even bitter affairs, not helped by the initial banning of [two] states, which denied Hillary Clinton two crucial albeit sneaky victories. [SNEAKY?  What on earth does this author mean by that?]… The 37-member Democratic Change Commission will be headed by Sen. Claire McCaskill (who likes to Twitter) and Rep. James Clyburn, both ardent Obama backers. And Obama’s ex-campaign manager David Plouffe is also on… The commission, which grows from a convention resolution by Obama last August, will have three goals: chop the number of superdelegates, reform the caucus system and change “the window of time” for caucuses and primaries… The commission’s report is due by next New Years Day.
Click through to see the list of names of the members.  This is the first indication I’ve seen that the party recognizes there’s a problem with a process that awards more delegates to the candidate who didn’t win a majority vote in the state.  Maybe they’ll figure out a way to make it impossible for the RBC to break its own rules.  Say, have a penalty of boiling rule breakers in oil.

Obama Comes A’Courtin’? (by Susie at Suburban Guerrilla)
The Politico says Obama is going to meet with liberal bloggers. I suppose I’m in a distinct minority if I point out it presents a credibility problem. It’s always harder to be critical about someone you like (or his Secretary of the Treasury), and when the POTUS wants to meet you, well, it’s hard to knock his taste, isn’t it? See it for what it is: Good for business, not so good for maintaining your editorial independence. Like the late, great Izzy Stone, I have no interest in meeting the people I write about. Not only does this protect me, it protects you – the reader. My advice to those being courted? Just say no.

Hillary Clinton, e-diplomat, embraces new media (AP)
Her videos aren’t quite viral yet and she’s not tweeting, but Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is embracing new media, using the Web to promote the agency and her role as the nation’s top envoy.

Introducing Financial Media Matters (by Karl Frisch at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
Media Matters … launched Financial Media Matters (www.FinancialMediaMatters.org) a website dedicated to holding accountable those who report on the financial and business industry as well as those who report on labor, economic, and other fiscal matters. The new website will focus extensively on ensuring that outlets such as CNBC, Fox Business Network, and The Wall Street Journal are held accountable.

Howard Dean Joins CNBC as Contributor (TVNewser, Media Bistro)
Former DNC chairman and 2004 presidential candidate Howard Dean has joined CNBC as a contributor… There’s no word yet which programs Dean will contribute to regularly.

Dean on Wall Street compensation: Americans don’t understand rewarding people who did ‘a crappy job.’ (Think Progress)
During his inaugural appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning as a paid commentator, Howard Dean told the CNBC regulars that he believed they were misreading the public’s reaction to Wall Street excess. Dean said that rather than resenting the wealth of Wall Street as a matter of course, Americans simply believe that “you shouldn’t get rewarded…for doing a crappy job”… Squawk Box co-host Joe Kernen said that the hiring of Dean was meant to “balance” their recent hiring of former Bush administration spokesperson Tony Fratto.
Click through to watch the video.

Money for Nothing (by Jamison Foser at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
What do you get in exchange for a history of sexist comments, cluelessness about public opinion, baseless and hypocritical accusations of “elitism,” and mindless gushing over George W. Bush? If you’re Chris Matthews, all that is good for roughly $20 million. Keep that in mind next time Matthews says that Barack Obama is out of touch with regular people because he plays pool.

Quote of the Day (by Jamison Foser at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
Joe Klein: “But most of the anger we see and hear comes from people who are paid to be angry, on cue, on cable television–as opposed to people with actual grievacnes. Suddenly, the White House press corps goes barking mad over the AIG Bonuses. It is said that the bonuses are an aspect of the bust that the ‘public’ can understand; in truth, the bonuses are an aspect of the bust that reporters can understand. Suddenly, the Obama Administration has a ‘crisis.’ The President has to go on television and act as if he’s angry, even though he knows these bonuses are the tiniest outcropping of outrageousness.”
Yes, well, welcome back to the bright side, Joe.

Exchange of the Day (Political Wire)
CNBC’s Erin Burnett: Final question, your house, it’s up for sale. We know that. That’s part of the public record. We’re in a housing crisis. You haven’t been able to sell it, so you’ve got to do this commute. Is that — is that an indicator we can all look at, when Tim Geithner can sell his house, things are going to be OK?
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner: We’re planning to move my family down in the fall. Can’t wait to see them, can’t wait to get them here. Don’t like commuting very much. And I look forward to having them live in the same city with me as quickly as possible. But it’s not going to happen till the summer because of the school year.
Burnett: Because of the school year. OK. Secretary Geithner, thanks very much.

Fox News VP: Fox is ‘the voice of opposition’ to the Obama administration. (Think Progress)
Though Fox News is widely known to be biased in favor of conservatism, the network likes to claim that is “fair and balanced” and that the objectivity of the “hard news” they do is “is not in question.” But in an interview with NPR, Fox News’ Senior Vice President for Programming, Bill Shine, admitted that the network is consciously aiming to be “the voice of opposition” to the Obama administration “on some issues”… Fox News has wasted no time in opposing the Obama administration’s agenda. For example, the network has unleashed a steady drum beat of misinformation and propaganda against the Employee Free Choice Act. In fact, when it comes to challenging the Obama administration, Fox News CEO Roger Ailes has compared the network to “the Alamo.”

Dick Morris’ self-confessed conspiracy theory: Obama “wants his plan to fail…so that he can make the case for bank nationalization and vindicate his dream of a socialist economy” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Morris: To take back the House, Republicans “basically… have to let Barack Obama hang himself” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Fox News contributor Pinkerton compared Obama’s appearance at a “closed press” reception to “the secrecy of Dick Cheney and detentions and renditions and all that stuff” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

In back-to-back teasers, O’Reilly questions Rep. Frank’s “tactics,” highlights his producer’s “ambush” of blogger (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

FOX again attacks US allies (by Jamison Foser at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
Fox has insulted Canada, attacking the country’s military even as four Canadian soldiers were killed in attacks in Afghanistan: “The Canadian government … was incensed by a recent talk-show segment on the American conservative cable network that poked fun at Canada and the Canadian military… Canadian soldiers have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001 and have spent the last four years in the country’s most violent region. Canada has lost 116 soldiers in Afghanistan.”

Ingraham guest host Bruce on the Obamas: “We’ve got trash in the White House” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Boortz on those who are “thrilled to make $75,000 a year”: “[E]very once in a while they’ll oil all the wheels on their house” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Savage: “Obama has a plan to force children into a paramilitary domestic army” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Blago is Back (Political Wire)
Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich “has a new gig — as a radio talk show host,” the AP reports. WLS-AM program director Bob Shomper says Blagojevich will be on the air on the Chicago station Wednesday morning, taking calls from listeners, telling stories and talking with guests.
WLS is the former employer of another politician who’s already in prison, former city alderman “Fast Eddie” Vrdolyak.

Congresswoman, a breast cancer survivor, urges national campaign (McClatchy)
Two days after she disclosed her fight with cancer, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz launched into advocacy Monday, championing legislation that calls for greater awareness of breast cancer among younger women.

Sam Waterston Pushes Bipartisan Fair Elections Now Act (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is set to propose legislation this week that would create a public election financing system that would keep candidates competitive while, among other things, banning lobbyist money in elections. “Law & Order” star Sam Waterston, in an interview with the Huffington Post, said the time is ripe. Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Arlen Specter (R-Penn.), will be introducing the Fair Elections Now Act on Wednesday. And they are expected to be supplemented by a coterie of Representatives in the House, according to advocates for the legislation. Proponents of the legislation say that it would eliminate the predominance of special interests in politics without tilting the playing field against those politicians that chose to take part. They believe it’s the right time for an election-financing system overhaul.
I want what Jack McCoy wants.

Media Matters for America headlines

• Bush missing from USA Today/Gallup poll response options to question about AIG bonuses

• Scarborough shills GE stock on GE-owned MSNBC

• Boehlert: Jeff Zucker and the CNBC straw man

• CNN’s Castellanos falsely claimed Dems “gave” bonuses to AIG execs

• Memo to the media: Where’s W?

• Did O’Reilly violate his own ambush rules?

• Following Politico’s lead, media fixate on Obama’s “awkward laughter” in 60 Minutes interview

• Wall Street Journal article omitted Bush Treasury Department’s role from AIG bonus timeline

• Politico published Bauer op-ed that advanced 61-detainee falsehood

Violence Against the Press Frequently Goes Unpunished, Says Study
In a report called “Getting Away With Murder 2009,” the Committee to Protect Journalists has found that violence against the press often goes unpunished. “Our findings indicate that the failure to solve journalist murders perpetuates further violence against the press,” said CPJ’s Joel Simon.

Papers apologise to Australia’s Hanson
Australia’s largest newspaper group apologised to far-right politician Pauline Hanson Sunday for publishing photos it incorrectly claimed showed her in a series of raunchy poses.
Oops!

Ocala Magazine editor insists her plagiarism was unintentional
Ocala Magazine editor Heather Lee says after being accused of lifting passages from the Wall Street Journal, Dallas Morning News, Oprah Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, and other publications: “Producing 17 issues a year is a huge responsibility, especially with a limited staff and little to no freelancers. … I do my best to keep detailed notes as to where the items come from and I believe that as I work through the files, getting closer to finished copy that I amend all the information to be in my own voice. So when I say that I never intentionally reproduced someone else’s work as my own, I’m being truthful.”

Tribune Sues Warren Beatty Over Dick Tracy Rights
Tribune Media Services has filed a lawsuit against Academy-award winning director and actor Warren Beatty to recover motion-picture and television rights to iconic comic-strip character Dick Tracy, according to court documents.

News Media Chiefs: Finding New Revenue a Challenge
“There’s no question it’s revenue — and where it’s going and how to get it and how to hold onto it,” said Tom Curley, president and CEO of The Associated Press. “This is not about a declining market. This is about a growing market. The problem is the revenue is going in different directions.” 

By ‘Optimizing’ Ads, Can the Rubicon Project Save Newspapers?
The Rubicon Project promises to help newspapers “find money” online. With the Rubicon Project’s technology, says Frank Addante, the 32-year-old co-founder, newspapers and other “premium news” outlets can increase their online revenue by an average of 60% a year.

Nonprofit Mother Jones a Role Model for the Industry
Thirty-three years after Mother Jones began as a nonprofit magazine, co-editor Monika Bauerlein jokes that “we’re so out of date, we’re hip.” She was referring to renewed interest in the magazine’s business model.

How the Kindle Will Change the World (by Jacob Weisberg at Slate)
Why should a civilization that reads electronically be any less literate than one that harvests trees to do so? And why should a transition away from the printed page lessen our appreciation and love for printed books?
Remember five years from now that you read it here first: Someday you will have the option of buying a device that is a digital reader, a movie and music player, a computer, a game console, and a mobile phone.

Farewell to the Printed Monograph
The University of Michigan Press will shift its scholarly publishing from being primarily a traditional print operation to one that is primarily digital. Because digital publishing is so much less expensive, the press expects to be able to publish more books, and to distribute them to a much broader audience.

Austin Chronicle thrives with a relentlessly local news agenda
“We don’t do gotcha journalism, our coverage is very policy-oriented, and always local, local, local,” says the alt-weekly’s founder and editor Louis Black. “Even during the Bush years, which were a very big deal here, we never put anybody that wasn’t local on the cover. We don’t do out-of-towners.”

Ann Arbor Paper to Close in July
The Ann Arbor News will close in July after publishing as the city’s daily newspaper since 1835, publisher Laurel Champion announced today. Heavy losses in revenue drove the decision. Champion said the current “business model is not sustainable.”

Star Tribune posted a $1.8 million operating loss in its first six weeks in bankruptcy
David Brauer reports the Minneapolis paper grossed $24.2 million from Jan. 15 to March 1, and spent $26 million. Management also racked up $2.2 million in reorganization costs, which aren’t reflected in the operating loss.

Advance Newspapers Announces Company-wide Furloughs
Advance Publications is instituting mandatory 10-day furloughs and a pension freeze at nearly all of its daily papers outside Michigan. Those Michigan dailies, meanwhile, are undergoing a string of changes that include cutbacks in frequency for some and consolidation of operations for others.

Gannett imposes another round of furloughs
Employees, who took an unpaid week off in the first quarter, have been told to take another week of unpaid leave before July.

Remnick Denies Tweet About Bi-Weekly New Yorker
Yesterday, Washington Post book critic Ron Charles posted on Twitter that The New Yorker was considering reducing its frequency. You could practically hear the sound of 600 media reporters picking up their phones in response, but soon after New Yorker editor David Remnick denied the rumor.

Hispanic Magazine Ad Pages Down 17 Percent Through February
Hispanic magazines have been hit just as hard as the rest of the U.S. consumer magazine industry during the recession. Ad page declines at Hispanic magazines were significantly steeper through the first two months of 2009 (-17.2 percent) than they were in 2008 (-11.8 percent).

Hachette Filipacchi is Selling Enthusiast Titles
Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. is looking to sell a group of its enthusiast magazines including Popular Photography, American Photo, Boating, Cycle World, Flying, and Sound & Vision. Hachette has been feverishly scrubbing its budget under CEO Alain Lemarchand since he arrived last fall.

What happened to the Men’s Vogue staff after the magazine folded?
New York mag thought it would be interesting so find out, so it assigned the story to a former Men’s Vogue intern. || Ghost Word: How the Bay Area’s former best and brightest reporters are spending their time.

NPR Achieves Record Ratings
The audience for NPR’s daily news programs reached a record last year, driven by widespread interest in the presidential election, and the general decline of radio news elsewhere. NPR will release figures showing that the audience for its daily news programs hit 20.9 million a week, a 9 percent increase.

Cary Grant Goes Digital: Warner Brothers To Reformat Old Movies (Paid Content)
It’s not going to save the DVD market, but Warner Brothers started selling classic movies from its library today—everything from silent movies to ’80s classics—in DVD format and as internet downloads. DVDs cost $19.95 and internet downloads $14.95, and they can be ordered at Warner’s archive site. Warner didn’t say how many movies it would make available today, but did say that it plans to continue going through its entire 6,800-movie catalog for movies it feels are good candidates to be converted to digital (i.e. films that may still have an audience). The studio plans to add about 20 films per month… c[C]nverting the films to digital requires almost no investment, so it’s a no-brainer for the studio. 

NFL’s New $4 Billion DirecTV Deal Includes Streaming Rights (Paid Content)
For football fans for whom the ability to watch every NFL game on TV on Sundays isn’t enough, help is on the way. As part of a new four-year, $4 billion deal struck between DirecTV and the NFL last night, they will now also have the option of getting any game streamed to their laptops… While the league gave up the online rights, the NFL won the right to create a new channel called “Red Zone Channel” (to be launched in the next couple of years) that shows real-time highlights of NFL games that will be distributed on multiple media, including cable, satellite, online and mobile. 

With Steve Kroft as Lead Correspondent, 60 Minutes Is Ticking Right Along
During Steve Kroft’s two decades with 60 Minutes, the franchise was primarily identified with Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, and Ed Bradley. But Kroft has finally emerged, with 10 of his 12 pieces topping the broadcast this season, including an interview that aired Sunday with President Obama.

CNN plans to launch its wire service this year
“We’re seeing some early interest” from newspaper editors and television and radio owners, CNN president Jon Klein said Monday at a journalism forum. “I think it will be enough to launch something, probably some time this year, we think.” AP chief Tom Curley told the audience that “our profession is going to undergo some enormous growth after we get through this valley, so I would not give up on it. The next couple of years are going to be tough, but I would not give up on it.”

Stephen Colbert Wins NASA Space Station Name Contest
Comedian Stephen Colbert has won NASA’s online contest to name a new room at the international space station. The name “Colbert” beat out NASA’s four suggested options in the space agency’s effort to have the public help name the addition. NASA reserves the right to choose an appropriate name.

David Zaslav Is Cable’s Fastest Rising Star
In David Zaslav’s two short years as Discovery Communications’ Chief Executive he has rebranded three channels in the U.S., launched 20 new networks or feeds overseas, and taken the company public. Along the way he has replaced the heads of every one of Discovery’s 13 networks.
Well, I’m still not impressed with their content.  Dirty Jobs is about the only thing ever on the Discovery Channel.  It seems to be a guy thing.

Mobile TV Is a Minefield for Everybody Involved (by Terry Heaton at PoMo Blog)
The big media companies want to have their cake and eat it, too, when it comes to mobile video, and this, I think, will not go over well with consumers. According to Online Media Daily, panelists at the Media Summit New York last week discussed their preference for a dual revenue stream model in the mobile video space. Like cable, NBCU and Disney want subscriber fees AND advertising revenues in distributing their content via mobile devices. You want mobile video, you pay a fee to your carrier and then sit through advertising. No thanks, folks.

Fox Local Deal Brings RedLasso Back From The Dead (Paid Content)
Online video search and clipping service RedLasso just got a lifeline from Fox: it sealed a deal to carry video clips from the network’s owned-and-operated local TV stations, which registered users will be able to embed into their blogs. It’s an about-face for Fox, which, along with CBS and NBCU, sued RedLasso for copyright infringement last year, effectively shutting the company’s popular service down.

Bloggers flocked to RedLasso because the service let them edit and only use portions of news video clips they needed, but like many fledgling digital media-sharing startups, it failed to nail down revenue-sharing deals with the content owners first. The fact that Fox returned to the negotiating table shows that big media companies do want to work with innovative startups—particularly companies that boost distribution and exposure—as long as they can have some control over the terms.

Time Warner Buys 31 Percent Stake In Central European Broadcaster (Paid Content)
Time Warner is putting its faith in European TV by spending $241.5 million (£165.9 million) for a 31-percent stake in Central European Media Enterprises, a TV network reaching 97 million people in seven countries across central and eastern Europe… CME is in many ways a traditional TV operator with a mixture of pay and free-to-air channels, but it does have digital assets, including several portals accompanying its main channels such as Protv.ro in Romania and Dnevnik.hr in Croatia, which publish news and offer VOD services. CME also owns Jyxo, the operator of Czech blog network Blog.cz, which it bought in May last year. The company also runs Croatian blog platform Blog.hr.

Last.fm to Start Charging International Users (Mashable)
If you use Last.fm and live outside of the US, UK, or Germany, you might need to get your wallet out. The online radio service has announced that users outside of those countries (their 3 most popular) will need to start paying €3.00 (about $4.40 USD) per month to continue streaming music on Last.fm… The … reason is likely international licensing fees, which led Pandora to pull the plug on international users back in 2007. It’s unfortunate for users outside of Last.fm’s top countries, but likely a necessary move to continue to provide sustainable service, even though the outfit is now owned by media conglomerate CBS.

AOL, Yahoo Will Add Life Streams to Their Popular Web Services
The growing popularity of Twitter and Facebook’s news feed functionality has made everyone embrace life streaming — essentially a way for us to broadcast our daily digital lives via photos, videos, postings and status updates — as a way to consume information. In a matter of months, expect both Yahoo and AOL to come up with their own news feed offerings, likely to be embedded in their more popular web services.

Share Netflix Ratings on Facebook (by Stan Schroeder at Mashable)
Netflix API is resulting in some cool mashups lately. The other day we wrote about semantic movie search engine Jinni making use of the API. Today, Netflix has announced integration with Facebook Connect. This integration lets you post movies you’ve rated on Netflix in your Facebook profile. To start using the feature, go to www.netflix.com/facebookconnect and use the “Connect” button. If you don’t like it, you can opt out (or back in) at any time.

Are we dangerously dependent on Wikipedia? (by Vincent Rossmeier, Salon)
The author of a new book says no, and talks about how a site spawned by an Ayn Rand enthusiast became our most popular encyclopedia.

18 WordPress Plugins for RSS Management and Tweaks (Mashable)
Real Simple Syndication (RSS) enables site owners to automatically syndicate their content to readers in an easily digestible format. There are a number of WordPress plugins to help you manage your blog’s RSS feed, track subscribers, and much more. [Click through for] 18 of our favorite WordPress plugins for RSS. While we think all of the options we’ve provided are extremely useful, we advise you to only download a few as more will impact your blog’s response time.

Using Twitter to Promote Your Book (FreelanceSwitch)
Book publishers are doing less and less to promote and market books. Since much of this work will fall on the author’s shoulders anyway, you might as well use every tool at your disposal.

Facebook Beware: More Mainstream Companies Are Adopting Twitter (Paid Content)
Salesforce.com and Best Buy have incorporated Twitter feeds into their redesigned websites and products… Salesforce.com built a Twitter-response tool into its customer-relations product, and service reps from clients like Comcast and Dell are now able to monitor the Twitter stream for messages that mention their brand (via InformationWeek). Best Buy has also incorporated Twitter into ConsumersPrice.com, its new social-media hub: users can comment on various products through Twitter, share product photos via Flickr, and get price alerts via SMS (via Internet Retailer).

Blellow: A Better Microblogging Tool for Freelancers and Web Workers (Mashable)
One of the reasons that people are embracing Twitter with open arms is the quality of people and networking opportunities that arise from the 140 character community. With Twitter trending towards the mainstream, however, conversations are becoming more social, so freelancers using the popular microblog to find clients and projects might start to feel like a small fish in an expansive sea. For niche networking with a professional purpose and Twitter-like feel, we can now turn to Blellow, a more focused microblogging site to join groups, find projects, check the job board, and meetup with other Blellow members.

ExecTweets: The Twitter Business Model? (Mashable)
Today, the ad network Federated Media is taking a shot at making money from Twitter; FM has launched ExecTweets, a site that aggregates Tweets from business executives. The site is sponsored by Microsoft. The fact is, many business executives are actively using Twitter today. It makes more sense than blogging, which takes more time, and the public sees it as a great view of a company communicating with its users, shareholders and customers. Finding all those business people on Twitter can be quite a chore, and thus FM’s new service might be useful for tracking what’s on the minds of business executives.

‘You Can Take Your Desk’: Tuscon PR Firm Fires Staff, Rehires As Contractors
Well here’s an, er, creative cost-cutting measure: A Tuscon, Arizona-based PR firm has fired 88 percent of its staff and rehired them as contractors. LP&G principal Leslie Perls says revenue’s plummeted and the company simply can’t afford to keep their employees on—they’re also moving out of their historic downtown building. The company’s trying to be generous with the little it has—it’s letting employees take their desks and computers. But since they’ve got to move out of their office anyway, the other way you can look at it is—free moving.

A Network Takes Us Out to a Ballgame
It is rare that media buyers form a consensus on anything, but in the case of the neophyte Major League Baseball Network, which had its premiere in January, they seem to agree that they like its chances of becoming a successful player in the television sports marketplace.

Has The Search-Ad Market Already Bottomed Out? (Paid Content)
That seems to be the suggestion in a report on Google by Citi analyst Mark Mahaney. Mahaney says he hosted a call with executives at four search-engine marketing firms—Clickable, Covario, Reprise Media and SearchIgnite—and all four said they expect next quarter to show improvement over the first quarter, which they say was dismal. One firm said search ad spending dropped a whopping 20 percent to 30 percent in January and February… Already, though, the search-marketing executives say they have noticed a “snap back” in March spending—and expect the business to improve next quarter.

Social Media Marketing Budgets on the Rise (by Adam Ostrow at Mashable)
Recently, we looked at media usage trends, which showed the rising numbers of media consumers that are using social networking sites, reading blogs, and viewing Internet video, among other forms of digital content. Not surprisingly, as these new forms of media consumption grow, so too grows the number of marketing dollars being poured into them. According to a new study released by Aberdeen Group (published today by eMarketer), 63 percent of companies plan to increase their social media marketing budgets in 2009, despite the current weakness in the economy. Digging deeper into the numbers, 21 percent of those surveyed plan to increase social media spending by 25 percent or more, while a mere 3 percent plan to shrink their budgets (34 percent responded “no change”).

The Future of Online Ads is Huge (by Adam Ostrow  at Mashable)
I’m talking about the enormous physical size of advertisements we’re increasingly seeing across the Web. The movement towards huge got a big boost when the Internet Advertising Bureau recently added some big new formats to its standard ad unit sizes: 300×100 and 720×300. Additionally, even bigger takeover-style ads been seen on many popular websites over the past few weeks, including ESPN, MySpace, and YouTube…

Why go huge? Online Media Daily explains YouTube’s strategy: “Many people come to YouTube without having a particular video in mind to view. They land on the home page to search through the site for videos that grab and pull them in.” And pull them in is exactly what ads of the takeover variety can do – on all but the biggest resolutions, they take up so much screen space that you can’t miss them. Like it or not, I think these type of ads are here to stay. 

Google Goes (Slightly) Semantic with Tweaks to Search Results (Mashable)
Google has introduced two changes to its most important product, Search. It now recognizes longer queries and gives you longer description snippets as results. The idea is that, if you’ve written a longer search query, such as “Barbados fishing snorkeling gear and trips,” a short description snippet will not contain enough information for you.

The other change is much more important since it points to Google making use of certain semantic web technologies. Related searches – the terms associated to your query which are sometimes displayed at the bottom of the search result page – are now more intelligently chosen through the use of a new technology (Google hasn’t given out any details about the technology in question). The example that Google gives is the search query “principles of physics.” The related searches offer will include terms such as “special relativity,” “angular momentum,” “big bang” and “quantum mechanics.” It’s not for English users only; as Google explains, it’ll work in 37 languages all around the world.

Create Your Own Branded Mobile Video Broadcast with Ustream (Mashable)
In February, they launched Watershed, a private label business version of their player with strong customization features. Today, Ustream launched another product: the mobile version of Watershed. For those unfamiliar with Watershed, it is the “white-label” version of Ustream – it provides businesses, institutions, and even universities a personalized, branded version of Ustream. It also provides detailed traffic and viewer analytics. The mobile version adds on to this functionality by allowing for live streams via Nokia N95 and S60 phones (sorry, no iPhone version yet).

Watershed mobile includes Twitter integration and chat, but also has two other useful features: GPS and Yes or No Polling. Watershed mobile is GPS-enabled, meaning that viewers can know where you are. Yes or No Polling allows broadcasters can quickly and easily gauge their audience for feedback and opinions. According to Ustream, one of the major points of differentiation between Watershed mobile and competing streaming applications is its low latency – it only takes 1-3 seconds for a live mobile stream to reach a computer. If true, that is some serious technological innovation that makes interacting with an audience via mobile practical.

Microsoft Underwhelms With Preview Of Futuristic Ad Technologies (by Joseph Tartakoff at Paid Content)
Looking for the next “big thing” from Microsoft’s adCenter Labs? It certainly wasn’t on display at the group’s DemoFest, an annual presentation of next-generation online ad technologies that are in the works.
Click through for details.

Meet Zeebo: The Cheaper, Downloadable Video Game Console (Paid Content)
The S.F.-based company unveiled its namesake device at the Game Developers Conference today, a video game console aimed not at the saturated U.S. gaming market, but middle-class gamers in emerging markets like Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). CEO John Rizzo told GDC attendees that a console had to be affordable to succeed in the BRIC countries; its launch price is $199, but that’s expected to come down to $150 later this year. That’s a stark contrast from the roughly $1,000 that a new PS3 or Wii can cost in countries like Brazil…

The Zeebo can can hold about 50 games at a given time; currently the roster is made up of mostly older games like Quake and the Need for Speed franchise, but publishers like EA, Capcom and Namco have already signed on to either license or develop games for the service. It’s designed for cost-effectiveness, since publishers can save on packaging and distribution costs (and pass those savings to gamers), but also to combat the piracy that comes with selling disc-based games.

Steve Perlman’s Next Act: Video Game Technology That Cuts Out The Console (Paid Content)
Steve Perlman, one of the original developers at Apple and founder of WebTV Networks, which was sold to Microsoft in the 90s, is trying to shake up the video-game business. Perlman’s incubator Rearden LLC has developed technology that enables video-game players to play anywhere without a console by accessing games through an internet-connected server, something not currently available to gamers. The technology works a lot like many video-content delivery networks: It compresses then de-compresses large amounts of data quickly, which is necessary to play graphics-rich games that require fast two-way action.

Is The iPhone A Bigger Game Changer Than The Wii? (Paid Content)
There’s a consensus that Nintendo forever changed the video-game industry when it launched the Wii in 2006, since, even with its simple graphics and thin library of “hardcore” games, it quickly eclipsed sales of the PS3 and Xbox 360. But one gaming exec says that the iPhone is an even bigger game-changer. Ngmoco founder and CEO Neil Young kicked off the Game Developers Conference by saying that the launch of the iPhone was as big a gaming milestone as the launch of the first Nintendo console, the Game Boy, Xbox Live and even the first massively multiplayer online game (via Wired)…

But the iPhone has limitations as a gaming device, just like the Wii (or the Xbox 360 or PS3, for that matter): The low barrier to entry means that lazy developers can quickly put out poorly functioning games—and if iPhone owners pay for one too many disappointing game apps, they’ll stop buying. There’s also too much clutter: with more than 25,000 apps, even very good games may find it hard to get noticed (without the bump of being featured in an iPhone commercial)… Nintendo (and even Sony) have taken notice: both companies are pushing game downloads as the next hot thing for their portable gaming devices now, with new announcements expected to roll out over the next few days at GDC.

Here’s One Way To Raise Venture Capital In A Recession (Paid Content)
Industry Ventures has raised $265 million for a new fund that buys stakes in VC funds on the cheap from limited partners looking for a quick exit. According to VentureBeat about 65 percent of the money came from pension funds and about half of the 20 investors were new investors… Similar to distressed-debt funds, which buy debt for deep discounts during periods of weakness, funds like Industry Ventures buy stakes in VC funds from limited partners who want to avoid having to put more money into VC funds through so-called capital calls, or requirements to continue to invest a certain amount of money in the fund. Industry Ventures isn’t wasting time putting its money to work; it has already made 11 acquisitions, including the purchase of nine funds from Washington Mutual for $7 million.

Obama Pulls Back on Bonus Tax (Political Wire)
President Obama “is no fan of bonuses paid at a financial institutions being kept afloat by taxpayer dollars but also says he would not ‘govern out of anger’ despite Americans’ frustration with such perks,” the AP reports… Meanwhile, Politico reports a Senate bill to be considered this week “is less punitive, but could affect more companies receiving bailout funds. It would impose a 35 percent excise tax on the companies that paid bonuses and a 35 percent tax on the employees receiving them.”

Cameron Cardow

Bomber kills 15 at Kurdish funeral tent in Iraq
BAGHDAD – A suicide bomber struck a Kurdish funeral tent northeast of Baghdad Monday, officials said, in the deadliest of a series of attacks that killed 24 people nationwide.

Ultra-Orthodox party joins Netanyahu’s coalition
JERUSALEM – Incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brought a nationalist religious party into what is shaping up to be a narrow, hawkish coalition, taking a major step Monday toward securing the parliament majority he needs to form the government.

Israel to investigate killings of civilians in Gaza operation
JERUSALEM — The Israeli army’s chief prosecutor on Thursday announced an investigation into the killings of Palestinian civilians during Israel’s military incursion into Gaza earlier this year as soldiers’ testimony about the operation triggered a public furor.

Israeli soldiers’ shirts joke about killing Arabs
JERUSALEM – Israeli soldiers wore T-shirts with a pregnant woman in the cross-hairs of a rifle and the slogan “1 Shot 2 Kills,” adding to a growing furor in the country over allegations of misconduct by troops during the Gaza war.

Senior Fatah official killed in south Lebanon
BEIRUT – An explosion in southern Lebanon on Monday killed a senior Fatah official and three of his bodyguards as they were leaving a Palestinian refugee camp.

Hardline Saudi clerics urge TV ban on women, music
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – A group of Saudi clerics urged the kingdom’s new information minister on Sunday to ban women from appearing on TV or in newspapers and magazines, making clear that the country’s hardline religious establishment is skeptical of a new push toward moderation.

NATO: Taliban commander among 10 killed in strike
KABUL – NATO troops killed a senior Taliban commander and nine other militants in southern Afghanistan, officials said Monday, striking a blow in the group’s heartland where the U.S. plans to send thousands of additional troops to stem the growing violence.

34 militants killed in clashes in Afghanistan
KABUL – Afghanistan’s top Muslim clerics urged President Hamid Karzai on Friday to push ahead with a proposal for talks with the Taliban that would be mediated by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah. Calls for negotiations between Afghanistan’s government and the Taliban have been mounting as the militant group has stepped up attacks in recent years despite efforts to defeat them by Afghan and international forces. In the latest violence, international forces killed 34 militants in two days of clashes in the country’s volatile south and east, the U.S. military said Friday.

Suicide attack kills guard in Islamabad
ISLAMABAD (AFP) – A suicide bomber blew himself up outside a special police office, killing a police guard and wounding three other people in Pakistan’s capital during a public holiday Monday, officials said.

Pakistanis rally against US drone strikes
CHAMAN, Pakistan (AFP) – Hundreds of Pakistanis from a pro-Taliban religious party rallied Monday to denounce possible future US drone attacks on the southwestern province of Baluchistan.

Opposition leader calls Pakistani government ‘elected dictatorship’
LAHORE, Pakistan — Pakistani opposition leader Nawaz Sharif Wednesday accused the Pakistani government of launching an all-out attack on its political opponents instead of confronting the country’s Islamic extremists and charged that top officials are plotting to assassinate him.

U.S. to work with India on nuclear non-proliferation
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration wants to build on a U.S.-India civilian nuclear power deal to work with the Indians to strengthen the global non-proliferation system, a senior U.S. diplomat said on Monday.

Mumbai gunman tells court that he is from Pakistan
MUMBAI, India – The only gunman charged in last year’s terror attacks in Mumbai told an Indian court Monday, the first day of court proceedings, that he would agree to a government-provided lawyer and also repeated that he was a Pakistani national.

ICRC sends supplies to Sri Lanka war zone hospital
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – The first shipment of medical supplies in two weeks has been sent to the last remaining major health facility in Sri Lanka’s war zone and 500 civilians have been evacuated from danger, the Red Cross said Monday.

2 China officials fired over disease reporting
BEIJING – Two Chinese health officials have been fired for mismanagement in the reporting of hand, foot and mouth disease and investigators are looking into a possible cover-up, state media said Monday.

Australian PM says he’ll talk straight with Obama
MELBOURNE (AFP) – Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Sunday he wanted a straight-talking relationship with US President Barack Obama and would stand up to the American leader if necessary.

Canada denies entry to fiery British MP Galloway
OTTAWA – Canada has barred firebrand British lawmaker George Galloway entry into the country on the grounds that he is a threat to national security, a government spokesman said on Friday.

State police commander killed in western Mexico
MEXICO CITY – Gunmen have killed a state police commander in charge of investigating kidnappings and extortion in the western state of Michoacan.

Mexico offers $2 million for top drug lords
MEXICO CITY – Mexico‘s government on Monday offered $2 million each for information leading to the arrest of 24 top drug lords in a public challenge to the cartels’ violent grip on the country.

Leftist candidate wins El Salvador presidential election
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — The candidate of a leftist political party with its roots in a Marxist guerrilla movement has claimed a narrow victory in El Salvador presidential election Sunday.

Report: Russian bombers given access to Venezuelan island
CARACAS — The Russian military has reached a contingency agreement to land long-range supersonic bomber aircraft in Venezuela, according to reports from Moscow on Saturday, which analysts cast more as a nuisance than reason for alarm.

Venezuela’s Chavez calls Obama ‘ignorant’
CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday called President Barack Obama “ignorant,” saying he has a lot to learn about Latin America.

Venezuela brings ports under federal control
CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuela’s federal government seized seaports and airstrips in at least four states on Saturday, a move critics say is meant to limit the powers of mayors and governors opposed to President Hugo Chavez.

Peru police see 4 pct surge in coca crops in 2008
LIMA, Peru – Peruvian coca cultivation likely rose 4 percent for a second straight year in 2008 despite efforts to eradicate the crop, the country’s top anti-drug official said Friday.

FTSE closes up on US govt bailout
LONDON – Leading stocks in London logged significant gains on Monday as investors cheered the official launch of the US government’s bank bailout plan.

Criticized for alleged detainee torture, Britain orders review
LONDON — Under mounting pressure to reveal Britain‘s role in the alleged torture of terrorism suspects abroad during Prime Minister Tony Blair’s administration, his successor, Gordon Brown, ordered Thursday that new rules be drafted and made public to guide intelligence officers in interrogations.

UK: 2 charged with Columbine anniversary bomb plot
LONDON – British prosecutors say they’ve charged two teens with plotting to bomb a school on the 10th anniversary of the Columbine High School killings in the United States.

Dutch judges convict Rwanda Hutu of killing Tutsis
THE HAGUE, Netherlands – A Hutu man was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison Monday for the slaying of two Tutsi mothers and at least four of their children during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide .

Students return after German school shooting
BERLIN – Students at a German high school are returning to class for the first time since a shooting rampage by a former student this month.

Kremlin critic says he was doused with ammonia
MOSCOW – Russian police were investigating Monday after a Kremlin critic running for mayor of the city hosting the 2014 Winter Olympics said he was doused with ammonia in an attack he blamed on the government.

Spanish restaurant lets diners pay at will
MADRID – A Spanish restaurant grappling with hard economic times is wooing diners by letting them pay whatever they want for its daily special.

Macedonia’s presidential vote called free and fair
SKOPJE, Macedonia – Macedonia’s presidential election was free of violence and met most democratic standards, international monitors said Monday — a clear improvement over last year when a parliamentary vote was marred by gunfights and fraud.

South Africa tries treating TB patients at home
CAPE TOWN, South Africa – South Africa is trying a new approach to controlling drug-resistant tuberculosis — treating people at home rather than in isolation hospitals surrounded by barbed wire and baton-wielding guards, health officials said Monday .

Cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe slows: WHO
GENEVA – A cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe has slowed significantly, the World Health Organisation confirmed on Monday as the number of new cases and the death rate continued to decline.

Defying warrant, Sudanese president travels abroad
KHARTOUM – Sudan’s president traveled to Eritrea Monday, choosing one of Africa’s most politically isolated nations for his first trip abroad since an international court sought his arrest on charges of war crimes in Darfur.

Madagascar faces diplomatic isolation after ’coup’
Madagascar faced international isolation Friday as the African Union suspended its membership and threatened sanctions, while the United States, France and Germany rallied behind the deposed president. Washington called new president Andry Rajoelina’s rise to power a “coup d’etat” and suspended its non-humanitarian aid to Antananarivo, while Nicolas Sarkozy, president of former colonial ruler France, called for fresh elections.