Permanent link to MTA daily media news

BREAKING:  Obama apologizes to Democrats, vows to become a liberal!*
*Ha, ha, April Fool

The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest (by myiq2xu at The Confluence)
The Museum of Hoaxes lists the top 100 April Fools jokes of all time.  Here’s their number one: “1957: The respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in. Many called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC diplomatically replied, ‘place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.’”
Absolutely, the best.  I saw it years ago, and it has always been my favorite.

Harvesting Pasta

Obama tries to rally world to cope with downturn (AP)
President Barack Obama sought Wednesday to rally the world’s top and emerging powers to help cope with a global economic downturn, saying, “We can only meet this challenge together.”

Obama Adviser Invokes Great Depression in Warning of Need for Nations to Cooperate (by  Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller at Political Punch, ABC News)
“The stakes for this summit are very high,” said Mike Froman, the deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs today in an OFF CAMERA briefing for reporters. “They are magnified by the fact that much as happened since the G-20 summit in November. The last summit focused largely and importantly on a number of regulatory issues. But the economy has declined, and in November and December the crisis has spread and the countries of the G-20 have been focused on restoring demand and restoring growth.”

Invoking the Great Depression — and the failure back then of the world’s industrialized nations to cooperate — Froman said it was critical that the challenges of the summit be met.

Obama turns on charm to smooth ruffled British feathers (McClatchy)
With a salute, a smile and maybe just a little sucking up, President Barack Obama worked hard Wednesday to make up for any diplomatic rift he may have caused several weeks ago in the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom.

Obama, Medvedev hail ‘fresh start’ in U.S.-Russia relations (McClatchy)
President Barack Obama will travel to Moscow in July, part of what he and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, are calling a “fresh start” in strained relations between the nuclear powers.

We’re doomed, part XXXV (by Paul Krugman)
The Daily Beast: Sizzling G-20 wives.

Obama Gives Queen an iPod (Political Wire)
BBC: “President Obama has given the Queen an iPod during their private meeting at Buckingham Palace. It contains footage of her state visit to the US in May 2007. The Queen has given the president a silver framed photograph of herself and her husband. The official picture is what she gives all visiting dignitaries.”

GAO: Treat Big Money just like Big Auto (by lambert at Corrente)
GAO: “The U.S. Treasury should demand that American International Group Inc., the insurer rescued by taxpayers, seek concessions from employees, creditors and derivatives counterparties as a condition of its aid, the Government Accountability Office said…” You know, there are times when it seems that only the Obama adminitration doesn’t get this.

SEIU’s Stern To Obama: BofA CEO Should Be Fired If GM CEO Had To Go (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
One of the highest-profile union leaders in the country criticized the president on Tuesday for having a double standard for the automotive and financial sector bailouts. Andy Stern, president of the SEIU, said that it “defies logic, common-sense, and responsible governance to punish the auto industry while letting financial institutions off the hook.” In a statement provided to the Huffington Post, the union leader went on to call on Obama to fire Ken Lewis, the head of Bank of America, if he felt the need to axe GM’s header, Rick Wagoner.
Gosh, Andy, you could have helped to elect a real Democrat.  Instead, you went and endorsed Obama in last year’s primary.

Screwing unions better than Bush: “Change you can believe in” (by J –SOM at Liberal Rapture)
Below is a comment from a person named Mitch on this Mother Jones post. Mitch gets it like only a good old fashioned FDR/Truman liberal can. I love this comment… “Screwing unions better than Bush: ‘Change you can believe in’?”
Click through for more.

First, they came for the union retirees…. (by lambert at Corrente)
Well, actually, they did that already, several times. But they’re doing it again. Online WSJ: “…President Barack Obama’s recovery plan for General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC appears to take aim at union retirees, a usually reliable Democratic constituency.” Especially since the state of Michigan went for Obama in the primaries. Oh, wait…

Geithner-san (by Paul Krugman)
Adam Posen, who really really knows what went down during Japan’s lost decade, says: “What the Obama team is proposing is disconcertingly similar to the actions of Japanese Prime Ministers Hashimoti, Obuchi, and Mori in 1995 and 1998: Rather than ask the legislature for straightforward recapitalization money, you have the political leadership preferring to risk overpaying current owners of toxic assets rather than forcing sales. For all of Japan’s supposed intervention in markets, its government still lacked the stomach for taking over banks, let alone closing them.” To be fair: the Obama team really does face huge political obstacles in doing the right thing. Maybe it really can’t be done; as Rahm Emanuel said about me, “[unprintable].” But we shouldn’t kid ourselves. Japan is us.

Watchdogs: Treasury won’t disclose bank bailout details (McClatchy)
The massive programs designed to rescue the nation’s financial sector are operating without adequate oversight, with vague goals and limited disclosure of their details to the taxpayers who are paying for them, government watchdogs told a Senate panel Tuesday.

Americans Overwhelmingly Support Executive Pay Caps (Political Wire)
A new Quinnipiac poll finds that American voters say by 81% to 16% margin that the government should limit executive compensation at companies receiving federal help, and say 47% to 44% that boards of directors and top managers at these companies should be forced to resign. Support for income limits is strong among Democrats, Republicans and independent voters and in all income groups, but the call for forced resignations drops as income rises.

Bank Rescue 2.0: Treasury Could Dump Toxic Assets Online (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
The Treasury Department isn’t ruling out a novel proposal floated in small circles of tech/finance experts: to post Wall Street’s toxic assets online, so any American with an Internet connection has the chance assess their value, and maybe even purchase them. “Treasury hasn’t endorsed or rejected the idea,” said an official at the Department. Economists and activists speak highly of the plan. They argue that an online index would boost the government’s efforts to purge banks of their dead weight, and open up a process that is currently expected to be highly secretive and overseen by just a handful of Wall Street’s most powerful firms.

Analysis: Dems punt hard choices on Obama budget (AP)
President Barack Obama’s Democratic allies in Congress are taking only baby steps with his budget, putting off crucial decisions on his ambitious plans to expand health care, curb global warming and raise taxes on the wealthy. Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and both Bushes all got far stronger assists from Congress on their first budgets. Nonetheless, Obama, is counting on votes approving budget outlines this week to give him some semblance of momentum.
Because a SEMBLANCE of what is happening is what counts in America, not what is actually happening.

Obama Budget Reduces Deficit by $900 Billion Compared to Current Budget Policies (CBPP)
Contrary to some claims, President Obama’s 2010 budget would reduce federal deficits by about $900 billion over the next ten years compared to current budget policies.  The $900 billion is the difference between deficits over the next decade under the President’s budget, as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and projected deficits under a realistic assessment of current budget policies. (See figure below.)

Report: Campaign To Drum Up Outrage About Obama Budget A Bust (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
As you know, an array of groups have been working hard to drum up a sense of public passion about Obama’s budget plan, calling on folks to deluge their members of Congress with calls in favor or in opposition to it. How is that working out? Not so well, according to Congress Daily, which reports that the public doesn’t seem to care much at all: “Despite urgent pleas by interest groups over cable TV, radio, and the Web, congressional switchboard operators have not seen any noticeable spike in calls, according to the office of the Senate sergeant-at-arms. Over the past few days, the switchboard has handled about the same number of calls it typically experiences on a normal legislative day.”

Is Obama’s Grassroots Effort Working? (Political Wire)
Though Organizing for America says they’ll deliver more than 600,000 signed petitions in support of President Obama’s budget today, Congress Daily suggests it’s hardly moving the needle. “With President Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget hitting the House and Senate floors this week, groups for and against the spending plan have issued strong appeals for citizens to pick up their phones and let their voices be heard on Capitol Hill. But, even in the offices of targeted Democrats whose budget votes may be up for grabs, the phones are not ringing off the hook.”

Pentagon war spending hits $685.7 billion: GAO (Reuters)
Pentagon spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to fight terrorism elsewhere has reached $685.7 billion since 2001, a U.S. government watchdog agency said on Monday. The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, said the Iraq war accounted for $533.5 billion in Defense Department spending obligations through last December, while spending on operations in Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa and the Philippines totaled $124.1 billion. The remaining $28.1 billion was for operations to defend the U.S. mainland, the GAO said in a letter to Congress dated March 30.

Somebody Tell Obama: Gap Widens Between Blacks and Whites (by Glen Ford at the Black Agenda Report)
The data on the actual State of Black America roll in like clockwork, a graphic display of the fact that there has never been such a thing as a “post-racial society” in the United States. Barack Obama rose to the presidency claiming that Blacks had already come “90 percent of the way” toward racial equality, yet the National Urban League’s annual report on the State of Black America shows Blacks at only 71.1 percent of equality of with whites – “and slipping.” The League urges Obama to make sure Blacks are included in his “green revolution” of jobs, but that is unlikely, since Obama “does not support race-based solutions, even when race is the root of the problem.”

Partying like it’s 1931 (by Paul Krugman)
I’m detecting a trend in commentary that I find slightly ominous. Some of the economic news lately has been slightly better than expected, which was bound to happen at some point (on average, after all, half the news should be better than expected). Mostly this is in the form of things getting worse more slowly, but it wouldn’t be surprising if we see, say, an uptick in industrial production in a few months, as the inventory cycle runs its course. If so, that doesn’t mean the worst is over. There was a pause in the plunge in early 1931, and many people started to breathe easier. They were wrong.

So far, there’s nothing pointing to a fundamental turnaround this year, or next, or for that matter as far as the eye can see.

With friendly communities like these… (by Damon at Corrente)
In a BusinessWeek ranking of America’s 25 wealthiest towns, Mayor Caroline Bazzini of #1 ranked Brookville, New York on Long Island brags of her village: “And the town does its best to enforce that privacy. ‘There is no parking on any street in Brookville,’ said Mayor Caroline Bazzini. ‘So in order to come and be here in Brookville, you need to know the people.’” Who says you need gates and walls to keep ‘undesirables’ out?

Eshu’s blues: Ayers and Dohrn Speak Out on Behalf of the Emperor (by michael hureaux perez at the Black Agenda Report)
Oh, how the once-revolutionaries have fallen! Thus, former Weatherman William Ayers and his back-in-the-day comrade and spouse Bernardine Dohrn sing the praises of the Wall Street champion, Barack Obama. “It is painful to watch them perform these ministrations for a political hack who won’t even stand up to the butchers who drove the Clinton political machine or the Carter political machine decades before him.” As Lenin remarked back in his own time, “In the end run, anarchists were turning out to be no more than ‘liberals with bombs.’”  We need to return to Amilcar Cabral’s admonition to “tell no lies, claim no easy victories.”

NARAL blasts DNC chief (Political Intelligence, Boston Globe)
The abortion-rights wing of the Democratic Party is none too happy today with a top leader. Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia, President Obama’s hand-picked chairman of the Democratic National Committee, signed a bill including state funding for crisis pregnancy centers, which abortion right advocates calls “anti-choice organizations.” The NARAL Pro-Choice America political action committee said today that Kaine has “taken action that’s inconsistent with the strong pro-choice platform adopted by party leaders last August.”
Gee, NARAL, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to have endorsed Obama during last year’s primary.  I doubt Hillary would have chosen an anti-choice DNC chair.

Freedom Rider: Opposing Obama (by Margaret Kimberley at the Black Agenda Report)
[The] pitifully small peace demonstration in the nation’s capitol [weekend before last] reveals a near-totally demobilized U.S. Left mired in such timidity and delusion, activists fear to mention Barack Obama’s name when denouncing the wars he so aggressively prosecutes. “The new president, who makes no secret of his intention to continue the previous administration’s war of terror, escaped serious scrutiny and the condemnation he deserves.” Forgetting that power concedes nothing without a demand, the Left shrinks from making real demands of the actual president in power.

Obama’s New Teleprompter Problem (by pm317 at No Quarter)
You have all seen the little transparent screens on both sides of the podium replaced by a giant TV screen in the back of the room. If you have not, here is Fox News with the evidence. [See below.] There is no improvement, however. We still see Obama READING what is on a screen but are spared the tennis head. His eyes are still glued to the screen without any free expression on his face reacting to either the audience or the material on the screen which leads me to believe he is not all that familiar with what is on the screen but just reading it.

Signs Obama White House May Be Close to Settling Missing Emails Case (Mother Jones)
The long saga of the missing White House emails may be finally nearing its end. The Obama administration and two nonprofits that are suing it over millions of missing Bush-era emails have called a truce.

Groups may sue Obama admin for ‘demonizing lobbyists’ (The Raw Story)
In a pairing of unusual bedfellows, two public interest groups have joined with the American League of Lobbyists to protest an Obama memorandum forbidding oral contact between administration officials and registered lobbyists over bailout funding… Language in the memorandum that the groups are objecting to includes statements like this: “An executive department or agency official shall not consider the view of a lobbyist registered under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995…concerning particular projects, applications or applicants for funding under the Recovery Act unless such views are in writing.” CREW, ACLU and ALL want the White House to rescind and reissue that section to allow telephone and in-person communications between registered lobbyists and Obama officials…

Dave Wendhold, president of ALL told Roll Call earlier in the day Tuesday that legal action was “seriously [being] discussed,” if the Obama administration chose not to amend the memo.

A Split At Justice On D.C. Vote Bill (Washington Post)
Justice Department lawyers concluded in an unpublished opinion earlier this year that the historic D.C. voting rights bill pending in Congress is unconstitutional, according to sources briefed on the issue. But Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who supports the measure, ordered up a second opinion from other lawyers in his department and determined that the legislation would pass muster.

Justice Department moves to void Stevens’ conviction (McClatchy)
The Justice Department has moved to dismiss former Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens’ indictment, effectively voiding his conviction Oct. 27 on seven counts of filing false statements on his U.S. Senate financial-disclosure forms. “After careful review, I have concluded that certain information should have been provided to the defense for use at trial,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement released Wednesday morning. “In light of this conclusion, and in consideration of the totality of the circumstances of this particular case, I have determined that it is in the interest of justice to dismiss the indictment and not proceed with a new trial.”

Stevens Trial May Have Been Flawed, but Senator’s Unusual Connections to Convicted Contributor Aren’t in Doubt (Capital Eye)
While the fairness of Stevens’s trial may be in question, that the longtime senator had a clear financial connection with Allen and VECO is not. Stevens, who lost his re-election race in November shortly after the conviction, had collected at least $156,000 in campaign contributions from VECO through his campaign and committees he used to support fellow Republican candidates. CRP calculated the total to Stevens and other federal lawmakers in 2007 after two VECO executives, including Allen, pleaded guilty to bribery in a separate case involving Alaska state legislators. At that time Allen acknowledged rewarding VECO executives with bonuses as repayment for campaign contributions, which is illegal, and paying employees to work on renovations of Stevens’s property.

U.S. officials meeting with Uighur detainees in Guantanamo (McClatchy)
In a prison camps first, the Obama administration Tuesday dispatched members of a detainee review team here to speak directly with 17 captives from China who were swept up in the war on terror and ultimately cleared of being enemies of America.
If they’ve been cleared, then why the hell are they still in custody?

When Iris Mack blew the whistle on Harvard endowment’s derivatives to Larry Summers’ office, she was fired (by lambert at Corrente)
Another Cassandra. Harvard Crimson: “After a year-long stint at a European investment bank and another at Enron, Iris M. Mack signed on to be a quantitative analyst for Harvard Management Company in early 2002, hoping, she says, to find job security and distance from the risky trading and accounting practices that forced her last employer into bankruptcy in the company charged with managing Harvard’s endowment. But only a few months later, Mack says she was fired after she raised concerns to University officials about managers’ qualifications and possibly irresponsible usage of financial instruments [derivatives] that could have contributed to the recent and sudden decline in Harvard’s endowment.”

Nominee For Treasury’s Number Two Helped Draft Legislation Deregulating Banks (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
Tim Geithner’s new nominee for number two at the Treasury Department, Neal Wolin, played a key role in drafting legislation in the late 1990s deregulating the banking system, a former Treasury Department official confirms to us. The law that Wolin helped draft has been blamed by some critics, many of them Democrats, for easing up regulatory pressure on huge financial institutions, tangentially helping create today’s mess — and his role drafting it could come under questioning at his upcoming confirmation hearings.

Add Sebelius to list of Obama cabinet picks with tax troubles (McClatchy)
Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius on Tuesday joined a list of cabinet nominees who were forced to pay back taxes because of errors in their returns.

Legislation Would Curtail Warrantless Information Demands (PC World)
Four U.S. congressmen have introduced legislation that would make it more difficult for the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to obtain warrantless subpoenas to get personal information from ISPs, telephone carriers and other businesses.

How the House voted on a national service bill (AP)
The 275-149 roll call Tuesday by which the House approved a measure to triple the size of AmeriCorps and broadly expand ways for students and seniors to give back to their communities.

Public Financing Bill for Congressional Contests Introduced (Capital Eye)
A proposal to establish a system of public financing for congressional races was unveiled yesterday by a bipartisan group of senators and representatives who say this legislation would keep elected officials focused on governing instead of raising increasingly larger and larger amounts campaign cash. Based on the models in states such as Arizona, Connecticut and Maine, the Fair Elections Now Act would create a voluntary public financing system that allocates competitive levels of money to candidates, caps individual contributions at $100 and bans contributions, fundraising, and bundling by political action committees.
It’s a start.  But until public financing is mandatory, rich people will practically own the process.

Bill would drastically change U.S. energy production, use (McClatchy)
Democrats in the House of Representatives on Tuesday announced a sweeping plan to change how the nation produces and uses energy in order to reduce the risk of dangerous climate change. The bill — an incomplete draft that will evolve in the months ahead — would provide incentives to boost wind, solar and other renewable energy, would improve efficiency so that homes and businesses need less fuel and would support the development of cars that run on biofuels and electricity. It also would make using fossil fuels more expensive — and that will be the central issue of debate in Congress, with armies of lobbyists on both sides.

The measure contains a variety of terms intended to help businesses survive the energy transition, but it leaves open for debate the central question: how revenues from pollution permits would be used. That means the question of how consumers would be helped also remains to be worked out.

Petraeus: Israel might decide to attack Iran. (Think Progress)
At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing today, Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, said that Israel may take “preemptive military action” against Iran to prevent it from developing a nuclear bomb… Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor declined to comment to Bloomberg on Petraeus’ comments, which come a day after the new Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, warned that President Obama “must stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons—and quickly—or an imperiled Israel may be forced to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities itself.”

Push to end U.S. curbs on Cuba travel renewed (McClatchy)
Buoyed by a new administration, advocates for trade with Cuba unveiled a bill Tuesday that would lift travel restrictions to the island, allowing Americans to visit there freely.

Is It Time Yet for Health Care Reform? (by TexBetsy at Mock, Paper, Scissors)
In a word, YES!… Walgreens is offering a very nice band-aid for the problem.  Won’t do much for those of us with chronic illnesses or conditions, but a VERY nice start… Newspapers like the Las Vegas Sun are publishing editorials that say, “Despite the fact that we spend twice as much as these other countries for our health care, we get significantly less for the money. It’s time for America to move to universal health care. It’s the sensible thing to do.” From Reuters: “More than half of U.S. doctors now favor switching to a national health care plan and fewer than a third oppose the idea, according to a survey published on Monday.”

Sanders Puts Single-Payer On the Agenda (by John Nichols, The Nation)
The Sanders bill stands in stark contrast to the proposals being considered by the Obama administration and U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, which would establish a new public-versus-private hybrid to try and address dysfunctions in the current public-versus-private hybrid that has left more than 45 million Americans uninsured and at least that many Americans underinsured.

Barack Obama: Hypocrite on Health Care, Hater on Single Payer (by Bruce A. Dixon at the Black Agenda Report)
When it comes to health care, Barack Obama is a hater, and a dishonest one at that.  An honest and ethical hater tells you where she or he stands, and throws down the appropriate facts.  President Obama doesn’t do this.  He has claimed for years to be a proponent of single payer health care, the only practical and workable health care solution, but since his election to the senate in 2004 he has become accustomed to saying he would favor single payer “if we were starting from a clean slate” but of course we are not.  Insurance companies are powerful interests, he seems to say, and for some reason, we have to let them keep the thrid of every health care dollar they currently take. President Obama knows there is no blank slate and there never was.

Tobacco Lobby Lights Up Debate on Industry Regulation Capital Eye)
Whether there’s a victory cigar in the future for tobacco executives depends entirely on if Congress passes a bill in the upcoming days that would force more regulation upon the industry. The House is set to vote Wednesday on the legislation, which would give the Food and Drug Administration the power to approve or reject current or upcoming tobacco products and ingredients based on scientific and health findings… The tobacco industry has been increasing its lobbying expenditures since 2006, going from $19.7 million that year to $28.4 million in 2008, when a similar bill passed overwhelmingly in the House.

Supreme Court rejects Philip Morris’ appeal of $79.5M award to Portland widow (AP)
The Supreme Court today threw out a cigarette maker’s appeal of a $79.5 million award to a Portland smoker’s widow, ending a 10-year legal fight to keep her from collecting. In a one-sentence order, the court left in place a ruling by the Oregon Supreme Court in favor of Mayola Williams of Northeast Portland. The state court has repeatedly upheld a verdict against Altria Group Inc.’s Philip Morris USA in a fraud trial in 1999. The judgment has grown to more than $155 million with interest, and Williams stands to collect between $60 million and $65 million, before taxes and payments to her lawyers, said Robert Peck, her Washington-based lawyer.
OUR Supreme Court?

U.S. House race in New York too close to call (Reuters)
A special election to fill a congressional seat in New York state was too close to call late on Tuesday with less than 100 votes separating candidates in the race viewed by many as a referendum on President Barack Obama’s handling of the U.S. economy.

No money for Blue Dogs! (by lambert at Corrente)
As Chris Bowers says, let ‘em pay their own freight. Blue Dogs work against our interests and values: “Some highlight of their past behavior include being the driving force in the Democratic Party behind the 2005 bankruptcy bill (they voted 32-4 in favor), the 2006 ending of habeus corpus, the 2007 Iraq War blank check, and the 2008 FISA re-write (see here for both). So far in 2009, they only allowed the stimulus package to go through after extracting a pay-go promise from the Obama administration. Last month, they joined with the New Democrats to block foreclosure relief legislation, which Evan Bayh’s Blue Dogs in the Senate seem to have killed. And most of them will vote against the budget, too.”

DNC Hits Airwaves With “Party Of No” Attack (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
The DNC, keeping up the “party of No” assault, goes up with a new TV spot mocking the GOP budget for having “zero” numbers in it.

MSNBC: It’s News That GOP Budget Has Numbers In It (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
Today the House GOP, led by Rep Paul Ryan, finally released their alternative budget. And it really is a sign of the times that MSNBC proclaimed that the news here is that the GOP budget actually has numbers in it this time… The fact that this headline was delivered with no trace of irony whatsoever underscores yet again how politically disastrous it was for the Republicans to release the earlier, numbers-free version. It would really be interesting to know who made the final decision to go with that.

Conservatives Falsely Assert That Green Economy Legislation Would Impose $3,100 Tax On Families (Think Progress)
Conservatives in Congress are resting their objections to effective green economy legislation on a bogus stat. Conservative leaders like Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) are attacking the cap-and-trade proposal before Congress by claiming that it would “cost every American family up to $3,100 per year in higher energy prices.” This is a deliberate lie… House Republicans apparently took the total revenues from the hypothetical cap and trade system that MIT analyzed and crudely divided it by the number of households in America, getting approximately $3,100 per family.

What they don’t mention, however, is that not only did John Reilly explicitly tell them that this was an inappropriate way to do this calculation, but that MIT had determined the net welfare effect on a typical family and the burden would be less than 1/40th what they claim, and wouldn’t occur until 2015.

Stimulus ruling puts pressure on governors who oppose it (McClatchy)
White House Budget Director Peter Orszag says a state legislature can’t apply for funds from a key pot of education money from President Barack Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus plan if the state’s governor fails to do so.

Sanford: It would be ‘fiscal child abuse’ to accept millions of stimulus dollars for education. (Think Progress)
As Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) continues to wage an ideological war against $700 million of sorely-needed stimulus funds for his state, he has become more and more desperate to stave off his critics. Tonight on Glenn Beck’s Fox show, Sanford claimed that accepting the funds — 80 percent of which would fund education in his state — would be akin to “fiscal child abuse”.
Click through to watch the video.

Steele Urges Republicans To Be Like Him (Political Wire)
According to the Baltimore Sun, RNC Chairman Michael Steele “lashed out” at GOP infighting at a fundraising dinner “and urged the party faithful — some of whom have criticized his erratic statements — to be more like him: “unconventional, unpredictable … to do from time to time the unexpected.” Steele “jokingly acknowledged the rough road he has traveled since taking over the national party this year” and “expressed frustration with the public airing of party doubts about his leadership that have dogged his first months as chairman.”

Since they couldn’t have Palin, congressional GOP turn to their second choice: Newt Gingrich. (Think Progress)
Earlier this month, the top congressional GOP fundraising committees — the NRSC and the NRCC — issued a joint press release announcing that Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) would deliver the keynote address at their annual fundraising dinner. However, Palin’s staff quickly quashed the excitement, saying that “[e]nthusiasm during a scheduling meeting…was misinterpreted as a confirmation of attendance.” Embarrassed, Republicans began trashing the governor. “She was a disaster,” said one Republican source. “We had confirmation.” The GOP has now turned to its second choice — former House speaker Newt Gingrich. The Wall Street Journal reports that Gingrich has agreed to “speak in her place.”

Joe the Plumber stumped on Employee Free Choice Act: ‘I don’t know everything about everything.’ (Think Progress)
Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, better known as “Joe the Plumber,” is currently in Pennsylvania shilling against the Employee Free Choice Act on behalf of the anti-labor group Americans for Prosperity. As ThinkProgress reported, Wurzelbacher faced a tough crowd near Pittsburgh on Monday, where union members rallied against him. He faced a similarly critical audience in Harrisburg yesterday, and then “skipped a subsequent rally in Philadelphia.” Keystone Progress caught up with Wurzelbacher in Harrisburg and asked him about why he opposes the Employee Free Choice Act. The fake plumber was stumped, admitting that he only knows “a little” on most issues. “I don’t know everything about everything,” he added.
Click through to watch the video.

Feith Responds To Spanish Charges: ‘I Never Advocated’ For Torture, I Was Just ‘Giving Advice’ (Think Progress)
Last week, a Spanish court said it would consider opening a criminal case against six Bush administration officials “over allegations they gave legal cover for torture at Guantanamo.” Yesterday, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, one of the officials implicated in the complaint, went on Fox News to defend himself in front of torture advocate Bill O’Reilly. Feith argued that the charges that he helped approve torture are completely bogus. “I’m being criticized for a position that I never advocated. And so the facts are just wrong,” he said. Feith said he was simply giving “advice” to President Bush and had no role in “directing” torture policy.
Click through to watch the video.

Media Crisis and Grassroots Response (by Jordan Flaherty at the Black Agenda Report)
The collapsing corporate media model of journalism does not augur well for the alternative, Left press, which no longer does much nitty-gritty work of investigation and slogging-it-out muckracking. In days gone by, “hundreds of radical magazines, newspapers and radio stations did the hard work of covering stories that the corporate media wouldn’t take on.” But not much, anymore. Left media need to re-evaluate their function, and rebuild a base of solid reporting with a mission. “It’s not enough for media to be focused on grassroots struggles; we also need communication, collaboration, and empathy for those directly affected.”

Sesame Street shows struggles of troops, families (McClatchy)
After the lights came up in the ETV studio following last week’s screening of an upcoming Sesame Street show, Capt. Lee Anderson offered a quick appraisal. “This is great … it’s a good thing,” said Anderson, a member of the S.C. Army National Guard. ”Everybody, not just kids, needs to see it.” The Sesame Street show Anderson recommended is “Coming Home: Military Families Cope with Change.” It’s on at 8 p.m. Wednesday on South Carolina’s statewide public TV network.
The media could help in so many ways to restore our nation to sanity.

Rasmussen Polls On Non-Existent ‘Global Currency’ Issue, Before Admitting It’s A Non-Existent Issue (Think Progress)
The right wing, led by the always reliable Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Glenn Beck, is in a panic about a supposed plot to replace the dollar with a “One World currency.” Repeating its pattern of echoing conservative memes, Rasmussen polled on the issue, and — unsurprisingly — found that most Americans favor keeping the dollar… All four of Rasmussen’s questions asserted that a proposal exists to create a “new global currency” that will “replace the dollar,” asking how important it is “that the dollar remain the currency of the United States.” However, in its own write up of the poll, Rasmussen admits that “the issue” is not about replacing Americans’ dollar bills but rather with moving to a new standard for the global currency reserves…

Indeed, there is no plan — and no suggestion of a plan — to create a global currency. The fact that Rasmussen even polled on Bachmann’s insane legislation banning the replacement of the dollar with a fictional currency shows just how unconcerned Rasmussen is with truth, accuracy, or intellectual honesty.

‘New York Times’ Spiked Obama Donor Story (The Bulletin, thanks to Rabble Rouser Reverend Amy at No Quarter)
A lawyer involved with legal action against Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) told a House Judiciary subcommittee on March 19 The New York Times had killed a story in October that would have shown a close link between ACORN, Project Vote and the Obama campaign because it would have been a “a game changer.”

Democratic voices all but absent from WaPo profile of Michelle Obama (by Jamison Foser at County Fair at Media Matters for America)
It turns out that despite the media’s yammering about Michelle Obama, she’s quite popular – popular enough that the Washington Post devoted nearly 1,400 words to the topic [Tuesday]. But the paper apparently had trouble finding any Democrats to talk to.

Vanity Fair overstates Limbaugh’s political influence (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair at Media Matters for America)
From VF’s Michael Wolff in the new issue: “Indeed, for 20 years, three hours a day, nothing in radio has so moved the audience to action as Rush: the Republican base both buys the pre-owned cars he suggests ought to be bought and champions the causes he’s hot on. Nothing in politics, or the news cycle, is as direct and powerful as this. In seconds, he can move an awesome tide, unleashing e-mail, telephone calls, and scary Web-site rage.” People sure have short memories. Because it was just 13 months ago that Limbaugh led the conservative revolt against candidate John McCain. It was Limbaugh out front of the pitch fork crowd demanding that McCain not be the GOP nominee for president. That McCain wasn’t sufficiently conservative to carry the Republican mantle into the general election.

So what did Republican voters nationwide do in response? They awarded McCain with an easy primary season victory and pretty much handed him the nomination on a silver platter. Not much of an “awesome tide” there.

Howard Kurtz plays dumb about…Howard Kurtz (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair at Media Matters for America)
That said, here’s Kurtz crowing…: “I took some heat a few weeks ago for quoting a radio industry analyst as saying that Rush Limbaugh’s ratings had surged during his vociferous battle with the White House. Now Brian Maloney at Radio Equalizer has the numbers to show that my piece was on target.” The heat came courtesy of yours truly. And according to Kurtz’s convenient telling today, he was right about Limbaugh’s ratings and I was wrong to question his work. Except that Kurtz–a media critic by profession–leaves out all kinds of pertinent information and mislead readers about what he actually wrote.
Click through for details.

The End of Conservative Talk Radio? (Political Wire)
Michael Wolff: “The dirty little secret of conservative talk radio is that the average age of listeners is 67 and rising… What’s more, it’s the Internet that is the fast-growing and arguably more powerful political medium — and it is the province of the young and liberal. The only sensible market view of conservative talk is that it will contract and be reduced, in the coming years, to a much more rarefied format.”
And don’t forget, studies show that anger causes heart attacks.  So by fomenting anger, conservative hosts are KILLING THEIR AUDIENCE.  So-called progressive hosts, take notice.

Doesn’t anyone think quality matters? (by Jamison Foser at County Fair at Media Matters for America)
A week ago, Politico editor/co-founder John Harris wrote a peice for CJR about Politico, now and in the future, in which he wrote a lot about Politico being a “major player” — but ignored little things like ensuring they focus on important stories … and that they get the stories right. Now the Washinton City Paper names Harris and his colleague Jim VandeHei DC’s best and second-best editors, respectively.  And, once again, the concept of “quality journalism” doesn’t even seem to cross anybody’s mind, as the City Paper focuses on business models and publicity.

MSNBC has a funny idea of “serious” (by Jamison Foser at County Fair at Media Matters for America)
MSNBC anchor Melissa Francis, on Michelle Obama: “Is there a danger in looking too glamorous during a recession, though, on a more serious note? I mean, we’re talking about clothes, we’re having a good time, but obviously, you know, there’s a recession going on right now.” That’s MSNBC’s idea of a “serious note”? How about considering whether MSNBC should devote segments to Michelle Obama’s clothes in the first place?

The Hill writes Obama gaffe story despite a lack of gaffes (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair at Media Matters for America)
A couple things are goofy about [a] Bridget Johnson piece, in which she seems to be auditioning for a gig at Politico. First, many of the examples she sites as Obama “gaffes” aren’t actually gaffes. And second, she suggests it’s the new media landscape of “Instant Internet communication and an explosion in political commentary,” that has put the new (Democratic) president under such a media microscope. Excuse me, but I’m pretty sure when President Bush left office two months ago the Internet, as well as the 24-hour news cycle, existed. So why the double standard for Obama?

ABC/WaPo poll peddles tired, inaccurate anti-Democrat stereotypes (by Jamison Foser at County Fair at Media Matters for America)
Actual ABC News/Washington Post poll question: “Which of these statements comes closer to your view: (Beneath it all, Obama is an old-style, tax-and-spend Democrat.) -OR- (Obama is a new-style Democrat who will be careful with the public’s money.)” The only president to balance a budget in the past 40 years was Democrat Bill Clinton, so ABC and the Post should probably drop this nonsense about Democrats not being careful with the public’s money. Meanwhile, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush — both Republicans, one of them universally embraced as a role model by the GOP — ran up huge amounts of debt.  And they did so by doing things like launching unnecessary wars against countries that didn’t attack us and giving massive tax cuts to billionaires.

So, when can we expect to see ABC and the Washington Post ask the public questions premised on the Republicans’ history of fiscal recklessness?

Politico wanders around the White House employee parking lot (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair at Media Matters for America)
Here’s the “news”: “With President Barack Obama showing the ailing U.S. auto industry some tough love Monday, POLITICO wondered — what’s in the driveways of White House aides? A lot of foreign cars, as it turns out…The lot was sprinkled with BMWs, Mercedes, Hondas, Toyotas, Saabs, Audis, Volkswagens and a Volvo.” Here’s how the item would have made sense…: “With President Barack Obama showing the ailing U.S. auto industry some tough love Monday,and urging everybody to buy American cars, POLITICO wondered — what’s in the driveways of White House aides? A lot of foreign cars, as it turns out.” But Obama didn’t do that, so the item’s pretty much pointless. Also, aren’t lots of BMW’s, Mercedes, Hondas and Toyotas, y’know, made in America these days?

O’Reilly: Protesters who use the Internet to organize are just like child molesters. (Think Progress)
Thousands of protesters have gathered in London ahead of the G20 summit, many of them angry over a multi-million-dollar pension paid out to a failed executive at the Royal Bank of Scotland. Host Jon Scott asked Bill O’Reilly what he thought of “these nuts,” and O’Reilly said “the Internet’s driving this kind of stuff” — including protesters and, apparently, child molesters.
Click through to watch the video.

Push For Stronger UN Women’s Department / Agency (by Alegre)
The United Nations is looking at several options for creating a new organization regarding women’s rights.  Out of the four proposals, one has the most support – a hybrid body made up of both a UN department and a UN agency which would be funded by assessments and voluntary contributions with a budget (hopefully) of a billion dollars at the get-go.  This is the nuts and bolts stuff that builds the foundation for real work on the ground when it comes to advancing women’s rights, health, education and prosperity around the world.  This isn’t the most sexy or exciting of reports, so we’re not going to hear about these efforts on the nightly news.  But it’s still mighty important.  File this under “things you won’t hear about on CNN or MSNBC”

Media Matters for America headlines

• Fox Business’ Smith falsely claimed banks returning TARP money obtained funds under Obama

• While interviewing WH official, Fox News again aired “FOXfact[s]” nearly identical to GOP rep.’s op-ed

• Adopting GOP-promoted term, Fox News repeatedly refers to estate tax as “death tax”

• MSNBC, Fox use stories on strip clubs hiring as opportunities to air footage of scantily clad women

• Norquist’s claim that Fox Nation “takes no position on issues” undermined by Fox Nation — and Norquist

• Cut and paste: “FOXfact[s]” about GOP budget nearly identical to GOP Rep. Ryan’s op-ed

• The Hill advances baseless GOP claim that Dems are attempting to “steal” NY, MN elections

• Hannity criticized Geithner plan to “seize companies,” but not GOP proposal to do so

• Misstating BBC question to PM Brown, Fox News’ Carlson continued media pattern of whitewashing Bush

• The Hill ignored GOP’s use of reconciliation process in forwarding claim it “was never intended to ram through major legislation”

• American public doesn’t buy media’s characterization of “Obama recession”

• Conservative media attack health-care reform in budget without addressing admin. response

U.S. Reporters Detained in North Korea Face Up to 10 Years in Jail
A media freedom group urged North Korea to drop plans to put two detained U.S. reporters on trial, saying they face up to 10 years of forced labour if convicted. Reporters Without Borders also said it was “by no means clear” that the two women were on North Korean territory when they were detained.

McClatchy wins investigative award for Guantanamo series
A McClatchy series on detainee abuse at U.S. prison facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan on Tuesday tied for top honors as the best newspaper investigative report of last year.

Hey Joe Strupp! Where Is Our Pulitzer-Nominees Leak?
In about three weeks, the winners of the Pulitzer Prizes will be announced! But shouldn’t we know who the “nominated finalists” are by now? The board designates finalists to each category before deciding the final award, and for the last six years, it has fallen to E&P’s Joe Strupp to tell us who they were.

Gannett Rolls Out New Content-Delivery Initiative
Gannett announced today a new company-wide project called ContentOne, which is aimed at improving the way the company gathers and delivers news. Tara Connell has been appointed to lead the initiative.

Hearst, Meredith Among Publishers Looking for ‘Strong Acquisition Opportunities’
A number of major media, information, marketing and technology companies continue to re-tool their businesses for digital growth and are “actively looking for strong acquisition opportunities of high-growth, emerging businesses.”

The Great Conde Nast Receptionist Purge
Conde Nast is planning to lay off many of its full-time receptionists. A tipster says Conde’s plan is to keep receptionists on “editorial floors,” and let everyone else go. If that’s true, the toll on the magazine staffs (though not on the receptionists who do get fired) would be reduced.

NBC’s Silverman Saved Friday Night Lights By ‘Yelling at a Lot of People’
Though it remains one of the lower-rated series on network television, the widely praised NBC drama Friday Night Lights won yet another reprieve from cancellation this week. But the deal — whose terms were not disclosed — almost didn’t happen, mainly because of the price of the license fee for DirecTV.

Helping Journalists Connect Elevates Entrepreneur to Success Story (Media Bistro)
Rising social media star Peter Shankman describes how he created an online community that connects journalists with sources, and how he plans to monetize it.

Myebook: Self-Publish Multimedia Books Online (Mashable)
In today’s do-it-yourself online world, self-publishing your own content can be accomplished in a plethora of ways. If, however, you’re looking to create and distribute a polished e-book made up of either text, photos, audio, and video, or a combination of all four, Myebook is a solution with a slick interface for creating and viewing e-books worth considering. With Myebook users can create their own e-book from scratch or PDF, incorporate a myriad of file types into their books, drag-and-drop assets, browse and effortlessly flip through other e-books, and connect with other members.

Disney Pays $18.4M For Kaboose Assets (Paid Content)
As competition in the kids online space continues to heat up, Disney has decided to buy the assets belonging to kids and family site network Kaboose for $18.4 million… Kaboose’s sites, including its flagship and Babyzone.com, Funschool.com and Zeeks.com, will be integrated within Disney Online’s stable. In an e-mailed statement,  Paul Yanover, EVP and managing director of Disney Online, said that the purchase was intended to expand the company’s appeal to the mom- and baby-related online space.

Wikipedia Founder Kills User-Generated Search Engine (Paid Content)
Just over a year after launching his Wikia Search engine, Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales is closing it down, citing the economy. Wikia Search attempted to duplicate Wikipedia’s success by allowing users to edit and suggest search results for different queries. It promised to insert transparency and a “human touch” in a market devoid of both. But according to the site’s own numbers, the experiment never took off. Queries are actually down since Wales re-launched Wikia Search last June, and the number of monthly contributions has also fallen sharply.

Housing Bubble Be Damned: Zillow To Co-Brand 180 Newspaper Real Estate Sites (Paid Content)
Along with help wanted, newspapers’ classified revenues have suffered greatly on the decline in real estate ads. While it’s not likely to turn those fortunes around, 180 newspapers have agreed to create co-branded real estate sites with Zillow.com. The deal, which includes newspaper sites such as The Tampa Tribune, Richmond Times-Dispatch and Winston-Salem Journal, represents an extension Zillow.com’s year-and-a-half-old real estate ad network and newspaper consortium. The newspaper sites will feature Zillow’s search tools, which lets users examine any home address, neighborhood or locality and find home values, recently sold homes, homes for sale, open house listings and local market data. The sites will also connect to Zillow’s real estate community content via Zillow Advice, as well as mortgage rates.

MySpace Targets Local Ads With Citysearch Partnership (Paid Content)
In a bid to attract more small-business advertising, News Corp.’s MySpace is launching MySpace Local, which lets members of the social network rate and comment on small businesses in their communities and share the ratings with their friends. The basic business directory will be provided by IAC-owned Citysearch. The service will provide some new streams of revenue for MySpace. MySpace Local will have several initial national sponsors, including Coors and Outback Steakhouse. Citysearch and MySpace will also split the revenue generated from local businesses when users click on Citysearch-provided content, like maps and menus. But more importantly the deal should provide a boost to MySpace’s self-service ad platform, called MyAds, which already lets businesses target their ads on the site.

Tanking Yellow-Pages Sales Send Idearc Into Bankruptcy (Paid Content)
Dragged down by cratering yellow-pages sales and dwindling local online ad revenues, Idearc Media has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The plan is to get out from under $9 billion worth of total debt, and the company said it has reached a deal with creditors to slash that to about $3 billion in secured bank debt… Formerly a division of Verizon, Idearc went public in 2006. It made a number of investments to bolster its local online advertising footprint since then, including a $3.3 million investment into hyper-local community site AmericanTowns.com, and buying out rival InfoSpace’s online directory business for $225 million. It also offers free and subscription-based business listings, display, video and paid search ads across Superpages.com.

chi.mp: Own Your Online Identity and Social Network Contacts (Mashable)
Social identity and content ownership is a hot topic that bloggers and twitterers alike discuss with passion. Whether you want to own your online identity, content, or contacts, or you just have social network fatigue, chi.mp aims to be your online social hub and solve your social identity woes. chi.mp, which launches to the public today, offers a new solution to the online identity conundrum that is one part social identity unifier (like Cliqset) and one part domain registrar and host for your multiple Web personas.

Glamour.com Gets Traffic Touch-up Courtesy Of Google (Paid Content)
Condé Nast’s Glamour.com has been making strides in driving traffic the past year—it gained four times to 1.4 million monthly uniques in February, per Nielsen—but the fashion mag hoping for a major boost from Google. Starting today, users will be able to feature a Glamour.com content through a widget on iGoogle, WSJ reports. The iGoogle feature, which was introduced last fall, lets users customize their Google homepage.

Analyst: Worst Days For Display Advertising Are Behind Us (Paid Content)
Another analyst is weighing in on the state of display advertising, and he is sunnier (in a relative sense) than most of his colleagues: In a research note this morning, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster says the display advertising market stabilized in the first quarter and won’t be as bad for the rest of the year as many other people think…

Given that declines in display accelerated sharply from the fourth quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009, Munster needs to explain why the acceleration won’t continue. He provides a couple explanations: 1) Some media buyers may have had cash left over from the first three quarters in 2008 that they needed to spend during the fourth quarter, which could have helped fourth quarter results (making the deceleration into 2009 look worse than it actually was); and 2) media buyers who set their ad budgets for 2009 during the first quarter may have been gun-shy with their wallets given the uncertainty around the economy and will spend ad dollars during the remainder of 2009 that they otherwise would have spent during the first quarter 2009.

Google Shutters Part Of Video AdSense Program (Paid Content)
Another Google advertising product bites the dust. For years, it was almost unheard of for Google to pull the plug on one of its advertising offerings. But lately, it’s been doing a lot of that. The search giant is dumping its Video AdSense program. By the end of April, publishers will no longer be able to sign up for the revenue-sharing service, and those with AdSense videos embedded on their page will have their videos replaced. Google was careful to note that publishers would still be able to embed YouTube videos onto their pages, but they would have to do it the old-fashioned way—by going directly to the site and pulling embed code from individual videos.

Yahoo Mobile: Now With New Design, Customization, and Social Features (Mashable)
Last month at the Mobile World Congress, Yahoo announced that they were developing a new, feature-rich mobile version of Yahoo to replace the current interface. Today, the company released its redesigned and upgraded mobile version, as well as the Yahoo Mobile iPhone Application. So what does the new mobile version of Yahoo offer? Beyond a prettier interface, it provides localized search, quick email access, deep personalization options and compatibility with Yahoo Messenger. The iPhone application is even more robust, with more instant messaging abilities and sharing features for photos and status updates.

Yahoo Sideline: An Open Source Desktop Twitter Keyword Monitor (Mashable)
Yahoo may be in overhaul with a new CEO and constant chatter about the health of its search business, but they still know how to program interesting and useful applications. Yahoo user interface engineers decided to try something a little different and experimental. The result was Sideline, a Yahoo-built application that runs on desktops via the Adobe AIR platform. Sideline, announced on the Yahoo user interface blog, is a desktop application that displays real-time mentions of specific keywords, brands, or names. It is capable of custom search groups, advanced queries, and refreshes the application with new mentions automatically. How does it do this? It pulls keyword mentions from Twitter, of course!

The Yahoo Sideline project seems to have grown out of an internal project over at Yahoo, the goal of which was to create a desktop application that utilized Twitter, would be compatible with Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux with minimal work, and didn’t require learning new programming languages. The result was an Adobe AIR application, which allows for the building of apps in Web-specific languages, such as PHP, HTML, and Javascript.

Murdoch to Make a Play for Twitter? (by Michael Wolff at Newser.com)
There may not be anything less than Twitter that can distract Wall Street from News Corp.’s stubborn and, at this point, unnatural newspaper fetish, and, as well, convince it, for one last hurrah, that Rupert isn’t… well, gone.

PitchTV: Your Elevator Pitch On a Virgin Atlantic Flight (Mashable)
Richard Branson is giving entrepreneurs an opportunity for a little bit of fame, if not fortune, through a new production that will air on Virgin Atlantic flights. The billionaire is launching PitchTV, which asks entrepreneurs to submit video elevator pitches for their business. Users then get to vote on their favorites, with the top 5 being compiled and shown on Virgin’s in-flight entertainment system. Right now there isn’t much to the venture, other than a blog post from Branson and a page for entrepreneurs to upload their video. Branson hints that there is more to come though, writing that “Viewers will be able to get in contact with the chosen entrepreneurs and who knows – among the viewers might be someone with the power to bring your idea to life. Each year, I will also personally select my favourite pitch, and the winner will receive a very special prize which I’ll reveal more details about later on.”