Permanent link to MTA daily media news

Matt Davies

Here’s news: G-20 summit actually achieved something (by Kevin G. Hall and Steven Thomma, McClatchy)
The leaders of the world’s major industrialized nations accomplished something at their G-20 summit here Thursday that rarely happens at such gatherings of heads of state. They produced large achievements. They pledged the first-ever global regulation of hedge funds and private-equity firms, big players in global finance that have enjoyed operating under the regulatory radar. They agreed to a require banks to set aside more capital in good times to help them function in bad times. They vowed to crack down on tax haven nations that allow the wealthy to escape taxation. And they pledged $1.1 trillion to the International Monetary Fund and related institutions to help revive the global economy.

In short, the summit marks the end of an era of unbridled global capitalism and a turn toward stronger government oversight of economics, coordinated globally. Leaders of the Group of 20 effectively closed the door on an era of history and opened the door to a new one.

President Obama Heralds ‘Historic’ Effort at G-20 (by Jake Tapper at Political Punch, ABC News)
President Obama [Thursday] afternoon expressed confidence that the economic and regulatory steps the G-20 countries committed to this afternoon will mark “a turning point in our pursuit of global economic recovery.”

An IFI success (by Paul Krugman)
Credit where credit (line) is due: the G20 outcome was better than I expected, with something substantive and important emerging — namely, much bigger funding for international financial institutions (IFIs), plus expanded trade credit. This will help smaller, currency-crisis countries a lot. A turning point? No. But realistically, most big-time international meetings produce nothing; this did something significant.

House, Senate budget plans boost Obama agenda (AP)
Passage by both House and Senate of companion budget plans gave President Barack Obama and his allies on Capitol Hill a key victory, but the debates also exposed some of the president’s vulnerabilities. Obama’s Democratic allies passed plans broadly supporting the young administration’s agenda of higher spending on domestic programs like education and overhauling the nation’s health care system. The $3.6 trillion House plan passed by a 233-196 vote Thursday.

But 20 House Democrats, mostly lawmakers representing GOP-leaning areas, abandoned Obama on the final vote. That reflected considerable unhappiness over unending deficits. Even after modest cuts to Obama’s budget, the House plan predicts a $598 billion deficit in five years, while the Senate plan would produce a $508 billion shortfall.

Bayh And Nelson Vote Against Obama Budget Because It ‘Costs Too Much,’ But Support Costly Estate Tax Bill (Think Progress)
While not a single Republican broke with their party to vote yes on the measure, two “moderate” Democrats — Sens. Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) — voted no. Nelson defended his vote in a prepared statement: “…it just costs too much.” Similarly, Bayh issued a statement saying he opposed the budget in an attempt to be the voice of “fiscal responsibility“… But if Bayh and Nelson are really concerned about the cost of the budget, why then did they also vote yesterday in favor of a $250 billion tax cut for the rich? As the AP explains, Bayh and Nelson along with eight other “moderate” Democrats broke with Obama and voted to reduce estate taxes from which 99.7 percent of Americans were already exempt.

What we’re dealing with:

Employment Report: 663K Jobs Lost, 8.5% Unemployment Rate (Calculated Risk)

Part Time for Economic Reasons Hits 9 Million (Calculated Risk)

The Full Picture: Broader Unemployment Hits 15.6% (Real Time Economics, Wall Street Journal)

Bankruptcy filings mount amid growing job losses (McClatchy)

Worrisome trend: FHA sees rise in defaults on its mortgages (McClatchy)

One in 10 Americans gets help from U.S. to buy food (Reuters)

Bonus Quote of the Day (Political Wire)
“My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.” – President Obama, quoted by Politico, in a behind-the-scenes account of the president’s recent meeting with Wall Street CEOs.
Yes, and if you don’t stop coddling them, President Obama, we’ll be coming after you, too.  Politically, of course.

Tell me again why the AIG contracts are so legitimate we’re paying 100 cents on the dollar for them? (by lambert at Corrente)
Chris Whalen: “…As with the phony reinsurance contracts that AIG and other insurers wrote for decades, when AIG wrote hundreds of billions of dollars in CDS contracts, neither AIG nor the counterparties believed that the CDS would ever be paid. Indeed, one source with personal knowledge of the matter suggests that there may be emails and actual side letters between AIG and its counterparties that could prove conclusively that AIG never intended to pay out on any of its CDS contracts…” How can a system so corrupt and so broken be said to “recover”? We’ve never seen the loan tapes! We still don’t know how big The Big Shitpile is! What does recovery look like in such circumstances?

Joseph Stiglitz: “It’s going to be bad, very bad” (from Der Spiegel)
In an interview, the Nobel Prize-winner and former chief economist at the World Bank talks about the Great Depression, Obama’s stimulus package and today’s financial crisis.

No Return to Normal (by James K. Galbraith)
A paradox of the long view is that the time to embrace it is right now. We need to start down that path before disastrous policy errors, including fatal banker bailouts and cuts in Social Security and Medicare, are put into effect. It is therefore especially important that thought and learning move quickly. Does the Geithner team, forged and trained in normal times, have the range and the flexibility required? If not, everything finally will depend, as it did with Roosevelt, on the imagination and character of President Obama.

Too Much To Ask (by paradox at The Left Coaster)
Little people who commit crimes go to jail and prison, but somehow our Wall Street folks have the chutzpah to expect taxpayer money to save their jobs—along with their bonuses—after committing fraud. The rich are different, yeah… Almost all of the time the Obama administration is in alignment with my political frame of reference, yet they seem completely blind to the laws of reality and accountability when it comes to rescuing Finance. If the little people don’t come first or are even given basic dignity this can’t work, and I’m hurt and a little bewildered Geithner and Bernanke don’t see that.

Inflation and the Fed (by Mark Thoma at Economist’s View)
So long as people believe that the Fed is committed to preventing an outburst of inflation, and that they are capable of carrying through on that commitment, expectations will remain well-anchored. But if people believe that that Fed’s hands are tied because of the harm reducing inflation would bring to the real economy, an out of control deficit, or due to political considerations that force them to accept inflation they could and would battle otherwise, then we have a different situation and long-run inflation expectations will change accordingly.

So there is nothing at all – except the credibility of the central bank – that guarantees expectations will remain anchored. I still believe that the Fed can and will prevent an inflation problem from developing, and I am not alone, but there are respected analysts who see it otherwise, or who are at least very worried, and that means the public can’t be too far behind.

The Mark-to-Market Myth (by James Kwak at The Baseline Scenario, thanks to Economist’s View)
[T]he Financial Accounting Standards Board voted – by one vote – to relax accounting standards for certain types of securities, giving banks greater discretion in determining what price to carry them at on their balance sheets. The new rules were sought by the American Bankers Association, and not surprisingly will allow banks to increase their reported profits and strengthen their balance sheets by allowing them to increase the reported values of their toxic assets.

This makes no sense, for three reasons.
1. Investors and regulators are not idiots. They know what the accounting rules are. If banks claim they were forced to mark their assets down to “fire-sale” prices, investors can look at the facts themselves and apply any upward corrections they want…
2. Between the two options, this is the unsafe choice…
3. Mark-to-market is a red herring to begin with. Accounting rules are much more complex than “all assets must be marked to market” and “all assets can be marked to model.”…

I don’t know any of the back-room dealing, but it seems like the banking industry is taking advantage of the confusion to push through a change it wants, because it will make it easier for banks to massage their balance sheets and harder for investors to see what is really going on.
A phrase that Kwak uses in this post deserves a place in the American lexicon: “the bank marks to its own imagination.”

Fox News poll asks if increasing taxes for the wealthy means ‘nobody gets to be too rich.’ (Think Progress)
Fox News/Opinion Dynamics polls are known for often including a few loaded and misleading questions. In their latest survey out today, Fox’s pollsters asked a question that assumed that raising taxes would mean that “nobody gets to be too rich“:

Another question asked respondents whether they believed that President Obama “wants the financial crisis to continue so government can take over more businesses and grow the federal government.” Twenty-three percent said they thought Obama wanted it to continue while 68 percent said they think Obama wants the crisis to end.

Justice Department Again Delaying Release Of Bush “Torture” Memos (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
Obama’s Justice Department is again seeking a delay in releasing three key 2005 “torture” memos written for President Bush that offered legal justification for harsh interrogation, according to people involved in the negotiations. Justice had until [Thursday] to tell a court whether they’d release the memos, which were signed by Steven Bradbury in Bush’s Office of Legal Council and are being sought by the American Civil Liberties Union as part of a Freedom of Information Lawsuit. The ACLU just confirmed to me that Justice lawyers have told the group that they will not release them [Thursday] and have asked for more time. The ACLU and Justice are negotiating the terms of the extension as we speak.

U.S.: We’ll Push Hard for Palestinian Statehood (by Susie at Suburban Guerrilla)
Very good news: “…The United States will push hard for Palestinian statehood despite a new rightist government in Israel but anticipates a rough road ahead, a U.S. official said on Thursday. ‘We’re going to be working hard to see what we can do to move the process forward. But we’re under no illusions. It’s not going to be easy,’ said State Department spokesman Robert Wood… Israel’s new foreign minister angered Palestinians and raised the prospect of tension with Washington on Wednesday by saying Israel was not bound by a deal to start negotiations on establishing a Palestinian state.”

Judge Rules Some Prisoners at Bagram Have Right of Habeas Corpus (New York Times)
A federal judge ruled on Thursday that some prisoners held by the United States military in Afghanistan have a right to challenge their imprisonment, dealing a blow to government efforts to detain terrorism suspects for extended periods without court oversight. In a 53-page ruling that rejected a claim of unfettered executive power advanced by both the Bush and Obama administrations, United States District Judge John D. Bates said that three detainees at the United States’ Bagram Air Base had the same legal rights that the Supreme Court last year granted to prisoners held at the American naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Not that it should matter, but Judge Bates was a Bush II appointee.

Obama brings Afghan plan to NATO allies (AP)
President Barack Obama took his new strategy for the war in Afghanistan on Friday to NATO leaders reluctant to commit significant new forces.

So, if you give a lady what she asks for, that’s a bad gift? (by Sarah at Corrente)
Evidently if the lady in question is the Queen of England, and what you give her is a video ipod, yes. Amazing what louts we have dictating our manners, propriety and etiquette in the eighth week of the 44th Presidency, especially when you consider that Bush 43 often gave self-centered gifts to go with his loutish behavior. He got praise for his loutishness, you may recall.

The oddities of Obama (by J -SOM at Liberal Rapture)
Bowing to the Saudi Arabian king is the winner of the “odd Obama” sweepstakes. I poke around for reasons that are rooted in normative American head of state behavior. I cannot find a good one. Where did this weird act of supplication come from? Obviously, the Manchurian Candidate meme can’t be far from sight. I’d like to avoid it. Yet, I’m left with “Who is this man?”
American heads of state don’t bow to foreign monarchs. Period. This comes from a simple but fierce phrase “All men are created equal and they are endowed by their creator…” Bowing implies one man is “more” than another. A handshake is appropriate and respectful. Bowing means that one person is subject to another. This is fundamentally un-American.

[A] note on another President bowing: I have read that after the North retook the Confederate capitol, Richmond, Lincoln travelled there. Black citizens upon seeing the President on the street bowed to him. Mr. Lincoln bowed back. This bow from Lincoln was an untainted act of humility and an understanding of the meaning of equality. It was more than appropriate. It was majestic.
Here’s the video.  Bush was odd, too, remember?  And remember how that turned out?

Sebelius gets gentle hearing, with little mention of taxes (McClatchy)
Maybe it was the urgency of the health care crisis, or the Senate’s urge to finish business before leaving town for a two-week recess. But Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius breezed through her Senate confirmation hearing as health secretary Thursday.

GOP Legal Heavy Ted Olson Dismisses Right-Wing Assault On Obama Nominee (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
Theodore Olson, the top conservative attorney who served under Reagan and George W. Bush, dismissed attacks from the right on Obama’s choice for a top legal post, defending the pick as a “man of great integrity.” Right-wingers from Glenn Beck to Fox News are waging a loud campaign against Harold Koh, the nominee for the key post of legal adviser to the state department, saying he’s willing to impose Sharia law on U.S. courts and wants to subjugate America to international law. Olson doesn’t think much of the criticism. “The President and the Secretary of State are entitled to have who they want as their legal adviser,” Olson said in a phone interview with me.
Too bad Olson didn’t believe that we citizens and our elected representatives should have chosen our president in 2000, and not the Supreme Court.

House Passes Bill: FDA to Regulate Tobacco (by Alegre)
[I]t’s not a ban, but it’s going to help save countless lives in the long run… “FDA regulation of tobacco approved”.

Great News! (by Pat Bakalian at Alegre’s Corner)
Today Congresswoman Jackie Speier (CA CD12 San Francisco/San Mateo County) announced that she will introduce a bill to establish a Presidential Commission on Women. Congresswoman Speier said “I will be introducing this bill today…Today is a very significant day for women in America. April 2, 1917 was the date that Jeannette Rankin was sworn in as a member of congress, the first woman to serve in the House of Representatives… So far I already have generated 18 original co-sponsors and I am not done yet. I am hoping to double that number before the day is over…We are going to show how grass roots can move legislation.” You can help. It is very important that we all unite behind this effort. Please contact your Congress member and ask them to sign on as a co-sponsor.

Could it happen? Health Care for Everyone seems to be on the table after all (by katiebird at The Confluence)
It’s all over the news but, it’s been there before.  Will the Democrats finally get this right?  I hope so — because if they fail, the Republicans have some truly awful ideas.  House Republicans are working on this depressing plan: “…In the House, Republicans unveiled a budget plan that would gradually eliminate the traditional fee-for-service Medicare program, offering a stark — and politically problematic — alternative to blueprints from Obama and his Democratic allies. The plan would have future Medicare beneficiaries — people 54 and younger — enroll in private health insurance plans and receive a subsidy on their premiums. Benefits would not be changed for people in the program or those 55 or older.”

Fate of health-care overhaul could hinge on procedural gamble (McClatchy)
The best hope for overhauling the nation’s health-care system later this year may depend on a procedural change slipped into the House of Representatives’ budget bill. The provision would allow the Senate to approve health-care legislation with a simple majority vote, a change that would block opponents from debating the issue to death. Usually, 60 votes are needed to limit debate under Senate rules. Since Democrats control only 58 Senate seats, Republican opposition could block a health-care overhaul. The House bill’s terms, however, would permit Senate passage with a 51-vote threshold.

Senate won’t fast track cap-and-trade (Washington Times)
In a strong vote Wednesday the Senate firmly rejected President Obama’s plan to try to push through a carbon emissions cap-and-trade program through fast-track procedures, making clear that getting any bill done this year will be a struggle.

I sold you and you sold — naah, I just sold you (by Michael J. Smith at Stop Me Before I Vote Again)
As every three-year-old in the country now knows, the Democrats are getting ready for a breathtaking betrayal of the labor movement on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), otherwise known as “card check”, a measure that makes it easier to organize unions. The filibuster will be their excuse… Those mean ole Republicans who wanted to take the filibuster away are now going to… use it! (This is a nice mirror image of the Democrats, who fought to keep it and didn’t use it. Anybody see a pattern here?)… Obie, and the congressional Democrats, climbed labor’s support for EFCA into office, and now they’ll kick it away — as they did with the public’s warsickness. And no doubt labor, just like the so-called antiwar movement, will take the kick with a shit-eating grin and ask, Please sir, may I have another?

Leahy suggests that truth commission is ‘not going to happen.’ (Think Progress)
In a meeting on Monday with Vermont citizens, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) admitted that the truth commission he has advocated to examine Bush administration crimes like torture most likely won’t happen. Reporter Charlotte Dennett writes that Leahy said political opposition was too strong to overcome… Emphasizing that Leahy takes seriously his commitment to defend the Constitution, Leahy’s aide Chip Ross told the group, “He’s all you’ve got.” However, Leahy’s office sent an e-mail to reporters today objecting to “reports circulating on the internet” and claiming Leahy is “continuing to explore” the idea of a truth commission:

Senate makes sales tax deduction permanent (McClatchy)
The Senate fulfilled a dream for taxpayers in several states without income taxes by making permanent the sales tax deductions on their income tax.

Tedisco Grabs Lead by 12 Votes (Political Wire)
As voting machines are re-canvassed in NY-20, Jim Tedisco (R) has picked up quite a few votes, erasing Scott Murphy’s (D) lead in the race to replace Kirsten Gillibrand in Congress, according to Politicker NY. Tedisco now has 77,236; Murphy has 77,224. Saratoga county, the biggest in the district and a home base for Tedisco, starts re-canvassing Friday and could change the vote tally even more. Nonetheless, the race will still come down to the as-yet-uncounted absentee ballots.

If Norm Coleman Makes a Federal Case of It, What Will Happen (American Constitution Society)
If Coleman loses in the Minnesota Supreme Court, he would be entitled to file a petition for writof certiorari in the United States Supreme Court. It would be completely discretionary whether or not the U.S. Supreme Court would hear the case, and barring (likely) motions to expedite consideration of the case, it could take months before the Court would decide whether or not to hear the case and, if it decided to hear the case, to issue an opinion. (Bush v. Gore, of course, went from cert. petition to a final decision in under a week, so anything is possible in terms of timing.)

Palin joins Alaska GOP in calling for Begich to step down (McClatchy)
The head of the Alaska Republican Party called on Democratic Sen. Mark Begich to step down from the U.S. Senate, saying that the state’s voters would have re-elected Republican former Sen. Ted Stevens had they known the U.S Department of Justice would abandon its prosecution of him.
Step down.  Uh huh.

Sanford gives in on stimulus, will seek funds for S.C. (McClatchy)
Gov. Mark Sanford will comply with a midnight Friday stimulus deadline and become the last governor in the nation to seek millions of dollars in federal economic-recovery funds for his state, aides said late Thursday.

Blagojevich, his brother, top aides indicted (Chicago Tribune)
The ousted governor is charged in a “wide-ranging scheme to deprive the people of Illinois of honest government,” including trying to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat.

Blagojevich indictment about money: Lots of it (AP)
The federal racketeering indictment against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is all about money, and lots of it — including the big bucks he is accused of trying to collect selling or swapping President Barack Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat. The wide-ranging, 19-count indictment returned Thursday alleges the ousted governor hoped to get a lofty Cabinet post, substantial campaign cash or a high-paying job for his wife in exchange for the seat. The indictment paints Blagojevich as intent on grinding out as much campaign cash as possible and filling his pockets — even if it meant committing extortion and fraud.

The refinancing of billions of dollars in state pension money was in play in a massive kickback scheme, the indictment says. It says his wife got thousands of dollars in unearned real estate fees and a $12,000-a-month spot on convicted fixer Tony Rezko’s payroll. Blagojevich, 52, who was impeached in January after the scandal boiled over, denied Thursday that he had done anything illegal.

“I Hope What We’re Seeing Is A New Kind Of Heyday For Nightline” (TVNewser, Media Bistro)
On TV’s endangered list as recently as last fall, ABC’s Nightline is now solidly in second place on the late night schedule. For the just completed first quarter, “Nightline” topped CBS’ “Late Show with David Letterman” among Total Viewers and the A25-54 demo. It’s the first time in six years “Nightline” has outperformed “Letterman” for a first quarter. It’s also the first time in nine years the show has beaten “Letterman” in younger viewers three quarters in a row.

“Colbert Went Where the New York Times Feared to Tread on Glenn Beck” (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
We noted how on Monday the Times played dumb when profiling Glenn Beck. Over at HuffPost, Greg Mitchell contrasts the Times’ timid coverage with the treatment Beck received this week from Stephen Colbert. (Apples and oranges to a degree, but the comparison has value.) Mitchell writes: “Compare [Colbert] to the Times’ treatment of Beck as largely a voice for ‘conservative populist anger’ with his ‘moral lessons’ and ‘passion’ and ‘outrage.’… And it all comes on the heels of the new Rasmussen poll showing that 1 in 4 Americans now see the Comedy Central late-night shows as ‘viable’ news outlets.”

Count the problems in the NYT’s article on Obama’s G-20 trip (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
Just really dreadful journalism by Helene Cooper, who already embarrassed herself on the trip by whining on theTimes blog that Obama was trying to “muzzle” the press, because at a joint appearance with the British PM, Obama took three questions from the press, while the PM took four. Her round-up piece in Friday’s paper is just as heavy-handed and bad.
Well, she can join Ceci Connolly and Kit Seeley, who helped do in Al Gore’s presidency.

Tina Brown on Michelle Obama: “The last thing they need is to have Michelle become so big that she’s almost something you can’t sort of contain” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Savage “pray[s] to God that the Obamas don’t take down the pictures of Lincoln and such and replace them with, you know, Malcolm X“ (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Savage “A lot of these women look like post-op transvestites today,” and “we have a naked Marxist for president” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

While discussing whether media is “anti-religion,” O’Reilly claims media does not target Muslims “because they might get their house blown up” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

O’Reilly asks if Obama is “selling out America” in favor of a “global justice jihad” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

O’Reilly Writing Obama Book (New York Post)
Fox news commentator Bill O’Reilly tells Cindy Adams: “My next book, out the latter part of 2010, is on Obama. He’s becoming a historical figure not because he’s black, but because his liberal agenda is taking the country in a direction we’ve never been before.”

Hannity: It’s Michelle Obama’s “hope” to “get all these great designer clothes and that everyone will report on it and call me, you know, Jackie Kennedy” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Fox News’ Carlson echoes guest’s comparison of Obama’s Notre Dame commencement address to a Holocaust denier speaking at a Holocaust museum (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Fox’s Henneberg repeatedly refers to estate tax as “death tax” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Fox Business’ Varney: Europeans “hated George Bush” because they’re “pacifist pagans” who “hate practicing overt Christians” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Glenn Beck mocks Obama’s aunt’s “limp” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Teasing tomorrow’s show, Beck airs photos of Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, asks, “Is this where we’re headed?” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

In discussion about college life, Limbaugh refers to female professors as “professorettes” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh: “I’m making a supreme effort to ingratiate myself to the babes,” but female reporters asking Obama questions “are embarrassing” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh’s latest market theory: Dow up today because “President Obama is out of the country” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh on the Pay for Performance Act of 2009: “When the leftists start talking about fairness, they are the slave masters” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh: “In liberal terms, being an unelected governor, [Paterson] is an illegitimate governor; remember, they said Bush was an illegitimate president because he wasn’t duly elected” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
Except that Bush wasn’t chosen by a legal process—the Supreme Court had no business taking the Bush v. Gore case.  But the Paterson succession was based in the laws of New York.

Limbaugh’s leaving New York, and everyone’s happy (by Alex Koppelman at War Room, Salon)
Limbaugh says he’s moving his alternate studio out of New York City, where he also owns a condo, because of a tax hike — known as the “millionaire’s tax,” though its effect is broader than that — intended to help the state make up its budget deficit. (The majority of the time, Limbaugh lives and works in Florida.)… On “The Daily Show” Wednesday night, host Jon Stewart responded to the news of Limbaugh’s impending move, saying, “For years, New Yorkers have done everything in our power to get this guy to leave town. We’ve passed laws making it tougher for hot dog vendors to sell along the streets, we hold gay pride parades — there are barely any gay people in the city, but we thought it’d make him uncomfortable, so we shipped them in… We knew he was in to drugs, so we cleaned up Times Square.” (Video’s below.)

And after a speech he gave on Thursday, New York Gov. David Paterson — a bit of a joker himself – cracked, “If I knew that would be the result, I would’ve thought about the taxes earlier.”

Anti-EFCA Forces Launch “News” Site On Employee FORCED Choice Act (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
The forces massed against the Employee Free Choice Act have just launched a new “news” site that’s totally devoted to making the case against the measure, with a particular emphasis on the damage it would allegedly do the economy. The site calls the measure the “Employee FORCED Choice Act.” You can see the new homepage by clicking right here; note the similarities to Drudge. The url will be blasted out later today to hundreds of thousands on the email list of the anti-EFCA group Workforce Fairness Institute, which created the site… The game here is that EFCA opponents want to force labor to defend the secret ballot and binding arbitration provisions at a time when labor officials want to keep the argument focused on the plight of workers, because when the battle is fought on that rhetorical turf, labor has the upper hand.

Marriage Equality the Law in Iowa (American Constitution Society)
In widely anticipated ruling, the Iowa Supreme Court announced that marriage equality is required under the state constitution’s equal protection clause. The court’s decision invalidated a 1998 state law limiting marriage to a man and a woman. The case, Varnum v. Brien, was initiated by six same-sex couples suing the recorder of Polk County after his office denied them marriage licenses in 2005… “I think it’s significant because Iowa is considered a Midwest state in the mainstream of American thought,” said Richard Socarides, former senior adviser to President Clinton on gay civil rights. “Unlike states on the coasts, there’s nothing more American than Iowa. As they say during the presidential caucuses, ‘As Iowa goes, so goes the nation.’”

The success of drug decriminalization in Portugal (by Glenn Greenwald at Unclaimed Territory, Salon)
Drug policy is being more openly debated than ever before in the U.S. (Time ’s Joe Klein just wrote a column advocating marijuana legalization), and the unambiguous success of Portugal’s 2001 decriminalization — which is what enabled the Portuguese Government to address their exploding drug problems in the 1990s and to achieve far better results than virtually every other Western country — provides a compelling empirical basis for understanding the profound failures of the American approach.
Click through for more, including a link to Glenn’s appearance on C-SPAN to discuss this issue.

Jury Finds Professor Wrongly Fired for Comparing 9/11 Victims to Nazi Leader (Law.com)
A jury ruled Thursday that the University of Colorado wrongly fired the professor who compared some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi, giving him only $1 in damages but a chance to get his job back. Ward Churchill was fired on charges of research misconduct, but he maintained he was dismissed in retaliation for his comments about Sept. 11 victims. Jurors agreed, saying Churchill never would have been fired if he hadn’t written an essay in which he called the World Trade Center victims “little Eichmanns,” a reference to Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi leader who orchestrated the Holocaust.

A judge will decide whether Churchill gets back his job as a tenured professor of ethnic studies, after his attorneys file a motion for reinstatement.
I despise what Churchill said, but this is a victory for free speech and for keeping academia as unpoliticized as possible.

Media Matters for America headlines

• Interviewing Coleman, Fox & Friends repeatedly misinforms on Coleman-Franken race

• Foser: McCain lost — but the media treat him like a winner

• Drudge Report deceptively advanced accusation that Biden wrongly “credit[ed] stimulus for fire station”

• Fox News falsely claimed Obama budget “4x bigger than Bush’s costliest plan”

• Despite declaring “I’m not so concerned in what gifts wealthy people are giving each other,” Hannity repeatedly discussed iPod gift

• Wash. Post reported GOP criticism of reconciliation, but not that GOP repeatedly used process

• Fox’s Henneberg uncritically quoted dubious claims that estate tax would harm family farms and small businesses

File-sharing law has Swedes backing off ‘Net
Experts say Internet traffic dropped sharply in Sweden this week after a new law cracking down on online copyright violation went into force.

Three Spammers Sentenced in US for Advance Fee Fraud
Two Nigerians and a Frenchman were sentenced to prison Thursday for swindling people out of more than US$1.2 million in a massive e-mail scam, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

EU worries over newsprint decline
Now the European Commission is worrying about the fate of newspapers. It has called for submissions on the future of print media. It wants to discover how print is coping with the twin challenges of falling advertising revenue and the continuing shift to free online sites. The commission is particularly concerned about the future for small and medium-sized publishing companies (SMEs) that, it says, “play a vital role in civil society”, adding: “A dynamic print sector is important to guarantee press freedom and access to culture.”

Cardin: Why I introduced the Newspaper Revitalization Act
“My goal is to save local coverage by reporters who know their communities, work their beats and dig up the stories that are important to our daily lives,” writes Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.). “My bill would allow newspapers — if they choose — to operate under 501(c)(3) status for educational purposes, similar to public broadcasters. …The measure is targeted at local newspapers serving communities, not large newspaper conglomerates.”

Now Comes the Journalist-Consultant (by Jon Fine, Business Weeek)
Dan Abrams’ company guidelines forbid journalists from working on projects that violate their employers’ ethics codes. But his is a venture in which the participation of most serious journalists would be forbidden at any level, whether they work full-time or freelance.

Can Former Newspaper Employees Invent a Brave New News Model? (by Steve Outing, Editor & Publisher)
Recently I spoke with the founders of two new digital-only entities in Denver and San Diego that will compete with the remaining newspapers in their cities. These are being run by former newspaper journalists, at last unfettered by the limits put on them by having to produce and/or protect a print edition, and free of executives who have squelched their more radical ideas for digital reinvention.

The Colbert Report: Better Know a Lobby – Newspaper Lobby (video)
Stephen urges John Sturm to include a porn section in online newspapers to earn extra cash. (05:00)

AP’s Online Choice May Have Spurred Newspapers’ Demise (by Paul Farhi, American Journalism Review)
For years, newspapers have effectively been handing their online competitors one of their chief weapons in the fight for the news audience, the AP wire. Could this situation — and the more or less collective decision to offer free access to news online — have been avoided?

Aim the gun the right way (by Jeff Jarvis)
The last time Paul Farhi and I disagreed, it was about who’s to blame for the fall of newspapers (he found journalists blameless; I didn’t). We disagree about the same topic again. This time, he’s arguing – in an incredibly long American Journalism Review piece – that it’s the Associated Press’ fault for selling content to portals… The fallacy in Farhi’s argument is this: “When you give away the news, it becomes a commodity. When something becomes a commodity, you lose your pricing power. And that’s where we are today on the Web.”

Now see Joey Baker shooting that through such arguments - aka “the kool-aid of the bass-akwards mind fuck that the ‘old media’ folks try to sell you” – like a machine gun: “Our economy is based on the trade of IP, and yet, paradoxically, the internet has made information practically infinite. Therefore, attempting to make money by controlling the amount of information is doomed to fail. Put another way: controlling the scarcity of something that isn’t scarce can’t work.”
There’s more.

10 Ideas for Reinventing Newspapers (Presstime)
Ten experts from inside and outside the newspaper industry were asked to write mission statements for the core print product, say what elements of the current paper they would include if they were starting a print product from scratch and gaze into their crystal balls to predict the industry’s future.

Partnerships with Hulu, YouTube Could Help News Organizations (by Will Sullivan at Poynter Online)
Recent moves between major companies and Hulu and YouTube indicate that the future of video distribution could be outside your news organization’s domain name. Earlier this year, YouTube announced its Partners program, which has led to some users making six-figure incomes for their video segments… [These partnerships] represent an exciting shift in the way video sites and content creators are teaming up for their mutual benefit. And they present a lot of opportunities for media organizations struggling to monetize and distribute video content on proprietary or poorly-developed third party platforms. [They] may also help news organizations raise their revenues.

Murdoch urges papers to charge for online news – but is he serious? (by Roy Greenslade, The Guardian)
Despite having one of the most popular US newspaper websites, Murdoch said it cannot cover its costs with online ads. Indeed, though most US publishers hope online advertising will offset newsprint ad revenue declines, it will not enable them to break even. But Murdoch is being more than a little disingenuous. The reason that the WSJ can charge is because it services an affluent elite that needs its content in order to help it make commercial decisions. General news is different.

Keller: Times Will Be ‘Left Standing After the Deluge’
New York Times executive editor Bill Keller noted yesterday that readers have offered to donate money to keep the Times alive, and suggested that GM probably isn’t getting similar offers. “Saving the New York Times now ranks with saving Darfur as a high-minded cause.”

Are J-Schools Taking Wrong Approach Today? 
Many journalism schools seem to be missing the point of the digital revolution and, as a result, are short-changing their students. For one thing: They seem to be under the impression that Web savviness is synonymous with a technical mastery. And what about basic skills and classes in social media?

Avoiding Online News Biz Pitfalls with Better Skills and Tools (by Amy Gahran at Poynter Online)
In an Online Journalism Review piece published Wednesday, Dave Chase, owner and publisher of Sun Valley Online, offered specific advice on running the revenue (advertising) side of an online-only news operation with an eye toward what might help the Seattle Post-Intelligencer succeed in this field. Even if your feet are firmly planted on the editorial side of the traditional newsroom/advertising firewall, this is context that everyone in the news business should know. Updated journalistic skills and newsroom tools, especially your content management system, might better support online ad sales.

Mice, Playing: The Decline of Skeptical Journalism (Center for American Progress)
Science and health journalists are taking just as many shortcuts as their business reporting peers, and we’d all be wise to watch out, write Eric Alterman and Danielle Ivory.

WSJ Struggles With Kindle Delivery; Waiting For News Corp.’s E-Reader? (Paid Content)
While News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch wants to back an e-reader device to rival the Kindle, subscribers are becoming annoyed with the series of delivery delays WSJ has had on the Amazon device lately.

News Corp. Investing in Larger Mobile Device
News Corp. chief executive Rupert Murdoch said Thursday his company is investing in a mobile device for reading newspapers on a larger screen than the typical handheld device. Murdoch said the project is in its early software development stages, and he provided few details.

Cost-Cutting May Save SF Chron
Hearst is making significant headway on cost-cutting measures at the San Francisco Chronicle, a top Hearst executive said Thursday, suggesting the company may not follow through on threats to close the daily.

Bloomberg Aches From Wall Street’s Pain
With the implosion on Wall Street, Bloomberg potentially faces the biggest loss of customers in its history. The failure of Lehman Brothers alone pulled the plug on some 4,000 Bloomberg terminals, or about 1 percent of its entire base. Thousands more were disconnected in the fourth quarter of last year.

A.H. Belo to Cut Pay, Benefits
A.H. Belo Corp., publisher of the Dallas Morning News, said it will reduce pay and benefits in an attempt to save at least $10 million a year, furthering cost-cutting initiatives amid a prolonged advertising slump.

MediaNews Gets Breathing Room On Debt Payments (Paid Content)
MediaNews Group has struck agreements with its lenders that will allow it to put off principal payments on its debt. The publisher, which owns The Denver Post and 50 other papers, did not make its March 31 payment, NYT reported, citing sources briefed on the situation. Back in December, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded MediaNews’ credit rating to junk status on fears the worsening economic climate will squeeze the publisher even tighter. The ratings action affects $962 million worth of debt.

Magazines Contracting (scroll down)
For the first time in memory, the magazine death rate has surpassed the magazine birth rate. The number of print magazines that folded in the first quarter reached 101 titles. By contrast, the number of print magazines that launched in the first quarter totaled 95.

Dennis Shuts Maxim UK Print Edition, Goes Online-Only (Paid Content)
Dennis Publishing will shut the UK edition of its Maxim magazine in May and take the brand online-only after 14 years of publishing. Dennis will distribute the U.S. edition of Maxim to UK subscribers and newsstands, but the June edition (pictured) will be its last in print for the British version. Dennis doesn’t mention circulation or advertising decline in its statement, but says it is “bolstering the online editorial team” in response to “consumer demand for Maxim content online.”

Socialite Nepotism Amid Layoffs at Conde Nast
Si Newhouse Jr. ordered more layoffs at Conde Nast last month; receptionists and online writers were promptly fired. But the magazine honcho apparently doesn’t mind adding another Newhouse to the payroll. Stephanie Newhouse is set to join Conde’s Self magazine in a managerial role Monday.

Magazines Eager to Do ‘Creative’ Covers for Advertisers
Magazine publishers are showing new eagerness to involve their covers with creative advertising. That’s good news for marketers trying to make an impact in print, but it’s also causing concern that the ads could spoil magazines’ intimate relationship with readers.

XXX Film Spells Lost $$$ for U-Md.
Screening Canceled After Senate Gets Involved
Alas, the battles of yesteryear are not, after all, over.

Cash Crunch Scuttles Blockbuster Revamp (Paid Content)
Last year, Blockbuster started revamping stores in states like Texas and Nevada, trying to grow from just selling DVDs and movies into a full-scale entertainment retailer. Dubbed “Rock the Block,” the concept stores featured everything from latte counters and kid-friendly video game hubs, to tech lounges selling flat-screen TVs (via The Dallas Morning News). The company had transitioned all of its stores in Reno, Nev., but according to Home Media Magazine, Keyes said the economy was forcing it to put the brakes on expanding to other cities. Analysts say postponing the redesign could save Blockbuster between $65 million to $75 million in store remodeling expenses. 

Boston NBC AFfliate Says No to Leno at 10
WHDH Channel 7, Boston’s NBC affiliate, is refusing to air host Jay Leno’s new talk show in the lucrative 10 p.m. hour in favor of its own hour-long local news show, and NBC doesn’t like it one bit. “If they persist, we will strip WHDH of its NBC affiliation,” said John Eck, president of NBC TV Network.

@ Cable Show: Forget The ‘Lost Generation’—Start Younger (Paid Content)
Liberty Global CEO Michael Fries isn’t giving up hope when it comes to kids and TV. Forget the handwringing over the so-called lost generation – the increasingly untethered-to-TV teens and 20-somethings causing so much concern for anyone whose business model relies on a device that doesn’t fit in a pocket or can’t be carried in a backpack. Fries, the lone cable operator on a Cable Show panel with Jeff Bewkes, Rupert Murdoch and Phillipe Dauman, explained: “I have kids who are 10 and 7 and they have a very different relationship with the television than teenage kids. They love the TV in my house—it’s big, it’s flat, it’s high definition. The point I’m making is that we have a generation below this lost generation that we can still capture and retain—if this industry does it right.”

Internet’s Role in Cable TV Debated
Allowing free viewing of marquee prime-time shows on the Internet is causing anxiety among some in the media industry, who worry that the practice mirrors the potentially fatal error newspapers made of losing subscribers by not charging for online editions.

Edward Felsenthal on Life at The Daily Beast: ‘It’s Exhausting’
Edward Felsenthal, executive editor of the Daily Beast, said that the Beast’s original goal was to get up and running in time for the election last year and build a “compelling” audience. In the six months since the site launched, he boasted, “we’ve done that even faster than even we thought.”

TMZ Looks to Expand Its Role in Washington
TMZ.com is expanding its coverage of Washington, D.C. and attempting to put a new face on U.S. lawmakers with its unique coverage of body shapes, car styles, sidewalk interviews, and legal snafus. TMZ’s Harvey Levin was in Washington on Thursday looking to hire a second D.C. staff member.

New Web Series Takes on TV Industry
MyDamnChannel will premiere the mockumentary Pilot Season on April 20. The 30-episode series stars Sarah Silverman, Isla Fisher, David Cross, and Andy Dick as desperate actors, agents, and studio execs trying to survive Hollywood’s television pilot season.

Hey, boss! Facebook makes better employees
Twittering or on Facebook at work? It’ll make you a better employee, according to an Australian study that shows surfing the Internet for fun during office hours increases productivity.

Buy Time on 4 Cablers for Cost of 1 Broadcast Network
Road to the Upfront: Discovery Networks

Google Reportedly in Talks to Acquire Twitter
Google is rumored to be in late stage negotiations to acquire Twitter. They can be assumed to be well, well north of the $250 million valuation that they saw in their recent funding. Twitter turned down an offer to be bought by Facebook just a few months ago for half a billion dollars.

HOW TO: Build Your Personal Brand on Facebook (by Dan Schawbel, author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success (Kaplan, April 09), and owner of the award winning Personal Branding Blog, writing at Mashable)
With over 200 million active users, Facebook has become a personal, product and corporate branding hub. Every brand that exists on Facebook has the same core features and benefits, such as the ability to create a page, share resources, add multimedia and much more. You have a unique opportunity to leverage this platform for career success or as a playground for you and your closest friends… What follows is a guide to building your personal brand on Facebook.
Click through for more.

MySpace Tries To Boost Ad Revenue With New Series, Webmail (Paid Content)
While Facebook and Twitter continue to attract new users (and the big headlines), News Corp.’s MySpace has been chugging away in the background: partnering with companies like Yahoo to give users “off-network” access, upgrading features to increase its stickiness, and most importantly, trying to entice advertisers with more options than poor-performing banner ads. Following the launch of its local ad deal with Citysearch, comes another set of potential ad vehicles: new online game show BFF, and, according to aTechCrunch report, a MySpace-branded email service.

Gmail Gets Smarter Search (Mashable)
One of the main reasons to use Gmail over competitive webmail products or a client like Outlook is because of its lightning fast search capabilities. Today, those capabilities are getting a bit of an upgrade, in the form of auto-complete when searching, plus easier options for finding emails with specific attributes like file attachments.

BlackBerry App World: solid, not sensational
Review: App World for BlackBerry users doesn’t have the polish of the App Store for iPhone, but it has promise and potential to make an extremely popular smartphone even more useful.

On new cell phones, QWERTY eases out 1-2-3
Goodbye, numeric cell phone keypads. You’re going the way of the rotary dial. Touch screens and QWERTY keyboards will take over from here, thank you.

Internet calling companies ask EU to ensure free access
Internet calling companies such as eBay unit Skype have called on European policymakers to adopt policies that let consumers access their services through smart phones on any public network.