Permanent link to MTA daily media news

Obama Orders Burger With Elitist European Condiment (by Pareene at Gawker)
When Barack Obama made headlines by eating a hamburger this week, we were disappointed that he ruined his by ordering it medium-well. Sean Hannity, though, found something far worse. Obama didn’t want good-old-fashioned American ketchup. No, Mr. “Common Man” over here wanted his hamburger with “spicy mustard”—or, horror of horrors, “dijon.” Dijon! Real Americans don’t like things that actually make things taste like things, Princess OBambi! Then Sean Hannity plays the old “Grey Poupon” commercial, as if having seen that commercial 20 years ago is the only reason an adult man who lives in Chicago (where ketchup is not considered an acceptable condiment for a hot dog, btw, Mr. Hannity) would want “spicy mustard.” Then he literally says this: “I hope you enjoyed that fancy burger, Mr. President.”

Ingraham on Obama: “What kind of man orders a cheeseburger without ketchup, but Dijon mustard?” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh fill-in Steyn on Obama using Dijon mustard: “John Kerry couldn’t get away with that stuff but he makes it seem like just like a regular thing to do” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Silly? Yes. Ridiculous? Yes. Effective? Judge for yourself:
Pew Research Center

How to fight the ridiculousness—by showing how ridiculous it is:
Dan Rather, Daily Show Correspondent (by Ryan Tate at Gawker)
Right-wing ideologues were apparently allowed inside CBS to help drive Dan Rather from his job. So maybe it’s no surprise he helped the Daily Show mock Fox News conservatives [Thursday night]. Rather’s segment, a mock report about Richard Nixon eating a burrito in 1973 (clip below), keyed off Sean Hannity’s slam of Barack Obama for requesting “spicy mustard… or a Dijon mustard” on his cheeseburger the other day.

It’s awesome that Rather went along with this, not only because he actually was a TV journalist in 1973, but also because his Laugh-In delivery style provides a nice break from the fake-news-show’s relentless (if smart) sarcasm. If this fake news up-and-comer plays his cards right, maybe he actually make a name for himself inside a vaunted news organization with unquestioned dominance over the industry (Comedy Central).
Click through to watch the video.

How NOT to fight the ridiculousness:
The Republican Death Spiral (Political Wire)
Time magazine’s cover story on how the Republican party — with no new ideas and a lack of leadership — has lost its way.
Don’t assume the Republican Party is dead now, because exactly the same kinds of stories were being written about Democrats only four years ago.

And this is the most dangerous policy move Democrats can make:
Hoyer Says Social Security “Reform” Possible This Year (by Chris Bowers at Open Left)
In case there was any doubt Social Security “reform” is on the table under the Democratic trifecta, Majorty Leader Steny Hoyer should have erased it…: “House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Wednesday he’s ‘hopeful’ that Congress will reform Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid later this year, after lawmakers deal with contentious healthcare reform and energy bills…”

Taking comfort in easy solutions (writer not identified, Free Exchange, The Economist, U.K., thanks to Economist’s View)
I wonder if not privatising Social Security a few years ago turned out to be a missed opportunity. Imagine, some fraction of that 12.6% (including employee and employer contributions) of your income buying shares (though the plan was not necessarily to invest in the stockmarket) right now instead of being ploughed into a government programme that will probably cut your benefits. The return on your tax dollar toward Social Security is less than 2% and will most certainly fall further. You might be saying, “But if we privatised my portfolio would be down 30% now!” Keep in mind, if you have many years before retirement there’s a good chance your portfolio will recover.
My comment: Social Security is an insurance plan, not an investment vehicle. Name one other insurance program that is required to show a “return on investment”. But if you insist on showing a “return”, it should include the money I DIDN’T have to pay to support my parents in THEIR retirement, in addition to what I receive in mine. How does a stock market investment stack up against that?

O’Reilly, Stossel agree that Medicare is a “ponzi scheme” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

$7,600 A Year (by Susie at Suburban Guerrilla)
Millionaire Max Baucus’s idea of helping the middle-aged uninsured: By allowing them to buy into Medicare - for $7,600 a year. That’s more than I’m paying now for COBRA, which I could never afford if it wasn’t for reader donations. This is what a Democratic senator sees as an actual solution?… Single payer is the only thing that makes economic sense.
PUMAPAC shows the millions of dollars that members of the committee have received from the health care industry.

Single-payer FREE fax blast round 2 is here (by gob at Corrente)
The intrepid Clark Newhall has set up another single-payer fax blast, this time to the Senate Finance Committee, plus the White House. There is also an 800 number you can call (I haven’t tried that yet) to leave a message for the President or for Baucus – 800-578-4171. You can donate here to support these efforts. As Mr. Newhall says: It’s free. It’s easy. it’s free and easy. Do it once. Do it twice. Do it until they drop.

Baucus Assigns Health Care Reform Homework (by Alegre)
Ezra Klein … on health care reform… “Baucus has given every Democrat on the committee a different piece of health reform to focus in on. Sources say that some are taking them more seriously than others, and obviously no single senators gets the last word. But the assignments have been a way for Baucus to delegate some of the work and involve all the Democrats on the Finance Committee.”… So far I like what I see.  Schumer’s already working on the details for a public plan.  Stabenow’s tasked with pay-or-play and a buy-in for Medicare, while Bob Menendez will be working up info for an individual requirement.   I don’t know about you, but I can’t imagine any of these Democrats skipping out on their homework.  Stay tuned.

GOP Wastes No Time In Embracing Frank Luntz’s Vapid ‘Patient-Doctor’ Health Care Rhetoric (Think Progress)
Earlier this week, a memo written by right-wing message guru Frank Luntz was leaked instructing the Republican Party on how to frame the health care debate in order to defeat progressive reform… According to CQ, Republicans are enthusiastically embracing Luntz and his health care memo… As the Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky details, Luntz’s strategy is to “obstruct health reform by ignoring what Obama is actually offering.” In all fairness, Luntz is very candid about his strategy of misdirection. Since Republicans currently have absolutely no plan for reforming health care, Luntz says to avoid projecting a policy plan and instead focus on language that “captures not just what Americans want to see but exactly what they want to hear.” Indeed, Luntz also provides his polling and language advise to a plethora of health insurance companies.
Click through to watch a video compilation of conservatives using Luntz’s wording during the last few days.

Fox News promo: “Wal-Mart may be proof that we don’t need to nationalize our healthcare” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Fed’s Bank Results ‘Reassuring,’ Show No Insolvency (Bloomberg)
Federal regulators today unveil what Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said will be a “reassuring” picture of a U.S. banking system able to withstand whatever stresses the recession may inflict on it once a handful of institutions add to their capital base. Federal Reserve stress tests on the 19 biggest lenders show Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. together require about $54 billion, said people familiar with the conclusions. At the same time, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of New York Mellon Corp. have enough capital to help prop up flows of credit to businesses and consumers grappling with the worst recession in five decades.

“There is very significant cushions in these institutions today, and all Americans should be confident that these institutions are going to be viable institutions going forward,” Geithner said yesterday in an interview with PBS television’s Charlie Rose program.

American stocks surge after leaked results of banking stress tests bring relief to investors (The Times, U.K.)
American banking stocks jumped on Wall Street last night after the results of the US Government’s bank stress tests were leaked, giving investors some certainty over cash-calls to come.
What is with this leaking crap? EVERYTHING is leaked, starting with cabinet nominations and on forward. Is this government by leak, or leaky government?

Tom Toles

Hooray! The banking crisis is over! Let’s party! O.K., maybe not. (by Paul Krugman)
In the end, the actual release of the much-hyped bank stress tests on Thursday came as an anticlimax. Everyone knew more or less what the results would say: some big players need to raise more capital, but over all, the kids, I mean the banks, are all right. Even before the results were announced, Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, told us they would be “reassuring.”… I won’t weigh in on the debate over the quality of the stress tests themselves, except to repeat what many observers have noted: the regulators didn’t have the resources to make a really careful assessment of the banks’ assets, and in any case they allowed the banks to bargain over what the results would say. A rigorous audit it wasn’t…

But what worries me most about the way policy is going isn’t any of these things. It’s my sense that the prospects for fundamental financial reform are fading… Wall Street insiders are taking the mildness of bank policy so far as a sign that they’ll soon be able to go back to playing the same games as before. So … while bankers may find the results of the stress tests “reassuring,” the rest of us should be very, very afraid.

An Insufficient Effort (by Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism, riting at Room for Debate, New York Times)
[T]he stress tests fell far short of the needed level of review. First, they were administered by the industry based on scenarios provided by the industry. Most observers found the “adverse” case to be too optimistic. Even worse, banks got to use their own risk models, the same ones that got them into trouble. And there was no independent verification of the quality of the accounting. The number of examiners per bank was well short of what you’d need to probe a single business, much less an entire firm.

Second, the industry got to negotiate the results. This is simply unheard of. That suggests both a lack of confidence in the process and a lack of belief on the part of the key actors (Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, in particular) that the government needs to set the parameters and demand compliance.

Shorter Yves: Stress tests pin the bogometer (by lambert at Corrente)
Actually, I think Yves is just a little off on the second point. Maybe if we made a clarifying assumption? Maybe if we just assumed, for the sake of the argument, that the banks and the “government” are one and the same? Then all that so-called compliance stuff becomes meta and goes away. After all, since when did the government negotiate with itself? Can my right hand give my left hand money, as Wittgenstein asks…

Fed Dread (by Eliot Spitzer, Slate)
The kerfuffle about current New York Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Stephen Friedman’s purchase of some Goldman stock while the Fed was involved in reviewing major decisions about Goldman’s future … raises a fundamental question about Wall Street’s corruption. Just as the millions in AIG bonuses obscured the much more significant issue of the $70 billion-plus in conduit payments authorized by the N.Y. Fed to AIG’s counterparties, the small issue of Friedman’s stock purchase raises very serious issues about the competence and composition of the Federal Reserve of New York, which is the most powerful financial institution most Americans know nothing about…

[The banking insider composition of the New York Fed’s board has resulted in] disastrous groupthink, a way of looking at the world from the perspective of Wall Street and Wall Street alone. That failure has brought the world economy to the edge of unraveling… [P]erhaps it is time to take a hard look at the governing structure and supposed independence of this institution that actually controls the use of our tax dollars and, heaven help us, the fate of our economy.

Headlines you’ll never see (by lambert at Corrente)
Banksters meet over concessions. But you see it about unions all the time. Why is that?

The Spring of the Zombies (by Joseph Stiglitz, thanks to Economist’s View)
America‘s strategy for fixing its financial system is costly and unfair, for it is rewarding the people who caused the economic mess. But there is an alternative…: a debt-for-equity swap. With such a swap, confidence could be restored to the banking system, and lending could be reignited with little or no cost to the taxpayer. It’s neither particularly complicated nor novel. Bondholders obviously don’t like it – they would rather get a gift from the government. But there are far better uses of the public’s money, including another round of stimulus.

Capitalism in Crisis (by Richard A. Posner, thanks to Economist’s View)
It’s not too soon … to derive some important lessons from the economic crisis… [W]e need our central bank, the Federal Reserve, to be on the lookout for bubbles, especially housing bubbles… Our central bank failed us. The second lesson is that we may need more regulation of banking to reduce its inherent riskiness… Finally, let’s place the blame where it belongs. Not on the bankers, who are not responsible for assuring economic stability, but on the government officials who had that responsibility and failed to discharge it.
My comment: I’d be more likely to give weight to Posner’s arguments if he hadn’t described the Bush v. Gore decision as a kind of “rough justice”. According to him, the Florida Supreme Court wrongly decided its interpretation of Florida’s laws, so it was up to the Supreme Court, even though it had no jurisdiction, to right that wrong. Breaking the law to right what you think is a wrong is nothing other than lawlessness. And for a law professor and appeals court judge to advocate this kind of lawlessness was astonishing.

A Strong Safety Net Encourages Healthy Risk-Taking (by Jacob Hacker, The American Prospect, thanks to Economist’s View)
In every facet of Americans’ economic life — their health care, their pension plans, their job security, their family finances — risk and responsibility have shifted from the broad shoulders of government and corporations onto the fragile backs of workers and their families. In an era of partisan polarization and gridlock, we have failed to update our nation’s safety net to reflect the changing economic and social realities of our nation… Above all, our safety net is based on the dying belief that job-based health and retirement benefits can easily fill the gaps left by public programs, when it is ever more clear that they cannot. … Once again, economic common sense and social justice both argue for moving away from our present mess toward the broader and more direct pooling of risk. …

“Risk” may be the word on people’s lips today, but most understand it far too narrowly. Risk does not simply concern the breakdown of our nation’s financial institutions; it concerns the breakdown of our nation’s social contract. If we are to fix that contract — and our economy — we will have to do more than socialize risk for those at the top of the economic ladder. We will need to reclaim the twin ideals of security and opportunity for all Americans.
My comment: In the first economics course I took, I was told that he who bears the risk gets the profits. Seems to me that over the years of right-wing indoctrination to make us believe greed is good and nobody should ever have to pay any taxes, risk has shifted from capitalists to workers, without a concomitant shift in profit sharing. Also, Paul Zak is an economics professor who works on the relationship between trust and economic activity.

Give Me Liberty or Give Me Taxpayer Money (by Owen Thomas at Gawker)
Clever libertarians don’t just rail against government spending: They do something about it. Facebook investor Peter Thiel took $8 million from New York‘s pension fund — while setting himself up to avoid millions in taxes. Clarium’s strategy is to take advantage of supposed distortions in the market caused by government intervention. But the New York State Common Retirement Fund has intervened more directly in Thiel’s fund, investing $8 million over the course of three months last spring — just in time for Clarium’s holdings to crater from $7 billion to $2 billion. The market meltdown didn’t help, but Clarium’s stated strategy should have thrived in last year’s environment, given the Bush administration’s repeated attempts to prop up Wall Street. But perhaps it’s a sneaky stratagem to bankrupt the government!

Stop Whining About Populist Anger! (by Matt Taibbi at True/Slant, thanks to Susie at Suburban Guerilla)
“Someone needs to stand up” for the credit card companies? Did I hear that right, Michael Hiltzik? [Los Angeles Times: “Credit card companies as evil villains? It's not that simple ”] Apparently it is not enough that the credit card companies have spent $15.5 million on lobbying fees in the first quarter of 2009 alone (this according to CREW, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington), while employees of credit card companies spent an additional $14.5 million last year, and credit PACs spent $8.6 million more…

Of all the truly revolting political developments of the financial crisis age — and there have been a lot of them — probably nothing is more disgusting than the weirdly intense media backlash against “populist anger,” anger that is inevitably described by media sages like Hiltzik as irrational, unfounded, and pointedly unhelpful. The public is depicted as a great dumb beast lashing out wildly at shadows and hallucinations, with the poor diligent hardworking members of the financial class (slaving away to pump much-needed capital into the bloodstream of international commerce) suffering the collateral damage… I’m tired of hearing about how dangerous it is when the public gets angry about this stuff. You know what? Let’s let it be dangerous, and see what happens. It’d be a nice change.

The lesson Versailles drew from the Great Depression (by lambert at Corrente)
Last time around, we gave the peasants too much.
And it’s exactly the same lesson they’ve learned this time.

Obama, the enemy of economic inequality (by Robert Reich)
I keep hearing the White House staff describe the President as a pragmatist. David Axelrod, one of his chief advisors whom I admire enormously, recently called him a “ruthless pragmatist.”… [T]he President in recent weeks has criticized the heads of Wall Street banks who continue to take home seven figure incomes even as taxpayers bail them out; giant companies that shelter their income in places like Bermuda or the British Virgin Islands; the rich who say they need huge tax deductions in order to continue to make charitable contributions; and other forms of unwarranted privilege in our society, especially at a time when millions of Americans are losing their jobs, their savings, and their homes. To call his stance “pragmatic” is to rob it of its moral authority.
But that stance could also be based on a political calculation, Prof. Reich. Seems to me there’s not much evidence to assume it’s a moral stance. All I’ve seen is shoveling money to the banksters while stiff arming the employers of union workers.

Senate Aims to Overhaul Troubled Foreclosure Prevention Program (Washington Post)
The Senate [on Wednesday] approved a housing bill aimed at addressing the country’s growing foreclosure problem, including revamping a troubled government foreclosure prevention program. The bill passed 91-5 after an amendment to allow bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages, known as “cramdown,” was stripped from the legislation last week. That measure was fiercely opposed by the financial services industry, which complained it would raise costs.

“This bill will equip homeowners and lenders with new and improved tools to combat foreclosures, and it will ensure that the tools are easier to use,” said Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, who sponsored the bill. “While this bill is not a cure-all for our nation’s economic troubles, it makes important contributions towards the protection of American homeownership and a healthier banking system.”

Ed Gillespie: There wasn’t a single woman of comparable ‘temperament and intellect’ to Alito. (Think Progress)
On “The Situation Room” [Wednesday] afternoon, former Bush counselor Ed Gillespie said that “it would be wrong” if President Obama looks at only women for potential Supreme Court nominees because he should be looking for “the most qualified candidates.” He explained that though Bush thought about nominating a woman to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, he just couldn’t find one with the requisite “temperament and intellect”.
Click through to watch the video.

Morning Joe airs Letterman skit ridiculing Sotomayor, Latinos (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

TNR owes Sonia Sotomayor a correction (by Jamison Foser at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
It’s getting more and more clear that Jeffrey Rosen’s TNR article about Sonia Sotomayor is nothing more than a hatchet job. First we learned that Rosen wrote the piece before – by his own admission – he had read enough of her opinions or talked to enough people to get a “fully balanced picture of her strengths.” Then we learned that Rosen misrepresented a statement by a colleague of Sotomayor in order to make her look bad… Rosen took a quote in which [Second Circuit judge Jose] Cabranes called Sotomayor “smart,” cropped out the bit about her being smart, and claimed that Cabranes was making the point that Sotomayor is “not that smart.” Wow.

Jeffrey Rosen, TNR and the anonymous smears against Sonia Sotomayor (by Glenn Greenwald at Unclaimed Territory, Salon)
I don’t really have an opinion about whether Sotomayor would be a good pick for Obama — I haven’t done anywhere near the work necessary to formulate a meaningful judgment about that — but, in my prior life as a litigator, I had some personal experiences with her.  I had at least two, possibly three, cases in which she was the judge… My perception of Sotomayor is almost the exact opposite of the picture painted by Rosen.  I had a generally low opinion of the intellect of most judges — it’s one of the things I disliked most about the practice of law — but I found her to be extremely perceptive, smart, shrewd and intellectually insightful…

It’s certainly true that she was very assertive and aggressive — at times unpleasantly so — in how she presided over her courtroom… Aggressive, intimidating and even bullying behavior by judges is about as common in the judicial system as witnesses and lawyers who fail to tell the complete truth… [I]t’s very hard in this case to avoid the impression that behavior that seems “authoritative” and “appropriate” when coming from familiar authority figures (such as all the white males on the bench Stuart Taylor hails as “brilliant”) is immediately transformed into “domineering” and “egotistical” when coming from a woman who still speaks with a mild though discernible Bronx/Puerto Rican accent.

The Bashing of Sonia (by MsExPat at Corrente)
Sotomayor was my classmate at Princeton. I didn’t know her personally, but she remains in my memory for one very important reason. Like me, she came to Princeton on scholarship from a modest background. Princeton had just opened its doors to women, and there were only 400 of us in my class. Public school graduates were in the minority, and I can tell you that I was nowhere near prepared enough to compete with the grads of expensive prep schools like Andover and Exeter, kids who’d been coached for the Ivy League. But Sonia beat out ALL the prep schoolers in our class that first year. She won the Freshman First Honor Prize, which goes to the person with the highest academic average in the class. She went on to win the Pyne Prize in senior year, the highest academic award that Princeton gives out.

Who did Sonia leapfrog over academically? Well, let’s take a look at some of the folks in my graduating class…we have Mike McCurry, Clinton’s former press secretary. We have Meg Whitman, Ebay CEO, Josh Bolton, former Bush Chief of Staff. Jim Kelley, editor of Time magazine. I don’t know if I like Sotomayor’s politics, and don’t know what she might bring to the Supreme Court if she ends up on the bench. But the one thing that I DO know about this woman is that she had the brains to outshine a group of people with more money, polish and resources then she did. To smear this woman by calling her dumb is just an outrageous. The fact that people are going to so much trouble to tar her makes me wonder who she’s threatening.

Top Religious Right Group: We Won’t Oppose Gay SCOTUS Pick (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
In a move that will surprise gay activists and liberals, a spokesperson for Focus on the Family, a top religious right groups, tells me that his organization has no problem with GOP Senator Jeff Sessions’ claim today that he’s open to a Supreme Court nominee with “gay tendencies.” The spokesperson confirms the group won’t oppose a gay SCOTUS nominee over sexual orientation. “We agree with Senator Sessions,” Bruce Hausknecht, a spokesperson for Focus on the Family, which is headed by James Dobson, told me a few minutes ago. “The issue is not their sexual orientation. It’s whether they are a good judge or not.”
That is excellent news, if they mean what they say. But do they?

Interior nominee EchoHawk pledges to work for Indian country (McClatchy)
Former Idaho Attorney General Larry EchoHawk pledged Thursday to focus on economic development, education and law enforcement if the Senate confirms him as the assistant interior secretary in charge of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

White House Slams Louisiana Senator for “Political Posturing” over FEMA Nominee (by Karen Travers at Political Punch, ABC News)
The White House went on the offensive [Wednesday] against a Republican senator who is blocking the president’s nominee to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) was engaging in “political posturing” at a critical time, with the start of the hurricane season just three weeks away. Vitter is stalling the vote on the nomination of Craig Fugate to head up the government’s emergency response agency because he said he has not received information from FEMA about high-risk flood zones. Gibbs said Fugate has a “stellar bipartisan record” and is supported by Democrats and Republicans.

Obama pledges ‘commitment’ to Afghan, Pakistan leaders (McClatchy)
President Barack Obama Wednesday pledged a “lasting commitment” by the U.S. to the democratic governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan after an unusual three-way meeting that ended with promises but no concrete agreements.

Rolling Out the Product: A New Full-Court Press for Pakistan War (by Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque)
We are now in the midst of a full-blown campaign to “roll out the product” for a new war: this time, in Pakistan. Anyone who lived through the run-up to the invasion of Iraq should be able to read the signs — anyone, that is, who is not blinded by partisan labels, or by the laid-back cool of a media-savvy leader far more presentable than his predecessor… [T]oday brings yet another bumper crop of panic buttons and alarm bells from the powers-that-be, with ever-increasing emphasis on the “Taliban kooks with Muslim nukes” theme: one more variation on the old “mushroom clouds rising in American cities” ploy that has worked like a charm for our militarists lo these 60 years or more.

Obama budget would cut or end 121 government programs (McClatchy)
President Barack Obama [unveiled on] Thursday a fiscal 2010 budget full of details on his plans to save as much as $17 billion by cutting — and in some cases ending — 121 government programs. The goal, said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, is “identifying and ending programs that are unneeded and don’t work.”… The proposals will be included in a new White House book of terminations, reductions and savings, as well as a separate “appendix” detailing line by line spending.

Obama’s budget eliminates funding for abstinence education programs. (Think Progress)
Keeping with a campaign pledge “not continue to fund abstinence-only programs,” President Obama’s 2010 budget — further details of which were released today — cuts funding for “Community-Based Abstinence Education” and several other abstinence-education programs… [A]bstinence programs have been shown time and again to be unsuccessful in preventing teen pregnancies.

Pentagon plans to speed up chemical weapons destruction (McClatchy)
The Pentagon plans on ramping up by more than three years the destruction of chemical weapons at Blue Grass Army Depot, a move that includes an additional $1.2 billion in construction at two new disposal plants in Kentucky and Colorado, according to the Department of Defense.

DOJ Cracks Down on Discrimination Against Returning Injured Soldiers (Law.com)
The U.S. Department of Justice is cracking down on employers that discriminate against returning injured soldiers, who are having a hard time getting their old jobs back, either being demoted, or denied work altogether. DOJ is suing employers nationwide — almost on a weekly basis — for failing to promptly re-employ returning service men and women, in violation of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA).

Justice Department drops appeal in Watada case‎ (Seattle Times)
The U.S. Justice Department under the Obama administration has decided to drop its appeal of a federal judge’s ruling that 1st Lt. Ehren Watada cannot face a second court-martial resulting from his high-profile 2006 refusal to go to Iraq with his Fort Lewis brigade… But Watada’s legal troubles may not be over. He could still face a military tribunal for two other counts of conduct unbecoming an officer, according to a Fort Lewis spokesman.

Those counts were not thrown out by the federal court. They result from two interviews Watada gave in 2006, in which, among other comments, he attacked then-President George Bush for betraying the trust of the American people. He also said that Bush’s conduct made him ashamed to wear his Army uniform.

Good Government Groups Meet with White House Staff on New Lobbying Rules (Capital Eye, Center for Responsive Politics)
[I]t would be great if, whenever anyone wants to request a meeting with an EB official they submit that request (via email or phone), obtain a “Meeting Request ID,” and fill out an online request for a meeting using that ID. The form could be as simple as the one the administration now requires for contacts from registered lobbyists regarding policy issues concerning the Recovery Act (i.e., the Registered Lobbyist Contact Disclosure Form). If the official receiving the request approves the meeting, he or she marks it as “approved” and it would be made public. Then, when the meeting occurs, everyone at that meeting (and even those not at that meeting) will have before them a document stating who is gathered and what they’ve come to discuss. If the conversation veers onto another topic, the government employee (not the individual initiating the request) can file an amendment to add “also discussed thus and such.”…

This should apply to everyone. There is no reason to limit it to registered lobbyists, and there are lots of reasons not to limit it to lobbyists. There will have to be exemptions, of course–for such things as law enforcement activities.

Specter contradicts Reid, suggests he won’t ‘always’ break GOP filibusters. (Think Progress)
[Wednesday] on MSNBC, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) implied that newly-minted Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter (PA) would always vote with Democrats to break GOP filibusters. “On procedural votes he’ll be with us all the time,” Reid said… [Thursday], however, Fox News’s Trish Turner caught up with Specter, who disputed Reid’s characterization. Turner reports: “Specter merely smiled and repeated several times, ‘I’m going to have to talk to Sen. Reid about that.’” A Reid spokesman clarified the Nevada senator’s statement, saying he was trying to be “hopeful and optimistic.”

Meltdown: Specter stands alone (Politico)
Since declaring himself a Democrat last Tuesday, Specter has defied Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the White House on virtually everything that’s come down the pike: the budget, mortgage reform, the Al Franken-Norm Coleman race, even President Barack Obama’s appointment of Dawn Johnsen to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.
All while quibbling over whether he said he’d be a “loyal Democrat” — and insisting that he had an “entitlement” to transfer his Senate seniority from one side of the aisle to the other.

Ridge won’t challenge Specter (On Politics, USA Today)
Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s wild ride continues. A week after defecting to the Democratic party, the five-term senator got some good news: Former Republican Pennsylvania governor and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge won’t challenge him for the seat in 2010.

Sestak Sounds Like a Candidate (Political Wire)
Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) told Politico that he will take “at least a couple of months” before deciding whether to challenge Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) in a Democratic primary. Nonetheless, he he “sounded as interested as ever in running for the Senate and said that he wouldn’t be persuaded by any presidential phone call urging him to step aside for the good of the party.” Said Sestak: “I owe it to the Democratic establishment to listen and watch what happens, but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with them. I really respect the president but at the end of the day I know, because of the man he is, he will respect what Pennsylvanians decide.”

Maine and N.H. Move to Expand Gay Rights (Washington Post)
Gay rights advocates celebrated swift and unexpected twin victories in New England on Wednesday when Maine became the fifth state to legalize same-sex marriage and New Hampshire‘s legislature shortly afterward sent a marriage equality bill to the governor.

New poll shows slump in Palin’s popularity among Alaskans (McClatchy)
A new poll from Hays Research in Anchorage says Gov. Sarah Palin now has 54 percent positive and 41. 6 percent negative rating in Alaska.
Well, no wonder. She’s being attacked relentlessly.

Illinois House Speaker Proposes Purge (Political Wire)
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D) wants to “fumigate” state government with the wholesale dismissal of all appointees of ex-governors Rod Blagojevich and George Ryan — some 3,000 agency officials, and board and commission members, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The measure “would give Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn 60 days to decide which holdover from his two predecessors he wants to keep in his administration. He would be able to re-appoint those people. The rest would be summarily fired, on grounds that they were brought in under two governors whose tenures were hopelessly tainted by scandal.”

“Blagojevich, a Democrat, is awaiting trial on federal corruption charges. This predecessor, Ryan, a Republican, is serving a federal prison term for corruption.”

Abu Zubaydah’s suffering (by Joseph Margulies, Los Angeles Times)
[T]hey strapped him to an inverted board and poured water over his covered nose and mouth to “produce the sensation of suffocation and incipient panic.” Eighty-three times. I leave it to others to debate whether we should call this torture. I am content with the self-evident truth that it was wrong. Second, his treatment was motivated by the bane of our post-9/11 world: rotten intel. The beat him because they believed he was evil. Not long after his arrest, President Bush described him as “one of the top three leaders” in Al Qaeda and “Al Qaeda’s chief of operations.” In fact, the CIA brass at Langley, Va., ordered his interrogators to keep at it long after the latter warned that he had been wrung dry.

But Abu Zubaydah, we now understand, was nothing like what the president believed. He was never Al Qaeda. The journalist Ron Suskind was the first to ask the right questions. In his 2006 book, “The One Percent Doctrine,” he described Abu Zubaydah as a minor logistics man, a travel agent.

Bush attorneys who wrote terror memo face backlash (AP)
Pressure is mounting against two former Bush administration attorneys who wrote the legal memos used to supportharsh interrogation techniques that critics say constituted torture. John Yoo, a constitutional law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is fighting calls for disbarment and dismissal, while Judge Jay Bybee of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals faces calls for impeachment. Justice Department investigators have stopped short of recommending criminal charges, but suggest in a draft report that the two men should face professional sanctions. A number of groups across the country agree, and some want even stronger action.

Cheney: “Mistake” For GOP To “Moderate,” Glad That Detainees Were Waterboarded (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
Former Vice President Dick Cheney defended the Bush administration’s use of waterboarding on Thursday, saying that, contrary to arguments made by Barack Obama, the techniques were a necessary last-resort measure to get information from detainees… Attributing Obama’s decision to end such policies to an attempt “to appeal to the far-left in their party,” Cheney was not-surprisingly adamant that investigating these interrogation techniques was a bad idea. He also called on the White House to “do everything they can” to stop foreign governments from prosecuting the Bush hands who carried out these practices.

On the domestic front, the former vice president said he was not surprised by the defection of Senator Arlen Specter. Nor was he worried about the future of the GOP. Calling politics cyclical, he concluded that the party did not need to go through a process of moderation. “I think it would be a mistake for us to moderate. This is about fundamental beliefs and values and ideas…what the role of government should be in our society, and our commitment to the Constitution and constitutional principles,” he said. “You know, when you add all those things up the idea that we ought to moderate basically means we ought to fundamentally change our philosophy. I for one am not prepared to do that, and I think most us aren’t.”

Graham: ‘If we’re going to let the bloggers run the country, then the country’s best days are behind us.’ (Think Progress)
After it was announced earlier this week that Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) would replace Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) as the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, bloggers, including ThinkProgress, noted that Sessions had a record of racial insensitivity that stopped his appointment to the federal bench in 1986. Now, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is hitting back at the blogs: “Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Republicans would fight back hard if Democrats or liberal groups try to make the Supreme Court confirmation process about Sessions’ record, rather than about Obama’s nominee to replace Justice David Souter. ‘’If people try to go down that road, it’ll blow up in their face, because Jeff is a good guy,’ Graham said. ‘My hope is that our Democratic colleagues — if you start listening to the bloggers — if we’re going to let the bloggers run the country, then the country’s best days are behind us.’”

GOP ratchets up debate over release of Gitmo detainees (McClatchy)
Republicans on Thursday amped up opposition to President Barack Obama’s plan to close the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay, even as Attorney General Eric Holder sought to reassure senators that the United States won’t release anyone it considers a terrorist.
Except I wouldn’t call it “debate”. These are attacks. There is no debate. But that “couldn’t” happen to Obama, remember? We had to nominate him over Hillary because he “couldn’t” be attacked.

GOP Rep Hoekstra: Terrorists Greater Threat Than Nazis (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
The argument that terrorists represent a graver threat than the Nazis did appears to be gaining traction among current and former Republican officials. The latest to make the claim: GOP Rep “Keep Terrorists Out Of America Act,” which is designed to restrict the housing of Guantanamo detainees on American soil. Asked by a reporter whether this wasn’t comparable to the detainment of Nazis in prisoner of war camps during World War II, Hoekstra said the two were “night and day” because of the threat of “homegrown terrorism” and because of 9/11… But David Kurtz notes that some 425,000 Axis POWs were detained in America at the end of World War II, versus only a couple hundred Gitmo detainees who would be held here. Either way, the Republicans are now really running with this one again.
Click through to watch a video of the Hoekstra comments.

Graham Falsely Claims All Gitmo Detainees Are ‘Enemy Combatants,’ Says They Can Be Held ‘Forever’ (Think Progress)
[Wednesday] night on Fox News, host Greta Van Susteren and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) were discussing President Obama’s plan to close the Guantanamo Bay terror detainee prison. During the segment, Graham — who, with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), had written a Wall Street Journal op-ed on the subject that day — argued that the military or the CIA, not the federal justice system, should determine which detainees represent a threat to the U.S. Van Susteren noted that “we’re still holding people who haven’t done anything.” “No, that’s not true,” Graham said, adding that “every one of them” has “gone through a military board, and the military labeled them an enemy combatant.” According to Graham, “You can hold an enemy prisoner as long as the war is going on” or “forever,” as he later pointed out.
Click through to watch the video.

Sen. Snowe: GOP is ‘the party of Big Business and Big Oil and the rich.’ (Think Progress)
In a new Time article on the state of the Republican Party, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) lamented the GOP’s exclusion of groups like minorities and environmentalists. “Ideological purity is not the ticket to the promised land,” she said, echoing comments her fellow Maine senator Susan Collins (R) made last week. She also complained that, “to the average American,” the GOP is just the party of “Big Oil and the rich“.
Sadly, the Democrats are ALSO the party of big business and big oil and the rich. There is no party of, by, or for the people.

It’s now literally illegal for government employees to be honest (by vastleft at Corrente)
Next up, biology classes where they show that women are fashioned out of men’s ribs: “A US teenager has successfully won a lawsuit against a teacher who described creationism as ‘superstitious nonsense…’” Since I’m not a government employee, I’ll continue to call bullshit “bullshit.”

THE LIE (by J –SOM at Liberal Rapture)
Politico has – sort of – come clean. Obama is a thief and a fraud. What Chicago Slim has done is lie about his own agenda repeatedly and take Clinton’s stances as his own. Gee, thanks for the tip, Politico. “President Obama is morphing into old rival Hillary Clinton …(Obama) had a hard date for ending the war. Clinton repeatedly questioned the wisdom and sincerity of Obama’s pledge to remove all combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office. It was the biggest difference between the two candidates-and one of the top reasons Obama won the nomination.” I would argue BHO’s Iraq lies were the main reason he garnered the Democratic support his did. All of those people were lied to. All of them.

We can argue about the reasons the DNC and the media gamed the process to ensure Obama got the nomination all we want. My opinion as to the main reason remains sexism. The only debate in my mind is whether sexism was the accelerant or the fire itself… It is still perfectly acceptable to attack a female politician by going after her gender… I will never let up on this point. Clinton was better qualified, more honest (which is to say simply – she is honest and Barry is not) a real leader, and not a concocted brand spraying soothing lies across the land.

Politico Says Obama Snarfed Hillary’s Winning Platform. We Say, He Still Ain’t Hill. (by Ani at No Quarter)
Politico, who did as much electioneering for President Obama during the primary as anyone, should now also admit that, unlike Obama, Hillary was indeed honest about her platform and held the best and most sensible positions on important issues. She was always running as the general election candidate and never bamboozled anyone into believing she held one position in order to cull votes from another candidate, only to drop that position like a hot potato once those votes were in her pocket.

Politico, in this self serving little treastise, omits serveral other important points, however. Whatever policies Obama is adopting now that may resemble Hillary’s does nothing to diminish the fact that he is also maintaining plenty of policies of George Bush. Hillary never reneged on FISA, as Obama did, nor would she ever go so far as to expand these wiretapping provisions as Obama is doing. She would never expand Bush’s faith based initiatives, as Obama did. She vowed to put an end to signing statements. Obama is using them.

You just can’t fool most of the people most of the time:
Pew Research Center

NOT from The Onion, not from the Daily Show or Colbert Report:
Parishioners relieved Miami priest’s tryst wasn’t with a boy (McClatchy)
A day after the news broke about a popular Miami Beach celebrity priest Alberto Cutie frolicking on the beach with an unidentified woman, Alberto Cutie made no appearances in public or on the airwaves.

The Bristol Grilling (by Pareene at Gawker)
Are morning show hosts the worst people on television? Yes. Here’s a selection of the creepy, prying, pretend-concerned questions Chris Cuomo and Matt Lauer had for Bristol Palin… The forced cheerfulness already makes every morning show host seem mentally ill, but the second they switch to Diane Sawyer “serious interviewer” mode all vestiges of humanity and dignity leak out through their wingtips. We know Bristol, an adult, is holding herself out there as the poster child for… something about pregnancy being bad, we guess, but still—no one deserves to have Chris Cuomo ask you where your baby came from on television.
Click through to watch the video.

He Will Clean Up Himself Now (by Hamilton Nolan at Gawker)
$3.2 million apartment-owner Jared Kushner has fired the New York Observer’s cleaning lady. Too expensive.

I Want To GOP to There: 30 Rock’s weird conservative streak. (by Jonah Weiner, Slate)
30 Rock will have its Season 3 finale next week, and, barring an unforeseen plummet in viewership, the curtains will close on some good news. The first and second seasons averaged 5.8 million and 6.4 million viewers a show, while the typical Season 3 episode has brought in more than 7 million. That’s a small but happy triumph for a series that’s flirted with oblivion since its start—even if it’s a triumph many onlookers saw coming. This season premiered just a month after Tina Fey crafted her devastatingly ditzy Sarah Palin impression onSNL and became, for a spell, the fourth-most-famous woman in American politics. It was all but guaranteed that Fey’s newfound celebrity would give her baby a boost…

30 Rock was conceived during the reign of George W. Bush, which might help explain its ideological complexity. The show has been consistently critical of Bush… In the current season, the political climate has changed, and so has Jack and Liz’s relationship. In the face of romance, issues with his mother, and even corporate challenges, Jack’s steely facade has buckled, and he’s needed Liz’s help more frequently—he no longer appears as an inevitable force, always one step ahead. This—together with the drop-off in overt gags about Beltway politics—might be 30 Rock’s way of absorbing Washington’s left-blowing winds. But it doesn’t mean that the show’s lowercase-C conservatism has disappeared. If anything, it reveals how deeply it’s rooted.
Scripted movies and television can be a powerful tool for influencing thinking and behavior. What a shame that a show like this is being used to promote the infantilism of women.

Why Twitter Matters & The Left Should Be Nervous (by Michael Turk, TechPresident)
I have seen a string of posts and tweets from lefty friends that are either mocking or dismissive of the Conservatives nascent efforts on Twitter. They reminded me immediately of dismissive comments directed by complacent and cocky Republicans at the Democrats efforts online.

Campaign Trail Leads to the Web
Some of the nation’s top political strategists are creating an online-advertising company that will research sites the way a campaign adviser would research a battleground state.

Get your coal ringtones! (Think Progress)
The coal industry has taken incredible pains to make coal seem “clean,” “affordable,” and even “adorable.” In December, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity notoriously launched a campaign featuring animated lumps of coal singing Christmas carols. Now, the West Virginia Coal Association has posted six “Coal is West Virginia Ringtones.” Among the tunes are the “New Orleans Mix,” “Male Voice Choir (Up Tempo Mix),” and “Gospel Mix.”
Click through for samples of the lyrics.

Pat Robertson: Gay marriage is ‘the beginning in a long downward slide’ to legalized child molestation. (Think Progress)
[Wednesday], when Gov. John Baldacci (D) signed a marriage equality law, Maine became the fifth state to allow legal same-sex marriage. On the Christian Broadcasting Network today, Pat Robertson responded by claiming that the “ultimate conclusion” of legalizing same-sex marriage would be the legalization of polygamy, bestiality, child molestation and pedophilia. “You mark my words, this is just the beginning in a long downward slide in relation to all the things that we consider to be abhorrent,” said Robertson.
Click through to watch the video.

Hannity doesn’t “hear” “nastiness” from Limbaugh “ever” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh: Obama thinks “union people” “have effectively been raped by American capitalism, and they have a lot of stuff coming due” (County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh on Obama’s plan to phase out DC vouchers: “It’s all about votes. It’s not about educating kids. … [T]hey don’t want them escaping the underclass regardless their race” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh echoes false claim that Hate Crimes bill “carv[es] out protection for perverts” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh repeats his claim that Powell’s endorsement of Obama was “purely and solely based on race” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh falsely claims “[t]here will be no public recognition of the National Day of Prayer in the White House” (County Fair, Media Matters for America)
The Obama administration will recognize the National Day of Prayer with a paper proclamation, as many previous administrations have done.

With the Dow dropping, Hannity no longer saying “[t]he market doesn’t mean anything to me” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Hannity tries an insult: “You went to a public school didn’t you?” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Buchanan declares white firefighters victims of “Jim Crow liberalism,” admits he “may have” opposed 1964 civil rights act (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Buchanan has “no problem” with legacy systems, says “working class whites” are “the ones discriminated most today” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Beck rants about “power grab,” claims “they are going to silence voices like mine” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Beck on ACORN “brownshirts” and “their henchmen” at SEIU: “[T]hey break kneecaps… Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, I don’t know” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Morris claims that unlike Palin, “all of the Democratic women and other Republican women are so abnormal” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

In today’s science and religion wrap-up… (by Tengrain at Mock, Paper, Scissors)
One Nation, Seven Sins: …Geographers from Kansas State University have used certain statistical measurements to quantify Nevada’s sins and come up with a county-by-county map purporting to show various degrees of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride in the Silver State. By culling statistics from nationwide databanks of things like sexually transmitted disease infection rates (lust) or killings per capita (wrath), the researchers came up with a sin index. This is a precision party trick — rigorous mapping of ridiculous data.
Click here for the Nevada maps, but I thought readers might be more interested in a couple of the national ones. Greed is apparently more prevalent in some of the more liberal areas of the country, and lust is heaviest in the Bible Belt (just as Conservative Truths has reported, time and time again).

Media Matters for America headlines

CNN poll misrepresents scientific consensus on climate change as view of “some people”

Fox’s Cameron airs public plan critics, not defenders

Media falsely claim Obama said he doesn’t want a justice committed to following the law

Fox host Skinner misrepresented Sotomayor comment on circuit court

Dijon Derangement Syndrome: Conservative media attack Obama for burger order

On CNBC, radio host Lewis repeats ACORN, earmark falsehoods

Savage now says he was joking about autism

On Fox, WSJ editorial board member Moore echoes GOP’s ACORN falsehood

Claiming “Bush went to church a lot,” Doocy criticized Obama for National Prayer Day decision

Post ignores DOD inspector general’s repudiation of report the Post covered in Jan.

Iran: Movement Of 1000 Bloggers Supports Mousavi For Presidency (Global Voices)
Supporters of two leading reformist presidential candidates, former prime minister Mir Hussein Mousavi and former parliament speaker, Mehdi Karroubi are using the internet, including blogs and Facebook, to beef up their chances of being selected as presidential candidates by the Guardian Council in June’s election.

Metering: The End Of The Internet As You Know It (Free Press)
Last month, the nation’s No.2 cable company Time Warner Cable announced plans to test a new billing system known as “metering” that charges Internet customers depending on how much they download. Customers who exceed their limit–say, by viewing online videos–would face steep penalties on top of their subscription rate.

Time Warner Cable’s usage penalty would take the unlimited service we enjoy today (albeit slow compared to other nations), and make Internet more like cell phones, where you get overcharged by companies making record profits. It is the latest version of the Net Neutrality debate: should the companies that deliver Internet be allowed to block it, slow it down, or in this case, overcharge for it?

U.S. Senators Consider Options for Ailing Newspapers
The government could provide tax breaks for newspapers or allow them to operate as nonprofits to help the industry survive, Sen. John Kerry said. Without newspapers, Kerry and other lawmakers said, there will be too few journalists investigating governments, companies, and individuals.

We must be doomed: Congress praises newspapers (by William Douglas, McClatchy Newspapers)
Calling it a necessary pillar of democracy, a Senate subcommittee examined the state of American journalism Wednesday at a time when newspapers are being shuttered and downsized and network TV news audiences are declining.

Google Executive Mayer Gives Journalism Tips To Senators (Paid Content)
Google VP of Search Products and User Experience Marissa Mayer appeared in front of congress Wednesday… The topic was the future of journalism. Mayer spoke about how Google News and Google Search can help online newspapers generate additional revenue, but what caught our attention was a side tangent where she offered tips for publishers… Stories should have context:.. Stories should be “living”… Stories should be engaging… We hope you’re taking notes.

David Simon: Dead-Wrong Dinosaur (by Ryan Tate at Gawker)
The creator of the brilliant television series The Wire [on Wednesday] asked Congress to legalize monopolistic collusion by newspapers. Only they can really cover City Hall, he said. Apparently he hasn’t been there in a while. The Wire creator, David Simon, was a cops reporter a the Baltimore Sun for 12 years, ending in 1995. He then made a lucrative second career in fiction and Hollywood before detouring into a sideline as a cranky, reactionary media pundit this past year. Simon told the Senate Commerce Committee today bloggers don’t go to city council meetings, or know what the hell is going on if they do — a clichéd, out of touch refrain common among newspapermen who can’t be bothered to do any reporting on the assertion.

With so much quality civic reporting already being done online for little or no pay, it stands to reason we could eventually get quality government reporting entirely from bloggers, both professional and amateur, rather than depending on a federally-coddled cabal of conspiring nonprofit newspapers, as Simon envisions. And there are reasons to think the quality would actually be better, since so many of the writers are deeply invested residents, rather than the sort of superficially-engaged, careerist professional journalists portrayed so well by Simon in The Wire and all too common in American newsrooms.

Arianna Huffington may not be the ideal mogul to lead journalism into the future, but her own senate testimony offered an impressively rational and articulate vision of what’s to come, at least next to Simon’s: “…We must never forget that our current media culture led to the widespread failure (with a few honorable exceptions) to serve the public interest by accurately covering two of the biggest stories of our time: the run-up to the war in Iraq and the financial meltdown. That’s why, as journalism transitions to a new and different place, the emphasis should not be on subsidizing what exists now but on how to rededicate ourselves to the highest calling of journalists — which is to ferret out the truth, wherever it leads. Even if it means losing our all-access-pass to the halls of power.”
Click through for more and for a link to the full testimony.

Dallas Morning News To Senate: Amazon Kindle Is Not A Business Model For Newspapers (Paid Content)
Dallas Morning News Publisher and CEO James Moroney spoke up after Arianna Huffington raved about its potential as an option, telling the subcommittee that Amazon wants the lions’ share of the revenue… Moroney, who would like to see a limited anti-trust exemption so publishers can talk about pricing, thinks that would help when it comes to negotiating with a company the size of Amazon. He told the Senate: “The Kindle, which I think is a marvelous device, the best deal Amazon will give the Dallas Morning News>—and we’ve negotiated this up to the last two weeks—they want 70 percent of the subscriptions revenue. I get 30 percent, they get 70 percent. On top of that they have said we get the right to republish your intellectual property to any portable device. Now is that a business model that is going to work for newspapers?”

Mort Zuckerman’s Plan To Save Newspapers Will Be Foiled By His Inability to Do Math (by John Cook at Gawker)
Mort Zuckerman … told New York that the solution to the Great Newspaper Die-Off is bingo, which works in England: “Just make bingo legal on our websites…. The newspapers in England are supported almost exclusively by the profitability of running bingo games on their websites. It attracts an enormous audience. But here, you’re not allowed to do it…. The Sun makes millions of dollars off of their bingo games.”

What would happen if Zuckerman’s Daily News were to start a bingo game? It would almost certainly screw it up royally, just like it did with it’s promotional Scratch ‘n’ Match game in 1999, when a “production error” caused thousands of games to produce winning $100,000 matches. Or maybe it would screw it up royally like it did in 2005, when a “clerical error” did exactly the same thing. Maybe Zuckerman should start with simpler math problems before moving up the big time.

Earnings: News Corp. Operating Income Down 47 Percent; FIM Drops 11 Percent (Paid Content)
Boosted by the the partial sale of its stake in NDS and a tax gain, News Corp. managed to overcome a 47 percent nosedive in operating income to turn in decent earnings for the quarter ending March 31. The company reported roughly flat net income of $2.7 billion for its third fiscal quarter, or $0.91 per share, on revenue of $7.4 billion, down from $8.75 billion. Operating income was $755 million, compared with $1.4 billion last year.

As has been the case with other media companies, the cable group was a saving grace with Fox News Channel nearly doubling its year-ago performance in terms of operating income. The movie studios added as well. But the Newspapers and Information division was down an eye-opening $209 million, producing only $7 million in operating income for the quarter; reduced costs weren’t enough to offset declines in advertising and information service revenue for Dow Jones. One reason News Corp. keeps bragging about WSJ’s circulation gains: advertising revenues dropped 33 percent. On the plus side, it wasn’t red ink.

Earnings: Thomson Reuters Profits Rise 17.5 Percent, As Revenues Surge 72 Percent (Paid Content)
Last year’s merger helped propel Thomson Reuters to a strong Q1, despite the economy’s pressure on the media business and on its finance-related customers. Earnings were up 17.5 percent to $228 million ($0.27 per share) while revenues shot up 72.2 percent to $3.12 billion… Despite the double-digit growth numbers, there are causes for concern. In particular, the Thomson Reuters’ markets division, which provides roughly 60 percent of the company’s revenue, was up an anemic 0.4 percent. Within that unit, the media segment’s revenues dropped 18 percent to $89 million.

A Newspaper Business Model That’s Working
Dan McDonough Jr. and Alan Bauer: It’s widely reported — and has become generally accepted — that the newspaper model is either dying or already dead, when, in fact, thousands of community newspapers across the country are doing quite well. Thousands of newspapers deliver for their readers and advertisers every day. Thousands of newspapers are positioned to embrace – not be destroyed by – emerging technology.

Baltimore Sun Staffers Withhold Bylines to Protest Cuts
More than 50 Baltimore Sun newsroom staff members, including reporters, photographers, and other bylined content producers, launched a byline strike yesterday protesting layoffs and heavy handed tactics by Tribune Co.

Google’s Universal Online Library Could Benefit Authors and Publishers (by Farhad Manjoo, Slate)
I’ve long called on the publishing industry to negotiate with Google. Now I’m calling on the publishing industry to negotiate with Google’s competitors. No single company should be given exclusive legal access to the printed word.

Amazon seeks more paths for sales with new Kindle
Amazon.com Inc. hopes a bigger version of its Kindle electronic reading device can be a hit, even if it’s more expensive, and the company is aiming it in part at college students who are eager to save money on their textbooks.

A Book Packager Takes a Step Into Web Video
Alloy Media and Marketing typically works with studios and networks to turn its books for teenagers, like “Gossip Girl,” into movies and TV series. Now it’s making a Web series on its own.

Sirius XM Radio Posts $236 Million Quarterly Loss
The results include a hit of $186.2 million related to preferred stock issued when Liberty Media rescued Sirius from a possibile bankruptcy filing in February.

Struggles at the Box Office Weigh on Disney’s Profit
Disney’s films have underperformed at the box office, even as the rest of Hollywood is enjoying a boom in ticket sales.

Nintendo defies recession with record profits
Japan‘s Nintendo Co. bucked the economic gloom Thursday with record profits for the year to March, saying the video game industry was proving to be relatively recession-proof.

Lunch at Michael’s: WNBC Expands on Multiple Platforms
Tom O’Brien, president and general manager of WNBC, talked about the newscasts on WNBC-TV, lifestyle channel New York Nonstop, NBCNewYork.com and Taxi TV. The latest effort, NBC in Transit, broadcasts video of news and NBCU entertainment programming on PATH trains between NYC and New Jersey.

Job Cuts Coming to ABC’s London Bureau
Insiders tell TVNewser the staff of ABC’s London newsroom was called to a meeting this morning to discuss the future of the bureau, which will result in the loss of jobs. ABC News SVP Kate O’Brian told bureau staffers that a month-long consultation process is now underway.

For TV Upfront, Fox News Backs Away From Cross-Platform Deals (Paid Content)
Ad deals promising the marriage between TV and online have been a staple of the upfront negotiations for several years. And every year, the reality has failed to live up to the hype. This time around, broadcasters are bowing to reality and seem to be decoupling the two pieces. Fox News is using the upfront season not so much to sell its year-old live, eight-hour video webcast The Strategy Room, but more as a conversation starter with media buyers and marketers.
Click through for details.

Technical Problems Delaying TV Ratings
In what one television executive called an unprecedented data delay, Nielsen Media Research failed to provide overnight TV ratings for four days this week. The delays caused considerable consternation within the networks that have to decide this month whether to cancel or renew shows.

HBO Lowers Pay Wall For ‘Alzheimer’s Project‘ (Paid Content)
HBO keeps most of its online video content under lock and key. Other than snippets (and the occasional full episode) on its YouTube channel or HBO.com, most people that want to legally watch its shows on-the-go have one real option: pay for episodes on iTunes. But HBO can lower that pay wall at will—especially when it wants to promote something new—and that’s what it’s doing for its documentary series The Alzheimer’s Project. It’s even distributing the four-part series across Facebook and MySpace, and letting people take and embed the clips on other sites.

The episodes, trailers, clips and supplemental shorts will be available for free in various capacities across the social nets, iTunes and YouTube; Multichannel News notes that each venue is getting its own exclusive premiere, and will be promoting the content accordingly… HBO has also been doing some other things lately to try to step back from that “traditional” view: the network has been testing its HBO on Broadband Demand streaming video service in Wisconsin for about a year now, and HBO content will likely also be included as part of parent company Time Warner’s ambitious pay-to-play TV Everywhere plan in the long run.
I generally prefer a cable subscription that brings me multiple channels, but I have no interest in subscribing to any of the premium channels, though there are certain original shows I might like to see. Having this additional pay per show or per series purchase available is a good thing, I think.

Cablevision Swings to Profit and Explores Sale of Madison Square Garden
The company posted first-quarter earnings of $20.2 million, helped by growth in its core operations and the inclusion of revenue from the newspaper Newsday.

DirecTV Group 1Q profit falls 46 percent
DirecTV Group Inc., the nation’s largest satellite TV provider, said Thursday that its first-quarter profit dropped 46 percent as costs and expenses increased on promotions offered to draw in new customers and keep existing ones.

Hulu Sets Up International TV Deals
Hulu, the online video service owned by NBC Universal, Fox, and Walt Disney, has signed its first batch of content deals with international television producers, the first step towards a full global launch of the service.

Facebook Amps Up its Music Ambitions With The Jonas Brothers Live (Mashable)
Facebook may finally be making a power play into a world where they arenot the market leaders: online music. How, do you ask? By partnering with one of the world’s most popular bands, The Jonas Brothers, to launch their new single via a live video stream. The pop band will be using their Facebook Page and the live video service Ustream on Thursday to chat live with fans and then debut “Paranoid,” their new song. Although many other bands have used social media to debut their music, not many have used Facebook as the platform. In turn, this could represent the start of a major shake-up in online music.

ABC Music Lounge: No cocktails, but nonstop music
Cocktails won’t be served, but ABC says a new online “music lounge” will offer a full menu of songs and artists featured on its shows.

What Good Is Sitting Alone in Your Room?
Online networks offer women tips on female-friendly hotels and help them to make connections for sharing meals with other travelers.

FreshBooks Allows Freelancers to Network and Collaborate (Mashable)
Freelancers have a ton of relationships to manage and piles of paperwork to organize. Beyond clients, contract workers often rely on other freelancers to help fill in expertise gaps, design their products, or collaborate on building a website. Of course, this creates more paperwork, more invoices, and more pain. The freelance billing and time-tracking software FreshBooks, though, is taking a big stab at fixing this problem. They’re doing this by making it possible to collaborate between FreshBooks accounts in a push the company calls “Software as a Network.”

Ning: The Latest Platform For App-Makers Wanting To Get Rich (Paid Content)
Add one more platform to the ranks of Facebook, MySpace and the iPhone for developers wanting to cash in on the app trend: Ning. The D-I-Y social network-creation service is rolling out “Ning Apps,” which let bands and companies running Ning communities build functionality like ticket sales, video chats and casual games into their network. Apps were available on a per-user basis before—but these new Ning Apps expose developers to a much larger audience from the start, giving them the opportunity to generate far more revenue.

Not-for-Sale Twitter Is Expanding Search Functionality
In recent days the spotlight has been on Twitter and rumored acquisitions of the micro-blogging company by contenders such as Apple, Google and Microsoft. Twitter’s founders, however, have pulled the plug on the speculation, saying the San Francisco-based company is not for sale.

Latest iPhone 3.0 Beta Reveals Parental Controls
Developers got an unexpected surprise yesterday after Apple released a new beta of the iPhone OS 3.0 and a second version of iTunes 8.2. This release comes just eight days after Apple released

Google Android Now Supports Video Uploads to YouTube (Mashable)
Google Android is not dead yet, and though it’s not growing as fast as the iPhone, it now has one (albeit temporary with 3.0 coming soon) advantage over the iPhone — YouTube uploads. [Wednesday Google announced] new mobile features for the Android 1.5 release. The news means that Android phones can now upload videos straight to YouTube, send photos directly to Picasa, get better Gmail features, as well as search by voice more accurately.

EU steps up offensive on mobile telephone fees
The European Commission stepped up its offensive on mobile phone fees Thursday, calling for a clampdown on rates operators charge to connect to each other’s networks.