Permanent link to MTA daily media news

The Rise of Right-Wing Violence (by Pareene at Gawker)

When the Department of Homeland Security issued a report warning of potential violence by “right-wing extremists,” the right-wingers of the internet were enraged. Then some right-wing extremists started killing people. Three—three!—political shootings by right-wing extremists does actually make a trend, mostly because it’s not accidental that the crazies are turning violent now. Right-wing domestic terror, weirdly, spikes when the right-wing media step up the intensity and violence of their rhetoric—which they happen to do when Democrats are in charge…

What happens is Scott Roeder, the Kansas resident who murdered Dr. George Tiller at church because he was an anti-abortion fanatic with ties to, hey, a right-wing extremist group. There was Jim Adkisson, who shot up a Unitarian church, killing two, because he hated liberals and gays. And now there is the White Supremacist who just shot up the goddamn Holocaust Museum. He is, of course, named “James Von Brunn,” and he is 89 years old! And, obviously, he writes crazy things, on the internet. He is also a World War II vet? For the Allies! [Emphasis added.]

James W. Von Brunn’s anti-Semitic screed (by Mark Benjamin, Salon)
The alleged Holocaust Museum shooter published a book called “Kill the Best Gentiles.” Read selections here.

How Many Crazed Gunmen Is it Going to Take? (Truthdig)
President Obama said in response “we must remain vigilant against anti-Semitism.” Sure, but how about getting a little vigilant against guns? The alleged shooter served six years in prison after showing up at a Federal Reserve meeting with a sawed-off shotgun among other weapons, but he obviously had no trouble rearming.
To stop the discussion from going in that direction, then, what kind of creativity can we expect from the right wing? See the following stories to get an idea.

On Fox, Jim Lacamp says Obama admin’s “class warfare” helps set “the stage for social unrest” (County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Fox News hosts “terror expert Bob Newman” to discuss Holocaust Museum shooting (County Fair, Media Matters for America)
[Wednesday], Neil Cavuto hosted Bob Newman — a Colorado radio host who Cavuto presented as a “terror expert” — to discuss the shooting at the Holocaust Museum. During the segment, Newman raised questions about whether President Obama’s recent visit to a concentration camp or his statement about Israeli settlements were factors in the shooting… Cavuto didn’t say anything else about Newman’s background, so here are a couple highlights from his radio show, The Gunny Bob Show. Newman called for all Muslim immigrants to the U.S. “to be required by law to wear a GPS tracking bracelet at all times”… Newman said of “terrorist-hugging” Obama: “What are you gonna do, Obama, come to Denver and try … to whip my white ass?”

Newsmax.com publishes column, “Obama Breeds Climate of Hate Against Jews,” linking Obama to Holocaust Museum shooting (County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Right-Wingers Blame Left-Wingers and Muslims for Holocaust Museum Shooting (by The Cajun Boy at Gawker)
First off, Beck went on his show [Wednesday night] and performed perhaps the most stunning feat of pulling one out of the old anus in the history of stunning pulling one out of the ole anus feats. Beck, with a straight face mind you, looked into the camera and said that America as it stands today is a “boiling pot” fueled by extremists groups like Al Qaeda and 9/11 truthers who are sowing the seeds of extremism and hatred in this country. Then, still with a straight face, Beck also warned his viewers that more violence is likely to come in the future, that “more nutjobs are going to coming out of the woodwork now,” that all of this is part of the “perfect storm” he’s been trying to warn everyone about, a “perfect storm” which will result in a “witchhunt” that will focus on two groups of people. Can you guess who they might be?

Jews and—Conservatives!

IT HAPPENED LAST TIME: (by Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler)
By “last time,” we mean the last time we had a Democrat president. As you may recall, that president was Bill Clinton–and crazy stories spread far and wide about his intolerable ways. The liberal world ran off and hid in the woods–and, to all intents and purposes, the “mainstream press corps” didn’t exist. And sure enough! By September 1994, a man name Frank Corder decided to act. This incident largely went down the memory hole, like most misconduct directed at Clinton… Were unbalanced people driven to act by all the crazy talk about Clinton? Are unbalanced people being so moved by Obama’s rise today? By crazy and semi-crazy talk about him?…

Is it time for the mainstream press to come to terms with America’s underworld discourse? For decades, the mainstream press has tended to avoid the cauldron of craziness bubbling beneath the surface of our public discussions. In the 1990s, the insider press was closely involved with the spread of crazy talk about Clinton, then Gore. Today, the insider press is much less interested in spewing wild tales about Obama. But the mainstream press corps loves to avoid all such difficult, unpleasant regions. Isn’t it time to report it out straight? There are crazy areas of our discourse, in which people are encouraged to believe crazy things. Yes, we know: Powerful people are sometimes involved in these wild promulgations. But isn’t it time to report it out straight: That there’s lunacy inside our discourse?

The worm turns and turns… (by Joseph Cannon at Cannonfire)
From Joan Walsh in today’s Salon… “…[I]t’s hard not to think about the extreme right-wing rhetoric, especially about Barack Obama, and whether it could conceivably lead to more right-wing violence.” What about the tons of hate-talk offered by the pro-Obama forces during the campaign? What about the transformation of Kos, D.U., AmericaBlog and TPM into festering cesspools of cyber-rage? What about the death-threats? Apparently, that genre of extremist rhetoric does not trouble Joan Walsh.

Fox’s Smith unloads on “frightening” e-mailers (by Alex Koppelman at War Room, Salon)
Wednesday afternoon, Shep Smith showed — and not for the first time — why he’s one of Fox News’ most valuable assets. Smith is, far more than some of his colleagues, always willing to call out both ends of the political spectrum for doing wrong, and he does it well and passionately.

Smith’s reaction to the shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Wednesday was one of those moments. He reminded his audience that so many people had been critical of a Department of Homeland Security report that warned about just these kinds of attacks, and defended the document. And he discussed some of the e-mails sent by Fox News viewers every day, some of which he termed “more and more frightening” for the tenor of their anti-Obama tone, especially in the wake of this attack and the murder of abortion provider George Tiller.
Click through to watch the video.

Fox News downplays the Holocaust Museum killing (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
You could almost see the moment yesterday afternoon when the Fox News team lost interest (or at least lost a lot of interest) in the breaking story about the shooting at the Holocaust Museum. That moment seemed to be when it was revealed that the alleged shooter, James von Brunn, was a white supremacist who, according to a CNN report last night, had strong ties to the Klu Klux Klan. For some reason, Fox News suddenly pulled back its coverage of the shocking shooting that had political overtones. In fact, the story virtually disappeared during Fox News’ primetime block. Nothing to see here people, just keep moving along.

O’Reilly Ignores Holocaust Museum Shooting, Wonders Whether It’s Even ‘Newsworthy’ (Think Progress)
Last week, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly went on a tirade against CNN for supposedly failing to cover the shooting of Pvt. William Long, an Army recruiter in Arkansas. Of course, O’Reilly’s claims were blatantly false — but that didn’t stop him from claiming to be “shocked” that he “can’t find any information about” the shooting in the mainstream media. Exactly one week later, after a white supremacist shot and killed a security guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, O’Reilly never covered the shooting on his show. In fact, the only mention of the act of domestic terrorism came in a segment that, ironically, decried the media’s inadequate coverage of Long’s death.

Drudge Would Rather Not Dwell on Right-Wing Terrorism (by John Cook at Gawker)
A third murder committed by a right-wing extremist? Eh, worth a link, sure. Obama administration takes a “half step” to let shareholders have a say in executive compensation? Fire up the siren. Matt Drudge trotted out his favorite animated GIF this morning to sound the alarm about the White House’s plan to issue “guidelines,” according to the Associated Press, that “reject direct intervention in corporate pay decisions” and rely on allowing nonbinding shareholder votes on compensation. Or, as Drudge puts it, “ADMINISTRATION: REIN IN PAY ACROSS PRIVATE SECTOR.”

Warblogger finally figures out what the DHS report on extremism was about (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
[T]he enlightened Jawa Report, which in the wake of the Holocaust Museum killing announced: “When the DHS talked about right-wingers, I think this is what they had in mind.” Well, duh. Of course that’s what the DHS report was about. How did I, and every other rational person, know that’s what the report was about when it was released? Because that’s what the DHS warning reported. Meaning, that’s what the words on the page meant.

But for some strange reason the GOP Noise Machine, lead by Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh and the entire Fox News crew, decided that even though the DHS never once used the word “conservative,” and even though the DHS report was quite clearly about “domestic rightwing terrorist and extremist groups,” “terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks,” and “white supremacists,” despite all that, the Noise Machine went bonkers claiming the DHS report was about them. (Which begged the rather uncomfortable question of why conservative bloggers and pundits immediately saw themselves in a report about skinheads and right-wing terrorists. Yikes.)

Will Michelle Malkin walk back her “piece of crap” attack on the DHS report about right-wing extremists? (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
In light of the Holocaust Museum shooting, where the suspect is reportedly a far-right white supremacist, will Malkin and her army of online bullies, who denounced the Department of Homeland Security for having the audacity to single out right-wing extremists for being potential terrorists, now concede that they were wrong? Will Malkin and company concede that perhaps the DHS knows more than partisan conservative bloggers do about home-grown “lone wolf extremists” and the danger they pose to America? (Malkin dismissed the report as a “piece of crap.”) We’re waiting, Michelle.

In Wake Of Shootings, Conservatives Rush To Defend Disparagement Of DHS Report On Right-Wing Extremism (Think Progress)
Following yesterday’s tragic shooting at the Holocaust Museum — reportedly carried out by white supremacist James von Brunn — two Fox News personalities, Shepard Smith and Catherine Herridge, suggested that critics of the Department of Homeland Security’s report on right-wing extremism should re-think their criticism. ” “The right went absolutely bonkers,” said Smith, adding that DHS was “warning us for a reason.” But later on Fox, New York Post columnist Ralph Peters attacked Smith and Herridge for claiming that the shooting “validated” the DHS report. “It had nothing to do with the Department of Homeland Security report,” declared Peters.
Click through to watch the video.

SPLC’s Potok slams Limbaugh, others for saying “they were somehow being defamed” by DHS extremist report “for being conservatives” (County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Liddy tweet: “maybe Rev Wright drove James W. von Brunn over the edge….” (County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Well, let’s let Rev. Wright speak for himself:
Wright: “Them Jews” won’t let Obama talk to me (by Alex Koppelman at War Room, Salon)
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, President Obama’s former pastor, has gotten himself back in the news again, this time by commenting on his post-election relationship with Obama. He’s in Virginia for a conference with other ministers, and while there, he spoke with a local paper, telling them he has no regrets about the statements he made from the pulpit that turned controversial last year, and that he’s unable to speak with the president… Wright told the paper: “Them Jews aren’t going to let him talk to me.”

It Is Impossible to Convince the Bitters That Barack Obama Is Not a Muslim (by Pareene at Gawker)
10% of Americans still believe Barack Obama is a Muslim. And here is the fun bit: a new study suggests that attempts to correct that misperception only reinforce it. Blogger Brendan Nyhan conducted the study… [W]hen fellow typical white people tried to convince Republicans that Barack Obama is a Christian, it “caused a backfire effect in which GOP identifiers became more likely to believe Obama is Muslim and less likely to believe he was being honest about his religion.”

Savage hosted WND’s Klein to claim that in Cairo speech Obama “quoted from a section of the Qur’an that urges” jihad (County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Let’s Profile the Right Wing (by Larry Johnson at No Quarter)
[I]f profiling is good enough for the carpet huggining, Allah praying sons of Mohammed then we ought to give it a whirl with the Rush Limbaugh/Sean Hannity Christian fundamentalists. Let’s include guys and gals who have served in the military too. Round em up and keep an eye on them. And I guess we ought to get any krauts still in Amerika… (Okay, this is a sarcasm, irony test. We will find out if you are smart enough to understand my true meaning.)… Maybe the rightwing, especially those who want to target “muslims,” might now realize the danger of the mentality that wants to punish a group of people for the actions of a few. What do you think?

Why is Tiller’s alleged killer doing press conferences? (by Gene Lyons, Salon)
Since when do imprisoned terrorists get to hold press conferences? I speak of Scott Roeder, the accused assassin of Dr. George Tiller… A classic Midwestern lone demento, Roeder appears to envision himself as a soldier in an avenging army. They always do, don’t they? Broke and alone, according to one of his ex-wives, Roeder ranted constantly against God’s enemies, as defined by him. Police arresting him found explosives in his car, a 1993 Ford Taurus listed as his only asset.

Meanwhile, hundreds of mourners attended Tiller’s funeral, where they heard him “eulogized as a loving father and friend, a regular guy, a lover of Elvis and old movies, of ice cream and axioms,” according to Fred Mann in the Wichita Eagle. Tiller’s son described his murder this way: “I believe that God decided, ‘You have done everything I asked a person to do here on earth. Now I will show the world what a loving, compassionate, courageous, selfless man you are.’ And so it happened.” To antiabortion absolutists who dubbed him “Tiller the killer,” this must be incomprehensible.

Free Hot Wings at Pro-Right Wing Violence Press Conference! (by Pareene at Gawker)
This is how you do press relations: journalists who attend right-wing nut Randall Terry’s upcoming “George Tiller’s murder is great news for the pro-life movement” press conference will get free beer and wings!

Just Don’t Call It Terrorism (by digby)
It’s pretty clear that the right wing has lost whatever restraint it had and that the ongoing paroxysms of violent, extreme rhetoric are having their effect. The crocodile tears of the anti-abortion forces after the Tiller assassination notwithstanding, it’s also pretty clear that they know this violence is effective. If you want to paralyze a society and force people to capitulate out of fear of random violence, nothing beats terrorism. And once the right gets everybody looking over their shoulders, they’ll misdirect the citizenry and run to the rescue with calls for “law and order.” (Recall that the violence of the 60s didn’t originate with the left — it originated with racist cops unleashing hell on non-violent protesters.) It’s working great with the deficit.

Thomas Frank disagrees, Digby:
Red State Story (by Thomas Frank, author of What’s the Matter with Kansas?)
Pro-life leaders declared themselves shocked and surprised. How could this happen? And how could anyone associate them with this crime?… A larger reason for the shock and surprise — and this is true for the right generally — is this: The culture wars are not meant to be taken seriously. Yes, right-wing invective dabbles in nightmare visions of treason and conspiracy and rampant paganism and a homegrown holocaust right here on Main Street, U.S.A. Yes, it ritually denounces liberals as members of a class fundamentally alien to the American way of life. But these are the ingredients of entertainment, not politics.

Culture war makes you feel noble and heroic. It sells books, it drives up the ratings of “The O’Reilly Factor,” it brings in millions in direct-mail contributions — but everybody knows you can’t make Hollywood change its ways by walking the streets of Wichita carrying a sign deploring the “culture of death.” According to the unwritten rules of the culture wars, the “base” isn’t supposed to act on it when the performers describe a world gone crazy. They’re an audience; they’re supposed to hiss, applaud, donate, vote and go home.
It’s all meant to scare the bejeezus out of Democrats, too. And it’s been working incredibly well.

Conservative Group Still Promoting Proud-To-Be-A-Right-Wing Extremist Cards (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
The religious conservative, non-profit organization Liberty Counsel is still promoting on its website right-wing extremist ID cards as a way of protesting that very same DHS report. “I’m Proud to be a Right-Wing Extremist,” reads the card, “as described in the DHS Intelligence Assessment of April 7, 2009.”

Officers Involved In Von Brunn Shooting Were Union Members Who Had Pressed For Security Vests (Think Progress)
This morning on NBC’s Today Show, Sara Bloomfield, director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, commended the security police professionals who were able to so quickly take down shooter James von Brunn and save the lives of other visitors and staff members at the institution… However, according to SPFPA Washington DC representative Assane Faye, the union had been pressing Wackenhut for “company-issued protective vests,” as a result of a rise in anti-Semitic remarks directed at the museum’s officers. “I hammered this in our negotiations two years ago because of how sensitive that museum is,” Faye told the Washington Post. Wackenhut has not yet issued the vests.

The Great Debt Scare: Why Has It Returned? (by Robert Reich)
The Great Debt Scare is back. Odd that it would return right now, when the economy is still mired in the worst depression since the Great one… Odder still that the Debt Scare returns at the precise moment that bills are emerging from Congress on universal health care, which, by almost everyone’s reckoning, will not increase the long-term debt one bit… Even odder that the Debt Scare rears its frightening head just as the President’s stimulus is moving into high gear with more spending on infrastructure…

Why are the ostensibly liberal Center for American Progress and New York Times participating in the Debt Scare right now? Is it possible that among the President’s top economic advisors and top ranking members the Fed are people who agree more with conservative Republicans and Wall Streeters on this issue than with the President? Is it conceivable that they are quietly encouraging the Debt Scare even in traditionally liberal precincts, in order to reduce support in the Democratic base for what Obama wants to accomplish? Hmmm.

Same As It Ever Was (by Susie at Suburban Guerilla)
Notice how Obama’s all about “pay as you go” - except when it comes to bankers and wars? [After Downing Street:] “As it happens, however, there is a perfect vehicle available right now for an expansion of PAYGO: the war supplemental cum IMF bailout now being debated in the House. Here’s an extra $97 billion for wars and military that was not included in the regular budget. This is an expansion of spending, and nobody has explained where the money can come from.”

Daily Pulse on Health Care Politics (Political Wire)
New York Times: “The lesson Obama’s team took from [the passage of the budget bill], and one that will no doubt inform its approach to health care, is that it’s fine for a president to stand back from the process — but not so far back that Congress thinks he’s trying to duck the consequences… If Obama is going to sign a transformative health care law this year, it will, at some point soon, have to become his plan, no matter how much autonomy he wants to confer on his allies in Congress.” Of course, it’s not always clear who Obama’s allies are — even in his own party. 

Between a Rock and a Health Reform (by David Broder)
The goal of the Obama White House is to come up with a health-care plan that can attract bipartisan support. The president has told visitors that he would rather have 70 votes in the Senate for a bill that gives him 85 percent of what he wants rather than a 100 percent satisfactory bill that passes 52 to 48. There is good reason for that preference. When you are changing the way one-sixth of the American economy is organized and altering life for patients, doctors, hospitals and insurers, you need that kind of a strong launch if the result is to survive the  inevitable vagaries of the shakedown period.
Bullshit, as usual from you, David. The best way to handle the broken system we have is to shake it up completely, and let the pieces fall where they may. And that’s what most Americans want.

Large Majority Backs Major Overhaul of Health Care (Political Wire)
The latest Diageo/Hotline Poll finds that 62% of voters support “the President enacting a major overhaul of the U.S. health care system,” with 38% of voters strongly supporting a major overhaul. Specifically, one-third (35%) of Republican voters, 64% of Independent voters, and 87% of Democratic voters support a major overhaul of health care. Among age groups, while a majority all age groups support reforming health care, senior citizens age 65+ are the least supportive, with 56% of them supporting reform. Likewise, a majority of income categories support reform, but those earning $100K+ in annual income are the least supportive, with 58% supporting reform.

Why So Scared of a Public Plan? (by Joe Conason)
Medicare has performed better at controlling costs than private insurance companies. One reason is simple and obvious: Eliminating profits for shareholders and management cuts out a major cost factor. Another is less obvious: Private insurers consistently spend more on overhead and administration than Medicare… The private insurers will complain that this is “unfair” competition, but if the private sector is truly the efficient solution to our costly, wasteful and unfair health care system, then why is it so frightened of a public plan?

Medicare Drug Plan Ought to Be Model for Health Reform (by Mort Kondracke)
As they work on comprehensive health reform, Congress and President Barack Obama ought to look to the most successful model yet: the 2003 Medicare prescription drug law. Passed amid rancor and predictions of catastrophe, the law has proved to be an enormous success – much cheaper than expected and overwhelmingly popular with seniors.
It would be even more successful if the administrators were allowed to negotiate for lower drug prices, Mort.

Reducing Medicaid and Medicare Drug Costs Could Help Pay For Health Reform (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)
By lowering the costs that Medicaid and Medicare pay for prescription drugs, Congress could generate substantial savings to help pay for comprehensive health reform that achieves universal coverage.

American Medical Association Trying To Torpedo Health Care Reform Again (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
Just days before President Barack Obama is set to address the American Medical Association to pitch its members on his vision for health care reform, the 250,000-member physician group announced it would oppose a major component of that effort. On Wednesday night, the New York Times reported that AMA was “letting Congress know” that it would resist a public plan for health insurance coverage. Politically, the revelation could be a potentially significant blow to progressive health care reform advocates, who contend that a public option is the best way to reduce costs and increase insurance coverage. AMA has the institutional resources and the prestige to impact debates in the halls of Congress.

In An Attempt To Criticize Health Reform, Coburn Smears Veteran Health Care As ‘Untenable To Most Americans’ (Think Progress)
[Wednesday] morning on C-Span, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) laid out his criticism of the proposed public insurance option in Obama’s health reform plan. Like other opponents of reform, Coburn repeated the empty Frank Luntz-engineered talking points that claim “bureaucrats” will be making health decisions. In doing so, Coburn derided the Veterans Health Administration, a program that boasts bipartisan support and has provided American veterans with some of the best health care in the world:

This Time, We Won’t Scare (by Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times)
Perhaps you’ve seen those television commercials denouncing health care reform as a plot to create a Canadian-style totalitarian nightmare, and you feel a wee bit scared. Back in the election campaign, some people spread rumors that Barack Obama might be a secret Muslim conspiring to impose Sharia law on us. That seems unlikely now, but what if he’s a covert Canadian plotting to impose … health care?
I hope you’re right, Nick. I hope Americans won’t scare on this. But the record of the right wing success in winning by intimidation is a mighty long one.

House Education Committee hearing on single-payer healthcare (by Alegre)
C-Span is covering a long-overdue hearing addressing something that the majority of Americans, nurses and doctors want – a single-payer health care plan here in the US. There’s a good panel of witnesses at this hearing with one exception – and Dennis Kucinich just got through ripping into a guy who’s sole purpose is to tear apart the Canadian style system of care.  He raced through wait times for elective surgery (4 weeks), the number of uninsured (nearly zero) and the nummber of bankruptcies due to medical bills in Canada (zero).  The witness couldn’t – and at one point – refused to try to provide answers to Kucinich’s questions / points.
Common Dreams has a great article “Debunking Canadian Health Care Myths.” Click through above for a link to the hearing video.

Your money or your life (by Avedon Carol at the Sideshow)
For millions of people in America, losing your job means losing your health insurance, and that’s just when you are most likely to need it. People lose their jobs because they are ill, or become ill because they have been unemployed for a while, and that means that although you’ve been paying for years for expensive insurance, it will not be there when you need it. And that’s just leaving aside the fact that it may also not be there when you need it even if you still “have” health insurance, because your provider spends millions of dollars to try to prevent you from getting them to fork over for your healthcare. So it’s pretty simple: You’re already paying for healthcare. You deserve to get it.

Senator Calls Out Frank Luntz From Senate Floor (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
It’s not every day that a sitting senator takes to the floor to call out a GOP strategist. But on Wednesday, Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley did just that, whacking messaging guru Frank Luntz for writing a blueprint for demonizing health care reform and Republican officials for dutifully following his lead.
More of this, please. Exposing the tactics of the right wing will help reduce their effectiveness.

Snowe’s Ties To Health Care Industry Raise Concern As Reform Talk Heats Up (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
The Senate Republican who is front and center in the health care debate has received more than $1 million in campaign contributions from the health care industry. Her staff, too, has ties to some of the biggest players in the private insurance, with major stakes in the reform effort… [O]ver the course of her career [Olympia] Snowe has received more than $400,000 in campaign contributions from the insurance industry; more than $400,000 in donations from “health professionals;” more than $135,000 in contributions from hospitals and nursing homes; more than $100,000 from pharmaceutical and health products companies, and more than $60,000 from health services and HMOs, according to records from the open-government group, Center for Responsive Politics…

The ties, however, do not end with campaign contributions. Several former Snowe staffers now serve as lobbyists for private industry groups actively trying to affect health care legislation… The revolving door, in addition, has worked both ways. Snowe’s current deputy chief of staff, Arran Haynes, was, until recently, a lobbyist with Cassidy & Associates. One of the biggest lobbying names in D.C., the firm’s first quarter clients in 2009 alone include TriHealth (which paid $50,000 in lobbying fees), Memorial Healthcare System ($70,000), the University of Massachusetts Health Care system ($140,000), and other health care providers.

Americans’ net worth shrinks $1.33 trillion in 1Q (AP)
American households lost $1.33 trillion of their wealth in the first three months of the year as the recession took a bite out of stock portfolios and dragged down home prices.

U.S. Economy: Trade Gap Grows as Exports Decrease (Bloomberg)
The U.S. trade deficit widened in April for a second month as some of the world’s largest economies continued to contract, pushing exports to the lowest level in almost three years. The gap between imports and exports grew 2.2 percent to $29.2 billion, in line with forecasts, from a revised $28.5 billion in March that was larger than previously estimated, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Foreign demand for U.S. goods dropped 2.3 percent, exceeding a decrease in imports.

America’s Sea of Red Ink Was Years in the Making (by David Leonhardt, New York Times)
Mr. Obama’s main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. Such policies — together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama — account for 20 percent of the swing. About 7 percent comes from the stimulus bill that Mr. Obama signed in February. And only 3 percent comes from Mr. Obama’s agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas. If the analysis is extended further into the future, well beyond 2012, the Obama agenda accounts for only a slightly higher share of the projected deficits.
Oh yes, the tax cuts for people making LESS THAN $250,000 are breaking the bank, not the huge tax cuts for people making MORE THAN that. We’re told that the rich pay a huge percentage of total taxes, but it’s us little guys getting a small tax break that’s causing the huge deficits.

Telling the truth … once (by Jamison Foser at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
[Wednesday], the New York Times’ David Leonhardt explains that “President Obama’s agenda, ambitious as it may be, is responsible for only a sliver of the deficits, despite what many of his Republican critics are saying.” That’s great — really, it is. But it will mean very little if the Times does not include that fact in every subsequent story in which it quotes Republicans blaming Obama for running up deficits. The Times told the truth today — and many other news organizations quoted it. Now let’s see if they’re satisfied telling the truth once, or if they are committed to telling the truth every time.

Treasury to Set Executives’ Pay at 7 Ailing Firms (New York Times)
A federal proposal to restrict executive pay has the potential to humble seven large institutions that have received billions of dollars in bailout money.

Lawmakers Invested in Bailed-Out Firms (Washington Post)
Top House lawmakers had considerable holdings in major financial institutions that took billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts at the end of last year, according to annual financial disclosure reports released yesterday. From stock holdings to retirement funds to mortgages, more than 20 House leaders and members of the House Financial Services Committee had large personal stakes in the Wall Street powerhouses whose collapse last year led to an unprecedented government intervention in the marketplace. In some instances those lawmakers, like millions of other investors, sold their holdings at steep losses while others retained the stocks at greatly diminished value.
Would the losses have been even steeper, had the government not bailed out these firms? There’s too much wealth in Congress, friends. How can our representatives make the right decisions for us ordinary folks, when they’re part of the financial elite?

Wall Street’s Greenbacks Fill Democrats’ Coffers (Open Secrets)
Although the economy didn’t show many signs of improvement in the first few months of 2009, Democrats were benefiting more from Wall Street than they had in any previous cycle, pulling in 58 percent of all contributions that the finance, insurance and real estate sector gave between January and March. The struggling sector has given a total of $12.6 million, which is far more than any other sector has given so far this year to candidates, party committees and PACs. 

Fed Would Be Shut Down If It Were Audited, Expert Says (CNBC)
The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet is so out of whack that the central bank would be shut down if subjected to a conventional audit, Jim Grant, editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, told CNBC. With $45 billion in capital and $2.1 trillion in assets, the central bank would not withstand the scrutiny normally afforded other institutions, Grant said in a live interview… Grant said he would support legislation currently making its way through Congress calling for an audit of the Fed. Moreover, he criticized the way the Fed has managed the financial crisis, saying the central bank’s target rate should not be around zero.

Russia military says needs 1500 warheads: report (Reuters)
Russia must keep at least 1,500 nuclear warheads after talks with the United States on a new arms treaty, Interfax news agency quoted the commander of Russia’s Strategic Nuclear Forces as saying Wednesday. If Moscow’s final position reflects Colonel-General Nikolai Solovtsov’s view, it would mean Russia is not willing to cut its stockpiles by more than a few hundred strategic warheads – far less than some arms control bodies had hoped.

Pentagon Travel Policies Criticized by Watchdogs (Washington Post)
Pentagon personnel took more than 22,000 trips paid for by foreign countries, private companies and other nongovernmental sources over the past decade, raising conflict-of-interest concerns, according to watchdog groups that yesterday released the first public database of such travel… “The Pentagon itself should be paying for these trips,” said Bill Buzenberg, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity. He described the travel as being “riddled with conflicts of interest.”

America’s Foreign Policy Phobias Are Overblown (by William Pfaff at Truthdig)
[R]ecent developments in the Muslim Middle East and Central Asia challenge Washington’s conventional assumptions about Pakistan, the Taliban, Lebanon and Iran. The first is the revolt of tribesmen against the Taliban in part of Pakistan’s northwest tribal area… The significance of all this is major: The Taliban with their religious rigor do not automatically win converts among their own people. However, a second lesson is that American bombing operations in the tribal areas remain the principal force behind the earlier Taliban successes. The important conclusion is that foreign intruders should let the Pakistanis settle their own problems, as they now are doing.

New GOP Phrase For Detainee Pictures: “Terrorist Propaganda Photos” (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
Get ready to hear Republicans and conservative opinion-makers using a new phrase to describe the unreleased photos of detainees that are at the center of a white-hot political war right now: “Terrorist propaganda photos.” The House GOP leadership just used the phrase for the first time this morning in a statement they sent to me. The phrase was cooked up in hopes that it will catch on with other GOPers, and it probably will do just that… The new phrase is a reference to the GOP claim that such photos help terrorist recruitment, and signals that Republicans think they can milk this one for all it’s worth. Get ready to hear it again, and again, and…

An Obama Lever (by paradox at The Left Coaster)
[I]t still seems very hard to believe how Senate Democrats turned and ran over the latest Republican hissy fit of Guantanamo prisoners being on Homeland Soil… Related to that disgusting evolution was the laughable Obama birth of brand new jurisprudence, indefinite detainment without charge. Our dear over-confident President didn’t show he was strong against terrorists, only that he would compromise anything to any absurd lengths to make sure it seemed he was… [W]hat’s important for liberals, Democrats and progressives to know is that Obama will do anything not to be labeled weak on defense or terrorism. Everyone knows it, it’s a massive weakness and violation of many of our core values, and using Defense and terrorism tactics is the easiest way to manipulate him.
Yep, and most of the rest of the Democrats, too.

Vindication (by Michael J. Smith at Stop Me Before I Vote Again)
I usually don’t pay much attention to the Supreme Court — unlike my dear good liberal neighbors, who love it deeply. To my way of thinking, the Court was designed to be a reactionary institution, and if it behaves like one, blame the Founding Fathers. So I hope for little from it, and fear little from a reactionary president’s ability to appoint Thomases and Scalias, vile though these reptiles undoubtedly are. But I was pleased by Obie’s nomination of Ms Sotomayor to replace Mr Souter — one bland corporate centrist in place of another, keeping the existing complexion of the court intact.

It would be difficult to find a more perfect illustration of the Ratchet Effect. The Republicans have spent the last thirty years or so moving the Court back to its natural position on the Right. And when Mr Hope and Change gets an opportunity, quite early in his tenure, to nominate a justice, what does he do? He carefully keeps the court where the Republicans left it.

The Identity Dance (by Ellen Goodman)
I can’t help noting that in the Sotomayor drama, the charge of “identity politics” is leveled at relative newcomers. I have yet to hear a certified member of the Establishment derided as a practitioner of this dark art. For that matter, identity itself seems to be exclusively a matter of race, gender and minority status… [N]o one suggests that Chief Justice John Roberts is playing identity politics when, as Jeffrey Toobin wrote recently in The New Yorker, he reflects “a view that the court should almost always defer to the existing power relationships in society.”

Lobbyists Warned to Stay Away from GOP Meeting (Political Wire)
Top aides to Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) called a “last-minute, pre-emptive” strike “with a group of prominent Democratic lobbyists, warning them to advise their clients not to attend a meeting with Senate Republicans set for Thursday,” Roll Call reports. Recounted one lobbyist: “They said, ‘Republicans are having this meeting and you need to let all of your clients know if they have someone there, that will be viewed as a hostile act… Going to the Republican meeting will say, ‘I’m interested in working with Republicans to stop health care reform.’”
I hated it when the Republicans played this kind of politics, and I don’t like it any better when Democrats do.

Norm Coleman Owes Al Franken A Lot of Money (by The Cajun Boy at Gawker)
[Wednesday] afternoon a Minnesota court ordered Norm Coleman to pay Al Franken close to $95,000 to compensate Franken for some of the legal costs he’s incurred during Coleman’s seemingly endless legal battle to win the Senate seat.
THAT will put an end to the controversy.

Crist Way Ahead of Rubio (Political Wire)
A new Quinnipiac poll in Florida finds Gov. Charlie Crist (R) crushing Marco Rubio (R) 54% to 23% in a Republican U.S. Senate primary. On the Democratic side, the Senate race is far from settled. Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-FL) leads the primary field with 18%, followed by Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL) with 12% and Rep. Ron Klein (D-FL) with 8%. However, 57% of voters say they don’t yet have a candidate in the race.

Corzine Trails Christie by 10 Points (Political Wire)
A new Quinnipiac poll in Virginia finds Chris Christie (R) leading Gov. Jon Corzine, 50% to 40%, among likely voters. Said pollster Clay Richards: “Don’t count Gov. Jon Corzine out just because he trails by 10 points less than five months before Election Day. But he certainly has his work cut out for him. Most New Jersey voters say he does not deserve re-election; that things have gotten worse since he became Governor and that personally he is cold and businesslike, not warm and friendly.”

What’s behind Dobbs’ 29% drop in total viewers? (New York Observer, via Poynter Online)
“I don’t know if it’s true in Lou Dobbs’ case, but sometimes people just tire of acts,” says media reporter Ken Auletta. TV news critic Andrew Tyndall believes the CNNer’s cooling off is primarily attributable to the fading of immigration as a core issue of national concern.

AOL for GOP? (Air America)
Although PoliticsDaily.com, one of AOL’s daily political news suppliers, aims to offer “smart pieces from across the ideological spectrum,” it may be pandering, intentionally or not, to AOL’s increasingly conservative audience.

Krauthammer: Fox News has ‘created an alternate reality’ for its viewers. (Think Progress)
[Tuesday], Charles Krauthammer accepted the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism, an annual award given by News Corporation. In his acceptance speech, Krauthammer lauded Fox News channel, which he said has “done a great service to the American polity” and for “single-handedly breaking up the intellectual and ideological monopoly that for decades exerted hegemony (to use a favorite lefty cliché) over the broadcast media.” But his praise took a strange turn when he extolled the “genius” of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes for creating an “alternate reality” for its viewers…

Elsewhere in his speech, Krauthammer tried to explain why his award was more valuable to him than the Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize is “awarded to those, from Yasir Arafat to Jimmy Carter, who give the most succor to the forces of terror and tyranny,” Krauthammer said.
Because what the world needs is less common ground and more irreconcilable differences.

News Corp. Forms Diversity Council After Cartoon (AP)
News Corp. has agreed to form an external diversity council after meeting with civil rights groups about a New York Post cartoon that critics said likened President Barack Obama to a dead chimpanzee. The council will meet with senior company executives twice a year.

Resource: New Facebook App Lets You Track Your Representatives’ Cash (Open Secrets)
If you’re already a fan of OpenSecrets.org, how about making it official on Facebook? Not only do we have a fan page where you can leave comments, ask questions and engage in money-in-politics discussions, now you can add our OpenSecrets app to your own Facebook page and follow the special interests trying to curry favor with your legislators. Just enter your zip code and your congressional representatives will show up in your profile, including the total they’ve raised in the 2010 election cycle and the name of their top donor… Here’s an example of what the app will look like on your Facebook profile:

California State Controller: Out of Cash in 50 Days (Calculated Risk)
California State Controller John Chiang wrote to Governor Schwarzenegger [Wednesday]. “In the absence of legislative action, the State will not have sufficient cash to meet all of its payment obligations on July 28. By July 31, the cash deficit will increase to a negative $2.78 billion.”

Gay New Yorkers Head to Greenwich for Weddings (New York Times)
Since same-sex marriages became legal in Connecticut in November, couples, many from New York City, have been flocking to Greenwich to wed.
Missing out on all that wedding business, New York, not very smart.

Rhode Island Senate passes medical marijuana bill (AP)
Rhode Island would be the third state in the nation and the first on the East Coast to allow nonprofit stores to sell marijuana to medical patients under legislation approved Tuesday by state lawmakers. The state Senate voted 30-2 to adopt a measure permitting three stores to sell marijuana to more than 680 patients registered with the state Department of Health. It now heads to Gov. Don Carcieri, who has previously vetoed bills legalizing marijuana for medical use.

Media Matters for America headlines

Media conservatives claim Holocaust museum shooter a “leftist”

Fox’s Scott didn’t report Roberts hearings were also originally scheduled for 48-day mark

Carlson, Forbes misrepresent Obama position on executive compensation

Conservatives attack Shep Smith for his Holocaust museum shooting remarks, call for firing

NBC’s Luke Russert quotes Boehner pushing debunked cap and trade cost

Gingrich says it’s “unimaginable” to Mirandize suspects in Afghanistan, but Bush reportedly did so

Conservatives link Obama’s purported “class warfare,” positioning “America against the Jewish state” to Holocaust Museum shooting

Another memory lapse: Coulter claims “people didn’t go after Chelsea Clinton”

Fox News divided on whether Holocaust museum shooting validates DHS report

Fox attacks media’s Army recruiter shooting coverage, but didn’t carry survivor’s press conference

China defends net filtering software amid outcry
Chinese state media on Thursday issued an unprecedented defense of newly required Internet filtering software that must be packaged with every computer sold in China starting next month, after a public outcry at home and abroad.

AP slaps newsman for criticizing McClatchy on his Facebook page
Richard Richtmyer wrote on his Facebook page: “It seems like the ones [at McClatchy] who orchestrated the whole mess should be losing their jobs or getting pushed into smaller quarters. But they aren’t.” AP put a reprimand letter in the Philly-based newsman’s employment file, and now the union is asking the news service to fine-tune its social networking policy and reverse Richtmyer’s reprimand.

Recession And Free Media Expansion Impact Further On Media Consumption Patterns, Research Shows
More than a quarter of consumers plan to reduce or cancel their satellite or cable TV subscriptions, according to the research, up from 15% six months ago.

Show Me the Spreadsheet for Online Revenues (by Erik Sherman at BNET)
Many people go on about the salvation for news media being sites that offer free content and find other ways — most often advertising — to pay the freight. But if you had numbers and a spreadsheet on hand, most of this talk would show itself for what it most often is: wishful thinking.

IAC’s Diller: The iPhone Is Our Crystal Ball
While much of the “new IAC” relies on advertising revenue, Barry Diller declared that strictly relying on advertising as a business model is not sustainable. “I absolutely believe that the Internet is passing from its free phase into a paid system,” he predicted.

USAT to Introduce Paid Digital Edition
USA Today is counting on new digital reading devices and mobile applications more than an online paid content strategy. Publisher David Hunke said the newspaper is being “extraordinarily bullish” on the move to wireless devices and mobile apps. 

ACA: Charging Sub Fees For Internet Content Could ‘Cripple’ Broadband Rollout
ACA, which represents smaller and mid-sized cable operators, says that companies like Disney are charging for Web-based content and “requiring” broadcasters to include those fees as part of basic Internet access for all subscribers.
The internet, so far, has proven to be the destroyer of middlemen and gatekeepers.

Digital downloads spell end for videogame stores?
Will digital downloads kill the videogames store? That’s the multibillion dollar question facing retailers from Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Target Corp to GameStop Corp, as Internet distributors continue to grow.

Listen Up, Old-School Journalists (by Laura Rich at Recessionwire)
After hearing a few of the folks at the Mediabistro Circus conference, I got a little hope back — journalism and writing jobs aren’t going away, but thanks to the recession, they’re undergoing a swift, head-spinning transformation, and the profession’s new iteration will take some hard work.

Newspapers Must Drop Elitism (by Jerry Lanson, Christian Science Monitor)
Conventional wisdom holds that newspapers have been crippled by the flight of advertising to the Web. But they’ve been crippled just as much by corporate profiteering, arrogance, elitism, and encroaching dullness that have driven away readers, sometimes in droves.

What NYT staffers should do differently, according to a “Daily Show” correspondent
“You could be acting more like the newsroom I know from movies,” says Jason Jones… “There is not enough harried people running around, there’s not enough papers piled on desks, none of that stuff.” || Jones’ impression of executive editor Bill Keller: “Talking to Bill, I realized how dumb I was. He’s a very well-spoken, cogent man. With no time for my juvenile fraternity humor.”

Murdoch’s Monster: The Journal of the Plague Years
For the past 19 months, since Rupert Murdoch got his hands on The Journal, he has been slowly, deliberately turning it into his newspaper. The Journal has become, the erudite, broadsheet expression of News Corp. America.

Alex Jones: Globe vote was like mouthing off to a cop
There’s momentary satisfaction, but you pay a severe price. Former Times reporter Alex Jones writes: “One can only imagine the conversations between spouses in the wake of the ‘no’ vote as the reality of what has been unleashed hit home.” The Globe’s unions have almost no leverage, he points out, and a strike would be suicidal.

Boston-based real estate firm in talks to buy the Globe
An Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. exec says the firm has been pursuing a Globe purchase for about ten weeks. “Intercontinental is interested in any good investment that offers superior returns for our investors, as well as opportunities for job preservation, and even job growth, for our union investors.” Boston-based Intercontinental manages real estate and some $2.5 billion in investment funds, including union pensions.

First Look: Kindle DX: Bigger Will Be Better For Some (by Staci D. Kramer at Mashable)
I now have three Kindles in the house—K1, K2 and the brand-new DX. The first two are my own, nifty little money-making machines for Amazon as I load them with newspapers, magazines, blogs and books, all paid for via the credit card linked to my account. I didn’t feel a compelling urge to own a DX; the device that arrived today is a 10-day loaner from Amazon with a promotional $30 added to my account for review purposes. Do I feel compelled to buy one now that I’ve been using it for a few hours? Far too soon to tell but it’s safe to say it’s a very different experience from its older, but smaller siblings.

New Online Mag About Jewish News Launches
Calling itself “a daily online magazine of Jewish news, ideas, and culture,” Tablet began publishing Tuesday. Tablet lists an impressive bunch of contributors and is edited by Alana Newhouse, the former culture editor of The Forward, along with Jesse Oxfeld, who serves as executive editor.

News Corp. in Talks to Unload Weekly Standard to Anschutz
News Corp. is near a deal to sell its right-wing political magazine, The Weekly Standard, to conservative media mogul Philip Anschutz. As the prospects for print media shrink, News Corp. may be reviewing all its assets and deciding what stays and what goes.

Magazine Researchers Explore New Ways to Weigh Ad Impact
On television, advertisers pay based on the ratings of a particular commercial. On the Internet, they pay according to a measurement like a click on an ad. And in magazines, advertisers choose where to run ads based on the results of door-to-door surveys done twice a year.

CBS Finds Sweet Ratings Surprise in Award Shows
Last Sunday, 7.6 million viewers tuned in to CBS’ broadcast of the Tony Awards, an increase of 1.2 million compared to last year. The network’s Grammy award telecast was seen by 19 million viewers, up 10 percent. And the Academy of Country Music Awards pulled 14.8 million viewers, the most in 11 years

Dave Beats Conan: Panic at NBC?
Boosted by a visit from Julia Roberts Tuesday, CBS’s Late Show With David Letterman scored its first nightly win over Conan O’Brien. The Letterman win ended six straight nights of O’Brien dominance in the ratings.

Broadcast TV Never Converted Its Digital Dream
After enduring loads of hassle — coupons! deadlines! converter boxes! — the net impact of the digital conversion will be a few more channels and the chance to see Mr. T again. The brave new world of digital broadcasting turned out to be modest because “broadcasters never really tried to innovate.”

CBS’ Moonves Reassures Stockholders
“We believe we have seen the bottom of the downturn” and things will get better as the year unfolds, Les Moonves said at the company’s annual shareholder meeting. “We are seeing early signs of improvement in the advertising marketplace, both in local and national.”

Craigslist Revenues: $100 Million — or $300 Million?
Craigslist is on track to make $100 million in revenues this year, according to a private study by the AIM Group/Classified Intelligence group. But there is evidence — on their own site — that the service’s annual revenues are actually a good deal more than $300 million.

Facebook to let users add names to profile addresses
Facebook on Friday will begin letting members use their full names in online addresses for profile pages at the popular online social networking service

WordPress 2.8 Now Available for Download (Mashable)
WordPress has just released the newest version of their installable blog software: WordPress 2.8 – Baker. The most notable addition would seem to be the ability to browse themes from within the WordPress Dashboard. With the Theme Browser, you can specify the color you want, how many columns there should be, and fixed or flexible width. You can then select and install themes match those criteria on-the-fly, without leaving the Dashboard. WordPress 2.8 also offers a re-designed widgets interface, improved speed, and has fixed a reported 790 bugs.

Massive Layoffs Coming to MySpace?
MySpace is about to have a major wave of layoffs, according to multiple sources close to the company. One source describes the number of people affected as “massive,” while another source says that the layoffs will likely affect between 300 and 500 employees.

U.S. Ad Spending Fell 14 Percent in First Quarter
U.S. ad spending on media such as TV, print, and online display ads fell 14 percent to $30.18 billion in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to TNS Media Intelligence, despite guardedly optimistic talk in recent weeks about a bottoming out in the market.

Mad Men, AMC Settle Two-Minute Dispute
AMC and Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner have agreed to let the show’s episodes run over into the 11 p.m. hour so extra commercial time can be added without having to shorten the scripts to accommodate the ads.

Microsoft Adds TV-Style Game Show (Complete With Commercial Breaks) To Xbox (Paid Content)
With 1 vs. 100, the live game show it launched in open beta on the Xbox last week, Microsoft is also pushing another TV staple to the video-game console: The commercial break. The show 1 vs. 100 lets thousands of Xbox owners respond to questions while listening to a live host provide comedic commentary. And just like a TV show, segments are divided by 30-second ad spots… 1 vs. 100 is part of a larger initiative by Microsoft to broaden the appeal of the Xbox beyond its core young, male demographic.

Saving Grace With SavvyAuntie; TNT Tries Sponsored Tweets (Mashable)
Melanie Notkin, otherwise known as @SavvyAuntie and the founder of the social network by the same name, has been tasked with a very unusual role by a major cable television network. Turner’s TNT has hired the savvy auntie to officially live tweet on behalf of the Saving Grace program starting next Tuesday, June 16th at 10pm EST. These sponsored conversations will be hosted by Notkin (a prominent member of New York’s Social Media Hub) and use the hashtag #SavingGrace with [sp] to denote that the tweets are sponsored.

Air Writing: Next Big Thing in Cell Phones?‎
Forget fumbling with tiny cell phone keys.  A prototype of a new application allows cell phone users to write short notes in the air and send them automatically to an e-mail address… “By holding the phone like a pen, you can write short messages or draw simple diagrams in the air,” said Sandip Agrawal, an electrical and computer engineering student at Duke University in North Carolina. The air-writing app takes advantage of accelerometers already inside cell phones.
Sounds pretty awkward to me. And slow. How about, instead, a hologram of a keyboard that can sense where the fingers “tap”?

Review: New Intel chips power skinny laptops
Tiny, cheap laptops known as netbooks have been a big success. But not everyone likes their small screens and keyboards, and their processors aren’t powerful enough for some common tasks, like playing high-quality Internet video. Now, Intel Corp. is pushing slightly more powerful chips for slightly larger computers that still have key netbook qualities such as a light weight and long battery life. Could this be a Goldilocks moment for laptops – when we get machines that are just right?