A BAILOUT FOR NEWSPAPERS TOO?

Last month at my own site, I posted about the Newspaper Revitalization Act. At the time of that posting, few took seriously the possibility that such a bailout, i.e., government control, of the print media could gain traction. The bill, proposed by U.S. Senator Benjamin Cardin, had no sponsors at the point of that previous posting and was limited to preserving local newspapers, not for the purpose of bailing out the media conglomerates.

Now comes this story from Fox News (hat tip to Weasel Zippers):

Obama Appointee Suggests Radical Plan for Newspaper Bailout

Rosa Brooks, who has moved from the L.A. Times to the Pentagon, called for more "direct government support for public media" and government licensing of the news, which critics say would destroy the independent media.

Influential Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa Brooks has hung up her journalistic hat and joined the Obama administration, but not before penning a public proposal calling for some radical ideas to help bail out the failing news industry.

Brooks, who has taken up a post as an adviser at the Pentagon, advocated upping "direct government support for public media" and creating licenses to govern news operations.

"Years of foolish policies have left us with a choice: We can bail out journalism, using tax dollars and granting licenses in ways that encourage robust and independent reporting and commentary, or we can watch, wringing our hands, as more and more top journalists are laid off," she wrote in her parting column on April 9.

Brooks said this would help rescue the industry from a "death spiral"...

But critics say her proposal would spell an end to the independent media and make journalists reliant lapdogs...

Read the rest.

A stepping stone to control of the media as portrayed by George Orwell's dystopia in 1984 via the control of what information and terminology the public can find available in the mainstream media? Welcome to Pravda USA!

Bill O'Reilly on the topic of Rosa Brooks:



WE THE PEOPLE can have all the Tax Day Tea Parties we want, but if the government gains extensive control of the media, those Parties will be in vain, particularly if there is no overall plan to continue the momentum of such a grassroots movement.

OBAMA'S BIRDS OF A FEATHER

THERE'S A SINGLE CONTEXT HERE... BIRDS OF A FEATHER... THEY ARE ALL AMERICA-BASHERS...

BIBI 2009 AND OBAMA 2007 AGREE: ISRAEL MUST REMAIN A JEWISH STATE

BIBI IS GETTING CRAP FOR SAYING THAT THE ARABS MUST ACCEPT ISRAEL AS A JEWISH STATE - AS IF IT WAS A NEW DEMAND MEANT TO PUT A STOP TO THE "SMOOTH-MOVING PEACE-PROCESS".

THE SO-CALLED PALESTINIANS ARE CRYING FOUL.

BUT OBAMA SAID AS MUCH IN 2007:

"I think everyone knows what the basic outlines of an agreement would look like. It would mean that the Palestinians would have to reinterpret the notion of right of return in a way that would preserve Israel as a Jewish state...."

OBAMA TOOK THAT POSITION WHILE HE WAS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT.

IT WILL BE INTERESTING TO SEE IF PRESIDENT OBAMA TAKES A MORE PRO-ARAB/PRO-MUSLIM STAND NOW THAT HE'S GOT THE OVAL OFFICE.

(I BETCHYA OBAMA TAKES A POSITION CLOSER TO THAT OF HIS LONGTIME BABYSITTER - RASHID KHALIDI, WHO NOW SITS IN THE EDWARD "LIAR" SAID CHAIR OF ARABIC STUDIES AT COLUMBIA.)

WEEKEND "GUARANTEED NOT HALAL"

DEEPIKA AND SHILPA.
























NO BURQA NECESSARY.

OBAMA'S ENERGY SECRETARY REPEATS AGW-HURRICANE CANARD

NYT/AP:

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu is warning that if countries don't do something about climate change, ''some island states will simply disappear.'' The energy secretary is traveling with President Barack Obama to the two-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago for a summit of the Western Hemisphere's democracies. ...

Chu said that rising temperatures lead to more damaging hurricanes and rising oceans. He said those results are scary.

THIS GUY IS MERELY REPEATING LEFT-WING BS. (LIKE "WE LOST IRAQ." AND "MEXICAN GANGS ARMED BY US GUN-SHOPS." AND "DEREGULATION CAUSED FINANCIAL MELTDOWN.")

• FACT: THERE IS NO CONNECTION BETWEEN GLOBAL-WRMING AND HURRICANE FREQUENCY OR STRENGTH.

• IN FACT, RIGHT NOW HURRICANE FREQUENCY IS HISTORICALLY LOW.

• EVEN NOAA HAS NOTED SAME.

UPDATE: MORE PROOF AGW IS BS: ANTARCTIC ICE GROWING NOT SHRINKING; VIA HOT AIR. FULL REPORT HERE. EXCERPT:

ICE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.

The results of ice-core drilling and sea ice monitoring indicate there is no large-scale melting of ice over most of Antarctica, although experts are concerned at ice losses on the continent's western coast.

FOUR FORMER CIA CHIEFS TOLD OBAMA NOT TO RELEASE MEMOS!

UNBEFREAKINLIEVABLE:

Four CIA chiefs said 'don't reveal torture memos'

Agency's ex-directors objected to interrogation techniques being revealed. But Barack Obama went ahead anyway

By Pamela Hess

Four former CIA directors opposed the release of classified Bush-era interrogation memos, officials say, describing objections that went all the way to the White House and slowed disclosure of the records.

Former CIA chiefs Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet and John Deutch all called the White House in March warning that release of the so-called "torture memos" would compromise intelligence operations, current and former officials say.

FOR DELIBERATELY COMPROMISING INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS, OBAMA SHOULD BE IMPEACHED - AND CHARGED WITH TREASON!

TIME TO GIVE DEMOCRATS THE PINK SLIP

SUSAN BOYLE VIDEO INTERVIEW BY HER HOMETOWN PAPER

PERSPECTIVE ALERT: MUSLIMS HAVE KILLED MORE MUSLIMS SINCE 9/11 THAN WHITE RACISTS LYNCHED BLACKS FROM 1882-1968

FACT: MUSLIMS HAVE KILLED MORE MUSLIMS SINCE 9/11 THAN WHITE RACISTS LYNCHED BLACKS FROM 1882-1968.


TOTAL BLACKS LYNCHED FROM 1882-1968 - (IN WHAT SOME CALL "THE BLACK HOLOCAUST"): 3,445.

3,445.

A HORRIFYING NUMBER. SHAMEFUL. AWFUL. SICKENING. A SAD CHAPTER IN AMERICAN HISTORY.

BUT... A MERE FRACTION OF THE NUMBER OF MUSLIMS KILLED BY OTHER MUSLIMS SINCE 9/11/01.

AND IT'S A MERE FRACTION OF THE NON-MUSLIMS KILLED BY MUSLIMS SINCE 9/11/01.

SO, WHEN LIBERALS AND LEFTIES CALL US CONSERVATIVES WHO ARE HAWKS "RACISTS" AND WARMONGERS (AS MANY DID TO ME LAST NIGHT AT A FAMILY REUNION!), AS IF WE WERE SOMEHOW RACISTS WHO ARE MORE DANGEROUS THAN JIHADISTS - THEY ARE MISSING THE TRUTH ON THREE LEVELS:

1 - IT WAS THE GOP WHICH ENDED SLAVERY AND VOTED MORE DECISIVELY FOR CIVIL RIGHTS FROM WW2 THROUGH THE 1960'S CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT; HISTORICALLY, THE DEMOCRAT PARTY IS THE PARTY OF THE KKK AND RACISM. THE GOP HAS TRADITIONALLY AND CONSISTENTLY STOOD FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND AGAINST STATISM.

2 - WHEN THE GOP AND CONSERVATIVES SUPPORTED US MILITARY ACTION TO LIBERATE IRAQIS FROM SADDAM IT WAS NOT RACIST. WHEN THE LEFT AND THE DEMOCRAT PARTY WANTED THE USA TO WITHDRAW EVEN IF IT LED TO AN IRAQI GENOCIDE IT WAS RACIST.

3 - WHEN OBAMA AND THE LEFT SAY THAT RACISM AND "ECONOMIC JUSTICE" ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN DEFEATING GLOBAL JIHAD THEY INFLATE AMERICAN RACISM AND UNDERESTIMATE THE THREAT OF GLOBAL JIHAD.

• SINCE 9/11/01, GLOBAL JIHAD HAS KILLED TENS OF THOUSANDS AND MAIMED TENS OF THOUSANDS AND FORCED MILLIONS OF WOMEN TO LIVE IN FEAR WITHOUT THEIR HUMAN RIGHTS.

• RACISM IN THE USA HAS DONE BUPKUS - BY COMPARISON.

• SHIT: GLOBAL WARMING HAS KILLED NOBODY BY COMPARISON, YET THE LEFT THINKS CO2 AND AGW ARE HUMANITY'S BIGGEST THREATS.

• THIS IS WHY CALLING TODAY'S DEMOCRATS WHAT ANTI-WAR DEMOCRAT WERE CALLED IN 1862 IS SO APT.

• THEY ARE COPPERHEADS.

• THEY ARE - FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES - A FIFTH COLUMN FOR GLOBAL JIHAD.

WHICH IS WHY I HAVE LONG ARGUED THAT WE NEED TO DEFEAT THE LEFTISTS IN ORDER TO DEFEAT THE JIHADISTS.

ASIDE: HERE ARE A FEW OTHER THINGS TO REMEMBER WHEN ARGUING WITH A LEFTIST:

• THE LEFT KILLED MORE PEOPLE IN THE 20TH CENTURY THAN THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION IN THE PRECEDING 19 CENTURIES COMBINED. STALIN, MAO, HITLER, POL POT, KIM ARE ALL GENOCIDAL LEFTIST UTOPIANISTS WHO SLAUGHTERED MORE THAN 150 MILLION.

• SO WHEN ATHEISTIC LIBS DECRY RELIGION IN GENERAL -AND BLAME BELIEVERS FOR ALL THE WORLD'S ILL, THEY ARE ONLY EXPOSING THEIR IGNORANCE AND ANTI-WEST BIAS.
  

• FACT: SINCE ITS INCEPTION, ISLAM HAS KILLED EVEN MORE PEOPLE THAN LEFTISM; IN FACT, MORE THAN ANY OTHER IDEOLOGY EVER. 80 MILLION HINDUS ALONE! (SOME ARGUE IT'S 600 MILLION HINDUS!)

• ARAB-ISRAELI FATALITIES ARE MINUSCULE BY COMPARISON - .3%
  

DISSENT FROM LEFTISM ACCORDINGLY.

ATTACK ISLAM ACCORDINGLY.

BUSHITLER VERSUS VLADIMIR ILICH OBAMESSIAH

GREAT POST COMPARING LEFTIST WACKOS AND TEA PARTIES.

LUXURY CAR TERRORISTS

Another attempt has been made at attacking Israeli authorities with an expensive German-made car:

A Palestinian driver ran over two police officers Saturday, while they were on a patrol near the Hizmeh checkpoint, north of Jerusalem.

According to the initial police report, the officers were on routine Highway Police activity at the time of the incident, inspecting a Palestinian taxi at the checkpoint, when the man, driving a Mercedes, came out of one of the lanes and rammed into them.

Both officers were thrown a short distance from the impact of the car. They were rushed to the Hadassah Mount Scopus and Hadassah Ein Kerem hospitals in Jerusalem, suffering from moderate and light injuries to their lower extremities.

The driver, a 37-year-old Palestinian resident of the East Jerusalem village of al-Azariya, was detained immediately. The man initially admitted malice, but later confessed to having mental problems.

First, I'm afraid that terrorist attacks are on the increase again. Oh, and don't buy into his sob story about mental illness, which is certainly farfetched.

Now, about the car. Notice how the vehicle used was a luxury car made by a German outfit? A couple months ago, a similar incident happened in Jerusalem when another car jihadist used a BMW. Again, this shows how these are no paupers.

TODAY'S "AGW = BS ALERT": SPRING BLIZZARD IN COLORADO

NYT/AP: Snowstorm Weakens After Closing Stretch of I-70

A spring storm was weakening after dumping up to 3 feet of snow on the foothills west of Denver -- stranding hundreds of people in shelters and forcing the closure of an 80-mile stretch of Interstate 70.

Transportation officials shut down I-70 between Vail and Golden in the late afternoon Friday because of wet, heavy snow and multiple accidents.

... It was unclear when the interstate would reopen. The spring storm had dumped up to 3 feet of snow on the foothills by Friday night but was starting to weaken, forecasters said.

The area was expected to see only another 2 to 5 inches through noon Saturday, said meteorologist Frank Cooper of the National Weather Service's Boulder office.

... Winter storm warnings across the state were expected to last until midday Saturday...

...Nearly 3 feet of snow had fallen by Friday afternoon in Rocky Mountain National Park about 60 miles northwest of Denver, forcing officials to close its Beaver Meadows and Fall River entrances because snowplows couldn't keep up.

A SPRING SNOWSTORM - IN THE AGE OF AGW!?!?!?

HOWZDAT POSSIBLE!?!?

MUST BE THAT AGW = BS.

AND THE ANTI-CO2 CROWD A BUNCH OF SOCIALIST DUPES.

DISSENT ACCORDINGLY.

AN ATLAS OF OBAMA OUTRAGEOUSNESS

SOMEONE ELSE AGREES WITH ME: Obama will dump Isrsael the first chance he gets.

OBAMA BOWED TO A SAUDI KING - AND NOW HI-5'S CHAVEZ.

And he blocked the USN from attacking the muslim pirates.

OBAMA = ANTI-AMEEICAN ANTIZIONIST SCUM.

(MORE ON THE IMPENDING USA-ISRAEL SPLIT HERE.)

IF TREASON IS IMPEACHABLE, THEN OBAMA SHOULD BE IMPEACHED

I SAY THE FOLLOWING, WRITTEN BY MUKSASEY AND HAYDEN - IF TRUE - MEANS OBAMA HAS COMMITTED TREASON:

The release of these opinions was unnecessary as a legal matter, and is unsound as a matter of policy.

Its effect will be to invite the kind of institutional timidity and fear of recrimination that weakened intelligence gathering in the past, and that we came sorely to regret on Sept. 11, 2001.

Although evidence shows that the Army Field Manual, which is available online, is already used by al Qaeda for training purposes, it was certainly the president's right to suspend use of any technique.

However, public disclosure of the OLC opinions, and thus of the techniques themselves, assures that terrorists are now aware of the absolute limit of what the U.S. government could do to extract information from them, and can supplement their training accordingly and thus diminish the effectiveness of these techniques as they have the ones in the Army Field Manual.

THIS AIDS AND ABETS THE ENEMY. THIS STRENGTHENS THE ENEMY AND WEAKENS US. HENCE IT IS TREASON. THEREFORE IT IS IMPEACHABLE.

OBAMA SHOULD BE IMPEACHED.

HE IS A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER TO THE REPUBLIC.

Krauthammer:

On the release of Bush administration memos on interrogation methods:

I think it does harm the United States. It gives away a lot of our techniques.

And I disagree. I don't see it as a dark chapter in our history at all.'

You look at some of these techniques — holding the head, a face slap, or deprivation of sleep. If that is torture, the word has no meaning.

I would concede that one technique, simulated drowning, you could call torture, even though the memos imply that legally it didn't meet that definition. I'm agnostic on the legalism….

But let's concede that it's a form of torture. I think it's perfectly reasonable to use it in two cases, that the ticking time bomb, if an innocent is at risk and you've got a terrorist that has information that would save that innocent and isn't speaking. That's an open and shut easy case.

A second case is a high-level Al Qaeda operative, a terrorist, who knows names and places and numbers and plans and safe houses and all that, and by using techniques to get information, you're saving lives.

If I have to weigh on the one hand the numberless and nameless lives saved in America by the use of these techniques, and we had a CIA director who told us that these techniques on these high-level terrorists was extremely effective in giving us information.

If you have to weigh on one hand that the numberless and nameless lives saved, against the 30 seconds or so of terror in the eyes of a terrorist who is suffering this technique, I think the moral choice is easy.

It's not a dark chapter in our history. It is a successful one. We have not had a second attack, and largely because of this.

IF WE ARE ATTACKED, THEN ALL THE BLOOD IS ON OBAMA'S HANDS.

NHS BIRTHING NIGHTMARE: THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS SCOOPS INSTAPUNDIT BY A DAY

GLENN TODAY:

SOCIALIZED MEDICINE AT WORK: Mother who died giving birth in hospital toilet never saw twins. “A woman died in labour in a hospital lavatory after her induction was delayed because of a lack of specialist staff, an inquest was told yesterday.”

Posted at 10:15 pm by Glenn Reynolds

US YESTERDAY.

THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME.

IT'S ONE REASON THE BIGGIES STOPPED LINKING TO US: WE KICK THEIR FU*KING ASSES ALL THE TIME.

SPREAD THE WORD; BLOGROLL US; BOOKMARK US!

Proposed EPA Endangerment Finding Will Destroy Jobs, Raise Energy Prices and More

The EPA's proposed endangerment finding made public today is attracted a lot of negative attention from, among others, members of Congress and leaders of the oil and natural gas industry.

For instance, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said today that the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed endangerment finding will unleash a torrent of regulations that will destroy jobs, harm consumers, and extend the agency’s reach into every corner of American life. Despite enormous expense and hardship for the American economy, these regulations will have virtually no effect on climate change.

On behalf of the more than 400 companies in the oil and natural gas sector represented by the American Petroleum Institute, API President Jack Gerard issued a statement today in which he slammed the EPA's proposed endangerment finding.

To get started reading both statements, click here.

NOBODY WAS HARMED WRITING THIS POST ...

... AND THIS BLOG WASN'T TESTED ON ANY ANIMALS.


NEVERTHELESS, DON'T TRY IT AT HOME.

ARE TEA PARTIES REAL GRASSROOTS OR ASTROTURFING?

VIA SWEETNESS & LIGHT:

SHOCKER: TALIBAN BREAK PROMISE IN SWAT: WON'T DISARM

REUTERS:

Pakistani Taliban will not lay down their arms in a northwestern valley as part of a deal that included the introduction of sharia law but will take their "struggle" to new areas, a militant spokesman said on Wednesday.

President Asif Ali Zardari, under pressure from conservatives, signed a regulation on Monday imposing Islamic sharia law in the Swat valley to end Taliban violence.

The strategy of appeasement has alarmed U.S. officials, while critics say the government has demonstrated a lack of capacity and will to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Details of the deal have not been made public but government officials backing the pact have said part of it was that militants would give up their arms.

But a Pakistani Taliban spokesman in the scenic valley, a one-time tourist destination 125 km (80 miles) northwest of Islamabad, said they would be keeping their guns.

THERE IS NO REAL SHOCK HERE: PEOPLE WHO BEHEAD HOSTAGES AND COMMIT "HONOR"-KILLINGS CANNOT BE EXPECTED TO KEEP THEIR PROMISES.

THEY SHOULD BE ANNIHILATED.

ANOTHER NHS NIGHTMARE: BIRTHING MOM DIES IN TOILET

TOL: Mother who died giving birth in hospital toilet never saw twins

A woman died in labour in a hospital lavatory after her induction was delayed because of a lack of specialist staff, an inquest was told yesterday.

Sarah Underhill, a policewoman aged 37, was in her 36th week of pregnancy when she was admitted to hospital suffering from pre-eclampsia.

The birth was to have been induced because of her condition, which causes high blood pressure. She was admitted to the John Radcliffe Hospital, in Oxford, on October 2 last year but the procedure was planned for October 6. However, the day before she was due to be induced she collapsed in the toilet and was forced to call for help by banging on the door.

Doctors fought to save her twins, conceived by IVF, but she died without having seen them.

THIS IS WHAT OBAMA WANTS YOUR HEALTHCARE TO BE LIKE.

DISSENT ACCORDINGLY.

The Pee Wee Administration

Click to view.



Hat tip: Jawa Report.

Natural Gas Industry Deserves Second Look

On numerous occasions during the past three years, I've used this space to advocate on behalf of the nation's energy producers. Today, I advocate on behalf of one producer, Williams, and contend that individuals in the anti-fossil fuels community should take a second look at how this trailblazing company in the natural gas industry does business.

My contention stems from the findings of a two-day trip I took to Western Colorado this week at the invitation and expense of the American Petroleum Institute. While visiting places like Parachute Field and Rulison Field, I was able to take an up-close look at Williams' natural gas facilities in the Piceance (pronounced “pee-ahnce,” not “Pic-ee-ahnce”) Basin.

Click here to learn more in my first post in a series about the nation's natural gas industry.