A proxy war,

NEW YORK (AP) - A dissident investor stepped up pressure on The New York Times Co. Friday, formally proposing its own slate of four directors and saying the company needs to take more drastic action to compete online.

Harbinger Capital, an investment firm that now owns about 19 percent of the company, filed its own proxy statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission listing its nominees for directors to be elected at the Times’ annual meeting April 22.

The Times has already filed its own full slate of director nominees, but has said it was still considering whether to accept Harbinger’s candidates.

Pinch, it might be time to take some outside advice?

Byron York has a very interesting article today in which he recounts a campaign visit earlier this week by Michelle Obama to a small, struggling town in Ohio. Zanesville is “in Muskingum County, where, according to the census, the median household income in 2004 was $37,192, below both the Ohio and national average.”

Here’s her pitch to the locals,

“Barack and I were in that position,” she continues. “The only reason we’re not in that position is that Barack wrote two best-selling books… It was like Jack and his magic beans. But up until a few years ago, we were struggling to figure out how we would save for our kids.”

“We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do,” she tells the women. “Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we’re encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond.” Faced with that reality, she adds, “many of our bright stars are going into corporate law or hedge-fund management.”

York reminds us that the Ivy League educated Obama’s don’t exactly have a lot in common with the good people of Zanesville Ohio. He also reminds us that the “helping industry” helps those with connected husbands alot more than those with truck driver husbands,

What she doesn’t mention is that the helping industry has treated her pretty well. In 2006, the Chicago Tribune reported that Mrs. Obama’s compensation at the University of Chicago Hospital, where she is a vice president for community affairs, jumped from $121,910 in 2004, just before her husband was elected to the Senate, to $316,962 in 2005, just after he took office.

Outside of a professional athlete, have you ever heard of such a statospheric raise in such a short period of time? If the “helping industry’ paid that well for everyone, lots of people would be happy to leave the evils of corporate America.

Millionaire populism is such a drag.

In a race between a Democrat and a Republican, the Republican must deal with a hostile press corps. In a race between two Democrats, the press, in this case Reuters, is treating Hillary Clinton like she’s the Republican.

Just ask Condi Rice.

Did you know that “Julius Caesar proclaimed the last day of February as Leap Year Day, skipping it three out of four years. Back then, February 30th was the last day of the last month of the year, which is why he picked it.”

Here are 50 fun facts about Leap Year.

I came across a really interesting post by Eugene Volokh titled Supreme Court Recusals Because of Stock Ownership,

The L.A. Times reports that the Exxon Valdez punitive damages case might yield a 4-4 division — with no precedent being set, and the lower court decision being affirmed — because “Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. withdrew because he holds Exxon stock.” And indeed important cases have in the past yielded 4-4 deadlocks because one Justice owned stock in one of the companies.

This is a pretty bad result, it seems to me: An important issue will be unresolved, the Justices’ time will be wasted, the parties’ money will be wasted, and all over what is likely just a few thousand dollars’ worth of investment.

He then linked to Professor Stephen Bainbridge, who wondered why Alito did not take advantage of Section 1043?

Under this provision, a judge thus can divest an asset causing a conflict of interest so as to hear the case and avoid paying capital gains provided the judge dumps any gains from the sale into a Treasury security or an approved mutual fund.

The provision was widely assumed to explain why Chief Justice Roberts first recused himself from the Stoneridge case and then reentered it.

I find that interesting on many levels. I would think during the vetting process a nominee would be advised to sell stocks or at least put them in a blind trust. Also, it’s not exactly a recent development, this Exxon Valdez case. Doesn’t the court have pretty good visibility into the cases that are likely headed their way? Alito has been on the Supreme Court since January 31, 2006, why would he have held onto Exxon stock all this time?

Maybe he’s just lazy?

For the past two weekends on the radio show we have talked about the campaign against Barack Obama and what the GOP plan should be. My position is clear, when you have a solid gold plated liberal record to run against, you focus on that. I have said repeatedly that right wingers who constantly refer to him as “Barack Hussein Obama” are bad news. I even called out the guy that follows us on Sunday night, Bill Cunningham, for doing exactly that. Well, Cunningham has done it again, this time at a McCain rally. Not surprisingly, McCain immediately did the right thing.

I just heard Rush defending Bill Cunningham, saying something along the lines of “what’s wrong with calling him by his real name” and “we can’t even call him a liberal, they don’t like that either” and he went on to talk about liberal speech codes, etc.

Right wing Republicans will get Barack Obama elected. Not because they stayed home, but because they were active in the campaign, employing the tactics of the lowest common denominator. Liberals will huff and say “of course, that’s what they always do”. Excuse me, no it is not.

Look at the other major news of the day, the passing of William F. Buckley. He was the quintessential right wing Republican. Do you ever remember WFB going on Firing Line and using such cheap tactics? Of course not. Buckley was a man of ideas and principle, not cheap shots and insults. Right wing Republicans who claim to have so much respect for WFB would do well to remember who he was and why he became so influencial. It wasn’t by using sophomoric rhetorical tricks.

The most compelling aspect of a McCain general election candidacy is his appeal to moderate Republicans and Democrats and independents. This kind of cheap shot BS will turn those constituencies away from McCain and hand the election to Obama.

Bruce McQuain from QandO joined us for another edition of Someone You Should Know. The Someone You Should Know radio collaboration began as an extension of Matt Burden’s series at Blackfive. Thanks to Matt, Bruce is now on board and we are lucky to have him as part of the show.

This weekend, Bruce did a follow-up story about Staff Sgt. Timothy Nein.

The Distinguished Service Cross is second only to the Medal of Honor among awards for valor in combat.

Staff Sgt. Timothy Nein received the medal from Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, at the National Guard Association of Kentucky's annual conference on Feb. 17, last year.

Nein originally received the Silver Star Medal for his actions as a squad leader with the 617th Military Police Company during an ambush in Iraq on March 20, 2005, but the award was upgraded, a process culminating with the presentation. You may remember the fight in which his unit, Raven 42, was engaged and in which Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester fought and became the first woman ever to receive the Silver Star for valor.

But the DSC is quite a step above the Silver Star and rewards an incredible level of heroism. It ranks up there with the Navy and Air Force Cross. So, why the upgrade of the award? For those of you who don’t remember the event, let me give you a short review. I think it will become clear afterward.

All of our interviews are also available for download at iTunes and Podcast Alley via the Pundit Review Radio Podcast.

What is Pundit Review Radio?

Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week Kevin and Gregg give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to your radio every Sunday evening from 7-10 pm EST on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station

We had an exciting, up and coming candidate for Congress join us on Sunday evening. His name is Kieran Michael Lalor and he is running in the 19th district in NY to unseat the faded pop star John Hall (remember the band Orleans? Me neither!) . You can check out just how liberal Congressman Hall is here.

Kieran is a man of character and integrity with a great personal story that demonstrates a committment to family, community and country. Kieran is the founder of Iraq Veterans for Congress, a group of Republican Iraq war veterans running for Congress.

We’ve heard from several listeners already who wanted to learn more about Kieran and contribute to his campaign. His web site is here and you can make a contribution here.

All of our interviews are also available for download at iTunes and Podcast Alley via the Pundit Review Radio Podcast.

What is Pundit Review Radio?

Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week Kevin and Gregg give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to your radio every Sunday evening from 7-10 pm EST on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station

Well, that didn’t take long. Last night on the radio show I actually gave Hillary some credit. I said that she would fight through the Ohio and Texas primaries, but she would not do anything to damage her viability for 2012 and beyond. I said she had more class than her husband (damning with faint praise, I know) and that she would not use a General Sherman scorched earth strategy.

At first glance, it looks like I was wrong on all counts. Here’s Drudge this morning,

With a week to go until the Texas and Ohio primaries, stressed Clinton staffers circulated a photo over the weekend of a “dressed” Barack Obama. The photo, taken in 2006, shows the Democrat frontrunner fitted as a Somali Elder, during his visit to Wajir, a rural area in northeastern Kenya. The senator was on a five-country tour of Africa.

“Wouldn’t we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC?” questioned one campaign staffer, in an email obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT.

In December, the campaign asked one of its volunteer county coordinators in Iowa to step down after the person forwarded an e-mail falsely stating that Barack Obama is a Muslim.

Hillary has to come out today and distance herself from this, doesn’t she? Tired and stressed staffers talking amongst themselves. This isn’t a campaign strategy, but private email, etc.

She should ask if this any worse than Che flags in Obama’s campaign offices?

Otherwise, she’s ok with it, and the next two weeks could get extremely ugly.

UPDATE: Obama slams photo

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe accused the Clinton campaign Monday of “shameful offensive fear-mongering” by circulating a photo as an attempted smear.

The silence from Hillary is deafening.

UPDATE II: Hillary’s new hatchet woman, er, campaign chief, Maggie Williams, defends,

If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed.