Hugh Hewitt points us to this fabulous posting on Sen. John Cornyn’s web site. I wish more Senators had his sense of humor, and guts to call out one of his “distinguished colleagues”
Results of Feingold Censure Resolution (S.Res. 398): Day 2
Democrat co-sponsors of Feingold Resolution: 0
al Qaeda communications intercepted by Feingold Resolution: 0
Terror attacks prevented by Feingold Resolution: 0
UPDATE: Maybe this is catching on?
Frist enlists bloggers’ help on Feingold censure resolution
The Wall Street Journal examines the real motivation behind Feingold’s stunt,
The Impeachment Agenda
Russ Feingold reveals what many Democrats really want.
Republicans are denouncing Senator Russ Feingold’s proposal to “censure” President Bush for his warrantless wiretaps on al Qaeda, but we’d like to congratulate the Wisconsin Democrat on his candor. He’s had the courage to put on the table what Democrats are all but certain to do if they win either the House or Senate in November.
In fact, our guess is that censure would be the least of it.
Without a doubt, the feel good story of 2006 so far is Jason McElwain, an autistic teenager who dressed for his team’s last basketball game of the season and scored an incredible 20 points in the final four minutes of the game.
Today, Jason met with President Bush
On his way to Canandaigua, N.Y., Tuesday to speak at Medicare events, Bush stopped at an airport near here and greeted McElwain â?? accompanied by his parents and coach â?? and called him “a special person.”
“Our country was captivated by an amazing story on the basketball court,” the president told reporters gathered on the tarmac, his arm draped around the 17-year-old senior, with Air Force One, the presidential jet, in the background. “It’s the story of a young man who found his touch on the basketball court, which in turn touched the hearts of citizens all around the country.”
The president joked that if his aging body would let him return to the basketball court, he’d want a lesson from McElwain.
If you missed the video the first time around, do yourself a favor and watch it.
First the NY Times releases information that reveals the NSA spying program, hurting our ability track Al Qaeda calls into the United States. Now, the LA Times has given away information on the efforts of our soldiers to defend themselves against improvised explosive devices (IED).
Given that IED’s are by far the largest cause of death and injury for our soldiers, this report is beneath contempt. How many soldiers will lose limbs, get maimed or killed thanks to the LA Times?
Bush Says Times Article Revealed Data on Combating Bombs
From a Times Staff Writer
March, 14 2006
WASHINGTON â?? During his speech about Iraq on Monday, President Bush criticized a newspaper article that he said revealed sensitive information about the Pentagon’s effort to combat improvised explosive devices, the makeshift roadside bombs responsible for thousands of injuries and deaths. White House officials later said that Bush was referring to a Feb. 12 report in the Los Angeles Times.
“Within five days of the publication, using details from that article, the enemy had posted instructions for defeating this new technology on the Internet,” Bush said. “We cannot let the enemy know how we’re working to defeat them.”
While we are on the topic of media priorities and values, here is Ralph Peters, a retired U.S. Army officer and the author of 20 books, just back from Iraq,
During a recent visit to Baghdad, I saw an enormous failure. On the part of our media. The reality in the streets, day after day, bore little resemblance to the sensational claims of civil war and disaster in the headlines.
No one with first-hand experience of Iraq would claim the country’s in rosy condition, but the situation on the ground is considerably more promising than the American public has been led to believe. Lurid exaggerations and instant myths obscure real, if difficult, progress.
I left Baghdad more optimistic than I was before this visit. While cynicism, political bias and the pressure of a 24/7 news cycle accelerate a race to the bottom in reporting, there are good reasons to be soberly hopeful about Iraq’s future.
The Project for Excellence in Journalism is out with their annual report on the state of the news media. They have identified six trends for 2006,
1. The new paradox of journalism is more outlets covering fewer stories.
Instead of a paradox isn’t that a problem? What’s the point of more journalists if they are going to cover the same stories? Isn’t that one of the main drivers behind the growth of the blogosphere, that there are so many issues not being covered with the attention they deserve? Whether you are on the left or the right, both sides could point to example after example of issues that are poorly covered by the MSM to the dissatisfaction of large groups of people.
2. The species of newspaper that may be most threatened is the big-city metro paper that came to dominate in the latter part of the 20th century. In part, they are being supplanted by niche publications serving smaller communities and targeted audiences.
Look at the big city papers, the NY Times, the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, etc. All of them dripping with bias from the news pages to the editorial pages. They have given up trying to even pretend to be balanced. They have withered their audience down to their core constituency. How else can you explain Times Select?
3. At many old-media companies, though not all, the decades-long battle at the top between idealists and accountants is now over. The idealists have lost.
Hasn’t this been true for twenty years? According to Lee Hanna, a producer at NBC from Brinkley to Brokaw, “In the 1980s, network news budgets were cut, resulting in bureau closures and the employment of fewer correspondents.” The difference today is that television news organizations are, for the most part, not stand alone companies but part of conglomerates. Disney owns ABC, GE owns NBC and until a few months ago CBS was part of Viacom. Budget issues brought these companies together, and they continue to drive the decision making process today. With all due respect to Glenn Reynolds, sometimes small is not the new big. The key for media today is scale and that is true for TV and for newspapers.
4. That said, traditional media do appear to be moving toward technological innovation â?? finally. While the evidence is sketchy and the efforts are frustrated by newsroom cutbacks, in 2005 we saw signs that the pattern was beginning to change.
I agree, 2005 was the year that old media finally started getting creative and using blogs and podcasts to enhance their product. Well, many of them did, with a few notable exceptions.
5. The new challengers to the old media, the aggregators, are also playing with limited time. When it comes to news, what companies like Google and Yahoo are aggregating and selling is the work of others â?? the very same old media they are taking revenue away from. The more they succeed, the faster they erode the product they are selling, unless the economic model is radically changed.
This is true to a degree. However, Google and Yahoo get 98% of their revenue from advertising. The revenue they get from news aggregation is minescule. Internet companies will stay one step ahead of old media in figuring out how to monetize new technology like blogs and Podcasts.
6. The central economic question in journalism continues to be how long it will take online journalism to become a major economic engine, and if it will ever be as big as print or television.
The central economic questions should be, how do we improve our product? Without a better product, the economic problems will never solve themselves.
HT: Jeff Jarvis
This is an extended interview with Howie Carr on his new book, The Brothers Bulger: How they terrorized and corrupted Boston for a quarter century.
Among the interesting tidbits, the deal 60 Minutes cut with the publishers of Kevin Weeks book. They claim to not pay their sources, but now we know different. Also of interest was some information about former Mass. governor Bill Weld and his relationship with Billy Bulger and how that may cost him in his campaign for governor this year in New York.
This is a story of political and law enforecement corruption unprecedented in American history. If you are not familiar with the story of the Bulger Brothers, you will be amazed.
Having been a regular caller for a decade to Howie’s afternoon drive show on WRKO, it was a surreal experience to have him in studio as a guest on our show last night.
JayTea at Wizbang has a good post about the 60 Minutes segment and CBS’ ongoing credibility problem.
This interview is also available as a downloadable Podcast at iTunes and Podcast Alley.
We all know who the #1 Most Wanted on the FBI list is, Osama Bin Laden. #2 is a Boston gangster by the name of Whitey Bulger. His is an incredible story of terror and corruption, intermixing the underworld and politics. Whitey’s brother Billy was for years, the most powerful politician in Massachusetts. He served with an iron hand as Senate president and later as president of the University of Massachusetts.
The story of the Bulger Brothers has been chronicled relentlessly for twenty years by Boston Herald columnist, and WRKO afternoon talk king Howie Carr.
Howie’s new book is a fascinating account of the Bulgers brothers personal and business relationship. I just finished reading it, and highly recommend you read The Bulger Brothers: How They Terrorized and Corrupted Boston for a Quarter Century.
Sunday evening on CBS’ 60 Minutes, Whitey’s right hand man, and fellow mass murderer Kevin Weeks, tells Ed Bradley of Whitey’s plans to kill Howie Carr because of his persistent coverage of the pair’s exploits.
CBSNews 60 Minutes: Henchman Tells of Whitey’s Black Deeds
Bulger and Weeks wanted Carr dead because the journalist wrote and spoke about their crimes constantly. After a plan to put an exploding basketball in Carrâ??s driveway was abandoned for fear it would harm neighbors, Weeks says, he and Bulger decided on a more direct way.
“I was down at his house…about 5:30 in the morning, across the street in a cemetery with a rifle, waiting for him to come out,” says Weeks. “And he come (sic) outâ?¦between 7:15, 7:30 and he had his daughter with him. I assume it was his daughter, young girl. He was holding her by the hand, going to his car. So I had to pass on it,” he tells Bradley. “I didn’t want to kill him in front of his daughter.”
Carr lived across from a cemetery and acknowledges the possibility that Weeks may have been there, but believes Bulger was more apt to commit such a bold crime. “It doesnâ??t seem like Kevin would have the stones to do itâ?¦If he said, ‘Whitey was there,’ well,” Carr tells Bradley, “you wouldn’t be interviewing me, because I’d be dead.”
Whitey Bulger has been on the run for a decade, since a corrupt FBI agent in the Boston office tipped him off that he was about to be indicted.
Here is Whitey’s rap sheet according to the FBI,
RACKETEERING INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS (RICO) – MURDER (18 COUNTS), CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT MURDER, CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT EXTORTION, NARCOTICS DISTRIBUTION, CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT MONEY LAUNDERING; EXTORTION; MONEY LAUNDERING
JAMES J. BULGER IS BEING SOUGHT FOR HIS ROLE IN NUMEROUS MURDERS COMMITTED FROM THE EARLY 1970s THROUGH THE MID-1980s IN CONNECTION WITH HIS LEADERSHIP OF AN ORGANIZED CRIME GROUP THAT ALLEGEDLY CONTROLLED EXTORTION, DRUG DEALS, AND OTHER ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES IN THE BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, AREA. HE HAS A VIOLENT TEMPER AND IS KNOWN TO CARRY A KNIFE AT ALL TIMES.
Immediately following the segment on 60 Minutes Sunday evening, Howie will be joining us in studio to discuss this entire episode, the twisted relationship of the Brothers Bulger, the corruption and reign of terror they held over Boston for a quarter century and what it is like hearing a mob hitman tell to 60 Minutes that you were in his sights. You don’t want to miss this!!
When: Sunday evening at 9pm est
Where: Streaming Live at WRKO
Contact: Call with questions for Howie at 877-469-4322
About Pundit Review
Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week Kevin & Gregg give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. This unique show brings the best of the blogs to your radio every Sunday evening at 8pm EST on AM680 WRKO, Bostonâ??s Talk Leader.
When Marty Meehan ran for Congress he did so on a term limits platform. He pledged, gave his solemn word, to the people of Massachusetts that he would only serve four terms in Congress. He was so adamant that on his first day in Congress, he submitted a resignation letter dated at the end of what would be his fourth term.
Once in Congress, Meehan focused on a related issue, campaign finance reform.
Well, here we are eight years later, and Marty Meehan is not only running for re-election to his FIFTH TERM, he has the largest campaign war chest of any member of Congress.
Boston Globe: Finance reformer has huge war chest
Meehan leads US House with campaign funds
WASHINGTON — Representative Martin T. Meehan has gained national exposure in recent years as a champion of efforts to reduce the influence of money in politics. Now, the Lowell Democrat is poised to achieve a new distinction: He is days away from becoming the only House member in the nation with a campaign war chest that tops $5 million, with an eye on a possible run for the Senate.
What a hypocrite. The good people of Massachusetts should send him packing, as he himself promised to do. What will probably happen is he will be re-elected and stay in Congress until he leaves feet first, just like Teddy K., Senator for life, re-elected with 70% of the vote one year after killing Mary Jo Kopechnie.