NEW YORK (Reuters) A New York state appeals court on Tuesday dismissed former TV newsman Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS Corp in which Rather claimed he was made a scapegoat in a scandal over a 2004 report on then-President George W. Bush's military record.
The ruling on Tuesday by a panel of judges of the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division said Rather's $70 million complaint should be dismissed in its entirety and that a lower court erred in denying CBS's motion to throw out the lawsuit.
Rather says CBS breached his contract by not giving him enough on-air assignments after he was removed as anchor of the "CBS Evening News" in March 2005.
The appeals court ruled he failed to sufficiently support his claim that he lost business opportunities due to CBS's failure to release him to seek other employment.
Rather sued CBS, parent of the CBS television network, Viacom and others in September 2007, claiming he had been made a scapegoat to "pacify the White House." CBS was part of Viacom until the companies split in 2006.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/29/2009 17:13 ||
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#1
...claiming he had been made a scapegoat to "pacify the White House. to desperately retain one last fig leaf of imaginary non-partisan bias."
With the viral success generated by the Obama-Joker poster, the opportunistic custom toy makers at Herobuilders whipped up this menacing 12 action figure of the president in whiteface. The perfect gift for tea baggers, birthers, and astro turfers alike, it's limited to 2000 pieces and can be purchased here ($50)
The Chia Obama is making a comeback on drug store shelves, more than five months after Walgreens yanked it over concerns that it might offend customers.
CVS stores began stocking the special edition Chia in select markets this week, according to the company that produces it -- just in time for the holiday season.
"This is what we wanted to do all along," said Michael Hirsch, vice president at Joseph Enterprises. "We're pretty excited."
The Chia Obama is a bust of the 44th president with sprouting grass-like "hair" in the tradition of the classic Chia Pet.
The product appears to be back on track after the dust-up with Walgreens in April, when the company dropped it over concerns that it could be subject to "misinterpretation."
The company did not explicitly say it was concerned the product could be seen as racially insensitive. But Chia Pet creator Joseph Pedott at the time dismissed any such accusations. He said he was "shocked" to learn Walgreens was pulling his merchandise and that he was only trying to produce a piece of "Americana."
Hirsch said the product is part of a line that includes Chia versions of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and the Statue of Liberty, and will undergo a test run at CVS stores in Chicago, Tampa and San Francisco.
If the product does well, it will be available nationally ahead of the holiday season. Hirsch said the company has a half-million Chia Obamas on hand to sell.
#2
Started wandering around on the Daily Mail links connected to this article and found the article about the yobs that drove a woman to suicide, and the one about the social work nannies getting their knickers in a twist because the children of working families tend to eat more junk food, and the nannies want to develop "programmes" to help. Overwhelming pile of celebrity blether in the links as well.
Comments to yob article include "the lawmakers have gone mad", referring to laws that hogtie the local authorities and prevent them from taking action against criminals.
I'd be interested in a British viewpoint on this dumpster diving article and the other two items.
#3
There is a proposal here in Perth to put cameras in the shute of garbage trucks to make sure people aren't putting 'recyclables' in the normal garbage.
#5
..hmmm...jobs for the unemployed 'journalists' who spent last year going through Sarah's refuge. They can at least check the 'very experienced' block.
#6
I hear they already have something like this in Seattle - a sanitation-engineer can 'put someone on report' someone for placing to much recyclables in their regular trash.
I've never heard a case of it actually being done - Sanitation Engineers tend to be regular folks IMHO....
#7
Another viewpoint from the Muslim community (from Islamonline this past April)...
Cairo ~ The British government wanted binmen to snoop into Muslims' rubbish cans to look for any suspicious, terror-linked material, a proposal spurned by local officials as an attempt to bring intelligence's "dirty work" to the streets.
"We were asked to snoop on our own residents by getting our binmen to rummage around people's rubbish," Kris Hopkins, Council leader of the city of Bradford, told the Mail on Sunday.
Local authorities of 17 cities, including Bradford, Manchester, Oldham, Leicester and four London boroughs all home to large Muslim communities - were approached recently with the plan, the paper said on Sunday, April 20.
They were asked to get their binmen peeking at Muslims' trash cans for any discarded material that might be related to terrorist groups.
The plan was revealed to Town Halls at a highly-confidential meeting in central London, hosted by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and attended by ministers and high-ranking police chiefs.
Andy Hayman, who at the time was Britain's top anti-terror policeman, was involved in the plan.
Police chiefs told local councils that the plan would be a part of addressing extremism and terror threats in the UK.
Britain is home to a sizable Muslim minority of more than 2 million.
They have been in the eye of the storm since the 7/7 London bombings, enduring a growing Islamophobic climate.
Muslims have also taken the brunt of anti-terror measures including the controversial stop-and-search operations and random house raids.
'Ridiculous'
Responding to the revelations, the DCLG distanced the government, particularly Cabinet Minister Ruth Kelly, who was in charge of the department at the time of the meeting from the plan.
"It did not come from Ruth Kelly or any of her officials," a DCLG official told the Mail.
"It was the police."
The proposal did not hold ground after local councils immediately refused to cooperate.
"I, and others, refused to do anything like this," said Robert Light, the leader of Kirklees Council in West Yorkshire.
Council officials slammed the suggestion as "ridiculous".
"The idea that our binmen should be rooting around a wheelie bin to see if they can spot dodgy bits of paper or funny wires is ridiculous," insisted Hopkins.
"Our binmen aren't there to act like the secret police. They're there to empty our bins."
The council leader of Bradford, where Muslims make up some 25 percent of the population, criticized the plan for damaging community relations.
"Our job is to bring communities together, to help our communities live side by side, not do the dirty work for MI5."
For those Rantburgers with time and knowledge to watch how the Bambi gummint wastes our money:
A new version of the federal website tracking spending under the Obama administration's economic stimulus plan was launched Sept. 28, featuring enhanced tools to allow citizens to track funds into local neighborhoods. Recovery.gov version 2.0 has been completely redesigned to allow the public "an inside look at how your government is spending the $787 billion authorized under the 2009 Recovery Act," Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, said in an online video previewing the new site. The website, http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/home.aspx, contains several interactive maps and graphs that can be used to track spending data by zip code or federal agency, along with guides and tutorials that explain how to navigate on the site. Beginning Oct. 1, grant recipients are required to provide quarterly reports to the board on how stimulus funds are being spent. That information will be posted beginning Oct. 15, Devaney said. Information provided by state recipients of Recovery Act funds will be posted on Oct. 30, he added, giving them a month to come up with believable lies. Blurb is from a subscription newsletter; link is to the "improved" gummint website.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/29/2009 07:59 ||
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After documented reports of his sweetheart deals, influence peddling, unreported assets, and untaxed income, Charlie Rangel is still chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means. Can't anyone tell him to move aside?
Glenn Beck launched an attack against the Obama administration's "green jobs" director Van Jones in the last week of August. By Labor Day, Jones was FOX-kill. Compare that to the results achieved by The New York Times and The Washington Post, both of which have called for New York Rep. Charles Rangel to step down as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. The newspapers began urging Rangel to step aside back in 2008; it's now close to 2010 and Rangel hasn't budged.
Unlike Jones, Rangel doesn't have a colorful past as a leftist and signer of a conspiracy statement suggesting that President Bush knew the planes were headed for the towers. And when it comes to causing a ruckus, the Times and the Post are disadvantaged by their adherence to standards of decorum and fair play that Beck subverts for a living.
No, they were handicapped because they won't criticize a Dhimmicrat if they can possibly help it.
But Rangel's transgressions appear so plentiful and severe that it's a wonder he still has a job, let alone the chairmanship of the tax-writing committee that the Times calls "one of the most powerful bodies in American government."
The trouble started in July, 2008, when the Times exposed Rangel's possession of four rent-stabilized apartments in a building owned by a major real estate developer. (In New York City, real estate is one part location, two parts politics). The Times calculated that this improbably sweet deal was saving Rangel $30,000 a year in rent.
Four days later, the Post pitched in with a report on another Rangel scandal. For an academic center Rangel had launched with a $1.9 million earmark, and which would be named in his honor, he was soliciting donations from corporate interests that had business before his committee. He even used his congressional letterhead. As if that wasn't unseemly enough, Rangel won a superlative character reference from none other than Donald Trump, who told the Post, "Charlie Rangel is the most honorable, honest politician in Washington." Yikes.
The close timing of the articles was likely pure coincidence--not unlike a bullet coincidentally finding the back of a mobster's head at point-blank range. Rangel had displeased some people in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, perhaps not so much by his endorsement of fellow New Yorker Hillary Clinton for president, which was politics, but by running interference for the Clintons when they began playing the racial angle against Obama after the New Hampshire primary. That was politics, too, but of a sort that some in Rangel's Harlem district and elsewhere didn't much appreciate. A short time later, both the Times and the Post had interesting scoops.
It didn't end there. The Times later reported that Rangel owned a vacation property in the Dominican Republic, acquired on favorable terms, for which he had long failed to pay taxes on rental income. More recently, Rangel altered his congressional financial disclosure form to reveal an additional $500,000 in assets--at a minimum, one-fifth of his total reported wealth--that had somehow slipped his mind. While the House ethics committee investigates, Rangel has wisely opted for the what-a-dunce-I-am! explanation of his conduct. The alternative, of course, is the what-a-sleazeball-I-am! rationale, which spin doctors generally advise against.
Meantime, the gregarious, good-time Charlie is still chairman of Ways and Means. Speaker Nancy Pelosi hasn't pushed him out and it looks like the combined force of the Post and the Times isn't up to the task, either. The Buffalo News last month became the first paper in New York State to call for Rangel's resignation, which might be a sign of momentum, but is more likely just another lament from the north about the habits of politicians downstate. Perhaps Democrats in Washington are afraid to sacrifice Rangel. The next ranking Democrat on the committee is Pete Stark of California, the only professed atheist in Congress. (You can hear the shrieks of hysteria rising in the distance.)
So who knows? Despite all his foul-ups, maybe Rangel will remain chairman of "one of the most powerful bodies in American government." Or maybe his removal will have to wait until someone with real influence and stature in American politics insists that Rangel step down. Someone, that is, like Glenn Beck.
#1
Here's the problem. Let's say someone goes up to Charlie Rangel and says, "You have to resign." At that point, Rangel will open his mouth and say something. The sound of his gravelly, squeaky voice will tear the ear drums of the person.
Nobody wants to risk their hearing for life. Other than that, Rangel would resign immediately.
America's elderly are finally realizing that Obama's healthcare changes are largely financed by cuts in Medicare and are rallying against his proposals in increasing numbers.
The latest poll by Scott Rasmussen not only shows national opposition to Obamacare rising - now it is 41-56 against - but also shows the elderly moving against it even more strongly, by 33-59, or almost 2:1.
And well they should! Three-quarters of ObamaCare is to be financed by slashing $500 billion from Medicare over the next 10 years. That comes to an 8 percent cut. Next year's total Medicare spending, for example, will be about $500 billion by itself, so this is like having one year without Medicare at all! Obama's fatuous claim that the cut will not affect care for the elderly is specious, as any thinking person would realize. We have gone through previous incarnations of those who wanted to slash Medicare and pretended that it would not affect the elderly. Newt Gingrich tried to sell this act of alchemy in 1995, and the elderly didn't buy it then and aren't buying it now!
It is obviously impossible to cut Medicare reimbursement without slashing the time doctors spend with patients. It is equally obvious that you cannot cover 30 million new patients without more doctors and nurses. And the Medicare cuts in doctors' fees will, of course, cause a decrease in the number of medical professionals. Investors Business Daily conducted a poll in September that showed that 45 percent of all doctors said they would seriously consider retiring or closing their practices if the Obama bill passes. A larger number will likely refuse to treat Medicare patients. Indeed, current law provides for a 21 percent cut in Medicare fees to doctors next year and a 6 percent cut the year after. The new $500 billion in cuts are on top of these reductions! What kind of medical care do we expect our elderly to receive when the doctor they visit is getting $35 or $40 for seeing them!
But the Senate appears ready to ram this bill through regardless of what the public or the elderly think. They have 60 votes and they won't listen to anyone. But we have to make them listen!
PLEASE take two steps right now.
1. I have persuaded the League of American Voters to run 10-second advertisements in key states that show an elderly person saying: "Senator _________: Please don't cut my Medicare by $500 billion. I need my Medicare." We need to get these ads on in the key states.
Obama would like us to believe that the key issue is whether or not to have a public option, precisely because he is prepared to concede the point (and have a co-op that would be run by the government for at least the first three years instead). But we need to focus attention on the cuts in Medicare. It is slashing services to the elderly that is the key point!
So please go here and give very, very generously. This is the key moment and you can make all the difference in the world. With pressure such as the elderly are bringing to bear, the Senate would not dare pass this benighted plan!
2. If you live in one of these key swing states, PLEASE write the senator I have indicated. To get talking points for your letter, consult our book Catastrophe. But write today:
Arkansas: Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor
Louisiana: Mary Landrieu
Nebraska: Ben Nelson
South Dakota: Tim Johnson
North Dakota: Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad
Montana: Max Baucus and Jon Tester
North Carolina: Kay Hagan
Indiana: Evan Bayh
Connecticut Joe Lieberman
Maine: Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins
#2
If the Elderly don't notice they are not paying attention.
My mother just turned 85. She has convinced herself that if Obamacare passes, and should she need medical attention, she will be among the first to be 'ignored', so to speak.
Sad. This is a woman who has twice in her lifetime heard the words, "Please accept this flag on behalf of a grateful nation".
#4
During 2007, the Republicans made an effort to make some of the same cuts as the Dems are looking at in 2009.
Back then, the Dems succeeded in mobilizing the elderly to attack the cuts.
This is basically a economic political policy version of blowback.
Posted by: lord garth ||
09/29/2009 15:16 Comments ||
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#5
Sounds like your Mama is one smart cookie, Woozle.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/29/2009 15:40 Comments ||
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#6
I think many of the elderly in this country are quite aware of the assaults on Medicare by both sides over the years. It does become somewhat compounded and perhaps more frightening to some when close associates of the president such as Dr. Ezekial Emanuel (sometimes known as the president's rationing czar) weighs in with statements that we Americans have too much health care.
In addition to cutting spending, he would advocate redefining the duty of physicians; instead of focusing solely on a patient's needs, they must consider the greater good of society.
The elderly in this country (including my 85 year old mother) don't need a roadmap to figure out what that means.
#7
I am 70 and I don't trust anything about this crowd in Washington. I don't trust them to tell the truth and I don't trust them with the country. I'm with your 85 year old mother Woozle Uneter9007. Thank your mother for her sacrifice for the country--she paid a dear price.
#8
The "greatest" generation is just about paid off. It's time to recognize that Medicare has been a disaster and is at the root of much of our medical cost problems. Both Medicare and Social Security are Ponzi schemes worthy of Madoff and should be phased out as soon as possible. Otherwise they will destroy our country. And they are far more likely to succeed than Iran.
#1
Americans got better at matching their house purchases with their own future income. The statistical correlation between initial house purchase price and later income levels strengthened mightily, by 80 percent. The data suggest that deregulation and securitization were a key part of this shift.
The author is slicing & dicing her data to suit the point she is trying to make. MY data shows that the housing bubble was due to a collective mania that collapsed because it was insupportable. The bulk of the banking system is now insolvent due to deregulation and securitization combined with the unwise actions of their executives.
#2
Not the first vid I've seen deifying Obama. What is with the superstitious left and their need to worship a living god, whether Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Kim I&II or Obama? And many of them claim to be atheists.
Posted by: ed ||
09/29/2009 17:01 Comments ||
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#3
This is not going to help Obama's rating among the nonbelievers. I hope I can see Glenn Beck's response
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/29/2009 17:21 Comments ||
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#1
Polanski's case suffers because Polanski stood up in a Court, with his lawyer, and said,
"Guilty." If Polanski testified he was guilty, I cannot care what any TV personality says.
#2
The son of a bitch took a 13 year old girl and got her drunk, then druged her then raped her. He is skum that deserves the chair. A 13 year old for christs sake!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/29/2009 16:14 Comments ||
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#3
The son of a bitch took a 13 year old girl and got her drunk, then druged her, then tied her up, then raped her.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/29/2009 17:02 Comments ||
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#5
Captain Picard(sp?), what were you thinking?
Posted by: ed ||
09/29/2009 17:08 Comments ||
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#6
Why are you so shocked? I don't recall the (ahem) "ladies" of the View were that pissed off about ACORN's willingness to assist in human trafficking, either.
After all, it's not like he did something really heinous, like vote Republican.
#7
It's not rape-rape to Whoopi. she apparently likes it rough. She's forgotten what it's like to be 13, or maybe she never was 13.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/29/2009 17:14 Comments ||
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#8
Did Whoopie play that poor abused kid slave Kizzie in Roots? Guess it's only rape-rape if a white republican rapes a black girl! God as my whitness this is a country of fools!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/29/2009 17:37 Comments ||
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#9
I'm sure Whoopi means it wasn't rape-rape because it was butt-rape.
#11
Well, scratch Whoopi Goldberg off the list of celebutards I will never, ever watch again. No great loss, she hasn't been funny since about 1984, but a pity about the Star Trek series.
Oh, well - life is full of these little sacrifices.
#12
Closely following guidelines by one's superiors and then muss up a terrorism suspect's hair, then you deserve to have the federal government hound you from protecting the nation by seeking your prosecution for acts which were legal AND stated policy at the time they were committed, approved by the top US legal authority and duly authorized by the president.
Drug and rape a 13 year old girl?
No problem, come on home, all will be forgiven.
Will someone please point out the bizzaro world liberal celebrities live in which permit the persecution of patriots legally carrying out assigned duties, but forgives criminals for Class One felonies?
#14
yeah, but since then, you know, over the last 32 yrs he stayed disciplined and didn't rape-rape any other 13 yr olds...that has to count for something...
(sarc/off)
We're talking about a grown adult who goes by the name of Whoopi - not exactly a paragon of intellectualism...by her thinking we should release Manson because he didn't actually "murder-murder" anyone...
Berkeley would become the first city in the United States to independently try to comply with U.N. treaties on torture, civil rights and racial discrimination, if the City Council passes a measure on the issue tonight.
The measure would require the city to file biennial reports to the United Nations on how - or whether - the city meets international human rights standards. In Berkeley, that could include its record on homelessness, the achievement gap among different racial groups at Berkeley High and the presence of John Yoo, a UC Berkeley School of Law professor and Berkeley resident who authored the Bush administration's justification for torture.
"It's critical that cities and counties, not just nations, make these reports to the U.N.," said Ann Fagan Ginger, head of the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute in Berkeley. "To relate directly to the U.N. is the closest way we have of supporting the rights spelled out in these treaties."
Unpaid law students at Ginger's institute and volunteers on the city's Peace and Justice Commission would compile most of the city data for the United Nations. City staff would chip in if more work is needed, according to the city manager.
Berkeley would be the first city in the country, and possibly the world, to submit its compliance records to the United Nations, said Yves Sorokobi, a U.N. spokesman in New York.
"We welcome citizen participation in trying to uphold these treaties, but in general they are directed toward countries," he said. Berkeley "has taken the lead here."
That's not surprising. Berkeley has long conducted its own foreign policy, occasionally at odds with the U.S. State Department.
Some on the City Council said they're not sure Berkeley needs to comply with treaties to which the United States has already agreed.
"They expect each town and hamlet to report back? That seems kind of excessive," said City Councilman Gordon Wozniak. "And is it really helpful to the international body if Berkeley, one isolated city, does this?"
There's also the possibility that Berkeley might not be in compliance with the treaties, a potential embarrassment for a city that prides itself on civil rights and progressive politics.
"I'm not sure what the upside for us is," Wozniak said. "To prove we're good guys because we don't torture people in Berkeley? I think we need to read these treaties a lot more closely."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
NEW YORK (Reuters) A New York state appeals court on Tuesday dismissed former TV newsman Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS Corp in which Rather claimed he was made a scapegoat in a scandal over a 2004 report on then-President George W. Bush's military record.
The Chia Obama is making a comeback on drug store shelves, more than five months after Walgreens yanked it over concerns that it might offend customers. 
After documented reports of his sweetheart deals, influence peddling, unreported assets, and untaxed income, Charlie Rangel is still chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means. Can't anyone tell him to move aside?
America's elderly are finally realizing that Obama's healthcare changes are largely financed by cuts in Medicare and are rallying against his proposals in increasing numbers.
