Old Gray Lady Takes A Bath: New York Times Sells Boston Globe to Red Sox Owner John Henry

Business and Red Sox principal owner John Henry has entered into an agreement to buy New England's largest newspaper from the New York Times[NYSE: NYT] for $70 million.

The impending purchase from The New York Times Co. marks Henry's "first foray into the financially unsettled world of the news media," the Globe said Saturday. The deal will give Henry the 141-year-old newspaper, its websites and affiliated companies, it said.

The Times announced in February it was putting the Globe and related assets up for sale four years after calling off a previous attempt to sell it. The company's CEO said at the time selling the Globe would help the company focus attention on The New York Times brand.

Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy confirmed the planned sale of the Globe and other media properties to Henry.

The Times said the all-cash sale, expected to close in 30 to 60 days, includes BostonGlobe.com, Boston.com, The Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Telegram.com, the direct mail marketing company Globe Direct and the company's 49 percent interest in Metro Boston, a free daily newspaper for commuters.

The New York Times purchased the newspaper from the family of Globe co-founder Charles Taylor in 1993 for a total of $1 billion- effectively making New England's largest daily newspaper a wholly owned subsidiary of the Times. The sale to Henry represents a loss of approximately $930 million.

Other potential suitors included western Massachusetts TV station owner John Gormally, Los Angeles-based private equity group Revolution Capital and Phoenix, AZ-based Najafi Cos., which also owns the NBA's Phoenix Suns.

Readership and subscriptions had been flagging in recent years- to the point where the Times threatened to shut down the newspaper in 2009 after the unions representing the paper vetoed $10 million in pay cuts. However, the publication won praise for their in-depth coverage of the April 15th Boston Marathon bombings and the manhunt that led to the death of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and capture of his younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Watertown, MA.

Perhaps the best known Globe alumni is Hall of Fame baseball writer and frequent ESPN guest Peter Gammons. The sale of the Globe to Henry has also raised conflict-of-interest concerns over sports coverage- although coverage of the team by most New England media outlets has been mostly positive since Herny's group acquired primary ownership of the Red Sox in 2002.

Pressure Mounts Over Intelligence Leaks From White House

Lawmakers from both parties have called for an independent investigation into intelligence leaks after a series of articles published in the New York Times disclosed details from a number of opeartions ranging from drone strikes on the Arabian peninsula and Pakistan, a double-agent that infiltrated a Yemeni Al Qaeda cell, a secret 'kill list' and the 'stuxnet' worm that crippled Iran's nascent nuclear program.

Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Community, said the leaks jeopardize American lives and would make recruitment of foreign nationals for clandestine counterterrorism activities even more difficult.

Feinstein said she had no reason to believe that the leaks to the New York Times originated from either the House or Senate Intelligence Committees. The articles cite a number of unnamed current and former advisors from the Obama Administration.

Top Republicans such as Arizona Senator John McCain and House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King have accused the Obama Administration of passing on sensetive information to the New York Times to bolster his image of being tough and uncompromising on national security heading into the 2012 Presidential Election.

'This is the most shameful cascade of leaks I've ever heard or seen in government,' Mr King said [in an interview with] Fox.

'It's clear from those stories this came right from the White House, came right from the National Security Council, came right from the Situation Room... It has to lead to people very high up in the administration in his White House.'

Meanwhile, some agents with Israel's Mossad intelligence agency have not only claimed that the leaks from the White House put them in danger, but that the Obama Administration is taking credit for a computer virus that infected Iranian centrifuges as they attempted to refine uranium that was actually of Israeli design. Stuxnet surfaced in 2010 in Iran and targeted equipment operated by Seimens- including centrifuges- and would increase their operating speeds while continuing to provide operators with continuous false readings showing that the devices were running at normal speed.

Computer security experts believe that Stuxnet is closely related to the more recently discovered Flame or Wiper virus which has surfaced in computers used by Iranian government agencies. The flame virus would monitor keystokes and send screen captures of the infected computer back to a central command and control module before seeking out other systems to infect and then self-destructing via external command.

The Race Card- Never Leave the Beltway Without It

Attorney General Eric Holder attributed growing calls for his resignation over the Fast & Furious debacle to a "more extreme segment" that is motivated by racism in an interview with the New York Times that was published over the weekend.

In his Times interview, Holder again attacked the media who are covering the scandal. “Mr. Holder contended that many of his other critics — not only elected Republicans but also a broader universe of conservative commentators and bloggers — were instead playing ‘Washington gotcha’ games, portraying them as frequently ‘conflating things, conveniently leaving some stuff out, construing things to make it seem not quite what it was’ to paint him and other department figures in the worst possible light,” Times reporter Charlie Savage wrote in the front page Sunday Times story.

Holder has told the House Oversight Committee that he was unaware of the ATF's Operation Fast & Furious until earlier this year, despite e-mail records showing that his office was regularly briefed about the operation on an ongoing basis.

Fast & Furious allowed suspected straw purchasers to buy quantities of long guns legally on the American side of the border before smuggling them across the border into Mexico where they ended up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels. Field-level ATF agents in Arizona were ordered by their superiors to allow the guns to 'walk' across the border, where at least 300 of them have shown up at murder scenes- including the death of US Border Patrol agent Brian Terry last year.

Well....lesser men would've no doubt copped to either incompetence or perjury, Eric "America is a nation of cowards on race" Holder decided to use his skin color to try and get himself one 'Get out of colossal fuckup free' cards, as though Holder and Obama's critics would be fine if it were a white Attorney General facilitating the transfer of American guns to the most dangerous criminal organizations in the Western hemisphere.

Holder's Justice Department has also taken the state of Arizona to Federal court last year over their statewide SB 1070 bill designed to curb illegal immigration, despite never having read the bill himself.

More recently, Holder's Justice Department has reportedly partnered up with the supposedly moribund ACORN to mount a series of legal challenges to the latest round of redistricting and recently passed voter ID legislation in Wisconsin or Texas.

Curiously, Holder and the DoJ didn't seem anywhere near as concerned about New York or Illinois' inability to send off absentee ballots to military personnel in time for last year's midterm elections.

Quickie Borderline Psychosis Update- Arms Sold to Mexican Police & Military Arming Cartels; Holder Appears Before House; DEA Laundering Drug Money?

Convoy of Mexican Federal Judicial Police Outside of Juarez

A CBS report has indicated that American firearms sold to the Mexican military and law enforcement in transactions approved by both the US State Department and Mexico's Secretariat of National Defense are ending up in the hands of drug cartels.

The problem of weapons legally sold to Mexico - then diverted to violent cartels - is becoming more urgent. That's because the U.S. has quietly authorized a massive escalation in the number of guns sold to Mexico through "direct commercial sales." It's a way foreign countries can acquire firearms faster and with less disclosure than going through the Pentagon.

Here's how it works: A foreign government fills out an application to buy weapons from private gun manufacturers in the U.S. Then the State Department decides whether to approve.

And it did approve 2,476 guns to be sold to Mexico in 2006. In 2009, that number was up nearly 10 times, to 18,709. The State Department has since stopped disclosing numbers of guns it approves, and wouldn't give CBS News figures for 2010 or 2011.

One weapon - an AR-15-type semi-automatic rifle - tells the story. In 2006, this same kind of rifle - tracked by serial number - is legally sold by a U.S. manufacturer to the Mexican military.

Three years later - it's found in a criminal stash in a region wracked by Mexican drug cartel violence.

That prompted a "sensitive" cable, uncovered by WikiLeaks, dated June 4, 2009, in which the U.S. State Department asked Mexico "how the AR-15" - meant only for the military or police - was "diverted" into criminal hands.

And, more importantly, where the other rifles from the same shipment went: "Please account for the current location of the 1,030 AR-15 type rifles," reads the cable.

There's no response in the record.

The State Department's Direct Commercial Sales program would be completely separate from the ATF's Operation 'Fast & Furious', where field agents were ordered to allow weapons obtained in the USA by straw purchasers to cross the border into Mexico, where they would later turn up at crime scenes.

However, corruption and incompetence on the part of Mexican officials seems to have been pivotal in organized crime obtaining military and police-issue weapons.

Two years before I even started this blog, in response to gun control advocates using the increasing violence in Mexico as an excuse to further restrict the rights of law-abiding gun owners in the USA, I stated that a significant number of arms from military and police armories in Mexico were likely among the missing and arming cartel enforcers as police armorers or military quartermasters looked the other way. Cartels like Los Zetas- consisting largely of deserters from Mexico's special forces units- have likely used their military backgrounds to cultivate connections with the international arms markets as well as the black market. The Zetas have demonstrated in recent years that they are able to clean out entire arms depots in Central America.

WASHINGTON D.C.- In a House Judiciary hearing this week, Attorney General Eric Holder admitted that weapons allowed to 'walk' into Mexico would likely be turning up at crime scenes on both sides of the border for years to come.

"Although the department has taken steps to ensure that such tactics are never used again, it is an unfortunate reality that we will continue to feel the effects of this flawed operation for years to come," he said. "Guns lost during this operation will continue to show up at crime scenes on both sides of the border."

Holder faced the ire of skeptical lawmakers who are demanding accountability. Wisconsin Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner told Holder Thursday that he considers impeachment on the table if Holder doesn't figure out who's responsible.

A day before the House Judiciary Hearings, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) had called for the resignation of resignation of Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer after recently disclosed e-mails showed that he was giving contradictory testimony before a previous Congressional committee.

Holder, for his part, vows that he won't be stepping down in the wake of Fast & Furious. Democrats in the House and Senate have also given the appearance of circling the wagons around Holder, using the Fast & Furious debacle to reiterate their calls for additional gun control laws or lavish praise on the Attorney General Holder for halting the ill-conceived program.

In fact, e-mails from ATF officials obtained by CBS news indicate that they were looking to use the gunwalking from Fast & Furious to make the case for stricter gun control regulations- particularly in border states.

The e-mails from July 2010 between the ATF's Phoenix office and the agency's headquarters discuss using the statistics from border states like Arizona to justify a regulation called 'Demand Letter 3', which would require licenced FFL dealers in California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas to report to the ATF any transaction in which more than one long gun bigger than .22 caliber was purchased.

On July 14, 2010 after ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. received an update on Fast and Furious, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, ATF's Phoenix Special Agent in Charge of Fast and Furious:

"Bill - can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks."

The request for the demand letter came after the ATF encouraged liscenced dealers to go ahead with transactions to customers the dealer thought were suspect. The correspondence showed that the agency also sought to minimize or completely conceal their own role in facilitating straw purchasers obtaining the weapons.

DEA- A New York Times report last week alleges that the DEA is engaged in what some are saying is the money-laundering equivalent to Operation Fast & Furious.

Anonymous officials described an effort by U.S. agents to launder or smuggle "millions of dollars" in drug money in order to monitor the flow of cash to and from the cartels in Mexico. One official told the Times there was "close supervision." Another official said the Americans worked with Mexican agents on the investigation. Officials told the newspaper that the DEA tried to seize as much as they laundered, in part through arrests at pickup locations.

The article also described how officials had to obtain Justice Department clearance to launder more than $10 million at a time, something that was approved many times.

The DEA issued a statement Tuesday defending its operations.

"The DEA has well-established mechanisms for coordinating and approving activities associated with the fight against money laundering," the DEA said. "As a result of this cooperation, DEA has seized illicit transnational criminal organization money all around the world through our partnership with law enforcement."

The DEA said it had been working "collaboratively" with Mexico to fight money laundering "for years."

"As part of that collaboration, DEA works with Mexican authorities to gather and use information about these criminal organizations to counter the threats they pose to both of our countries," the DEA said, adding that the joint investigations "have led to important advances and detentions in each country. The cooperation between the United States and Mexico is based on principles of shared responsibility, mutual trust and respect for the jurisdiction of each country."

According to the New York Times article that ran on December 3rd, the DEA has successfully used similar tactics in other countries such as Colombia, but has only started to expand its use in Mexico over the past few years.

Democrat Party Analysts: President Obama to Abandon 'White Working Class' During 2012 Campaign

Pretty provocative claim right there, and you're probably asking yourself 'What zany wingnutty outlet came up with THAT? Free Republic? Prison Planet?'.

Try the New York Times.

All pretense of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned in favor of cementing a center-left coalition made up, on the one hand, of voters who have gotten ahead on the basis of educational attainment — professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists — and a second, substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic.

The fact that a man who promised to bankrupt the coal industry as a candidate before he halted drilling in the Gulf Of Mexico and punted an important decision on the proposed KeystoneXL pipeline through the upper Midwest until after the 2012 election and cancelled a mineral lease auction for energy companies drilling in the Ohio section of the Marcellus Shale as President of the United States should come as no surprise that he holds the working class of this country in low esteem.

This doesn't necessarily apply to the blue collar workers who have been working in the coal mines, oil rigs or natural gas pipelines but also the Americans whose wallets continue to take a hit as energy costs continue to go up as more and more red tape and regulatory burdens are placed on utilities and energy exploration companies.

Of course as the Obama Administration has been- to paraphrase Interior Secretary Ken Salazar- keeping their 'boot on the neck' of the oil, coal and natural gas industries, they were merrily shovelling millions of taxpayers dollars to shady 'Green Energy' ventures like Solyndra or Finnish electric car maker Fisker. In fact, as much as 80% of the recipients of $20.5 billion in Department of Energy loans and grants turned out to be top dollar donors to the Obama campaign.

As long as there have been political campaigns, it seems as though candidates have fallen over each other to try and see who could identify with working class Americans the most- no matter who's running, a hardhat seems like a mandatory prop in campaign advertisements. But according to documents from Democratic analysts Stanley Greenberg and Ruy Teixeira, the new standard bearers or working class heroes for the Democrat party and Obama 2012 campaign should be "professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists" [the overwhelming majority of them belonging to a union like the SEIU or AFSCME, no doubt- NANESB!].

Despite the stark clarity this analysis by Greenberg and Teixeira offers, it only highlights the obvious about three years too late.

Standing Up: A Tale of Two Riots and Steps Merchants Took To Protect Their Businesses

It seems almost inevitable that this month's rioting and looting in London would draw comparisons to the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

To be fair, there are some very valid comparisons to be made. One could argue that in both instances, an evaporating police presence and hypersensitivity to the perception of police brutality only served to fuel the rioters brazen aggression in the early going.

Before the first pane of glass was broken in Tottenham, it seemed as though enablers such as Ken Livingstone were prepared to make any number of excuses for the socioeconomic reasons leading up to the unrest while very conveniently ignoring the more immediate consequences of the rioters widespread looting, arson and assaults [one wonders if these same politicians would have such a forgiving outlook if it was their home or business that was picked clean by looters and firebombed- NANESB!].

Growing up in Western New England, I saw televised coverage of the LA riots unfolding pretty close to real time, including the brutal, unprovoked and near-fatal beating of truck driver Reginald Denny.

At the time, I couldn't help but wonder how much further things would spiral out of control. But in the second day of the LA riots, I saw something that was strangely reassuring. Abandoned by the LAPD and with the California National Guard still at least a day away from showing up, Korean merchants armed with pistols, rifles and shotguns began fortifying their shops and exchanging gunfire with approaching looters and roving gang members.

Not surprisingly, the gun-phobic Northeastern press was aghast and horrified at the armed Korean 'vigilantes' defending their livelihoods taking the law into their own hands. A contemporary account from the New York Times reads:

One of the most gripping and, increasingly, controversial television images of the violence was a scene of two Korean merchants firing pistols repeatedly from a military stance. The image seemed to speak of race war, and of vigilantes taking the law into their own hands.

I'll admit that I found it fascinating but not for the inflammatory and just plain wrong reasons the New York Times cited. Having grown up in a fairly liberal state, I was told that keeping a firearm for self-defense was a fallacy and if I did so, I was far more likely to injure or kill a member of the household than an intruder. Yet that particularly dubious statistic unravelled pretty quickly for all the world to see on live TV.

From the looks of it, there were two clear choices of what to do in such a dire situation. Find yourself at the mercy of unchecked thugs and criminals like Reginald Denny and others found themselves, or protect yourself, your business and your family by taking up arms like the Koreans did. Granted some businesses were lost to arson and looting, but by day two of the riots the armed merchants made it clear that rioters bound and determined to burn or loot their businesses would pay a heavy toll.


Fast forward nearly 20 years and on the other side of the Atlantic, the closest thing you have to the defiant Koreans fending off a murderous, rampaging mob are Turkish and Kurdish shopkeepers armed with baseball bats, knives and pool cues greeting the looters in England. Granted it had the desired effect this time around, but one has to wonder what the presence of even an old Lee-Enfield .303 rifle or over-under shotgun might've done to disperse the marauding crowd.

However, the United Kingdom has among the strictest gun control laws in the world- something many gun control advocates were hoping the USA would emulate some day. Yet since the UK's 1997 prohibition on private ownership of handguns, crime has only increased.

Even more problematic, without any debate or consultation the legal standard for what constitutes self-defense in England, hinging on a magistrate or prosecutor's definition of 'reasonable force' ex post facto. Yet many Britons feel that the people who have been engaging in a week-long spree of arson, assault and robbery will get off with a light sentence- if they're ever caught.

For all the complaints about America's supposedly lax gun laws, I'll take my chances with that versus a disarmed society where you're on your own once the police decide they can no longer protect you.

Death Panels Revisited? Obama Administration Revives Controversial 'End Of Life' Provision via Regulation

Not surprisingly, this was announced on Christmas Eve when the overwhelming majority of Americans were otherwise preoccupied.

WASHINGTON — When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over “death panels,” Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1.

Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.

Congressional supporters of the new policy, though pleased, have kept quiet. They fear provoking another furor like the one in 2009 when Republicans seized on the idea of end-of-life counseling to argue that the Democrats’ bill would allow the government to cut off care for the critically ill. [snip]

Mr. Blumenauer, the author of the original end-of-life proposal, praised the rule as “a step in the right direction.”

“It will give people more control over the care they receive,” Mr. Blumenauer said in an interview. “It means that doctors and patients can have these conversations in the normal course of business, as part of our health care routine, not as something put off until we are forced to do it.”

After learning of the administration’s decision, [Congressman] Blumenauer’s office celebrated “a quiet victory,” but urged supporters not to crow about it.

“While we are very happy with the result, we won’t be shouting it from the rooftops because we aren’t out of the woods yet,” Mr. Blumenauer’s office said in an e-mail in early November to people working with him on the issue. “This regulation could be modified or reversed, especially if Republican leaders try to use this small provision to perpetuate the ‘death panel’ myth.”

I can't help but wonder if these death panels are so 'mythical', according to Congressman Blumenauer [D-OR, 3rd District], then why was it kept out of the original legislation, only to be snuck in later on via regulation when they figured nobody else was looking? Moreover, why are Blumenauer and others urging supporters to keep quiet about it instead of 'shouting from the rooftops'?

Elsewhere, the incoming House Energy and Commerce chairman Fred Upton [R-MI, 6th District] announced that the House will schedule a vote on repealing 0bamacare before President Obama's state-of-the-union address later on this month. Although the vote would be largely symbolic and almost certain to be vetoed by the President, Upton and other Republicans said they would plan on defunding or rolling back key provisions (the 1099 requirement for small businesses, the individual purchase mandate or the 'Stupak Amendment' regarding language in the bill on abortion) of 0bamacare.

Yankees Apparel Proves Popular With Criminals

For some reason I'm not the least bit surprised.

A Yankees baseball cap is a popular choice among suspects in a range of crimes, according to an analysis by the New York Times.

The analysis finds that in the past 10 years, more than 100 suspects in serious crimes were wearing Yankees caps at the time of the crime or during their arrest or arraignment.

Criminologists say the suspects may be fans of the Bombers, or simply making a fashion statement.

The Times analysis found Yankees caps were about three times as common as Mets caps among crime suspects

Well- for us Sox fans, there's octegenerian fugitive Irish mobster Whitey Bulger. Many of the available photos of him the FBI circulates show him wearing a Red Sox cap.

But apparently a Yankees cap at some point was considered a must-have accessory by many in the hip-hop world, whether or not you lived in New York or were a baseball fan.

"There's Lithium in Them Thar Hills!"- Pentagon Report: Afghanistan Could 'Hold $1 Trillion in Mineral Deposits'

Polish Forces on patrol in apparently lithium-rich Ghanzi province Afghanistan, 2009.

Senior U.S. military officials and the Pentagon report that they have discovered vast mineral deposits in southern Afghanistan that could be worth up to US$1 trillion, according to a New York Times article published Monday. According to the Times report, a Pentagon study indicates that Afghanistan could be the 'Saudi Arabia of Lithium'- a soft metal that's a key component in batteries for laptop computers and cell phones. Iron, copper, gold, silver and cobalt deposits have also reportedly been discovered in the remote, strife-torn country.

The report indicated that the USGS began aerial surveys of Afghanistan's minerals as far back as 2006 and cross referenced it with Russian reports gathered from Soviet mining experts from the USSR's occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s that American geologists came across in Kabul's Afghan Geological Survey library in 2004 after acting on a tip from local geologists who withheld the documents from the Taliban until 2001. The surveys initial findings were so promising that a more comprehensive aerial study using 3-D imaging equipment was conducted, providing a more detailed map of the country and it's resources. Although the findings were promising, they languished for two years until a Pentagon-sponsored local economic development program that was transferred from Iraq to Afghanistan rediscovered the reports.

Much of the Lithium is believed to be along dried salt lakes in Western Afghanistan and the deposits in the southern Ghanzi province may contain as much as Bolivia's current stockpiles- Bolivia is currently the world's #1 producer of lithium.

Presently Afghanistan's economy is largely based on opium harvesting and weapons trafficking. There previously had been no large-scale mining operations in Afghanistan until 1974 when Soviets attempted to build an open-pit copper mine in Aynak that would eventually fall into disrepair and be abandoned after the 1979 Soviet invasion. Another attempt was made to revive the mine in the 1990s, but that was abandoned during the Taliban's rise to power. In October 2009, the present Afghan government reached an agreement with Chinese interests to re-open the Aynak valley facility. Presently geologists are currently finishing up a series of technical studies in the more remote reigons of Afghanistan before the bidding process is opened up to international investors.

Connecticut Attorney General Lied About Serving in Vietnam

Gotta give credit where credit is due- a May 17th New York Times article says that CT Attorney General Dick Blumenthal received no less than five deferments between 1965-1970 and had never served in Vietnam. Instead, Blumenthal served for six years in the Marine Reserves but at times has told audiences that he did in fact serve in Vietnam.

“We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam,” Mr. Blumenthal said to the group gathered in Norwalk in March 2008. “And you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call it — Afghanistan or Iraq — we owe our military men and women unconditional support.”

A combative Blumenthal shot back in a press conference held in the W. Hartford, CT VFW Hall earlier today.

"On a few occasions, I have misspoken about my service, and I regret that... [but] I will not allow anyone to take a few misplaced words and impugn my record of service to my country. I served in the United States Marine Corps Reserves, and I am proud of it.''

[Y'know, Dick, I don't like it when somebody tries to impugn my record of service in the US Army, but I usually try and avoid that by NOT fudging my service record- NANESB!].

Blumenthal is running to fill the senate seat that will be vacated by Chris Dodd upon his retirement this year.

GOP Senate Candidate and (apparently real) Vietnam Vet Rob Simmons was unimpressed with Blumenthal's apology and issued a statement earlier today.

"I am unsatisfied with Attorney General Blumenthal's comments. While I'm not surprised that he 'regrets' that his misstatements have been called to the public's attention, what he owes is an apology to the veterans, who served and sacrificed in Vietnam."

Truth be told, I wasn't going to make that big a deal out of it until I caught some of Blumethal's petulant, defiant, almost non-apology 'apology' on the news earlier today. It seemed to come off more as 'Yeah, I lied....whaddaya gonna do about it?'

The sad part is that this will hardly cost Blumenthal at the polls in New York's de-facto sixth borough a blue state like Connecticut.

Black Politicians Inspired By President Obama to Run For Higher Office......As Republicans

This story has actually been around for a few weeks already, but was picked up by the New York Times recently.

According to the conservative Fredrick Douglas Foundation, at least 33 black candidates are running for seats in the US House of Representatives as Republicans for the 2010 mid-term elections.

Of the more than 30 black Republican congressional and senatorial candidates running for office this election cycle, the Frederick Douglass Foundation held a leadership summit for more than 15 of them this weekend.

“Because [Obama's] policies are so out of touch with most of America I think specifically you have black conservatives that are looking beyond just the image. They’re looking at policy and how it impacts us,” [Douglass Foundation Vice Chairman] Nelson said.

He also said there’s “a stronger network of visible black conservatives than many have not seen in the past.”

“What we found is a lot of candidates are feeling like, ‘Hey, I’m not an island by myself, there are other black Republicans who are out there who are not afraid to say it,’ and I think that that has given them a greater sense of confidence,” Nelson said.

This would likely include some of the candidates winning the support of the attendees of the tea party rallies, so apparently they haven't gotten the memo that all tea partiers are inherently bigoted and racist. Yet I somehow get the feeling that if they're running on a platform of lower taxes, limited government and blocking or repealing some of the President's top legislative priorities (such as cap & trade, card check or 0bamacare), they'll have the ear of alot of Americans, not necessarily limited to those who regularly show up at the tea parties.

The following is a list of some of the candidates for the US House of Representatives listed by the Fredrick Douglas society:

Lester Phillip, Alabama’s 5th District
Princella Smith, Arkansas’s 1st District
Vernon Parker, Arizona’s 3rd District
Virginia Fuller, California’s 7th District
Star Parker, California’s 37th District
Chrystopher Smith, California’s 39th District
Mason Weaver, California’s 53rd District
Ryan Frazier, Colorado’s 7th District
Prince Brown, Florida’s 8th District
Eddie Adams, Florida’s 11th District
Corey Poitier, Florida’s 17th District
Allen West, Florida’s 22nd District
Deon Long, Florida’s 24th District
Cory Ruth, Georgia’s 4th District
Deborah Honeycutt, Georgia’s 13th District
Rupert Parchment, Georgia’s 13th District
Isaac Hayes, Illinois’s 2nd District
Robert Broadus, Maryland’s 4th District
Charles Lollar, Maryland’s 5th District
Bill Hardiman, Michigan’s 3rd District
Angela McGlowan, Mississippi’s 1st District
Barb Davis White, Minnesota’s 5th District
Martin Baker, Missour;s 1st District
Shannon Wright, New Jersey’s 6th District
Michael Faulkner,New York’s 15th District
Jerry Grimes, North Carolina’s 1st District
Lou Huddleston, North Carolina’s 8th District
Bill Randall, North Carolina’s 13th District
Jean Howard-Hill, Tennessee’s 3rd District
Charlotte Bergmann, Tennessee’s 9th District
William Hurd, Texas’s 23rd District
Stephen Broaden, Texas’s 30th District
Coby Dillard, Virginia’s 3rd District

There are also some black GOP and Libertarian candidates for state offices in Georgia that Jammie Wearing Fool has been following lately.

Like I said regarding last month's tea parties, I'm not really into the whole ethnicity-to-ideology headcount deal that liberals and their mainstream media enablers insist everybody follows, but I imagine issues near and dear to conservatives such as lower taxes, strong national security and a less invasive or overreaching government wouldn't be limited to a select ethnic group.

Now most of the aforementioned races haven't even gotten beyond the primaries yet, but I will be interested in keeping track of their progress as we get closer to election.

[Hat tip: Jammie Wearing Fool; Alex Pappas of The Daily Caller]

Old Grey Lady Vs Voluptuous Blonde Who Plays Voluptuous Redhead on TV Update: NYT Runs Distorted Image of 'Big Girl' Christina Hendricks

(side by side images courtesey of Gothamist)

After being referred to as a 'big' girl by one of the NY Times style editors, the Times website ran with a distorted photo of Mad Men actress Christina Hendricks' appearence on the red carpet (giggity) prior to last weekend's Golden Globes (giggity).

The Old Grey Lady explained the gaffe as follows:

"The photo was slightly distorted inadvertently due to an error during routine processing. The photograph has been replaced."

Well, while not quite on the same scale as photoshopping additional smoke over the Beirut skyline during the Israeli-Hezbollah confilct of 2006, seems like a page out of the same playbook. Interesting that the distorted photo would be run accompanying the stylista's column trying to illustrate how 'big' she is.

This quote from the Gothamist was too good to pass up:

" ...this is the kind of top notch journalism you'll soon be asked pay more for!"

UPDATE: Gothamist has thoughtfully updated their article with a 'throbbing' Christina Hendricks image.

CATFIGHT: Old Grey Lady versus Voluptuous Blonde who Plays Voluptuous Redhead on TV

(Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

I normally don't get into these fashion and entertainment industry pissing matches, and to be honest I haven't seen a single episode of Mad Men. But apparently one of the New York Times stylistas liveblogging the Golden Globes had this to say about Mad Men actress Christina Hendricks:

"You don't put a big girl in a big dress. That's rule number one."

Umm......define 'big', please. From what I see, Ms. Hendricks has curves. I can't say with certainty she has curves in all the right places- closer firsthand examination will need to be undertaken by yours truly to reach a more definitive conclusion- but from what I see so far, she's off to a good start. Aren't curves on a woman supposed to be healthy and feminine and even celebrated? It's not like we're talking about Susan Boyle without the singing ability here. I think all these news stories about the uptick in obesity in Americans has us looking for signs of that problem when there are none....or it could just be petty schoolyard name-calling and cheap shot that are supposed to be clever. I wouldn't put that past somebody on the Time's payroll.

I also feel compelled to speak up on Ms. Hendricks behalf because, although technically not a pin-up, she's a leading actress on a show set in the early 60s, so I suspect she'd have to have the look down for the role. Plus, if Philly blogger Wyatt Earp taught me anything, it's that you can't have too much eye candy (Hendricks-centric or otherwise) on your blog.

Given the Old Grey Lady's already-established 'journalism' practises like denying Stalin's engineered famine in the Ukraine was taking place (and a Pulitzer being awarded to the 'reporter' who ignored it), having liar and plagirist Jayson Blair on their payroll for 4 years and routinely publishing national security and intelligence information during the Bush administration, I'm not above dogpiling on the publication. Or laughing as their stock [NYSE: NYT] circles the drain.