The media master is on the move again

Should be good for conservatives.  He keeps all his titles right of center



News Corp Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch is looking to buy the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, two of the country's largest newspapers, from struggling media conglomerate Tribune Co, a source familiar with his plans told Reuters on Friday.

News Corp executives - including Murdoch's son James - flew into Los Angeles twice this month to take a preliminary look at the storied daily's books, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meetings were not publicized.

Rupert Murdoch is also eyeing the Chicago Tribune, whose publisher Tribune Co is now trying to exit bankruptcy.

News Corp executives are in early talks with Tribune Co debtholders, including hedge fund Oaktree Capital. The company wants to secure footholds in Los Angeles and Chicago, according to the Los Angeles Times, which first reported the news.

Murdoch has long eyed the LA Times, the newspaper reported. Oaktree declined to comment, while News Corp did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

More HERE

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President Obama's Closing Act: An Epic Collapse

The ongoing collapse of President Obama's campaign may lead to some extraordinary stunts during Monday's last debate, but no matter what he tries, it is very unlikely that the president can reverse the enormous momentum behind Mitt Romney's campaign.

(One data point. Congressman John Campbell, a frequent guest on my radio show, polled his district this week. It is Califronia's 45. John McCain carried it by 4.7 points in 2008. Mitt Romney is almost 20 points ahead in this cycle. Campbell reports that this sort of result is showing up across the country.)

The nation is simply finished with a president whose rhetoric has never been matched by his actions, and whose performance has removed Jimmy Carter from the bottom of the rankings of the modern president.

The president of course has his passionate supporters. These are the same people that spent last Tuesdaynight declaring him the winner of his second meeting with Mitt Romney, and Wednesday and Thursday trying to infuse the word "binder" with game-changing significance.

They are the same people who spent Friday denying that "not optimal" was not a big deal.

"Binder" --big deal. "Not optimal" --no deal at all. That's the state of the Obama campaign: A nearly Orwellian effort at making some words matter and others disappear while facts are pushed aside It hasn't worked. It won't work..

Mitt Romney by contrast followed two very strong debate showings with a wonderful set of remarks at the Al Smith dinner, the third time in two weeks that he has reassured those just tuning into the presidential campaign that he will be a steady and reliable force for good in the Oval Office.

Romney was ready for his close up. This is the primary reasion behind his surge.

And what a surge. Romney was up seven points in Thursday's Gallup tracking poll, and even the very partisan Democratic polling firm PPP has Romney ahead in Iowa and New Hampshire on Friday. The president is hidng from reporters to avoid more Libya questions, and when he hand-picks a safe zone --a comedy show hosted by a huge ally-- he still falls on his face, and not just with the "not optimal" comment but with his doubling down on closing Gitmo.

The market shudders, the quesiness about earnings, the goofy jobs data --all this and more is fueling the growing, now urgent sense of a need for a big change. A U-Turn. And Mitt Romney is the beneficiary.

Every motorist who gases up between now and election day (especially those in California) should recall last Monday's debate and the direct question to the president about gas prices which he refused to answer

SOURCE

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Obama’s secret second term agenda revealed

The Washington Post‘s Ezra Klein has unearthed President Obama’s secret second term agenda. And it should scare the pants off anyone who doesn’t want the U.S. economy to tank this coming January. Klein writes:

I’ve criticized the Obama campaign for failing to detail much of a vision for a second term. But that’s not to say they don’t have one. They do. It’s just a hard one to campaign on.

After promising in 2008 to bring about a new era of cooperation in Washington, they’re campaigning in 2012 knowing that, if reelected, they will start their second term with a brutal, economy-shaking showdown with Republicans over spending and taxes.

If the Obama administration were to really lay out their plans, they would go something like this. In November, President Obama will reiterate, clearly and firmly, that he will veto any attempts to extend the high-income tax cuts or lift the big, dumb spending cuts without finding equivalent savings elsewhere.

That veto threat is the center of the Obama administration’s second-term strategizing. The Obama administration believes – and, just as importantly, they believe Republicans believe — that they’ve got the leverage here. … I’ve called this the GOP’s dual-trigger nightmare. It’s bad for the economy, but it also effectively ends our deficits with a mix of tax increases and spending cuts more progressive than anything any Democrat has dared propose. Republicans absolutely can’t let it happen. But the only way they can stop it from happening is to make a deal.

Obama and Klein are dead wrong: Republicans absolutely can let the fiscal cliff happen. Obama signed every law (either the original legislation or an extension of it), that has created the $500 billion tax hike/$100 billion spending cut fiscal cliff. It’s his economic disaster. He owns it. Why wouldn’t Republicans just love to make him sleep in the bed he made?

More importantly though, when you read Bob Woordward’s excellent new book, The Price of Politics, you can’t help but notice a common theme running through everyone of Obama’s failures.

* On the stimulus, Obama was certain he could get at least one Republican vote. He failed.
* On Obamacare, Obama was certain he could get at least one Republican vote. He failed.
* On the debt limit debate, Obama was certain he could strike a deal with House Speaker Boehner, R-Ohio, that raised taxes. He failed.

In the middle of the debt limit debate, Woodward reports:

“If the goal is to solve the problem,” Obama said, “I don’t understand why we don’t seize the opportunity. It would not violate either party’s positions. Revenues wouldn’t come from a vote. I understand this pledge that all these Republicans have taken.”

The Republicans thought he really didn’t understand at all. The scheme to decouple the middle- and lower-income tax brackets from the higher brackets was a transparent gimmick.

At every turn in his presidency, Obama believes he understands Republicans and can bully them into submission. And at every turn he has underestimated Republican resolve.

If Obama wins reelection he will no doubt try to govern in his second term the exact same way he tried to govern in his first. And he will get the exact same results. In other words, if Obama wins reelection, we are definitely going over the fiscal cliff.

SOURCE

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Obama's 'war on women' canard is not fooling women

When President Obama speaks about women's issues, it's a safe bet he's telling tall tales. When Democrats talk of a "war on women," they are usually waging a war on facts. And women, it seems, aren't fooled.

In 20 seconds on Tuesday night, while discussing women's health during the presidential debate, Obama dissembled twice. First on birth control. Second on Planned Parenthood.

"Gov. Romney feels comfortable having politicians in Washington decide the health care choices that women are making. I think that's a mistake," Obama said. It seemed an odd criticism from a president whose major domestic initiative injects government further into all aspects of health care. But Obama actually was attacking his health law's critics.

"In my health care bill, I said insurance companies need to provide contraceptive coverage to everybody who is insured. Gov. Romney not only opposed it, he suggested that in fact employers should be able to make the decision as to whether or not a woman gets contraception through her insurance coverage."

What is Obama talking about? What is this diabolical Romney plan that would force women to beg their bosses for birth control?

Romney only got a few seconds Tuesday night to rebut that argument: "The president's statement of my policy is completely and totally wrong."

Here's the policy issue: Before last summer, many employer-provided health insurance plans covered birth control. Some covered sterilization. Some covered the "morning-after pill," which may cause abortions by killing a fertilized egg.

Some insurance plans covered 100 percent of the cost of birth control. Some insurance plans required a co-pay on birth control, just as they require on almost all drugs.

But wielding an Obamacare provision on "women's preventive care," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius imposed a new rule requiring almost all employers to cover every penny of contraception, sterilization and morning-after pills.

That means if you offer health insurance that doesn't cover sterilization, you're breaking the law. If you offer health insurance that covers all contraception, but requires a $5-a-month co-pay, you're breaking the law. If you offer two plans, and the one that covers all contraception and sterilization carries a higher premium, you're breaking the law. Or at least Sebelius' law.

Mitt Romney doesn't think those things should be illegal.

Wages, commuter benefits and vacation time are all matters of negotiation between bosses and the people they want to hire. But if you offer someone a job, and promise to pay them in cash instead of contraception, you're violating Obamacare.

So how do Obama and his surrogates characterize opposition to his mandate? They say Romney wants employers to keep you from getting contraception.

When Republicans proposed a broader conscience exemption to the new mandate last year, Obama's campaign said the GOP was forcing women to get a permission slip from their boss.

The mock permission slip on Obama's campaign website read:  "I have discussed the employee's contraceptive options with her, and I verify that her use of these methods (IS / IS NOT) in agreement with my personal beliefs. The employee (DOES / DOES NOT) have my permission to access birth control pills, intrauterine devices, or any other type of contraception."

At the Democratic National Convention, party-approved podium speeches rolled out this canard. Obama surrogate Sandra Fluke warned that Romney's America would be "an America in which access to birth control is controlled by people who will never use it." Obama fundraiser Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, said Romney would "end access to birth control."

In the debate Tuesday, Obama was a bit more careful in his misleading talk, but seemingly tried to instill fear that Romney will take away women's contraception, rather than simply get the government out of this one aspect of the employer-employee relationship.

Will Obama next warn that Romney wants to let your boss "make the decision as to whether or not you get Starbucks coffee through your employer"?

Obama's also played loose with the facts while defending federal subsidies for Planned Parenthood. He stated that women "rely on [Planned Parenthood] for mammograms." But Planned Parenthood doesn't provide mammograms.

A federal law requires certificates for operating mammography equipment. When the Alliance Defense Fund, a religious liberty group, requested Food and Drug Administration documentation of Planned Parenthood's licensed mammography facilities, the FDA said it had no record of any certificates.

The notion that Romney and Republicans are waging a "war on women" has always been laughable. Now it appears to be failing: Romney has completely closed the gap among female voters in swing states, according to this week's USA Today poll.  Obama, it seems, didn't believe women could tell when they're being lied to.

SOURCE

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Black bully tries to protect voting fraud



Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee Elijah Cummings is using intimidation tactics against the voter integrity group True the Vote with AFL-CIO, NAACP and other far left groups following his lead.

On October 4, Cummings sent a letter to True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht on official House Oversight and Government Reform Committee letterhead, demanding she turn over documents and training material used by the group for people planning to volunteer as poll watchers on Election Day. Engelbrecht responded to Cummings' request by offering to meet with him in Washington D.C. to explain the mission of True the Vote and to address his concerns.

"I believe we agree on many common goals, such as the right of every American to have the opportunity to participate in a fair and legal electoral process. It was of great concern to me that you had suddenly requested a considerable amount of documentation on the basis of news reports which offered limited balance and an over-simplification of the facts. I find it regrettable that your office did not reach out to True The Vote directly before launching a personal ad-hoc investigation. Election integrity is a serious concern across the nation – the state of Maryland is no exception. In this year alone, as reported by The Washington Post, a federal congressional candidate seeking to join Maryland’s Congressional Delegation was forced to resign from her race by Democratic Party officials after alleged felony double voting was uncovered in her voting history,"

Engelbrecht wrote. "It is both obvious and unfortunate that you are not familiar with all of the details of the mission or methods of True the Vote. This letter serves as an effort to coordinate a convenient meeting time in your Washington, D.C. office, during which I can brief you and your staff about our program and help dispel any misconceptions you may have. In the interim, if you anticipate making any future comments about True the Vote, please do not hesitate to contact me directly so that I may provide you with accurate information. As always, you are welcome to join an upcoming training session before Election Day."

Despite what Cummings implied in his letter, True the Vote doesn't have an obligation to "produce a single document." Cummings is in the minority, lacks subpoena power and has no authority to force True the Vote to hand over anything and therefore, he is resorting to intimidation tactics against True the Vote, its leadership and its members as a result. He is abusing his power on the Oversight Committee by using these tactics, implying he has more power on the Committee than he actually does and is misrepresenting the committee headed not by him, but Chairman Darrell Issa.

More HERE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH,  FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist.  It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day.  It was only to the Right of  Stalin's Communism.  The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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