http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/02/19/WaPo-Dumps-Its-Ombudsman-Will-Anyone-Notice

'WAPO' DUMPS ITS OMBUDSMAN

 108

 0

 11

 

---

Email Article

Print ArticleSend a Tip

by JOHN NOLTE 19 Feb 2013, 11:44 AM PDT 15 POST A COMMENT

For some inexplicable reason, Howard Kurtz likes the idea of paying a fat salary to a figurehead who gives a media institution a false sheen of accountability. Gee, can't imagine why.

I understand the financial pressures that Baron faces. But an ombudsman gives unhappy readers, politicians and groups someone to complain to. He or she holds the editors and reporters accountable. When the Post was hit by the Janet Cooke scandal, the ombudsman was absolutely indispensible in investigating what happened and showing the world that the paper would not cover up the mess created by its fabricating Pulitzer Prize winner.

The Post was one of the first newspapers to employ an ombudsman. The New York Times didn’t have one until a decade ago, when its own mega-scandal (involving Jayson Blair) led the paper to finally create the role of in-house critic. The Los Angeles Times and USA Today don’t have them. Neither do the television networks.

And the difference between those outlets that employ an ombudsman and those that don't is what exactly?

Is there anyone out there who honestly believes the once-legendary Washington Post is a better, more objective, more responsible news outlet than those among its competitors that don't employ an ombudsman?

What did Patrick Pexton do to deter the Post from engaging in this corruption? Moreover, during the 2012 election, the Post was one of the most biased news outlets out there. More than once, it was caught openly coordinating its own big stories with the Obama campaign's anti-Romney narratives. All during Pexton's watch.

Overall, The Washington Post is a disgraceful newspaper, and getting worse every day. So, for some reason, the thought of another media elitist forced to enter the same Obama economy the media foisted on the rest of us doesn’t make me want to pick up a violin.

If an ombudsman or a media reporter like Howard Kurtz did their jobs with any amount of integrity, they would be as despised by the media-at-large as Internal Affairs is in any police department.

The fact that Pexton and Howie are beloved in MediaLand tells you everything you need to know about how necessary they are.

                                                                  

Follow  John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC

Who had the worst week in Washington? Mitt Romney - Washington Post

By Chris Cillizza, Friday, September 14, 10:54 AM

Worst Week in Washington

A weekly award honoring inhabitants of Planet Beltway

•   Text Size
• Print
• E-mail
• Reprints

By Chris Cillizza, Friday, September 14, 10:54 AM

With less than eight weeks before voters do their thing, you can’t waste a day — much less a week. Yet, that’s exactly what former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney did with a series of head-scratching policy and process moves that had people talking about everything but President Obama and his handling of the economy.

It began on Monday when the Romney campaign issued a memo from its pollster Neil Newhouse — who, by the way, is among the most respected numbers guys in either party — that sought to beat back the idea that Obama’s convention bounce was anything more than ephemeral. The memo felt thin and defensive, an attempt to push back against a story line that the campaign was insisting didn’t exist.

10

Comments

• Weigh In
• Corrections?

Personal Post

Worst Week In Washington

Chris Cillizza grants the award to the Democrat, Republican, West Wing dweller, Capitol Hill insider, K Street dealer, business guru, sports hero, think tank scribblers or other inhabitant of Planet Beltway who experienced the absolute worst week.

Archive

• Nominate your candidate

Gallery

Fact or fiction?: A collection from Outlook’s popular Five Myths series.

That was nothing, of course, next to what happened Wednesday morning, when Romney blasted the Obama administrationfor a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo that, the Republican nominee argued, amounted to America apologizing to the rest of the world. The statement, which condemned “the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims,” was issued before protesters stormed the embassy, not afterward. The Obama administration did everything it could to distance itself from the statement, insisting it had no idea it was being sent.

Events — as they so often do — outran Romney’s comments as it came to light thatthe U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans had been killed during protests in Benghazi that broke out after the Cairo demonstrations.

Romney was left looking like he was trying to score political points rather than mourn those who died. And Obama pounced, telling CBS News that his opponent has a tendency to “shoot first and aim later.”

Putting aside the back and forth about why Romney said what he did when he did, the reality is that his best strategy in this election is to talk about the still-struggling economy every day between now and Nov. 6. To purposefully divert from that strategy to engage in a battle on foreign policy — a topic few outside Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor care about — is baffling at best and wrongheaded at worst.

Mitt Romney, for frittering away a full campaign week when you could least afford it, you had the worst week in 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/who-had-the-worst-week-in-washington-mitt-romney/2012/09/14/6cb39ada-fdca-11e1-b153-218509a954e1_story.html

h/t Chris Plante

El Presidente’s Filthiest Lie Ever?

Obama’s Filthiest Lie Ever?

AUGUST 9, 2012 BY DOUG PATTON 100 COMMENTS

inShare23

If the Obama re-election campaign has not yet made you feel like you want to take a shower, then you are either not paying attention or you have an incredible tolerance for lies. Make no mistake; Obama, the Democrats in Congress, and the party’s celebrity-funded Super PACs will do whatever is necessary to hold on to the power they feel slipping through their fingers. And that includes outright lies.

Not mistakes. Not distortions. Not factual errors. Not mendacities. Lies!

Democrat Leader Harry Reid took to the floor of the Senate and lied through his smirking teeth about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. “The word it out that he hasn’t paid taxes in a decade,” Reid said in that smarmy voice of his. He offered no proof of this scurrilous allegation, and when challenged on it, he simply shrugged and said someone told him.

The latest filth to come oozing out of the president’s re-election mud hole is a television commercial being run by Priorities USA Action, the pro-Obama super PAC run by former administration mouthpiece Bill Burton and defended by another former administration mouthpiece, Robert Gibbs, who now works for the campaign (but they don’t coordinate, because that would be wrong).

The ad is running in Iowa, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Florida, as well as on the Internet. It depicts former steelworker Joe Soptic earnestly speaking into the camera about how he lost his job after GST Steel closed its doors in 2001. Bain Capital, the private equity firm formerly run by Romney, was part of a group that had taken over the Kansas City area steel company. Soptic blames Romney not only for the loss of his job but also the loss of his wife, who subsequently died of cancer.

“When Mitt Romney and Bain closed the plant,” Soptic tells us, “I lost my health care, and my family lost their health care. And a short time after that my wife became ill. I don’t know how long she was sick, and I think maybe she didn’t say anything because she knew that we couldn’t afford the insurance, and then one day she became ill and I took her up to the Jackson County Hospital and admitted her for pneumonia, and that’s when they found the cancer, and by then it was stage four. It was…there was nothing they could do for her, and she passed away in 22 days. I do not think Mitt Romney realizes what he’s done to anyone, and furthermore I do not think Mitt Romney is concerned.”

The Washington Post gave the ad four Pinocchios, the same rating they gave Reid’s comments on the Senate floor. It seems the Obama slime machine conveniently overlooked a few little factoids: 1) of the $75 million put into the original 1993 deal by several investors, Bain Capital put in a mere $8 million; 2) Romney left Bain Capital in 1999, a full two years before the GST plant was closed; 3) Mrs. Soptic had health insurance through her own employer after her husband lost his job; and 4) she did not die until 2006, five years after the closure of GST Steel.

In the midst of all the lies being told by Barack Obama and his minions, here is the unvarnished truth about health care. If you remember nothing else, remember this. No employer or insurance company can tell you that you cannot have a medical procedure. They may not cover it, and that may be a hardship. You might have to mortgage your home or take on some other form of financial burden. You might have to turn to a charity or work out some sort of payment plan. But in the United States of America, no one can dictate that you cannot have health care.

However, when the federal government takes over our health care system — and that is the ultimate goal of Obamacare — they will be the only game in town. No competition and therefore no place else to turn. They will send you home with an aspirin and an excuse: you’re too old; you’re too sick; you’re too whatever. It happens everywhere government-run health care is the law of the land.

It is not the Mitt Romneys of the world who kill sick people. It is the Barack Obamas. Don’t buy their lies.

Photo credit: SS&SS (Creative Commons)

Bypass the Mass Media: Get Articles Just Like This Straight To Your Inbox!

• Choose Your Categories*
  • Featured Stories (Best Of The Day)
  • Best Of The Web
  • Morning Cartoons
  • Daily Commentary
  • Must See Videos
• Email*

Please share this post with your friends and comment below. If you haven’t already, take a moment to sign up for our free newsletter above and friend us on Twitter and Facebook to get real time updates. 

http://www.westernjournalism.com/obamas-filthiest-lie-ever/

h/t BH

Four Pinocchios for Harry Reid’s claim about Mitt Romney’s taxes

Posted by Glenn Kessler at 06:02 AM ET, 08/07/2012

•   Text Size
• Print
• E-mail
• Reprints

• Share:
• More >

(Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

“The word's out that he [Romney] hasn't paid any taxes for 10 years.”

— Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Aug. 2, 2012

Reid has generated a lot of controversy with his claim that presumptive GOP nominee did not pay any taxes for 10 years. He originally told the Huffington Post that a person who had invested with Bain Capital had called his office and told him this. Then, he told reporters in Nevada that “I have had a number of people tell me that.”

Reid has refused to identify his source (or sources). Romney and his campaign aides have emphatically denied the charge but Reid has stood firm. “I don't think the burden should be on me,” he said. “The burden should be on him. He's the one I've alleged has not paid any taxes.”

This whole exchange poses a fact-checking conundrum. Generally, we maintain that the person or the campaign making the charge must back it up. Reid has refused to provide any evidence, except for the (unproven) fact that someone called him up and told him something that may be true — or simply a rumor.

But we can still examine how credible this rumor might be.

The Facts

 Romney has refused to release more than two years of tax returns, citing a precedent that is not very credible; he earned three Pinocchios for that claim. Most presidential candidates in recent years have released more than two years of returns, so Romney may be paying a political price for failing to release more.

But Romney’s 2010 return and his estimated 2011 return do show that he paid substantial taxes in those years. In 2010, he earned nearly $22 million, including $3 million in taxable interest, nearly $5 million in dividends and more than $12 million in capital gains. He reduced his taxes by giving $3 million in charitable contributions (much of it in appreciated stock, which shielded him from paying additional capital gains.)

In other words, this tax return shows a portfolio that is not structured to yield zero taxes. We spoke to a number of tax experts, all of whom said that, given Romney’s current portfolio, it was highly improbable for Romney to have had 10 years with tax-free returns — though there could have been one or two years with little or no taxes.

(We will lay aside the interesting question of Romney’s individual retirement account, valued at as much as $100 million, which may have benefited from Bain Capital’s practice of allowing employees to co-invest retirement funds in takeover deals.)

Charitable contributions, first of all, could only get Romney so far. Taxpayers cannot eliminate tax liability only through charitable contributions.

Still, Romney at one point could have invested all of his money in tax-exempt bonds, though that is not his investment strategy now. (IRS figures show that 61 percent of high-income returns with no tax liability stemmed from tax-exempt interest.)

Romney also could have timed the sale of stocks or made other investment decisions that would have yielded losses that offset capital gains. Len Burman, a professor at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, said IRS data show that 5.7 percent of the high-income returns had as a primary reason losses from partnerships and closely-held business. “We know that Governor Romney had a partnership, and it had losses in 2010,” he said. “It’s possible that those partnership losses were large enough to offset taxable income from compensation, rents, interest, dividends, and royalties.”

Romney also could have invested in tax shelters. Edward Kleinbard, a law professor at the University of Southern California and former chief of staff at the Joint Committee on Taxation, noted that Romney chaired the audit committee of Marriott International when it engaged in a highly aggressive tax shelterthat was successfully challenged by the Internal Revenue Service.

But none of this appears to add up to 10 years of tax returns with no taxes paid. “It is theoretically possible, but it seems quite improbable in practice given the portfolio in 2010,” Kleinbard said.  “It is improbable that a man of his wealth would have paid no taxes for 10 years.”

 Robert S. McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, said that Romney “probably reported income every year” but that he might have paid as low as a 2 percent tax rate in one year. “That’s close enough to zero for me,” he said.

Still, Reid claims that Romney did not pay taxes for 10 years. Moreover, he claims to base this on information from a Bain investor, without explaining how someone not intimately familiar with Romney’s tax situation would know details of his taxes.

We asked a Reid spokesman for more backup information and for the name of a tax expert who could back up Reid’s claim but did not receive a response.

The Pinocchio Test

 We use a reasonable person standard here. Without seeing Romney’s taxes, we cannot definitively prove Reid  incorrect. But tax experts say his claim is highly improbable. Reid also has made no effort to explain why his unnamed source would be credible. So, in the absence of more information, it appears he has no basis to make his incendiary claim.

 Moreover, Reid holds a position of great authority in the U.S. Congress.  He should hold himself to a high standard of accuracy when making claims about political opponents.

Four Pinocchios

 

(About our rating scale)

Check out our candidate Pinocchio Tracker

Follow The Fact Checker on Twitter and friend us on Facebook .

Track each presidential candidate's campaign ads

Read our biggest Pinocchios

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/four-pinocchios-for-harry-reids-claim-about-mitt-romneys-taxes/2012/08/06/c31a1402-e007-11e1-8fc5-a7dcf1fc161d_blog.html?wprss=rss_fact-checker

http://conservativebyte.com/2012/08/four-pinocchios-for-harry-reid/

If you're SARAH, you better be dressed correctly

Posted at 10:30 AM ET, 08/06/2012

Sarah Palin: Mama grizzlies united

By Diana Reese

CLEVELAND, Mo—Sarah Palin did not disappoint.

The crowd cheered and applauded repeatedly during her speech here Friday night, from her opening remarks about “mama grizzlies” on the Missouri state flag to her promise to stop at the local Chick-fil-A for a midnight snack.

It was the first time I’d ever seen Palin in person, and it was well worth the 19-mile drive from my suburban Kansas City home to The Berry Patch, a you-pick blueberry farm near Cleveland, Mo., population 665, in rural Cass County.

Not because I’m a fan or even agree with her ideology, but to see what all the fuss has been about.

Palin was in the Kansas City area to campaign for Sarah Steelman, who’s in a tight three-way race in Tuesday’s Republican primary for Missouri’s U.S. Senate seat. The winner will face Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) in November.

The Steelman Surge BBQ and Picnic featured speeches by Steelman and Palin, followed with Kansas City barbecue served up by the two women to a crowd estimated at 500 or more, many of whom waited an hour or longer.

Palin was there to lend some of her magic to Steelman, who shares not only her conservative views but an independence and willingness to buck the political system. (One of Steelman’s goals is to end Congressional pensions, for example.)

A half-dozen or so senatorial candidates have been endorsed by Palin this summer, including last week’s winner in Texas, Ted Cruz.

Somehow, Palin has achieved celebrity status since the 2008 election. How many failed vice presidential candidates and former Alaska governors end up with book deals and reality TV shows? With an estimated net worth of $12 million?

When Palin took to the makeshift stage in the middle of a Missouri farm field, she was dressed more for the part of Hollywood celebrity than serious politician. I know someone’s going to remind me that just last week, I said it was sexist to focus on the wardrobes of women in politics.

But it was hard for me to take Palin seriously dressed as she was.

First, her shoes: Five-inch wedges. Her black capris weren’t quite skin-tight but tight enough, and her t-shirt with its Superman logo (a Steelman campaign shirt emblazoned with “Our freedom. Our fight.”) emphasized her figure. She never once removed her oversized sunglasses.

I’m sorry, but I’d like my minister, my doctor and yes, my politicians, to look and dress for their parts.

Once Palin spoke, I couldn’t help but think she sometimes sounds like a caricature of herself. Perhaps it’s her unique manner of speaking or her overuse of certain phrases.

There were moments during her 15-minute speech that I felt like applauding and there were certainly moments that I groaned.

.

Palin started her speech with a comment about the Missouri’s state flag,which does indeed feature three grizzly bears, representing the strength and bravery of the state’s citizens. Whether any of the grizzly bears is female, however, is open to debate.

But when Palin talked about Steelman, at age 18, working on Ronald Reagan’s campaign in 1976, the former Alaska governor turned to her and said, "You couldn’t have been 18, you must’ve been 2…what a hot mama grizzly you have!”

(Insert major groan here.)

Later, referring again to Reagan’s 1976 campaign, Palin said, “Back when Sarah and I were itty bitty babies.”

I would think a mama grizzly would be proud of her age.

Meriting applause were her references to Steelman’s experience as state treasurer and state senator and her attempts to rein in spending and perks for fellow politicians.

“She’s walkin’ the walk and not just talkin’ the talk,” Palin pointed out. Steelman has vowed to cut the deficit and get a balanced budget amendment passed.

And good advice for considering any candidate: Look at the record, not the rhetoric.

The tea party’s mantra of cutting spending and limiting the power of the federal government struck a chord with the audience, but never did the subject of jobs and job creation (my personal obsession) come up.

Instead, Palin reiterated Steelman’s slogan: “The status quo has got to go.”

She said Steelman was not heading to Washington to get invited to “frou-frou chi-chi D.C. cocktail parties.” Instead, she wants to “save our country’s economy and God-given freedoms” while protecting “the sanctity of human life.”

Palin’s certainly not part of the “in” crowd of Washington; none other than Dick Cheney recently blasted her for not being an appropriate choice for McCain’s running mate in 2008. So far, she’s not been invited to speak at the upcoming Republican National Convention.

But out here, just close enough to Kansas City for the metro’s media outlets to send camera crews and reporters to cover the event, the people loved Palin.

We’ll find out tomorrow if that love has rubbed off on Steelman.

Diana Reese is a freelance journalist in Kansas City. Follow her on Twitter at @dianareese.

By Diana Reese  |  10:30 AM ET, 08/06/2012

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/post/sarah-palin-mama-grizzlies-united/2012/08/06/23393f12-dfc6-11e1-8d48-2b1243f34c85_blog.html