It was far from an endorsement, but President Barack Obama told newspaper editors over the weekend that he would be “happy to look at” proposals for a federal bailout of their industry.
The idea seems dicey, at best, and you have to wonder if Obama was just being nice in the interview with editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade.
Putting aside the cost in these times of rising federal debt and the public’s growing fatigue with bailouts, it’s a dicey concept because newspapers that owe their lives to the government are probably not worth having. The potential for politicians to directly or indirectly influence coverage would not exactly build reader confidence.
During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln’s administration invested in failing Southern newspapers to influence public opinion in favor of the North. A noble cause in that case, but an example of how public ownership can be used to promote the government’s agenda.
There was already a hint of an agenda in Obama’s remarks about a bailout. As newspaper readership declines, he expressed concern about “the direction of the news” and the loss of “journalistic integrity, fact-based reporting, serious investigative reporting.”
Also a noble cause, but insisting on quality journalism in exchange for federal support raises questions about how that would be guaranteed and who gets to define what it means.
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83 Responses to Obama Open to Newspaper Bailout
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ct: I don’t particularly care for Romney but the media has gone totally overboard in their response to his poor people comment. It reminds me of how they responded when Dr. Dean did his little yeehaw to his supporters during...
+6Katherine Graham Cracker: Dr. Dooty Thanks but not enough now. All the people involved in the conspiracy to dump Planned Parenthood need to be fired And the Democrats need to give them a taste of their own medicine — open an...
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RebelliousRenee: Tony… the other day you said you might be shallow. You tolerate Grace everyday. Never once have you posted that you ran to a client’s tv before she could get there and turn on MSNBC just to fry her ass....
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+4patd: rr, well said. tony is truly a mensch, a good man and a compassionate independent.
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top ten newspapers in trouble
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/lists/top_10_newspapers_in_trouble/newspapers_in_trouble.html
Woo? WOO? WOOO!!
drat, sturg, ya beat me to it by a millisecond.
power to the mouses……
Sounds like a nutty kind of idea to me -- Who’s to say that in the 21st century “press” = “newspapers”? Well, yeah, the founders thought press meant newspapers and pamphlets -- which is a pretty good argument that the founders’ word were meant to be general outlines of ideas about what rights were rather than specific, technical prescriptions. I’ll betcha that not one of them thought that speech meant a campaign contribution from a corporation.
Sturgeone
He is plowing already turned ground. The Passover Plot came out more than 40 years ago
http://www.amazon.com/Passover-Plot-Special-40th-Anniversary/dp/1932857095/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253540298&sr=8-1
Just what constituency is Obama serving with this move?
The Republicans will love this. The public is angry about Wall Street bailouts, so the GOP can use that. Also, this feeds the Obama = totalitarian govt paranoia.
Hate to say it, but I was totally bored by the President. this weekend. He didn’t say anything new and he didn’t say anything I wanted to hear.
jamie….yep, he mentions that in that article…….
Trail Mixers: what are your news sources? (This should be interesting.)
I go to Yahoo for news & Huffingtonpost for politics. I also watch Olbermann every PM.
Craig,
Had to be just a polite remark….that is if he wants to have a 2nd term. I don’t know of anyone that would like the idea of bailing out the newspapers that are mainly advertising space now….
From last thread:
Blue,
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2009/09/huckabee-gets-2012-boost.html#comment-261440
Yes, is the answer that Jamie should give you, and not an excuse to keep the same people that got us into this situation in the first place..There are at least three things that are a given, and that all Americans take it for….first is Military security, 2nd, financial security, third infrastructure….there are more…like environment, and going green, and energy conservation, and the one that they promise, but never-ever keep……Bipartisan….from the middle, we can keep this one…since we want some ideas from both parties…not just from one or the other:
One other thing that we can campaign on; is that voters won’t have to pick from the less of the two evil’s …..there should be at least 3 to choose from….
Chloe,
Get up gal. Thanks for the information about linking….did not get back until late last night and just saw it: I will try it a little later; I hope…thanks
Sometimes the devil is NOT in the details, it is in the principle.
I cannot imagine how such a bailout might be done without the Federal government picking winners and losers among press outlets, meaning Federal taxpayer dollars being used to subsidize some press and not others. Clearly this would be a Federal interference in the operation of a free press, which, even if some legal way were found to do it, is a really, really bad idea.
Newspapers may well fail, and this will be a tragedy in this day of opinion-based reporting. But how could the government step in without ‘interference’ in the exercise of free press?
Nash, interesting question. I go to NYTimes online and WaPo online for news -- and occasionally to AP and USAToday online. I Go to HuffPo, Real Clear Politics and occasionally FireDogLake for politics.
BTW, stay away from Spider Solitaire if you want to get any work at all done -- it’s incredibly addicitve.
“Trail Mixers: what are your news sources? — posted by Nash 2.0″
Yes, Nash, i like this exercise — Would like to see what others regularly read. I keep my list at the top of our Blogroll.. http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/blogroll.html
and, of course, cqpolitics.com
Nash
The easiest way to answer that is to tell you what is on my IGoogle that I check each morning and then leap off into anything interesting
Newspapers: NY Times, WaPo, LA Times, SF Gate, London Times, and The Guardian
TV & Radio: CNN BBC NPR and CBC (not on IGoogle but I keep MSNBC on in the background unless playing music)
Online: Salon, The Beast, and Huffpo
Plus instant Wikipedia search for beginning to research.
One addition. Lately I’ve been adding a lot of news people to my Twitter links. Usually this is just passing noise, but eveyr once in a while something gets tweeted that can be really fascinating to start an info chase and columns I don’t read regularly.
NYT
WaPo
NPR
NewsHour
NBC News
Yahoo, google, and Reuters news
CNN (on at work all the time)
New Yorker
National Journal
Hotline
Fivethirtyeight
Economist
Rolling Stone
The Beast
…and more
Oh my, what a surprise. Say it isn’t so.
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/09/19/car_showrooms_quiet_after_clunkers_clamor_ends/
Looks like CJ and I have absolutely no life.
He just reminded me of some I read regularly if not daily: Economist and New Yorker
Oh HuffPo has an interesting article on “The Summer of Death” about all the notables who have passed away
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/21/the-end-of-2009s-summer-o_n_293097.html
I scan at least thirty news sources both foreign and domestic. BBC,CNN, NYT, WAPO, Bloomberg, Counterterrorism.org, FA, Slate, Politico, AP, Debka, Wired, API, WSJ, CQ, Janes, Strafor, etc.
And beyond the humorous aside on bailing out papers, most sources above predict Afghanistan report is a real problem for Obama. I did sya Obama would get nailed for topics outside the healthcare box. I do not think the over saturation this weekend helped Obama’s cause as consumers want to see details not boring spin from a President searching for gravitas.
Let’s hope Obama puts on the right suit here in NY as the world focuses on global crisis. As I mentioned Saturday, Obama’s use of Hillary’s Middle East thinking has the downside of reminding us all of his spin during the primary. Yes, some bitterness lingers as Edwards proves what many Hillary supporters suspected. Without the Obama/Edwards dounble team, we would likely be facing less road blocks on a number of pressing issues.
When networks showed pictures of some racist signs from protests, I can only ask where the more numerous and equally repugnant signs Democrats paraded for eight years are? Lou Dobbs was not afraid to show them. And despite my lack of posting FOX NEWS above which I never link here, CNN and others would have NEVER discussed ACORN, Wright, Rezko, smelts, “but American provision in Stimulus BIll etc. Why anyone would want to bailout bad journalism is beyond me…….
Imagine Olberman taking aim at ACORN, pork, the stupidity of reversing Clinton’s Material Support Bill etc. Did anyone question Lewis’s false claim ACORN really did anything after that 1 million dollar embezzlement by founder? Yes, let’s find the same friends who secretly paid back the money to investigate ACORN and no doubt I see why Obama said this was a minor issue.
I fear with the passing of Walter, America is forgetting what real journalism is. Ironic that today is world alzheimer’s day. Perhaps journalists suffer from this more than others.
Let’s hope Pres. Obama doesn’t really agree to a
bailout of the newspapers. Enough already.
But if you want to speculate further, it may be that the
banks have already situated themselves to exert
control over all media—tv, radio, & newspapers—
check out Matt Taibbi’s column: (& its link to another
article speculating on the possiblity)
“Banks to take over media industry?”
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/09/21/banks-to-take-over-media-industry/
ACORN’s leaders may be outraged, since they got caught, but why did their employees believe their very questionable, illegal, advice was acceptable in the first place?
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/20/acorn-ceo-outraged-behavior-employees-prostitute-tapes/
that is the “buy American” provision in the Stimulus Bill that public outrage eliminated.
jamie,
Ain’t that the truth. Sometimes I think I’d like to quit the addiction and switch to Field and Stream for my primary news source.
Let me get this right. People aren’t buying newspapers, circulation is way off, some major papers have closed down, you can’t make people buy newspapers, so the government some how believes by bailing out the newpapers using federal tax $$$ this will some how inspirer people to buy newspapers? LOL
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/59523-obama-open-to-newspaper-bailout-bill
Truth, I guess that Democrats like to assume Republicans are racists, but then tit for tat would suggest that Democratic activists and organizers hold criminal views.
If we scan the Left and those people hired as regulars by ACORN and other activist groups, is anyone here suprised by the behavior? Lewis said any HUGE organization has bad apples. Sorry, 700 employees does not a huge company make. Based on statical common sense, the recent sting suggests the criminality is systemic. As for other activist and organizing groups, just take a read of the Trinty Newsletter. I suggest people explore another Obama assisted group CAIRS, or even some of the groups he funded back in Chicago. Holder was quick to go after the CIA< but he has failed to proceed on several indictments brought under the Material Support Bill. Now who predicted that?
Right now Obama is squarely facing most former CIA heads and his hand-picked general in Afghanistan. It is astonishing the pickle Obama is in just eight months after swearing in. Not all his fault for sure, but perhaps a mess of poor strategic considerations. I do support his latest Iran pitch if he is really serious about how serious a matter this really is. Words tend to be cheap, especially if you don’t stop blabbing 24/7. And shouldn’t I know that?
http://www2.debka.com/article.php?aid=1404 What is at stake in the next 60 days…….
It seems to me that ACORN’s major shortcoming was bad management. The organization was way too far extended to ensure training and quality control. They made it a point to hire people who were at the bottom of the socio-economic scale, often undereducated and unsophisticated. What they tried in principle to do was admirable. Unfortunately, they probably got too much money and grew to large and spread out to control operations at their front lines.
Natasha,
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2009/09/obama-open-to-newspaper-bailou.html#comment-261488
Thanks for that article: I have been saying that there will be about 20-30 banks that want, and will run the whole world…..I also think that this latest financial melt down was planned: How many of them own major corps, etc, they will accomplish what military power has never been able to do..global control of everything, with a lot of puppet governments imo….ps, I didn’t know that you were such a great dancer….
Oh, and I forgot the Wall Street Journal, which is hard to forget.
Joe, answer this: do you think you would be distrubed if as a fly in Lewis’ bedroom you could hear her real views about America, the Constitution, Republicans, etc? On what planet would an activist group that goes hard left in ideology under the protection of “helping the poor” would be expected to self-enforce moderation? Lewis first blasted the video as dictored and blamed ALL her problems on nasty Republicans. I have no hope such a group can self-regulate and watch dogs must be empowered to police. Then ACORN can get back to do those things that do America good.
I get the alerts and synopses from WaPo and the NY Times and the WSJ. and Yahoo, and, of course, here.
I subscribe to the Journal, Economist, New Yorker, Atlantic, Newsweek, Wilson Quarterly, AF Times, Wired,
And get the membership mags from the Air Force Assoc, AARP, AFIO, NAUS, Cleveland Club, AAII, and Morris Dees group in Atlanta, Beta Gamma Sigma, and Phi Kappa Phi
Along with the things I’ve forgotten about.
Max,
I’d have to admit that I’d be upset if I were a fly anywhere. I still remember Vincent Price.
Solar, I thought of you when I was reading Matt Taibbi’s
take on things.
These financial institutions most likely already control,
manipulate & run the world—and I see no changes
in the forseeable future.
Oh & thanks—See you just never know what you may find out about people….
Heeellllllppppp me heeeelllllppppp me.
Yeah, I certainly wouldn’t want to be a fly at the Rush residence. And speaking of flies, the DOD is on the verge of a spy fly…..lol
In any case, most pundits don’t question Lewis and her integrity, but boy do they go after others on the Right. That was the point. I did see a few say that had that bus beating been reversed in color, Democrats would be screaming racism no matter what the school or local cops said. And that is a big point in terms of what the media pushes…….
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2009/09/obama-open-to-newspaper-bailou.html#comment-261498
And its so hard to stop Newsbusters. Flatus, sign up for Strafor newsletter. It is free and of course so is Scientific American……
Coreen,
When looking at some of our foreign policies: That sometimes makes no sense to me; it just reinforces these feelings: What are we doing when we have close to 9 hundred military bases..and spreading not only our military to thin…but also our money?
Going to war with country that have oil, like Iraq, and maybe Iran. The Pak country’s are just an excuse to me, for the oil in Iran…The major oil corps have Iraq now…and looking up field for new Iran oil, that they don’t want China, Russia, and Venezuela to have…..to me that’s what all of this all about, with the Israelis and anything els……
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2009/09/obama-open-to-newspaper-bailou.html#comment-261491
CJ
I’m trying to figure out how to afford an around the world cruise with nothing but a trunk full of a nice selection of mumus to wear and all the books I’ve been meaning to read plus a DO NOT DISTURB sign for the door as I bask in the deck chair sans computer and cell phone.
Jamie,
I’ll gladly carry your bags. I don’t think the mumus would work for me, but otherwise…
CJ
A Tasteful sarong perhaps
http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/1663/PreviewComp/SuperStock_1663R-10745.jpg
Obama’s mistake is that he isn’t following through quickly enough on the campaign promises about getting out of Iraq to free up troops to fight in Afghanistan IF the interests of the US are sufficiently strong to warrant it. (And no, he did not tie the two promises together in the campaign, but the necessity to do one in order to do the other is pretty clear). IMHO, our interests there aren’t sufficiently strong to warrant our involvment. If the basis for fighting there is that the Taliban was giving safe harbor to AQ before and after 9/11, that set of circumstances seems to have passed now. And even if that is still the case, there are always safe havens in the ME -- Somalia comes to mind -- so it is a useless exercise to try and whack that mole.
And now, I become just one more road warrior. Later.
Jamie,
Wow, where did you get my picture? Actually, it looks like someone else’s head has been photoshopped onto my body.
Pops,
It looks like it’s you’re day for coming in 2nd. Vamos a comer….Lunch HA! That cheapskate XR, is buying….
Pogo,
It would be interesting to me: To find out how many original Taliban agents there are?, imo not that many. I think that we make new ones as we go along-from the villages that our drones hit..and from the ones that loose family members…we keep creating them all of the time…real or not real ones……
My last post was in re, to
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2009/09/obama-open-to-newspaper-bailou.html#comment-261507
Why are newspapers failing now? It’s because the comics pages are god awful now. I turn 39 shortly and as a kid/teenager these are some of the comics I was exposed to that are now longer around…
1. Bloom County
2. Calvin and Hobbes
3. The Far Side
Once they dropped out of sight, a big reason people bought and read newspapers went with them… think about it, that’s the first things kids learn to read in the paper…then boys go on to the sports and other sections from there. Without the initial hook, there’s no reason to not get your news from online sites.
Craig,
Global Post for some of my foreign news…take a look at today’s pics,
of Taliban fighters giving the peace sign….
Funding the Pakistani Taliban
Poppies, tobacco and the “timber mafia.” But that’s not all.
MARDAN, Pakistan
That link is not exactly correct: In the Asia window, click Pakistan, and it will come up.
Christian Science Monitor
Economist
The Nation
Atlantic Monthly
NPR
Talking Points Memo
HuffPo (headlines only)
Boston Globe online
CNN (online and occasionally tv)
occasionally various other online resources
I agree with those that think bailing out newspapers is a very bad idea for all the reasons already stated.
Just received one of those emails from a Republican friend about Medicare being in debt and going broke, so I replied:
It is in debt because it cares for the sickest and most elderly amongst us during the most expensive medical period in a life. You are confusing an outcome with a cause. If those costs were offset by healthy, young people buying into the system, then it would both reduce costs for them from the current for profit system while balancing out the high costs of the elderly. The point is that Medicare is efficient, pays promptly, has a lower overhead, and is non profit. All of those positives should accrue to everyone.
For all your grouching about Medicare, you still haven
News sources:
-mlb.com
-Craig Crawford’s Trail Mix
-whatever links my kids send me
-and Schenectady Gazette to find out what day I should take off to play golf.
I can see allowing Newspapers to have “non profit” status. They are a service and I don’t think it would be good for them to disappear if only because of Investigative reporting.
If USA Today as a national paper had the quality of a NY Times maybe with an enclosure of “local news” broadsheet. The question becomes how to pay for it. Certainly street by street circulation no longer makes sense.
Craig,
I missed this morning’s Imus In The Morning. We have the swine flu going around down here, and I had to go to school and drop off homework, and shuffle information. They are stacking kid’s homework to take home, pretty high on the office counter in the afternoon -- pick up time. There are a lot of teachers out too.
Today’s replay isn’t up for today. Real life keeps getting in the way of my virtual life LOL!
http://www.imus.com/article/craig_crawford_september_18_2009.guest.html
That the satanic st paul pioneer press is in deep trouble is no surprise. Through 3 owners, it has cheapened its product over 20 years until is dangerous to wrap dead fish in it, and an insult to one’s ass to stock it in the outhouse. In the late 80s, the Press was winning Pulitzer prizes, and had become the best newspaper north of DesMoines and between the coasts. Louisville and St Louis had great papers, too. So, did NY (Times) LA (Times) DC
(both Post & Star) One of the problems is that papers want to keep prices where they were 20 years ago, for fear that a price hike will kill readership. Polls say that won’t happen, but polls lie. Low purchase prices make them almost wholly dependent on sales of ad space. In the end, the (2 or 3) papers will be electronic, and we’ll have 1 -2 local news outlets (also electronic) per market. Good for the trees. Bad for people who hoped one day we’d grow hemp for paper.
EdVB….
ROFL! Hey…. if I were a betting person… at the moment, I’d place good money on the Yankees to win the World Series…. but luckily, betting has always bored the crap outta me….. :0)
NPR always on in the car and shop
On line usually in this order
McClatchy
Bloomberg
Foreign policy
If I have time
NYT
Wapo
I always scan the headlines when I check my mail on yahoo
I have whole list of blogs but I haven’t had time lately
Washington note
Washington monthly
Talk left
The big picture
For the wingnut picture
National review on line and huffpo
The 4 places I always check in at are CQ trailmix,
Mc clatchy, the big picture and foreign policy, Tom Ricks blog
Jack
Jack
Jamie
Medicare is not in debt, period end of statement.
As things are currently, there will come a time when it will not be able to meet its obligated expenses. It may then go in debt to meet them or arrange additional funding.
Jamie
The proper retort.
I don’t have enough money to feed myself for the next 10 years, I must be starving.
Jack
“I can see allowing Newspapers to have “non profit” status. They are a service and I don’t think it would be good for them to disappear if only because of Investigative reporting.”
More money that the progressive taxes will be used for…..and more amo, for the conservatives……if small biz are allowed to fail…..let them all go down…no one…noone is too big to fail…all a bunch of sales talk is all , just to get more of that progressive tax $….how about giving house builders tax exempt status…we serve a much needed function……homes to where the newspapers could be delivered to…..
What’s black & white and red all over? A communist newspaper. A bad move for Obama to even say he would consider it; just more garbage for the GOoPers to stir folks up.
Wonder how things will play out on Letterman? Some times the best questions come from outside the normal channels.
Obama seemed unprepared for the ACORN question. If Stefanapolis had pushed him the way Ann Curry pushed Abujzheebujzeenehumajad…
Hi Renee,
Thank you.
Betting isn’t boring, but losing is. That’s why I skipped my last planned visit to Saratoga Racetrack this year. I decided I wasn’t being fair to my bartenders by shorting their tips just to make up for my poor betting choices.
As for the Yankees, we’re hopeful, but not over confident. Your Bosox have been hotter than the Yanks in the last few weeks, and they may be peaking at the right time. Probably the best thing that’s happened to my team was having Posada suspended for a few days for fighting. That forced rest should be helpful if we’re still playing in mid-October.
Renee,
I wouldn’t put all my money on the Yankees yet. Besides Sabathia, there are questions with their starting rotation and too many players that fold up when the games really matter…
Newspapers have to change with the times…the only day I have to read a paper is on Sunday. True, some of the news is stale by the time it hits the street, but there are more in depth stories than anything that grabs your attention on the net. I love newspapers, but they’ve got to adapt or die a natural death.
No matter how little my grandparents had, they always found the money for the Omaha World Herald delivered Monday through Saturday and our local, weekly paper.
Happy Day of Peace. See ya tomorrow.
“I’ll betcha that not one of them thought that speech meant a campaign contribution from a corporation.”
pogo, how does scalia, the big believer in the founding fathers exact words, dance around that one without turning inside out?
“Trail Mixers: what are your news sources? — posted by Nash 2.0″
and a few follow-up questions:
which ones do you believe? subconsciously, isn’t there a sliding scale of credibility in your list? if you can only have one, which would you pick?
bear, doonesbury is one of my favorite news sources. altho quite a few rags have relegated him to the op ed pages cause they think he’s too controversial and sometimes even then they have black out days.
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2009/09/obama-open-to-newspaper-bailou.html#comment-261524
Jack
I do give them credit for the fact that the monies paid in by those currently on Medicare would not be equal to caring for them now if it hadn’t already been spent. As with SS, I realize that current income from those still working who have not as yet retired do adequately cover the current expenses.
Robbing petter to pay Paul which is fine until Peter figures it out.
I’m a bit surprised that there is so little conversation here about the big story of the day. The Commander’s Strategic Assessment of the situation in Afghanistan concludes that we need a new strategy or we risk losing the war. After almost eight years, the Army has concluded that they got it wrong all this time.
WTF? They were in charge of this war for eight years and now they tell us they were going about it all wrong? The Roper people tell us that the military is the most trusted institution in government — and now they were asked by the new President to do a review and they conclude they got it all wrong???
“we risk losing the war”
cj, do they define what “winning the war is”?
Jamie,
I’m in favor of Medicare and think it could include more people with the necessary adjustments. However, iyo what’s the best solution for all the criticisms about the reimbursement rate being to low in order for many physicians to operate especially in the rural communities? I hear and read of many doctors unwilling to accept or going broke with Medicare patients. If you raise the rate won’t there be a corresponding rise in premiums. imo, Seniors won’t support it.
Bear,
I hope you’ll give A-Rod one more chance.
In the meantime, I can’t decide whether I want Girardi to give Joba a chance or not. I didn’t see any of yesterday’s game, but the box score doesn’t look good.
What I read -
Boing Boing for one :
Upside down house
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/09/21/upside-down-house.html
Hugh Schonfield’s work suffered somewhat from misdirection regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls, who wrote them, and what they were about.
For the first 40 years after the scrolls were found, they were in the hands of an unscrupulous gang of mis-interpreters in the employ of Cardinal Ratzinger.
Among the errors these men promulgated :
1. Qumran was a monastic community of religious hermitsof the Essene movement. In fact it was an old Hasmonean fort. Also, the Dead Sea Documents describe an organization that more closely resembles fraternal lodges than monastic orders.
2. The Essenes of Qumran had a scriptorium in which they copied out the Dead Sea Scrolls. In fact, the scrolls that were hidden in the caves near Qumran were written elsewhere, very likely in Jerusalem. The best guess is that the scrolls make up a Zealot rather than an Essene library.
3. There was no previously unknown writing in the scrolls that remained unpublished after 1967. In fact, it turned out the strugnell and the fathers were hiding a good deal of lost literature.
4. The Essenes “who wrote the scrolls considered themselves the true Israel, and the Jerusalem establishment as corrupt sinners” -- (bullshit from the traveling Dead Sea exhibits). In fact, the Zealots who apparently wrote the scrolls viewed all humans as corrupt sinners, except the Messiah, and themselves as the seed from which a post-apocalyptic perfect society would arise.
The truths hidden by the Catholic fathers were not exposed until 25 years after the publication of The Passover Plot. Had Hugh Schonfield known the truth about the Dead Sea Scrolls, he would not have written the Catholic brothers lies into his masterwork.
Rez
I think the reimbursement rate can be a concen, I worry when I keep hearing they are going to reduce payments as a cost savings.
Around here I haven’t seen any body not taking medicare, but I do know of hospitals that don’t take medicaid. So I worry about part of the healthcare reform being medicaid expansion. Medicaid is already busted from too many compromises with conservatives.
Jack
EdvB,
The success of Hughes in the bullpen is proof the yanks made a mistake putting Joba into the rotation. He has regressed in the rotation by developing mediocre pitches instead of honing a good complement to his fastball…
A-Rod may deliver now that Kate Hudson is donating her underware to his cause but I won’t believe until I see it.
The California Supreme Court has denied the appeal of Anthony Beninati, the Los Angeles real estate manager who unsuccessfully sued Burning Man organizers for failing to restrain him from walking into a fire.
……………………. “The risk of falling and being burned by the flames or hot ash was inherent, obvious and necessary to the event,” the court said in a 3-0 decision that upheld a judge’s dismissal of the suit.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/09/21/burning-mans-burned.html
“Robbing petter to pay Paul which is fine until Peter figures it out”
Except that it is not robbing Peter. To call it that is to believe that the program was ever a retirement insurance system. It never has been. For the most part it has always been a pay as you go system. Only the Republicans have been robbing the fund for other purposes and now are declaring it broke.
Jack
Back to work
patd,
More or less.
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/Assessment_Redacted_092109.pdf?sid=ST2009092003140
I don’t think being a fly is quite so bad as it used to be. Ed will correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the King of Swat long gone?
What I read -
Live Science :
Have We Become a Nation of Narcissists?
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2009/09/obama-open-to-newspaper-bailou.html#comment-261535
CJ, seems to me that the keys to success during our first few months were lots of B-52s that, unseen and unheard, would drop bombs wherever a G.I. on horseback would tell them to.
The Afghanis were mightily impressed.
And, that was the point where they decided education for girls and boys wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
Posted by: maxtrue | September 21, 2009 10:29 A :
“I fear with the passing of Walter, America is forgetting what real journalism is. ”
How true and how awful. Seymour Hersh and Daniel Perl died in the last couple of years. I think that leaves very few real, brainy, hard-working journalists : Craig Crawford, Robin Wright, Doyle McManus, David Brancaccio, Maria Hinajosa, Bill Moyers, Tom Friedman, Jeff Stein, Bob Woodward, and very few others.
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2009/09/obama-open-to-newspaper-bailou.html#comment-261537
Rez,
This is one of the reasons that admitting younger and usually healthier families into the fund would both strengthen it and allow for an increase in payments to providers.
The average person on Medicare now pays out a $100 per month for their basic coverage. Almost all then purchase a supplemental policy to pay for uncovered major medical percentages.
If a family of four paid $200 a month into a non profit system, there would be more than enough money for just about anything going on.
Supplemental policies as desired on that would still provide income for existing Insurance companies.