It's Now Or Never, CNN

I slag the state of modern "journalism" with abandon most of the time, but I'll give a bit of credit to the AP for stepping up its game recently.

The take-away from this, though, has to be Ron Fournier's comment that the AP's new emphasis on fact-checking (what used to be known in media circles as "doing your god-damned job") has brought about an increase in traffic.

Campbell Brown is also leaving her CNN prime time show, and the network entirely, because she doesn't feel she can complete with her hyper-partisan competitors Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann. As she said:

I owe it to myself to get out of the way, so that CNN can try something else. CNN will have to figure out what that is.


Hmm. Think CNN will take the hint, ditch their pathetic attempt to claim a middle ground by appeasing both parties equally, and just try being journalists for a change?

Or will they just revive some bastard clone of Crossfire and continue perfecting their ability to parrot Dem and Pub talking points?

One of the Classic Blunders

You don't get involved in a land war in Asia, you don't go against a Sicilian when death is on the line, you don't put The Doctor in a trap, and you never underestimate a McMahon.

If Linda McMahon beats Blumenthal in the Connecticut GOP primary, she will win that Senate seat. Book it.

Throw 'Em In the Gulf

I'm serious. Every banker, hedge fund manager, and financial services whiz in the country needs to be rounded up, flown over the Gulf of Mexico and asked to justify their existence in one minute or less. Those who can't, should be dropped into the oily mess.

What prompted today's ire? Oh, just the systematic defrauding of municipal governments:

They rigged bids on auctions for so-called guaranteed investment contracts, known as GICs, according to a Justice Department list that was filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on March 24 and then put under seal. Those contracts hold tens of billions of taxpayer money.

The workings of the conspiracy -- which stretched from California to Pennsylvania and included more than 200 deals involving about 160 state agencies, local governments and non- profits -- can be pieced together from the Justice Department’s indictment of CDR, civil lawsuits by governments around the country, e-mails obtained by Bloomberg News and interviews with current and former bankers and public officials.

“The whole investment process was rigged across the board,” said Charlie Anderson, who retired in 2007 as head of field operations for the Internal Revenue Service’s tax-exempt bond division. “It was so commonplace that people talked about it on the phones of their employers and ignored the fact that they were being recorded.”