My, goodness, Democrats are getting fearful about their chances:

With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks.

“This may not be the optimal choice for some major newspapers or corporate media chains but it should be an option for many newspapers that are struggling to stay afloat,” said Senator Benjamin Cardin.

A Cardin spokesman said the bill had yet to attract any co-sponsors, but had sparked plenty of interest within the media, which has seen plunging revenues and many journalist layoffs.

Cardin’s Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S. tax code, giving them a similar status to public broadcasting companies.

Under this arrangement, newspapers would still be free to report on all issues, including political campaigns. But they would be prohibited from making political endorsements.

Translation: “For crying out loud, I’ve got to save these MSMers or the New Media will allow the people to find out what a completely worthless liberal I am”.

But isn’t this also typical liberalism? I mean, here we have an industry failing because of a combination of new technology and poor product (hey, its not our fault that MSM reporting is mostly regurgitated DNC talking points), and along comes a liberal to embalm the dead…and if you don’t think that eventually taxpayer dollars will flow to these print versions of NPR, then you just don’t know how liberals operate. Eventually there will grants to the New York Times Foundation in order to disseminate “non-partisan” information on socialized medicine.

This is a big, old sh** sandwich and while our Democrats will try to make it look appetizing, I don’t think many Americans will actually want to take a bite.

Transcript, if you missed it (as I did).

OBAMA: The first step we took was to pass a recovery plan to jump-start job creation and put money in people’s pockets. This plan’s already saved the jobs of teachers and police officers. It’s creating construction jobs to rebuild roads and bridges.

And yesterday, I met with a man whose company is reopening a factory outside of Pittsburgh that’s rehiring workers to build some of the most energy-efficient windows in the world.

Someone check that out – I’m willing to bet $5 its either an outright lie, or a half-truth.

So much for transparency:

One government official said State and the White House have been discussing reducing the amount of information the State Department releases about the secretary’s words and meetings, which by long tradition is more expansive than what’s released by some other agencies.

Reporters who deal with the State Department wouldn’t voice their complaints on the record. Those who spoke on background said they had enjoyed what they saw as excellent access to Clinton during a previous trip to Asia.

But the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler let some of the dissatisfaction show on his blog during the trip to Europe and the Middle East.

He reported from Sharm el-Sheikh that Clinton was the first secretary of state in seven years not to brief reporters at the beginning of a trip. “We got off the plane, wordless. This was a big deal for the press corps,” he wrote.

Of course, this could just be Obama’s way of keeping Hillary out of the spotlight…but, more likely, its a means of tightly controlling information on the slow-motion foreign policy disaster which will be Obama Administration foreign policy. After all, if you’re set to buddy up to terrorists and do all manner of things to debase America in the world, its best if the unwashed masses don’t get wind of it…

Remember when in the not so distant past, an act like this was considered unconscionable in the United States of America?

Reporting from Bogota, Colombia, and Caracas, Venezuela — Amid deepening shortages of food and household supplies, President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday ordered the seizure of a Venezuelan unit of U.S. agriculture giant Cargill, the latest in a series of takeovers of foreign-owned companies.

In a speech during a ministers’ council meeting broadcast over state-run television, Chavez also threatened to seize control of privately owned Polar, the country’s largest food conglomerate and brewer. The actions came less than three weeks after Chavez won a referendum that will allow him to run for unlimited terms as president.

“If you want to take on the government, you’ll find out that this revolution is for real,” Chavez said, directing his comments to the family that owns a controlling interest in Polar.

Impossible in the United States, you say? Think again:

U.S. Seeks Expanded Power to Seize Firms

The Obama administration is considering asking Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, according to an administration document.

The government at present has the authority to seize only banks.

Giving the Treasury secretary authority over a broader range of companies would mark a significant shift from the existing model of financial regulation, which relies on independent agencies that are shielded from the political process. The Treasury secretary, a member of the president’s Cabinet, would exercise the new powers in consultation with the White House, the Federal Reserve and other regulators, according to the document.

The administration plans to send legislation to Capitol Hill this week. Sources cautioned that the details, including the Treasury’s role, are still in flux.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is set to argue for the new powers at a hearing today on Capitol Hill about the furor over bonuses paid to executives at American International Group, which the government has propped up with about $180 billion in federal aid. Administration officials have said that the proposed authority would have allowed them to seize AIG last fall and wind down its operations at less cost to taxpayers.

Aside from the fact that I’m having a hard time trusting a guy to run a multi-billion dollar corporation that can’t even be trusted to fill out his income taxes, never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I would live to see the day when the government of the United States of America would, as the headline suggests, be so ravenous with power as to indiscriminately seek to seize and to nationalize private-sector businesses!

When George W. Bush was president, the Left of this nation was particularly fond of utilizing the bromidic term, “fascist” when speaking of his administration; without any accompanying evidence that it was anywhere near the truth.

I wonder if they knew they were going to get the real thing when they voted for Barack Hussein Obama:

In 1933, Mussolini created the Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI) with the special aim of rescuing floundering companies. By 1939 the IRI controlled 20% of the Italian industry through government-linked companies (GLCs), including 75% of pig iron production and 90% of the shipbuilding industry.

Mussolini also adopted a Keynesian policy of government spending on public works to stimulate the economy. Between 1929 and 1934, public works spending tripled to overtake defense spending as the largest item of government expenditure.^[44]

And Chavez thought that he was the only fascist in the Western Hemisphere.

Setting the record straight on just what is at issue with Sebelius’ abortion position, and what Archbishop Naumann is doing by denying her communion:

Your Excellency: As you know the Governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius, is a Catholic with a long record of supporting abortion and has been nominated by President Obama to be the director of Health and Human Services.

Last year you wrote the governor a letter asking that she refrain from presenting herself to receive Holy Communion because she was not in communion with the Catholic Church and its teachings. Can you explain what prompted you to do this?

Archbishop Naumann: I had entered into a rather long dialogue with the governor over many months, trying as best as I could, to make her aware of the seriousness of her past actions as well as her present positions. Following our long conversations and additional actions on her part, such as vetoing a bill that was aimed at trying to regulate abortion clinics, I first asked her, privately in a letter, not to present herself for Communion for her own integrity and for her own spiritual welfare. My intention was not to make that public.

It was only subsequent to that when in March of the following year she presented herself for communion at one of our parishes and the pastor informed me that I wrote her again renewing my request. I informed her that I would make the request public because, in addition to my concern for her spiritual wellbeing, I was also very concerned about others being misled by her presenting herself as a faithful Catholic while holding positions that were completely contrary to our teaching on the sanctity of human life.

In many circumstances the media has tried to politicize the issue saying that you are abusing your pastoral authority to influence politics. How would you respond to that?

Archbishop Naumann: My intention and my aim have not been to influence politics at all. In fact the timing on all of this was really dictated by the governor’s own actions. It was not, for example, juxtaposed to an election. My concern was, first of all, for her spiritual welfare and then secondly, and equally important, to protect the rest of my flock from being misled by her actions.

Frequently I received letters from people who were outraged at how the governor continued to go to Communion and yet consistently over the years aggressively supported legalized abortion. I was not principally concerned with the people who were writing me letters because they understood the contradiction. My greater concern was the larger number of faithful who were not writing letters and who were subject to being confused and might be thinking that perhaps the Church did not really see this as all that serious of an issue. My motivation was primarily to protect the Church and her teaching, as well as to protect our people from being misled.

We Catholics were shocked at the number of Catholics hoodwinked into voting for Obama last year and the determination becomes ever stronger that, at least, no Catholic have the excuse of ignorance regarding such things. After Vatican II and Humanae Vitae there seeped into the Church the false belief that the Catholic Church wasn’t too concerned on matters of birth control and abortion – that, some how, Catholic teaching on such matters was officially the same, but not to be taken seriously. This false understanding was advanced with a rhetorical wink and a nudge by various liberal theologians, some of whom were (and are) ordained priests and bishops. This has led to confusion among many Catholics on these issues, and thus left the faithful open to various underhanded appeals by pro-abortion politicians seeking Catholic support.

Obama is just the strongest example of this sort of thing – a radical, pro-abortion leftist he yet managed to convince a large number of Catholics, including a substantial number of strongly practicing Catholics, that his pro-abortion position wasn’t as important as his positions on other aspects of Catholic social teaching, notably Obama’s support for programs allegedly designed to help the poor. What was missing was the complete understanding that it is morally worthless to provide welfare for the poor if you are also murdering as many of the poor as you can – might as well greedily keep all your money to yourself rather than engage in the hypocrisy of donating money to those you permit to survive the abortion gauntlet.

So, on we go – and Archbishop Naumann has laid it out: we are not concerned here, strictly, with politics but in ensuring that all those who voluntarily claim the Catholic faith for their own adhere to the teachings of that faith. No one is forced to be a Catholic, but if you are to take the label of Catholic and/or seek the support of Catholics, an honest adherence to genuine Catholic teaching is required. Naturally, this is treated on the left as an unwarranted breach of the separation of Church and State…but, of course, leftists who believe that sort of thing believe all sorts of other nonsense, and its best to not worry about what they think on such matters…staring too long into an insane abyss runs the risk of going insane, yourself, after all.

We’re here to impart the truth as we know it, not to curry favor with those who disagree with us.

Via NRO’s The Corner:

Sen. Judd Gregg (R, N.H.), formerly President Obama’s nominee for Commerce Secretary and the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, just castigated Obama over his budget proposal in a press conference on Capitol Hill.

“This translates to a debt-to-GDP ratio that we have not seen in this country since the end of World War II, when we were trying to pay off war debt,” he said. “If you take all of the presidents from George Washington to George Bush, and add up all of the debt they put on the books of the American people, President Obama’s plan adds more debt than that.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell, standing with Gregg, warned Democrats against passing the budget along party lines and using budget reconciliation to pass sweeping new programs. “If you do it with no bipartisan buy-in at all, then you own the whole thing.”

Its an amazingly stupid thing, this Obama plan – and it seems to be what you get when you have a Chief Executive who is a mere sock puppet while his minions are a dog’s breakfast of hacks, has-beens and wheeler-dealers…you get plans divorced from reality, but chock full of corruption. These fools are playing around with American power and wealth and they haven’t the foggiest notion that their little scams are going to eventually be paid for in American blood and treasure. They just don’t get it.

Geesh:

Gov. Paterson’s job performance ratings have crashed thorough the floor, with less than one in five New Yorkers saying he’s doing well, a new poll shows.

Just 19% of those polled gave him a positive rating, while 78% turned thumbs down, the Siena College poll found. That’s down from 51% positive and 45% negative in the same poll just two months ago.

How bad have things gone for a governor?

New York’s first black governor trails Attorney General Andrew Cuomo 55-22% among black voters in a potential 2010 primary.

If Patterson doesn’t read the writing on the wall, watch for the Democrat Powers That Be to try and force him out – Patterson on the ticket means an almost-certain GOP victory in the 2010 gubernatorial contest.

Its getting rather dicey out there for Democrats – polls show the GOP pulling even with Democrats in the “generic” Congressional ballot, independents swinging GOP, Patterson, Dodd and other Democrats in deep electoral trouble. Democrats better pray that Obama’s program works, because if things aren’t a lot better by September of next year, Democrats will be blown out at the polls.

As an aside: Obama’s program won’t work.

The thus far untold part of this story:

“Right now, you get the feeling this is all about protecting [White House Chief of Staff] Rahm Emanuel,” says a former Treasury Department lawyer, who worked in that department’s counsel’s office on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) before joining a D.C.-based law firm in February. “At the time, we were led to believe there were basically three or four people from the Administration at the table when the final deals were cut and one of them was Emanuel.”

Informal advisers to Geithner are growing increasingly frustrated, they say, that Geithner is being held up as the straw man for the public anger over the bonuses. “Just over the weekend you saw a new guy added to the target list, [White House economics adviser Larry] Summers,” says a longtime Geithner colleague at the New York Fed. “You have Dodd, Geithner, Summers, but there were other, more senior political people involved in this mess, and their names aren’t being mentioned. Why isn’t anyone asking Rahm Emanuel, ‘What meetings were you in?’ ‘What did you and the President know and when did you know it?’ Tim has some culpability, but he’s not the guy who signed off on the Dodd language. He wasn’t that empowered to do something like that.”

They have to protect Emanuel because the fall of Emanuel would be the domino closest to Obama, and it would be hard to keep Obama clean in the AIG mess if Emanuel was forced out over the scandal. The circumstantial evidence is already very strong that the sign-off on the AIG bonuses was the result of “pay for play”, Chicago-style politics; Obama can’t afford “what did the President know and when did he know it” questions about AIG. But this means that, at least for a while, Emanuel has to survive…thus the apparent tossing of Geithner and Summers under the bus.

We must keep in mind the depth upon depth of corruption we’re going to have here – we have a hopelessly corrupt Democratic party leadership which feels that an Obama Administration means a free pass. They aren’t worried about the Justice Department coming down on them, they know they can stymie any Congressional ethics probes and they figure the MSM has gotten itself too highly invested in Obama to really play the role of investigative watchdog. But the lynch pin of all this is Obama – as long as he’s safe and popular, everything else comes together, and so they have to keep the muck as far away from him as possible.

Sorry guys, just can’t think of anything to write worth reading. Have at it.

UPDATE, by Matt Margolis: At a loss for words today myself. So, I would like to call your attention to Parcbench…P op culture without the liberal bias. It launched today, so be sure to check it out.

Remember, its not really that important:

Only the light of God can overcome the great “darkness” present in “many parts of our world,” the evil represented by wars and tribal violence, but also by the egoism of men who exploit other men, leading to that hedonism which is at the source of escape into drugs, “sexual irresponsibility,” destruction of families and innocent human lives through abortion. Benedict XVI today addressed an invitation to reconciliation and hope to all of Africa, from the esplanade of Cimangola, in Luanda, Angola, where a million people gathered to participate in the great celebration…

If a million people – most of whom no doubt live in what Americans would consider impossible poverty – can gather to hear a message of hope, then we should put our financial crisis into proper perspective. It is the hope of the world – the Light of God – which will clear away the darkness of our times, and in our lives.

Fear God and nothing else in this world, my friends.