Arkansas Blog

Katharine Graham would be turning over in her grave.

Oh I don't know...it's kinda refreshing to admit upfront that you're for sale...rather than hide behind nonsense like 'fair/balanced' FOX does.

We've all known (or should have known) for the better part of two decades that the Post is nothing but a whore. Why should this be surprising?

What is even worse than their open whoring though, is the involvement of Teh Lightbringer's minions. Just who in the HopityChangity brigade was the WhorePost planning on introducing to the lobbyists?

" But I want to know about the other side of the equation. Which members of Congress and the Administration have agreed to participate? Did they know of the payoffs the lobbyists will make to host the events? And did the politicians expect anything in return? Or will they just be able to order up some WaPo scolding every time citizens demand real health care reform of their elected representatives? In other words, what is clear from this is that the WaPo doesn't give a shit about neutrality, they care only about an illusion of "objectivity." But what remains unclear is the rest of the equation--just how the WaPo managed to insert itself as the facilitator between lobbyists and our government--and the gatekeeper chasing citizens away at the same time. "

Emptywheel
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/07/02/the-news-access-brokers-so-much-for-the-impartial-center/

Is this trickle-up news? For years we've known that much of our 'news' is nothing but raw press releases from the gubbermint designed to sound like announcements or reports. Now they get official sanction by the WaPo just as small town tv-newspapers had been doing for years.

I'd say the Perfect Storm in corruption is being put together.

Uh huh......why is this not surprising? How many times did the Bush administration get caught cutting a paycheck to professional journalists and taking heads? How many times did we hear of fake White House generated news stories, and commercials making the rounds? It takes 2 bad guys to make such deals...the bad guy offering the money and the bad guy taking the money.

And look where we are today. Look how we went to war in Iraq for nothing.....nothing except billions of dollars in profit for Big Business. And of course Big Business owns the media. We look down our noses at Honduras, Cuba...you name it and we're no better than them. We're bigger and richer, but in the end America is a 2 bit dictatorship trending towards fascism like all the rest. I don't come to this conclusion lightly. I come to it having paid close attention to the news for the last 5 years, at least. It's all there and you don't have to be Einstein to see it.

America is bankrupt morally as we head towards financial bankruptcy. You can't trust the media, we got Blanche Lincoln, a nobody, coming in as the 32nd highest paid Senator in all of both houses of Congress when it comes to sucking up the money from big health care. When the bad guys buy people, they don't start at the top, the knock off the bottom layer and then move up a notch and move up a notch and move up a notch until they get to the top layer. So by her ranking we can see Blanche has been charging at least as much as the Washington Post for her services for a long long time.

And guess what....Blanche's services are not in our behalf. She works for the people who pay her and her taxpayer paycheck is nothing compared to what lobbyists pay. But it's ever so much easier to ignore her graft and point fingers at them Yankees at the Washington Post. You and I are powerless to do a damn thing to the Washington Post or Fox News. They're too far away, we have no connection to them, really. But if every tiny town in America decided they were done with corruption and started with the dog catcher and the street sweeper and worked their way up, soon our cities would at least be honest. Then we could work on our counties, then our state and somewhere along the line we'd clean up DC.

With the exception of Snyder now and then, Arkansas has sent the worst of the worst to Congress. We haven't sent HELP, we've sent HURT to our nation's capitol. If you didn't cringe for 8 solid Bush years over what our representatives didn't do....then you need professional help. Yet we sent Pryor back because there was no one of near equal size running against him. Both the Arkansas Republican & Democratic Parties should be canned for not putting up a viable candidate in order to rid of us Mark W. Pryor.

Things are never going to get better in DC if we don't make things better in Arkansas first. Someone get out there and run against Blanche Lincoln. That's the best thing we can do to start stopping the corruption that's sinking our country. Open up the records and find out who pays our representatives to not represent us.

Well 70%, the people that the Post was introducing to lobbyist was new money in China and Russia. Last week it was India, Pakistan, and a new rising star, Iraq.

Thanks, Deathbyinches, for your profund comment of "Things are never going to get better in DC if we don't make things better in Arkansas first." Can we carve this in stone somewhere? Maybe print a bunch of T-shirts?

~~~~But, on the other hand. What would you pay to have dinner with me?~~~~

Hell, I wouldn't go to dinner with you if you payed ME 25grand.

I don't know Americonio, according to the invitation: "For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few" - Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper's own reporters and editors."

Note the words - 'Obama administration officials'. I don't see anything in there about China, Russia, India, Pakistan or Iraq, I only see our own government whores offering themselves to the whoremongering WaHoPo and the lobbyist Johns.

But, boy did you see all the good stuff about MJ?

DBI, you know this corruption is so built-in, that know one electee, in either House, would get much more then laughs. What this thing needs is a saying in action from a old Al Pacinino movie Scent of a Woman. If our Fore-Fathers was here today they'd take a flame-thrower to this place. And that may apply to the State House also, but the Carpet-Baggers who put this State together after the War between the States. Corruption was built into this States Government.

If you are hawking 25 to 250k access tickets, you don't give a damn who buys them or what it takes to keep them coming back.

>>But, on the other hand. What would you pay to have dinner with me?

Depends if you wife is joining in.

70%er, with the World News Reports and a little imagination, you know! Money has been at the bottom of every piece of corruption in DC since the lay-out of the Lost-Dreams sink-hole, street plans was drawn.

As I look back, Max, you sure seemed to post a lot of food pictures on this here blog. Could those have been subliminal messages to bring our wallets and join you for a repast with LR's finest editor?

Update from WAPO (guess they will have to do it another way)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/02/AR2009070201
563.html

Washington Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth today canceled plans for a
series of policy dinners at her home after learning that marketing fliers
offered lobbyists access to Obama administration officials, members of
Congress and Post journalists in exchange for payments as high as $250,000.

"Absolutely, I'm disappointed," Weymouth, the chief executive of Washington
Post Media, said in an interview. "This should never have happened. The
fliers got out and weren't vetted. They didn't represent at all what we
were attempting to do. We're not going to do any dinners that would impugn
the integrity of the newsroom." . . .

snip

Of course we wouldn't know doodly squat about this if the lobbyist hadn't got fed up with seeing hands out. It's a damn shameful condition we find ourselves in when a paid shill is the honest broker.

On the other hand we now know who will be trimmed in the next WaHoPo cost cutting - Charlie Pelton, come on down!!!

I never in my life thought I would actually use the word I am about to use. My local newspaper uses it in headlines when referring to legislators. They must think it makes them look clever but it just makes me wish someone would hide their thesaurus.

Anyway, here it is:

Washington Post could have called their event "Salon with Solons."

I posted this on an open thread earlier, but it's equally appropo here in this discussion:

Given that the US Senate is the biggest obstacle to meaningful reform on any issue you care to mention in the current political environment, I've been paying close attention to the statements coming out of Blanche Lincoln and her office lately. To put it mildly, I've found them highly disturbing:

On Health Care Reform, interviews with our senior Senator sound like a continuous series of right-wing/corporate talking points just strung together end-to-end. If I hear her say one more thing about "rationing" or "bureaucrats coming between you and your doctor" (as if those things don't happen now with Insurance companies under the current system) I'm going to scream and hurl something at my TV or radio.

On desperately-needed Climate-Change legislation, she appears to be one of the major reasons why some observers are declaring the Waxman-Markey bill DOA in the 'world's worst deliberative body.' This in spite of recent studies showing that by 2080 the effects of unchecked climate change will lower the agricultural output of Arkansas and other south-eastern states by anywhere from 15% to upwards of 30%. Needless to say, this would be devastating for a state as agri-intensive as ours, particularly to the farmers whose plight Sen. Lincoln claims to champion.

And that's not even mentioning her regressive position on the Employee Free Choice Act.

To make a long story short, Blanche needs a primary opponent in the worst way. Without a credible threat from her left, her re-election strategy is, logically, to tack to the right in order to be in the safest position for the general election. Unfortunately for Arkansans and for the country as a whole, this triangulation strategy, aimed at the fall of 2010, means that she is a greater obstacle to vital reform legislation under consideration this year.

Any ideas for a credible, progressive challenger?

(Anyone who doubts the effectiveness of primary challenges, just look at Arlen Specter. A challenge from his right made him change the letter after his name, now a challenger from the left has him actually supporting progressive legislative ideas that even after his party change he was still opposing)

Well, we kinda had dinner with Max, nov. 4, 08, and enjoyed it big time!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just got home from driving Armand north, south, east, west, a hurry up and wait day.
Had not been *down town* in ages, can't remember how long, and Bath House Row is absolutely
beautiful......so colorful, clean, baskets of flowers on every lamp post...............
could be any village in France.....then we drove over West Mt.............lovely as ever.
Come on over and have a look see,,,,,and drop a few bucks.

Look at Alice Schroeder's Snowball:The Story of Warren Buffett, who was a bit suprised when she sent out bills for a party once......And his realtive died with a needle stuck in his arm, never really got the help he needed. And then one rembers Mr. Graham's struggles trying to find his way out of madness.....Would it have made a difference if D.C. had a renovated Hot Springs? Or to Seems that theire might be some rule of life working here but can we put our finger on it or will God show us the way?

"But, on the other hand. What would you pay to have dinner with me?"

Maaax, some of us have been angling for invitations for years, ever since we started seeing the menus and photos of supper spreads you tantalize us with every now and then.
But pay?
Umm, will you be staying in the kitchen . . . er, just to make sure everything is perfect?
Of course, a brief appearance by the chef might be appropriate.

This time the inky perps got caught in their underwear.

Let's hope next time they're stark naked.