News for March 1, 2006

Highlights:
Coast Guard: Media took “fears” out of context
Hillary Rips Bill's Panama Ports Deal, fails to mention Bill
Dem’s former aides press ethics complaints
Iraqi official blames Golden Mosque attack on Iran
Hillary’s Communist China Connection
More know Simpsons than Constitution
Unions, Government promise something for nothing
Media trade press says newspapers #1; Harris poll differs---big
Bush Cheers Decline of Mainstream Media, Rise Of Alternative Press
More Americans abducted along Mexico border than in Iraq

Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2006 11:45 a.m. EST
Chinese Port Operator Linked to Weapons Smuggling
NewsMax
A ship owned by a Chinese government-run company that currently operates two giant terminals at the Port of Long Beach, California was found 10 years ago to have been used to smuggle a huge cache of illegal weapons - with the smugglers saying they planned to import missiles that could "take out a 747."
On the night of March 18, 1996, undercover Customs and BATF agents discovered 2000 AK-47's in a container smuggled aboard the Empress Phoenix, a ship owned by the China Ocean Shipping Company [COSCO] docked at the Port of Oakland.
The guns were manufactured by another state-run company, Poly Technologies, the international outlet for Chinese weapons sales.
According to Vanity Fair magazine, which covered the episode in detail, the Empress Phoenix's gun cargo was earmarked for sale to deadly Los Angeles street gangs.
It was the largest seizure of fully operational automatic weapons in the history of U.S. law enforcement.
The Empress Phoenix episode has largely been forgotten as the debate rages over whether Dubai Ports World should be allowed to operate several dozen terminals at 21 U.S. ports.
But it begs the question, if Dubai Ports World - a company with no history of terrorism or smuggling operations into the United States - is unfit to play a role in U.S. ports management, what about Chinese companies?
In fact, the 1996 weapons smuggling operation was far from the only instance where questionable cargo has been discovered aboard COSCO vessels. Ships owned by the Chinese line have been repeatedly caught smuggling illegal immigrants in the United States.
In 2001, COSCO ships delivered weapons to Cuba. In 1998, when COSCO first tried to lease terminal space at the Port of Long Beach formerly used by the U.S. Navy, Congress blocked the deal over national security concerns.
Three years later, however, other tenants at the port vacated space and COSCO was able to build its own terminal. Art Wong, public information officer for the Port of Long Beach, told the San Francisco Chronicle last week that COSCO now operates terminals in a joint venture with a U.S. company, Stevedoring Services of America, with the Chinese company acting as the majority lease holder with 51 percent control.
By the end of the decade, COSCO plans to expand its Long Beach facility into a giant five terminal operation covering 300 acres, according to the Long Beach Press Telegram.


Coast Guard Denies Port Security Fears
The U.S. Coast Guard in denying a wave of media reports claiming it concluded that having Dubai Ports World run several dozen shipping terminals at U.S. ports poses a national security risk.
"What is being quoted is an excerpt of a broader Coast Guard intelligence analysis that was performed early on as part of its due diligence process," said Coast Guard Commander Jeff Carter, in a press release issued late Monday.
"The excerpts made public earlier today, when taken out of context, do not reflect the full, classified analysis performed by the Coast Guard. That analysis concludes ‘that DP World's acquisition of P&O, in and of itself, does not pose a significant threat to U.S. assets in [continental United States] ports.’
"Upon subsequent and further review," the spokesman said, "the Coast Guard and the entire CFIUS panel believed that this transaction, when taking into account strong security assurances by DP World, does not compromise U.S. security."


Hillary Clinton Rips Bill's Panama Ports Deal, fails to mention Bill
2008 presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is expanding her complaint about foreign companies owning U.S. ports - and now says a 1999 deal to let a Chinese company take over the ports at each end of the Panama Canal was a mistake.
Speaking at the 92nd Street YMCA in Manhattan yesterday, Clinton told the Jewish Community Relations Council: "There are those who say we can't [prevent foreign governments from operating U.S. ports] because look what happened in the last 20 years ... You know, we have the Chinese running the Panama Canal. We have other government-controlled entities controlling our ports."
According to the New York Observer, she then declared: "Well, just because it's been happening doesn't mean we should let it continue."
Mrs. Clinton neglected to mention, however, that it was her husband who approved the deal in question, when the Chinese company, Hutchison Whampoa, sought to buy the Panama Canal's ports.
When security concerns arose, then-President Clinton insisted that Chinese ownership posed no threat to canal operations, explaining that Hutchison was "bending over backwards to make sure that they run it in a competent and able and fair manner."


Dem’s former aides press ethics complaints
By Jonathan E. Kaplan
Two former aides to Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) have alleged that he repeatedly violated House ethics rules.
Deanna Maher, a former deputy chief of staff in Conyers’s Detroit office, and Sydney Rooks, a former legal counsel in the district office, provided evidence for the allegations by sharing numerous letters, memorandums and copies of e-mails, handwritten notes and expense reports with The Hill.
In letters sent separately by each woman to the House ethics committee, the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office, they allege that Conyers demanded that aides work on several local and state campaigns and forced them to baby-sit and chauffeur his children. They also charge that some aides illegally used Conyers’s congressional offices to enrich themselves.
Maher decided she could no longer work for Conyers in such an unethical environment and quit in May 2005. Rooks had left Conyers years earlier; she was a full-time staffer working in the office for him from 1997 to 1999. Before leaving, Conyers placed her on paid administrative leave for several months and stopped paying her in April 2000.
“I could not tolerate any longer being involved with continual unethical, if not criminal, practices which were accepted as ‘business as usual,’” Maher wrote in a letter to the ethics panel dated Jan. 13, 2006.
While the ethics committee has been aware of the allegations against Conyers for at least two years, Maher’s allegations date back to 1998, a year after Conyers hired her.
Among Maher’s allegations:
• In 2002, Conyers’s aides in D.C. were sent to Detroit to help his wife, Monica, win a state Senate seat. While she lost that election, she won a seat last year on the Detroit City Council.
• On June 2, 2003, Conyers forced Maher to spend a day campaigning for Keith Williams, who won a seat on the Wayne County Commission. She became fed up and drove off after going door to door to distribute campaign literature for a few blocks.
• Carol Patton, a legislative counsel on Conyers’s personal staff, was hired in 2003 to help Williams and to help JoAnn Watson in her bid for Detroit City Council. Patton still works for Conyers and earns more than $44,000 per year, according to the 2005 House statement of disbursements.
• In a Dec. 22, 2004, letter, Maher said Conyers staffer Melody Light “conducts her law practice (charging legal fees) out of the congressional office. … She has in effect hung out her shingle on [Conyers’s] office door.”
Maher and Rooks said that Conyers tasked staffers in his district office with taking care of his two young boys, John and Carl. “If he asked you to do something, you knew you had to do it,” said Rooks, 54, who administers a homeless shelter in Detroit.
She told The Hill that she tutored “Little John,” as Conyers’s elder son is known, when he was a student at the Cranbrook School, a private school in Bloomfield Hills. The tutoring took place during normal working hours, and she was not given additional compensation for the work, nor was she reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses.
Rooks said when the son received low grades, Conyers told her, “‘Well, Rooks, you can add tutoring to your list of stuff to do.’” She added that a staffer would pick the son up from school, take him to the office, fix him a snack and help him with his homework.

S.D. school distances self from 'Brokeback' actress
By Lee Grant
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Carla Williams raised a daughter her way – a comfortable North County home, elementary and middle school at Solana Beach's Santa Fe Christian where, according to its credo, “the Bible is the standard upon which the educational program is based,” and acting classes at the “family entertainment”-oriented Christian Youth Theater.
Carla Williams is the proud mother of actress Michelle Williams, who got her start in Christian Youth Theater productions. Michelle is featured on a poster for "Annie."
Now, Michelle Williams is 25, a mom herself and an Academy Award nominee in the supporting actress category for “Brokeback Mountain,” which earned eight Oscar nods in all. The ceremony will be broadcast at 5 p.m. Sunday on KGTV/Channel 10.
Carla Williams is ecstatic about her daughter's success: “She's sweet, she has a heart, I'm so proud of her.”
Not so proud is Santa Fe Christian headmaster Jim Hopson. “We don't want to have anything to do with her in relation to that movie,” said Hopson, who turned down a request from a Union-Tribune reporter to visit the school and chat with students about the movies and one of their own being up for an Academy Award.
“Michelle doesn't represent the values of this institution. We would not approve of her movies and TV shows (including the teen drama “Dawson's Creek”). We'd not like to be tied to 'Brokeback Mountain.'
“I hope we offered her something in life. But she made the kinds of choices of which we wouldn't approve. 'Brokeback Mountain' basically promotes a lifestyle we don't promote. It's not the word of God.”

Saudi Shipping Company “Controls” 9 US Ports
That is to say the Saudis "control" these ports as much as the UAE’s Dubai Ports World ever will.
But it’s funny that our one party media hasn’t mentioned this Saudi-owned company, NSCSA, or its operation in even more ports than the UAE will have a berth.
Maybe the press don’t know about them, as the company’s only been around since 1979. And of course the longshoremen’s and DNC’s press releases, which they regurgitate verbatim, haven’t mentioned them:

The National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia
Owners
Government of Saudi Arabia, Saudi individuals and establishments
Head Office Riyadh, KSA
The National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia (NSCSA) was established in 1979 to meet the transportation needs of Importers and Exporters in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East.
And look at the ports where they control berths: Baltimore, MD; Newport News, VA; Houston, TX; New Orleans, LA ; Houston, Texas; Savannah, GA; Wilmington, NC; Port Newark, NJ, and Brooklyn, NY.
Where’s the outrage?


The Media's Selective Attention Span
Conservative Outpost ^ 3/1/06 Drew McKissick
Within the space of just a few days, we had a former President call for tax-payer funding of a known terrorist organization, a former Vice-President offer aid and comfort to our enemies while giving a speech in a foreign country, and a sitting Vice-President accidentally shoot a friend while quail hunting. Of these three events, the one with the least importance to our national security became the fixation of a self-indulgent media for well over a week.
Given what we already know about the selective memories of many in the mainstream media, it should come as no surprise that they also seem to suffer from a case of selective attention span. On issues that don’t present liberals in a favorable light, the press suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder. When it comes to similar situations involving conservatives however, they become obsessive-compulsives. Perhaps a dose of Ritalin is in order.
In the first of these events, we had former President Jimmy Carter call for the continuation of American aid for the Palestinian Authority which, given their recent election results, is tantamount to direct funding of Hamas, a terrorist organization with the avowed goal of the destruction of Israel. Note that in the aftermath of this comment there was no constant hounding by the press as to whether or not the former President would retract, reconsider or revise his remarks. Nor were there any stakeouts of his home attempting to catch him leaving for the office each morning to grill him as to why he refused to do so, or to demand an apology on behalf of the Jewish people.
The second example saw former Vice-President Al Gore, while speaking at a conference in Saudi Arabia, accuse his own country of “terrible abuses” of captured terrorists and “indiscriminately round(ing) up” Arabs after 9/11 on minor charges and holding them “in conditions that were just unforgivable”. He went even further and referred to the facilities where we hold captured terrorists as Bush gulags. He made these statements to an Arab audience on foreign soil, in reference to a country where he once campaigned to be President.
These two events by major American political figures went hardly noticed by the American people thanks to a nonplused media that was more interested in Dick Cheney’s hunting accident and finding out why they weren’t the first to know about it.

TV ads push Iraq war support
By Mike Dorning
Washington bureau
WASHINGTON -- In an early sign of the imagery that may flood the nation's television screens as congressional elections approach this fall, a conservative political group closely aligned with the Bush administration has launched a blitz of television ads to shore up sagging public support for the war in Iraq.
The television commercials feature vivid portraits of smoke pouring from the World Trade Center and the aftermath of terrorist attacks in Madrid and London as veterans of the Iraq war and parents of fallen soldiers make the case for continuing the U.S. military campaign in Iraq.
In what appears to be a test before the advertising campaign is rolled out to a broader audience, the political group Progress for America spent more than $1 million to air the commercials in Minnesota over a two-week period, according to a source familiar with the ad buy.
Progress for America spokesman Stuart Roy said the group purchased "a saturation buy" in which the average Minnesota television viewer saw two pro-war commercials a combined total of 22 times between Feb. 9 and 22.
One of the ads includes complaints that the media coverage of the war has been misleading. The ABC affiliate in Minneapolis-St. Paul declined to air the commercial because of its charge that the media is misleading the public, although other stations accepted the ad.

Red Star Over San Francisco
FrontPage Magazine ^ 3/1/06 Lloyd Billingsley
San Francisco, California, boasts its own Human Rights Commission and bills itself as a bastion of tolerance, diversity and inclusion. It didn't quite work out that way when members of Falun Gong wanted to showcase their heritage in the 2006 Chinese New Year parade. They found themselves branded as a “homophobic cult” in the San Francisco Chronicle and banned from the parade. That led some observers to compare the San Francisco experience to what happens in the People's Republic of China, where Falun Gong is persecuted to the point of death.

Iraqi official blames Golden Mosque attack on Iran
Iran Focus ^ 2006 Mar 1
London, Mar. 01 – The deputy governor of the Iraqi province of Saladin, where the holy city of Samarra is situated, said preliminary investigation was pointing to Iran’s role in the bombing of the city’s revered Shiite shrine last week.
“The investigations carried out so far about the explosion in the resting place of Imam al-Hadi and Imam Hassan al-Askari in Samarra point to the involvement of the Iranian regime’s Intelligence Ministry”, Abdullah Hossein Jabbara announced. He was referring to Iran’s secret police, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, which is known to be actively operating in Iraq.

WHY HILLARY IN THE OVAL OFFICE IS A NATIONAL-SECURITY NO-NO
by Mia T et al, 10.17.03, 03.01.06
It is no secret that Hillary's past takes us through a pile of hard, cold cash from the Chinese army, Chinese army agents roaming the White House and photos with a wide variety of scoundrels.
For example, the one prominent name missing from Hillary's recent "tell-all" book is Riady. Mrs. Clinton failed to mention the Riady family at all. One would get the impression that the Riadys were not present in the Clinton White House. Hillary Clinton certainly overlooked listing the table settings and menus for White House dinners with the Riadys.
The Riadys knew the Clintons from their Arkansas years, when Moctar bought out a local bank. Moctar and his son James were close to Bill and Hillary through 1992 and into the White House. Moctar even owned the firm selected by Hillary Clinton to replace the White House travel office.
Moctar and James Riady played a key role in bringing the Clintons to power in Washington. The Indonesian billionaire and his Lippo banking company managed to contribute large sums of money to the Clintons' campaigns even though it was against the law. Moctar's gardener contributed $450,000 directly to Bill Clinton in a single check. James Riady, Moctar's son, eventually pleaded guilty to campaign violations.
The connections between the Riadys and the Clintons have a much more sinister theme than simple foreign money inside U.S. elections. Testimony before the U.S. Senate revealed Moctar Riady's involvement in Chinese espionage. The Lippo Group is in fact a joint venture of China Resources, a trading and holding company "wholly owned" by the Chinese communist government and used as a front for Chinese espionage operations.
Mrs. Clinton not only knew the Riadys but took their money as well. To prove my point I need only to cite photographic evidence. Her picture with Moctar Riady is certainly damning evidence of a relationship that spanned several bank accounts and two decades. It is often said that a picture tells a thousand words. However, Hillary's pictures not only tell stories left out of her book but they also netted $10,000 each for the DNC in illegal donations.
Mrs. Clinton has left us with a wide selection of photo evidence. Mrs. Clinton has had her photo taken with drug dealer Jorge Cabrera. Jorge donated a load of drug money to the DNC in order to get close to the first lady. Jorge is currently serving federal time for smuggling 3,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States.
Mrs. Clinton also has a virtual personal photo gallery of modern crime. It is almost as if she wanted to collect snapshots of herself and major crime figures.
For example, the co-presidents were photographed together with Macao criminal boss Ng Lapseng. Ng makes most of his money through the female-empowering career of prostitution.
Ng owns the Fortuna Hotel in Macao. You can stay overnight at the Fortuna for a reasonable price. In addition, you can also purchase the services of a Fortuna hostess for an additional nightly or hourly fee.
Ng frequently visited the Clintons with his close friend Charlie "Yah-Lin" Trie. It was through Charlie Trie that Ng also donated thousands of dollars to the Clintons.
Ng's Fortuna Hotel showed up again later in official State Department charges against the satellite division of Hughes. The Fortuna turned out to be a front for a Chinese army company that leased a Hughes satellite.
Johnny Chung also had several photo sessions with both Clintons. Many of the photos appear in Mr. Chung's beer advertisements. Chung passed Chinese army money to the DNC through Mrs. Clinton. In return, a very young and attractive female PLA colonel and COSTIND computer information warfare specialist was allowed inside the White House to meet Bill Clinton.

A negative savings rate?
Townhall.com ^ February 16,2006 Alan Reynolds
You must have heard that "Americans are spending everything they're making and more, pushing the national savings rate to the lowest point since the Great Depression." That line from Associated Press writer Martin Crutsinger was echoed on TV and in most newspapers, provoking columnists and editorial writers to bemoan the "savings crisis." The analogy with 1933 was designed to equate a low savings rate with hard times. Actually, the savings rate is usually highest in recessions, because of fear and because recessions crush our nest eggs. The savings rate rose above 10 percent during the stagflations of 1974-75 and 1980-82 to make up for the wealth that evaporated when stocks and bonds collapsed. A low savings rate can be a sign of optimism about the future.
Since the purpose of saving is to add to wealth, the best measure of saving is the addition to wealth. In the third quarter of last year, the Fed's measure of household net worth amounted to $51.1 trillion -- up by more than $5 trillion from a year earlier. Net worth measures assets minus debts, so that 10.9 percent wealth gain also debunks any "debt crisis." Homeowners' equity accounted for only 21 percent of total wealth, so it was not just a housing boom.
Wealth gains from financial assets benefit a rapidly rising share of the population. Tax-deferred IRA, Keogh and 401(k) plans alone amounted to $6.7 trillion in 2004. Something like half a trillion dollars in dividends, interest and capital gains from such tax-sheltered investments were excluded from last year's income statistics, particularly those based on income tax returns.
A New York Times story said, "In 2003, the top 1 percent of households owned 57.5 percent of corporate wealth, up from 53.4 percent the year before, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the latest income tax data." Yet the most that such tax data could show is that the top 1 percent own a big share of taxable investments. That is because the rules do not allow large sums to be stashed in tax-deferred or tax-exempt (Roth) savings vehicles. The rest of us, by contrast, now keep the vast bulk of our investment income hidden in such plans. It only shows up in wealth surveys.
To put one year's $5 trillion wealth gain in perspective, personal income was just $9 trillion after taxes. Even if we'd saved half of all personal income, that could not have added as much to household net worth as was, in fact, added. We clearly need to examine the household balance sheet -- not just a one-year income statement.

D’oh! More know Simpsons than Constitution
Study: America more familiar with cartoon family than First Amendment
The Associated Press
CHICAGO - Americans apparently know more about “The Simpsons” than they do about the First Amendment. Only one in four Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. But more than half can name at least two members of the cartoon family, according to a survey.
The study by the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just one in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms.
Joe Madeira, director of exhibitions at the museum, said he was surprised by the results.
The survey found more people could name the three “American Idol” judges than identify three First Amendment rights. They were also more likely to remember popular advertising slogans.
It also showed that people misidentified First Amendment rights. About one in five people thought the right to own a pet was protected, and 38 percent said they believed the right against self-incrimination contained in the Fifth Amendment was a First Amendment right, the survey found.
_________________________________________________________
Editor's note: The five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment are freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances.

Cheney Issues Challenge To Iraq War Critics
KPHO Phoenix ^ 3/1/06
WASHINGTON Vice President Cheney is again challenging the Bush administration's critics of the war in Iraq. The vice president told an American Legion conference today that those who are against the war should make it known if they think the U-S should "break our word and abandon our Iraqi allies."

Street name sparks outrage
Chicago Sun Times ^ 02/28/2006 Fran Spielman
Fred Hampton -- slain state chairman of the Black Panthers party that urged followers to "off the pigs" -- would join the parade of Chicagoans afforded honorary street designations, under an ordinance advanced Monday that outraged the police union.

Saddam: I Ordered Burning (Farms)
Sky News ^ 3/1/06
Saddam Hussein has admitted he ordered the "razing" of farms of those convicted of trying to kill him in 1982.
"I razed them. We specified the farmland of those who were convicted and I signed," Saddam told a court trying him for crimes against humanity in connection with the execution of 148 Shi'ite villagers in the village of Dujail.
His regime also jailed three-month-old babies, the court heard.
He has been accused of torture and illegal arrests and executions.
Documents produced at the Baghdad court outline how a crackdown on the Shi'ite town of Dujail was conducted. The paperwork proceeded the jailing of nearly 400 people, including young children, and the massacre of 148 people.
The crackdown followed an attempt on Saddam's life in 1982, it is alleged.
A further document said 96 people were executed but the remainder had been "liquidated during interrogations".

Something for nothing
Feb 28, 2006
by Thomas Sowell
Suppose someone left you an inheritance of a million dollars -- with the proviso that every cent of it had to be spent on tickets for you to go watch professional wrestling matches. If you happened to be a professional wrestling fan, you would be in hog heaven.
But what if you were not? How much would that million dollars be worth to you? Certainly a lot less than a million dollars.
What if there was a clause in the will which said that you could forfeit the million dollars and instead receive a cash amount of $100,000 to spend as you pleased? Many of us would take the hundred grand without strings, even if that was only ten cents on the dollar compared to the million for watching wrestling.
In short, money with strings is worth less than money without strings -- sometimes a lot less.
Many of us who receive money from Social Security or other government programs are learning the hard way the difference between money with strings and money without strings. For example, Social Security recipients have to be enrolled in Medicare, whether they want to be or not. "Universal" coverage means compulsory coverage, just with prettier political spin.
People who think that they are getting something for nothing, by having government provide what they would otherwise have to buy in the private market, are not only kidding themselves by ignoring the taxes that government has to take from them in order to give them the appearance of something for nothing. They are also ignoring the strings that are going to be attached to their own money when it comes back to them in government benefits.
That is not even counting the fact that government programs are usually less efficient than similar services provided by private enterprises.
Compare the service you get at the Department of Motor Vehicles with the service you get at Triple-A. No one who belongs to the American Automobile Association is likely to go to the DMV for a service that is also available through Triple-A.

Something for nothing: Part II
by Thomas Sowell
Government is not the only institution that promises something for nothing. The decline of General Motors is just one consequence of the idea that labor unions can get their members something for nothing.
Workers themselves increasingly recognize the reality that there is no free lunch through unionization and are increasingly voting to be non-union. But the word has yet to reach many among the intelligentsia, who still think of labor unions as institutions that benefit the working class.
You can always benefit particular segments of any society at the expense of some other segment but unions do not benefit even the working class as a whole -- just those who are current union members -- at the expense of other workers, current and future.
One reason that General Motors has been losing market share for years -- going from selling about half the cars in the country to selling about one quarter today -- is that its union contracts put them at a disadvantage compared to its Japanese competitors.
Even though Toyota has factories in the United States, the American employees in those factories vote to keep their jobs by staying non-union. Toyota takes business away from unionized Detroit car makers, who are forced to lay off thousands of workers while Toyota is hiring additional workers.
There may not be any big difference in pay scales but unions can create higher production costs in many other ways. Fringe benefits are just one. Work rules are another.
In some industries, employers pay their workers as much as, or more than, unionized workers receive for the same jobs, just in order to be free of red tape restrictions on how they can organize their business or discipline employees who aren't doing their jobs right.
Toyota, for example, takes fewer hours to produce cars with fewer defects than Detroit cars.
While unions are declining in the private sector, they are expanding among government employees. Government agencies are usually monopolies, so competition is no threat to their jobs.
Taxpayers get hit with the high cost of these monopolies. There is no such thing as something for nothing.
Teachers' unions fight desperately and ruthlessly against vouchers, because they must maintain a monopoly of school children under the compulsory attendance laws. Their members stand to lose jobs if forced to compete with private schools.
Monopoly is the key to unionized teachers' job security -- at the expense of children's education as well as the taxpayers' money.
People on the inside looking out benefit at the expense of people on the outside looking in. Losers include not only less experienced and lower skilled workers, whose output would not cover the cost of the minimum wage, but also future workers who may find fewer job opportunities in the unionized industries.
Some people may believe that unions benefit their members at the expense of employers -- and that big corporations should be paying a "living wage."
That may be possible in the short run. But think about it: If unionized workers producing widgets get higher pay by reducing the rate of profit of widget manufacturers, do you think investors are going to continue to invest as much in the production of widgets when they can earn higher rates of return by investing elsewhere?
The rate of return on widgets cannot remain permanently below rates of returns in other industries. Widget prices will have to rise -- and that means lower sales and lower employment. There is no free lunch, no way to get something for nothing.

Source for local News: two views
The survey commissioned by a newspaper trade pub
Newspapers Still Dominant Source for Local News by 61% to 58%
Editor and publisher
NEW YORK Newspapers are lagging as the dominant source for national information, though the medium still remains the first source for local news, according to a new study released from Outsell today.
The research and advisory firm based in Burlingame, Calif., found that 71% of those surveyed said they get their national news from broadcast news shows and cable TV, while only 33% said they get it from newspapers. Furthermore, online sites like Google/Yahoo/MSN/AOL are not far behind -- 28% of those surveyed said that's where they get their national news.
On the local front, newspapers are the main source of information. The survey shows that 61% of respondents say they get their local news from newspapers, followed by 58% for TV and 35% for radio.
Outsell surveyed 2,557 U.S. adults over the Web and 253 adults by phone during December 2005.
Those surveyed asked where they go to get news "first thing in your day," TV and cable was the go-to medium with 57%. Thirty-nine percent of respondents said print newspapers were the first place they went in the day for news.

But, let’s see what an unbiased poll shows:
The Harris Poll® #20, February 24, 2006
Seven in 10 U.S. Adults Say They Watch Broadcast News at Least Several Times a Week. Two in five adults say they listen to satellite radio programming or read a national newspaper as often
While there seems to be more outlets than ever for U.S. adults to get news, a new Harris Poll shows that majorities choose to get their news most frequently from broadcast mediums. Specifically, three-quarters (77%) of adults say they watch local broadcast news, and 71 percent say they watch network broadcast or cable news several times a week or daily. On the other hand, one in five (19%) U.S. adults say they listen to satellite news programming or read a national newspaper (18%) several times a week or daily.
These are the results of a nationwide Harris Poll of 2,985 U.S. adults surveyed online between January 12 and 17, 2006 by Harris Interactive®.
While broadcast television news appears to be the most popular medium sought, many adults also get their news several times a week or daily by going online to get news (64%), reading a local daily newspaper (63%), listening to radio news broadcasts (54%), listening to talk radio stations (37%), listening to satellite news programming (19%), and reading a national newspaper (18%).

Bush Cheers Decline Of Mainstream Media, Rise Of Alternative Press
Drudge
President Bush, for the first time, is hailing the rise of the alternative media and the decline of the mainstream media, which he now says “conspired” to harm him with forged documents.
“I find it interesting that the old way of gathering the news is slowly but surely losing market share,” Bush said in an exclusive interview for the new book STRATEGERY. “It’s interesting to watch these media conglomerates try to deal with the realities of a new kind of world.”
[STRATEGERY was ranked #5 on AMAZON.COM's sales chart early Tuesday morning.]
For example, journalist Dan Rather left the anchor chair at CBS News after Internet reporters revealed he had used forged documents to criticize Bush’s military record in September 2004. The forgeries, which Bush now calls a conspiracy, ended up helping his reelection campaign, he acknowledged in the Oval Office interview.
“It looks like somebody conspired to float false documents,” the president tells author Bill Sammon. “And I was amazed about it. I just couldn’t believe that would be happening [and] then it would become the basis of a fairly substantial series of news stories.”
Although Memogate was initially expected to harm the president, it ended up backfiring spectacularly on the press.
“The guy that it hurt most was Dan Rather and the executives at CBS,” White House strategist Karl Rove said in an interview for STRATEGERY. “It further disgraced a network which is third in ratings and, if you look at the demographics of their consumers, it’s like 70 percent Democrat.”
Rove said Rather’s eagerness to broadcast obviously forged documents proves he is “no serious reporter.” As for Rather’s insistence, to this day, that the documents are real, Rove said: “That’s really bias.”
Memogate has helped accelerate the decline of the mainstream media, generally defined as CBS, NBC, ABC, The New York Times and other establishment news outlets.
“I think what’s healthy is that there’s no monopoly on the news,” Bush said. “There’s competition. There’s competition for the attention of, you know, 290 million people, or whatever it is.
Having long been pilloried by the mainstream media, Bush now finds the rise of the alternative media nothing less than revolutionary.
“It’s the beginning of the twenty-first century; it also happens to be the beginning of—or near the beginning—of a revolution in newsgathering and dissemination,” he said. “Not in newsmaking—that tends to be pretty consistent.”
Rove considers Memogate a watershed in the rise of the alternative media. “The whole incident in the fall of 2004 showed really the power of the 'blogosphere',” he said in his West Wing office.
“Because in essence you had now, an army of self-appointed experts looking over the shoulder of the mainstream media and bringing to bear enormously sophisticated skills,” he added.
Rove said Rather and his producer, Mary Mapes, were gunning for the president and trying to help his challenger, Sen. John Kerry, by broadcasting the forged documents in the heat of the presidential campaign.
“They made a decision in this instance – I think quite prematurely and quite unfairly – to pursue a story that attacked the president,” he added. “And I thought it was, to me, one of the most incredible examples of how fundamentally unfair it was.”
Rove expressed astonishment that CBS ignored the warnings of document experts hired by the network to authenticate the National Guard memos.

CBS Slants Bush Poll in Favor of Democrats
In its classic "fair and balanced" tradition, CBS slanted in favor of Democrats its poll that found Bush has a 34 percent approval rating and a 59 percent disapproval rating, an all-time high for a CBS poll.
On the bottom of the PDF version of the poll (page 18) it says how many Democrats versus Republicans were contacted.
"Total Republicans" contacted: 272 unweighted and 289 weighted.
"Total Democrats" contacted: 409 unweighted and 381 weighted.
"Total Independents" contacted: 337 unweighted and 348 weighted.
Brent Baker also noted how CBS failed to highlight a key portion of its poll on the Feb. 27 "CBS Evening News." 66 percent of respondents thought the media devoted "too much time" to Cheney's hunting accident.
The new CBS poll (even after being weighted) had a population of only 28% Republicans to 37% Democrats.

More Americans abducted along Mexico border than in Iraq
By Maxim Kniazkov, Special to Insight
LAREDO, Texas – This border area is one of the least publicized international crisis zones. More Americans have been kidnapped just in this area than in all of Iraq by Islamic terrorists.
Twenty-six Americans are now officially listed as missing in the Laredo-Nuevo Laredo region of the U.S.-Mexico border—in addition to the more than 400 Mexicans reported to be suffering a similar fate.
The number of American civilians missing or kidnapped in Iraq since the beginning of the war is 23 as of last September, the latest figure released by the State Department.
“The Mexican government has lost control along the border,” fumes Rick Flores, the youthful Webb County sheriff.
“They had 176 murders in Nuevo Laredo last year, and none of them have been solved. In the first less than six weeks of this year, there were another 27 murders. Again, none solved. At the rate they are going, the death toll will be over 300 by year’s end.”
If anything, Mr. Flores said, the cartels have become more brazen, more willing to reach for their guns.
- Maxim Kniazkov is a Washington-based journalist

FAITH, BLOOD & BOMBS
By RALPH PETERS
NY Post
BAGHDAD
I FLEW over the streets of this city on Sunday. The calm made a striking contrast to the media hysteria. No mosques burned. No demonstrations seethed. The closest thing I saw to violence was a children's soccer game played in a suburb.
Baghdad isn't Candyland, of course. We skimmed the city at 300 feet — combat altitude — with the Blackhawk's guns up.
But it sure wasn't civil war. For now, at least, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his blood-cult terrorists haven't succeeded in pitting Sunni against Shia.
Our effort to help Iraqis build a rule-of-law democracy may yet fail. But it remains a better bet that Iraq will become the most equitably governed major Arab state and that a democracy, however imperfect, will stand where a monstrous regime fell.
Last week, the terrorists scored a temporary win by bombing the Golden Mosque in Samarra. Retaliatory attacks pocked Iraq's urban landscapes, providing striking TV images. Starved for headlines, the global media declared a civil war.
But the Iraqis didn't sign up. Yes, there was "unrest." And a daytime curfew was imposed. But after an initial spate of bickering, Iraq's key leaders came together — as they could not have done under Saddam — to calm the situation.
What's most notable about the sectarian disturbances of the past week is what didn't happen: Extremists on both sides had a bash in the streets, but the general population didn't turn out. Iraqi security forces responded more effectively than they could have done even six months ago. Our own troops intervened, but at a lower pitch than in the past.
To the chagrin of the press, the country's leaders continue to muddle through. That may not sound inspiring, but it should. Well-intentioned men and women from each of the country's major constituencies are trying to find a formula for a new Iraq that works.
It's a tough job, even a miserable one, exposing courageous leaders to mortal danger. But they haven't given up. From Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the dominant Shia religious voice, to wary Sunni Arabs and watchful Kurds, the unanimous position on the past week's events was that Zarqawi and his thugs could not be permitted to prevail.
And the terrorists didn't prevail. A tactical victory looks set to turn into a strategic defeat. By a huge majority, all Iraqis were appalled by the mosque attacks, whether launched by Sunni-Arab terrorists or Shia street thugs (in the end, even Moqtada al-Sadr, a foul little bully, realized that he had more to gain from opposing the strife than abetting it).
The bottom line is that Iraqi Muslims of every sect were appalled by the terrorist attacks upon faith's symbols. While foreign journalists may long for civil war, Iraqis don't.
Ralph Peters is in Iraq on assignment for The Post.