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VANITY Fair yesterday took some of the deepest staff cuts at Condé Nast, but Editor Graydon Carter didn't deliver the bad news himself. Although Carter was said to have been at his restaurant, The Monkey Bar, Wednesday night, he was a no show in the office yesterday because he had jetted off on a vacation yesterday morning. Vanity Fair's layoffs were said to be in the double-digit range, and hit as high as senior editors and as low as fact checkers, and were deep, in part, because Carter largely ignored the edict to chop 5 percent late last year. Additional...

CHRIS MATTHEWS: You guys see Live and Let Die, the great Bond film with Yaphet Kotto as the bad guy, Mr. Big? In the end they jam a big CO2 pellet in his face and he blew up. I have to tell you, Rush Limbaugh is looking more and more like Mr. Big, and at some point somebodys going to jam a CO2 pellet into his head and hes going to explode like a giant blimp. That day may come. Not yet. But well be there to watch. I think hes Mr. Big, I think Yaphet Kotto. Are you...

If Kanye West doesn't regret hijacking Taylor Swift, he will now -- we're told his concert tour with Lady Gaga was scrapped because ticket sales sucked. And "sucked" happens to be a nicer version of the word we were told. And not only that -- our insiders say another factor in the cancellation was West and Gaga's people were at each others throats like their last names were Gosselin........

Amsterdam becoming the car tipping capital of the world?Ever seen one of those little Smart cars? They may be pretty rare in the US, but in Europe you'll have a hard time not being able to find the little buggers. Especially in the major cities of Europe, the small cars are extremely popular, as they are a breeze to park. In fact, they are so easy to park, that many owners can fit two of them in a single parking spot. Smart car owners in Amsterdam may be starting to have second thoughts about their little cars, because of an...

July 22, 2009Can the Schadenfreude, GOPGene Schwimmer One detects the acrid odor of hubris wafting from Republican quarters, the kind of hubris that leaves egg on the face of those arrogant enough to celebrate prematurely a flailing president's political demise. While pointing out favorable (to Republicans) trends, Republicans need to avoid gloating lest they have their prematurely triumphal blogs and articles thrown back at them if, Clinton-like, Obama's numbers do a complete turnaround, and Obama resumes and even intensifies his egotistical preening, while his supporters gloat, "Hey, GOP, remember when you were publishing smug "analyses" of every decline in Obama's...

Former US lawmaker Cynthia McKinney, who is in an Israeli jail for trying to take humanitarian aid to Gaza, says the White House has done nothing to secure her release. Speaking to Press TV from inside the Israeli jail, she said US taxpayers paid for Israel's 22-day war on the Gaza Strip. “Operation Cast Lead was made possible by the US taxpayers' gift to the Israeli war machine in the form of F16s, helicopters gunship, white phosphorous, depleted uranium, cluster bombs and anything that kills," she told Press TV from inside the Israeli jail on Saturday. McKinney has been in...

President Obama is just killing the progressive movement. For the past few years, liberal activists have gathered in Washington each spring for the Take Back America conference, where speaker after speaker -- Obama sometimes among them -- would give rollicking denunciations of the Bush administration before packed rooms of partisans. But now that Obama has actually taken back America, the activists at this year's gathering feel a bit like the dog that finally caught up with the car. Organizers changed the name from Take Back America to America's Future Now, but that didn't prevent a sharp decline in participation. At...

[snip] Final paragraph: All must agree that the die is cast and a hard judgment made. Otherwise progressive politics will be dragged down at a general election in May 2010 that could lead to a much bigger defeat than Labour suffered in 1979. That might bring a chance for other parties to take it forward, as the Liberal Democrats are trying to do in this election. But they are not placed to enter government. Labour has a year left before an election; its current leader would waste it. It is time to cut him loose.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, and as we’ve written about before, the Obama Administration is getting ready to be much tougher than its predecessor in the anti-trust realm. The terrible irony is that a large number of tech executives and workers at Silicon Valley companies supported the Obama candidacy and now it may impact them in a very direct way. All this goes double for Google, whose CEO Eric Schmidt was an advisor to Obama on technology issues. The new head of anti-trust for the US Department of Justice, Christine Varney, has already used the “m-word” in connection with...

German linguists might have to add a couple syllables to “schadenfreude” to capture the sentiments of those observing the NY Times/Boston Globe death match. People aren’t just revelling in the papers’ misfortune anymore. They can now simultaneously delight in the Times’ hypocrisy. On today’s Morning Joe, Mike Barnicle blasted the NY Times as the “most hypocritical media company in the world” for what he sees as the Gray Lady’s bullying of the employees at its subsidiary, the Boston Globe. View video here.

Paper Cuts: 'New York Times' Union Agrees In another sign of the dire situation facing American newspapers, the Newspaper Guild in New York City agreed to a 5% cut in salary for members at The New York Times, clearing the way for reductions that will affect newsroom staff and a number of other salaried professionals. The pay cut is meant to be temporary -- ending Dec. 3 -- but given current revenue trends, may become permanent. The union faced a choice between the pay cut and the loss of 80 jobs in the newsroom and elsewhere -- an increasingly common...

Hollywood, needing to cut costs in lean times, is starting to say no to its stars. For years, top movie stars often landed deals paying them a percentage -- sometimes as much as 20% -- of a studio's take of box-office revenues from the first dollar the movie makes, even if it turned out to be a flop that cost the studio millions. As a result, the biggest celebrities broke the $20 million mark. Eddie Murphy got that kind of payday for the flop "Meet Dave," which cost Twentieth Century Fox about $70 million and took in only $11.8 million...

The economy's gone bust, and so have they. Scores of professional New York women stripped of their six-figure jobs are now working as "gentlemen's club entertainers" at upscale Manhattan jiggle joints. Former Wall Streeters, fashion executives and real-estate agents are pole dancing and strip ping for as much as $1,500 a night -- but also because they like the flexible hours. Randi Newton, 28, who lives in Midtown, was a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley before the crash but was fired. "A few nights after I got laid off, I went with friends to a strip club to get drunk...

As a rookie broker at a mom-and-pop mortgage company in Federal Way, Rob Collins had a killer month writing loans in the frothy, frenzied 2005 housing market. He made $37,000. So he took $5,000 in cash and his fiancée, Heidi, to Bellevue Square. “I told her, ‘We’re not leaving here until we spend it all,’” Rob recalled this week. They spent it all right. Heidi bought a pair of designer Richmond jeans, diamond stud earrings, and some odds and ends to supplement her wardrobe. Rob, always impeccably dressed, bought clothes too, including an Italian leather jacket. Over the following 18...

Silicon Valley venture capitalists, who have applauded the Obama administration's science, energy and health care initiatives, are growing increasingly anxious that the president and Congress will subject their industry to both closer scrutiny and higher taxation. Obama's budget plan already signals changes in tax policy. And new fears were raised by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's statement Thursday that advisers to venture capital funds, private equity firms and hedge funds should for the first time be required to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission and file reports to enable the government to assess whether the funds "individually or collectively pose...

A woman who allegedly intended to artificially inseminate her wife with her brother's semen has been charged with domestic assault and battery. Pittsfield police responded to a call shortly before 4:30 p.m. Tuesday in the city's Morningside neighborhood, where the assault allegedly occurred. Stephanie K. Lighten, 26, was released on personal recognizance after denying the allegations in Central Berkshire District Court Wednesday morning.

Wednesday, February 18th 2009, 11:18 PM Goldfield for News Marlo Saab hasn't missed a payment yet but wonders how much longer he can manage the $3,400 in monthly mortgage payments. Related News Articles Bam unveils plan to help homeowners Analysis: Rescue finally comin' home Marlo Saab bought a $555,000, two-family home in Queens three years ago - no money down. Now, teetering on the brink of defaulting on his mortgage, Saab is looking to President Obama's plan for struggling homeowners to help him hold on to his house. "I think that his plan gives us hope," said Saab, 40, a...

Check out this very ugly chart: Shares of NYT (NYT) dropped 29 cents today to close at $3.77. The Sunday paper goes for $4 at the newsstand. Maybe they could save costs by printing the paper on their stock certificates.

They thought they were buying a piece of history but many customers now say they were ripped off.

Mr. Lereah Called 'Soft Landing' in 2006; It Didn't Come, and Now His Portfolio StinksFAIRFAX STATION, VA. -- On a recent weekday, David Lereah sat in the sunroom of his five-bedroom colonial house. The only sound was the yapping of his dog Maisy. Once one of the world's most-visible housing experts, Mr. Lereah is disconnected from his old life. The former chief economist for the National Association of Realtors says the group's top executives won't return his phone calls. Mr. Lereah, who says he left NAR voluntarily, says he was pressured by executives to issue optimistic forecasts -- then was...

CHICAGO – His career in shreds, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich clung defiantly to power Wednesday, ignoring a call to step down from President-elect Barack Obama and a warning that Senate Democrats will not let him appoint a new senator from the state. "Everyone is calling for his head," said Barbara Flynn Currie, a leader in the Illinois Senate and, like the governor, a Democrat. One day after Blagojevich's arrest, fellow Illinois politicians sought to avoid the taint of scandal-by-association. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. said at a news conference in Washington that he was Senate Candidate 5 in the government's criminal...

President-elect Barack Obama is calling for the Illinois governor to resign. Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs says the president-elect agrees with other prominent politicians in Illinois and elsewhere that "under the current circumstances, it is difficult for the governor to effectively do his job and serve the people of Illinois."

A lawyer for U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. says the congressman is the "Senate Candidate 5" mentioned in the federal corruption complaint against Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) on Wednesday denied authorizing anyone to offer arrested Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-Ill.) money in exchange for a senatorial appointment. A federal document laying out the corruption case against Blagojevich on Tuesday made reference to a "Candidate Five" for President-elect Obama’s former Senate seat who fits Jackson’s profile. Blagojevich says in federal wiretaps that a representative for the candidate offered to raise Blagojevich $500,000 in exchange for the appointment. Jackson used specific words from the document, including “pay to play” and “emissary,” and denied he had anything to do with such an arrangement. “I’ve rejected pay-to-play...

CHICAGO – Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested today on charges that accuse him of trying to benefit from his ability to appoint President-elect Barack Obama's replacement in the U.S. Senate. The U.S. Attorney in Chicago says ...the corruption charges represent "a truly new low." An FBI says the 51-year-old Democrat was intercepted conspiring to sell or trade the vacant Senate seat for personal benefits for himself and his wife.

Representatives of German business have called for a moratorium on any European Union legislation that would impose higher costs on companies at a time when they are grappling with the fallout from the financial crisis. Two of Germany’s largest trade bodies said Brussels should think carefully about putting additional burdens on business given the potential of the financial crisis to weaken the “real economy”. “We’ve got to ask whether certain measures, including environmental legislation, are responsible given the economic outlook,” Hanns-Eberhard Schleyer, general secretary of German Confederation of Skilled Crafts (ZDH), told the Financial Times. The call for a legislative...

Day of Judgement for Israel's Pollsters At 10 PM last night, you could hear the glee in their voices on TV and Radio: The exit polls predict that Tzippi Livni is the new leader of Kadima! Channel 10's Poll - 49% Channel 1's Poll - 47% Channel 2's Poll - 48% It's becoming almost routine for Israel's pollsters and media pundits to get it wrong time after time. True, Tzippy Livni did win, but by 341 votes. The margin of error for a win by 341 votes makes it statistically impossible to have accurately predicted that Livni would win --...

<p>MSNBC drops Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews from anchor chair... David Gregory will anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night.... Developing...</p>

Keep it up, folks. Us Weekly is feeling the heat. And now, they are pleading with readers to stick with them. Reader Susanna sent the following protest e-mail: During tense political times, it’s always nice to open up US Weekly and lose myself in some mindless gossip and fashion news. So imagine my DISGUST when I saw this week’s US Weekly cover: a revolting, sensationalist, bottom-feeding, partisan attack on mother and career woman Sarah Palin. You know, I’ve been rolling my eyes at your adoring coverage of Barack Obama, but I’ve put up with it in order to be...

ABC Radio news just announced Sen. John Edwards will admit to the affair with Rielle Hunter in an interview with the network, but insists the child is not his. We return you to your regularly-scheduled FReeping.

REV. JESSE JACKSON APOLOGIZES TO SEN. BARACK OBAMA FOR 'CRUDE AND HURTFUL COMMENTS' CAUGHT BY OPEN MIC... DEVELOPING...

There are several kinds of Washington memoirs: “I Reveal the Honest Truth,” a kiss-up-and-tell designed to settle scores (nod to honesty optional). “I Was There at the Start,” designed to make the author appear to be the linchpin of history. And, most tedious: “I Knew It Was a Terrible Mistake, but I Didn’t Mention It Until I Got a Book Contract.” Scott McClellan’s memoir is the latest entry in the latter genre. Among his far-too-late admissions, President Bush’s former spokesman reveals that he knew the war in Iraq was “a serious strategic blunder,” but the White House decided the best...

A synonym of schadenfreude is the rare English word epicaricacy

Kent and Mysti Cope met and fell in love working for one of the nation's top subprime lenders. Now, their life has been turned upside down after the sudden implosion of the subprime mortgage industry. Mysti was one of the last people out the door at New Century Financial Kent worked for several of the firms that helped give birth to the industry, which specializes in making loans to people with less-than-perfect credit Today, they're trying to get by on his unemployment benefits of about $450 a week, which covers only about an eighth of the basic payments they owe...

There are intriguing reports in New York that the man who was once dubbed Eliot Ness – after the “untouchable” FBI crime-buster – may have owed his fall at least in part to the bankers he once pursued with ruthless moral zeal. Was the governor a victim of Wall Street’s revenge? “Only one thing is certain – it’s an Eliot mess,” declared one former prosecutor.

Problem involves nonpartisan crossovers for president Fearing a "Florida in Los Angeles County" fiasco over the confusing "double bubble" voter ballot, officials said Tuesday they are concerned a ballot design flaw could prevent hundreds of thousands of nonpartisan votes for president from counting. Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo called on Secretary of State Debra Bowen and acting Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan to review the county's unique and potentially confusing ballot. "It would be unfortunate if nonpartisan voters, confused by the county's unique `double bubble' ballot design, did not have their vote counted," Delgadillo said. Secretary of State's Office spokeswoman Nicole...

John McCain’s strong showing in the February 5 primaries wasn’t enough to close the deal. He could have done it by winning enough delegates to be the prohibitive favorite or -- conversely -- by Mitt Romney making so poor a showing that he would be unwilling to fight on. Before sunrise Wednesday, this is how it lined up: McCain won ten of the twenty-one Republican primaries and caucuses, including five winner-take-all contests, resulting in a total (according to the Associated Press count) of 610 delegates of the 1191 needed to clinch the Republican nomination. The strong showing in WTA states...

Presidential candidate John McCain's sweeping victories on Super Tuesday revealed what could be a post-partisanship era in politics. Republican voters across the country turned away from the party's more conservative candidates and selected the Arizona senator again and again in primary contests from New York to California. The ultraconservative radio talk show hosts, bloggers and newspaper columnists simply didn't resonate with the party's majority members - the soccer moms and NASCAR dads who never attend precinct meetings, but showed up on election day. Whether those high-profile opinion givers like it or not, McCain is their man. Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.,...

Today, many in the Republican party and the conservative movement are saying some strange things about the prospect of our very likely nominee, Senator John McCain, and his ascent to the GOP nomination. Many think he will destroy the conservative movement if not the Republican party, and many have even said they simply will not vote for him in a general election if he heads the GOP ticket. Moreover, others have even said they would consider voting for Senator Hillary Clinton or that there is simply no difference between Senators Clinton and Barack Obama on the one hand, and Senator...

LOS ANGELES -- Forewarned, Democrats now are forearmed -- not that they will necessarily make sensible use of the gift. Tuesday's voting armed Democratic voters with the name of the candidate that their nominee will face in the fall. Will their purblind party now nominate the most polarizing person in contemporary politics, knowing that Republicans will nominate the person who tries to compensate for his weakness among conservatives with his strength among independent voters who are crucial to winning the White House? Perhaps. The Republican Party's not-so-secret weapon always is the Democratic Party, with its entertaining thirst for living dangerously....

LOS ANGELES — Tough. That’s the word of the hour. Hillary Clinton wants everyone to know that she won’t be swift-boated by anyone. She may or may not win the Democratic nomination, but it won’t be for want of toughness. And toughness is what it will take to beat John McCain in November. How do you win in a system in which, unlike the Republican contests, the loser takes almost as many delegates as the winner, and reaching the magic majority requires the sort of statistical run that neither Clinton nor Barack Obama has managed to pull off consistently? The...

If Limbaugh, Dobson and the rest are not going to vote Republican because they might not like Republican nominee does this mean they are going to move out of the country if and when Hillary/Obama are elected - like Alec Baldwin promised to do when Bush was elected? http://www.thebulletin.us/site/news.cfm?newsid=19268477&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=638428&rfi=6

Obviously, the Republican Party’s primaries are being flooded by people who are either A) not usual primary voters and/or B) are actually not even registered Republicans. Tuesday’s GOP primaries said it again, just 75% were Republicans. I voted Romney, Christie Whitman wing … poised to get their man the nomination. We can withdraw and let the worst happen, or we can vote [to protect] our nation [from] even more harm. In 1992 some … stayed home voted Perot.[thinking] .. four years of Clinton America .. crawling back to conservatism… very wrong. .. eight years Clinton and a military almost powerless...

SCO has filed its 10K Annual Report for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2007. What a year it has been. They are down to 115 employees as of that date. Probably less now. They "anticipate a reduction in force as a result of Chapter 11 bankruptcy and in order to return to profitability". Uh huh. Product revenue is down 27%. They expect that to continue. They can't guarantee they'll make it out of Chapter 11. Those they owe money to could be left with nothing or almost nothing. Common shareholders are in the same boat, even if they do...

"Dr. Juan Hernandez who has been named the national director of Hispanic outreach for the McCain 2008 campaign...." Read Beck & Michelle Malkin on Juan Hernandez & McCain!! http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/5261/

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002, also known as "McCain-Feingold," after its sponsors, is the most recent major federal law on campaign finance, which revised some of the legal limits of expenditure set in 1974, and prohibited unregulated contributions (called "soft money") to national political parties. ‘Soft money’ also refers to funds spent by independent organizations that do not specifically advocate the election or defeat of candidates, and are not contributed directly to candidate campaigns. So, McCain get's this passed, then his buddies in the Media get him elected in turn. After all, the MSM doesn't have to...

Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the number three Democrat in the House of Representatives, thanked CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer for 'accommodating' the party on questions asked of their presidential candidates at last week's debate in Myrtle Beach.Blitzer did not dispute Clyburn's statement of collusion between CNN and the Democrats.From the CNN transcript:BLITZER: We spoke the last time just before the Democratic debate in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. You urged the candidates, in your word, to chill, especially the former president of the United States, Bill Clinton. You got a lot of mileage out of that. But they came out...

Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said Wednesday he has no intention of following Rudy Giuliani's planned exit from the GOP race and he dismissed suggestions that his candidacy could split the conservative vote and help rival Sen. John McCain. With a narrowing Republican field, Huckabee could draw votes from Mitt Romney because of his strong support among the religious right - a possible boost for McCain. "If the true conservatives are looking for a true conservative, they'll pick me. Romney's record is not a conservative record, his rhetoric is not conservative, even with what he's said and done," Huckabee said....

Now that the Sunshine has set, two old friends come to an understanding. McCain topper Rick Davis quietly negotiated the agreement. HALPERIN’S TAKE: 10 things Giuliani could have done differently. Giuliani, in Florida concession speech, talked about his effort in the past tense, but said nothing explicit about dropping out — or The Deal.

The National Organization for Women’s New York chapter issued a scathing reaction to Sen. Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton. Actually, the word “scathing” feels inadequate here. Read for yourself: “Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, the Family Leave and Medical Act to name a few. Women have buried their anger that...