The New York Post reports Scott Sassa, president of Hearst Entertainment and Syndication, has resigned:

Top Hearst executive Scott Sassa has left the company over a sensational extortion plot involving a Los Angeles-based stripper he was sexting, multiple sources exclusively tell Page Six.

Sassa — the high-flying president of Hearst Entertainment & Syndication group who manages the company’s interests in ESPN, Lifetime and recent successes including executive producing the hit miniseries “The Bible” for the History Channel — is quitting after the stripper forwarded sexy texts between her and Sassa to Hearst Corp.’s very conservative top brass.

Sources tell us Sassa, 53, who has held top jobs at Fox, NBC, Friendster and Marvel Entertainment, met the stripper in LA in December. They engaged in several steamy, illicit exchanges while arranging to hook up, and she sent explicit photos to him.

And that is Hollywood in a nutshell: a hit television series on the Bible and an inappropriate relationship with a stripper at the same time.

In the early-1980s debate leading up to the last big amnesty, the New York Times editorial page took a liberal stance, to be sure, but a constructive one, acknowledging the real problems created by large-scale illegal immigration. One editorial, for instance, noted:

Uncounted millions cross our porous borders in search of a better life. Like prior immigrants, many enrich our land with industry. But their numbers are so great that they also strain community resources and threaten the jobs and well-being of those who preceded them.

Not anymore. In a new paper, my colleague Jerry Kammer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, describes how under publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. the paper’s editorial voice reflexively condemns any skepticism about amnesty or continued high levels of immigration as beyond the pale. In the process, Kammer writes “its editorials have poisoned the national discussion of a complex and emotional issue.”

You may figure you don’t need to read 7,000 words to learn something you already know, but Kammer’s deeply researched piece sheds needed light on how and why the Times descended into the “racism is everything” school of editorializing on immigration. Given the Times’ continuing status as the newspaper of record, and the brewing amnesty debate, it’s important to give context to the flood of sanctimony on immigration sure to emanate from the editorial page over the next six months or so.

Read the whole thing.

Wow. Who could’ve predicted this one?

Applying for benefits under President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul could be as daunting as doing your taxes.

The government’s draft application runs 15 pages for a three-person family. An outline of the online version has 21 steps, some with additional questions.

Seven months before the Oct. 1 start of enrollment season for millions of uninsured Americans, the idea that getting health insurance could be as easy as shopping online at Amazon or Travelocity is starting to look like wishful thinking.

At least three major federal agencies, including the IRS, will scrutinize your application. Checking your identity, income and citizenship is supposed to happen in real time, if you apply online.

That’s just the first part of the process, which lets you know if you qualify for financial help. The government asks to see what you’re making because Obama’s Affordable Care Act is means-tested, with lower-income people getting the most generous help to pay premiums.

Once you’re finished with the money part, actually picking a health plan will require additional steps, plus a basic understanding of insurance jargon.

And it’s a mandate, not a suggestion. The law says virtually all Americans must carry health insurance starting next year, although most will just keep the coverage they now have through their jobs, Medicare or Medicaid.

The rest here.

Charles Lane writes:

Yet no one has asked: Why is it even legal to cast an 18-year-old in a sexually explicit movie?

Eighteen is, for most purposes, the age of majority. You can vote, serve in the military and so on. When Congress set 18 as the minimum age for porn “actors” in 1984 and, four years later, required producers to document performers’ ages and identities, lawmakers’ goal was to fight child pornography — by defining it precisely.

Still, I would think that having sex with a stranger for money and on camera belongs on the short list of risky behaviors that one can’t legally engage in before age 21. That list includes: buying a handgun from a federally licensed dealer; gambling in most casinos; working as a stripper in a bar; and smoking pot in Colorado. Porn-acting’s first cousin, prostitution, is legal in 11 Nevada counties, but nine don’t license anyone under 21.

Heck, Carnival Cruise Lines won’t even let under-21s book a stateroom. (That’s a contractual limitation, not a law, but the courts apparently enforce it.)

And, of course, the drinking age is 21. In Delaware, Melissa King isn’t old enough to enter a liquor store.

Well, since I consider voting and serving in the military much greater and important roles of our citizenry, Lane — at least to me — is making an argument that porn, prostitution, booking a room on a boat, drinking alcohol, etc., should be allowed for 18-year-olds.

But will anyone ask HBO, executive producer Bill Maher or Vice Media what they think of their Dennis Rodman stunt now? 

North Korea vows nuclear attack on US, saying Washington will be ‘engulfed in a sea of fire’

Let’s tell Kim he can keep Rodman if he promises not to nuke us?

The Times found four young Republicans — yes, four! — and asked them the above question in today’s “Room for Debate” piece. Here are their four suggestions:

Chris Christie Could Show the Path: Young conservatives must welcome a party that is inclusive of women, gays and immigrants.

Less Religion Equals More Voters: Republicans must embrace secular civic language if they have a prayer of winning young voters.

Governments as a Force for Good: The big government vs. small government and “makers” vs. “takers” argument isn’t appealing to millennials.

We Need a Better Message: Emphasizing immigration reform alone is simplistic and insulting to young Hispanic voters.

All are missing the greatest threat to the “young.” What about our debt? The country is broke and the kids don’t seem to care — or at least the four the Times found.

From Ubergizmo:

Just yesterday screenshots from Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag were released online and gave players a glimpse into the game. One of the screenshots even pictured a whale, hinting at the enormity of the game and it was later revealed that players were allowed to participate in a bit of whaling, which is basically the hunting of whales using harpoons. Since this is merely a game, it’s safe to say that no actual harm was inflicted on animals, not by the players at least, but it would seem that PETA would have none of it, virtual or otherwise.

In a statement made out to Venture Beat, PETA basically expressed their dissatisfaction at the concept of whaling even though it is done in a game. They claim that the fact that it is in a game “glorifies” the concept of whaling, a practice which is still going on today despite many protests against it. 

If PETA thinks that’s bad, they should see what you can do to people in Assassin’s Creed. I covered ACIII for NRO here.

Glenn Kessler writes on the White House claim that sequester cuts would hurt White House janitors:

We don’t try to play gotcha here at The Fact Checker. When Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) was ridiculed for saying last week that 170 million jobs would be lost because of the sequester, we dropped our inquiry when we realized she had corrected her statement — to the official Congressional Budget Office estimate of 750,000 jobs — later in the same news conference. Everyone makes mistakes, and that’s understandable.

The quicker the mistake is cleaned up, the better. As Education Secretary Arne Duncan showed this week, a little humility, even a bit late, can be a good thing.

But a clean-up brigade shouldn’t simply try to deflect and obfuscate. Apparently, the president assumed — incorrectly — that the janitors on Capitol Hill would get a pay cut. Rather than admit an error, White House aides doubled down on their talking points about overtime being essential to their livelihood, without actually knowing the truth.

Clearly, the sequester is hurting segments of the government and will cut the pay of some government workers. It would be better to focus on those people rather than imaginary victims.

 

Who knew there was a Goldilocks-type scale for dictators?

An excerpt from The Nation’s Greg Grandin on the now-dead leader:

Chávez was a strongman. He packed the courts, hounded the corporate media, legislated by decree and pretty much did away with any effective system of institutional checks or balances. But I’ll be perverse and argue that the biggest problem Venezuela faced during his rule was not that Chávez was authoritarian but that he wasn’t authoritarian enough. It wasn’t too much control that was the problem but too little.

Chavismo came to power through the ballot following the near total collapse of Venezuela’s existing establishment. It enjoyed overwhelming rhetorical and electoral hegemony, but not administrative hegemony. As such, it had to make significant compromises with existing power blocs in the military, the civil and educational bureaucracy and even the outgoing political elite, all of whom were loath to give up their illicit privileges and pleasures. It took near five years before Chávez’s government gained control of oil revenues, and then only after a protracted fight that nearly ruined the country.

Once it had access to the money, it opted not to confront these pockets of corruption and power but simply fund parallel institutions, including the social missions that provided healthcare, education and other welfare services being the most famous. This was both a blessing and a curse, the source of Chavismo’s strength and weakness.

Stupid Chavez not mean enough. The whole piece here.

Details here.

Earlier I posted that I didn’t read a threat in the e-mail between Sperling and Woodward, but this piece by Ron Fournier of the National Journal has changed my mind. His opener:

The fight between the White House and journalistic legend Bob Woodward is a silly distraction to a major problem: The failure of President Obama and House Republicans to lead the country under a budget deadline.

Woodward-gate is a distraction the White House welcomed, even encouraged, as part of a public-relations strategy to emasculate the GOP and anybody else who challenges Obama. It is a distraction that briefly enveloped my reporting last weekend, when I essentially broke ties with a senior White House official.

Yes, I iced a source– and my only regret is I didn’t do it sooner. I decided to share this encounter because it might shed light on the increasingly toxic relationship between media and government, which is why the Woodward flap matters outside the Beltway.

On Saturday, White House press secretary Jay Carney accused Woodward of being “willfully wrong” on a story holding the White House accountable for its part in a legislative gimmick called sequestration. (Months ago, the GOP-controlled House passed, and Obama signed, legislation imposing $1.2 trillion in cuts unless an alternative is found by Friday.)

Carney isn’t the first press secretary to criticize a reporter. Presidential aides do it all the time to set the record straight or — often, more cynically — to dodge accountability. I was struck by the fact that Carney’s target has a particular history with White House attacks. I tweeted: “Obama White House: Woodward is ‘willfully wrong.’ Huh-what did Nixon White House have to say about Woodward?”

Reporting by Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered Watergate misdeeds and led to the resignation of President Nixon. My tweet was not intended to compare Nixon to Obama (there is no reason to doubt Obama’s integrity — period) but rather to compare the attack to the press strategies of all the presidents’ men.

I had angered the White House, particularly a senior White House official who I am unable to identify because I promised the person anonymity. Going back to my first political beat, covering Bill Clinton’s administration in Arkansas and later in Washington, I’ve had a practice that is fairly common in journalism: A handful of sources I deal with regularly are granted blanket anonymity. Any time we communicate, they know I am prepared to report the information at will (matters of fact, not spin or opinion) and that I will not attribute it to them.

This is an important way to build a transparent and productive relationship between reporters and the people they cover. Nothing chills a conversation faster than saying, “I’m quoting you on this.”

The official angered by my Woodward tweet sent me an indignant e-mail. “What’s next, a Nazi analogy?” the official wrote, chastising me for spreading “bull**** like that” I was not offended by the note, mild in comparison to past exchanges with this official. But it was the last straw in a relationship that had deteriorated.

As editor-in-chief of National Journal, I received several e-mails and telephone calls from this White House official filled with vulgarity, abusive language, and virtually the same phrase that Woodward called a veiled threat. “You will regret staking out that claim,” The Washington Post reporter was told.

The rest here.

Below is the e-mail press release I received from the “Tea Party News Network.” I have no idea why it costs $75,000 to get WiFi access at the CPAC conference, however. 

WASHINGTON D.C. - The Tea Party News Network is spearheading an effort to raise $75,000 so that attendees to this year’s CPAC convention from March 14 to 16 will have free access to wireless internet. 

“We’re delighted that we could step in and provide internet for CPAC. It’s all well and good that mainstream media organizations can shell out hundreds of dollars for internet, but for many of the thousands of bloggers and conservative activists that will be there, paying that steep a price for internet is an undue burden,” said Scottie Nell Hughes, News Director of the Tea Party News Network.  

“Bloggers and CPAC goers alike are extremely thankful for what TPNN is doing in trying to provide WiFi for the conference this year. The venue change has provided great anxiety for everyone, and bloggers not having free or affordable WiFi would have proved to be nothing short of a disaster. Activists from across the country who rely on these citizen journalists would have had less coverage of the largest gathering of conservatives at a time when we are all calling on more communication, not less. I’m proud to see a major blog like TPNN step up to benefit the movement as whole,” said Ali A. Akbar, President of the National Bloggers Club.

“There were rumors that bloggers were going to be asked to shell out $250 for an internet connection on the floor of the hotel at CPAC. So, having TPNN step in to cover the costs is a game changer for conservative bloggers. It’s great to see that TPNN understands the importance of the new media to the future of the conservative movement and is backing it up in a powerful way,” said John Hawkins, a blogger at Right Wing News.

 

 

Over the next two weeks, the Tea Party News Network and its partner organization, TheTeaParty.Net will raise funds to help defray the $75,000 cost of providing internet over the conference’s three days. The website can be found here.

About TPNN: The Tea Party News Network is the Tea Party’s only trusted news source and the antidote to mainstream media bias.  Working on behalf of neither candidate nor political party, TPNN covers the stories other outlets ignore, holds politicians of both parties accountable for their promises, and pull sno punches in our principled commentaries on the national scene. TPNN’s single motivation is to tell readers the truth about the Washington establishment, our elected officials, and the depth of their fidelity to constitutional principles.    

 

 

###

Press Contact

Daniel Chasen

daniel@javelindc.com

I guess Gene Sperling needs to start yelling at the Post’s Karen Tumulty and Lyndsey Layton next. Their piece on the sequester today:

Sequester spin gets ahead of reality

The descriptions of the post-sequester landscape coming from the Obama administration have been alarming, specific — and, in at least some cases, hyped.

Take the claim by Education Secretary Arne Duncan that there are “literally teachers now who are getting pink slips.”

When he was pressed in a White House briefing Wednesday to name an example, Duncan came up with one school district, in West Virginia, and he acknowledged, “Whether it’s all sequester-related, I don’t know.”

As it turns out, it isn’t. What Kanawha County is actually doing is sending transfer notices to 104 educators in response to an unrelated change in the way federal dollars are allocated.

“It’s not like we’re cutting people’s jobs at this point,” said Pam Padon, who administers the county’s federal aid for poor students. “This is not due to sequestration.”

Despite the reams of fact sheets the White House has been putting out, no one really knows how bad things are likely to get — including Republicans who have criticized the president for exaggerating the effects.

Simple arithmetic can show the impact on some programs — the checks the federal government sends to unemployed people will be smaller, for instance.

But many of the reductions, such as those in education spending, will not be felt for months in most school systems, which gives individual districts some time to make adjustments and allow­ances for the lost funds.

That means the administration’s dire projection that “as many as 40,000 teachers could lose their jobs” is guesswork at best; most school districts will not start sending out layoff notices for the next school year until around May.

The rest here.

Last night Politico published a piece where Bob Woodward claimed a White House official — later identified by BuzzFeed as Gene Sperling, director of the White House Economic Council – had threatened him over his Sunday piece accusing President Obama of “moving the goal posts” on the sequester debate:

Bob Woodward called a senior White House official last week to tell him that in a piece in that weekend’s Washington Post, he was going to question President Barack Obama’s account of how sequestration came about — and got a major-league brushback. The Obama aide “yelled at me for about a half-hour,” Woodward told us in an hour long interview yesterday around the Georgetown dining room table where so many generations of Washington’s powerful have spilled their secrets.

Digging into one of his famous folders, Woodward said the tirade was followed by a page-long email from the aide, one of the four or five administration officials most closely involved in the fiscal negotiations with the Hill. “I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today,” the official typed. “You’re focusing on a few specific trees that give a very wrong impression of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here. … I think you will regret staking out that claim.”

Woodward repeated the last sentence, making clear he saw it as a veiled threat. “ ‘You’ll regret.’ Come on,” he said. “I think if Obama himself saw the way they’re dealing with some of this, he would say, ‘Whoa, we don’t tell any reporter ‘you’re going to regret challenging us.’”

“They have to be willing to live in the world where they’re challenged,” Woodward continued in his calm, instantly recognizable voice. “I’ve tangled with lots of these people. But suppose there’s a young reporter who’s only had a couple of years — or 10 years’ — experience and the White House is sending him an email saying, ‘You’re going to regret this.’ You know, tremble, tremble. I don’t think it’s the way to operate.”

Fast-forward to this morning where Politico has published the e-mail exchange between Sperling and Woodward. The way I read it, it’s a stretch to say Woodward was threatened, but since the Left has built Woodward into a journalism god of sorts over the last 40 years, who am I to argue with a deity? 

Dennis Rodman’s “basketball diplomacy” trip to North Korea is for a new HBO news magazine series titled VICE that debuts April 5 (produced by Vice Media).

Here’s an excerpt from a January news release describing the show:

VICE, NEWS SERIES FEATURING STARTLING,

GROUNDBREAKING STORIES FROM AROUND THE WORLD,

DEBUTS THIS SPRING, EXCLUSIVELY ON HBO

——–

SHANE SMITH HOSTS;

BILL MAHER, SHANE SMITH AND EDDY MORETTI EXECUTIVE PRODUCE;

FAREED ZAKARIA IS A CONSULTANT

The birth rate in a modern industrialized nation falls below replacement rates, in part due to the allure of a massive sexual underground run by organized crime.

A naked warlord leads his nude troops into battle against forces wearing uniforms consisting of T-shirts bearing the likeness of late rapper Tupac Shakur.

A hallucinogen is so powerful that it’s banned by the U.S. government, but is used to cure heroin addicts of their addiction by a witch doctor.

These are the kinds of stories – usually overlooked by mainstream media outlets – that will be presented on VICE, the news magazine series debuting this spring, exclusively on HBO. 

And. . .

 

As Bill Maher notes, “If a show is willing to do a segment on a guy who calls himself General Butt Naked, you have to watch. You can’t go to your grave without having that experience.”

Series consultant Fareed Zakaria observes, “VICE brings a new energy to television. Its stories mix a sense of adventure with compelling, high-quality journalism. The combination will engage a new generation of viewers.”

And here’s what counts as “compelling, high quality” journalism — a trip to North Korea’s top tourist destinations: 

NEW YORK, February 26, 2013 – VICE, the Brooklyn-based youth media company, today led a team of “Basketball Diplomats” to Pyongyang, North Korea to engage in a cultural exchange mission. The delegation consists of VICE correspondent Ryan Duffy, NBA Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman, select members of the Harlem Globetrotters, and a production crew that will be filming for the upcoming HBO series VICE.

The VICE-led delegation arrived in the basketball-crazed city Pyongyang today for a week-long trip that will include running a basketball camp for North Korean children and engaging in community-based games to encourage openness and better relations with the outside world. Additionally, there may be a top-level scrimmage to be attended by Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea.

Other activities that will be filmed on the trip for HBO’s VICE series will include visits to national sites and monuments, the Pyongyang Skate Park, and the national animation studio, SEK. The series debuts FRIDAY, APRIL 5 (11:00-11:30 p.m. ET/PT) on HBO.

Shane Smith, VICE Founder and host of the upcoming VICE series on HBO, said, “Is sending the Harlem Globetrotters and Dennis Rodman to the DPRK strange? In a word, yes. But finding common ground on the basketball court is a beautiful thing. These channels of cultural communication might appear untraditional, and perhaps they are, but we think it’s important just to keep the lines open. And if Washington isn’t going to send their Generals then we’ll send our Globetrotters – Cue music – ‘Sweet Georgia Brown.’ ”

You know what I find to be a “beautiful thing?” Food. And I’m sure the millions of starving North Koreans feel the same way. But, hey, comedian Bill Maher and plagiarist Fareed Zakaria say this is compelling, high-quality journalism so who am I to argue.

You really can’t make this stuff up. Here’s the opener of the email I just received from Obama’s former deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter:

Greg –

Prepare yourself for job layoffs, reduced access to early education, slower emergency response, slashed health care, and more people living on the street.

This Friday is the final deadline for congressional Republicans to stop disastrous automatic spending cuts (known as the “sequester”) that will hurt everyday Americans — including you.

These budget cuts will take a sledgehammer to the budget, and indiscriminately cut critical programs vital to economic growth and middle class families.

If Congress fails to act, we’d see budget cuts pretty much across the board to critical services that teachers, first responders, seniors, children, and our men and women in uniform rely on every day.

It sounds bad because it is. And with all these cuts on the line, why are congressional Republicans refusing to budge?

Because to do so, they’d have to close tax loopholes for millionaires and billionaires, oil companies, vacation homes, and private jet owners. I’m not kidding.

I’m glad she’s not kidding. Nor is she kidding with her ending. Hey, we’re about to have a financial armageddon, but pitch in twelve dollars, will ya?

Via The Verge:

The iconic entertainment publication Variety will discontinue its daily printed edition on March 18th. The move is part of a broad reorganization to make its news coverage and distribution more friendly to the new world of digital media. Variety will also drop its online paywall on March 1st, and has named three new editors-in-chief, managing television, digital content, and film, respectively. A redesigned weekly print magazine will debut on March 26th.

“Internally, we’ve been referring to the paywall dropping as ‘the end of an error,’” saidVariety’s owner, Jay Penske. “It was an interesting experiment that didn’t work. We look forward to welcoming back longtime Variety readers when the paywall drops March 1st.” Penske Media Corporation, which also owns the popular blog Deadline Hollywood,purchased Variety last October for $25 million in what the New York Times called a “fire sale” and a seizure by “blogger insurgents.” Penske promised then to take down the online paywall instituted by its previous owners, but to maintain a presence in print. Now we’re finally seeing what that looks like.

The rest here.

So as not to offend their viewers:

Well, that’s one way to respond to Seth MacFarlane’s edgy/misogynistic/odd/stupid opening number for the Oscars, but I do recall a certain island nation losing its collective lunch when certain pictures of a certain topless princess ended up all over the French tabloids. Get over it, Britain! 

That would be the same Jack Nicholson at whose home Roman Polanski raped a 13-year-old and the same Jack Nicholson who attacked a motorist’s car with a 2 iron.

Stay classy, Michelle.