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Pelosi endorses Rep. Jackson for reelectionBy Jordy Yager - 02/18/12 12:24 PM ET Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) has endorsed Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), whose reelection bid has been plagued by an ethics investigation. Pelosi joins President Obama and several other top Democrats in their endorsement of the Chicago lawmaker as he goes up against former Democratic Rep. Debbie Halvorson (Ill.) in a fierce primary battle next month. Though Halvorson has raised only one-fifth the amount of money that Jackson has, she has waged a relentless campaign against the incumbent lawmaker, frequently pointing to the House Ethics Committee’s ongoing...

Looking to reduce costs as it continues to grapple with a changing media landscape and challenging economy, the Chicago Tribune told employees Monday it will offer an undisclosed number of voluntary buyouts in the newsroom. Gerry Kern, senior vice president and editor of the Tribune, issued a memo outlining the voluntary separation program, which will be open to all editorial staff except top departmental management. "We begin the year with a need to reduce costs as we face the continued financial pressures from a weak economy and structural changes in our industry," Kern said. "We are committed to taking action...

With the Iowa caucuses just days away, the Republican crack-up threatens the future of the Grand Old Party more profoundly than at any time since the GOP's eclipse in 1932. That's bad for America. The crack-up isn't just Romney-the-smooth versus Gingrich-the-bomb-thrower. Not just House Speaker John Boehner, who keeps making agreements he can't keep, versus House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who keeps making trouble he can't control. And not just the GOP establishment versus the Tea Partiers.The underlying conflict lies deep in the nature and structure of the Republican Party. And its roots are very old. As political analyst Michael...

LOS ANGELES - Dealing a blow to the U.S. Senate candidacy of Republican Jack Ryan, a California judge ruled that several sealed divorce records likely to embarrass the candidate and his ex-wife should be opened to the public. Ruling on a request brought by attorneys for the Tribune and WLS-TV, Superior Court Judge Robert Schnider acknowledged that the resulting publicity from the disclosure would be harmful to the couple's son, a key argument Ryan had raised in seeking to keep the documents from public view. But Schnider said he had weighed the public interest of disclosure against the private interests...

The Chicago Tribune has decided to pull the daily comic strip "Doonesbury" for the entire week from its newspapers and website. The controversy is over a week-long series of satirical material that makes fun of Sarah Palin, the failed Vice-Presidential candidate and the Alaskan Governor who quit her job after just over two years to become a conservative pundit & Tea Party icon. Facing hefty amounts of criticism and charges of censorship, Chicago Tribune's Senior Vice-president and Editor Gerould W. Kern released a statement, which will be printed inside of tomorrow's newspaper. The statement reads: "This week we are not...

Bob Wiedrich was born to investigate wise guys and dirty cops. The veteran reporter from The Chicago Tribune recently published his memoir Windy City Watchdog, and his nose for news was evident even as a boy growing up during the depression on the Near North Side when Al Capone still ruled the town. He recounts as a kid watching a steady parade of men using a back staircase to an office over a neighborhood restaurant, and no longer able to contain his curiosity one day endeavored to get to the bottom of the mystery: [A] couple of us kids snuck...

When it comes to greetings during the Winter Shopping Spree vaguely associated with the 25th of December, I guess I'm hopelessly old-fashioned. I say "Merry Christmas." Some will think me too retro. Too bad. I'm like Linus from the "Peanuts" cartoons. The birth of Christ is the reason for the season. But if someone offers a "Happy Hanukkah" or "Merry Kwanzaa" -- even those timid souls with their safely corporate "Happy holidays" -- I thank them. They're being kind. Yet the other day I was watching TV, and saw something astounding: a commercial for the Illinois Lottery, aimed at getting...

Clarence Page, of The Chicago Tribune, attended Washington’s Gridiron Club and met Tood and Sarah Palin: Palinpalooza goads media into laughter Palin not only interrupted her book tour, dubbed Palinpalooza by headline writers, to speak to a roomful of those darned media representatives Saturday all gussied up in gowns and tuxedos, but she held her own against this year's Democratic speaker, the liberal master of pithy one-liners, Rep. Barney Frank of MA. If Palin won the evening -- and even my own Hyde Park-raised, liberal wife believes she did -- it is largely because everyone expected Frank to be funny,...

The horrifying evolution of Halloween continues. Recently it became Slutoween, but we're long past that. Now it's Skanky Doggyween. You may have seen the stories about sexy pet costumes, the miniature schnauzer in the tiny plaid skirt, the rat terrier in the lascivious Bo Peep outfit, the French Maid Chihuahua with the fishnet stockings, and so on. Now that America has sexified its dogs, is it any wonder that al-Qaida wants us dead?

Steve Chapman, a member of the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board, has established residency in the "State of Denial", one of the seven mystery states then-presidential candidate Barack Obama said he had visited while on the campaign trail May 9, 2008.

If...could...would. That pretty much sums up the "scientific" analysis in a Chicago Tribune story warning of the terrible warming the Windy City will be enduring in the not too distant future. Never mind that Chicago has been experiencing much colder than normal weather this year as your humble correspondent noted last June when quoting the WGN Weather Center blog: The cloudy, chilly and rainy open to June here has been the talk of the town. So far this June is running more than 12 degrees cooler than last year, and the clouds, rain and chilly lake winds have been persistent....

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been out of office over a month and there are still those working at major media outlets that just can't get over their obsessions with dissecting everything the former GOP vice-presidential nominee does. Case and point - Mark Silva, a blogger for the Chicago Tribune's "The Swamp," in an Aug. 26 post took it upon himself to try to rationalize why Palin would possibly suggest to her friends and followers on social media networks to tune in to Glenn Beck's Aug. 26 program, as NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard alluded to earlier. ...more...

“Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it” It speaks for itself!Libertas

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The Chicago Cubs baseball team may file for Chapter 11 in order to speed its sale by bankrupt media company Tribune Co (TRBCQ.PK), two sources familiar with the process said on Monday. "It's pretty certain that they will do it," said one of the sources, who asked not to be identified because the sales process is continuing. Such an approach would likely be taken to ensure the storied baseball team and related assets are free of liabilities so as to speed a sale, said the other source, who also asked not to be identified. Tribune filed for...

Monday's Chicago Tribune featured the article "Powell 'still a Republican': Rebutting critics, he criticizes party's far right voices." The article starts: Former Secretary of State Colin Powell warned Sunday that ideological conservatives, particularly radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, have gained a hold over the Republican Party that risks driving the GOP into an extended exile from power. Powell cast his warnings in unusually personal terms as he answered recent charges from two champions of the Republican right -- Limbaugh and former Vice President Dick Cheney -- that he was no longer a Republican. "Rush will not get his wish, and Mr....

How history repeats itself. I was sent this cartoon from the Chicago Trib from 1934 http://www.littlegreenfootballs2.com/wp-content/uploads/1934cartoon-519x640.jpg

Seventy five years ago is going to seem like yesterday here in just a second. Take a look at this cartoon published in the Chicago Tribune on April 21, 1934 titled, “PLANNED ECONOMY OR PLANNED DESTRUCTION?” It’s true for most that their sense of history usually extends into the past only about as far as the day they decided to start paying attention to what was going on around them. An old saying goes something like this: “History, it is said, repeats itself. Few but are reminded almost every day of something that has gone before.” Every “crisis” seems brand...

The Chicago Tribune has risen up in righteous indignation and demanded the resignation of recently-appointed Senator Roland Burris. Seems the Trib is shocked to find out that there are crooked politicians in Illinois, despite a hundred year history of crooked politicians in Illinois. “Disgraceful,” the Tribune said. “Disgraceful all around.
There’s only one honorable action for Burris: resign. Strip this whole wretched process out of the hands of the politicians and give it back to the people.” But the best part is ...

Chicago Tribune's Jill Zuckman joins President Obama's administration as the Department of Transportation's director of public affairs and assistant to Secretary Ray LaHood. Zuckman was a Washington-based correspondent at the Tribune and also made frequent appearances on MSNBC and Fox News. She is the second Tribune reporter to take a job in the administration. Peter Gosselin is now the chief speech writer for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. This move is somewhat of a trend- Jay Carney, formerly of Time Magazine, is now Vice President Biden's communications director and CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta is supposedly among the top picks to become...

WASHINGTON - AMERICA'S newspaper industry, including some of its biggest and most trusted names, is fighting for survival. Troubles at The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Seattle Post-Intelligencer pre-date the current financial crisis, but their precarious state has added urgency to the industry's frantic search for sustainable new business models. The Atlantic magazine reports in this month's edition that The New York Times will find itself facing debts of US$400 million (S$600 million) by May, with only US$46 million cash in hand, and no access to more funds because its debt carries junk status. In one obvious sign of...

Looks like we can possibly thank our meddling media for another possibly bungled investigation, this time over the selling of Barack Obama's Senate seat by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojavich. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune was working with Fitzgerald's office on the investigation but decided to stop doing so in favor of printing the sensational story they were sitting on. This forced the arrest early so that the paper wouldn't blow the whole investigation. The story everyone thought they knew was that Fitzgerald moved when he did to stop a crime about to be committed. But, the...

Conventional wisdom holds that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald ordered the FBI to arrest Rod Blagojevich before sunrise Tuesday in order to stop a crime from being committed. That would have been the sale of the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. But the opposite is true: Members of Fitzgerald’s team are livid the scheme didn’t advance, at least for a little longer, according to some people close to Fitzgerald’s office. Why? Because had the plot unfolded, they might have had an opportunity most feds can only dream of: A chance to catch the sale of a Senate seat on...

ABC News CHICAGO – Businessmen with ties to both Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson discussed raising $1 million for Blagojevich to help persuade him to appoint Jackson to President-elect Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat, according to a published report. Citing unnamed sources, the Chicago Tribune reports in a story for Friday's editions that businessman Raghuveer Nayak and Blagojevich aide Rajinder Bedi told attendees at an Oct. 31 meeting that they needed to raise the money for the governor to ensure Jackson's appointment. "Raghu said he needed to raise a million for Rod to make sure Jesse...

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich bragged that the owner of the now-bankrupt Chicago Tribune agreed to fire top editorial writers in exchange for $100 million in state aid, according to an indictment released yesterday. The alleged quid pro quo was laid out in the 78-page corruption indictment of Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris. Blagojevich was thrilled when Harris reported that the financial adviser to the Tribune Company, owned by Sam Zell, suggested that the ax would fall on his editorial critics.

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Full release from U.S. Attorney's Office: Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich and his Chief of Staff, John Harris, were arrested today by FBI agents on federal corruption charges alleging that they and others are engaging in ongoing criminal activity: conspiring to obtain personal financial benefits for Blagojevich by leveraging his sole authority to appoint a United States Senator; threatening to withhold substantial state assistance to the Tribune Company in connection with the sale of Wrigley Field to induce the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members sharply critical of Blagojevich; and to obtain campaign contributions in exchange...

CHICAGO – Trying to squelch criticism from the state's largest newspaper, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich allegedly tried to strong-arm the Chicago Tribune into firing editorial writers who were discussing his possible impeachment. The Tribune charges were overshadowed Tuesday by Blagojevich's arrest on allegations that he tried to sell President-elect Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. But federal prosecutors said he also sought to pressure the newspaper to dismiss some writers who had suggested the governor should be removed after a three-year investigation of alleged hiring fraud

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich wanted President-elect Barack Obama "to put something together&something big" in exchange for going along with Obama's choice to fill his vacant U.S. Senate seat, according to a FBI affidavit unsealed following the governor's stunning arrest. "I've got this thing and it's f***ing golden, and, uh, uh, I'm just not giving it up for f***in' nothing. I'm not gonna do it. And I can always use it. I can parachute me there," Blagojevich said in a phone call secretly recorded by the FBI on Nov. 5, the day after the election, according to the affidavit. Click here...

<p>A source said today that Gov. Rod Blagojevich was taken into federal custody at his North Side home this morning. The U.S. attorney's office would not confirm the information, and a spokesman for the governor did not immediately return a phone call for comment.</p>

Promise, or threat? John Harwood declares "the New York Times isn't going anywhere." The Times correspondent, who also toils for CNBC, made his unconditional avowal on today's Morning Joe in response to Joe Scarborough's imagining of a future in which major news organizations, including the Times, might disappear. Scarborough was concerned that the public would be deprived of the media's investigative function. JOE SCARBOROUGH: The problem is, though, that these people are all being fired. So what are we going to do without a New York Times or a Washington Post or an NBC News? The investigators that hold government...

Media giant Tribune Co., saddled with billions in debt since it became a privately-held company last year, has hired bankruptcy advisers, according to its flagship newspaper, the Chicago Tribune. The Chicago-based company owns a coast-to-coast empire with television stations and newspapers in most of the nation's largest cities. Its holdings include the Los Angeles Times; cable television superstation WGN in Chicago; the Baltimore Sun; and WDCW-50 in Washington, the CW affiliate. The company even owns the Chicago Cubs. Tribune assumed some $13 billion in debt when real estate mogul Sam Zell engineered an employee-owned transition to private ownership one year...

The Tribune Company, the newspaper chain that owns The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times, is trying to negotiate new terms with its creditors and has hired advisers for a possible bankruptcy filing, according to people briefed on the matter. Tribune is in danger of falling below the cash flow required under its agreement with its bondholders, but it is not clear how seriously Tribune is thinking about seeking bankruptcy protection. Analysts and bankruptcy experts say that the hiring of advisers, including Lazard and Sidley Austin, one of the company’s longtime law firms, could be a just-in-case move, or...

Tribune Co. is "preparing for a possible bankruptcy-protection filing as soon as this week, according to people familiar with the matter, opening a new front of trouble for the newspaper industry," the Wall Street Journal reported late Sunday. Let's help them along!!! BoycottCorruptMedia.org

Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co. is working with bankruptcy advisers at investment bank Lazard and law firm Sidley Austin to weigh its financial options, sources said Sunday. "It's an uncertain and difficult environment," Tribune Co. spokesman Gary Weitman said Sunday night. "We haven't made any decision. We're looking at all of our options." Tribune Co., which has been struggling under a $13 billion debt load incurred last December when real estate magnate Sam Zell took the company private in an $8.2 billion leveraged buyout, faces a Monday deadline on $70 million of unsecured debt taken on by Tribune Co. before...

I am interested in seeing if the full-page Open Letter to Mr. Obama that will be published in the Chicago Tribune on both Monday, December 1, 2008 and Wednesday, December 3, 2008 will be picked up by the MSM. I googled "Chicago Tribune""Obama""ad""December 1, 2008" to see how many hits there were. My search returned 672 hits. I then thought that if all the freepers started googling this over the next week it might be interesting. I have no idea how to drive internet traffic but perhaps all the searching on the same topic will raise the issue on google's...

Our full-page Open Letter to Mr. Obama will be published in the Chicago Tribune on both Monday, December 1, 2008 and Wednesday, December 3, 2008. It will appear in the main news section. Click here to view a copy of the final ad. The Open Letter to Mr. Obama is a formal Petition for a Redress (Remedy) for the alleged violation of the “natural born citizen” clause of the Constitution of the United States of America. Mr. Obama is respectfully requested to direct the Hawaiian officials to provide access to his original birth certificate on December 5-7 by our team...

Mainstream media Obamamania continues building. Today's Chicago Tribune includes yet another "souvenir section" titled "Obama: A Life in Photos." Moreover, there are articles in the newspaper's first section on the current owner of a 2000 Dodge Neon once owned by Obama, a doodle crafted by the senator that last year sold for $2,075, and how Illinois "bureaucrats are trying to figure out whether they should preserve for posterity the chair that cushioned his posterior." Page 19 carries "They met Obama when. . . " Also on the paper's Web site, the article begins: After the man with the big ears...

If you're not signed up already, sign up to Buzz and FReep this BUZZ to ensure that it does not get buried by the libtards! The election is just around the corner, and millions of moderates, independents, and undecideds have been prevented from learning the TRUTH about ObamaNation. Here's our chance to bypass the MSM and reach undecideds through the NEW media!

Tribune Company has given a two-year notice to the Associated Press that its daily newspapers plan to drop the news service, becoming the first major newspaper chain to do so since the recent controversy over new rates began. Tribune, which owns nine daily papers including the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, joins a growing list of newspapers that have sought to end AP contracts, or given notice of that, following plans to introduce a new controversial rate structure in 2009. The notice was given earlier this week. AP Spokesman Paul Colford confirmed the cancellation notice, but said he had...

Which candidate would you endorse? http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-endorsement-vote,0,6443477,post.poll The editorial board is debating its endorsement for president. As we think about that choice, we want to hear from you. Which candidate would you endorse?

Mark Cuban’s Funding of Movies Criticizing U.S. Armed Forces Make Cuban a Poor Suitor for Chicago Cubs On April 2nd, 2007 the Tribune Company announced their intention to sell the Chicago Cubs baseball team following the 2007 season. This decision was made because shareholders compelled the newspaper (TRB: NYSE) to market itself for sale as well as divest certain component parts--including their baseball team. Like any smart seller in a buyer's market, they spruced up the old ballpark (the second oldest in the major leagues) to make it more saleable. The long overdue rebuilding of the playing surface at Wrigley...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The Chicago Tribune Media Group said Monday that Ann Marie Lipinski would step down as the editor of its flagship newspaper, with the publication preparing to go through another round of layoffs and shrink the number of its printed pages. Lipinski had been editor of the Tribune since 2001 and had been with the paper since 1978. Her resignation will take effect on Thursday. In a statement, Lipinski said that "the position is not the fit it once was." The Tribune said that Gerould Kern, the paper's vice president of editorials since 2003, will serve as...

RFFM.org's Executive Director, Dan Zanoza, writes a monthly column for the Illinois Family Institute, titled, Media Watch. Recently, Illinois Family Institute's Executive Director Dave Smith pointed out how Chicago Tribune "columnist" Eric Zorn apparently claimed the state of California was divinely rewarded for its high court ruling that the ban on same-sex "marriage" was unconstitutional. Smith had referred to a recent piece by Zorn where the Tribune writer asserted California was experiencing nice weather because of the court's ruling on homosexual "marriage"...

The Chicago Tribune, which once employed Barack Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod, is refusing to publish the truth about a Weather Underground terrorist bombing that killed a policeman. The paper apparently does not want to tarnish the image of Obama friends Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who were allegedly part of or had direct knowledge of the bombing plot that also injured several other police officers. The Tribune considers Ayers an education expert and has published various articles by him. Please help Accuracy in Media expose the Tribune's cover-up. I sent a copy of the following email message to Tribune...

On Friday afternoon, Sen. Barack Obama sat down to talk with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune. It was a 92-minute discussion in which he talked at length about his relationship with now-indicted businessman Tony Rezko. And the Tribune editors believe that he "offered a lengthy and, to us, plausible explanation for the presence of [Rezko] in his personal and political lives." "The most remarkable facet of Obama's 92-minute discussion was that, at the outset, he pledged to answer every question the three dozen Tribune journalists crammed into the room would put to him," writes The Tibune in an...

Chicago (AP) -- Real estate magnate Sam Zell took control of newly private Tribune Co. on Thursday and began shaking up the newspaper and TV company the moment the $8.2 billion buyout he led closed, reshuffling the board, naming two top executives and promising more action ahead. Taking on the CEO's role as well as chairman, Zell made clear he won't hesitate to make sweeping changes at the media conglomerate even though he has no previous experience in the industry. He signaled he has no immediate asset sales in mind at the company that owns 23 television stations and nine...

"Activist arrested in L.A.: Deported to Tijuana, pastor says." That's the headline for an August 20 Chicago Tribune story on convicted Social Security fraudster and serial border-jumper Elvira Arellano. Reporter Antonio Olivo mentioned the conviction, but deep in the article in the 14th paragraph: Much of the anger from across the political spectrum surrounding illegal immigration has been crystallized by Arellano's story. After entering the country illegally twice, she became an activist shortly after she was arrested in 2002 during a federal sweep at O'Hare International Airport, where Arellano cleaned airplanes. She was later convicted of using a fake Social...

Multiple studies have demonstrated that our press exhibits a liberal bias.  But worse, a very disturbing phenomenon has now emerged: American newspaper editors advocating on behalf of terrorist organizations. FSM Contributing Editor Steve Emerson has the facts on one such case.Many have noted the fairly recent trend of Hamas leaders taking to the op-ed pages of major American newspapers. (Side note: Hamas is not the only terrorist group with access to the op-ed pages of American newspapers. Just this morning, the Washington Post, in its Muslims Speak Out section, has a piece from Hizballah spiritual leader Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, extolling...

That shrill sound you're hearing isn't coming from the cicadas. It's the cackle of conservatives reveling in war protester Cindy Sheehan's abrupt decision to leave the anti-war movement and return home to California. Typical liberal, they're saying. Cut and run.

"World's Greatest Newspaper," the Chicago Tribune used to bill itself with P.T. Barnumesque modesty. World's Greatest it never was, but, viewed from my neighborhood in Chicago, it always seemed the world's least Jewish newspaper. Which makes the fact that the paper is now owned by Sam Zell, son of immigrant Jewish parents from Poland, the first of the ironies associated with Mr. Zell's much-publicized recent acquisition of the Tribune Company, the crown jewel of which is of course the Trib...

Just in time for the 2008 presidential race, a certified "Friend of Bill" is bidding to acquire the Tribune Company, which owns the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune. As reported in this New York Times article , FOB Ronald W. Burkle and Eli Broad sumbitted their bid yesterday to Tribune management. According to his Wikipedia entry: Burkle is a well-known political contributor and longtime Democratic fundraiser. He supported the Black Panthers in the Sixties. Burkle has supported California State Treasurer Phil Angelides and employed former San Francisco Mayor Willie BrownBurkle is a close friend of former President Bill...