Bart Stupak gets deal with White House; "yes" on Health Care Reform

Bart Stupak

Politico reports that The Obama White House and anti-abortion Democrats led by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich) have reached a deal on preventing the use of tax dollars for health care abortions. This closes a process that lasted late into Saturday night and into Sunday. Politico's sources report that President Obama will sign an executive order that no federal funds will be used to help pay for abortions in the Obama Health Care Reform Bill.

Now, Stupak and his gang of six will vote "yes" to support the Obama Health Care Reform Bill. While Politico's sources now report that Stupak's a yes, Bart Stupak himself has not said this. Stupak's on record as saying that he's a no vote until the agreement is done; now that it's finished, Stupak can be counted as a "yes" vote.

It's now apparent the White House has the 216 votes - perhaps more - to pass the bill and at the same time save some politically vulnerable Democrats from harm back home. Indeed, it was not clear how many "anti-abortion" Democrats Stupak was able to hang on to; the ranks were shrinking. One person who's still a "no" vote according to CNN is Rep. John Tanner (D- Tenn) who's retiring after this term.

Stay tuned.

Bart Stupak close to deal with White House on Health Care

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich) says he and his small group of colleagues in the Democratic Party are close to a deal with the Obama White House on Health Care Reform. According to The Hill.com, the agreement would make sure that taxpayer dollars are not used to finance health care abortions.

Stupak claims to have six holdouts in the path to getting a "yes" vote for the Obama Health Care Bill, but it's hard to tell if his group is solidly behind him. There are conflicting reports on the size of the group. At first it was a 12, then eight, now 6. Whatever the case, it seems to be shrinking as the moment to vote draws near.

Stay tuned.

Sandra Bullock and Jesse James poll: 50 percent say Bullock should get divorce

The Sandra Bullock and Jesse James poll ran Saturday is still open but the results thus far are interesting: 55 percent say Oscar-winner Bullock should get a divorce from her husband Jesse James. Recall that Jesse James had an alleged affair with Michelle "Bombshell" McGee, as the mistress told In Touch Magazine.

Then photos surfaced that featured Michelle "Bombshell" McGee in a Nazi bikini, and there are supporting allegations that McGee may be a White Supremacist. As of this writing, McGee has not rejected those claims. Heres' the latest video on the scandal:



The poll results will be more reflective of what the American Public thinks once it reaches over 1,500 votes; 60 votes is not significant to this blogger's view. But a pattern's emerging where over 50 percent say Sandra Bullock should divorce Jesse James, while 23 percent (like me) voted for Sandra giving Jesse another chance.

It should be noted that 13 percent think Sandra Bullock should hit Jesse James with a golf club.

Take the poll:

More opinion surveys on pollsb.com

Obama health care bill votes secured; Tea Party racism unites Democrats

The new news is that according to CNN the 216 Democratic votes to pass the Obama health care bill have been secured and that's in no small measure to this impassioned speech The President gave to the House Democrats Saturday:



Obama's health care reform speech was a great one because it was from the heart, emotive, unscripted, and timely. President Obama's candidacy was a reminder of what it meant to be a Democrat.

 And while some may feel President Obama lost his Democratic way, no one who's listened to his speech can argue that he's found his path. Heath Care Reform is an idea who's time came long ago. Today, something can be done about it.

What's sad are those I call "Couch Potato Conservatives who have resulted to racist name calling and insults. Over on Twitter there's a really angry guy named Stan Solomon @stansolomon who has to toss insults at anyone who backs Heath Care Reform.

Or take this guy with the Texas shirt who's so hateful he has to attack blacks, but obviously can't spell.  The perfect representative for Couch Potato Conservatives.

And of course yesterday we had news of Tea Party members tossing the N-word and spitting at members of Congress like Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.).

 It's that action as well that unified Democrats. Here's Representative Tim Ryan expressing his outrage over the incident:



And here's a video of the scene that Rep. Ryan's talking about, or at least part of it. What can be seen from this are people blocking and booing at the members of The Congressional Black Congress who are on the way to The Capital. It's events like this one, and the behavior of Tea Party People, that have united Democrats:



The Health Care Bill will pass and it will not result in higher taxes or jail time for those who don't get care. But it will work to lower premiums and produce greater access for all who wish to get health care. That's what's needed most.

Stay tuned.

Oakland News - new portal OaklandSeen.com [Aimee Allison | OaklandSeen]

Please join us as OaklandSeen proudly unveils its new online destination, OaklandSeen.com!

Official Launch Party for OaklandSeen.com
DJ fflood
Thursday March 25, 6-9pm
Somar Bar / 1727 Telegraph. Ave, Oakland
no cover / cash bar / donations gladly accepted

More About OaklandSeen

After building a solid foundation through radio and social networks, OaklandSeen presents OaklandSeen.com, a web portal dedicated to sharing genuine voices, striking images, investigative stories, and daily updates by and about our own community.

OaklandSeen forges a pioneering new model for media and community engagement. Its information network highlights issues important to working people, people of color, young people. OaklandSeen links radio broadcasts, social networks, community news, blogs, and web resources to share a compelling mix of Oakland’s most credible and exciting voices -- yours!

This spring, OaklandSeen presents OaklandSeen.com, a web portal that will locate Oakland's multiracial majority in the center of community, political, and social discourse. OaklandSeen.com will celebrate the city’s greatest successes, and shine a spotlight on citizens who innovate to address the city's most relentless challenges.

We're looking for reporters, bloggers, interns, video producers, photographers, culture mavens and people who know where to go on a Friday night.

OaklandSeen includes:

Aimee Allison|Aaron Baluyot|Byron Williams|DaveyD|Esperanza Tervalon-Daumont|Favianna Rodriquez|Jakada Imani|Jennifer Pae|Joel Tena|John Knox-White|Justin Warren|Kamika Dunlap|Leda Dederich|Ludovic Blain|Lupita Figueroa|Marc Tizoc-Gonzalez|Michelle Fitzhugh-Craig|Richard Wright|Rosie Torres|Scott Pearson|Steve Phillips|Steve Wright|Taj James|Tracy Watson|Vien Truong|Zach Seal

...and you

Volunteer | Write | Produce: editor@oaklandseen.com
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Chevrolet talks to Perez Hilton about his 2010 SXSW Party

Chevrolet talks to Perez Hilton about his 2010 SXSW Party in this video found by this blogger. The party was held Saturday at The Whitley and he says that it was not a secret.

 The headliner is Snoop Dogg and from Perez Hilton's tweets, the event is going well. Sort of. Well, here's Perez Hilton talking to someone from Chevrolet about the party:



Perez Hilton just wrote this tweet:

This party just went to a whole other level!!! Snoop!!! #SXSW
9 minutes ago via UberTwitter

And this tweet from someone at the party:

outwithme RT @anasays: Snoop dogg is covering house of pain jump around right now and its blowing my mind @perezhilton @sxsw #sxsw #perezhilton insane
6 minutes ago from TinyTwitter

Still, not everyone's happy because they could not get it. Here's a tweet of apology:

Rubytea77 RT @perezhilton: Thank you all for the overwhelming support in Austin!!! Wow! I wish everyone outside could fit! Promise a bigger venue next year! #SXSW
6 minutes ago from UberTwitter

And reportedly some party goers waited for up to three hours in the cold and never got in. But that happens.

Whatever's happening Perez stopped tweeting and that may mean he's too filled with whatever to concentrate on tweeting.

Stay tuned.

Academy hosting free Hollywood event Monday: "Oscar Docs"

The 2010 Oscars are over but the work of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) goes on. On Monday, March 22nd, AMPAS is hosting "Oscar Docs", a show at the The Linwood Dunn Theater in the Academy's Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study at 1313 Vine Street in Hollywood. Six Oscar-winning documentaries will be screened starting at 7:30 PM. The screenings will be held each Monday, through May 3rd.

The list of Oscar docs will include those honored at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards. Overall, it's an exciting lineup of pictures, from Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth to Music by Prudence.

Here's the full schedule with descriptions as provided by AMPAS:

Monday, March 22

Mighty Times: The Children’s March (2004) - 40 mins.
Thousands of black schoolchildren deserted classrooms in Birmingham, Alabama, on May 2, 1963, touching off a week of mass demonstrations that shocked the nation.

Born Into Brothels (2004) - 83 mins.
Photographer Zana Briski helps children of prostitutes in Calcutta create their own photographs with point-and-shoot 35mm cameras.
Featuring an onstage discussion with producer-director Briski.

Monday, March 29

No screenings

Monday, April 5

A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin (2005) - 40 mins.
On VE Day, Norman Corwin, the “poet laureate of radio drama,” presented his landmark broadcast, which electrified the nation.
Featuring an onstage discussion with producer-director Eric Simonson and producer Corinne Marrinan.

March of the Penguins (2005) - 85 mins.
Each year, Emperor penguins in Antarctica journey to participate in a courtship that, if successful, will result in the creation of new life.
Featuring an onstage discussion with studio executives Mark Gill and Tracey Bing and composer Alex Corman.

Monday, April 12

The Blood of the Yingzhou District (2006) - 39 mins.
Children of Yingzhou who have lost their parents to AIDS find their struggles complicated as traditional obligations to family and village collide with the terror of the disease.
Featuring an onstage discussion with producer Thomas Lennon.

An Inconvenient Truth (2006) - 100 mins.
Al Gore discusses the science behind global warming, how it has affected our environment, the disastrous consequences of inaction, and what individuals can do to help.
Featuring an onstage discussion with director/executive producer Davis Guggenheim.

Monday, April 19

Freeheld (2007) – 40 mins.
Dying of cancer, veteran New Jersey Detective Lieutenant Laurel Hester struggles with local elected officials to transfer her earned pension to her domestic partner, Stacie Andree.
Featuring an onstage discussion with producer Vanessa Roth and director Cynthia Wade.

Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) - 106 mins.
An investigation into the homicide of an innocent taxi driver at the Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan exposes a Bush Administration policy of detention and interrogation that condones torture and the abrogation of human rights.
Featuring an onstage discussion with producer-director Alex Gibney and producer Eva Orner.

Monday, April 26

Smile Pinki (2008) - 39 mins.
A social worker in India travels from village to village gathering patients for a hospital that provides free surgery to thousands each year.
Featuring an onstage discussion with producer-director Megan Mylan.

Man on Wire (2008) - 94 mins.
On August 7, 1974, a 24-year-old French high-wire artist named Philippe Petit performed one of the most astonishing feats of the late 20th century by stringing a thin cable between the two towers of the World Trade Center and walking across it.

Monday, May 3

Music by Prudence (2009) - 35 mins.
A disabled Zimbabwean singer-songwriter offers a message of hope through her music.

The Cove (2009) - 94 mins.
In a cove near the Japanese village of Taiji, a mass dolphin slaughter yields fraudulently labeled meat that finds its way into the lunches of schoolchildren.

The Academy promises that the best prints of each film will be used. Seating is not reserved so come early to Oscar Docs. For more information call (310) 247-3600 or visit www.oscars.org.

NCAA Tournament: Northern Iowa and Ali Farokhmanesh stun Kansas as

This is the upset of the NCAA Tournament: Northern Iowa stuns Kansas. It's something that has to be reviewed again in brief and via video to appreciate what happened in the NCAA Tournament.

The key shot of the game heard round the NCAA Tournament was a cold dagger to the heart of Kansas applied by Northern Iowa's Ali Farokhmanesh. Here's the video:



As Northern Iowa pushed the ball up the court with 42.8 second left, and to Ali Farokhmanesh, what's amazing is that no one on the Kansas team even went toward Farokhmanesh with a hand up. They just left him alone to fire the three pointer and he hit it. What? Did Kansas think he was going to miss?

Then Kansas followed with an offensive charging foul and that made Farokhmanesh's three all the more important. It sealed the game for Northern Iowa.

After the contest, which has to go down as one of the greatest upsets in NCAA March Madness history, Farokhmanesh said Northern Iowa's coach Head Coach Ben Jacobson told them not to place any team so high in their mind that they could not beat them, "No matter who we're playing with," he said, "bring it all out there."



Regardless of what Northern Iowa does from this point on, Ali Farokhmanesh has cemented his place in sports history.  Northern Iowa's in the NCAA Sweet Sixteen.

Stay tuned.

NCAA bracket update 2010: Wake Forest drops to Kentucky; BYU loses to Kansas St.

This NCAA bracket update 2010 does not report the upsets of the last blog post: Wake Forest drops to Kentucky while BYU loses to Kansas St. In Kentucky's case, strong bench play directed their 84 to 72 win.

Wake Forest never challenged and never came too close as wave after wave of KU players flew to score baskets and get rebounds. This blogger actually felt sorry for Wake Forest because they were trying to reach for a competitive gear, but just could have it in its grasp.

Another team that was much better than its opponent was BYU. That game was actually much closer than the Wake Forest v. Kentucky matchup, but again BYU could not put it all together to overtake Kansas St.

No upsets here to beat anyone's NCAA bracket, and after a Saturday where it seemed there would not nothing but underdog victories. Bring on Sunday!

NCAA bracket update 2010: N Iowa, St. Mary's, Washington win, Kansas out

Related searches: ncaa schedule, ncaa basketball results, st. mary s basketball, ncaa basketball results 2010, current ncaa bracket

The 2010 NCAA Tournament is just heating up. Saturday, The 2010 NCAA bracket update has a bunch of upsets. First, congratulations to the Moraga, California St. Mary's Gaels, the underdog 10th seed upset the number 2 seed Villanova Wildcats 75 to 68, and with Cal playing Duke Sunday, gives the San Francisco Bay Area NCAA Tournament bragging rights - for at least a day.

Then two other major upsets. The University of Washington Huskies, who are the co-Pac-10 Champions with the University of California, continue their surprising run, beating the New Mexico Lobos 82 to 64.

But the surprise of the day is the elimination of Kansas. President Obama will have to massively revise his bracket, because Kansas was his favorite to win it all. Kansas shockingly lost to Northern Iowa by two points 69 to 67.

EU bank wind-up good idea for US in modified form

According to the Ethiopian Review The European Union's considering an idea that would have banks pay for a future crisis by paying into an emergency wind-up fund. While the United States has the FDIC, lacking still is a permanent bailout fund for banks. But the rub is the notion that banks would use the fund as an excuse for the same reckless policies that in part created the climate for the bank bailout.

The idea's a good one, but in a modified form. Since one problem tied to bank failure is a reduction in lending, a fund should be created to give money to community banks that would be used for consumer lending.

What's missing in the evaluation of the American banking problem is that disinvestment in the economy due to offshoring of plant and offices caused bank failure; the need is to keep a reserve that assures money will be pumped into the economy even during a crisis.

Another step should be to have some kind of automatic taxpayer assistance program that kicks in whenever unemployment reaches levels over 10 percent. The consideration here is that consumer demand drives jobs growth and so must be maintained.

Arthur Sulzberger Jr. note: Zennie62 gains 300,000 visitors in one day

Over the years, the New York Times' Arthur Sulzberger Jr. has openly complained about Google's influence on media rather than do much to use the Google search system to the New York Times' advantage.

While giving the keynote speech at the 2008 Webby Awards and while talking about the Internet, Sulzberger said "Google has become a vast content distribution system; a massive editorial filter", but did not explain how the NY times was working with Google. And while his view of Google has transformed from competitor, to potential buyer, to partner, only within the last week has Sulzberger said the media must work with Google.

The same isn't true for News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch, who once threatened to pull all of his publications from Google, a move that would have the same impact on Google as a gnat bitting an elephant.

And when they've not complained, they've issued insults at Google employees. Take Robert Thompson saying that Google's Marrisa Mayer "unintentionally encourages promiscuity" at Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco last year (in this video at the 7:20 mark):



Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Rupert Murdoch (as well as Tina Brown and Arianna Huffington, John Battelle of Federated Media, members of AdAge.com, Robert Thomson of The Wall Street Journal, and media companies like Starcom and PR companies like Spark) take note: Zennie62 gained almost 300,000 visitors in one day on SFGate.com on Thursday, March 18th. It happened with just seven blog posts and while this blogger who did it will not go into the specific technics of what is a systems approach to blogging, it did work and it's worked before.

Zennie62 - eh, this blogger - has drawn over 1 million visitors to SFGate.com each month since November of 2009. That's a five month unbroken string, with the best month to date being December, with over 2 million visitors. And the systems approach to blogging was developed and used all during that time.

Many publishers do not have a systems approach to the production of media content. It's more than just a trend page or a traffic report, and its a massive sensitivity to time. But beyond that, what I've learned is the window of life for news, what used to be called the 24-hour cycle, has now shrank to just 20 minutes.

On the average, it takes a hot news item 20 minutes to remain at the top most place on any real time search tracking system before it drops to number two place, or some where below number one. Rare is the story that takes the number one position and sits there. Tiger Woods was the one story that did, The Haiti Earthquake story, and the Sandra Bullock story did for all of one day.

And even when stories take that position, many publishers don't know what to do. They use old media approaches to deal with the top story, get their one article out, and that's it. And many don't know how to blog or understand the difference between blogging and journalism. Sorry to say, but what is learned in journalism school is totally antithetical to the demands of the 21st Century media market. The J-school must be restructured to address the new industry.

To close, Arthur Sulzberger Jr and Rupert Murdock should stop complaining about Google and be smart enough to work within Google. If Google's used correctly, it can be your friend.