CNN Fires Rick Sanchez - What's Your View? A Poll

CNN fired Rick Sanchez Friday after the famous and popular news show host got on Pete Dominick's radio show and said that CNN was "ran by Jews," in addition to saying that The Daily Show Host Jon Stewart was a "bigot." (Oh, and since Jon is also Jewish, do you think, reversely, that Sanchez, was saying CNN's bigoted too?)

Since that action, CNN has removed Rick Sanchez blog page (see) and failed to allow the long time broadcast journalist anything like a graceful exit.   Meanwhile Rick Sanchez stopped tweeting on Twitter and went into hiding.

Reaction To Firing Of Rick Sanchez

As of this writing, "Rick Sanchez" is the 2nd most popular search on Google. People are hungry to read about what happened and why, looking for any clues to his sudden disappearance Friday, and any other news of what behind-the-scenes actions led to his ouster.

This blogger wonders if Rick Sanchez was drunk when he made his semi-Mel Gibson rant. That would explain how stupid he was to get on a radio show and make comments like those he came up with. In listening to him, and watching his show, it seems he became a bit bitter of late. Why, is not known. What is known is that observers and commenters are shocked - some happy and some sad.

At Mediaite the comments largely add up to the idea that Sanchez will land at Fox News.  Others loved that he was fired - in fact, there's not a dry eye around the Internet.  But there are people, including this blogger, that are surprised CNN let him go and want to know what happened.  There are others who use the moment to share their own race hatred, but they're few

Maybe. Unless one goes over to Stormfront.

CNN acted too fast; some words had to have been exchanged.  CNN seems bent on ridding themselves of Rick, even yanking down any online mark of him with them that they have control of.

Something happened internally.  But what would you have done with Rick Sanchez?

create a free poll on pollsb.com

99ers Union Co-Founder Gregg Rosen on Fox News today

99ers Union Co-Founder Gregg Rosen on Fox News today, argued extending unemployment benefits is not a government handout, but an investment in the country. But the ignorant Fox host of the Varney & Company show wouldn't have any of that.
Fox is often referred to erroneously as a news network, when actually they have demonstrated time and again they are simply the air wave cable puppet for Republican talking points.

Gregg told the San Diego Unemployment Examiner, "When it was all said and done, when Mr. Varney asked me the following question, 'You think if we extend unemployment insurance for more than 99 weeks, that will put money into people's pockets, which they will then spend, raising demand?' I felt I could not have said it any better myself. He had just described the U.S. Economic System of Supply and Demand."

At the end of the interview, Varney refers to UI benefits as welfare, and Gregg promptly corrected him.

It is hard for anyone with a real message or someone talking on any subject that is not about improving the bottom line of the richest in America - to get a fair shake on Fox. Mr. Varney knows well the bedrocks of economic principle, yet still chose to abandon what he knows to be true, in favor of keeping his own job and spewing the lame, worn out Republican talking points.

>

99er NOVO member Mignon Veasley-Fields renders Ed Schultz speechless

99er NOVO member Mignon Veasley-Fields rendered Ed Schultz speechless yesterday, blaming both the Democrats as well as the Republicans for the mess the 99ers find themselves in today.

In recent weeks, a group of the longest term unemployed has emerged called the 99er NOVOs, who are so angered by Washington inaction on a Tier 5 that they were refusing to vote at all in the upcoming elections, unless S3706 (The Americans Want to Work Act) was brought to the Senate floor for a vote first.

Mignon Veasley-Fields is a 61-year-old Los Angeles grandmother who has been out of work since June 2008. Her unemployment benefits ran out over three months ago.

On Thursday's "Ed Show," Schultz did his best to get Veasley-Fields to encourage the NOVOs to cast ballots for Democrats in November despite their economic woes. Since the NOVO agreement was to halt their plans not to vote, if the bill was brought to the floor, Mignon assured Ed that the NOVOs would indeed keep their word. Unfortunately, the 99ers are not all on board with this decision.

"Well Ed, yes, we have committed that we are going to encourage our fellow 99ers to vote for either party that their choice. However, 

Ed, yesterday was very disappointing for us. And even though we are trying to tell them to vote, many of them are not going to vote even though the No NOVO says to go ahead and do this. They were disillusioned by what they saw on the Senate floor yesterday. We were grateful for Senator Stabenow for her effort, but we thought it was just sort of put together really quickly like a dog and pony show in order to get us to vote for them. This is a sentiment across this nation." Ms. Fields told Ed.

Schultz countered: "But if the Republicans, but Mignon, if the Republican Senator had not stood up, this would have gone through, and you would have had the votes, and you would have gotten an extension. It's the Republicans. Why take it out on the Democrats, the majority Party that time and time again has been there for the unemployed?"

To which Mignon replied: "Well you know, Ed, we have gone back in the history of the tiers. We as 99ers have tried to figure this out ourselves. What has happened is we can remember the time in which the Republicans said, "Sure, get another tier. Use the stimulus funds. And the Democrats said, 'No, we need to find sourcing for unemployment.' So now we're thinking back on that, and we're realizing it's not the Republicans. It was the Democrats that caused us to be in the situation that we're in. We want the Democrats to come back before this election, and we want them to come back and rectify this, Ed."

Of course, Veasley-Fields was right. The Republicans for over three months have stubbornly insisted that any additional tier be paid for either with stimulus money or some other part of the budget rather than just added to the growing deficit. Even while they demand the extension of the Tax cuts for the very rich, which would not be paid for and would add trillions to the deficit over the next 10 years.

So even as the Democrats are surely the lesser of the two evil choices Americans have this election day, it is very difficult for millions to get excited about voting when going hungry and homeless in droves every day.

Earlier in the video segment below, Ed calls upon President Obama to talk directly to the 99ers, saying: "Mr. President, you've got to speak directly to the unemployed. Directly to the unemployed. The people that don't have a job. the people that don't have benefits. the people that have been shafted by the republicans in recent weeks.” Shultz also pointed out: "I think if the Democrats, the majority party, think that 15 million unemployed voters can't make a difference in November, i think you've got another thing coming."

You can watch the full segment in the video below.

Rahm Emanuel Leaves Obama White House, Replaced By Pete Rouse

President Obama officially announced the worst kept secret in Washington, DC: that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is resigning his post "to explore other opportunities." Namely, to run for Mayor of Chicago, Illinois.

Rahm, or "Rahmmy" as he's called, is an energetic, engaging, and effective public official. He's steered very important legislation to passage, including the historic Health Care Reform Bill.

This blogger personally met Mr. Emanuel during the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. Rahm threw a giant party at Faldo's in downtown Denver that drew 1,000 people. I talked with him then, and then again at Pepsi Center twice. At that time, he was a Congressman; he gave up his position to help President Obama in the White House.

The man who will replace him, Peter Rouse, has the title of "Interim White House Chief Of Staff." Let's see how long that will last. Rouse is well respected and has a different style, shall we say, than Rahm.

I like Rahm and think he will be an outstanding Mayor of Chicago. But he's got to get elected first.

More on this soon.

Rick Sanchez Fired From CNN After Comments About CNN and Jews

Rick Sanchez has been fired from CNN.

Just four minutes after this blogger posted a follow-up entry on Rick's silence on Twitter, a Google Search and dig threw the news area revealed that Rick Sanchez was fired according to The Huffington Post.

CNN issued this short statement.

Rick Sanchez is no longer with the company. We thank Rick for his years of service and we wish him well.

And that ends a long career with CNN and Turner Broadcasting for Rick Sanchez. Rick is on his own "List You Don't Want To Be On."

Frankly, it's sad because Rick didn't have the chance to walk back his statement. Or, something happened where he was asked to do something he didn't want to do.

Maybe it was to apologize.

Frankly, what he did was stupid: getting on a radio to trash his company as being "ran by Jews" which isn't true and moreover, if it was true, so freaking what? It's not a bad thing.

Dumb. Just plain dumb.

It's not over.  Stay tuned.

Rick Sanchez Fired? Not On Show Or Twitter After "Jews" Comments

One sign that CNN's Rick Sanchez is in trouble not so much after his blasts against The Daily Show's Jon Stewart, but after his rant about how he thinks CNN's "ran by Jews," is that Rick's issued one tweet on Twitter on Friday and did not appear on his show, Rick's List.

If Rick Sanchez is fired, CNN's keeping the issue quiet. Emails on this have not been answered as of this writing, and may go unanswered. The kind of attention Rick brought to himself is not one CNN wants its sensitive stable of advertisers to be exposed to.

If you missed what Rick said, here's a YouTube video of his comments on Jon Stewart, who he think is a bigot but it doesn't include the CNN "Jews" rant. The talk is on Pete Dominick's SiriusXM Radio Show that was broadcast out of Atlanta. Here's the Stewart rant:



And while this YouTuber seems to agree with Rick, it's the only available video with the dialog on it.



Rick Sanchez Not On Twitter

Whatever CNN's going to do with Rick, one thing's clear, he's stopped using Twitter, at least for today, Friday. Sanchez issued one tweet 19 hours ago as of this writing. This one:

ricksanchezcnn Rick Sanchez
great shows today, last night on air... great numbers... yeah

And given its time, that must have been in the wee hours of the morning.

That output is odd for a person who tweets as much as 20 times or more per day. Rick Sanchez has went silent today. The question is, was he fired, told to go under ground, or just taking a sunny Georgia day off.

Stay tuned.

CNN's Rick Sanchez Says John Stewart Bigot, CNN Ran By Jews?

CNN's Rick Sanchez got on the radio show called Stand-Up With Pete Dominick (Dominick is a stand-up comic) and in a long conversation with the host, called Jon Stewart of The Daily Show a bigot, and said that CNN is "ran by Jews."  But in all of the controversy over what Rick Sanchez said, the host of Rick's List is telling some truths.

Two of the truth's he's telling is that Jon Stewart does have a staff that's not diverse, and thus does leave himself open to being called a "bigot." The other is that Jews, while the victims of heavy Worldwide discrimination, are not powerless.

As a former member of the local Hillel chapter and because of my last name (Abraham and a long story), the wonderful aspect of Jewish Culture is the practice of helping each other and society. That leads to the power of a social network that leads to being able to make sure friends get employed, even if they're not Jewish.

All of that was lost in the presentation of Rick's clumsy talk, which reflected more of a hateful bias than a loving one.

Pete went to Atlanta to do his SiriusXM Radio Show, which is where the interview took place. According to Pete Dominick's own site, Sanchez "railed" against Fox News and MSNBC, the two competing cable news networks, for their right and left news bias.

Then Rick turned his lather toward Jon Stewart: I think to some extent Jon Stewart and [Stephen] Colbert are the same way. I think Jon Stewart’s a bigot." And from that point, Rick and Pete got into a discussion of what Rick meant by that.

But the question is, is Rick correct? Well, yes and no.


The Daily Show's Problem

Yes, because while The Daily Show has women writers, its reported that the men hold the best jobs and they're white. What Rick was saying is that Jon has a bias in that he has people who tend to have his skin color around him. That can't be said, for example, for Jimmy Fallon of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, who's white, but has two African American male writers, Bashir Salahuddin and Diallo Riddle (in the front row in the photo at left).

The photo here, from a meetup panel discussion on late-night comedy writers, is a good illustration. In the front row, Salahuddin and Riddle are sitting next to Jason Ross and J.R. Havlan, both of The Daily Show, and both part of a stable of white male writers. A group that drew major criticism in the wake of the David Letterman Sex Scandal, where David admitted to sleeping with his assistant Stephanie Burkitt.

All of this doens't mean Jon Stewart is a bigot.  Trying to find people who are good and of color is a task worth taking - Jimmy Fallon has done it.  But it means that Jon may have an old man's view of American Culture that causes him to turn a blind eye toward black-influenced American Culture.  That means his blinders can be removed; not so for a bigot.


CNN Ran By A Mix Of People

From the perspective of a person - this blogger - who's had a lot of experience with CNN and Turner Broadcasting, it's safe to say it's not "ran by Jews."  Even with its unfortunate focus on the Tea Party Movement, CNN's staff has a healthy mix of talented women and men of all colors.  CNN, for me, has been a positive experience and a wonderful organization.  

More on this later.

Blake Lively owns 'The Town' By Nikky Raney

Blake Lively is known for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Gossip Girl - although Serena of Gossip Girl may get herself into some situations both roles are squeaky clean compared to the role Lively plays in The Town.

Photo Courtesy of Fanpop.com

When Lively first appears on the screen it looks as though she has been replaced with some evil twin - the total opposite of what fans are used to. The girl with the perfect make-up, sweet voice and stylish wardrobe has now transformed into a young woman with the messiest face, strong Massachusetts accent, skimpy clothing. She guzzles a beer and at that moment it is clear that Blake Lively will not be type-casted as the sweet girl - she is a versatile actress who shows that she can play different roles and succeed.

At first it is strange seeing the different side, but it is believable. Lively does an amazing job portraying Krista Coughlin - who goes from having a drunken sex scene with Ben Affleck's character Doug MacRay to taking care of her daughter.

The movie is about Doug and his three friends who rob banks together and get themselves into situations which lead to dramatic irony. The audience is on the edge of their seats waiting for the characters to find out the twists and turns.

Although Lively is not the main character this movie is a big step in her career. Everyone knows Ben Affleck can act - it was undeniable that he would do a great job, but having Lively break away from the stereotypical roles she plays and go in a completely opposite direction is worth focusing on.

Lively will be given many more opportunities for diverse roles due to how well she played her role as Krista. Had Lively bombed the role she probably would not be given a second chance to break out from her tame roles.

The things that Serena goes through on Gossip Girl is nothing compared to what Krista has to go through in The Town. The movie as a whole is brilliant and the plot will really grab the attention of the audience - it is unpredictable and suspenseful. Four and a half stars out of five, only because the ending could have been done better.

By Nikky Raney
Journalist & Blogger

Breast Cancer Awareness Month - October

Suburban Atlanta, GA - Today, October 1st, is the start of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Today is also my Mom's 76th birthday and she looks every bit of 56 years old. This blogger is fortunate to have her here in my life.

On January 14th, 2005, she called me to say that she had Breast Cancer. That was a total shock. It was also the beginning of the worst and definitely the weirdest year of my life.

 Both my father and my stepfather died of another killer, Prostate Cancer, and both in March and in October of 2005.

Fortunately, Mom survived and after being given an effective drug called Femara. It's an early-stage drug that really works.

Medications aside, I'm glad she's here, even with all the arguments we have.

Easy A is more than a teen comedy By Nikky Raney

Courtesy of USA Today

Although sarcastic and completely unrealistic, Easy A is a hilarious movie that can be enjoyed teens and adults alike. The outrageous scenario of Olive, Emma Stone, giving herself the reputation of a “slut” in order to get noticed at high school and accepting money from boys so that they could lie and say that they “got physical” with her is entertaining as long as the audience can accept that the scenario could never happen at an actual high school in the United States.

Easy A can be compared to a present day John Hughes film, with Olive resembling a Molly Ringwald character. The tone of the film is complete sarcasm; the majority of the dialog is all sarcasm based featuring witty one-liners. The movie keeps the audience engaged and laughing throughout its entirety.

In Olive’s English class the book The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is analyzed, and Olive gets very involved with the story line. After the extremely religious Marianne, Amanda Bynes, hears Olivia make up a story to her best friend Rhiannon, Aly Michalka, about losing her virginity Marianne suggests that Olivia embroider an “A” onto her wardrobe (like Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter). The movie pokes fun at Christianity and could possibly be offensive to Christian viewers (but then again the entire movie is based around a girl lying about sleeping around).

The relationship between Olive and her parents is one that most teenagers would love – the sarcasm and witty punch lines are never ending when it comes to Olive, her parents and her adopted brother. At one point her brother, who is black, says that he will not have to worry about the genetics being passed down since he was adopted. The response from the father is, “How did you find out you were adopted?”

Without giving away too much Olive’s reputation grew once she went to a party and pretended to have sex with her friend Brandon, Dan Byrd, who is gay so that the other students would no longer pick on him for his sexual orientation. The two lock themselves in a bedroom and jump on the bed making noises so that the act is believable.

After this more and more boys find out that Olive is letting boys lie about doing things with her and Olive is offered gifts and money. Olive’s reputation gets so out of hand that she buys lots of sexy lingerie and embroiders an “A” onto every piece.

Penn Badgely plays the role of "Woodchuck Todd," Olive's long time crush, and he was Olive's first lie; when they were in eighth grade during a party the two were locked in a bedroom and expected to kiss, but Todd was not ready. Olive agreed to tell the rest of the party that the two had kissed when in fact they had not.

There is much more to this movie than what has been touched upon. Out of five stars this movie is about a four - the comedy is entertaining and is able to poignantly capture the feelings that teenagers feel in high school, but it is easy to get annoyed with how overly quirky and cartoony the characters are.

By Nikky Raney
Journalist & Blogger

Also posted on The Future of Journalism

Cal Fires Jack Clark, Nukes Rugby And Cal Athletics

Jack Clark of Cal Rugby

On Tuesday, as this blogger was traveling away from the San Francisco Bay Area and Cal Berkeley, UC Berkeley was in the process of nuking it's prized Rugby Program, and destroying Cal Athletics as we know it.

Rugby Coach Jack Clark was fired - his position ends June 2011 -  and the program dumped to varsity sports status.

The reason given was Title IX requirements to financially equalize male and female sports, but given that Coach Clark had a plan to fund and to elevate Women's Rugby to intercollegiate status that was jettisoned by the Cal Administration, using Title IX as an excuse is pure horseshit.

The overall issue has been Cal's need to cut the overall budget of the athletic department, but the one revenue-generating program, Men's Rugby, and its coach who has a plan to elevated women's rugby, was a major target.

For someone not familiar with this issue at all, Cal Men's Rugby has achieved legendary status in the sports World. The Cal Bears are the 2010 National Champions and have won 25 National Championships and nine since 2000 - and it's 2010 as of this writing.   But because of political infighting, the one money-making program in all of Cal Athletics is being reduced to a mere shadow of itself.

As is common with Cal, the way this came about is always the stuff of harsh political infighting. From experience on the Cal Alumni Board and viewing Cal's Administration up close during the Long Range Planning Meetings , this blogger can say turf battles are a contact sport at Cal.

 For internal reasons not yet entirely known, Jack Clark, who's used to winning, lost a battle.   But in the end, Berkeley lost the one person synonymous with sports success at Berkeley: Jack Clark.

As KalosTV says on YouTube, it's time to celebrate Cal Rugby:



Did Cal Back Sandy Barbour Into A Corner?

The gut level feeling is Cal Athletic Director Sandy Barbour was backed into a corner by the overall Cal Administration. It feels like Sandy was forced to make a choice between her position or that of Jack's and the Cal Bears Rugby team.

Knowing Cal as I do, that gut level feeling that Sandy was placed between a political rock and a hardplace is powerful.

Stay tuned.

John Boehner And Lisbeth Lyons : Is Girlfriend Issue McCain 2008 2.0?

UPDATE: Media now silent on John Boehner mistress issue, and with 11 days before the 2010 Midterm Elections.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R - Ohio) is accused of having, or had, an affair with Lisbeth Lyons (photo at left), Vice President of Government Affairs for The Printing Industries of America, a GOP-oriented lobbyist.

And a person who's evidently feeling the heat, because Lyons took down her Linkedin page, only to have done an incomplete job of that. Read on.

What follows is not any more information that points to an affair, but the foundation of a well-connected player in Lyons that, if the breaker of this story is correct with his details to come, may result in an at least an ethics problem for John Boehner.

The news of this alleged relationship was broken by Blogger Mike Stark of The Stark Reports, part of the Banter Media Group. Stark's allegation goes like this:

...While everyone knows that John Boehner enjoys the good life of luxury travel and golf junkets, many are convinced that enjoys a mistress, too.

I began hearing this from several sources last month with increasing amounts of detail, including the name of the lobbyists Boehner is supposedly having a relationship with – Lisbeth Lyons, Vice President for Government Affairs for the American Printers Association.

I decided I’d look into the story, but I hadn’t decided how to pose the question directly to Boehner. Last night, I learned the location of the House Republican Leadership’s "Pledge to America," event.

Stark then goes to the "Pledge to America" event and gets close enough to not only make this video below, but toward the end of it, ask Boehner point-blank if he was sleeping with Lisbeth Lyons. Here's the video:



If you look at how close he got, Rep. Boehner didn't have a chance; he had to do something. The something he elected to do was to keep walking. Rep. Boehner could have said no, or "no way dude," but he kept walking by as Stark fired off his question, more than once. Indeed, Stark was close enough for Boehner to deck him, thought it's not clear what good that would have done for the man with the tan.

Lisbeth Lyons Doesn't Say No, Exactly

Not done, Stark then turned to a phone call to Lisbeth Lyons herself. In the next video, Stark asks essentially the flip side of the same question. But instead of saying "no," Lyons says "no comment" which keeps the fires of curiosity burning. Here's that video:



And they're burning hot.

What makes it harder for Boehner is all of this comes as he's trying to present the "Republican Pledge To America." And because he's drawing attention to himself, it helps fuel the story. Moreover, the New York Times and The New York Post are reportedly working on their own expose's of the alleged affair.

Who's Lisbeth Lyons?

Lisbeth Lyons, as mentioned, has been a lobbyist for the The Printing Industries of America. Her profile on the company's website reads:

Lisbeth Lyons is the Vice President, Government Affairs for the Printing Industries of America, having joined PIA/GATF in March 2005 as Director of Legislative Affairs. In this position, she is responsible for providing direct advocacy before Congress and the Administration on key industry legislative initiatives, as well as for the strategic direction of the organization’s grassroots and external outreach activities.
Previously, Lisbeth was Director, Government Affairs at the United States Telecom Association (USTA), representing telecommunications companies ranging from the nation’s largest Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) to small, rural telephone companies. Lisbeth also served as Director of Grassroots & Legislative Services at the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nation’s largest small business advocacy organization.
Lisbeth is a candidate for an M.A. in Political Management at The George Washington University and holds a B.A. from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. Prior to working in Washington, D.C., Lisbeth was a teacher with Chicago Public Schools.

All Republican Lisbeth


Lisbeth's Internet trail is almost all Republican.  Aside from the alleged relationship with the Republican House Leader, Lyons has attended GOP lobbying functions like one sponsored by the Sunlight Foundation, and gave $2,300 to the campaign of Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss.   And there's more.

While she took down her Linkedin page, Ms. Lyons forgot the cached version.  The cached Lisbeth Lyons Linkedin page shows she has just 22 connections, and the same education information as on the corporate page. If that's the case, why take it down?

The connections. She doesn't want anyone to see who she's related to, or to establish a trail. If she were really concerned about just taking down websites with information about her, Lyons would have started with her corporate profile page.

That's what the lobbyist Vicki Iseman did. Vicki was linked to Senator John McCain (R - Arizona) at the time of that story in 2008. Accused of an affair, Iseman threatened to sue The New York Times for $27 million, only to drop the lawsuit after the Times ran what turned out to be an ethics story. But the point is, she filed a lawsuit; Lyons has made no such threat as of this writing.

Other Findings On Lyons

Aside from the political cyber stuff, Lyons is also a speaker at conferences as part of her job. For example, as of this writing, Lisbeth's scheduled to speak at the Vision 3 Summit, March 13-16th 2011 in the Palm Dessert of California. Vision 3 is a conference "for the graphic communications industry."  She's also the Vice President of Government Affairs for PrintPac, the political action committee from Printing Industries Of America.

Overall, Lisbeth is a well-respected player in her profession.  Much as Vicki Iseman was.  This has all of the mark of, if not an affair, a possible climate of conflict of interest for Rep. John Boehner, and much like Senator McCain was accused of in 2008 with his friendship with Iseman.

Stay tuned.  (tips? email mailto:zennie@zennie62.com )