Don Imus on The Huffington Post

Lou Dobbs: I Never Talked To CNBC, I'd Consider Working At Fox (VIDEO)

2009-12-02T11:40:22Z

The morning after CNBC said they would not hire Lou Dobbs, Dobbs phoned in to Fox Business' "Imus in the Morning" and denied reports that he ever had conversations with the network.

Dobbs said "absolutely not" when asked if he had talks with CNBC.

"I have no idea where they even got that," Dobbs said when Imus asked if he was going to CNBC. "I'm sitting here in Florida in our vacation home thinking about what I am going to be doing."

Dobbs did admit that he has talked to Fox News chief Roger Ailes, but said it was a friendly conversation and not about a potential job with Fox.

"You know, [Ailes is] an old friend," Dobbs said. "I've talked to him. Certainly."

Dobbs again said "absolutely not" when asked if he was offered a job at Fox, but said he would "certainly" consider it if offered one.

"Of course you'd consider working at Fox," Imus said. "What have you lost your mind? I mean you go from at a place like CNN which is the most dreadful network on the planet, we have a couple of friends there, as a matter of fact I saw two of them last night--I thought I'd switch over for just a second...I said I can't watch this! But you go from a network where they can't suck enough to a network where nobody sucks."

Watch:

An FBN spokesperson tells Huffington Post that Roger and Dobbs are friends but have not had any discussions about him working at FBN or FNC.

Chris Christie: "I'm Pretty Fat"

2009-10-29T19:05:10Z

TRENTON, N.J. — The Republican in New Jersey's race for governor wants the incumbent to weigh in more candidly about the challenger's heft.

Chris Christie says Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine should quit hinting at his weight with unflattering ads and "Man up and say I'm fat."

Karl Frisch: Is Dr. Fox-enstein - Roger Ailes - Building Another Monster?

2009-10-14T08:29:16Z

In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, her classic work from 1818, Dr.
Victor Frankenstein brings life to the lifeless. Larger and more powerful than
an average man, Dr. Frankenstein's creation strikes fear in the hearts of those
it encounters. Remember, this monster was only man-like -- a far cry from the real
thing.

With Halloween just around the
corner, Fox News president Roger Ailes -- a former Republican communications guru
-- is looking more and
more like the news industry's Dr. Frankenstein. For months now, he has been
putting the finishing touches on his first monster, Fox News Channel, just as
its bride, Fox Business Network, is showing signs of life.

His main tactic has been all too apparent: steal conservative media
figures from real news networks like CNN, MSNBC, and ABC in order to build
something new from the pieces -- something that only superficially resembles
a legitimate news outlet.

Last spring, conspiracy-loving crybaby Glenn
Beck claimed that Ailes wooed him over to Fox News from CNN Headline News by
stressing the conservative network's opposition to the president. Beck even told one newspaper that Ailes had likened Fox News' battle
against Obama to the Alamo.

Then there was Tucker Carlson in May. Fresh off yet another canceled show -- first with CNN and then with MSNBC -- and a brief stint on
ABC's Dancing With The Stars, the
conservative man-boy cable host known for his bow-tie fetish landed with a bang
at Fox News, declaring,
"I've waited a long time to get here."

Luring two big right-wing names to
Fox News Channel's roster allowed Ailes to focus on Fox Business Network, his answer
to NBC Universal's successful business news outlet,
CNBC.

Since its launch in late 2007, Fox
Business has been plagued with horrible ratings.
In fact, CNBC sometimes outperformed the new conservative business
outlet by a margin of 10-to-1. It's hardly surprising, then, that Ailes
has turned his focus to the struggling network.

Just last month, Fox Business announced
that it would begin carrying a weekday simulcast of Don Imus' radio program.
Imus is, of course, far better known for his long
history of outrageous and at times racist and sexist comments than for his
business-reporting
chops. In fact, he'll likely represent the word "business" in his new employer's
name about as well as his new colleagues represent the word "news" in Fox News
Channel.

Imus comes to Fox Business from the little-known and little-watched RFD-TV, his television home
following his high-profile firing from MSNBC and CBS radio in 2007 for referring
to the Rutgers
University women's
basketball team as "nappy-headed hos."

September would prove to be a barn
burner of a month for Ailes. In addition to Imus, John Stossel, a correspondent for the ABC newsmagazine
20/20, also announced his
intention to join Fox Business. Stossel will no doubt feel right at home -- he has a long history of
denying the scientific reality of global climate
change
and promoting a cornucopia of right-wing myths and distortions. So
much so that Fox's Chris Wallace described
Stossel as a "very natural fit at Fox because he is a contrarian, and he's a
conservative."

So what's next for Fox Business?
Well, according to recent reports, CNN's immigrant-bashing conspiracy theorist Lou Dobbs met with Ailes over dinner last month. Could Dobbs be taking
his loony
quest for President Obama's already-available birth certificate to Fox Business?
It seems plausible.
Years before CNN turned over its airwaves to Dobbs for his nightly
broadcasts of immigrant-smearing hysteria and right-wing fringe
causes of the day, Dobbs was something of a respected financial news anchor.

Surely, Imus, Stossel, and Dobbs won't be enough to breathe new
life into Ailes' monster bride of a network. He's going to need a few more
high-profile names before he's able to shout "It's alive!" from the rooftops. But
who?

Perhaps Ailes could sign Michael
Savage, the third-highest-rated radio host in America, who was fired by MSNBC in 2003 for describing a caller as "a sodomite" and telling him to "get
AIDS and die." While he's at it, he could also snatch up Pat Buchanan, the former CNN and MSNBC
host who currently serves as resident cranky uncle and political commentator for
the latter. Surely, they could use someone with
his decades-long
history of racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, defending of
Hitler, and whitewashing of
the Holocaust.

We might as well refer to Ailes as
Dr. Fox-enstein at this point. After all, his relentless abuse of the
journalistic form is just as frightening as Shelley's chilling fictional tale of
scientific experimentation run amok
-- perhaps more so.

Karl Frisch is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Frisch also contributes to County Fair,
a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around
the Web as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, or sign up to receive his columns by email.

Don Imus' Fox Business Deal Worth Around $3 Million

2009-10-09T12:47:37Z

The Daily Beast's Lloyd Grove raised some eyebrows earlier this week when he speculated that Don Imus' contract with Fox Business Network was worth more than $25 million:

Fox News czar Roger Ailes has been wooing the radio jock for the past two years, and finally pried him loose from a reported $25 million contract with the rural-oriented RFD-TV network, flashing presumably bigger bucks to simulcast Imus' Citadel-produced radio show and lift Fox Business Network out of the ratings basement

The contract is actually valued at around $3 million, according to insiders with knowledge of the deal.

The arrival of a big-name star like Imus is expected to boost the fledgling network's visibility and ratings — already, his debut was one of the most-watched programs in Fox Business history and beat the timeslot's average by 1500 percent. But insiders also say that there wasn't much wooing going on, as Imus, too, gets more than just $3 million out of the deal: the chance to be seen by hundreds of thousands of viewers on a national TV network for the first time since his controversial 2007 remarks got him removed from MSNBC.

Glynnis MacNicol: I'm Sorry, So Sorry: Top Ten On-Air Apologies

2009-10-07T11:14:03Z

David Letterman's public apology Monday night for bad behavior is merely the latest in a long list of famous public apologies. Mostly these are for similarly bad behavior (Letterman has the rare privilege of adding extortion victim to the list), though a couple of times it's been the result of someone shooting their mouth off. Letterman joins a list that includes a whole lot of politicians -- Bill Clinton, Jim McGreevey, Mark Sanford, Eliot Spitzer -- and one or two jackass entertainers.

Strangely, it was hard to come up with women for this list! Paris Hilton was a last-minute addition, but if you can think of any let us know and we will happily add: women screw up too. Also interesting to note is how many of these apologies occur on late night television; Letterman also joins an esteemed list there, too, though up until last night he was on the other side of the couch. With that in mind, we bring you our Top Ten Public Apologies , from nappy-headed hos to "I did not have sexual relations with that woman!" to Hugh Grant, the standard bearer of late night apologies, relive all your famous oh-no-they-didn't breaking news moments. No doubt there will be more.

President Bill Clinton...Really Should Have Told Everyone To Mind Their Own Business

Eliot Spitzer Admits That He Actually Did Spitz-Her

NEXT: Men Behaving Badly, Hugh Grant Sets the Gold Standard For Late Night Couch Mea Culpas

Diane Tucker: Who Duped Rolling Stone Gonzo Reporter Matt Taibbi?

2009-10-06T12:35:37Z

It's starting to look like basketball-player-turned-political-reporter-turned-overnight-authority-on-Wall-Street Matt Taibbi may have fallen for a stock-trading ruse. Heaven knows he's an easy mark. "I can't even balance my checkbook," he told radio talk show host Don Imus.

Taibbi, Rolling Stone magazine's teen heartthrob, became a sensation last month after calling Goldman Sachs "a giant vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity." His piece contained as many errors as facts, but few of us minded because the imaginative writer memorably captured the national zeitgeist.

Taibbi knows you're only as popular as your latest record, so in this month's issue of Rolling Stone he takes on short selling, a controversial Wall Street stock trading practice. His report offers the usual cocktail of half-truths, which you can read about at Business Insider, Economic Policy Journal, Fraud Files Blog, The Atlantic, New York Times DealBook, and Investment News.

To tell you the truth, I haven't lost any sleep worrying about Taibbi's sloppy reporting or his obscene language. He's colorful, he's cute, he admits he'd rather be writing fiction ... oh, fiddle dee dee.

But I am intrigued by the video Taibbi posted on YouTube to make his point about short selling. People who know about these things say the video is a fake ... a hoax. Taibbi claimed the video showed a Penson Financial Services trading platform transaction, but today Penson dashed off a fast letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, alerting them that the trading platform identified in each of Taibbi's posts is not Penson's. "While we are uncertain whether Taibbi's article is the result of a hoax or something more deliberate, we are contemplating sharing our concerns with YouTube and the blogger directly," wrote Penson's associate general counsel, in a two-page letter to the SEC that was made available to the Huffington Post.

If all these folks are right, it begs a few questions:

-- How did "short selling" happen to catch Taibbi's attention?
-- Who slipped Taibbi the fake video?
-- For what purpose?

Well, Matt? Who's screwin' with ya? We're waiting ...

* * *

For more details on this story I recommend business writers John Carney, Dan Jamieson, Megan McArdle, Gary Weiss, and Robert Wenzel. You can also read fraud examiner Tracy Coenen. If you think this is all a bunch of silly nonsense, you might enjoy satirist William K. Wolfrum's hilarious Taibbi video.

Don Imus Back On TV, Defends New Fox Family

2009-10-05T09:31:15Z

Don Imus returned to major television Monday morning, bringing his "Imus in the Morning" to Fox Business Network.

Imus spoke to the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz before the launch, and many of his comments indicate he's already feeling at home in the Fox Family:

"The perception is that even their news is skewed toward opinion -- not when I watch it. It's a fair news organization. It's not my job to defend them. But I'm more likely to believe Shep Smith than Katie Couric or Brian Williams. Their news is advertiser-driven."

And Fox's isn't? "We're better people and have a much closer relationship with our Lord," Imus deadpans.

Regarding the difference between Fox Business Network and RFD-TV, which previously simulcast his show, Imus told Kurtz, "It's the difference between being on television and being on an Etch A Sketch."

Read Kurtz's full article here.

Imus Posing Biggest Threat To "Morning Joe"

2009-09-30T09:18:21Z

But, at least in the short term, the arrival of Don Imus on FBN is less likely to impact CNBC than it is another NBC franchise--namely, MSNBC's Morning Joe.

"They are going to take a serious run at MSNBC," said William O'Shaughnessy, the author and longtime radio executive. "Imus' show will pose problems for them. I think it's going to give [FBN] a hell of a boost. And I think they'll take most of it out of the hide of Morning Joe. I don't know who else they would hurt in the morning."

Imus Moves In At Fox Business

2009-09-28T15:39:43Z

WABC (770 AM) morning host Imus saddles up and rides to another new corral this morning. He and his team are moving to the Fox studios where, starting next Monday, his show will be simulcast on Fox Business TV.

Mike Hegedus: FBN Throws in Towel, Hires Imus. This is Genius?

2009-09-04T19:15:14Z

Genius is a funny word. It has been attached to a variety of people over the years, some deserving, most not. It's a lot like 'superstar' or 'legend' or any of a number of other superlatives that when thrown around willy nilly lose their impact. So it is with 'genius.' The latest 'willy' is Don Imus, the 'nilly' is Roger Ailes.

Imus has been hired by Fox and will have his radio show simulcast on Fox Business News starting in October. Imus you may have heard of since he was fired by CBS and MSNBC two years ago in an ugly incident involving the women's basketball team at Rutgers. It made the news.

Suffice to say that in many people's opinion, Imus should never have been allowed to broadcast on the public airways again, that's just how ugly it was. But, that's moot. He was allowed back 'in,' albeit by the Citadel radio company and simulcast on RFD-TV.

That's okay, no one else has heard of it either. Although, it did, I always thought, perfectly fit Imus, what with his trumped up 'cowboy' persona and all.

So what has that got to do with genius? Well, Imus in his press release announcing his 'come back' is quoted as saying that he loves Fox, and that Roger Ailes, the guy in charge of all of Fox News, is the "pre-eminent genius of American Broadcasting."

Gee, is that like being the tallest guy in the short man's club?

It's less a sign of genius to hire Imus than it is a sign that the towel has been thrown in on the Fox Business News channel. For whichever of a number of reasons you can choose: lack of distribution, changing economics, size of the market, lack of first mover advantage -- whatever -- starting the darn thing to begin with was no 'genius' move.

There has always been speculation that the only reason it was conceived and executed in the first place was that Ailes had a burr under his saddle for CNBC.

It's his claim that he started it, CNBC, and that it wouldn't be where it is today without him. In other words, he was the 'genius' behind it. The truth of the matter of course is that even if he deserves credit for starting it, he wasn't around to push it to the successful heights (for cable) that is has reached.

No matter, he was going to show them, gosh darn it!

And FBN is what we got. It will not be surprising to see it eventually disappear and give way to some mutation -- a little Imus, a little business, a little politics, a little news. It won't be the first time Ailes' boss Rupert Murdoch throws in the towel either -- just how many news magazine shows did he try and start?

The one thing you can't take way from Ailes, of course, is Fox News. You want to call the creation of Fox News genius? Go ahead. In an industry where ABC claims that it will, "...change the face of morning news..." now that Diane Sawyer is moving to the evening shift, and then rolls out the same tired list of potential replacements (Alexis Glick?, Ashleigh Banfield?), the development of Fox News into a cable juggernaut is indeed something to behold.

I suppose then you have to ask what kind of 'genius' invents something like that? An entity that revels in discord, that counts among its broadcasters the McCarthy-esqe Bill O'Reilly and the Roy Cohn-like Glenn Beck. A place where civility often gives way to the angry talking heads of the day. A place that panders to the fear in many of it's listeners and pretends to "let them decide."

What kind of a 'genius' is that exactly? I know, let's ask Don Imus, or better yet, the Rutgers women's basketball team of a couple of years ago.

Don Imus Joining Fox Business In October

2009-09-03T11:28:37Z

Don Imus will be simulcasting his radio program from 6-9AM on Fox Business Network starting October 5, the network announced Thursday.

The move had been expected, as reports that Imus was in talks with Fox Business circulated in August, and he left his current TV partner, RFD-TV, last week. The New York Times speculated last month that Imus' simulcast could be a turning point for the fledgling network.

"I love FOX," Imus said in the announcement. "Roger Ailes is the preeminent genius of American Broadcasting. Who wouldn't want to do this?"

"We're excited to welcome a renowned broadcaster like Don Imus to the FOX Business team," Executive Vice President Kevin Magee said. "His 40 years of on-air experience combined with his superb interviewing skills and capitalist sensibilities will be a great addition to our lineup."

"Money for Breakfast," which is hosted by Alexis Glick and currently airs from 6-9AM on Fox Business Network, will air its last show on October 2. Glick will remain as the host of "Opening Bell" at 9AM and as Vice President for Business News at the network.

Don Imus Leaving RFD-TV

2009-08-26T12:15:31Z

Clearing the way for the Fox Business Network to simulcast his radio show, Don Imus said Wednesday that he was leaving RFD-TV, the rural television network that has shown "Imus in the Morning" for almost two years.

Jim Lichtman: Hate Speech

2009-08-18T23:03:47Z

"The summer of 2009 has not been our finest hour."

So wrote Newsweek editor Jon Meacham (Aug. 24) in response to those individuals who have brought Hitler and Nazism into the debate on health care.

There's political commentary and there's hate speech, and I'm sick and tired of hate speech passing for commentary.

Earlier this month, conservative radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh told listeners nationwide, "Adolph Hitler, like Barack Obama, ruled by dictate"; followed by, "[the] Obama health care logo is damn close to the Nazi swastika logo."

On July 28, Fox News conservative commentator Glenn Beck told a nationwide television audience, "This president is a guy who has exposed himself over and over again who has deep-seated hatred for white people.... This guy is, I believe, a racist."

If I were the head of Fox, I would have immediately suspended Beck from the airwaves, allowing him to come back only if he made a sincere public apology to President Obama and TV viewers and gave assurances that he would not engage in such talk in the future. Sadly, that was not the response from Fox. Instead, they released a statement saying that Mr. Beck "expressed a personal opinion, which represented his own views, not those of the Fox News Channel."

Apparently, executives at Fox do not know the difference between opinion and hate speech.

Does anyone at Fox remember the racist and sexist remarks made by Don Imus toward the Rutgers women's basketball team in 2007? Imus was suspended. He later apologized to the team in person.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for an apology from either Limbaugh or Beck. Why? No one seems willing to hold them accountable.

However, according to the New York Times (Aug. 14), "About a dozen companies have withdrawn their commercials from 'Glenn Beck,'" among them ConAgra, Geico, Procter & Gamble, and the insurance company Progressive. Pharmaceutical companies Roche and Sanofi-Aventis, and electronics retailer Radio Shack have pledged to remove ads from Glenn Beck.

ConAgra issued a statement saying that, "We are firmly committed to diversity, and we would like to prevent the potential perception that advertising during this program was an endorsement of the viewpoints shared."

"We have TV today that's very polarizing and controversial," said Donny Deutsch, a former advertising executive and frequent contributor to both CNBC and MSNBC. In an interview, Deutsch told viewers that any individual offended by Mr. Beck's remarks should write the CEOs of the companies that advertise. Deutsch considers this the "ultimate check and balance."

Good start, but not enough.

Anyone who participates in hate speech should be fined and banned from all public airwaves -- period.

This is not about free speech. It's about responsibility and how a responsible citizen should behave. And any citizen or media company granted an opportunity and license to speak over radio and television has an even greater responsibility for what they say and do.

Don't like the policies of the Obama administration? Great, offer your rebuttal from the mountaintop in all its detailed glory. But to compare the President of the United States to Adolph Hitler; to call him a racist without a shred of evidence to back it up is bigotry that should be condemned as reckless and wrong.

This is not about politics. This is about intolerance, and the signs don't get any clearer than those demonstrated by Beck and Limbaugh.

And the choice we have is just as clear: speak up and denounce it or stay silent and allow it to grow.

Jim Lichtman has been writing and speaking on ethics since 1995. His commentaries on ethics can be found at www.ethicsStupid.com

Don Imus, Fox Business' Turning Point? Host Could Lift Network's Visibility, Ratings

2009-08-17T09:55:45Z

Television analysts and some competitors said Mr. Imus, who reportedly reaches millions of radio listeners, would act as a one-man sampling strategy for Fox Business, motivating new viewers to turn on the sometimes hard-to-find network for the first time. In an interview last week about ratings, the executive vice president for the network, Kevin Magee, suggested that was exactly what it needed.

Don Imus, Fox Business In Talks About Simulcasting Radio Show

2009-08-10T12:02:56Z

Don-imus Fox Business is in talks with shock jock Don Imus about simulcasting his radio show, more than two years after derogatory comments he made about a group of African American female basketball players got him kicked off MSNBC and CBS Radio.

Don Imus Tells Chris Wallace: Lou Dobbs Acting Like "Grassy Knoll Nut" (VIDEO)

2009-07-30T10:01:16Z

Lou Dobbs, whose flaxen locks change color and hue depending on how terrified he is that day of the coming Mexican reconquista, is all about the birthers now. And everyone is yelling at him, save his boss, Jon Klein, who's busy pretending that Dobbs is covering the controversy instead of fanning it. Who's yelling at him today? Chris Wallace and Don Imus, for starters!

[LISTEN]

WALLACE: You know, I guess what surprises me is that one of our competitors, I'm not going to say their name, but their initials are CNN, they're saying, well, we really can't decide for the public what a legitimate news story is, so we'll cover it; what if a bunch of people decided the earth is flat, we're now going to report that story and let people vent on that? That's what news organizations are about, is debunking and editing and deciding what's relevant and what's worth talking about, and what isn't, and clearly the birth certificate story isn't worth talking about because it isn't true. And I think to everybody's satisfaction it's been demonstrated it's not true. I'm a little surprised -- you know, I'm not surprised that people will do things, because some people will do something for ratings every time.

IMUS: Like, uh, I guess leading the charge is my friend, by the way, Lou Dobbs, who appears on this program on a regular basis, and I like -- love Lou, known him for years, but it makes him look like a grassy knoll nut.

WALLACE: Well, exactly, exactly. But either grassy knoll nut or just so calculating in his sense, well, there's some audience out there and I'll chase it.

IMUS: I can't believe Lou Dobbs would do that, do you?

WALLACE: Oh no, no --

IMUS: Or you either.

I know. You're going to want to take a minute to wash that thick film of irony off of your hands and face. Go ahead. I'll give you a minute.

Also yelling at Lou Dobbs? Time Magazine's Mark Halperin, for Pete's sake! You know you've messed up when Halperin's walking around with the upper hand on you.

[LISTEN]

Mark Halperin reserves the right to revisit the issue if at some point in the future he can construct a list of nine random factoids about it.

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Yvonne R. Davis: Ladies, If Sarah Palin Ever Makes Sense Again on Issues Impacting Women, We Must Move More Quickly to Support Her

2009-06-18T11:51:07Z

For the first time since she has been in the public spotlight, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was able to talk her way into an issue that really resonated with the masses. I watched her interview with Today Show's Matt Lauer. She rambled on in her usual Palinesque I don't really make any sense I am just talking style. Like a "Bridge to Nowhere," she shocked me when she began to make sense about her problem with David Letterman attacking her daughters. Alas she was right! After one very stupid mocked apology, Letterman finally felt the heat and said sorry. And, of course true to her usual incoherent ways, she accepts his apology adding some disconnected statement at the end about men and women in the military and free speech. Oy, go figure!

While this battle raged between Palin and Letterman, it was a joy to watch women pundits from the left struggle to not go too far into Palin's court. They agreed Letterman was gravely wrong referring to a sexual act of A-Rod knocking up one of the Governor's daughters. However, liberal lady pundits quickly cited she was using this issue as a publicity stunt. They said things such as "Palin should know when she put her children in the spotlight this type of thing could happen" or "she is exploiting her children." Some horrifically agreed Palin should understand that this was just a joke! Wow, what a painful position to put oneself into avoid taking Palin's side on an issue that is cut and dry when it comes to women exploitation. Was this not being Catty?

The truth is mothers and the NOW organization and not Palin pushed this issue into Letterman's face for the apology. Otherwise, I really believe if groups like these did not come to the forefront, Letterman would have moved on without skipping a beat. I can only imagine the meeting NOW's leadership had in the office or via conference call discussing the strategy for putting out a statement reacting to Letterman's comments without appearing to be too close to Palin. I am sure many feminists cringed at the idea of being on the same side as the Republican Party's Right Winged Wonder Woman.

Women leaders were delayed in their response to Palin and many remained silent knowing that this is an issue women must unite on, but gosh why does it have to be Sarah Palin who brings it? Ladies from the feminist movement, Sarah Palin is not going away. Whether you like her or not, she is here to stay. So, whether you think or believe she should try and crack open a book about American and World History and perhaps do some real studying to at least give the impression she has intellectual prowess, she like the Ever Ready Bunny will keep going, going, going and going. Tina Brown, she is not going to shut up!

Deeper than Sarah Palin, women must be committed to speaking out immediately when someone goes too far over the line and says something that is offensive to women. We should not review the messenger and deliberate on who she is, her political position or even how smart she is, but rather how the message impacts us all. One thing I will say that when it comes to issues of race, African Americans do not have this problem at all.

When former WFAN/MSNBC television aired radio shock jock Don Imus referred to the Rutgers University basketball team; mostly African American women as "nappy headed hoes." Not even an hour past his show ended that day African Americans pounced all over Imus and MSNBC. Revs. Sharpton and Jackson (both whom many black folks are sharply divided about), called for Imus' dismissal. African Americans went on a national tirade calling Imus a hardcore racist. Suffice to say Imus was fired. He met with the Rutgers team and apologized for his remarks saying his comments were "insensitive and ill conceived." Although Imus has made a "comeback" on WABC radio, he paid a price for going way too far.

David Letterman won't pay any real price for his remarks about Alaska Governor Sarah Palin dressing like a slutty airline stewardess. His sorry was enough and women will accept it. It appears a number of women find it more fun to attack Sarah Palin's non-sensical comments and her agenda rather than making sure comments like Letterman are checked and acted upon.

I am not a Sarah Palin fan and I believe when the time comes (towards 2012), the group who will try and snatch Palin out of the spotlight, discredit and burn her politically will be her own Republican Party -- a group of chubby old white men who want the titular head of the party to be one of them.

Nevertheless, in the future, women ought to step it up more quickly on these types of issues and unite against statements that demean us no matter who says it or brings it to our attention.

Ben Sherwood: The Fighting Spirit: What are Don Imus' Chances of Beating Prostate Cancer?

2009-03-16T13:07:09Z

The news came this morning on Don Imus's radio show: the controversial and cantankerous radio personality has stage II prostate cancer. Immediately, friends and supporters invoked the common and combative language of survival. "Don is well-prepared to fight this," his spokesman Matthew Hiltzik said.

"The prognosis couldn't be better," Imus told listeners this morning. "I have great confidence in my doctors," he went on. "I'll be fine. If I'm not fine, then I won't be fine. And it's not a big deal."

Imus is absolutely right: His chances of survival couldn't be better. Consider one key statistic called the "relative survival rate." It measures the percentage of men who do not die from, say, prostate cancer after the disease is found. For all men with prostate cancer, according to the American Cancer Society, the relative five-year survival rate is 100 percent and the relative 10-year survival rate is 91 percent. Over 15 years, the relative survival rate is 76 percent.

As of last Wednesday when he was diagnosed, Imus joined joined two million men living with prostate cancer in the United States (including 186,000 who will get the news this year). Imus says he has Stage II cancer, which means there is no evidence the disease has spread outside the prostate to other organs. Obviously, survival depends on a variety of case-specific factors. For instance, stage of the disease; the type of cancer cells (noted by the Gleason score); the PSA level (prostate antigen); the medical choices a patient makes; the quality of care that he receives; and his age and general health.

On all of those measures, Imus certainly appears to be in good position. He also should score well what's known as the "fighting spirit" or "will to live." Imus is a tough, combative guy, people will say, and he'll whip this disease like a defenseless guest on his show. But does the fighting spirit really make a difference in this kind of medical challenge? Can a positive mental attitude override a malignancy?

The answer: Not as much as many people think or want to believe.

In October 1979, a British psychiatrist named Dr. Steven Greer rocked the medical world with a study in The Lancet, a leading medical journal. Dr. Greer found that women with breast cancer who demonstrated a "fighting spirit" survived longer. The study took place at King's College Hospital in London, and Dr. Greer grouped sixty-nine women into four categories: Fighting Spirit; Denial; and Hopeless; and Stoic Acceptance. After five years of study, 75 percent of the Fighting Spirit and Denial groups had "a favorable outcome" compared with just 35 percent of the Helpless and Stoic groups.

The 40 percent difference seemed stunning because no one had ever proven that the mind could triumph over the body or that psychology could prevail over biology. Of the women in this study who ultimately died, 88 percent fell into the Helpless and Stoic groups while only 46 percent of the women who remained alive and cancer-free had these negative responses.

Twenty years later, Dr. Greer co-authored a larger study in The Lancet of 578 women but this time the results were far less encouraging. Researchers "could find no survival difference when comparing one type of psychological response with another." Specifically, they were unable to uncover any evidence that a fighting spirit makes you live longer. "Our findings suggest that women can be relieved of the burden of guilt that occurs when they find it difficult to maintain a fighting spirit," they wrote.

On the other hand, persistent feelings of helplessness and hopelessness--the opposite of the fighting spirit--are bad for your health. Of those women who expressed beliefs like "I feel like giving up," only 58 percent were alive or in remission after five years, compared with 72 percent who did not feel hopeless or helpless. The authors concluded that the fighting spirit won't prolong your life, but helplessness and hopelessness may actually shorten it. "It is not what may be added in by fighting but what is taken away by being helpless that seems important in disease outcome," they wrote.

Dr. Greer is eighty years old now, semi-retired, and works one day a week as a psychiatrist at St. Raphael's Hospice in the village called Cheam in southwest London. He treats terminally ill patients experiencing anxiety and depression. He may be one of the pioneering authorities on the fighting spirit, but he doesn't sound like a man who's very convinced anymore about the power of the mind. He tells me that the fighting spirit is very hard to measure--that's why studies fail to prove its impact--and that a positive mental attitude exerts only "a modest effect" on the outcome of patients with cancer. Indeed, he says, the fighting spirit is "much weaker than biology."

While the fighting spirit may not influence your quantity of life, it will certainly improve the quality of your remaining time. People with the fighting spirit show "far far less" depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems, he says.

At age 68, Don Imus has a lot going for him in his confrontation with cancer. His medical choices and the quality of his care will make a big difference. And his notorious fighting spirit won't hurt either. But in terms of prolonging his life, it won't help nearly as much as most people think.

Don Imus: I Have Prostate Cancer

2009-03-16T08:30:52Z

Controversial radio host Don Imus announced Monday morning on his radio show that he has been diagnosed with Stage II Prostate Cancer.

Imus, 68, said he believes that his doctors "will beat it," reports WABC TV (Imus' radio show airs on WABC radio):

"The day you find out is fine," he said. "But the next morning when you get up, your knees are shaking. I didn't think I could make it to work."

Wearing black sunglasses and slumped behind his microphone, Imus speculated that the cancer may have come from stress.

WebMD describes Stage II Prostate Cancer as follows:

In stage II, the tumor has grown inside the prostate but hasn't extended beyond it.

Imus and his wife Deidre have worked on behalf of pediatric cancer patients for years through their well-known Imus Cattle Ranch for Kids with Cancer, leading him to joke this morning that he was changing the name of the Imus Ranch for kids with cancer to the Imus Ranch for kids with cancer... and me."

Andy Borowitz: MSNBC to Launch Fucking Joe

2008-11-10T08:46:22Z

Just minutes after "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough dropped an F-bomb live on the air, MSNBC announced that it was re-launching the show to capitalize on its star's salty vocabulary.

"Starting on Tuesday, MSNBC's morning show will be known as Fucking Joe," said MSNBC spokesperson Carol Foyler. "We want to send the message that if you tune in to this show, you'll get a unique mix of breaking news and XXX-rated chat."

MSNBC's decision to reformat the show to accommodate Mr. Scarborough's weakness for expletives surprised many in the cable industry, especially since the show owes its origins to the cancellation of shock-jock Don Imus' ill-fated morning program.

But for Mr. Scarborough's part, the move to "porn up" his morning show came as no surprise.

"This move is a fucking home run and anyone who doesn't think so is a fucking cocksucker," Mr. Scarborough said, adding, "Fuck."

Around the cable industry, insiders expressed surprise that Mr. Scarborough had slipped into profanity while on the air.

"I never thought Joe Scarborough would be the first one to drop an F-bomb on that show," one observer said. "I thought it would be Andrea Mitchell."

Andy Borowitz is a comedian and writer whose work appears in The New Yorker and The New York Times, and at his award-winning humor site, BorowitzReport.com.

Arianna Huffington: How Obama Can Demonstrate Real Leadership on the Economic Crisis

2008-09-18T18:12:07Z

Watching John McCain thundering against Wall Street greed is like tuning into to the old Lawrence Welk show to find him doing a polka version of a hard-core rap song ("A-one and a-two, motherfucker!").

Speaking yesterday outside an auto plant in Grand Rapids, Michigan, McCain read his populist rhetoric -- "These workers here are the best in the world. They are the backbone and foundation of our economy." -- with a robotic cadence dripping with inauthenticity.

Wall Street is melting down, and McCain and the GOP have no credible response. When your erstwhile economic guru, Phil Gramm -- a man whose 1996 run for the presidency McCain chaired, and who appears to remain influential behind-the-McCain-campaign-scenes -- is Patient Zero of this killer economic epidemic, it's pretty hard to suddenly start channeling Upton Sinclair.

McCain is so clearly clueless on this issue, the current battle over who is best suited to deal with the financial crisis should be a rout. And, so far, Obama has shown not just an incomparably greater grasp of the situation and substantive policies to deal with it, but a real fire in the belly in going after McCain's vulnerable flank.

But for Obama to show the kind of transformational leadership the crisis demands, he needs to do what so many of his critics have chided him for not doing: take a stand that puts him at odds with the establishment of his own party. He did it in 2002 with the war in Iraq. He can do it in 2008 with the economy.

He needs to start by making sure that the economic advisers he turns to extend beyond those he had on a conference call on Monday -- Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Laura Tyson, and Paul Volcker. It's great to include graybeards who have been through crises before, but he needs to go beyond the two Treasury Secretaries who were complicit in the 1990s deregulation orgy that has led to so many of the problems we are now seeing. And he needs to make it clear that the Clinton-era Democrats who put the interests of Wall Street ahead of the interests of Main Street are not going to be the primary voices he listens to.

Rubin and Summers played a pivotal role in dismantling banking regulations like the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, FDR's pivotal banking legislation designed to constrain the power of Wall Street, and make the activities of the banking industry more transparent. It specifically kept commercial banks separate from their investment banking cousins -- and had long been the Moby Dick of the banking industry, the elusive prey the financial industry Captain Ahabs were determined to harpoon. Consequences be damned.

Phil Gramm, then chairman of the Senate banking committee, did the heavy lifting, and John McCain was an ardent supporter of the deregulation, but Rubin and the Clintonites were certainly up to their eyeballs in pushing legislation gutting so many of the regulations designed to bring accountability to our complex free market system. These bills included the the Financial Modernization Act, which obliterated Glass-Steagall; and the Commodity Futures Modernization act, which gave us unregulated trading of derivatives and the kind of credit default swaps that threaten our economy -- both signed into law by Bill Clinton.

Speaking at a large rally in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Obama declared: "we can't steer ourselves out of this crisis if we're heading in the same disastrous direction. We can't steer ourselves out of this crisis using the same old map, we can't steer ourselves out of the crisis if the new driver is getting directions from the old driver, and that's what this election is all about."

Bull's-eye. Now he needs to make sure the old drivers in his own party don't have their hands on the wheel -- or are the loudest of his backseat drivers -- as the nation navigates this rocky financial road and charts a new direction.

The Imus Ranch Record: Singers Help Imus' Charity

2008-09-10T08:21:18Z

In spring 2005 Tracy Gershon, a Nashville record producer and judge on the country talent show "Nashville Star," resolved to do something to support the New Mexico ranch where Don Imus and his family play host to children with cancer.

And so she and another producer, Kyle Lehning, traveled to the ranch with a pitch for Mr. Imus: they offered to assemble a benefit album featuring some of his favorite artists, with each performing cover versions of songs he would choose. In short order, Ms. Gershon secured commitments from Willie Nelson, Vince Gill, Dwight Yoakam, Big & Rich, Patty Loveless, Randy Travis and Lucinda Williams, among many others. A record label, New West, agreed to put out the CD and to donate the proceeds to the charity, the Imus Ranch.

But just as the project was nearing completion in spring 2007, Mr. Imus was fired from his radio show and its simulcast on MSNBC over a racist and sexist exchange that got as much play on YouTube as Big & Rich typically get on Country Music Television.

Which put Ms. Gershon and New West in a jam. After the dust settled that summer, Ms. Gershon dutifully polled the artists to ask whether they wished to continue to associate themselves with Mr. Imus. Not one backed out. Indeed, several more signed on, including Little Richard, who said he specifically wanted to debunk the notion of Mr. Imus as a racist.

In an interview this week Mr. Gill articulated what would turn out to be the consensus of the singers and producers regarding Mr. Imus, who, they felt, had leavened his obvious mistake with good works, both before his firing and since.

Barbara Fischkin: A Hockey Mom's Rebuttal

2008-09-04T00:21:35Z

Perhaps in the weeks to come I will change my mind. But while the world was listening to Sarah Palin, I was watching her as a hockey mom and as a parent of a disabled child. ("Special needs" is a term that guarantees they won't get what they need!)

For whatever it is worth here is what I think: Sarah Palin said that the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom is lipstick. I think the true answer is deeper than that. I think that a true hockey mom tells her sons and daughters that being a good parent takes maturity. That if you are a teenager you might look for the resources in your parents' night table drawer. (condoms?) Abstinence clearly does not work. Parental understanding does.

On the next topic I would like to start a conversation with my sister mothers of kids with disabilities. I don't think I could have run for vice president of the United States in the months after my son Danny was diagnosed with severe autism. But perhaps I would have viewed it as a way to put him in an important spotlight while providing a distraction for myself? Not a bad thing. What do you all think?

Full disclosure: I am a life long Democrat and I wish Hillary was running. BUT discussion is GOOD.

Stephanie Losee: The XM/Sirius Radio Merger: You're Kidding, Right?

2008-07-03T16:21:07Z

As the hours tick by while interested observers of the XM/Sirius digital radio merger await word on final approval by the FCC, it may be worthwhile to wonder how in the heck we even got here. We're holding our collective breath, but aren't we supposed to be laughing?

The merger of Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio Holdings -- the only two providers of digital audio radio service -- creates a satellite radio monopoly. Look in the dictionary. They have no other entities to compete with in the entire digital audio radio space. That's what a monopoly is.

The guy in charge of this lovely noncompetitive shebang is Mel Karmazin, CEO of Sirius and CEO of the monopoly-to-be. He is a real charmer with a long history of sexism and racism. Some of his finer moments include saying he wouldn't have fired Don Imus for his racist comments last year about the Rutgers women's basketball team. (Don't take my word for it, take his.) He's a great supporter of shock jock and fellow charmer Howard Stern who, as we all know, loves women of all colors--that is, as long as they show him their breasts. Now Karmazin says he will allocate four percent of the public spectrum for coverage of minorities and women. He's keeping the other 296 channels -- a vast amount of spectrum, or enough programming for every local market in the country -- for his own delights. That's peanuts. Maybe he thinks putting Imus on to denigrate African Americans constitutes coverage?

There was a time when the very idea of XM and Sirius coming together was verboten. The FCC itself distributed licenses to XM and Sirius in 1997 on the condition that the two companies never merge. Then in March the Justice Department said nah, a monopoly satellite radio provider would not harm consumers because there are other alternatives for consumers. Not digital radio ones, of course. But they're right -- there are all kinds of alternatives for consumers. They can listen to local radio, or go to the movies, or read comic books. (Can you imagine the Justice Department saying you can't find minority programming on cable TV but you can always put up bunny ears? Hope you kept yours.)

Yet the FCC is now hard at work deciding how to make sure the merger can satisfy public interest standards by setting aside channels for noncommercial and minority programmers. You go right ahead, FCC, think up some nice tight rules to force Karmazin into some kind of position of fairness to women, minorities, and consumers. You've got your work cut out for you.

Leo W. Gerard: The New Workers Uniting Union Means Global Solidarity

2008-07-02T16:06:17Z

Today, in Las Vegas, a town where jackpots are sought and fortunes are lost, Derek Simpson, general secretary of the UK-based international union, Unite the Union (Amicus Section) and I together staked everything on a worthy cause -- working men and women world wide.

We signed an agreement at the USW convention in the Paris-Bally's Conference Center joining our two great unions, creating the first global one. It is called Workers Uniting, the Global Union because we foresee industrial unions from other continents joining us to face off unregulated multinational corporations that exploit labor worldwide.

Workers Uniting is labor's response to corporate globalization -- corporations that have no particular national loyalty, or allegiance to dedicated workers or adherence to anything other than the almighty dollar or pound sterling.

Halliburton, even though it was once led by the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney, is an example. Here's a corporation supposedly headquartered in Houston, Texas, that made billions from American taxpayers thought its military contracting subsidiary, KBR, which received no-bid contracts from the Pentagon to supply services for the Iraq war. Never mind that KBR was caught cheating U.S. taxpayers on many of those contracts, by, for example, billing tens of millions for meals never served, among many other abuses. What's more important is that now, after picking all that money out of American pockets, Halliburton has decided to move its CEO Dave Lesar to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and much of the corporation's operations along with him.

Halliburton, which has paid out billions in settlements in asbestos litigation, and is under investigation by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegations of improper dealings in Iraq, Kuwait and Nigeria, clearly lacks a corporate conscience. That's why abandoning the U.S. after receiving untold billions in profits from American taxpayers is so easy for its executives and board of directors.

And Halliburton is hardly an isolated corporate case. In fact, it's typical. Corporations announce they've lost a billion dollars in a quarter, and still the CEOs get bonuses. Where do those windfalls come from? They always come from workers' pockets. Somehow CEOs can always find a way to layoff working stiffs, cut the pay of craftsmen who actually manufacture something for a living or eliminate promised benefits like pensions.

Global corporations have set up a situation in which they are herding workers in a stampede to the bottom. First they close a good union factory in New England and move it to a right-to-work (for less) southern state. But even the non-union salaries there eventually don't compete with the submerged wage rates in Mexico, so the corporation moves the factory across the border. Now, however, it's far cheaper to manufacture in China, so corporations are packing up in Mexican towns and transferring there, leaving behind more unemployed workers and economically abandoned communities.

That's not what corporations care about.

We do. So we created a global union whose fealty will always be to the goals of workers. This organization will give workers the tool we need to deal with multinational corporations whose civic consciousness and basic humanity are always subordinated to base profit.

Even before Derek Simpson and I signed the merger papers today, we began working together. Our first joint action took place not far from the glittering casinos of Las Vegas. It was six months ago under glowering skies in Henderson, Nev., when members of both unions marched together against a common employer.

That was Titanium Metals Corp., known as Timet. Some 400 USW members work for Timet in Nevada. Late in January, just days before their labor agreement was to expire, they watched as Timet executives had a tractor trailer full of food hauled into the plant. The motive was clear - the highly-profitable multinational corporation intended to lock us out rather than negotiate a reasonable contract.

So our brothers and sisters from Unite the Union, with whom we'd already formed an alliance, provided the USW with information about Timet to help us in bargaining and flew from the UK to join us in a rally at the plant gates.

Behind a banner that read, "Solidarity at Timet," with the USW and Unite the Union logos on either side, we marched to the plant gates. Unite the Union national officers carried their union flags.

We called for a fair contract and removal of a human resources officer who caused friction in the plant.

Within days we had a contract. That human resource officer is gone. And Timet donated the food to non-profit organizations, so in the end, it went to good causes, not to feed scabs.

This is the kind of international solidarity we will use in bargaining with our common multinational employers, which include International Paper, Kimberly Clark, Georgia Pacific, Rexam, Pilkington, Alcan and Alcoa.

Our new global union, Workers Uniting, represents more than 3 million active and retired workers in Canada, the United States, Ireland and Great Britain. It is our collective statement that we will not cut each other's throats for the profit and pleasure of CEOs. We will not be divided and crushed. We will stand together to secure the best interest of workers worldwide.

Workers Uniting means global solidarity among workers.

Works Uniting puts global meaning to the old labor adage: "An injury to one is an injury to all."