Year: 2010

‘Chief Investigative Reporter’ for Tina Brown’s Daily Beast Resigns After Plagiarism Scandal

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At least he wasn’t just making up stuff:

Amid additional allegations of plagiarism, journalist and South Beach resident Gerald Posner announced via his blog and Twitter that he has resigned from The Daily Beast, the year-old Internet news publication co-founded by Tina Brown.
Posner wrote that his boss, Daily Beast Executive Editor Edward Felsenthal, called him on Wednesday to say an internal investigation had “uncovered more instances” of “apparent plagiarism.” . . .
Jack Shafer, a writer for Slate.com, reported last week that Posner had lifted five sentences from a Miami Herald article about the battle over the late Ben Novack Jr.’s estate.
On Monday, Shafer reported more instances of plagiarism by Posner from a Miami Herald blog, a Miami Herald editorial, Texas Lawyer magazine and a healthcare journalism blog.

Jack Shafer’s post is here. Posner’s lame excuse is here. (Hat-tip: AOSHQ Headlines.) Of all the things I’ve been accused of, plagiarism isn’t one of them. My screw-ups have been utterly original.

What kind of scoops did Posner plagiarize? Michael Jackson’s physician. Yeah, that’s why Tina Brown hires a “chief investigative reporter,” to get to the bottom of real scandals.

Next at the Daily Beast: Who stole Anne Hathaway’s bra?

Poll Question: Gays in the Military

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“A new CBS News/ New York Times poll finds that the wording of the question is key when it comes to determining whether Americans support allowing gays to serve in the military.”
— Kevin Hechtkopf, CBS News

Q. How would you feel if you turned on the TV and saw a Navy admiral flouncing down Castro Street in full uniform in the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, right next to Dykes On Bikes and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence?

I doubt CBS and the New York Times would phrase the question that way, but that’s what the proposal to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” boils down to. Of course, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is problematic in its own right: If a soldier is deployed to a combat zone and wants to go home, all he has to do is say, “I’m gay!”

All of this, you understand, is a result of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign promise to gay-rights radicals, even though sodomy is still defined as a court-martial offense under Article 125 in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Colin Powell and Sen. Sam Nunn forced Clinton to accept the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” compromise, but to the radicals, all compromises are merely temporary ceasefires, a prelude to further aggression.

The gay-rights crowd won’t be satisfied until homosexuality is compulsory, with penalties for non-participants.

Democrats Accuse My Alma Mater of Conservative Political Bias

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How awesome is this?

Alabama state Democratic Party officials are calling for the resignation of Jacksonville State University Government Relations Director Don Killingsworth after what they called “a blatant display of partisanship on what Killingsworth himself termed a ‘no electioneering’ campus.”
In a statement released Tuesday, party officials accused Killingsworth and the university of showing favoritism to Republican house district 40 candidate K.L. Brown using tax payer funded facilities and prohibiting his opponent, Democrat Ricky Whaley, from campaigning on campus.

Brown held a rally Wednesday at JSU’s Merrill Hall. A Whaley volunteer got hassled for passing out campaign literature at a JSU basketball game without authorization. It’s a  reign of right-wing terror! It’s worse than Kristaalnacht!

And they’ve got a marching band that plays “Dixie.” Nudge, nudge.

Anne Hathaway Quits Catholic Church After Pope Condemns Sideboob Display

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Wait, no — that’s not exactly the reason:

Anne grew up wanting to become a nun but shunned Catholicism when she learned her older brother, Michael, was gay.
“The whole family converted to Episcopalianism after my elder brother came out,” she tells the magazine. “Why should I support an organization that has a limited view of my beloved brother?”
But the Episcopal church plan didn’t really work out for her either. “So I’m … nothing,” she said. “I’m a work in progress.”

Anne Hathaway’s apostasy caused heartache for our Catholic friend Da Tech Guy, who had been proud to count Anne’s boobage among the flock of the faithful.

In related news, Da Tech Guy is continuing his CPAC fund-raising drive, and you should contribute, if only because he gave me a perfect excuse to post my favorite Anne Hathaway photo (and your favorite, too, I’m sure).

Alabama Attorney General Troy King Continues to Defend Casino Gambling

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While I was in Alabama, the front pages of newspapers were dominated by reports of the state task force attempting to raid illegal electronic bingo operations. And the man being blamed for the confusion — which has sparked political and legal turmoil in the state — is Alabama’s Republican attorney general, Troy King.

On the day I left Montgomery, I heard talk-show host Mark Montiel on 104.9 FM call King the “best friend of the casino cartel,” a sentiment that seems to be shared by Alabama’s governor:

Gov. Bob Riley fired back at Attorney General Troy King . . . accusing King of continuing “to show more concern for the casino bosses in Alabama than for the enforcement of the law by dedicated law enforcement officials.” . . .
King had a letter delivered to Riley warning him that attempted raids of two Alabama casinos [Jan. 29] has exposed the state to lawsuits that could cost taxpayers millions of dollars. . . .
Riley, who originally appointed King attorney general in 2004 before King won a full term to the office in 2006, minced few words telling King how he feels about the advice the AG offered the governor in his letter.
“You seem to take more interest in parroting the talking point of the gambling bosses while giving short shrift to the law of Alabama,” Riley writes. “If we exhibit the ‘caution’ you suggest, then we will continue to allow the rule of law to be flouted in this state.” . . .
Riley rebukes King for his recommendation that the gambling issue be resolved at the ballot box.
“I am shocked to read your statement that the ‘proper course is to allow a vote of the people to resolve this.’ Mr. Attorney General, as your friend, I remind you that the people have already expressed their will in the Constitution of Alabama that this type of gambling is illegal. Rather than concern yourself with efforts to change the law, I suggest that your time would be better spent enforcing the law as written.”

Suspicion that King is in the pocket of the “gambling bosses” is rampant in Alabama, because (a) King is currently running for re-election, and (b) state law permits what are called “PAC-to-PAC transfers,” so that one poliitcal action committee can collect money from casino interests, then make donations to another PAC, which then donates it to a candidate.

The PAC-to-PAC process separates the recipient from the contributor in a way that makes transparency impossible, and yet Troy King’s actions are transparent enough, as the Truth on Troy blog explains:

Troy King has devised a way to support the expansion of gambling in this state when it comes to his supporters like Ronnie Gilley, but he continues to hide in his office at risk of exposing himself politically.

One of the casino operators, Milton McGregor, is now demanding that King halt the electronic bingo raids. But King is trying to stay “in the closet,” so to speak, on his de facto alliance with operators like McGregor. Meanwhile, the long-rumored sex scandal surrounding King is beginning to attract media interest in the state. While I was in Alabama, I heard from two different sources that local TV and newspaper reporters were asking questions. One of those sources claimed to have very specific direct knowledge about King aide J.W. Godwin which, if verified, will make for some very ugly headlines.

Despite all this — and despite the fact that King is the subject of a federal grand jury investigation in Montgomery — a recent poll showed King still leading his GOP primary opponent Luther Strange. That should worry Republicans in Alabama (and elsewhere), and Dan Riehl suggests that King should cancel his re-election campaign “before a King primary win could set up a GOP loss in November.”

It’s Who You Know

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Alexandra Penney calls herself an artist:

 I take pictures of blowup dolls, and I use them as ciphers to comment on society, about sex and consumerism, to comment about artifice and superficiality.

Alexandra Penney used to be editor of Self magazine. She is the author of How to Make Love to a Man. (Apparently, some people are so stupid they needed a book for that.)

Alexandra Penney lives in an Upper East Side apartment. She has a maid named Carmina whom she describes as “part of my family.”

And she invested all her money with Bernie Madoff.

OK, what did Alexandra Penney do when the crisis hit?

After the Madoff scandal happened, I had to figure out how to make instant money to pay the bills. I wasn’t even thinking of the mortgage. I was thinking electricity. And luckily, the day after this whole Madoff thing happened, I called an agent of mine from years ago and said I need work. He called me back and said, “Tina Brown wants you to do a blog.”

That happens to the rest of us all the time.

The ex-rich are different than you and me. They have maids. And their agents have Tina Brown on speed-dial.

Blogging Is Re-Blogging

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Smitty has already mentioned Little Miss Attila’s blogging guidelines, from which I noticed this:

After you’ve posted something, editing should be limited to fixing typos, smoothing out the grammar, and modifying an egregious word choice. Be careful in doing this: once someone quotes your entry somewhere, you’re going to look like an idiot if you’ve edited the passage or the sentence they quote. The most conservative, safe way to edit—and one that you’ll want to use if you find an actual inaccuracy—is to leave the incorrect text there, but crossed out, while adding the new, correct text.

There is an old adage among English teachers: “Writing is re-writing.” Continue reading Blogging Is Re-Blogging →

Heady Complements Indeed

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by Smitty

Valley of the Shadow puts this blog in company with Instapudit, Gateway Pundit, and Atlas Shrugs in “The Four Horsemen of the Ablogalypse: 2010 Version”.

It would be tedious to say anything other than “thank you”. However, it would be silly not to note that you need a micrometer to measure the distance between the competitors. I mean, AllahPundit doesn’t link us, and the Alyssa Milano reTweet keeps getting slapped back by the fail whale tail. So this blog will not get a big head, go unstable, and fall off the plague horse, which of course, is named Rocinante, (ok, you got me).

Speaking of four horsemen, American Glob has Mark Steyn enumerating “The Four Corpse-men of the Obama-clypse”. Red red red meat.