How to Lose $56 Million a Year

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Hire Jon Meacham as editor of your magazine:

The auction of Newsweek looks to be heading to some sort of ending.
Final bids for the troubled weekly are expected by 5 pm Thursday at investment bank Allen & Co., according to the New York Post. There are five parties in the running, including Newsmax Media, OpenGate Capital, Thane Ritchie, Sidney Harmon and Fred Drasner, the one-time partner of Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman.
Much has been made about the financial state of Newsweek, the legendary weekly that produced $56 million in operating losses in 2009 and an $11 million loss in first quarter. . . .  “The amount of money they lost is shocking,” said one buyout executive who saw the Newsweek books but passed. “It’s a classic old world publishing business that did nothing to adjust to the new world reality.”

Yeah. A one-year subscription to Newsweek is $40. You can read this blog for free, but if you want a “Certified Tip Jar Hitter” mug, I think we’d consider $40 in the tip jar as an acceptable mimimum, although $56 million would be OK, too.

(Hat-tip: Ben Domenech.)

Subversive Newspaper Columnist

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No, not Paul Krugman or Dave Weigel. I’m talking about Vicky Pelaez, a columnist for the Spanish-language El Diario for more than 20 years, who was among the suspected Russian agents rounded up by the FBI yesterday. Patrick Ishmael at Hot Air Green Room:

Dig around the Internet and you’ll find a few choice nuggets written by Ms. Pelaez, mostly in Spanish. US prisons as modern-day slavery? Check. Arizona’s “unholy” immigration law as modern-day Nazi legislation? Check. The United States as wanton human rights violator? Check. . . .

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Speaking of Dave Weigel — and, yeah, I know our readers are thoroughly sick of hearing about him — he just scored a regular gig at MSNBC (where he appeared Monday night to discuss Rick Barber’s latest ad). Daniel Foster of National Review has a long interview with Weigel, the most important part of which is this:

I was an a**hole, basically.

Basically. And I’m an a**hole sometimes, too. Which may explain why I’m more tolerant of Weigel than those of you who are not a**holes.

Recommended Reading From Top Hayekian Public Intellectuals

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Since being named a “Top Hayekian Public Intellectual” in April 2009 — we have a secret handshake and meet in a treehouse behind Thomas Sowell’s garage — I’ve striven to uphold the honor of the Nobel Prize-winning Austrian School economist.

A devotion to “spontaneous order” means that admission to our ranks is open to all, and Greg Ransom at the Hayek Center offers a list of recommended readings for would-be Hayekians:

Glenn Reynolds, Stacy McCain and Dr. Helen Smith have been recommending Hayek’s The Mirage of Social Justice (Law, Legislation & Liberty, Vol. 2).   McCain calls the book, “One of the finest treatises Hayek ever wrote.”

If Ransom’s list was intended as ‘Lanche-bait — I was a hard-boiled cynic long before I became a Hayekian — allow me to suggest that the proper method is to invoke “Professor Glenn Reynolds.”

Perhaps not quite as sure-fire as “Cthulhu,” but . . .

Witness for the Prosecution

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On the list of witnesses for the Kagan confirmation hearings is a name I know well:

Capt. Flagg Youngblood, United States Army

Flagg is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, but I know him better as a former campus organizer for the Young America’s Foundation — we sat at the same dinner table at a YAF conference in 2008. He’s a Nashville native and Yale University graduate. Because Yale had abolished ROTC, Flagg commuted 70 miles to participate in the ROTC program at the University of Connecticut.

What kind of witness will he be at the Kagan hearings? This is from a column he wrote yesterday for Human Events:

If Kagan’s confirmation is to be stopped, conservatives must reach beyond the purview of our normal public policy concerns, and ask all dissatisfied Americans to take a moment from their busy lives to share a simple message with their senators.  Namely, Obama’s policies are destroying our economy, our national security, our environment, our future.  Elena Kagan cannot be permitted to permanently enthrone the Obama agenda on the Supreme Court.

And this is from a column Flagg wrote shortly after Obama nominated Kagan:

Elena Kagan, the President’s pick to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, is an affable and intelligent Trojan horse.
Obama’s high court nominee has been groomed for years, standing ready for the judicial mission of advancing the secular-progressive agenda, if confirmed, for decades to come.
Conservatives can (and must!) build a coalition to defeat Kagan’s nomination.

The title of that column? “Supreme Court Sleeper Agent: Elena Kagan.” Heh. She’s a sleeper agent, all right:

Let’s Cut Out The Buffett Blasphemy Right Now

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by Smitty

Update: I am rightfully taken to task by the Wondering Jew, in the comments, for my non-command of spelling in the title. I blame too much blood in my margarita system.

This blog is witnessing some extremely un-mellow comments, as witnessed on the Insulted Again thread. The Wondering Jew offered this completely unacceptable observation:

If you listen to Jimmy’s early albums you will also see some of the best singer-songwriting out there. He was a really talented chronicler of a certain Southern-fried, beach oriented, hard-living, anti-authority lifestyle. But later on Jimmy got too in love with being cute and if you ever listen to one of his newer albums or go to a Buffett show today, it’s all about Margaritaville Tequila and drunk fratboys.

Wrap your ears around around this Katrina memorial, and sin no more, you:

Now you sunny beaches know how I feel.

Smitty’s Three Word Immigration Bill

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by Smitty

“Enforce existing law”

I’m not making it up. I’m married to an immigrant. There really is law on the books. People follow it.
Bluegrass Pundit notes an AP article, which says:

Latino leaders say they will work in coming months to pressure Republicans to give way and support an immigration bill – and make them pay at the ballot box if they don’t.

Meh. We have sufficient regulation. We’re just not paying sufficient attention to it.
Now, what would be smart would be for the GOP to reach out to those Latinos and point out that they may be working hard for a Stupakian bargain here; offering support that magically turns into a trip under the bus once the Latinos have outlived their usefulness. But who knows? The used bus salesman may yet organize another community and line it up for the magic trip:

Rule Of Law Upheld In West Virginia

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by Smitty (via Marc Ambinder)

A legal precedent has been located that precludes a November vote for the final third of Senator Byrd’s term. From West Virginia’s Secretary of State, Natalie Tennant:

Part of this same [relevant] section of code, requires the candidate to have filed during the filing period. That filing period has already passed. There was a legal case in 1994 decided by the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals that up held that position of requiring candidates to file during the filing period.

Apparently, people who wanted to run would have had to apprehend Senator Byrd’s impending demise and filed for a possible election. Howe tasteless would that have been?
The good news in all this is that, since the ruling falls in favor of the Democratic Party, we’re spared endless breast-beating about the crushing of voter expression, Republican Party thugger in general, and Rascal Rove vitriol in particular.
One hopes that this decision reflects the will of West Virginia citizens. Failing that, one hopes they remember well this little turn of events.

Insulted Again

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By Dan Riehl this time, seconding Melissa Clouthier’s “wild animal” characterization of journalists as inherently untrustworthy.

At least he links me. Love me, hate me, as long as you link me.

Here’s the thing: Media bias is a subject about which every conservative is his or her own expert. To denounce “the media,” whole hog, is obligatory for conservatives and no one who wishes to be well-regarded among conservatives can be permitted to question the efficacy of this approach to media relations.

Therefore, I must be condemned as a weak reed, a pushover blabbermouth who should never be trusted or taken seriously in any discussion of conservative media strategy.

OK, I give up.

Meanwhile, I just got through interviewing Andrew Breitbart about David Weigel and the Journolist scandal.

Ignore me. Because I don’t know nothin’ ’bout no media bias.

UPDATE: Dan Riehl replies: “But journalists who want to play blogger half the time risk running into the Weigel-Space trap, because establishment figures can begin to see you as less serious, or a loose cannon.”

Translation: Your advice is not welcome, because actual insight into the organizational dynamics of media bias, based on years of newsroom experience, might contradict the popular theories propounded by the overpaid Republican “media consultants” who’ve been doing such a great job lately.

Help Wanted: No Journalists Need Apply.