Quotes of the week

"So weird to go into journalism to completely obsess on the horserace of who might get power-& be totally indifferent to what they do with it." -Glenn Greenwald, via Twitter, on how 'analysis' has increasingly replaced real journalism.


"Maybe police who stop and ticket people for use of cell phones while driving should be required to confiscate the phones until they show up in court to answer charges." -Commenter Pete Klein on NCPR's In Box blog.

RIP Christopher Hitchens

The prolific and controversial polemicist Christopher Hitchens died yesterday at 62. Although he alienated many on the left with his full-throated support of the Iraq aggression and alliance with Bush-Cheney militarism, his essays were always incisive and relentlessly thought-provoking. This blog is titled as a tribute to his book Letters to a Young Contrarian. NPR has a nice remembrance of The Hitch.

The lobbyists of Gov. One Percent

The New York Public Interest Research Group (via the Albany Times-Union) has revealed the 100 top spending special interest groups in New York. Who was the most free spending group? The health care workers union? The evil teachers union? Supporters of civil rights for gays? Opponents thereof? Nope. #1 slot goes to the misnamed Committee to Save New York. This is an organizing comprising the top "donors" to the campaign of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and is dedicated to lobbying on behalf of the agenda of the One Percent.

When did Republicans start hating the rich?

"When I give food to the poor, I'm called a saint. When I ask why they are poor, I'm called a communist." -Archbishop Dom Helder Camara.

I've been a bit bemused by the latest irrelevant kerfuffle obsessing the chattering classes: about Mitt Romney's $10,000 bet gaffe. When a self-entitled multimillionaire wants to dodge taxes, he's an "job creator." But when that self-entitled multimillionaire is a political enemy, he's an "out of touch elitist." Funny how that works.

That saintly bipartisanship in action (or: it's not just the 1st Amendment they're trying to invalidate)

It's not just the 1st Amendment they want to get rid of. Federal senators have put rancor aside and are working tireless lyto destroy the American way of life before al-Qaeda gets the chance to. They inserted language into a defense budget bill (a way of essentially blackmailing legislators into a yes vote) which would allow American citizens arrested on American soil to be detained indefinitely in military custody. In other words, it would essentially invalidate the 4th Amendment of the Constitution.

As one commentator put it: People in Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria have engaged in revolutions to replace these undemocratic and unjust practices.

There's one other country that engaged in a revolution to get rid of arbitrary arrest and detention without trial or charge: the United States of America.

Fracking companies lie about leases: homeowners

The excellent non-profit journalism site Pro Publica has done some fantastic journalism about hydrofracking, the hugely controversial natural gas extraction process that is being hotly debated in New York state. Proponents say that it will be a jobs boom in a region that badly needs it. Opponents offer many criticisms, including that the process poisons drinking water. Another site offering good information on fracking is The Rural Blog of the University of Kentucky.

The blog offers statistics that amplify a fear of fracking opponents. Drilling is regulated by many states, but very ineffectively. It notes that in Texas, 96 percent of the tens of thousands of regulatory violations in 2009 resulted in no enforcement action. West Virginia, Wyoming and fracking hotbed Pennsylvania were also cited for their uselessness in protecting citizens from drilling pollution.

The blog also links to a New York Times article which cites the negative experience of homeowners who signed leases with gas companies.

The NYT added that disappointed landowners in Pennsylvania, Colorado and West Virginia have spent hundreds of dollars monthly on bottled water or maintaining large tanks of drinking water in their front lawns. Thousands of landowners in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Texas, who claim "they were paid less than they expected because gas companies deducted costs like hauling chemicals to the well site or transporting gas to market," have responded by joining a class action lawsuit.

The site also offered some useful advice to Republicans in southern New York like powerful state Sen. Tom Libous who are enamored with drilling, regardless of the consequences: sustainable agriculture could improve health, economy for rural areas... presumably without poisoned drinking water.

Lipstick on a Pig: Lee Enterprises Declares a “Favorable” Bankruptcy

(a continuing series by contributor Mark Wilson on the troubles at Lee Enterprises, Inc. and the Post-Star)

Despite efforts to spin the news favorably, Lee Enterprises, Inc, the deeply-indebted corporate owner of the Glens FallsPost-Star, announced late Friday afternoon that it had failed to reach a refinancing agreement with at least 95% of its lenders. It will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection later this month. 

The move is an effort by the Iowa-based news publisher to coerce a reluctant six percent of the banks who have lent it money to extend the maturity date of roughly one billion dollars in loans. The loans are currently due to be paid in full this coming April.

The refinancing plan, crafted by Lee earlier this year—after it failed to find backing to pay off the banks by issuing junk bonds—divides its current debt load into three parts:

• a $689.5 million term loan with an additional $40 million revolving credit, both due in December 2015. The interest on this debt will be a minimum of 7.5%.
• a $175 million second-tier loan with a 15% interest rate due in April 2017.
• an unspecified $175 million refinancing deal for the balance of the debt the company incurred when it bought newspapers from Pulitzer, Inc. in 2005.

Lee’s failure to find backing to restructure the remaining Pulitzer debt was the deal breaker for the more cautious lenders who must now be forced by the Delaware bankruptcy courts to accept the pre-packaged bankruptcy plan. In place of a new financing to cover the since-adjusted $138 Pulitzer balance, the bankruptcy will extend the maturity of $126 million of the existing notes to December 2015 at an interest rate that starts at 10.55% and increases by .75% annually.

One other significant condition of the bankruptcy plan is the issuance of 6.7 million shares (roughly 13% of outstanding shares) of stock to be divided among second-tier lenders. 

Diluting stock to this degree will depress the share value of Lee stock. Apart from the impact this will have on individual and institutional stock holders (including any Post-Star employees who hold stock and stock and options as part of their compensation packages), the move means Lee’s stock most certainly will be removed from the New York Stock Exchange listings in the new year. As a condition of continued listing, the NYSE requires a company stock to hold a minimum share price of $1.00 and not drop below that threshold for more than 30 days. Lee’s share price dropped below the threshold in mid-July this year and has not risen above it since. In an official delisting warning issued in August, the NYSE compliance board gave Lee until January to correct the situation. 

A share of Lee traded at 53¢ at Friday’s closing bell—shortly before news of the impending bankruptcy filing was released.

Quote of the week

From a piece on Yahoo! News:

"I'm so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I'm frightened to death. They're having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.” –Republican spinmeister Frank Luntz.