The powerful anti-gay Democratic State Senator from New York, Carl Kruger, was outed this month by the New York Post for allegedly taking bribes that were used to partially pay for his gay lover’s water front mansion. In its front page March 11 story, the Post outed the Democrat as a hypocrite because of his 2009 vote to deny equal marriage rights to gays despite having an alleged romantic relationship with a man. The Post labeled the politician’s partisan affiliation prominently in the first sentence of the article. The same day, New York Magazine used the label “Democratic” as the third word in its first sentence to describe Kruger in its’ breaking news story.

California has long been the preeminent home for dreamers, seducing the world’s most talented and successful movie stars, musicians, writers, techies, developers and deal makers. California is the place the talented and driven go to turn dreams into reality. Their personal success has, in turn, fueled government’s economic engines for decades, pushing California from the country’s dusty western outpost into the eighth largest economy in the world. But some politicians are seeking quick fixes for the decades of their out of control spending habits by extorting some of the world’s most innovative companies. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and the Board of Supervisors reached a 20 year low this past week when proposed a new tax scheme to raise revenue from innovative entrepreneurs. What an anti-American idea; this isn’t Russia.

As the National Football League spun into an abyss of finger pointing and legal action this past week, the Ultimate Fighting Championship made a brilliant, under-the-radar power play by acquiring Strike Force – the last remaining hurdle to unifying the sport under one organization. The UFC may appear like an upstart against the NFL powerhouse in terms of fan base, revenue and reputation, but securing absolute ownership of the elite athletes of the sport signals that Dana White and company are an entertainment force to be reckoned with.

So it turns out that French fries are really freedom fries after all.

From the moment Moammar Gaddafi started his vicious military campaign against his people, French President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke of confronting the Libyan madman. While President Obama thought about what to do, Sarkozy met with members of the Libyan opposition at the Elysee Palace on March 10 to support an overthrow of the Libyan leader.

Click to listen:

http://www.scpr.org/programs/patt-morrison/2011/03/14/manning/

It’s ironic that PJ Crowley went to MIT to talk about the power of new media on foreign policy issues only to find that a blog posting of his remarks ended his career as America’s top foreign policy spokesman.  It’s also ironic that although Crowley’s comments were immediately reported via twitter, Facebook and several foreign policy blogs, his boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn’t immediately mind.

State sponsored media is so last year. And the news that NPR CEO Vivian Schiller has been forced out of her job is a good first step in stopping federal funds from going to support a news organization. In the U.S., there is no need for government sponsored media – there are plenty of independent and private news outlets to choose from. Having multiple news sources is the only way to get the real story anyway.

Hollywood Follows Wall Street?

Hollywood is supposed to be the place where people take risks. It’s the place where the industry types push the limits anew and create something fresh from the faint. It’s not supposed to be a place where yesterday is the standard. But this week, the Hollywood establishment made two choices that puzzled the forward looking – the Oscar for Best Picture went to the safest movie “The King’s Speech,” and the studio heads picked ethically challenged Chris Dodd to lead the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).