Layoffs at CNN? Start by Firing Serial Plagiarist Fareed Zakaria

It's hard out there.

At the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "Turner Broadcasting to offer voluntary buyouts, layoffs also expected," and "Following layoffs memo, Jeff Zucker tells CNN employees they need to “do less and do it with less”":

CNN chief Jeff Zucker recently shared not so encouraging words with some of the news operation’s employees, many of whom have been bracing for potential jobs cuts.

“We are going to do less and have to do it with less,” Zucker said during a call-in to a news meeting Tuesday morning. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently received a partial transcript of the call from a Turner employee who asked not to be identified.

Zucker’s comments feed growing concerns among employees at CNN and other operations of Turner Broadcasting, which has nearly 13,000 full-time employees, about half of them in Atlanta.

Zucker made his comments to staff the day after Turner chief John Martin sent a memo to staff saying a more streamlined company would be in place by the start of next year and that employees would begin hearing more in coming weeks. Turner executives are trying to refocus the business, including shedding costs, spending more on original programming to boost ratings and looking to prioritize other growth options.

Zucker said, “We now have a sense of what Turner is expecting from CNN. I am working with the senior management team at CNN to figure out what this means for us. This will result in changes and what we do and what we stop doing.”

Here’s a transcript of part of Zucker’s call...

More at the link.

CNN can start by firing Fareed Zakaria.

Also at Variety, "Turner Broadcasting Prepares for Staff Buyout Offers Amid Bigger Changes Ahead."

Furious Marine Nick Powers Pens Open Letter to #ISIS

Megyn Kelly just interviewed Nick Powers. I'll update with the clip if becomes available.

Meanwhile, at Independent Journal Review, "Marine Vet’s Viral Post Warning ISIS: ‘Attack Us and There Will be No Mercy’."

'No Angel'

It turns out today's front-page New York Times article on Michael Brown referred to the black thug teenager as "no angel," which is exactly correct. Except that's not politically correct, so out came the knives of the leftist censors to tear into the skin of public editor Margaret Sullivan.

Here's her response to the latest leftist two-minute hate, "An Ill-Chosen Phrase, ‘No Angel,’ Brings a Storm of Protest":

In my view, the timing of the article (on the day of Mr. Brown’s funeral) was not ideal. Its pairing with a profile of Mr. Wilson seemed to inappropriately equate the two people. And “no angel” was a blunder.

In general, though, I found Mr. Eligon’s reporting to be solid and thorough. I came away from the profile with a deeper sense of who Michael Brown was, and an even greater sense of sorrow at the circumstances of his death.

She defends the piece, only to further inflame the black leftist lynch mobs:

So disturbing and unwarranted. The New York Times defends Michael Brown Jr. ‘no angel’ characterization http://t.co/jG2tsSuHP7

— Donna Brazile (@donnabrazile) August 25, 2014

Hope and change!

The Militarization of Policing and What to Do About It

From Glenn Reynolds, at USA Today, "Police problem is unaccountable attitude":

Police officers act like they're in a war zone, forgetting they face citizens, not enemies.

Often, if you wait long enough, an idea comes around. Back in 2006, I wrote a piece for Popular Mechanics on how the federal government's transfer of surplus military equipment to local police departments -- sometimes in very small towns -- was leading to "SWAT overkill."

My complaints didn't get much traction with either the Bush or the Obama administrations. But now, in the wake of what many consider to be an overly militarized police response in Ferguson, Mo., President Obama has ordered a review of federal programs -- in the departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security -- to arm local police with military weapons.

Lawmakers -- from Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., and Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who quoted my 2006 piece in an op-ed in Time Magazine -- are looking at legislation to limit transfers. This is good. There's a role for SWAT teams in limited circumstances, but they've been overused in recent years, deployed for absurd things such as raids on sellers of raw milk. The problem is, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when you have cool military equipment, there's a strong temptation to use it, just because, well, it's cool. (Federal regulatory agencies have succumbed to SWAT Fever too.)

I don't entirely blame the police. If somebody gave me a Bradley fighting vehicle, or an Apache helicopter, I'd take it.

But blurring the lines between civilian policing and military action is dangerous...

Continue reading.

Kristin Cavallari Super Tight in Body-Hugging Blue Dress for 'Good Morning America'

Amazing.

At London's Daily Mail, "Kristin Cavallari displays her super trim frame in a skintight blue dress for GMA ...just three months after giving birth."

I'm Reading Caroline Glick: The Israeli Solution

When Glick's new book came out I put in an order at Amazon, but I had the shipping address wrong while updating my account. The Post Office sent the book back.

So, I think it was late July, during the Gaza War (after I watched her congressional briefing), but I went out and bought a copy at the bookstore. Glick is simply the best analyst of Israel's international politics.

Be sure to get your copy if you haven't already. And make sure you've got the correct shipping information for Amazon, heh: The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East.

Obama Must Resist #ISIS and Hamas

From Professor Michael Curtis, at American Thinker:

The brutality of ISIS must be ended, and so must Hamas’s aggression against the State of Israel, and the accompanying disease of anti-Semitism.  Palestinians, including people from Fatah and the Palestinian Authority as well as Hamas, are prone to compare actions of Israel with those of the Nazis.  Speeches by their leaders and news reports speak of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza as a Holocaust, and of the Israeli Nazi mentality.  This rhetoric provides the excuse for Palestinian violence against Israeli citizens, and for anti-Semitic actions.

American and European leaders are dramatically aware of the horror of ISIS and are preparing to take some further action against its rise. They must now assess the aggressive nature of Hamas and act accordingly. Both ISIS and Hamas must be defeated.

RTWT.

Hamas Solidarity Protester: Hitler Should Have Finished the Jews

Video at Breitbart, "PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTER: HITLER SHOULD HAVE FINISHED THE JEWS."

Gangsta! Suge Knight, Hip-Hop Executive, Shot at Pre-VMAs Party in WeHo (VIDEO)

At Fox News, "Rap mogul Suge Knight injured in shooting at pre-VMA party."

And at LAT, "Suge Knight, 2 others shot at Chris Brown party on Sunset Strip," and "Chris Brown party shooting: Another chapter in the life of Suge Knight."

Peter Theo Curtis, Kidnapped American Journalist, Freed in Syria (VIDEO)

Al-Nusra Front released him.

At the Boston Globe, "American man with Mass. ties released in Syria":

An American journalist and author with Boston-area ties has been freed by his Al Qaeda-affiliated captors after nearly two years of imprisonment in Syria.

Peter Theo Curtis, 45, is on his way home after being released by the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Al-Nusrah and handed over to United Nations forces in an Israeli-occupied village in the Golan Heights, according to statements from the UN, State Department, and family members.

The UN said on its website that Curtis was handed over to UN peacekeepers around 6:40 p.m. local time Sunday. He received a medical check-up, and was then transferred to US government representatives, the statement said.

In a detailed statement released through the State Department, members of Curtis’s family expressed elation and relief.

“We are so relieved that Theo is healthy and safe and that he is finally headed home after his ordeal,” Theo’s mother, Cambridge resident Nancy Curtis, said in the statement. “My heart is full at the extraordinary, dedicated, incredible people, too many to name individually, who have become my friends and have tirelessly helped us over these many months. Please know that we will be eternally grateful.”

Curtis’s family expressed gratitude to the US and Qatari governments for helping to negotiate his release, and said they had been told the negotiations proceeded on a humanitarian basis and did not involve the payment of a ransom. The US, along with the United Kingdom, has a policy barring the payment of ransoms to free its citizens who are being held abroad.

Nancy Curtis said she was “deeply saddened” by the death of James Foley, a New Hampshire journalist whose beheading by a fighter for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, was depicted in a graphic video released this week.

Nancy Curtis befriended Foley’s mother, Diane Foley, while their two sons were held captive for long stretches by separate groups, she said. She called for the release of others still imprisoned by Islamic militant groups in the Middle East.

ISIS, a radical Islamist group that blossomed in the chaos of Syria’s multi-front civil war, said Foley’s killing was in retaliation for US airstrikes on its fighters in Northern Iraq, where it has captured large swaths of territory in an attempt to establish a conservative caliphate state.

More.

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



Also at Randy's Roundtable, "Friday Nite Funnies," and Reaganite Republican, "Reaganite's SUNDAY FUNNIES."

CARTOON CREDIT: Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – Accelerant."

MTV to Shill Leftist #Ferguson Talking Points at Tonight's Video Music Awards — #VMAs

My son's in Inglewood for the VMAs.

He's got great tickets for the pit area, although they've got a blackout on social media for guests: No mobile phone allowed, period. I asked my kid how he was going to handle that and he was just bummed: "That sucks you can't take pictures!" I told him to leave his phone in the van.

In any case, when I see my boy again (hopefully tonight, if he's not out too late), I can deprogram him from all the leftist blather he'll be inundated with.

At the Washington Post, "MTV to turn Video Music Awards spotlight on Ferguson":

Last year, Miley Cyrus’s twerking, teddy-bear-filled performance at MTV’s Video Music Awards set off fierce arguments about race and cultural appropriation. This year, MTV is hoping to use its awards ceremony to start a different kind of conversation. Before and during the show, the network will be airing somber public service announcements about the ongoing standoff between law enforcement and the citizens of Ferguson, Mo., in the wake of the August 9 shooting death of teenager Michael Brown.

MTV’s spots are part of a larger campaign, Look Different, that the network developed in conjunction with organizations including the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza and the Southern Poverty Law Center. MTV has a long history of activist-oriented youth programming, and the Look Different program developed out of a paradox that MTV President Stephen Friedman told me he saw showing up in MTV polling.

“Eighty percent of our audience believes that bias is at the root of racism and prejudice,” Friedman said. “But when cultural explosions like Trayvon Martin, or the recent death on Staten Island, or what is now happening in Ferguson occur, our audience often feels paralyzed to discuss the issues.”

The reason? A good-intentioned schema for how to treat other people fairly that ultimately makes it more difficult to acknowledge unfairness or difference when it shows up anyway.

“Ironically, part of the problem is that this generation was taught to be color-blind,” Friedman told me. “As a result, they feel like they’re going to step on a land mine if they say the wrong thing. In fact, our research has shown that fully 70 percent of our white audience grew up not talking about race in their households. They’re striving for fairness and equality and often just aren’t sure how to to proceed.”

And that's a bad thing?

In other words, raising your kids so that race is just a background phenomenon is something to be ashamed of?

Leftists want you think race 24/7. You get Obama constantly talking race ("If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon"); Holder visiting Ferguson as the chief law-enforcement shakedown artist; and Al Sharpton as the White House point-man for the Democrat-left's perpetual outrage and distortion machine.

And MTV's on the case!

Like I said, I'll be deprogramming my kid later tonight, or tomorrow if I fall asleep before I get the chance.

More at the link, and also, "VMAs 2014 FAQ: Where to watch the show, red carpet details, and who’s performing."

Islamic State, Ferguson, and the Left in Crisis

From Wretchard, at Pajamas Media, "Paradigms Lost" (via Instapundit).

Islamic State Captures Major Air Base in #Syria From Government — UPDATE: Captured Syrian Soldiers Beheaded!

At the Wall Street Journal, "The Base Was the Last Government-Held Outpost in a Province Dominated by Islamic State":

"SashTam Islamic State Captures Major Syrian Air Base From Gov't http://t.co/sH3dYVpjJE #ObamaForeignPolicy #ISIS pic.twitter.com/Hlw3FcjsnU
— Mike Beacham (@Mike_Beacham) August 24, 2014

BEIRUT—The extremist group Islamic State captured a major air base in the northeastern province of Raqqa, driving out regime forces and gaining full control of an entire Syrian province for the first time in the civil war.

Several opposition activists based in the Raqqa area said Islamic State fighters were able to pierce the defenses of the Tabqa air base earlier Sunday and take it over. The capture came after fierce clashes with regime forces for five days at the gates of the military installation located near a town and a dam on the Euphrates River that bear the same name as the Tabqa air base.

It was the latest strategic conquest for the group, which has captured large swaths of territory in Syria and neighboring Iraq. Its recent advances in northern Iraq toward the semiautonomous Kurdish region and threats to religious minorities drew U.S. airstrikes on the militants in Iraq.

The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group tracking the conflict through its own network of activists inside Syria, said Islamic State militants captured most of the air base. A contingent of regime forces that had been stationed there withdrew to the town of Athraya to the southwest on a major supply route controlled by the regime, the Observatory said.

The regime's state-controlled news agency SANA described the withdrawal from the air base as a tactical one, an apparent attempt to soften the impact of the loss on regime supporters.

"Our forces have completed a successful regrouping operation after withdrawing from the air base, and they are still carrying out precision strikes against the terrorist groups in the area," said SANA.

The fall of the base to Islamic State fighters gives the group full control of Raqqa province, which shares borders with Turkey to the north and the crucial province of Aleppo to the west. East of Raqqa, the group already controls parts of Hasakah province and more than 80% of Deir-Ezzour province, both bordering Iraq.

Over the past month, Islamic State has succeeded in capturing the headquarters of the Syrian Army's 17th Division in Raqqa and another base for the 93rd Brigade of the same division also located in Raqqa.

The beheading of American journalist James Foley has prompted American officials to begin working to knit together a broader international campaign to combat Islamic State, an effort that the Pentagon warned will require taking the fight beyond Iraq and into Syria.

JWF has the update on Twitter. Click through for the report from McClatchy:

Islamic extremists seize Syrian military base then behead captured Assad soldiers http://t.co/4T4evr1Lhc

— JWF (@JammieWF) August 24, 2014

America: The Ostrich Years

From Derek Hunter, at Town Hall:

In every cartoon I’ve seen with an ostrich, there comes a scene where it gets scared and buries its head in the sand. Ostriches don’t do this in real life, but it came to symbolize, in cartoons at least, the concept of thinking something bad will go away if you simply ignore it. It’s foolish – some would say stupid – but it appears to be the crux of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy.

There are times when a president has to be president, even on vacation. This is the part of the job President Obama seems to hold in contempt – the doing of it. The trappings – the motorcade, Air Force One, hanging out with celebrities, being a celebrity himself, having nearly every whim catered to – are the most appealing part of the job. But it is a job, and he sought it twice. He just doesn’t seem to like doing it.

This isn’t a new development. This president has been checked out to one degree or another since he checked in, but he at least paid lip service to the concept of domestic policy. He didn’t involve himself with the details of many of the laws Democrats in Congress passed; he just gave speeches in support of their concepts and signed them. But when policy issues crossed salt water, he lost all interest.

After a series of groveling speeches trying to make up for his predecessor, who just happens to be more popular than he is now, the president retreated to the comforts of his office and buried his head to the realities of the rest of the world.

Aside from occasional speeches and selfie-filled funerals or summits, Obama turned his gaze domestically and green-ward, to the golf course.

But the funny thing about the rest of the world is it doesn’t go away simply because you wish it would. The troubles of the world have a way of existing regardless whether you pay attention to them.

Afghanistan is on the verge of collapse. Libya is in anarchy. Israel is being attacked hourly by the terrorists in Hamas. Russia is putting its band back together. China is making aggressive moves toward us and Japan. And ISIS is executing people like it’s an Olympic event. Meanwhile, the president has given a few speeches and shaved two strokes off his handicap.

A great piece.

Keep reading.

Sexy Comes in All Sizes

The trend in plus-size fashion, at the San Francisco Chronicle, "Sexy comes in all sizes, says plus-size lingerie boutique owner."

BONUS: Great pic dump photos at Theo Sparks, here and here.

VIDEO: 6.1 Earthquake Hits Napa in Northern California — #NapaQuake

Here's video at the Telegraph UK, "A large earthquake rocked California's northern Bay Area damaging buildings, igniting fires, knocking out power to tens of thousands and sending residents running out of their homes in the darkness."

At at USA Today, "What exactly happened in Napa during earthquake?", and "Napa earthquake: Damaged water mains hurt fire efforts."

And at KRON4 – San Francisco:





More at the KRON YouTube page.

And see iOWNTHEWORLD, "NAPA, CA: NUMEROUS BUILDINGS UNINHABITABLE AFTER EARTHQUAKE."

Douglas Murray Interview with Michael Coren: 'British' Jihadis Abroad

Via Blazing Cat Fur.



And see Murray at the Spectator UK, "Britain’s beheaders – how we came to export jihad."

VIDEO: Race Hustler Al Sharpton Leads Staten Island Protest Over NYPD Chokehold Death of Eric Garner

Funny how Sharpton waited a month to have this protest, making sure to time it with the national race relations debate over Ferguson.

The irony is that in the case of Eric Garner, there's little controversy that the police used excessive force.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Thousands Protest in Staten Island Over Eric Garner's Death: Event, Led by Rev. Al Sharpton, Caps Weeks of New Scrutiny of the NYPD."



PREVIOUSLY: "VIDEO: Staten Island Man Dies After Placed in NYPD Chokehold, Slammed to Ground."

Emily Ratajkowski Cover Shoot for Ocean Drive Magazine

At Ocean Drive, "'Blurred Lines' Model Emily Ratajkowski on Playing Ben Affleck's Mistress in 'Gone Girl'."



HAT TIP: Fox News, "'Blurred Lines' model Emily Ratajkowski: Men need to get over naked women."