Video: John Ziegler Talks About His Argument With Max Blumenthal at CPAC

Conservative filmmaker John Ziegler had an altercation/argument/verbal-fight with nut job Daily Beast columnist today in the Omni Shoreham lobby at CPAC. Apparently things got very out of hand and almost physical. Check out this early video from James Joyner at OTB, whom I met by the way (Via The Other McCain):

I know the sound quality is terrible but the visuals tell you all you need to know for the moment. Apparently Max Blumenthal had a video crew with him so you can expect a higher quality version out sometime soon I would guess.

But after all this stuff went down John Ziegler came over to bloggers’ row and was explaining what had happened to me and several other bloggers. Here is that video (there’s a curse word or two so be careful):

Yikes… the things that happen at CPAC

UPDATE: My new lefty blogger friend, Tommy Christopher of Aol and DailyDose, was able to track down Max Blumenthal and get his side of the story. He was even nice enough to splice the two interviews together into this jaw dropping video:

CPAC Bloggers’ Row

CPAC

Yes, that’s right, your favorite conservative college student who runs your favorite conservative college blog will be on bloggers’ row for CPAC this year!

This news is both exciting and amazing. I’ll be there for Dialog New Media the company I’m currently interning for and will be sure to make regular posts here and at probably at NewsBusters too. I’m even going to try and liveblog a couple events.

Make sure and check out the schedule of events for CPAC and feel free to email me to request a live blog for any of the events. I’ll do my best to get to all the events you suggest.

Also, if you’re going to CPAC make sure you stop by bloggers’ row and say hello… I’ll be the youngest and least famous one there I’m sure.

Philly Newspapers File for Bankruptcy

Philadelphia inquirer

Not long after reports that the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News were seeking a bailout from our beloved spendaholic Dem Governor Ed Rendell we now hear that the papers are filing for Bankruptcy:

Philadelphia Newspapers L.L.C., which owns The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com, filed for bankruptcy protection today in a bid to restructure its $390 million in debt load.

The company, bought by a group of Philadelphia-area investors for $562 million in 2006, said the voluntary Chapter 11 filing would not interrupt its daily operations.

“This restructuring is focused solely on our debt, not our operations,” chief executive officer Brian P. Tierney, who led the group that provided about $150 million of the purchase price three years ago, said in a news release.

Gee, can anybody guess what the source of these papers’ problems is? Yup, nobody wants to pay for their fishwrap:

The financial burden from an advertising downturn, rising costs for newsprint, and the migration of readers to the Internet caused Philadelphia Newspapers to fall out of compliance with its loan agreements last year. The same conditions have devastated the broadcast industry.

Yea… that’s newspapers-who-are-failing talk for nobody is buying our paper so we can’t pay our bills. Nobody should be shocked by this. But I think the real question here is how long until Rendell comes a runnin’ cash in hand?

UPDATE: Hello to everyone from Patterico’s! Be sure to catch The College Politico at CPAC this year.

Fox Business Wins Suit Against Treasury

fox business

Looks like the Treasury will actually how to tell us all how they’re wasting our money. That’s the end result of Fox Business Network’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against them:

FOX Business Network has won a victory against the Treasury Department in its Freedom of Information Act request for details about the government’s bailout plan.

Judge Richard J. Holwell of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York said in a decision Friday that the government is directed to comply with FOX Business’s request under the FOIA “within 30 days and to produce a Vaughn index with 45 days.”

That means Treasury must comply with FOX Business’s request by Monday, April 23, and must produce a Vaughn index by Monday, April 6.

A Vaughn index details which documents have been withheld and why.

This is great news for those of us who, for some crazy reason, don’t blindly trust the government to spend our money in a wise or responsible way. Here’s exactly what FBN was looking for in this suit:

FBN asked the Treasury Department to identify, among other issues, the troubled assets purchased, any collateral extended, and any restrictions placed on these financial institutions for their participation in this program.

Not exactly unreasonable. Definitely important.

Good work FBN.

Pajamas Media No Longer Paying Any Attention to the Ads it Runs

So… now that we are in the last days of the Pajamas Media blog advertising network it seems they’ve completely given up screening the ads it runs on its affiliate’s sites. I say this because of these beauties that I found on none other than HotAir.com (click to enlarge):

Obama New York Times ads

Here it is closer up:

Obama New York Times ad

Here’s the ad this banner leads to:

Obama New York Times ad

Yea… somehow I don’t think that blatantly pro-Obama ads from the New York Times of all places are going to get good click-through rates. This makes me wonder if anybody at PJM is even bothering to look through the ads they’re running anymore. Though, I guess this isn’t the first time PJM has run ads that couldn’t possibly make them any money. In fact, I remember when there were some rather racy and offensive ads on Malkin’s site. She was able to get them removed but I’d say its a disgrace that PJM ever put them up to begin with.

So really this probably isn’t a symptom of imminent death since they never did manage their advertising very well. After all, they are killing their ad network shortly and will soon be dead all together, unless of course internet tv explodes in popularity soon (which is sooooo likely by the way). And while PJM might blame poor revenue on the collapse of their ad network it sure is hard to make money when more than half the ads you put up are for your own idiotic poorly produced pay-video network. But that’s just my opinion I guess…

P.S. What will the collapse of the premier revenue source for a large majority of the conservosphere mean to the movement? Can the movement really gain momentum online without an experienced core of bloggers? Or am I overrating the importance of bloggers?