Lou Dobbs Resigns

What a surprise it was to hear that Lou Dobbs has resigned from CNN. He did this on the air on Wednesday, November 12 stating, “Over the past six months, it’s become increasingly clear that strong winds of change have begun buffeting this country and affecting all of us,” remarked and then added. “”And some leaders in media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond my role here at CNN and to engage in constructive problem-solving, as well as to contribute positively to a better understanding of the great issues of our day. And to continue to do so in the most honest and direct language possible.”

One has to wonder what really exists between these lines and what is going on internally in the large media outlets (CNN, Fox and MSNBC) amid increasing pressures from both within and without. There is a widening gulf here in the United States between those who believe in the government’s current expanding role of authority and those who would like to see a return to stronger self-rule. All this happening while the world seems as fragile as an eggshell on so many fronts.

For my part I would be very happy to hear that Dobbs has joined up with Fox News! (Yes, I’m trying to start a rumor here).Now that would make for an interesting line-up. Where would you stick Dobbs? Before or after Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly?

Article from Andrea Tantaros on the Fox Forum – Anita Dunn Resigns

The White House just lost its chief media strategist and Fox News just lost its best P.R. tool. Anita Dunn, the outspoken and controversial communications aide to President Obama has announced today that she’ll be leaving her post; her deputy, Dan Pfeiffer is to replace her. Though Dunn’s title was communications director, at times, “Fox News Basher” seemed more appropriate as she seemingly and bizarrely began to publicly wage war on the network roughly a month ago.

Fox is “opinion journalism masquerading as news,” Dunn snapped, which ignited the White House attacks on Fox News’ journalism.

When asked further to elaborate, Dunn expanded:

“If you were a Fox News viewer in the fall election, what you would have seen would have been that the biggest story, the biggest threats facing America were a guy named Bill Ayers and something called ACORN, when the reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.”

It was comments like these that had many Democrats gripping their foreheads. They saw the move as misguided and questioned the administration’s decision to launch an ideological crusade against a thriving cable news channel.

Dunn later drew even more ire when she praised the Chinese dictator Mao as one of her favorite political philosophers:

“Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa — two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is, you’re going to make choices. You’re going to challenge. You’re going to say, ‘Why not?”

So that’s what Mao was thinking when he killed 50 to 70 million of his own people in political purges?? Why not?!

Typically, White House politicos quote the words of our forefathers from Lincoln to Washington, not communist murderers.

Liberal groups are already spinning Dunn’s announcement, insisting that her role as communications director “was always meant to be temporary.”

Was Van Jones was just keeping someone’s seat warm, too?

And if she was expected to serve as an interim attack dog, then the end goal seemed to be use her as a paper tiger in an attempt to demonize and discredit Fox News, while at the same time, clearly define an enemy. If this was the strategy, it was a very bad one that very definitively failed.

The Dunn-led White House attacks on Fox have been a huge boon for the news channel, propelling the networks’ already sky-high ratings even higher with a 9 percent uptick in the three weeks following the dust up, according to Nielsen Co., the leading tracker of television viewership.

Perhaps Dunn’s early departure is a signal that Democrats are waking up to the fact that after Tuesday’s election results, the public views the troubled economy, out of control federal spending and the White House’s failure to keep unemployment below 8 percent paramount to an intellectual exercise (though gauging from their maniacal focus on health care and climate change, that’s unlikely).

With radical, loose cannons like Dunn and Jones gone from the Obama team, the real question is how many more like them are hiding in the White House woodwork?

This story was written by Andrea Tantaros who is a conservative commentator and columnist. She is the former press secretary to House Republican Leadership and Communications Director for Massachusetts Governor William Weld. For more go to: www.andreatantaros.com or follow her on Twitter: @andreatantaros.

So Who’s Actually at Risk from the Swine Flu?

A study of H1N1 swine flu in Mexico finds that while babies and people under the age of 40 are most likely to get sick, elderly people have the highest death rates.

The research, published online Nov. 11 in The Lancet, analyzed medical records of patients at clinics in the Mexican Institute for Social Security network, who became sick with flu-like illnesses between April 28 and July 31, 2009.

The researchers found 63,479 cases of flu-like illness. Of the 6,945 confirmed cases of H1N1 swine flu, about 1 percent (63 patients) died. Seven percent (475 patients) were admitted to the hospital and lived.

Of those aged 70 and older who got sick, 10.3 percent died. By contrast, 0.9 percent of those aged 20 to 29 died, the study authors noted.

The researchers found that the risk of infection fell by 35 percent in those who received vaccinations for seasonal flu. Chronic disease boosted the risk of death by six times.

Those who didn’t go to the hospital within four days after developing symptoms boosted their risk of death by 20 percent for each extra day they delayed a hospital visit.

Pregnant women made up 6 percent of the deaths in Mexico. That rate is a bit lower than in the United States (8 percent) over the same time period.

“In Mexico, all pregnant workers were sent home during the peak of the pandemic, which probably accounts for this difference,” Dr. Victor Borja-Aburto of the Mexican Institute for Social Security in Mexico City, and colleagues wrote.