Grumpy Editor

SHUTDOWN ORDER REVERSED, STARS AND STRIPES WILL CONTINUE TO BE PUBLISHED

Stars and Stripes is a major source of news for military.

 

After several top media sources early this month indicated President Donald Trump sought to pull funding from Stars and Stripes, a worldwide newspaper for American troops, the Defense Department is rescinding its order to shut down the military's independent newspaper, observes Grumpy Editor.

 

The action occurs after the president dispatched this tweet:  "The United States of America will NOT be cutting funding to @starsandstripes magazine under my watch,” adding, "It will continue to be a wonderful source of information to our Great Military!”

 

As Grumpy Editor pointed out last week, the president referred to Stars and Stripes as a magazine, indicating he is not familiar with the daily newspaper.

 

In an email to Stripes' publisher Max Lederer, Army Colonel Paul Haverstick said the paper does not have to submit a plan to close.

 

Haverstick, acting director of the Pentagon's Defense Media Activity, said a formal memo is being drafted that will rescind the order to halt publication by Sept. 30 and dissolve the organization by the end of January. 

 

Trump's tweet came as he fought off accusations, first reported by The Atlantic, that he called service members killed in World War I "losers" and "suckers" during an event in France in 2018.

 

 

IN CASE YOUR FAVORITE NEWS OUTLETS MISSED THESE...

 

A FIRST FOR WALL STREET.  Jane Fraser will be the first woman to lead one of Wall Street's big six banks.  She takes over as CEO of Citigroup in February.

 

VETERANS UPSET WITH WHITE HOUSE MOVING FLAG.  A Trump administration decision to move the flag honoring missing war veterans from a prominent position atop the White House to a less visible spot on the South Lawn angers some veterans and lawmakers, who see it as disrespectful and potentially illegal.

 

BRIT HUME SIGNS MULTI-YEAR DEAL. Fox News signs Brit Hume to a new multi-year deal to remain as the network’s senior political analyst. 

 

EISENHOWER MEMORIAL NEARS UNVEILING.  The long-awaited presidential memorial honoring Dwight D. Eisenhower will be dedicated and unveiled in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 17, more than 20 years after Congress commissioned it.

 

CAT NAPS TAKE BACK SEAT.  An Army study finds catching up on sleep by taking cat naps during the day isn’t as beneficial to the brain as getting a good night’s sleep, and could increase the risk of developing neurological disorders including Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. 

 

AMAZON TO HIRE 33,000.   Amazon says it will hire 33,000 additional corporate and technology workers at an average compensation of $150,000.  That includes salary and stock.

 

McCLATCHY RARE BOOKS AUCTION SET.  Rare books and first-hand accounts of California history will be sold Sept. 16 as part of an online auction of property from the estate of C.K. McClatchy, head of McClatchy newspapers, who died in 1989 at age 62.

 

CUSTOMS DESTROYS ALLIGATOR HANDBAG.   An $18,900 alligator skin handbag is destroyed by customs officials in Australia because its owner did not have a required $50 importation permit.

 

STORY ON PENTAGON CLOSING STARS AND STRIPES NEWSPAPER STIRS ACTION

Grumpy Editor notes a Friday article in USA TODAY stirred some White House reaction with the headline and subhead:  "The Pentagon has ordered Stars and Stripes to shut down for no good reason.  Trump wants to pull funding from Stars and Stripes, a newspaper for American troops that began in the Civil War and has been serving our soldiers.

Then a few hours later President Donald Trump said he planned to reverse Pentagon budget cuts that would have permanently closed Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper that has informed and spoken for American troops over the decades.

 

The USA TODAY story mentioned, "Under Defense Department spending plans, the paper would cease print and online publication by Sept. 30, a move seen as expanding the Trump administration’s war on news media to include those paid by the government to cover the military.”

 

The Wall Street Journal and Associated Press later carried similar stories on Stars and Stripes.

 

Trump late Friday tweeted, "The United States of America will NOT be cutting funding to @starsandstripes magazine under my watch,” adding, “It will continue to be a wonderful source of information to our Great Military!”

 

Grumpy Editor observes Trump, curiously, described Stars and Stripes as a magazine, not a daily newspaper distributed around the world to U.S. troops.

 

That means Trump is not familiar with Stars and Stripes.

 

The newspaper, headquartered in Washington and a souce of information for American troops since the Civil War, publishes four daily print editions for military service members with European, Middle Eastern, Japanese and South Korean editions. 

 

 

 IN CASE YOUR FAVORITE NEWS OUTLETS MISSED THESE...

 

 

COLD AIR TO HIT DENVER.  A strong cold front is expected to smack Denver with a 62-degree drop in the temperature, from 99 degrees on Friday to 37 degrees tomorrow.

 

PORTLAND REACHES 100 NIGHTS OF PROTESTS.  Portland, Oregon, on Saturday reaches the 100th consecutive night of protests that escalates into a riot as people hurled multiple fire bombs, mortars, rocks and other items at police officers.

 

GIRL SWIMS ENGLISH CHANNEL IN 14 HOURS.  Vera Rivard, a 16-year-old from Springfield, New Hampshire, swims 33 miles across the English Channel --- from Dover to Calais --- in 14 hours.

 

FOX NEWS GETS HIGHEST RATINGS IN AUGUST.  Fox News in August was the most-watched TV network in all of primetime, averaging 3.63 million viewers.

 

BLACK WWII MARINE RECEIVES MEDAL.  Ambrose “Cowboy” Anderson of Gloversville, N.Y., a 95-year-old World War II veteran, one of the nation’s first African-American U.S. Marines, receives a medal and a car parade from the New York Senate as a birthday present.

 

FREE RIDES IN L.A. MULLED.  Free public transit in Los Angeles?  As ridership falls during the pandemic, officials are convening a task force to study the possibility of going fare-ffee.

 

WITH NO VISITORS, AQUARIUM CUTS STAFF.  At California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium, sea animals are happy during the pandemic, but business is tanking.  With the aquarium missing its entire summer tourism season, its finances are hit, triggering more than a third of its staff to be laid off or furloughed.

SCAMMERS BEHIND SOME APPEALING ONLINE ADVERTISEMENTS

 

 

Some appealing online advertisements are turning out to be routes to scammers, observes Grumpy Editor.

 

For them, it works out better than the long-used telephone calls and emails.

 

Official-looking websites along with fake consumer reviews, pitching everything from sports events to assorted products, are being run by aggressive scammers.

 

The findings are from a survey, based on interviews of 1,408 consumers conducted by the Better Business Bureau, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the Stanford Center on Longevity.

 

The survey finds 91 percent of respondents say they failed to recognize fraudulent ads as scams and 53 percent eventually lost money.  Median loss was about $600.

 

The study finds the people are victims of “online purchase” scams stemming from direct seller-to-buyer sites.

 

Scammers pretend to purchase items, send sellers bogus checks, then seek refunds of "accidental" overpayments.

 

Other scammers, posing as sellers, never deliver the promised goods or send fake or inferior items.

 

Consumers last year filed 372,000 fraud complaints, representing a loss of $1.5 billion, with the Federal Trade Commission.

 

 

IN CASE YOUR FAVORITE NEWS OUTLETS MISSED THESE…

 

 

U.S. UNEMPLOYMENT RATE HITS HALF CENTURY LOW.   While Wall Street talks “slowdown” about every other day, triggering gyrations in the stock market, the U.S. unemployment rate drops to 3.5 percent in September, lowest since December, 1969.  Job growth, meanwhile, continues at a modest pace.

 

NEWSEUM BUILDING SET TO CLOSE AT YEAR END.  The Newseum, a Washington, D.C. museum dedicated to journalism, the First Amendment and a free press, closes on Dec. 31.  The Freedom Forum, the museum's primary funder and creator, says it can't afford to continue operating the building, which covers more than 400,000 square feet on coveted real estate near the National Mall. 

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED STAFF CUT.  Maven, now managing the 65-year-old Sports Illustrated magazine covering college and professional sports, plans to cut more than 40 jobs from a staff of 150.

ANOTHER FLYING FORTRESS GONE.  Nine-O-Nine, a vintage B-17 Flying Fortress that crashed last week in Connecticut killing seven of the 10 passengers and three crew members aboard, is among 13,000 of that model produced in the buildup to and during World War II.  The workhorse bombers helped the Allies win World War II. 

 

MOUSE SHAKES UP WHITE HOUSE PRESS ROOM.  White House press room attendees are startled when a mouse falls from the ceiling onto the lap of Peter Alexander, NBC News White House correspondent.  Reporters, producers and cameramen search the room, but the mouse remains on the loose.

TRUMP COMMERCIALS REJECTED BY CNN.  CNN rejects two campaign commercials from President Donald Trump’s campaign committee, claiming they weren’t factual.

PITTSBURG DAILY CUTS PRINT DAYS.  The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, with its first issue off the presses in July, 1786, now delivers print editions only on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, with electronic editions published on other days. 

JAPAN UPS TAXES ON GOODS, SERVICES.  Japan raises taxes on goods and services to 10 percent from 8 percent, hitting consumers who help sustain the country's economy.

CHINA BREEDS GIANT PIGS.  A farm in the southern region of China is breeding pigs that are as heavy as polar bears.  An 1,100-pound giant swine can fetch as much as $1,400. 

MAN SPENDS WEDDING DAY IN JAIL.  In Groveton, Texas, a man pulls off a bank robbery Friday in efforts to pay for his wedding the next day.  But he is nabbed and spends his wedding day behind bars.

Big 3 TV networks nix Trump’s first 100 days commercial

Grumpy Editor notes the big three TV networks refuse to air a President Donald Trump commercial citing accomplishments of his administration’s first 100 days.

Those news outlets, along with CNN, contend a “fake news” graphic superimposed over news anchors’ faces as the reason not to air the spot.

ABC also maintains the commercial represents a personal attack.

Interestingly, leading up to last November’s elections when national and local politicians were beating up their rivals in commercials, TV stations just sat back and watched political campaigns’ advertising dollars roll in despite an abundance of assorted and unverified claims.

With CNN’s refusal to air the commercial, Trump supporters accuse the cable network of censorship for nixing the message spotlighting the president’s accomplishments in 100 days.

The Trump commercial reports “America has rarely seen such success” and lists a series of actions from Trump’s first 100 days in office.

“You wouldn’t know it from watching the news,” it continues, “America is winning and President Trump is making America great again.”

 

IN CASE YOUR FAVORITE NEWS OUTLETS MISSED THESE…

Business magazines turn to focus on TV personalities:  Bloomberg Businessweek devotes five pages to Fox News' Sean Hannity (wihout interviewing him) while Fortune devotes a half page with "Five Questions for Larry King."  Example directed to King:  "How has the news business changed since you started?  King:  The change in TV has been unbelievable.  But what I did in the late '50s is what I'm doing now, just transmitted differently"...Variety reports FCC chairman Ajit Pai says his agency will be looking into complaints made against Stephen Colbert “for what some labeled a homophobic joke about President Donald Trump”…Gannett Co., Inc., publisher of newspapers coast to coast, eliminates a number of jobs at as many as 37 local newspapers around the country. Matt DeRienzo, executive director of LION Publishers, says, “Already-lean small town newsrooms were hit the hardest — papers such as the Times-Herald in Port Huron, Michigan, the Reporter-News in Abilene, Texas, the Daily Record in York, Pennsylvania, and the Sun-News in Las Cruces, New Mexico”…Sinclair Broadcast Group is close to finalizing a deal to acquire Tribune Media for almost $4 billion, according to Reuters…Ever tax-hunting California is eyeing collecting taxes from space transportation companies based on a formula factoring in how often a company launches spacecrafts out of the state and, most importantly, how far a commercial spacecraft travels from Golden State soil…Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez comes up with a sore right elbow.  So that places him on the disabled list for the first time in his 14-year major league career, or 1,774 games, the most among active players.

 

Hey, isn’t North Korea north of South Korea?

Despite North Korea dominating the news and talk out of Washington in recent days, most Americans are fuzzy as to where the communist nation is located.  That's the  finding of a Rasmussen Reports survey.

It tallies only 31 percent of adults think most Americans can locate North Korea on a map but 50 percent don’t think they could while 19 percent are not sure.

"First 100 days' comments directed at the President

Grumpy Editor brings the following --- from a prime news source --- to your attention after a daily barrage of reading or hearing about the president’s “first 100 days” via print/broadcast outlets.

“In his first 100 days in office, the president has demonstrated a clear departure from his predecessor.

“The new administration has moved rapidly to revoke and alter policies that marked the legacy of the (previous administration).

“The swift-moving president says he is trying to fulfill his campaign promises and supporters applaud his efforts.

"Critics say he could be putting too much on his already-full plate."

What media outlet carried that report?

Hold on now.

That was a portion of an ABC News report, April 29, 2009, referring to Barack Obama.

Indeed, every incoming president gets a wild ride in his first 100 days in office.  With President Donald Trump, it has been noisy wall-to-wall coverage.

Now, look for continued cacophony on Trump’s “first 200 days.”

Meanwhile, not widely spotlighted are these “Trump bumps” so far this year.

• In January, the Dow Jones Industrial average rose above 20,000 for the first time and closed Friday almost 1,000 points higher at 20,940.51.

• Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 5.5 percent to more than 2,232 points in the first quarter.

• Consumer confidence in March (latest reporting month), reached a 16-year high.

IN CASE YOUR FAVORITE NEWS OUTLETS MISSED THESE…

Today being May Day, look for heavy coverage of rallies, marches and protests in the U.S. --- and around the world. Nothing new here. Such coverage has been going on for decades. New element, however, is immigrant groups and their allies will be active…Without President Donald Trump in attendance, speakers at Saturday night’s annual White House Correspondents' dinner promote press freedom and responsibility while challenging Trump’s accusations of dishonest reporting. At the same time, hosting a campaign rally in Harrisburg, Pa., Trump tells the crowd, “A large group of Hollywood actors and Washington media are consoling each other in a hotel ballroom in our nation's capital right now --- and I could not possibly be more thrilled than to be more than 100 miles away from Washington's swamp, spending my evening with all of you and with a much, much larger crowd and much better people”…A Morning Consult poll finds roughly half (51 percent) of Americans say the national political media “is out of touch with everyday Americans,” compared with 28 percent who say it “understands the issues everyday Americans are facing”…Fortune magazine reports Facebook released a report “effectively admitting that its network had been used in orchestrated attempts to manipulate public opinion about political issues, including the U.S. election”…United Airlines issues a 10-point plan to improve customer relations after the recent fiasco involving forcible removal of a passenger from an overbooked flight. The one that grabbed most attention was an increase in maximum compensation to $10,000 for voluntary denied boarding. It also pledges only to call on law enforcement for safety and security issues. This follows the latest customer complaint about a giant showcase rabbit that died after being shipped from London across the Atlantic…Forbes, the business magazine, plans to launch an Italian-language version monthly in partnership with an Italian digital and media company…Albertsons, third-biggest food retailer in the U.S. after Wal-Mart and Kroger, is considering a bid for Whole Foods, reports Financial Times.

 

Gotta watch those “buts” leading to editorializing in a headline, example:

“Trump stumbled on healthcare and immigration, but he's been 'a wrecking ball' on the environment --- Los Angeles Times.