createpositivechange

Author: muckety

  • Echoes of Camelot As a Kennedy Endorses Obama

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  • Judith Regan Settles Suit With News Corp

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  • Judith Regan settles suit with News Corp.

    Judith Regan may have published a book with a dull last chapter. It doesn’t make for good reading, but it would seem worth her while.

    Regan’s sensation-filled lawsuit against News Corp. and HarperCollins has been settled for an undisclosed amount, Regan and her adversaries announced Friday.

    Both sides aren’t saying much, and lots of questions raised by the lawsuit, a document that read like a novel with a heroine (Regan) and quite a few villains, remain unanswered.

    Regan, who had published hundreds of authors and made millions in the process, had sued the companies in November for $100 million. (Story continues below interactive map.)

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    She had alleged that she had been wrongly terminated in December 2006. She also claimed that she had been made to seem anti-Semitic and that she had been forced to withhold information about Rudy Giuliani that might damage his presidential campaign.

    When the lawsuit was filed, a News Corp. spokesman dismissed Regan’s claims as “preposterous.”

    On Friday, News Corp. issued what amounted to an apology.

    “After carefully considering the matter, we accept Ms. Regan’s position that she did not say anything that was anti-Semitic in nature, and further believe that Ms. Regan is not anti-Semitic,” it said in a statement.

    Regan, too, issued a statement.

    “I am grateful for the opportunity to have worked with so many gifted people and am looking forward to my next venture,” she said.

    And that was that. The other allegations in the lawsuit aren’t addressed.

    No mention was made of the Regan’s claim that she was told not to disclose damaging information about Giuliani that she had learned while dating Bernard Kerik, a Giuliani associate and former New York City police commissioner who is now under indictment.

    Unmentioned, too, is Regan’s charge that she was unfairly made the scapegoat for the bad publicity generated by her project with O.J. Simpson.

    Regan had planned on publishing the former football’s star’s “hypothetical” account of how he would have murdered his wife if he had murdered his wife.

    In the face of adverse publicity, HarperCollins canceled the publication. Regan alleged that the company had supported the project and then abandoned her when the going got tough.

    “As a result of this corporate shirking of responsibility, false representations and defamation, Regan was unfairly attacked worldwide for her involvement in the O.J. project,” the lawsuit claimed. “She received death threats, hate mail and was shunned, humiliated and caused great harm.”

    Other questions remain unanswered:

    Did her bosses at HarperCollins neglect to take care of Regan’s office? It reportedly had no air conditioning in the summer and too much heat in the winter.

    Did those same bosses fail to investigate “serious security breaches” which led to a light fixture crashing onto Regan’s desk?

    Did those bosses do nothing when Regan complained that people within the company were attributing her rise in the company to sexual activities?

    Followers of this real-life legal drama may never know.

    One of her lawyers suggested to The Wall Street Journal that Regan doesn’t want to look back.

    “It is better for her to get on with her life,” said Bert Fields.

    Sphere: Related Content

     Read related stories: Law · Media  

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  • Rumsfeld Proposes Us Propaganda Agency

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  • Wolfowitz is Back As Arms Control Adviser

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  • Rumsfeld proposes U.S. propaganda agency

    Donald Rumsfeld has returned to the spotlight, promoting an idea that got him into hot water when he ran the Defense Department.

    In his first major speech since departing the Bush administration in 2006, Rumsfeld pushed for a new propaganda agency to combat the anti-U.S. rhetoric emanating from Muslim countries and to burnish the American image abroad. He said the U.S. needs an agency bigger and better than the old United States Information Agency, the Cold War-era operation that was absorbed into the State Department. (Story continues below interactive map.)

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    “We need someone in the United States government, some entity, not like the old USIA,” Rumsfeld said in a conference here Wednesday sponsored by the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement.

    “I think this agency, a new agency has to be something that would take advantage of the wonderful opportunities that exist today. There are multiple channels for information … The Internet is there, pods are there, talk radio is there, e-mails are there. There are all kinds of opportunities,” he said.

    The U.S. government, he said, currently does not “with any systematic organized way attempt to engage the battle of ideas and talk about the idea of beheading, and what’s it’s about and what it means and talk about the fact that people are killing more Muslims than they are non-Muslims, these extremists.

    “They’re doing it with suicide bombs and the like. We need to engage and not simply be passive and allow that battle of competition of ideas,” Rumsfeld said, according to a transcript provided by Wired News.

    In the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Rumsfeld created just such an agency when he was defense secretary, under the direction of then-Under Secretary Douglas Feith.

    Known as the Office of Strategic Influence, the agency’s mission, in part, was reportedly planting misleading stories in foreign media. Lawmakers expressed concerns that those types of propaganda efforts, which had all the traits of military psychological operations, would undermine rather than promote U.S. interests abroad.

    Under pressure, Rumsfeld announced in February 2002 that the agency had been shut down.

    If there was any irony in Rumsfeld’s attendance this week at the conference it was this: The company L-3 Communications sponsored an “invitation only” luncheon with the former defense secretary. L-3 Communications owns Titan Corp., which did severe damage to the U.S. image aboard when a handful of its translators were implicated in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.

    Contact: eric@muckety.com

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     Read related stories: News  

    2 Comments

    • #1.   Larry 01.25.2008

      Let me guess, Rummy would call this agency the Ministry of Truth…

    • #2.   Rob H 01.27.2008

      Why is Rumsfeld relevant? Go back to your golf game, you old man. You were a failure. Thanks for the billion dollars a day we are spending now in a stupid war based on your lies.

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  • Power Lines Buzzing at Davos

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  • Yucaipa May Pay Bill Clinton 20m

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  • Yucaipa may pay Bill Clinton $20M

    Democrats are quick to criticize President Bush’s handling of the economy. However, at least one top Democrat has done pretty well during the last eight years.

    Former President Bill Clinton made $9.2 million in speaking fees in just his first year out of office in 2001. He later got a reported advance between $10 million and $12 million for his memoir, My Life.

    All this money adds up. Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, listed their assets as between $17.4 million and $53.7 million, in the most recent report made public.

    And now it appears that Bill Clinton is eligible for a $20 million payout for his relationship with a private equity firm. (Story continues below interactive map.)

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    The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Clinton will receive the money as a result of his role as an advisor from 2002 to 2007 to funds managed by Yucaipa Companies.

    Ronald W. Burkle, Clinton’s friend and a major Democratic Party contributor, is the founder and managing partner of Yucaipa. The firm has invested heavily in supermarkets and other ventures.

    The Journal reported that Clinton last year decided to end his connection to Yucaipa, so as not to complicate his wife’s presidential bid.

    A Yucaipa fund, the Yucaipa Global Partnership Fund LP, is connected to the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the paper reported. That link could become controversial if the power of foreign investments in this country becomes a campaign issue for Sen. Clinton.

    According to the Journal, Clinton is eligible for the $20 million because Yucaipa sold Wild Oaks Market Inc. and Pathmark Stores. The transactions substantially increased the profits of two Yucaipa domestic funds, triggering the payout.

    In a 2006 story in The New York Times, Burkle described Clinton’s role at the company:

    “He explains to people better than we can why these are good things to invest in,” Burkle said. “He’ll talk about the importance to the economy, to the community. And he builds the brand of Yucaipa.”

    The Times quoted Clinton from a 2003 speech in which he explained why he decided to join Yucaipa:

    “(The company) has earned a phenomenal return in investing in three things I care about,” he said. “In underserved communities, in underperforming companies that are friendly to their workers and their families, and in minority-owned businesses.”

    Burkle and Clinton met in 1992, when Clinton was running for the presidency. They became friends, and Clinton would stay at Burkle’s house when he was in California.

    Burkle hosted a March 2007 fundraiser for Sen. Clinton at his home in California that took in $2.6 million.

    In 2007, Forbes magazine estimated Burkle’s wealth at $3.5 billion, placing him at number 91 on the list of 400 richest Americans.

    A college dropout, Burkle started out in the grocery business by stocking shelves.

    Burkle has looked into the newspaper business, but his efforts to acquire the Tribune Company and Knight Ridder did not pan out.

    The New York Daily News reported in 2006 that Jared Paul Stern, a contributor to the gossip pages of the New York Post, attempted to extort $220,000 from Burkle in exchange for good coverage, money that Burkle did not pay.

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  • Making Lots of Hay at Deere Company

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