CBS // Current

Grafic:Final Pres Debate Veterans Face Separate Trial Dates

In a follow up to the arrest of the Iraq Vets protest at the final Presidential Debate,reporter Stephen Dohnberg talks with member... more

GlobalPunditOrg
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Obama Talks to 60 Minutes

President-elect Barack Obama said in an interview broadcast Sunday that since terrorists might try to attack the U.S. during the... more

ebindelglass
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Obama intervistato dalla Cbs: industria dell'auto e casa le mie priorita'

Il salvataggio dell'industria automobilistica e il sostegno ai migliaia di americani alle prese con il pignoramento della... more

danito
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New Age Crime Fighters

Anyone can solve crimes with boring clues. But if you're solving crimes with your mind, you must be on primetime TV. ... more

infoMania
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Following The Trail Of Toxic E-Waste

CBS 60 Minutes profiles the village of Guiyu, China, the final destination of e-waste -- consumer electronics and computers... more

kinolina
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Cultural Critic John Leonard Dies

Literary and cultural critic John Leonard, an early champion of Toni Morrison, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and many other authors, and... more

ebindelglass
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Reality TV Stars- Where are they now?

Reality TV Stars! Where are they now? Good question. Here is AOL's list of some popular reality tv stars. Although most of... more

fhassan
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Iraqis Rally Against U.S. Pact

"CBS News RAW:" Thousands of Iraqi demonstrators gathered throughout Sadr City in order to protest a proposed U.S.-Iraq... more

wlwatkins
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Syria Claims Attack By U.S.

Syrian officials are claiming U.S. helicopters an area near the town of Abu Kamal, killing 8 people. Thalia Assuras is monitoring... more

wlwatkins
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Palin “annoyed” with CBS interviewer

Campaigning Saturday in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a city once represented in Congress by another vice presidential candidate named Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin delivered one of her longest stump speeches to date and revealed that she was “annoyed” with the line of questioning presented by Katie Couric in her now-infamous interview with CBS.

Palin reprised a story she last told a week ago in Noblesville, Indiana about her sit-down with Couric, which was widely panned.

“Last time I was here I got to tell a crowd that I had to give a national interview that didn’t go so well,” she said. “And it was because I was kind of annoyed with the questions that I was being asked because I thought they were kind of irrelevant to, you know, national security issues and getting our economy back on track, so I kind of showed some of that annoyance.”

Couric did, in fact, ask Palin several questions about the economy and national security, focusing in particular on the congressional bailout package, the mortgage crisis, John McCain’s record on regulation, the war in Afghanistan, hunting terrorists in Pakistan, Russia, Iran, Syria, Israel and the role of the United States in the world.

Palin joked, however, about another line of questioning.

“But I think the one question that I answered that everyone could agree on, it maybe shows where my heart is… too is, she asked me this relevant question: What was my favorite movie? And I said ‘Hoosiers!’”

The governor continued to press the campaign’s message of the day: that Barack Obama and congressional Democrats will, if elected, expand government and redistribute the hard-earned dollars of regular Americans, criticisms that brought on accusatory shouts of “socialist!,” “Communist!” and, at one point, “Hussein the socialist!”

Palin said that on election day, “what we're going to have to do together, voters, what we have to do is fight for what is right and free and uniquely American. Let us put our trust in each other, not big government.”

The Indiana crowd — easily Palin’s largest of the day — was warmed up by country legend Hank Williams, Jr., who often appears at Palin campaign events to perform his recently-penned ode to the GOP ticket: “McCain-Palin tradition.”

But Williams may have been channeling the enthusiasm of the crowds for Palin — and also reflecting recent reports that Palin is “going rogue” with an eye toward the 2012 presidential race. At one point during his performance, he intentionally scrambled the song’s lyrics and put the Alaskan at the top of the ticket, praising a “Palin-McCain tradition.”

That musical witticism earned Williams a loud cheer from the crowd.Campaigning Saturday in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a city once represented in Congress by another vice presidential candidate named Dan... more

Apocalipstick
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23 days ago

Wall Street Crisis Begins to Hurt Media Moguls

Be afraid. Be very afraid
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Let me see ... first, there were the Nazis. Then the Russians. Then the oil sheiks. Then the international Trilateral Commission bankers. Then the European terrorists. Then the Japanese industrialists. Then the Hong Kong Chinese tongs. Then the Red Chinese. Then the media moguls. Then the Middle East terrorists. Now film and television studios plan to make Wall Street execs into the next big villains.

No wonder. Because the stock-market plunge has meant panic time in Big Media executive offices. Overleveraged Sumner Redstone had to sell $233 million worth of his controlling shares of Viacom and CBS, which he’d used as collateral for a $1.6 billion loan (more below). And now Wall Street investor Carl Icahn, who loves to destabilize management when a stock is underperforming, has increased his stake from 4 percent to 9.17 percent (10.762 million shares) in Lionsgate Entertainment.

In the SEC filing, Icahn said he took the position because he thinks the shares are undervalued. A Lionsgate rep claims Icahn and the mini-major are having a “constructive dialogue.” But be afraid, be very afraid, Jon Feltheimer. Because Icahn caused all that trouble for Time Warner and its chairman/CEO Dick Parsons not too long ago. (Remember when Icahn was pressing TW for board seats and then enlisted Bruce Wasserstein to try to take over the company and put Frank Biondi in as the new CEO?) And the same guy who made Jerry Yang’s life miserable at Yahoo. And on and on ...

Icahn looks to be bottom-feeding. That’s why I was surprised when the suck-up trades celebrated when Feltheimer this month extended his contract to run Lionsgate through March 14 for a base salary that’s reportedly $1.2 million until 2011, at which point it rises in accordance with the Consumer Price Index.

The pact also provides that he’ll receive 458,036 shares of stock vesting over a three-year period starting in 2012, giving him a 1.5 percent ownership stake — while Lionsgate shareholders keep getting hosed. The mini-major’s stock price has hit a 52-week low in a downturn that has impacted all media stocks. And at least one mogul.

It’s now come to light that, as the stock plummeted to more than a four-year low, Lionsgate Entertainment Vice Chairman Michael Burns lost 49 percent of his stake in the mini-major on October 10 in a forced liquidation by Merrill Lynch. In other words, the trades were not initiated at the direction of Burns. Merrill liquidated 672,000 of his shares for $4.04 million, according to regulatory filings. The sales left Burns with just 689,635 shares, according to the filings. Yikes!

So far there’s no indication that Feltheimer’s Lionsgate stake has been harmed. But here’s what really confounds me about him: how someone who was such a brilliant TV mogul at Sony, and whose mini-major had the good taste to be in business with Matthew Weiner for Mad Men, could allow Lionsgate to keep making revolting horror flicks, including many with torture porn?

True, Lionsgate — with its long-term association with Tyler Perry and its newly expanded studio production — is moving away from the traditional “Hard R” gory fare that made the mini-major successful financially into making more PG-13 product fare.

But I want Feltheimer to make a public announcement renouncing torture porn kinds of films before Saw V is released this month. My own fervent wish has been for someone to strap him to a chair and force him to repeatedly watch the sicko Saw franchise. But now Icahn may represent punishment enough for Feltheimer.Be afraid. Be very afraid -------------------- Let me see ... first, there were the Nazis. Then the Russians. Then the oil... more