AOL buys Huffington Post

New York Times: The Huffington Post, which began in 2005 with a meager $1 million investment and has grown into one of the most heavily visited news Web sites in the country, is being acquired by AOL in a deal that creates an unlikely pairing of two online media giants. 

The two companies completed the sale Sunday evening and announced the deal just after midnight on Monday. AOL will pay $315 million, $300 million of it in cash and the rest in stock. It will be the company’s largest acquisition since it was separated fromTime Warner in 2009. 

The deal will allow AOL to greatly expand its news gathering and original content creation, areas that its chief executive, Tim Armstrong, views as vital to reversing a decade-long decline. 

Arianna Huffington, the cable talk show pundit, author and doyenne of the political left, will take control of all of AOL’s editorial content as president and editor in chief of a newly created Huffington Post Media Group. The arrangement will give her oversight not only of AOL’s national, local and financial news operations, but also of the company’s other media enterprises like MapQuest and Moviefone. [MORE]

Good grief, AOL must have a death wish.  Buying Huffpo is one thing, but giving a leftwing hack like Arianna that much control is just plain crazy.  I can see it now, tasteless Palin jokes on MapQuest.  Thank God for GPS!

Via: Memeorandum

Via: The New York Times

Arianna Huffington “thanks” Glenn Beck

Normally I would never link to a Huffington Post article, but this one by Arrianna Huffington requires some attention. In her latest column, Arianna praises Van Jones. She starts off by “thanking” Glenn Beck for getting Van Jones canned.

Thank you, Glenn Beck. By helping force the resignation of Van Jones, you have done a great service to your country. But in the exact opposite way than what you intended.

Your vile and vicious smear campaign has helped reverse one of the worst examples of miscasting since John Wayne took on the role of Genghis Khan in The Conqueror.

Huffington, then goes on to praise Van Jones :

Don't get me wrong: Van Jones was the best person for the job he just gave up. But the job was not the best use of Van Jones.

Best person for the job? With unemployment at 9.7% and rising, did Van Jones create a single “green job” or a job of any color during the time he was with the White House? Since the answer is no, I would say good riddance. Our national debt is immorally high; we cannot afford to pay posers to push their radical agendas. This seems to be lost on Arianna. Then again she has her millions, so why should she care about us little people being taxed to death to pay for all these useless Czars.

Arianna does do us a favor and reminds us something that we may have all forgotten after hearing about Jones’ resignation:

Now, thanks to Glenn Beck, we've got that voice back. No longer tied to his desk with a sock in his mouth, Van is now freed to do what he does best: inspire and energize groups around the country. Student groups and labor groups and small business groups and middle class Americans everywhere who are losing jobs and losing homes and losing hope. He's free to push with all his might and insight for the vision tens of millions of Americans tirelessly worked for during the presidential campaign -- the vision they voted for in November -- but which is now in danger of being drowned in the fetid political swamps of Washington.

That is right, Van Jones is now free to rabble-rouse, stir the racial pot and push his conspiracy theories all over the place. If I had to guess what his first order of business would be, I would say it is to try to bring down Glenn Beck. After that, Jones will no doubt return to his radical ways and when your read about the future trouble he causes, please do not forget Arianna’s praise.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: Huffington Post