Showing posts with label The New York Times. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The New York Times. Show all posts

Sunday, May 31, 2015

But WON'T Run Cartoons Of Muhammad

May 31, 2015 Clay Waters , Newsbusters 0 Comments
NYT's Artistic Display of Religious Hypocrisy: Runs Offensive Virgin Mary Painting Once Again

By Clay Waters, May 29, 2015, Newsbusters

The New York Times' hypocrisy regarding displays of "offensive" religious imagery runs unabated, as shown in a Scott Reyburn article in Friday's Arts section on the sale of Chris Ofili's controversial painting "The Holy Virgin Mary," which shows the Virgin Mary clotted with elephant dung against a porn-collage background -- and accompanied by a photograph of the offensive work. Yet when the paper refused to reprint a cartoon of Muhammad that appeared in the Paris satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that resulted in the January 2015 massacre of 12 magazine staffers, it offered this smug, cowardly justification:

Under Times standards, we do not normally publish images or other material deliberately intended to offend religious sensibilities. After careful consideration, Times editors decided that describing the cartoons in question would give readers sufficient information to understand today’s story. 

Read the full story: www.newsbusters.org

Join us - become an Elderado today at: LarryElder.com

Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

So Far! --It's early, real early

May 19, 2015 Clinton Foundation , Hillary Clinton 0 Comments
The Worst Day of Hillary Clinton's Campaign

Stephen F. Hayes, May 19, 2015, Weekly Standard

Hillary Clinton had a very bad day.

In fact, she’s had a series of bad days since she announced her presidential bid April 12. But Monday was the worst of them.

In a bombshell report, the New York Times reported that Clinton, as secretary of state, used her private email to share private intelligence reports from noted conspiracy theorist and political hitman Sidney Blumenthal, at a time when Blumenthal was being paid by the Clinton Foundation and liberal political organizations that helped lay the groundwork for Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The emails included reports on Libya at a time when Blumenthal was seeking business in the country and included dubious information. The Times reported that Clinton nonetheless “took Mr. Blumenthal’s advice seriously” and “continued to pass around his emails even after other senior diplomats concluded that Mr. Blumenthal’s assessments were often unreliable.”

Read the full story:  www.weeklystandard.com

Join us - become an Elderado today at: LarryElder.com 

Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

"an industry that subsists on substantial illegal labor..."

May 19, 2015 Labor , New York City Nail Salons 0 Comments
The Price Of Chief Labor 

By Rich Lowry, May 11, 2015, The Stream

Manicures and pedicures aren’t usually news or fodder for commentary, but a blockbuster report in The New York Times has made them a compelling issue.

Under the headline “The Price of Nice Nails,” the story cataloged the abusive treatment of workers in New York City’s ubiquitous nail salons. The story generated an enormous reaction; it highlighted the poignant juxtaposition of affluent women enjoying what once would have been a luxury, thanks to poor, exploited women with no other options.

It is a tableau that doesn’t feel very American or very modern. We thought we had put the age of sweatshops behind us, but we hadn’t. It turns out that sweatshops are where New York City women go to get their mani-pedis.

The Times story is, in part, about the ugly underbelly of immigration. The salons are what an industry that subsists on substantial illegal labor looks like.

Census Bureau numbers say that 59 percent of personal-appearance workers are foreign-born, according to Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies. By Camarota’s estimate, about a quarter of those foreign workers are illegal, and judging by the Times report, the number is higher in New York City.

Read the full story:  www.stream.org

Join us - become an Elderado today at: LarryElder.com 

Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - No comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Iraq's WMD: The Shameless New York Times Moves The Goalposts By Larry Elder

October 23, 2014 Articles by Larry Elder , Iraq 1 Comments
By Larry Elder, Oct. 23, 2014, Townhall.com

Contrary to the expectations of all 16 of our U.S. intelligence agencies, the "weapons hunters" sent to Iraq by President George W. Bush found no "stockpiles" of WMD.

Never mind that there was a 15-month run-up to the war, during which time Saddam was not combing his moustache. A former Iraqi general, Georges Sada, who met with members of Congress, has long claimed Saddam Hussein moved tons of WMD by land and air into Syria during the run-up to the 2003 invasion. James Clapper, the current Director of National Intelligence, has also said publicly that he, too, believes the WMD were there. But Bush's two weapons hunters found no stockpiles.

President George W. Bush looked like a fool.

Bush-hating critics chanted, "Bush lied, people died." About the prewar intelligence, Sen. Ted Kennedy said, "Before the war, week after week after week after week, we were told lie after lie after lie after lie." Critics said the lives of over 4,000 troops were wasted, in addition to the money supposedly squandered prosecuting the Iraq War.

Now comes the 10,000-word, eight-part story in The New York Times. The front-page story, called "The Secret Casualties Of Iraq's Abandoned Chemical Weapons," says WMD were in Iraq: "In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act."

Moreover, the soldiers were told to keep quiet about the WMD:

"Troops and officers were instructed to be silent or give deceptive accounts of what they had found. ?'Nothing of significance' is what I was ordered to say,' said Jarrod Lampier, a recently retired Army major who was present for the largest chemical weapons discovery of the war: more than 2,400 nerve-agent rockets unearthed in 2006 at a former Republican Guard compound.

"Jarrod L. Taylor, a former Army sergeant on hand for the destruction of mustard shells that burned two soldiers in his infantry company, joked of 'wounds that never happened' from 'that stuff that didn't exist.' The public, he said, was misled for a decade. 'I love it when I hear, 'Oh there weren't any chemical weapons in Iraq,' he said. 'There were plenty.'"

This is not new news to those who get news from publications other than the Times. Following a 2010 WikiLeaks leak, Wired magazine wrote: "By late 2003, even the Bush White House's staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction. But WikiLeaks' newly-released Iraq war documents reveal that for years afterward, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins and uncover weapons of mass destruction (emphasis added). ... Chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam's toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict -- and may have brewed up their own deadly agents."

But, rest assured, the Times emphatically insists, the discovered WMD "did not support the government's invasion rationale." It doesn't? Well, you see, according to the Times, Bush still misled Americans because the discovered WMD were "old" and "degraded," not part of an "active" weapons program. "Active?"

But only days before the bombshell Times piece, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow restated why she felt Bush "lied." Not once during her three-minute send-up about Bush "lies" and "wrong" intel, did Maddow ever use the word "active," let alone the term "active weapons program":

"There still exists -- on the right -- a sort of dead-ender fringe who believe thatactually Saddam Hussein really did have weapons of mass destruction. He must have. George Bush couldn't have been wrong about that. I say it's a dead-ender fringe because even ... George W. Bush had to admit he was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. Iraq did not have them. ...

"We are four weeks out from the elections this year. It is 10 years today since our own government officially admitted the whole WMDs thing about Iraq was a lie. It's not like an accusation that it was a lie. It's a lie. We've admitted it was a lie."

Maddow then handed the floor to colleague Lawrence O'Donnell, who promptly piled on. But again O'Donnell, like Maddow, said nothing about "active": "Rachel, I wish this wasn't true, but I do have a prediction for you -- and that is that you have not done your last segment about a Republican who believes that there were (starts laughing) weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

Now we know. WMD were, in fact, in Iraq.

The New York Times, Democrats and the doofi at MSNBC should apologize to President George W. Bush, an honorable man who attempted to do the right thing, only to be savaged by his critics. Fox's Charles Krauthammer has a term for this inability to acknowledge a scintilla of decency in our 43rd president -- "Bush Derangement Syndrome."

It is more toxic than Ebola.

Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - 1 comment:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

NYT too shameless to be embarrassed

October 15, 2014 9/11 , C.J. Chivers 0 Comments
The Secret Casualties Of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons

Erica Gardner/United States Navy, via Getty Images
Source:  www.nytimes.com
By C.J. Chivers, Oct. 14, 2014, Nytimes.com

The soldiers at the blast crater sensed something was wrong.

It was August 2008 near Taji, Iraq. They had just exploded a stack of old Iraqi artillery shells buried beside a murky lake. The blast, part of an effort to destroy munitions that could be used in makeshift bombs, uncovered more shells.

Two technicians assigned to dispose of munitions stepped into the hole. Lake water seeped in. One of them, Specialist Andrew T. Goldman, noticed a pungent odor, something, he said, he had never smelled before.

He lifted a shell. Oily paste oozed from a crack. “That doesn’t look like pond water,” said his team leader, Staff Sgt. Eric J. Duling.

The specialist swabbed the shell with chemical detection paper. It turned red — indicating sulfur mustard, the chemical warfare agent designed to burn a victim’s airway, skin and eyes.

All three men recall an awkward pause. Then Sergeant Duling gave an order: “Get the hell out.”

Five years after President George W. Bush sent troops into Iraq, these soldiers had entered an expansive but largely secret chapter of America’s long and bitter involvement in Iraq.

From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein’s rule.

In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Read the full story:  www.nytimes.com

Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

When prez is a dem, he switches views!

October 14, 2014 Articles by Larry Elder , Democrats 0 Comments
'The Hypocrisy Of New York Times Economist Paul Krugman' 

By Larry Elder, Feb. 11, 2010

Left-wing economist, Nobel laureate and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman hates deficits in tough economic times -- when the president of the United States is named George W. Bush.

Krugman, in a November 2004 interview, criticized the "enormous" Bush deficit. "We have a world-class budget deficit," he said, "not just as in absolute terms, of course -- it's the biggest budget deficit in the history of the world -- but it's a budget deficit that, as a share of GDP, is right up there."

The numbers? The deficit in fiscal year 2004 -- $413 billion, 3.5 percent of the gross domestic product.

Back then, a disapproving Krugman called the deficit "comparable to the worst we've ever seen in this country. ... The only time postwar that the United States has had anything like these deficits is the middle Reagan years, and that was with unemployment close to 10 percent." Take away the Social Security surplus spent by the government, he said, and "we're running at a deficit of more than 6 percent of GDP, and that is unprecedented."

He considered the Bush tax cuts irresponsible and a major contributor -- along with two wars -- to the deficit. But he also warned of the growing cost of autopilot entitlements: "We have the huge bulge in the population that starts to collect benefits. ... If there isn't a clear path towards fiscal sanity well before (the next decade), then I think the financial markets are going to say, 'Well, gee, where is this going?'"

Three months earlier, Krugman said, "Here we are more than 2 1/2 years after the official end of the recession, and we're still well below, of course, pre-Bush employment." In October 2004, unemployment was 5.5 percent and continued to slowly decline. At the time, Krugman described the economy as "weak," with "job creation ... essentially nonexistent."

How bad will it get? If we don't get our "financial house in order," he said, "I think we're looking for a collapse of confidence some time in the not-too-distant future."

Fast-forward to 2010.

The numbers: projected deficit for fiscal year 2010 -- over $1.5 trillion, more than 10 percent of GDP.

This sets a post-WWII record in both absolute numbers and as a percentage of GDP. And if the Obama administration's optimistic projections of the economic growth fall short, things will get much worse. So what does Krugman say now?

We must guard against "deficit hysteria." In "Fiscal Scare Tactics," his recent column, Krugman writes: "These days it's hard to pick up a newspaper or turn on a news program without encountering stern warnings about the federal budget deficit. The deficit threatens economic recovery, we're told; it puts American economic stability at risk; it will undermine our influence in the world. These claims generally aren't stated as opinions, as views held by some analysts but disputed by others. Instead, they're reported as if they were facts, plain and simple."

He continues, "And fear-mongering on the deficit may end up doing as much harm as the fear-mongering on weapons of mass destruction." Krugman believes Bush lied us into the Iraq War. Just as people unreasonably feared Saddam Hussein, they now have an unwarranted fear of today's deficit.

Questions: Didn't Krugman, less than six years ago, call the deficit "enormous"? Wouldn't he, therefore, consider a $1.5 trillion deficit at 10 percent of GDP mega-normous? Didn't he describe the economy with 5.5 percent unemployment as "weak"? Isn't the current economy, at 9.7 percent unemployment, even weaker? If the 2004 deficit was "comparable to the worst we've ever seen in this country," wouldn't today's much bigger deficit cause even more heartburn?

Nope. Now a huge deficit is actually a good thing: "The point is that running big deficits in the face of the worst economic slump since the 1930s is actually the right thing to do. If anything, deficits should be bigger than they are because the government should be doing more than it is to create jobs." The deficit "should be bigger"?!

Long term, Krugman says, we've got concerns about revenue and spending. But as for now? "There's no reason to panic about budget prospects for the next few years, or even for the next decade." In 2004, Krugman warned that without a "clear path towards fiscal sanity" before "the next decade," we faced a "crunch." Presumably, we now have this "clear path."

Let's review. In 2004, an unhappy Krugman criticized Bush's "weak" economy and "miserable" job creation. Running an "enormous" deficit was a bad thing. Times were awful -- "by a large margin" the worst job crash and performance since Herbert Hoover. Today the deficit is four times as large in an even weaker economy with much higher unemployment. Times are awful. Now, though, the deficit is a good thing and should be even bigger.

Krugman's flip-flop on the deficit demonstrates a modern economic equation. Hatred of Bush + love for Obama = intellectual dishonesty.


Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Blame Bush!

October 01, 2014 Breitbart.com , Job Losses 0 Comments
New York Times Slashes 7.5% Of Staff, Digital Platforms Fail

By John Nolte, Oct. 1, 2014, Breitbart.com
After weeks of rumors, The New York Times announced Wednesday that more than 100 newsroom jobs will be slashed, as "well as a smaller number of positions from its editorial and business operations[.]" If enough people don't accept buyouts, the ax will fall. According to the Huffington Post, this adds up to ahuge 7.5% cut of the overall Times' staff.

What has to be especially troubling for the Times is that its new much-hyped digital platforms have failed. According to the paper's editor Dean Baquet, the NYT Now and NYT Opinion apps are "not achieving the business success we expected."

NYT Opinion will be killed off.

These digital platforms were the last hope for a New York Times that has seen its physical subscription rates and advertising revenues plummet in recent years.

The note also said financial results from the company’s third quarter, which ended Sunday, had improved from a difficult second quarter. Digital advertising is likely to show growth of about 16 percent in the third quarter, the best quarterly performance since 2010, and digital subscriptions are expected to increase by more than 40,000, the largest number of quarterly additions since 2012.

But the company’s profitability was lower than during the same period last year as costs increased.

Read the full story:  www.breitbart.com

Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Another hostage among many

September 23, 2014 British Hostage , ISIS 1 Comments
New ISIS Video: ‘Lecture Series’ By John Cantile



By Rukmini Callmachi, Sept. 22, 2014, Nytimes.com

As American airstrikes began raining down on the de facto capital of the Islamic State in Syria on Monday night, the militant group issued a new installment in its “lecture series” delivered by a British hostage, John Cantlie.

In the propaganda video, Mr. Cantlie is again seated at a table wearing an orange jumpsuit, in a reference to the outfits worn by Muslim prisoners at American detention centers at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He reads from a script, explaining how the United States’ involvement in the Syrian conflict will mirror its misadventures in Vietnam.

“In this program, we’ll see how the Western governments are hastily marching towards all-out war in Iraq and Syria without paying any heed to the lessons of the recent past,” Mr. Cantlie says. “Not since Vietnam have we witnessed such a potential mess in the making.”

The 5-minute, 55-second forced “lecture” is the second in less than a week;the first circulated on Thursday. Of interest is how the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, seems intent on using Western figures to try to sway American opinion. Mr. Cantlie begins by quoting a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, Michael Scheuer, whom he praises for his knowledge of the Middle East.

Read the full story:  www.nytimes.com

Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - 1 comment:
Labels: , , ,

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Oops!

September 02, 2014 Congressional Black Caucus , Para-Military Style Policing 0 Comments
If Democrats Seek to "Rally Blacks" Against Police Militarization, They Might Start with the Congressional Black Caucus

By Nick Gillespie, Sept. 1, 2014, Reason.com

The New York Times reports that, "At Risk in Senate, Democrats Seek to Rally Blacks." Specifically, the Times says

Democrats are trying to mobilize African-Americans outraged by the shooting in Ferguson, Mo., to help them retain control of at least one chamber of Congress for President Obama’s final two years in office....

“Ferguson has made it crystal clear to the African-American community and others that we’ve got to go to the polls,” said Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia and a civil-rights leader. “You participate and vote, and you can have some control over what happens to your child and your country.”

Lewis might want to start with his colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus, many of whom were blase about police militarization as recently as June. As Ed Krayewski has noted, in June, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) sponsored an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 4355) that would have prevented federal giveaways of military equipment to local police departments around the country. "My amendment," explained Grayson, "would prohibit the Department of Defense from gifting excess equipment, such as aircraft—including drones—armored vehicles, grenade launchers, silencers, and bombs to local police departments. Those weapons have no place in our streets, regardless of who may be deploying them."

Read the full story:  www.reason.com

Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Monday, August 18, 2014

Right Sightings: Larry Elder And Charles Blow On CNN's Brooke Baldwin In A Spirited Debate Regarding The Civil Unrest Surrounding The Michael Brown Shooting In Ferguson, Missouri

August 18, 2014 Charles Blow , CNN 0 Comments


Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Monday, August 4, 2014

After his shooting, Brady changed views on guns--Reagan didn't

August 04, 2014 James Barron , James S. Brady 0 Comments
James S. Brady, Symbol of Fight for Gun Control, Dies

Press Secretary James Brady cuts the ribbon together 
with President Ronald Reagan opening the new press 
center at the White House in Washington on 
November 9, 1981, with First Lady Nancy looking on. 
(UPI Photo/Mal Langsdon/Files)
By James Barron, Aug. 4, 2014, Nytimes.com

James S. Brady, the White House press secretary who was wounded in an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan and then became a symbol of the fight for gun control, championing tighter regulations from his wheelchair, died on Monday in Alexandria, Va. He was 73.

His family confirmed the death but did not specify a cause.

On the rainy afternoon of March 30, 1981, Mr. Brady was struck in a hail of bullets fired by John W. Hinckley Jr., a mentally troubled college dropout who had hoped that shooting the president would impress the actress Jodie Foster, on whom he had a fixation. Mr. Hinckley raised his handgun as Reagan stepped out of a hotel in Washington after giving a speech.

Reagan, a couple of paces from his limousine, was hit, as were a Secret Service agent and a District of Columbia police officer. But it was Mr. Brady, shot in the head, who was the most seriously injured. The bullet damaged the right section of his brain, paralyzing his left arm, weakening his left leg, damaging his short-term memory and impairing his speech. Just getting out of a car became a study in determination.

Read the full story:  www.nytimes.com

Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Thursday, June 26, 2014

NY Times Runs Only 13 Stories on IRS In Last Six Months --New motto: "Only the news that fits the script"

June 26, 2014 IRS Scandal , Jeffrey Meyer 0 Comments
By Jeffrey Meyer, Jun. 26, Newsbusters.org

The New York Times’ motto is “all the news that’s fit to print” but in their eyes it seems as though the IRS scandal isn’t worth printing all that much.

Research conducted by the Media Research Center found that in the past 6 months (183 days) the New York Times has published only 13 news items on the IRS’ targeting of Tea Party groups. The study focused on the dates of December 25, 2013 until June 26, 2014 and did not include editorial or opinion pieces published in the Times.

In fact, our research found that not a single story on the IRS made it onto the front page of the New York Times and all stories were saved for the National pages deep inside the front section, so an IRS story never came before page A12. Our results were obtained using a Nexis search of key words including “IRS” and “Lois Lerner” and “Tea Party” but did not include stories referencing the IRS scandal as part of larger political stories.

Since December 25, 2013 the front section of the New York Times has run approximately 5,694 stories in its front section, excluding obituaries and opinion/editorial pieces. Of these approximately 5,694 news stories, less than one quarter of one percent of the paper’s front section news stories -centered around the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups.

For example, on Wednesday, June 25, the New York Times buried a story on the United States Archivist accusing the IRS of not following the law in the wake of Lois Lerner's hard drive crash on page A15 and ignored the IRS’ admission of wrongdoing for leaking the tax information of the National Organization for Marriage and subsequently paid the group $50,000 in damages.

Read the full story:  www.newsbusters.org

Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Monday, June 23, 2014

Dinesh D'Souza's 'America' Banished From New York Times Best Seller List --Book, what book?

June 23, 2014 America: Imagine a World Without Her , Dinesh D'Souza 0 Comments

By Paul Bedard, Jun. 20, 2014, Washingtonexaminer.com

The New York Times bestseller list hasn't waited a millisecond to putHillary Clinton's book atop its influential chart after just a week of sales, but has totally ignored another top-10 hardcover from noted conservative and critic of President Obama, Dinesh D'Souza.

His new book, on sale for three weeks, isn’t just absent from the top 10 lists already set for the next two Sundays, but totally missing from the list of the nation’s top 25 nonfiction hardcovers despite having sales higher than 13 on the latest Times chart.

According to sales reports provided to Secrets, D'Souza's new book America: Imagine a World Without Her, sold 4,915 in the first week and 5,592 in the second week. Had it been included on the upcoming June 22 Times hardcover nonfiction list, it would have ranked No. 8, and then No. 11 on the June 29 list that puts Clinton's sales at 85,721. The lists are widely circulated in the publishing industry before they go public.

America is expected to explode when the accompanying movie debuts next month. In America, D’Sousa slams Obama’s agenda and targets Clinton too — maybe one reason the Times hasn’t recognized it.The Times is somewhat mysterious in how it calculates its list, but it includes several books selling well under 3,000 copies in a week. A spokeswoman said, “We let the rankings speak for themselves and are confident they are accurate.”

“They are part of the propaganda arm of the Obama administration,” D'Souza told Secrets from Philadelphia, where his book and movie bus tour had stopped before traveling to Washington on Friday. His Obama's America was a Times No. 1 best-seller.

“It’s their newspaper, and they have a right to rig their list anyway they want, but if they are doing it, people should know,” he said.

D'Souza, who last month pleaded guilty to one criminal count of making illegal contributions in the names of others, said the list is important to boosting sales. “It matters to be on it,” he said.

But to ignore his latest best seller, he said, “the Times is falling short of its journalistic and editorial responsibilities in a much a bigger way than keeping me off the list.”


Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Sunday, June 15, 2014

FLASHBACK: NYT Denies It But Iraq IS Inspiring Freedom In Iran By Larry Elder

June 15, 2014 al-Qaeda , Articles by Larry Elder 0 Comments
via www.townhall.com
Larry Elder, Dec. 31, 2009

Did Saddam Hussein's fall and the formation of a fledging democracy in Iraq encourage and embolden regime-threatening dissent in Iran?

The anti-Iraq War crowd, many of whom suffer from Give-George-W.-Bush-No Credit-for-Anything Disease, says, "No, of course not." How dare anyone even suggest that the former President was correct, if not about the rightfulness of the war itself, then about his argument that a "free and peaceful" Iraq would provide a "dramatic and inspiring example" to the Middle East and the Muslim world. Good Lord!

The Iraq War-achieved-zero crowd begrudged Bush nothing even after the democratic Cedar Revolution in Lebanon. Never mind that Walid Jumblatt, a Lebanese Druze Muslim leader, said: "It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting (in 2005), 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world."

As to Iran, The New York Times quoted a pundit-blogger who, when protests began this past summer, wrote, "(N)o Iranian ... has mentioned Iraq as an inspiration for the demonstrations, nor has any leader of their opposition cited their Iraqi neighbors as a model or a source of guidance."

None?

Meet Mohsen Kadivar. In May 2004, Time magazine profiled this Iranian intellectual in a flattering article called "The Critical Cleric -- Reclaiming Islam for a New World." Newsweek called him a global leader "to watch in 2005." His criticism of the Iranian regime landed him in jail. He now teaches at Duke University, and PBS's Charlie Rose interviewed him in July.

What does this cleric says about Iraq's possible influence on his native country? In February 2005, he said: "I think the Iraqis can make what we wanted to create but were unsuccessful: a real Islamic Republic. By that I mean a republic with Islamic values, democracy with Islamic values ... (where) the clergy has no special rights. If they have a good government with Islamic democracy and without any special or divine rights for the clergy, the Iranian government won't be able to justify its situation to the Iranian citizens."

Meet Mashallah Shamsolvaezin. In 2000, this Iranian journalist received an International Press Freedom Award but could not attend the formal dinner honoring him. Shamsolvaezin was then sitting in a Tehran prison for the crime of "insulting Islamic values." The authorities shut down several publications that he edited. Just days ago, he and several other journalists were arrested in Iran.

What did he say about Iraq's possible influence on Iran? "The Shi'as in Iraq have accepted the notion of having a secular government, and they are slowly moving toward the democratization of their country -- free elections, democratic institutions, a free press. All of this in and of itself will have an impact on the situation in Iran."

Meet Mohsen Sazegara. This Revolutionary Guard co-founder and former Islamic Republic supporter became a critic. He attempted to run for president of Iran, but authorities denied his application. He spent three months in jail for opposing the regime. He now lives in the United States and faces more prison time should he return to his country.

What did he say about Iraq's possible influence on Iran? "I personally hope that Iraq's (transition to democracy) will be completed successfully so that it can also help our nation. For sure, neighbors with democratic governments are much better for us than dictators such as Saddam Hussein or backward groups such as the Taliban ... . Our young generation in particular has shown ... that it has a strong desire for democracy, human rights and civil society, and a strong desire to join the international (community). And when democratic changes take place in our neighboring and brother country Iraq, with its many ties to us, it encourages our youth, and emboldens our young people to ask for change in our current constitution."

In truth, the anti-Iraq War/Bush-hating left despises the former President far more than do the Iranians.

Almost two years after we entered Iraq, Iranians, according to a 2004 BBC poll, preferred Bush (52 percent) over John Kerry (42 percent) in the U.S. presidential elections. When asked whether the U.S. should get out of the Middle East, only 20 percent of Iranians said yes.

In May 2004, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof traveled to Iran. He wrote: "Everywhere I've gone in Iran ... people have been exceptionally friendly and fulsome in their praise for the United States, and often for President Bush as well. ... Indeed, many Iranians seem convinced that the U.S. military ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq are going great, and they say this with more conviction than your average White House spokesman."

The Iraq War and fledging democracy continue to pay dividends. It helped convince Libya's strongman to surrender his WMD. It helped inspire a democratic movement in Lebanon. And it may, just may, help to bring down an Islamofascist government that is the leading exporter of terrorism -- before it gets a nuclear bomb.

Just as the "neo-cons" had hoped.

Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Monday, May 26, 2014

NYTimes: Hospitals Look to Health Law, Cutting Charity --Is this the way it was supposed to work?

May 26, 2014 Abby Goodnough , Cartoonist Antonio Branco 1 Comments

By Abby Goodnough, May 25, 2014, Nytimes.com

Hospital systems around the country have started scaling back financial assistance for lower- and middle-income people without health insurance, hoping to push them into signing up for coverage through the new online marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act.

The trend is troubling to advocates for the uninsured, who say raising fees will inevitably cause some to skip care rather than buy insurance that they consider unaffordable. Though the number of hospitals tightening access to free or discounted care appears limited so far, many say they are considering doing so, and experts predict that stricter policies will become increasingly common.

Driving the new policies is the cost of charity care, which is partly covered by government but remains a burden for many hospitals. The new law also reduces federal aid to hospitals that treat large numbers of poor and uninsured people, creating an additional pressure on some to restrict charity care.

Read the full story: www.nytimes.com

Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - 1 comment:
Labels: , , , ,

Friday, May 23, 2014

FLASHBACK: NYTimes Economist/Columnist Paul Krugman's Love Column About The The "Highly Successful" VA

May 23, 2014 Healthcare Reform , National Quality Research Center 0 Comments
By Paul Krugman, Jan. 27, 2006, Nytimes.com

American health care is desperately in need of reform. But what form should change take? Are there any useful examples we can turn to for guidance?

Well, I know about a health care system that has been highly successful in containing costs, yet provides excellent care. And the story of this system's success provides a helpful corrective to anti-government ideology. For the government doesn't just pay the bills in this system -- it runs the hospitals and clinics.

No, I'm not talking about some faraway country. The system in question is our very own Veterans Health Administration, whose success story is one of the best-kept secrets in the American policy debate.

In the 1980's and early 1990's, says an article in The American Journal of Managed Care, the V.H.A. ''had a tarnished reputation of bureaucracy, inefficiency and mediocre care.'' But reforms beginning in the mid-1990's transformed the system, and ''the V.A.'s success in improving quality, safety and value,'' the article says, ''have allowed it to emerge as an increasingly recognized leader in health care.''

Last year customer satisfaction with the veterans' health system, as measured by an annual survey conducted by the National Quality Research Center, exceeded that for private health care for the sixth year in a row. This high level of quality (which is also verified by objective measures of performance) was achieved without big budget increases. In fact, the veterans' system has managed to avoid much of the huge cost surge that has plagued the rest of U.S. medicine.

How does the V.H.A. do it?

The secret of its success is the fact that it's a universal, integrated system. Because it covers all veterans, the system doesn't need to employ legions of administrative staff to check patients' coverage and demand payment from their insurance companies. Because it covers all aspects of medical care, it has been able to take the lead in electronic record-keeping and other innovations that reduce costs, ensure effective treatment and help prevent medical errors.

Moreover, the V.H.A., as Phillip Longman put it in The Washington Monthly, ''has nearly a lifetime relationship with its patients.'' As a result, it ''actually has an incentive to invest in prevention and more effective disease management. When it does so, it isn't just saving money for somebody else. It's maximizing its own resources. In short, it can do what the rest of the health care sector can't seem to, which is to pursue quality systematically without threatening its own financial viability.''

Oh, and one more thing: the veterans' health system bargains hard with medical suppliers, and pays far less for drugs than most private insurers.

I don't want to idealize the veterans' system. In fact, there's reason to be concerned about its future: will it be given the resources it needs to cope with the flood of wounded and traumatized veterans from Iraq? But the transformation of the V.H.A. is clearly the most encouraging health policy story of the past decade. So why haven't you heard about it?

Read the full story:  www.nytimes.com

Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - No comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Friday, May 16, 2014

Everything You Need to Know About Dean Baquet, The First Black Executive Editor Of The New York Times --Same bias

May 16, 2014 Dean Baquet , Joe Coscarell 0 Comments
By Joe Coscarell, May 14, 2014, Nymag.com

A bit buried in the unexpected announcement that the New York Times is ditching its first female executive editor, Jill Abramson, after less than three years, is that the man replacing her is also historic. Dean Baquet, 57, unexpectedly became the first African-American atop the paper's masthead today, calling it "an honor to be asked to lead the only newsroom in the country that is actually better than it was a generation ago."

"There is no journalist in our newsroom or elsewhere better qualified to take on the responsibilities of executive editor at this time than Dean Baquet," said Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. "He is an exceptional reporter and editor with impeccable news judgment who enjoys the confidence and support of his colleagues around the world and across the organization." From New Orleans to New York, Chicago, L.A., and back, here's his story so far.

Baquet's roots are in Louisiana. The second youngest of five boys, Baquet grew up in his family's restaurants. His father was a postal worker before he sold the family's house to start Eddie's Restaurant, with the brood living in the back rooms. Later, the Baquets would own the creole spot Li'l Dizzy's in the historic Treme neighborhood.

His first plane ride was at 18, when he left to attend college. He later dropped out. In 2005, The New Yorker's Ken Auletta reported, "The first time Baquet traveled outside Louisiana was when he went North to attend Columbia University." He majored in English literature, but not for long. "After his sophomore year, he got a summer internship at the States-Item, an afternoon paper in New Orleans — an experience he liked so much that he dropped out of Columbia."

Read the full story:  www.nymag.com

Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Sunday, May 4, 2014

FLASHBACK: Could Civil Rights Hero Andy Young Own A Team? --Demeaned Arab, Korean, Jewish shop owners--apologized

May 04, 2014 Abraham H. Foxman , Andrew Young 0 Comments
Andrew Young
By Michael Barbaro and Steven Greenhouse, Aug. 18, 2006, The New York Times

The civil rights leader Andrew Young, who was hired by Wal-Mart to improve its public image, resigned from that post last night after telling an African-American newspaper that Jewish, Arab and Korean shop owners had “ripped off” urban communities for years, “selling us stale bread, and bad meat and wilted vegetables.”

In the interview, published yesterday in The Los Angeles Sentinel, a weekly, Mr. Young said that Wal-Mart “should” displace mom-and-pop stores in urban neighborhoods.

“You see those are the people who have been overcharging us,” he said of the owners of the small stores, “and they sold out and moved to Florida. I think they’ve ripped off our communities enough. First it was Jews, then it was Koreans and now it’s Arabs.”

Mr. Young, 74, a former mayor of Atlanta and a former United States representative to the United Nations, apologized for the comments and retracted them in an interview last night. Less than an hour later, he resigned as chairman of Working Families for Wal-Mart, a group created and financed by the company to trumpet its accomplishments.

“It’s against everything I ever thought in my life,” Mr. Young said. “It never should have been said. I was speaking in the context of Atlanta, and that does not work in New York or Los Angeles.”

His remarks drew forceful condemnation from Arab, Jewish and Asian leaders.

The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham H. Foxman, called the comments “very hurtful.”

“The sad part,” he said, is that “even people of color and even minorities who suffered discrimination and prejudice are not immune from being bigoted and racist and even anti-Semitic.”

In the six months that Mr. Young was under contract with the Wal-Mart-financed group, he traveled the country promoting the retailer, meeting with community groups and writing opinion pieces for local newspapers.

“I am more of a spokesman than the chairman of Wal-Mart,” he remarked, referring to his work on behalf of the company.

Wal-Mart executives moved quickly last night to distance themselves from Mr. Young’s remarks. “Ambassador Young’s comments do not reflect our feelings toward the Jewish, Asian or Arab communities or any other diverse group,” a company spokeswoman, Mona Williams, said.

“Needless to say, we were appalled when the comments came to our attention,” Ms. Williams said. “We were also dismayed that they would come from someone who has worked so hard for so many years for equal rights in this country. Ambassador Young has done the right thing to apologize and to ask for a retraction. We also support his decision to resign.”

Margaret Fung, executive director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said, “Andrew Young should know better than to resort to derogatory ethnic stereotypes about Korean storeowners in black neighborhoods.”

Read the full story:  www.nytimes.com

Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Saturday, April 26, 2014

NYT on Senate: Statistical Election-Forecast, It’s A Tossup With Dems Having A 52% Chance Of Retaining Majority

April 26, 2014 Senate Race , The New York Times 0 Comments
By The UpShot, Apr. 26, 2014, The New York Times

Every day, our computer churns through the latest polls and reams of historical data to calculate both parties’ chances of winning control of the Senate. Although the Republicans currently have a 52 percent chance, that doesn’t mean we’re predicting the Republicans to win the Senate — the probability is essentially the same as a coin flip.

State-by-State Probabilities

To forecast each party’s chance of gaining a majority, our model first calculates win probabilities for each individual Senate race. In addition to the latest polls, it incorporates the candidates’ political experience, fund-raising, a state’s past election results and national polling. More about our methodology.

See the full graphic and analysis forecast:  www.nytimes.com

Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Census Health Coverage Survey Changes Make OCare Results Undeterminable --So Ocare "success" can be easily touted

April 16, 2014 Associated Press , Newsbusters.org 0 Comments
Tom Blumer, apr. 16, 2014, Newsbusters.org

In a Tuesday story which appears to have been handed to it on a silver platter, and which the rest of the establishment press seems uninterested in spreading (given that searches at 11:45 p.m. Tuesday at the Associated Press and at Politico returned nothing relevant), the New York Times has reported that the Census Bureau "is changing its annual survey so thoroughly that it will be difficult to measure the effects of President Obama’s health care law in the next report, due this fall."

It took Times reporter Robert Pear 15 paragraphs to tell readers that measurement and reporting under the new survey design will be so supposedly difficult that "the agency was not planning to release coverage data from early this year in its next report." That statement indicates that the government will not disclose anything about how the rollout of Obamacare really affected the number of uninsured Americans — even under the new methodology — before this fall's elections. Everyone together now, say "How convenient."
 Read the full story:  www.newsbusters.org


Follow Larry Elder on Twitter
"LIke" Larry Elder on Facebook
By - No comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,