On Sunday, The New York Times took a jaunt to the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick, and called it “arguably the coolest place on the planet.” But is it really? More
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Tagged arguably-the-coolest, bushwick, none-solid, place, planet, stars, times, twitter celeb
The New York Times today touted two polls that supposedly demonstrate support for the Democratic position on unemployment benefits. But a further examination of the poll questions reveals that their findings were inaccurate; the questions misrepresented the issues at play, and the Republican position on the matter. “Two national polls published last week suggest that most Americans are on [Democrats’] side of this debate,” wrote Dalia Sussman . How she knows that fact is a mystery, given that the GOP argument — that benefits should be extended and paid for with unused stimulus funds — was never offered as an option to those polled. Both polls asked, essentially, if respondents thought it was more important to extend unemployment benefits, or to preserve PayGo rules. Majorities said they thought extending benefits is more important. But under the GOP plan, the two are not mutually exclusive. Nowhere in either poll were respondents asked whether they would favor paying for extended benefits with unused stimulus funds. Neither the Times nor anyone else can accurately claim that voters favor one approach over the other since the GOP position was not an option. The first poll , conducted by the Washington Post and ABC, asked the following question: Because of the economic downturn, Congress has extended the period in which people can receive unemployment benefits, and is considering doing so again. Supporters say this will help those who can’t find work. Opponents say this adds too much to the federal budget deficit. Do you think Congress should or should not approve another extension of unemployment benefits? First of all, there are no opponents of an unemployment benefit extension. The only difference between the two parties’ positions on the issue is that Democrats want to borrow more money to pay for the extension while Republicans want to use unspent stimulus funds. It’s an outright falsehood that the GOP opposes extending unemployment benefits due to concerns about the deficit. The second poll , conducted by CBS News, asked: Do you think Congress should extend unemployment benefits for people who are currently out of work, even if it means increasing the budget deficit, or shouldn’t they do that? As in the previous poll, this question misrepresents the potential options before Congress. It offers a yes or no question on the Democratic position, but does not offer the Republican alternative. You can bet that if the questions had been framed accurately, so as to actually present the Republican position on the issue, the results would have been far different. Both polls should have asked, “Congress is going to extend unemployment benefits. Do you think the government should borrow more money to pay for those benefits, or use unspent stimulus funds?” Does anyone seriously doubt that a majority would prefer the latter? Unlike the Democrats’ position on the issue, the GOP favors both extending benefits and avoiding an increase in the federal budget deficit. And according to this same CBS poll, less than a quarter of Americans believe the stimulus created jobs, while almost half think slashing the deficit should be the federal government’s economic priority. The GOP position seeks to extend unemployment benefits while addressing two other pressing national economic concerns — the failure of the stimulus package and the skyrocketing national debt. But the Republican option was not presented to respondents by either of these polls, so neither they nor the New York Times can accurately present those polls’ findings as endorsements of the Democratic alternative.
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ABC, CBS, WaPo, NYT Use Loaded Poll Questions to Tout Dem Unemployment Agenda
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Tagged alvin greene, audience, budget, celeb news, Cnn, examination, federal, jessica-yellin, poll, polling, questions, recollection, times, wiped-the-floor
Mangroves in Kiribati, photo: UNEP The United Nations Environment Programme and the Nature Conservancy have released the first global assessment in a decade of the state of the world’s mangrove forests and the prognosis isn’t particularly good: The report found that, despite conservation efforts and slowing rates of clearance, mangroves are being cleared at three to four times the rate of other forests…. Read the full story on TreeHugger
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World’s Mangroves Being Destroyed Four Times Faster Than Other Forests
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Tagged deforestation, destroyed, destroyed-four, ecology, forests, Hollywood, kiribati, mangroves, other-forests, prognosis, times, times-the-rate, travel & nature
Possibly appearing soon on grocery shelves is the Candwich, which the New York Times thinks might be “the next can’t-miss billion-dollar idea.” Or not. What’s wrong with this picture?… Read the full story on TreeHugger
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Just What We Needed Dept: A Sandwich In A Can
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Tagged food, grocery-shelves, healthy, Hollywood, picture, possibly-appearing, soon-on-grocery, story-on-treehugger, the-full, the-next, thinks-might, times, un-treehugger, untreehugger
per·ni·cious pər-‘ni-shəs adj .: highly injurious or destructive : deadly Sounds like a pretty harsh word to describe something, right? So whatever the word pernicious is describing must be pretty bad. But leave it to The New York Times editorial board to throw this lingo around like it’s no big deal. In a July 8 over-the-top editorial , the Times ripped the Arizona anti-illegal immigration law over its constitutionality. “The Obama administration has not always been completely clear about its immigration agenda, but it was forthright Tuesday when it challenged the pernicious Arizona law that allows the police to question the immigration status of people they detain for local violations,” the editorial said. “Only the federal government can set or enforce immigration policy, the government said in its lawsuit against the state, and ‘Arizona has crossed this constitutional line.'” Video Below Fold The editorial goes on to whine that the Arizona legislation interferes with the federal government’s ability to enforce immigration law, as if everything is operating so swimmingly under the Obama administration’s direction. But a July 7 post from the Heritage Foundation’s The Foundry blog explains the unconstitutionality claim “nonsense”: First, the Justice Department claims that Arizona is unconstitutionally interfering with the federal government’s authority to set immigration policy. This claim is nonsense. Arizona is not interfering with the federal government’s immigration policy as it is set in the laws passed by Congress. Arizona is simply complementing and helping the federal government enforce its immigration laws. On the other hand, states that give illegal aliens drivers licenses and sanctuary cities like San Francisco that help illegal aliens violate immigration laws do interfere with federal law, but, as evidenced by the lack of federal lawsuits in those cases, this Administration has no interest in suing to stop that kind of interference. The Obama Administration thus appears to only be interested in stopping enforcement of federal law, not its violation. But the Times editorial suggests the Obama administration act against the Arizona government by restricting their ability to enforce the new law. “In the meantime, there are steps President Obama can take,” the editorial said. “He can deny Arizona access to federal databases of immigration status and refuse to allow the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to cooperate with state officials in handling people detained under the law. The government should end the misguided program allowing local deputies to enforce immigration law after taking an educational course.” On the Fox Business Network’s July 8 broadcast of “Imus in the Morning,” Newsweek and National Journal contributing editor Stuart Taylor, of all people even criticized the Times for its “overheated hysteria.” ” It struck me the exact same way when I read The New York Times as usual this morning and yeah, that word [pernicious] jumped off the page at me and it is typical of The New York Times, overheated hysteria, I think ,” Taylor said. “I tend to agree the law has got problems and is troublesome and that it may be unconstitutional and I think it’s going to be a close call how the courts handle it. But it’s also, a law where you can certainly understand why the people of Arizona think it is a good idea. They’re being overrun by illegal immigrants and their hospitals are full of them. Their schools are full of them. They’re drug dealers in the house next door sometimes. And so the state decided they needed to do something about it. The federal government is not doing much about it but, there are problems with how the state’s law would operate and there are problems of what you call federal preemption that would interfere with federal immigration law. But pernicious is overkill. ”
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‘Overheated Hysteria’: New York Times Editorial Goes All-Out to Attack Arizona Immigration Law
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Tagged business, constitutional, editorial, fox business network, Hollywood, kathryn-bigelow, new-york-times, police, politics, stuart taylor, times, TMZ
Is there anything worse than a first date? It’s as if a condemned man was forced to eat his last meal with some random girl his friend knows from grad school. But first dates are getting worse! They’re getting quirkier. More
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Tagged condemned-man, first-date, friend, his-friend, Hollywood, modern love, times, wtf celeb
Tw o stories in Thursday’s New York Times featured the paper avoiding pinning liberal labels on two media organs: the liberal newsmagazine Newsweek and the far-left political blog Daily Kos. Reporter Jeremy Peters insisted in Thursday’s Business Day that the left-leaning magazine Newsweek was “apolitical,” yet easily spotted a right tilt in two potential purchasers of the struggling weekly: ” 2 Suitors for Newsweek Are Said to Be Ruled Out .” A photo caption made the easily refutable claim that Newsweek “strives to be apolitical.” The Washington Post is looking for a bidder who will be a good fit for the magazine, which strives to be apolitical. Really now? As Nathan Burchfiel at NewsBusters reminds us: “Newsweek has attacked Tea Parties and conservative leaders like Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh , earned praise from gay marriage activists for its coverage, launched pro-atheism attacks on religious figures like Mother Teresa, among numerous other liberal positions.” Peters gave Newsweek’s editors the benefit of the doubt on its liberal slant, which even Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz believes is an accurate view: The ideas that Newsweek is promoting are mainly left-of-center….When Newsweek put a conservative’s essay on the cover, it was by David Frum, assailing Rush Limbaugh under the headline ‘Why Rush Is Wrong.’ And when Newsweek took on Obama, it did so from the left, in a piece built around New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and his criticism of the president’s economic policies. Peters was able to see conservatism and libertarianism in the two rejected buyers, but not the clear liberalism at Newsweek. With no shortage of interested parties, the issue for the Post Company has become whether it can find a new owner that the company’s chairman and chief executive, Donald E. Graham, believes will be a suitable steward for the magazine. That is the main reason the Post Company decided not to entertain offers from Newsmax or Mr. Ritchie, according to these people. The conservative political ideology of Newsmax’s chief executive, Christopher Ruddy, is at odds with the editorial bent of Newsweek, which strives to be apolitical in its news coverage though is often criticized as left-leaning. And Mr. Ritchie, who unsuccessfully tried to buy the Sun Times Media Group last year, is viewed as more libertarian in his political views . He has explored creating a third political party in Illinois with supporters of Ross Perot. Also on Thursday, reporter Joseph Plambeck had every opportunity to identify Daily Kos as a far-left blog in ” Politics Blog Questions Polling Data It Had Used ,” but failed to do so. Political junkies are fascinated by the emerging brawl between Markos Moulitsas, founder of the far-left campaign blog Daily Kos, and the polling firm Research 2000, which has been providing him with encouraging data for Democrats and slams of Republican voters as racist and conspiratorial. Moulitsas is accusing the Maryland company of having “fabricated or manipulated” polling results, based on statistical analysis done by three of his readers. The political blog Daily Kos said Tuesday that it could not trust the data it has used in its weekly poll featured prominently at the top of the Web site, raising questions for the second time in a year about the veracity of a widely used polling company. Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, the founder of Daily Kos, said in a post that an analysis done by three readers shows “quite convincingly” that the polling data provided each week to the blog by the widely used polling company, Research 2000, was “likely bunk.” The weekly poll has been published since January 2009. He is planning to sue the company for breach of contract and misrepresentation. The Times has cited Research 2000’s data in several news stories but has not commissioned polling from the group itself. More significantly, liberal columnist Charles Blow used the firm’s research to mock Republicans as conspiracists in his August 8, 2009 column . Plambeck returned again to Moulitas (in a concluding paragraph that didn’t make the print edition) touting “his blog’s success” and portraying Kos, who notoriously dismissed with an obscene phrase the brutal murders of four civilian contractors in Iraq, as a newly discerning data-miner. Mr. Moulitsas said that because of his blog’s success, there are other polling organizations willing to work with him, adding that he will require them to provide all of the raw data. “I’m not getting out of the polling game,” Mr. Moulitsas said. “I eat it. I breathe it. The last thing I want to do is see the demise of polling. I don’t know what I’d write about.”
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Tagged daily, jeremy peters, joseph plambeck, new-york-times, newsweek, Obama, parties, times, TMZ
Fox & Friends invited me on air today to discuss how The Washington Post could run a small obituary on left-wing domestic terrorist Dwight Armstrong and describe in the headline only as a “Vietnam War protester.” In 1970, Armstrong and three others bombed Sterling Hall at the University of Wisconsin, killing researcher Robert Fassnacht and injuring three others. Growing up in Wisconsin, this bombing was revisited in the newspapers every five years or so, and someone always tried to revise history to explain why blowing up an innocent man was defensible. After Armstrong died, Madison’s local alternative newspaper Isthmus defended the bombing “in perspective” again. Their feelings of being government targets were not a “paranoid fantasy,” the writer, Dave Wagner, insisted, after police shot students at Kent State and Black Panther radicals like Fred Hampton. But even if you felt you were at war with the government, why would you blow up an innocent man? That’s simply terrorism. I imagine when Bill Ayers dies, the Washington Post will described him as an “author and educator,” not as a “bomber.” Every other newspaper obit I found had the B-word (“bombing” or “bomber”) in the headline. In the New York Times , Margalit Fox had a strong opening: Dwight Armstrong, one of four young men who in 1970 bombed a building on the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison, killing one person and injuring several others — a political protest that, gone violently wrong, endures in the national memory as an act of domestic terrorism — died on June 20 in Madison. The only problem with that is that Armstrong and his cohorts didn’t see their action as “going wrong.” They did set off the bomb at 3:42 am, checking the windows to see anyone in the building. But the Times wrote they bombed it, and went for Cokes: The four men drove to a truck stop north of town, where they celebrated with a round of Cokes, Karl Armstrong said. Soon after, they heard on the car radio that a man had died in the blast. Dwight Armstrong maintained the bombing was a political necessity. “Something had to be done, something dramatic, something that showed people were willing to escalate this at home as far as they were willing to escalate it in Vietnam,” he told the left-wing Madison newspaper The Capital Times in 1992. In 1991, PBS aired a documentary called “Making Sense of the Sixties,” that was about 94 percent leftists on camera justifying their protests. But conservative David Keene came on briefly to recall that when he went to the University of Wisconsin at that time, he bet a friend he could find someone in the student union within a half hour to defend the bombing (and murder), and it took him about two minutes.
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MRC-TV: Fox Wonders Why a Domestic Terrorist Is Simply a ‘Vietnam War Protester’
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Tagged armstrong, black, celeb news, friends, headline, News, Newspapers, stars, times, university
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews framed Sen. Jeff Sessions’ criticism of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan as a “brutal assault,” during MSNBC’s live coverage of the Senate hearing Monday afternoon. “It’s a brutal assault on this nomination,” Matthews complained about the Alabama Republican’s remarks. Matthews also seemed to cast Sessions as an unsophisticated country bumpkin challenging Kagan’s prestigious Ivy League background. “It’s a strong cultural shot at her, and she does represent, if you will, academic excellence of the highest degree, coming from the best schools, dean of Harvard Law,” Matthews crooned. “It’s hard to get above that, to a person out in the country, from Alabama, like Jeff Sessions represents. That is probably a pretty rich target.” He accused Sessions of describing Kagan as pro-terrorist and tried to get liberal Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to say that Sessions’ “assault” would whip up a storm. “You know, back not too many years ago, some Republicans paid a heavy price for being tough with Anita Hill when she came to testify in the Clarence Thomas hearings,” Matthews insisted. Have we gotten past that era of sensitivity about a bunch of guys going after a single woman here, just bashing her?” “Can these guys like Jeff Sessions just go at her like this without any fear of rebuke?” Matthews later asked. Durbin tempered the debate by saying that, although he might not agree with Sessions, his colleague was doing his job in raising issues with Kagan. “I think it’s fine,” Durbin replied. “Jeff has raised issues, and that’s important. I may disagree with the issues. But it is not personal. I don’t see it reaching the level that would cause that kind of a backlash.” The transcript of the two segments, which aired at 12:53 p.m. and 1:07 p.m. EDT, respectively, are as follows: MSNBC June 28, 2010 12:53 p.m. EDT CHRIS MATTHEWS: Andrea Mitchell, I’ve got to get your reaction. Very tough opening statement by Jeff Sessions. ANDREA MITCHELL: Well, he has laid out the Republican line against her. And it was tough, and he is the ranking Republican. He said earlier today that he would not even rule out a filibuster, which has never happened, as Ron Brownstein pointed out earlier, when the same party controlled the Senate in a Supreme Court case. So this is a very tough – particularly on the issue of the military, on the terror law – he went through all of the top talking points from the Republicans. And she’s going to have a tough time defending that. MATTHEWS: (Garbled) …she’s anti-military, pro-terrorist, pro-illegal immigrant, and a socialist. It’s pretty tough. And by the way, I’ll go back to it – maybe an infelicitous reference, but it is a voodoo doll – she is being used as Barack Obama in that chair- EUGENE ROBINSON, Washington POst: This is throwing stuff against the wall, seeing – (Crosstalk) – trying to create an atmosphere and an image that goes beyond her that also envelops the President and the whole administration. She’s trying to say this is an elite, Ivy League, out-of-touch – MATTHEWS: Well, it’s a strong cultural shot at her, and she does represent, if you will, academic excellence of the highest degree, coming from the best schools, dean of Harvard Law, it’s hard to get above that. To a person out in the country, from Alabama, like Jeff Sessions represents, that is probably a pretty rich target. # # # MSNBC ANDREA MITCHELL REPORTS June 28, 2010 1:07 p.m. EDT CHRIS MATTHEWS: Now take a look at, what I think so far has been the toughest attack on this nomination. This is Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican. He is from Alabama. He was especially tough, as I said, in his opening statements. Let’s look at a montage of his toughest shots at the nominee. (Clip) Sen. JEFF SESSIONS (R-Ala.): Ms. Kagan has less real legal experience of any nominee in at least 50 years, and it’s not just that the nominee has not been a judge. She has barely practiced law, and not with the intensity and duration from which I think a real legal understanding occurs. Her actions punished the military, and demeaned our soldiers as they were courageously fighting for our country in two wars overseas. Ms. Kagan has associated herself with well-known activist judges who have used their power to re-define the meaning of words of our Constitution and laws in ways that, not surprisingly, have the result of advancing that judge’s preferred social policies and agendas. (End Clip) MATTHEWS: Joining us right now is Sen. Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois. He’s the Senate Majority Whip. Senator Durbin, if you listen to Jeff Sessions, your colleague, it’s a brutal assault on this nomination. She’s pro-terrorist in a sense, she’s anti-military, she’s a socialist, she’s for expansion of the government. He just about hit her on every cultural, political, ideological issue you can, and basically said he is definitely voting against her. He may lead a filibuster, based on his tone. Sen. DICK DURBIN (D-Ill.): I can just tell you, my Alabama colleague did not surprise me. He dismissed Elena Kagan out of hand and didn’t really get into the whole question of her role in Supreme Court. And then came the bill of particulars for the election in November. This was the Republican National committee bill of particulars, all of the things they want to accuse the Obama administration of. Socialism, secular humanism, you name it, went through the long litany. You get an idea of what this hearing is going to be all about. MATTHEWS: Well, do you think it’s really a hearing or is it something else? Is this going to be like a political convention on the right? Sen. DURBIN: Well I’m afraid it looks, from Senator Session’s statement, that there are going to be political overtones. And it’s not surprising, Chris, let’s be honest. If the shoe were on the other foot, and a nominee came along, we would be making points on our side of the aisle, too. But in fairness to Elena Kagan, At the end of the day, you have to look at what she has done, how she’s been cleared by this committee to be Solicitor General of the United States, her own achievements, and where she stands. MATTHEWS: You know, back not too many years ago, some Republicans paid a heavy price for being tough with Anita Hill when she came to testify in the Clarence Thomas hearings. Have we gotten past that era of sensitivity about a bunch of guys going after a single woman here just bashing her? Sen. DURBIN: Well I think so. But I tell you, the record shows – MATTHEWS: Wait a minute. You think we have gotten past we’re that insensitive? Can these guys like Jeff Sessions just go at her like this without any fear of rebuke? Sem. DURBIN: I think it’s fine. Jeff has raised issues, and that’s important. I may disagree with the issues. But it is not personal. I don’t see it reaching the level that would cause that kind of a backlash. And I think we’re learning. Just remember, this is our fourth time in history to entertain a woman as a Supreme Court justice – four times, out of 111, this is the fourth. And I think there were lessons learned in the past. We do know that women nominees tend to get tougher questions. Think of what Sonia Sotomayor went through over one phrase, “Wise Latina.” You would think that the woman had declared that she was a traitor, treason on the United States. And instead they made that one phrase the focal point, they just went overboard on it.
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Chris Matthews Thinks Sen. Sessions’ Criticism of Kagan Was a ‘Brutal Assault’
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Tagged alabama, democrat, election, elena kagan, kagan nomination, military, Obama, politics, supreme-court, times, world
According to liberal economic Paul Krugman, a “third depression” will occur if nations tighten their belts and attempt to balance their budgets. Forget about the riots in Greece over a social welfare system the government couldn’t maintain or a $1.4 trillion annual U.S. budget deficit. Krugman claimed that the threat of deflation supersedes both of those results of runaway government spending – that is higher taxes in the long run and a debt to future generations. In his June 28 column for The New York Times , Krugman wrote: “We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost – to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs – will nonetheless be immense.” At the G-20 meeting in Toronto last week, European leaders encouraged fiscal discipline from the United States, while President Barack Obama pushed an opposite approach. That disappointed the Times columnist. “And this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy,” Krugman continued. “Around the world – most recently at last weekend’s deeply discouraging G-20 meeting – governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending.” Krugman has rarely been concerned by government debt, unless it was for a war or could be used to bash former President George W. Bush. Maintaining his spendthrift perspective, he insisted the concerns raised over government spending have nothing to do with a genuine concern for the financial insolvency of the government or the threat of runaway inflation, but were part of an irrational “orthodoxy.” “So I don’t think this is really about Greece, or indeed about any realistic appreciation of the tradeoffs between deficits and jobs,” Krugman wrote. “It is, instead, the victory of an orthodoxy that has little to do with rational analysis, whose main tenet is that imposing suffering on other people is how you show leadership in tough times. And who will pay the price for this triumph of orthodoxy? The answer is, tens of millions of unemployed workers, many of whom will go jobless for years, and some of whom will never work again.” For 2010, the federal deficit , as a percentage of U.S. gross domestic product is a whopping 10.64 percent, the highest since 1945 in the midst of World War II – an imbalance that worries many people, just not Krugman. Over the past couple years, Krugman has been an outspoken advocate of government stimulus spending, criticized a $775 billion stimulus plan for being too small , called for a second stimulus , and even claimed in 2008 that “we probably have $10 trillion of running room ” when asked how much the government could spend to turn the economy around.
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Krugman Tries to Scare Up More Government Spending with ‘Third Depression’ Rhetoric
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