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

Monday, January 24, 2011

Musings on a Monday

Fooling around on a chilly Monday, a few thought have occurred to me:

First, The New York Times reports that our Congressman, Randy Neugebauer, has blown the whistle on a large scam taking place at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It seems that the taxpayers have paid the legal bills for some of the worst of the perps in the greatest banking fraud ever....to defend them from charges of civil fraud!

The scandal of the banking collapse, the government bailouts of the perpetrators, and the government coverup of all the fraud needs to be fully exposed. Go Randy!

Secondly, it appears that one of the big perps, Jeffery Immelt of General Electric (General Electric Credit Corp.), has been appointed to a high economic post at the White House. He will know how to bail out the perps even more at the expense of Main Street Americans.

One wonders if there is no shame in Washington, D.C. But not for long. Clearly there is none.

Third, I note that Texas Tech has won in the Court of Appeals in the Mike Leach case. I have not read the opinion, and have no thoughts about the ruling.

From the news stories, it appears that Tech is not bound by the contract it signed, and is immune from any damages it might be assessed if Tech doesn't pay under its terms.

Bad news for Leach, but I wonder how everyone else that has signed contracts with Tech feel?

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Thoughts on a return to blogging

It has been a long and busy three weeks, and I have not been able to even gather thoughts in order to blog. Sorry.

There was some time to keep up with email, and to read some articles. Given what is happening in our world, there is a lot to blog about. I will try to do so with a bit more regularity than lately.

Looking about, one sees the United States, once respected, if disliked, has changed to being disrespected and still disliked.

All of that in a period of eight months.

This is because of the deliberate policies of our current government. It has sucked up to our enemies and offended and abandoned our friends. Intentionally.

Iran has just been given another pass, in spite of its threat. North Korea is ignored, to do whatever nuke development they wish.

Castro and Chavez to our south are being helped, rather than isolated, while Honduras and Colombia, our allies, are treated quite poorly.

The situation in Afghanistan is eroding, and the government is holding "meetings." There seems to be no sense of urgency, even though the President accorded Afghanistan important status when running for office.

Domestically, the economy is in the tank while the "stimulus" is spent to shore up supporters and arms of the Democratic Party. The big banking and financial institutions have been bailed out with nearly three trillion dollars of taxpayers' money, but the government entities refuse to account to the people for the money.

The majority party is trying to cram health "reform" down the throat of the 85% of the people who are satisfied with their health insurance, in order to make coverage available to an additional 11% of the people (and, of course, 12 million illegal aliens).

They are also trying to pass a "cap and trade" regime, which will enrich a few, but will constitute a huge energy tax on everyone else, even the poor. This is being done in a time of deep recession and increasing unemployment.

In the media, I notice that the New York Times has as the lead article a story about Senator John Ensign (R-Nev) and his affair, but there is not a mention anywhere of Charles Rangel (D-NY) and his series of felonies, nor of the bastard child of John Edwards, the Democratic presidential candidate, even though there is some here on Politico.

Enough.

A couple of weeks ago, as I sat out on my patio enjoying the evening with my puppy dog and an adult beverage, I had something of a premonition. Nothing specific at all, just a thought that something bad might happen. A friend that I told about it said he was having somewhat similar thoughts.

I think that when one considers the above, along with everything else, there is good reason to worry.

Perhaps that can be covered a bit in succeeding posts.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Update on New York Times Story

The Times, after all the backlash from their virtually unsourced story, now has an editorial up explaining what they meant to say (bold emphasis mine):

“If the point of the story was to allege that McCain had an affair with a lobbyist, we’d have owed readers more compelling evidence than the conviction of senior staff members,” he replied. “But that was not the point of the story. The point of the story was that he behaved in such a way that his close aides felt the relationship constituted reckless behavior and feared it would ruin his career.”

So says Bill Keller, Editor of the Times. Mr. Keller, if that was the intent, why didn't the article just say so? Instead, as Clark Hoyte, the Public Editor of the Times says:

"I think that ignores the scarlet elephant in the room. A newspaper cannot begin a story about the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee with the suggestion of an extramarital affair with an attractive lobbyist 31 years his junior and expect readers to focus on anything other than what most of them did. And if a newspaper is going to suggest an improper sexual affair, whether editors think that is the central point or not, it owes readers more proof than The Times was able to provide."

In spite of what Keller says, the piece was designed as a "hit" piece to harm McCain, without any real evidence. As Mr. Hoyte concludes:

"But what the aides believed might not have been the real truth. And if you cannot provide readers with some independent evidence, I think it is wrong to report the suppositions or concerns of anonymous aides about whether the boss is getting into the wrong bed."

My view is that Mr. Hoyte does not go far enough. They knew the evidence was not there, and they didn't care. They wanted to embarrass McCain, and ended up embarrassing themselves far more.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

The New York Times Shows It's Spots (Again)

Yesterday afternoon before I went to watch basketball, I noted that the NYT was putting up a smear of John McCain on their Internet site. After reading it, I just blew it off as more typical left wing ranting by a paper that has long lost it's credibility, and watched the game.

Today, after some thought about it, it occurred to me that there are still people out there that believe what the Times prints, so I am just going to write a brief response. First, of course, one must read the article. It is posted Here.

Upon reading the article, please note that the latest event that they are reporting occurred more than eight (8) years ago. It was brought up during the South Carolina Primary in 2000. So it's not news.

Next note that there are no sources quoted or identified. Did they make it up? It would not be the first time a major news organization did that (see Dan Rather, Mary Mapes, CBS News, and others, ad nauseum).

All the persons mentioned denied the allegations made. So where is the evidence? The real "news" here is that the Times ran with a story they could not substantiate with any evidence.

One of the things the article discussed was the Keating 5 scandal. McCain, of course, was exonerated by the Senate Ethics Committee. Why bring that old story up now? The only answer to that is they are trying to discredit McCain.

None other than Bob Bennett, the big time Democratic lawyer in Washington had this to say regarding the Keating 5 investigation:

".... If your listeners want to know about the Keating Five case, I have a whole chapter on it. And what happened was that I had recommended that John McCain be cut out of it and not go forward. And, you know, I call it the way I see it. As I said, I'm a Democrat. And I recommended they go forward against Senators DeConcini, Senator Cranston and Senator Riegle.

"But if you cut out John McCain, you would have had 28 days of public hearings with just Democrats in the dock. So, it's probably the first time in the history of the Senate that they rejected the advice of their counsel to exonerate a senator."( Read the whole thing HERE)

So the truth is, the real story was really about corrupt Democrats, and the Democratic majority kept McCain in it, over the advice of their counsel, just so they could have a Republican to beat up on during the hearings. Funny that didn't make the Times....but not surprising.

So what about the Times? They are losing advertisers, readers, and profits. Apparently they have decided going even further left will help them, or perhaps they want to adopt the business plan of the National Enquirer. At the least, they have become the propaganda mouthpiece of the far left in this country.

My view is that the paper is probably not even fit to use for lining a cat litter box.