Tag: NYTimes

She Called It Right

Without intended irony, I read about Ann Telnaes’s resignation in the NY Times.

Ann Telnaes is an award-winning, highly-regarded political cartoonist. I’d long cut ties with the Washington Post as Jeff Bezos, the WaPo owner, revealed his colors and moved away from being a supporter of responsible, trustworthy journalism. (I keep ties with the NY Times mostly for the cultural information but they don’t inspire me with their journalism, either.)

The NYT story, by Benjamin Miller, said that Ann Telnaes resigned after her cartoon was rejected. She accurately portrayed Bezos and other billionaires genuflecting at a statue of PINO-elect Trump. Bezos, who would not let the newspaper endorse Kamala Harris, didn’t like cartoon, demonstrating once and for all, that man cannot handle the truth.

And Ann Telnaes called it right.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: believing

Goorning folks. I thought it was time we blended good and morning as a greeting and just use goorning. Economical. Cuts down on those extra syllables weighing us down. “Goorning. Hoyadoin?” Hoyadoin is another blend.

Today is July 22, 2024. It’s a Monday. 76 F with smoke painting the blue sky gray, today’s high will be in the mid to upper 80s again for us. Smoke is worsening through the day, as it usually does. We started with our air quality charting as ‘moderate’. We’re edging toward unhealthy. An alert has been issued. There’s also a fire warning issued because the land is so dry and hot winds are picking up.

I spent the morning outside while it was cool and the air was healthy friendly, so I’m writing late today. Picking up on the news, the big stuff for the U.S. at this point is President Biden dropping out and Veep Harris announcing that she’s chasing the nomination. At this point, we expect an uphill fight. Kamela is not the incumbent President and its positives. But she’s part of a good administration, a strong one. However, she has things against her as viewed from some circles: female, other than white, young, from California.

Those negatives are bullshit, of course, but this is the United States, home of the free and land of the bullshit. Vice President Kamala Harris is intelligent and passionate and has garnered several significant endorsements. The Nikki Haley Voters PAC endorsement really pleased me. Close behind is the six governors endorsing her. And for what it’s worth, a Times article claims that the change from Biden to Harris has fired up support for Dems in the tech industry.

After reflecting on all of this, I convinced myself that I’m a Kamala Harris believer. It’ll be a tough fight. I’d like to see her debate Trump. Naturally, we can expect every legal machination possible thrown at her and her ‘legitimacy’. Hope the SCOTUS doesn’t get involved, because my faith in them is in the dumpster.

Besides all of that, what Trump and the GOP represents is just unaccepted. Project 2025, while not a coherent document, displays dangerous counter-democratic and outright hateful, bigoted ideas. Agenda 47 is loaded with ideas meant to exclude people based on who they are. Sorry, but that’s fucking unacceptable. Most of us agree with that; the ones who don’t want to drag us back to the stone age. They must be stopped.

As my wife and I were both avoiding delving into the news last weekend, I spent a lot of time perusing book lists in the NYTimes. They had created a reviewer’s list, and then a reader’s list. My wife is a big reader and when I read the reader’s list, I thought that she had read almost all of them. So I went through the list with her. She’s read 88 of the 100. Most that she didn’t read were non-fiction. Several of the fiction books she hadn’t read are in the house awaiting her attention. Well done to her, you know?

BTW, she doesn’t agree that “Demon Copperhead” should be #1. She’s not a fan of the book.

We also went off to the library yesterday to pick up more books and another jigsaw puzzle. The week’s activities are becoming set.

We my thinking about Kamala Harris percolating, it’s not surprising that “I’m A Believer” is circulating in the morning mental music stream (Trademark qualified). Neil Diamond wrote it, and the Monkees had a hit with it back in 1966. But I have the Smash Mouth cover of it from 2001 in mind. They did it for the movie Shrek but it solidly charted in the U.S.

Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue in 2024. Be a believer. Here’s the video. Feel free to sing along with it. Coffee has made its way into my systems. Here we go. Havagooday. Cheers

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The Editorial

First, I know I’m always hard on the NYTimes. But they frequently give me cause. For example, a reporter this week wrote about how diverse Iowa is, and how well it represents America. Iowa, with its about 86% white population. (Yes, that’s just one aspect of diversity, but it’s a pretty striking one.) I know it sent progressives like me flocking to the net to check that declaration about Iowa’s diversity.

Of course, sites like MediaBiasFactCheck lists the NYTimes as left-biased. That amuses me; I think it highlights just how much to the right the United States actually leans. Compare it to Europe and what I read in newspapers based in Europe, and I see far less of a leftist bias.

That aside, the NYTimes has an editorial up this week titled, “The Responsibility of Republican Voters“.

Editorials like these are like shouting into a snowy hurricane; MAGA and the Republicans who keep supporting Trump or giving him cover aren’t interested in his failings. They simply want to stay in power, perhaps to correct wrongs they perceive after being fed a diet of lies by Trump and the GOP to validate their impressions, or to stick it to the libs — a comment I often see — without realizing that Trump is a beast beyond their control. As he’s done several times, if someone does something he doesn’t like, he turns on them and attacks. Besides all of that, he doesn’t keep any promises and is a vain, shallow person who’s thinking rarely advances past what is good for himself.

The Editorial Board points all this out and more in their editorial, highlighting Trump’s disrespect and disregard of the powers and rule of law spelled out by the Constitution and court rulings, and how this is so different from most other lawmakers.

‘When the Supreme Court delivered a sharp setback to President George W. Bush in 2008, ruling that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantánamo Bay had the right to challenge their detention in federal court, the Bush administration accepted the ruling. Senator John McCain, then the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, said he disagreed with the court, “but it is a decision the Supreme Court has made, and now we need to move forward.”

‘By contrast, as president, Mr. Trump repeatedly attacked the integrity of other government officials — including members of Congress, Federal Reserve governors, public health authorities and federal judges — and disregarded their authority. When the court ruled that the Trump administration could not add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, for example, Mr. Trump announced that he intended to ignore the court’s ruling. After leaving the White House, Mr. Trump refused repeated demands, including a grand jury subpoena, to return classified materials to the government. As the government investigated, he called on Congress to defund the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice “until they come to their senses.”’

Nice to see the NYTimes step out of their bothsiderism cocoon. It would have helped if their reportage and commentary was sharper and more on point in the past. Instead, they worked hard to project themselves as balanced and neutral. Despite that, the modern right mocks mass media and publications like the NYTimes as fake news, left-leaning, or progressive. Trump himself escalated those attacks since he entered politics.

From the NYTimes of Feb 20, 2019:

‘Even by his standards, President Trump’s biting attacks on the press this week stand out.

‘He has praised a libel lawsuit against The Washington Post, called for “retribution” against NBC for satirizing him on “Saturday Night Live” and, on Wednesday, issued his sharpest words yet against The New York Times, calling the newspaper “a true ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!”’

In reading the article from 2019 again, it was nice to see that they didn’t say anything about the other side doing the same.

I don’t know about you, but reading posts, comments, and articles about Trump supporters doesn’t lead me to believe they’re open-minded, critical thinking individuals. I think that those people who the editorial addresses are not likely to read it. Those few who do will most likely defend Trump and jump into the bothsiderism which plagues the NYTimes and many other mass media outlets, accusing Democrats and President Biden of being worse than Trump.

Just read the comments on the editorial and you’ll see.

Despite my criticisms of the NYTimes, I am happy to see the editorial, as it validates my impressions of Trump as lawless, and not the primary enforcer of the law which this nation needs. Though it addresses people who will disregard their advice, the rest of agree, it needed to be said.

Yes, it’s all complex, isn’t it?

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