Tag: new york times
Fed Up With Media's Double Standard Against Democrats? So Am I

Fed Up With Media's Double Standard Against Democrats? So Am I

The Washington Post devoted seven stories to the Biden pardon yesterday. Jeff Tiedrich, in his Substack-which-you-must-immediately-subscribe-to, pointed out that every story on the opening page of the New York Times website yesterday was about Biden’s pardon of his son, all six of them.

The New York Times, in its wisdom, found it necessary to publish the musings of Jeffrey Toobin: “Biden’s Pardon For His Son Dishonored the Office.” Toobin, you will recall, is the former New Yorker writer and CNN talking head who pulled down his tidie-whities for a quick winkie-wankie on a New Yorker/WNYC Radio zoom call.

Toobin was suspended as a CNN commentator for eight months, and then welcomed back into the club, because of course he was! Jeffrey apparently doesn’t think that Donald Trump dishonored the office with his pardons of every single flaming idiot who lied for him during his impeachments and lied their asses off to the FBI, prosecutors, grand juries, the mainstream media and everybody else. No, those were just regular old run of the mill pardons for Trump according to grin-and-yank-it Jeffrey.

Here is Jeff Tiedrich’s take on the morals of the mainstream media:

“here’s a fun double standard to which the worthless scribblers of the corporate-controlled press hold our political parties:

Democrats must walk a narrow ethical path, and never stray one inch from it. they’re expected to kowtow to every demand the media makes. Joe Biden is expected to run a letter-perfect presidency. Kamala Harris was expected to run a flawless campaign. the slightest deviation, and the media will blow it up into a weeks-long scandal.

Republicans, on the other hand, are given a free pass to do whatever the fuck they want. lie? no problem. cheat? go for it, homies. protect a sex-trafficking predator within their midst? hey, we wrote one strongly-worded editorial. what more can we do?

and then there’s that Very Special Boy himself, Little Donny Convict. he could literally tear the Constitution in pieces and use the shreds to wipe his ass, and the press would just shrug their shoulders. look, that’s just Donny being Donny. it’s just the way it is.”

Biden is supposed to toe some imaginary line drawn by liberal op-ed writers and frightened congress-critters and pearl-clutching newspaper editors, even as Trump promises to pardon insurrectionists convicted of attacking Capitol police, damaging the nation’s Capitol, and attempting to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election.

That makes sense if your head is so far up your ass you can have a conversation with your own tonsils.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.

Reprinted with permission from Lucian Truscott Newsletter.


Kevin Roberts

New York Times Invites Project 2025 Chief To Speak At 'Climate Week' Event

The New York Timesannounced the speakers for its September 25 “Climate Week NYC” discussion, an annual event coinciding with the United Nations General Assembly session in New York City that promises to “bring together some of the world’s most engaged climate voices as part of a community focused on change.” The event’s lineup notably includes Kevin Roberts, the president of right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation who has led the Project 2025 initiative — the controversial conservative transition plan of policy and staffing proposals for a potential second Trump presidency.

As detailed in its nearly 900-page policy book, titled Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, Project 2025 rejects climate science and dismisses efforts to reduce planet-warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy in favor of serving the interests of the fossil fuel industry. Overseen by Roberts, who wrote the book’s foreword, the Heritage plan for a future GOP administration seeks to gut or hamstring federal agencies working on renewable energy deployment, climate science, and environmental safeguards while opening up state and federal public lands for oil and gas extraction.

In Project 2025’s policy book, Roberts attacked environmentalists, the U.N., and the Environmental Protection Agency, calling for the unfettered use of oil and gas

In the foreword of Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership policy book, Roberts sets the tone for the plan's hostility toward climate action and wholesale endorsement of fully extracting our oil and gas reserves, a path scientists have warned would be catastrophic.

  • Roberts calls environmentalism a “pseudo-religion meant to baptize liberals’ ruthless pursuit of absolute power in the holy water of environmental virtue.” He claims that those who suffer most from environmental policies are the “aged, poor, and vulnerable.” Roberts continues, “At its very heart, environmental extremism is decidedly anti-human” because it promotes “population control and economic regression” by “regarding human activity itself as fundamentally a threat to be sacrificed to the god of nature.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]
  • Roberts attacks global elites and calls for abandoning international organizations like the United Nations. Claiming that “global elites” and organizations like the United Nations are making decisions on climate change that are insulated “from the sovereignty of national electorates,” Roberts argues, “International organizations and agreements that erode our Constitution, rule of law, or popular sovereignty should not be reformed: They should be abandoned.” Additionally, Project 2025 demands that “the next conservative Administration should withdraw the U.S. from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]
  • Roberts claims the EPA “quietly strangles domestic energy production,” later adding, “The next conservative President should go beyond merely defending America’s energy interests but go on offense, asserting them around the world.” Roberts goes on to claim that “America’s vast reserves of oil and natural gas are not an environmental problem; they are the lifeblood of economic growth. American dominance of the global energy market would be a good thing: for the world, and, more importantly, for ‘we the people.’” Under Roberts’ leadership, Project 2025’s section on energy production was reportedly written by the oil and gas industry and provides a blueprint for how the next president can turn “drill, baby, drill” into federal policy. Notably, the industry is already producing record amounts of oil and gas under the Biden-Harris administration, all while holding thousands of unused drilling permits. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023; Media Matters, 8/8/24; Vox, 3/13/24; PolitiFact, 3/29/22]

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Joe Biden

Top Democrats Rule Out Replacing Biden Despite Calls To Drop Him

Top Democrats on Sunday ruled out the possibility of replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee after a feeble debate performance and called on party members to focus instead on the consequences of a second Donald Trump presidency.

After days of hand-wringing about Biden's poor night on stage debating Trump, Democratic leaders firmly rejected calls for their party to choose a younger presidential candidate for the November 5 election.

Biden, 81, meanwhile, was huddling with family members at the Camp David presidential retreat on Sunday.

The New York Times cited people close to the situation as saying that Biden's family were urging him to stay in the race and keep fighting. The paper said some members of his clan privately expressed exasperation at how his staff prepared him for Thursday night's event.

A drumbeat of calls for Biden to step aside has continued since Thursday and a post-debate CBS poll showed a 10-point jump in the number of Democrats who believe Biden should not be running for president, to 46% from 36% in February.

"The unfortunate truth is that Biden should withdraw from the race, for the good of the nation he has served so admirably for half a century," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said in an editorial on Sunday. "The shade of retirement is now necessary for President Biden.

"Democratic leaders rejected this.

"Absolutely not," responded Georgia Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, one of several Democrats seen as a possible replacement for Biden.

"Bad debates happen," he told NBC's Meet the Press program. "The question is, 'Who has Donald Trump ever shown up for other than himself and people like himself?' I'm with Joe Biden, and it's our assignment to make sure that he gets over the finish line come November.

"House of Representatives Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who could become speaker next year if his party can take control of the House in November, acknowledged that Biden had suffered a setback, but this was "nothing more than a setup for a comeback."

"So the moment that we're in right now is a comeback moment," he told MSNBC.

Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, a leading Biden surrogate, told ABC's This Week program Biden needed to stay in the race to ensure Trump's defeat.

"I think he's the only Democrat who can beat Donald Trump," Coons said.

RASKIN SOUNDS LESS CERTAIN

With Democratic leaders rallying around him, it will be up to Biden to decide whether he wants to end his re-election bid.

But other Democrats held open the possibility of choosing a different presidential candidate.

Representative Jamie Raskin, a prominent Democrat in Congress, told MSNBC that "very honest and serious and rigorous conversations" were taking place within the party.

"Whether he's the candidate or someone else is the candidate, he's going to be the keynote speaker at our convention. He will be the figure that we rally around to move forward," Raskin said.

During the debate, a hoarse-sounding Biden delivered a shaky, halting performance in which he stumbled over his words on several occasions. Some Democrats later said privately that the showing could prove to be a disqualifying factor.

For his part in the debate, Trump made a series of well-worn falsehoods, including claims that migrants have carried out a crime wave, that Democrats support infanticide and that he actually won the 2020 election.

Trump's daughter-in-law Lara, co-chair of the Republican National Committee, told Fox News that Trump was feeling "great" after "probably the best debate of his political career."

Biden headed to Camp David after a frenzied run of seven campaign events across four states following the debate.

While the Camp David trip had been planned for months, the timing and circumstances of Biden being surrounded by family members who have weighed heavily in his past decisions to run for the presidency have added to the scrutiny around the visit.

Two people familiar with the scheduling said the gathering would include a family photo shoot. The attendees include his wife Jill, as well as the Biden children and grandchildren.

The New York Times said one of the strongest voices imploring Biden to resist pressure to drop out was his son Hunter, who on June 11 became the first child of a sitting president to be convicted of a felony after a jury found him guilty of lying about illegal drug use when he purchased a handgun in 2018.

DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison and Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez held a Saturday afternoon call with dozens of committee members across the country, a group of some of the most influential members of the party.

The call was part pep talk, part planning meeting for the upcoming national convention, according to two people who were on the call who requested anonymity to discuss private discussions.

Reporting by David Morgan, Jarret Renshaw, Eric Beech, Tyler Clifford, Ted Hesson and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Ross Colvin, Mark Porter and Don Durfee

Reprinted with permission from Reuters.

Joe Biden

'Couldn't Care Less': New York Times Slammed For Urging Biden -- Not Felon --To Quit

The New York Times editorial board urging President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 race has prompted a visceral reaction from some of the president's most outspoken supporters on social media.

Following the leading national newspaper of record's stinging editorial, NJ.com's Kevin Manahan assembled tweets from Biden supporters blasting the Times for grading the president on a steep curve while largely giving former President Donald Trump a pass. Manahan noted that progressives "gave the newspaper a social media middle finger and pointed out one-sided coverage that has favored Donald Trump, the first criminally convicted ex-president, who is facing more criminal charges to go along with a long civil rap sheet."

On Saturday, City University of New York journalism professor Jeff Jarvis posted a screenshot of the Times' front page to the social media platform Bluesky, referring to his city's flagship newspaper "the anti-Biden Times." He added that in his view, there was "no balance today." The screenshot showed nine headlines — eight of which were critical of Biden, and only one which criticized Trump.

Numerous prominent liberal social media accounts also unleashed on the Times following its editorial, alleging the Gray Lady was applying a double standard to its coverage of Biden compared to how it covered Trump. This is consistent with what an unnamed Times journalist told Politico, who confided to the outlet in April that Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger was quietly encouraging his newsroom to harp on Biden due to him refusing to grant the paper an exclusive sit-down interview.

"All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,” the Times reporter said. “It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.”

"If The New York Times hadn’t spent so much time beating up Biden they might actually have credibility in making a suggestion. But now they’re just a joke," SiriusXM host Michaelangelo Signorile tweeted on Friday.


Sports commentator Jemele Hill posted a screenshot of the editorial, tweeting: "But according to the New York Times, this is the guy whose actually unfit to be president — and not the convicted felon insurrectionist bigoted rapist.

Mark Jacobs, who is a former editor at the Chicago Tribune, noted that there was no editorial from the Times calling on Trump to drop out after he was convicted of 34 felonies in late May. New York Times bestselling author Don Winslow was also livid with the paper, noting the publication's silence over Trump's "multiple convictions and multiple women saying he assaulted them or after January 6 or after dozens and dozens of other horrors."

Former Obama White House staffer Andrew Weinstein piled on, tweeting that he "was in a room with the president and a group of fired up volunteers in Atlanta after the debate and I guarantee you that they couldn’t care less what the New York Times has to say."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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