Tag Archives: The New York Times

February 1, 2013 · 12:22 PM

Sandy Hook Elementary Children to Sing at Super Bowl

This will undoubtedly be something worth watching…

The New York Times

Twenty-six children from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., will sing at the Super Bowl to honor the 26 children and school staffers killed in a shooting massacre last month.

The children will be shown live singing “America the Beautiful” before Alicia Keys performs the national anthem. USA Today reported that the N.F.L. confirmed the performance.

The Super Bowl is more than a game; it’s a national event. But is there a touch of exploitation in the move? Maybe even a hint of political commentary? Some readers at ProFootballTalk.com seemed to think so, although they may change their minds if they watch the children sing.

In the YouTube video above, Ingrid Michaelson led a children’s choir from Newtown in a rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

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January 5, 2013 · 5:15 AM

Above The Law: Non-Sequiturs: 01.04.13

Don’t be a sucker!

I’ve been randomly selecting sites from my blogroll to see what’s happening in the blogosphere.

Unfortunately, I don’t do this enough and resolve to be more interested in what other like minded blogs are talking about so that I can share the results with you guys, from time to time.

Above The Law is a great  start…

Non-Sequiturs: 01.04.13

* According to the Second Circuit, the long arm of the law doesn’t extend to the middle finger. You can’t just go around arresting dudes for flipping you the bird. [U.S. Second Circuit / FindLaw]

* President Obama jetted off to Hawaii before he could sign the fiscal cliff bill, so he ordered it be signed by autopen. Of course, people are losing their minds over it. [Volokh Conspiracy]

* Should we scrap the Constitution? Georgetown Law professor Louis Seidman continues to advocate for constitutional disobedience in this epic ConLaw throwdown. [HuffPost Live]

* Don’t celebrate your increase in California bar passage points yet. The state bar changed its tune, and a 40% pass rate is the new standard. That shouldn’t be hard, eh TJSL? [California Bar Journal]

* One of our former columnists, Jay Shepherd, has a great way to calculate what your actual hourly rate should be, if you don’t mind working for just pennies a day. Most lawyers would mind. [jayshep]

* For the love of God, even Gawker knows that going to law school these days is a fool’s errand, or in their own words: “IT’S A SUCKER’S BET. A CLEAR SUCKER’S BET.” Come on, stop being suckers. :( [Gawker]

* If you’d like to hear Dean Lawrence Mitchell of NYT op-ed fame sound off on why there isn’t a lawyer oversupply problem, and why it isn’t his job to get law students jobs, we’ve got a video for you to watch….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Non-Sequiturs: 01.04.13″

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July 6, 2012 · 6:07 PM

Jobs Report Covered Through 2012 Election Lens, Media Not Focused On Impact To American People

Jobs ReportIn my opinion, the media needs to report the real news and not just what’s happening in Washington or who gave the most millions to the latest super-pac.

So yes, I completely agree with the HuffPo’s Michael Calderone‘s article…

The Huffington Post

Romney’s up. Obama’s down.

That’s the takeaway from much of Friday’s media coverage of another disappointing monthly jobs report and unchanged unemployment number of 8.2 percent. Like clockwork, political reporters quickly sized up whether the addition of 80,000 jobs in June would help or hurt President Barack Obama’s chances of keeping his own job, rather than the broader impact on millions of unemployed Americans.

The Washington Post‘s Chris Cillizza tweeted that June’s number presents a “major political problem for Obama.” He later suggested in a blog post that any hope the president “will be able to run for reelection bolstered by an improving financial picture is rapidly disappearing.”

Kicking off MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown,” host Chuck Todd said that “another disappointing jobs report puts more pressure on the president with just four months until election day.” On Twitter, Politico’s Ben White said the report is “not good news for Obama.”

In covering the campaign horse race, reporters often make snap judgements following statements, reports, or “gaffes” that are mostly forgotten days later amid the stream of non-stop election coverage.

Earlier this week, the consensus among reporters was that Team Romney was down, following adviser Eric Fehrnstrom’s comment that the individual health care mandate is a “penalty” rather than a “tax.” Similar to health care — where the media focused more on the politics of the bill rather than its contents — the jobs numbers could be reduced to a win or loss in a long election season.

But as the summer holiday week came to a close, Team Obama was on the defensive, as Friday’s news was ruled a tough blow for the president — at least according to the news media.

“The U.S. unemployment rate remained flat in June, which is bad news for President Obama,” began an ABC News piece.

Continue reading here…

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June 25, 2011 · 1:01 AM

New York Approves Gay Marriage

Make no mistake about it, this is an enormous win for the Gay and Lesbian community! 

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has already signed the historic legislation.   All of this comes on the heels of the Gay Pride week-end celebration and parade in New York City.  I anticipate the celebration will be bigger than ever before (and it’s always huge.)

The Daily Beast

New York legalized same-sex marriage, becoming the sixth state to do so and by far the largest. Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law Friday night, saying “I am very proud of New York and I’m very proud of the statement we made today.” The law will go into effect in 30 days, meaning same-sex couples will be able to get married as soon as the end of July. The legislation went down to the wire in a late vote Friday, with its fate pivoting on just a few undecided Republican state senators. But four Republicans eventually swung toward a yes vote, sealing a final tally of 33-29.

Read it at The New York Times

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June 23, 2011 · 8:59 AM

Political Plotlines in Liberal Doses

Well, I  can’t wait for these movies to surface.  Political junkie that I am, I anticipate getting an ample supply of popcorn at the theaters and enjoying every minute of each film.

The New York Times – Movies

At least three coming high-profile Hollywood films explore the underbelly of Democratic politicians and their handlers.

[...]

“Knife Fight” joins two other high-profile Hollywood projects that look at the dark underbelly of politicians and their handlers. And in what may be a rare confluence for Hollywood and politics, the films are focused on Democrats who are wrestling with questions of conduct, character and pragmatic choices — things that have come into sharp relief with the resignation of Anthony D. Weiner and the indictment of John Edwards. Writers on two of the projects have worked in Democratic politics.

[...]

Politics has more often been the stuff of documentary than drama of late. Perhaps lacking heroes or an empathy factor, few narrative films poked at political innards. Among the handful Oliver Stone’s “W.” looked at George W. Bush, and George Hickenlooper took aim at Republican politicians and operatives with “Casino Jack” last year. Earlier “Primary Colors” or “Wag the Dog,” a pair of Clinton-era satires that to different degrees put a comic face on the connection among elections, sexual shenanigans and public policy among Democrats.

(Television contributed political films like HBO’s “Recount” in 2008, and “Game Change,” a planned HBO film that will look at the last election. Sarah Palin and her brand of conservatism are also the subject of a current theatrical documentary, “The Undefeated.”)

The current crop promises a harsher view of Democratic politics and its practitioners, even if the critique comes largely from inside the family.

Continue reading here…

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March 21, 2011 · 8:55 AM

The Latest News from Libya

Gawker

Barely two days after U.N. authorization, the vaunted no-fly zone over Libya has been been “officially enforced” by a coalition of U.S., French and British forces. Here’s the latest from the ongoing conflict in Libya:

Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s compound was reportedly struck by U.K. forces on Sunday night, though American officials insisted the dictator wasn’t a target. Nevertheless, the mission of the coalition forces “moved beyond taking away his ability to use Libyan airspace, to obliterating his hold on the ground as well,”The New York Times reports. [NYT]

The U.S. is hoping to pass the metaphorical war-baton to either a combined French-British or a NATO command, possibly “in a matter of days.” Italy says it is contributing eight of its jets to coalition forces, and Qatar is expected to join coalition forces in some unspecified capacity on Monday. [AP; The Guardian]

The Arab League, which had initially supported the no-fly zone and theoretically lent military action some degree of legitimacy in the Arab world, appeared to waver on Sunday as strikes went on. Secretary General Amr Moussa released a statement saying “What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone” and specifically condemning reports of civilian casualties. [WaPo]

Also not on board: Russia, India and China, all of which abstained from the U.N. Security Council vote and all of which cited reports of civilian casualties in condemning the airstrikes. [Telegraph]

More…

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November 1, 2010 · 4:29 AM

Beware the GOP Coronation

Clockwise from top left: Michelle Bachmann, Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina, Marco Rubio, Sharron Angle, Joe Miller, Meg Whitman and Rick Perry (Photos: Getty Images)
 

As Walter Cronkite would say at the end of his CBS Evening News program…“and so it goes…”

The Daily Beast

Republicans will win big, and the press coverage will be glowing. But don’t forget: At the 100-days mark in his presidency, Obama walked on water. Howard Kurtz on the media’s mood swings.

Less than two years after taking office on a wave of hope, Barack Obama is on the verge of being slapped down by the electorate.

The president is so battered, politically speaking, that some members of his own party are sprinting away from him while Republicans whack him like a piñata.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The media assured us that the guy was headed for greatness. The nation’s journalists watched him in action, and in the last days of April 2009, delivered their collective verdict.

MSNBC’s Howard Fineman said Obama was “born” to live “calmly and confidently on a global stage with the hottest lights and biggest audience…. He doesn’t seem needy, aloof or afraid. We used to call that ‘cool.’ ”

Carl Cannon, writing at Politics Daily, said this: “He is as velvety smooth as a cold glass of Guinness, this new president of ours… not to mention the good looks of a Kennedy, the even keel of a Roosevelt, the understated swagger of an Eisenhower.”  Continue reading…

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October 29, 2010 · 10:18 AM

The Daily Beast: Obama Needs An Enemy

Folks are coming down hard on the president, but as The Daily Beast asks,  “…compared to what?  Wait till people get a better look at John Boehner and his band of corporate fat cats. Peter Beinart reports on the good news for Democrats.”

The Daily Beast

Amid the misery of the moment, here’s something Democrats can look forward to: President Obama is about to get his foil. He’s needed one throughout his career. In 2007, it was the contrast with Hillary Clinton that accentuated Obama’s freshness and authenticity. In 2008, it was during the presidential debates—where McCain looked erratic and uninformed and Obama looked analytical and centered—that Obama put the race away. In 2009 and 2010, by contrast, Obama has had no one to contrast himself with except for George W. Bush, and that stopped working long ago.

He’s remained, for all his troubles, far more popular than Congress. But with Congress in Democratic hands, he hasn’t been able to wield that contrast to his benefit. Instead of a political foil, Congress has provided political baggage. In passing legislation, Nancy Pelosi has proved masterful. But politically, she owns a favorability rating of 15 percent, according to this week’s New York Times, which helps explain why Republican candidates rarely utter the president’s name without mentioning hers as well.

Next week, however, things will change. A lot of Americans are about to be introduced to John Boehner and it’s unlikely they’ll like what they see. Partly, that’s because congressional leaders are usually unpopular. They’re sausage-makers, practitioners of an art that most Americans despise. And they’re rarely good on TV, which is not surprising given that they’ve been elevated within their parties because of their skills behind closed doors.

Continue reading…

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October 24, 2010 · 3:54 AM

Karl Rove’s Flameout

The Daily Beast

The GOP guru’s campaign cash binge this fall is the last gasp of a guy with rich friends. Ex-Bush aide Matt Latimer on how Rove hurt his boss, and why the right thinks he’s a fraud

Political types tend to get suspicious when those on one side of the spectrum suddenly start complimenting their supposed worst enemies—the equivalent of Seinfeld hosting a testimonial for Newman or Eliot Ness carpooling with Al Capone.   

Yet in the past few weeks, the White House and even The New York Times have done exactly that—heaping praise on their longtime nemesis, Karl Rove, and his protégé, Ed Gillespie.    

“These guys are great political operatives,” Obama strategist David Axelrod said, “and they will have an impact in this election.” The Times, meanwhile, extolled Rove as a “master political strategist” who is rebuilding the GOP majority. President Obama and Vice President Biden have done both men the great political favor of calling them out by name—almost ensuring them more Republican support and donations.  

Unfortunately for the Democrats, this effort comes as an increasing number of conservatives—from Rush to Palin to scores of activists and high-level veterans of the Reagan Revolution—view Rove as part of the GOP’s unfortunate recent past.  Indeed, they are even beginning to conclude that the oft-repeated belief that Rove is the savior of the GOP may be one of the biggest political hoaxes in American political history. At best, the man President Bush called “Turdblossom” has had a decidedly mixed record on the national level—losing the popular vote in 2000; barely beating a liberal aristocrat from Massachusetts in 2004; and, with the aid of Gillespie, presiding over the loss of both houses of Congress in 2006, and the White House in 2008. Rove and his crew, one influential conservative put it later, “left a smoking hole where the Republican Party once stood.”  

“We screwed up,” says party Chairman Michael Steele.  Conservatives were “bamboozled,” says former Texas GOP Chairman Tom Pauken. “Betrayed” and “hijacked,” says veteran conservative activist Richard Viguerie. The administration was a conservative “impostor,” writes commentator Bruce Bartlett.  Bush operatives “were afraid of ideas,” Newt Gingrich charges. “Tokyo Rove” was a recent entry on Michelle Malkin’s website.   

Continue reading…

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October 22, 2010 · 12:35 AM

Obama’s Most Powerful Enemy

In the history of the United States, I don’t think that any president has ever been confronted by a more powerful enemy than the United States Chamber of Commerce and those top companies that comprise the USCOC.

The Daily Beast 

A new analysis of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s donations show just why Obama has been attacking the group so hard. The chamber, which is the world’s largest nonprofit lobbying group, receives millions of donations from big businesses and then turns the money into a powerful tool to fight regulation of those industries. For example, insurance companies poured at least $10 million into the chamber’s coffers while the Obama administration was fighting for health-care reform. Now the group has turned to electoral battles, spreading its largesse almost exclusively to Republican candidates. Its donations are anonymous.  

Read it at The New York Times

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