Just Say No to the Treason Lobby*
Patterico and Armed Liberal have canceled their subscriptions to the L.A. Times. If you subscribe to the L.A. Times, the New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal, [see update] you should consider doing the same. Hell, if you subscribe to the Chicago Tribune or any other paper affiliated with these treasonous creeps, consider canceling that subscription, as well. It’s high time for the public to tell these self-righteous jerks that they do not speak for the public, even when … nay, especially when … they smarmily claim to be acting in “the public interest.”
* I used to cringe when Ann Coulter used that phrase to describe the far left, and when she joked about how Tim McVeigh’s crime would not have been so bad if she had blown up the New York Times building instead of the Alfred Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Apparently, she wasn’t as far off the mark on either suggestion as I thought; just “ahead of the news cycle.”
UPDATE: Patterico argues that the Wall Street Journal was not treasonous, just the Times and the Times were.
June 24th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
And give up the WSJ’s Friday crossword? Say it ain’t so.
June 24th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
Get Across Lite software from http://www.litsoft.com and you can get the puzzles for free from cruciverb.com. Print it out or solve on the computer.
June 24th, 2006 at 8:51 pm
Once again, the republican base has begun screaming in outrage at the audacity of liberal media pointing out that their government is doing something wrong.
The fact is, the government is spying on terrorists and non-terrorists alike. There are a LOT more terrorists than non-terrorists being spied on right now. I am grateful to know that the government is spying on me — not grateful that they’re spying on me, but glad I was told.
It’s so transparantly obvious that the real anger from the right is about their leaders getting caught doing something wrong. Of course, they turn to the old standby in their defense — “if you tell on us, the terrorist will know what we’re doing, too!” It’s the same song every single time the media points out something the administration has done wrong in this war.
June 24th, 2006 at 9:45 pm
Phil, you have no idea what you are talking about. If you had bothered to read the article in question, you’d know there is no evidence that the government did anything wrong. If there were, there’d at least be a nonfrivolous argument that there is a public interest that may outweigh the security interest - not that I’d trust an unelected corporate executive to make that call. This was a clearly legal program, the only newsworthy portion of which was already well-known (i.e., that our government was tracking large international financial transactions, as opposed to how they were doing it, and with that, how any terrorist could go about escaping detection).
June 24th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
Yeah, but it’s Bush.
June 25th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
Now that I have read the WSJ article, I don’t think it’s fair to lump them in with the LAT and NYT. I think the latter two papers broke the story. The WSJ was just printing information from named government officials after it became clear that the LAT and NYT were going to publish anyway.
June 25th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
yay, I get to keep the WSJ, I get to keep the WSJ. of course, had they had the story first, would they have run the details?
June 25th, 2006 at 5:46 pm
“If you had bothered to read the article in question, you’d know there is no evidence that the government did anything wrong.”
I didn’t say “illegal” I said “wrong.” Who are you to tell me what’s “wrong”?
Now you’re not only taking charge of what’s in the “public interest” (or rather, what isn’t, and therefor must not be reported to Americans), you’ve also monopolized the task of determining what is “right” and “wrong.”
June 26th, 2006 at 1:23 am
Phil,
Guys like you are the reason we need lawyers.
June 26th, 2006 at 11:10 am
The same person you are to tell the government what is or isn’t “wrong.” They have a duty to follow the law. They do not have a duty to conform to your personal views of what is or isn’t “wrong.” That’s what elections are for.
Wrong again. We have elected officials to determine what information is in the public interest to disclose, and what information is NOT in the public interest to disclose. I don’t get to make that determination. Neither do you, and neither does the NY Times.
June 26th, 2006 at 12:30 pm
“We have elected officials to determine what information is in the public interest to disclose, and what information is NOT in the public interest to disclose.”
Does the classification decision take into account public interest in the matter?
June 26th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
Yes.
June 26th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
“Yes.”
Like a balancing test?
June 26th, 2006 at 3:04 pm
I found EO 12958. It talks about classification. It mentions “public interest” as an exceptional thing that concerns ‘declassification’ not the classification decision.
What have you found?
June 26th, 2006 at 9:00 pm
The weeks ahead will show how the papers respond to reader complaints … and how the government responds to drunk-with-power publishers. Bill Keller’s letter was not a good start.
The only thing I oppose is supporting the Times through online reading. The papers are currently dying on the vine and have been attempting inroads into Internet ventures. Blogs, polls, offers and of course updated content. I actually fear the idea of driving hundreds of readers to support the paper with repetitive clicks. And I can’t say for sure, but hitting ‘close’ on a popup may provide Sales with important cumulative numbers.
Anyway, cancelling is an important statement, a good civic gesture.
The Wall Street Journal would appear to be right in line with the coastal papers in its reporting, for this reason. Glenn Simpson, who handled coverage, is based in Belgium and specializes in financial reporting. It will be interesting to read more on this; but I’m not sure that he is one to copy, reguritate and rush others’ stories to print. In fact, Simpson is up for a Loeb award (the awards dinner coincidentally is tonight in New York). You’ll see from the content of his nominated series, he’s a major player in the publishing of global financial data.
Nominated for a 2006 Gerald Loeb award. http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/x14963.xml
“Taxes and Terrorism” by Glenn R. Simpson, The Wall Street Journal
“As Europe Cuts Corporate Tax, Pressure Rises on U.S. to Follow”
“Arab Bank’s Link to Terrorism Poses Dilemma for U.S. Policy” (Part I)
“Arab Bank’s Link to Terrorism Poses Dilemma for U.S. Policy”(Part II)
“Government Probes Tax Shelters Used to Shield Stock-Option Gains” (Part I)
“Government Probes Tax Shelters Used to Shield Stock-Option Gains” (Part II)
“Irish Subsidiary Lets Microsoft Slash Taxes in U.S. and Europe” (Part I)
“Irish Subsidiary Lets Microsoft Slash Taxes in U.S. and Europe” (Part II)
“ABN Amro to Pay $80 Million Fine Over Iran, Libya” (Part I)
“ABN Amro to Pay $80 Million Fine Over Iran, Libya” (Part II)
“How Top Dutch Bank Plunged Into a World of Shadowy Money” (Part I)
“How Top Dutch Bank Plunged Into a World of Shadowy Money” (Part II)
June 30th, 2006 at 4:05 am
“The only thing I oppose is supporting the Times through online reading. The papers are currently dying on the vine and have been attempting inroads into Internet ventures. Blogs, polls, offers and of course updated content. I actually fear the idea of driving hundreds of readers to support the paper with repetitive clicks. And I can’t say for sure, but hitting ‘close’ on a popup may provide Sales with important cumulative numbers.”
The only thing they get from my visit to their site is a bandwidth bill. I haver blocked every ad, every cookie and if I need to log in to read a story, I just take keywords and pop them into Google because some subscriber somewhere has likely blogged the article already. :)
Every time I visit *ANY* major newspaper site, I cost them money. My Adblock settings file is huge.
June 30th, 2006 at 5:46 am
From Patterico:
“This, by the way, may be one reason that the Administration is showing no visible signs of wanting to prosecute the newspapers: the information published by the papers had apparently been declassified before publication.”
It’s less bad in context. Read the whole post. But it does look as though we have been defending the honor of a complacent cuckold.