Tag Archives: New York Times

medical news, military news, national news

Vets get long-needed help from government

It can be stated clearly: Tom Coburn’s greatest public service accomplishment occurred the day he retired from the U.S. Senate.

The Oklahoma Republican — for reasons that remain a mystery to many observers — continually blocked legislation aimed at helping returning veterans cope with post-traumatic stress disorder that tragically led to suicide.

Coburn is gone from the Senate. So, what did his former colleagues do? They approved a bill — in a 99-0 vote! — that seeks to improve suicide prevention efforts at the Department of Veterans Affairs. It was a stunning display of bipartisan cooperation on an issue that clearly should transcend partisan differences.

As the New York Times noted in an editorial: “The bill calls for regular independent evaluations of the V.A.’s suicide prevention and mental health programs to ensure the most effective approaches are used in its hospitals and clinics. Other provisions include a pilot program to match returning veterans with colleagues whom they can confide in about mental health concerns, and a website to make it easier for veterans and their families to find help. Another provision would help psychiatrists who work for the V.A. repay medical school debt, which could ease the chronic shortage of mental health professionals.”

And yet … Sen. Coburn — using the Senate’s procedural trickery that allows a single senator to block legislation at will — kept this legislation from getting a vote on the floor of the upper congressional chamber.

What’s more, Tom Coburn’s other profession — besides blocking legislation in the Senate — is as a physician. It’s astonishing, therefore, that he would take such an obstructionist view on this issue.

The Senate has turned an important corner and America’s veterans are better served as a result.

 

national news, political news

Can Sen. Warren actually defeat Hillary?

OK, let’s be clear that while the media routinely refer to a former secretary of state as “Hillary,” no one is going to call the senior senator from Massachusetts “Liz.”

One prominent conservative columnist, though, does believe that Sen. Elizabeth Warren has an honest chance of defeating Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2016 race for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/david-brooks-elizabeth-warren-113594.html?hp=l3_4

New York Times columnist David Brooks believes Warren has tapped into the Democrats’ populist/progressive base. She is taking on the banking industry, a favorite target of those progressives.

Brooks isn’t predicting a Warren nomination, he’s merely stating that he thinks she’s got a puncher’s chance.

Pardon me if I seem a bit skeptical.

Money wins these things. Hillary Clinton has tons of it in the bank and even more of it awaiting her the moment she announces her candidacy. The former secretary, senator and first lady can thank the Supreme Court for that advantage, given its ruling that well-heeled political action groups can give unlimited amounts of money to campaigns.

I’ll hand it to Brooks, though, for going out on a limb.

One more thing. Warren said today she isn’t running for president. She didn’t vow to stay out of the 2016 race until the end, just that she isn’t running. That means today. Tomorrow? It hasn’t arrived yet.

It’s still Hillary Clinton’s nomination to squander.

 

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Some thoughts on Abramson

What am I missing here about Jill Abramson’s firing as executive editor of the New York Times?

I keep coming back to the threshold question: Was she doing the job or wasn’t she?

The NYT’s brain trust said she wasn’t, so they let her go.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/jill-abramson-wake-forest-graduation-nytimes-new-york-times-firing-106824.html?hp=t1

I saw commentators over the weekend suggest that Abramson was being held to a different standard because she’s a woman. Really? I’ve always adhered to the policy that if you’re doing what your bosses want, then you’re in the clear. If not, then you get whacked. Pure and simple. I don’t understand the double standard argument. Someone will have to help me out.

One more quick point.

Salary reportedly has become an issue of public discussion. I have no idea what Abramson earned as executive editor, or whether it equaled what her immediate predecessor, Bill Keller, earned.

Back when I was working full time as a journalist, I always was instructed that my salary was privileged information, to be known only by myself, my immediate supervisors and the person in charge of cutting the checks every pay period. I followed that policy to the letter during my more than three decades in daily journalism. I never told anyone my salary, nor did I ever ask anyone what they earned.

There were times over the years when I more or less put two-and-two together to presume what someone was earning, but I never — not a single time — discussed it openly.

Abramson got canned. As the sanitized version of the saying goes: Stuff happens.

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Young people today …

Thomas Friedman writes a fascinating essay in today’s New York Times in which he tells of a night he spent aboard the USS New Mexico, a nuclear-powered attack submarine.

The New Mexico ducked under the North Pole ice cap, punched its way through, and then went back under.

Friedman’s essay deals with several aspects of serving for months on end underwater on one of these ships.

He writes: “My strongest impression, though, was experiencing something you see too little of these days on land: ‘Excellence.’ You’re riding in a pressurized steel tube undersea. If anyone turns one knob the wrong way on the reactor or leaves a vent open, it can be death for everyone. This produces a unique culture among these mostly 20-something submariners.”

He tells of how the ship examines the effects of climate change and how it functions as a self-contained world within our world.

He asks a young sailor how he is able to spend so much time underwater, with severe limitations on the communication with his family.

The sailor responds: “Whenever you board this submarine in port, that American flag is flying and you salute that flag. And every time I salute that flag, I remember the reason I joined the Navy: service to country, being part of something bigger than myself and in memory for the attacks of 9/11.”

Then he asks: “Remind me again what we’re doing in Washington these days to deserve such young people?”

It’s an arresting conclusion to an interesting and informative essay on life aboard a very dangerous weapon.

It also should serve to instruct us all that generations going back, oh, to the beginning of time have questioned whether the next generation will be capable of carrying on.

The young sailor’s response to a seasoned reporter tells me our nation will be in good hands.

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Fox talk-show hosts need lesson in field reporting

Talking heads, by definition, are personalities who, well, talk.

They opine on matters, regardless of their expertise — or lack thereof — on the subject.

Such appears to be the case when “Fox and Friends” co-hosts decided to criticize a New York Times reporter who was on the ground in Benghazi, Libya, when terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate on Sept. 11, 2012 and ignited a fire fight that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/01/02/war-reporters-fox-criticism-of-times-benghazi-r/197394

The Times published a lengthy report that dissected the events of that terrible day and reported that an anti-Islam video that had been posted on YouTube played a part in triggering the siege. Fox pundits have been claiming for more than a year that the video had nothing to do with the event and have declared that the Obama administration has been covering up the facts of the case.

Now comes the Fox and Friends clowns who say that reporters in the field should have alerted U.S. authorities that Americans might have been in danger.

How would they have done that? Steve Doocy, one of the Fox hosts, said the reporter “probably” had access to a satellite phone he could have used to call for help. Probably?

Therein lies the difficulty in trying to offer opinions and analysis on things of which you have no knowledge.

A reporter’s job is to report events in real time. “When you’re in the middle of a riot or an attack like that, first of all, it is not a reporter’s job to call the authorities and he would have to assume the authorities know about it. It seems so bizarre,” said Josh Meyer, director of education and outreach for the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative and a former Los Angeles Times national security reporter with experience in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

The Fox talking heads should stick to things with which they are comfortable, which is criticizing Obama administration policy. They should steer clear of discussing reporter’s responsibilities covering hostile action in a war zone.