NYT: Taxing Wealthy and Cutting Pentagon Make Sanders 'Unelectable'

[think]

Robert Naiman from Just Foreign Policy does a great job of tearing apart a New York Times article with the baseless claim that taxing the wealthy and cutting military spending makes Senator Sanders unelectable:

NYT: Taxing Wealthy and Cutting Pentagon Make Sanders 'Unelectable'

By Robert Naiman, Policy Director, Just Foreign Policy - 06/04/2015 4:34 pm EDT

On Sunday, in the course of an article about Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders attracting huge crowds in Iowa, the New York Times told us that:

some of Mr. Sanders's policy prescriptions -- including far higher taxes on the wealthy and deep military spending cuts -- may eventually persuade Democrats that he is unelectable in a general election.
This is a striking example of how big media like the New York Times can try to enforce their own limits on debate by asserting without evidence that certain ideas and therefore the people who espouse them - or are purported to espouse them, more on this below - are not mainstream.

Of course, it's the democratic right of the New York Times - on its editorial page! - to oppose tax increases on the wealthy and cuts in Pentagon spending. (Note that unless one is going to increase the deficit - is the New York Times for that? - these are the two big pots of money one would need to tap if one wanted, for example, to have a major program to rebuild domestic infrastructure and thereby increase employment, as Senator Sanders and many Democrats want to do. So as a practical matter, opposing tax increases on the wealthy and opposing cutting the Pentagon budget implies opposing rebuilding our domestic infrastructure.)

But this was a news article. A news article isn't supposed to make tendentious assertions about political candidates without providing evidence...

Read more:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/nyt-taxing-wealthy-cuttin_b_7512960.html

[cantbeserious]

1. I Will No Longer Settle For The Lesser Of Two Corporate Evils - Go Bernie Go

eom

[Enthusiast]

35. Me too.

[hobbit709]

2. Looks like the owner class is getting worried.

[Cheese Sandwich]

3. Craziness. Those are the things that make him awesome.

[think]

4. Indeed. /nt

[Ed Suspicious]

5. Precisely.

[bettyellen]

6. They have been carrying water for the wealthy a long long time...

Completely out of touch for years.

[Human101948]

7. Well, that's the truth...for the one percenters he is unelectable...

and they will pull out all stops to make sure that the gravy train keeps rolling through their neighborhood.

[moondust]

12. (Paranoid) one percenters

will never have enough "protection" for all that loot--as long as somebody else is providing it and paying for it.

I'd like to think there are limits to "pulling out all the stops" but...

[ananda]

16. Starvation might be a straw.

At least it used to be.

[erronis]

17. And who do you think reads the NYT? Probably 99% of the 1%.

With the NYT newstand price at a minimum of $2.50 and sliding up to $6.00, there aren't a lot of unemployed or low-wage people that read it.

They have to write "All the News That's Fit To Print" slanted towards their readership. Besides the contents are getting rather bare recently.

It, along with the WSJ, does make good cat litter, birdcage liners, insulation in the cardboard boxes that some need to live in.

[malthaussen]

8. Well, that's progress.

Formerly, he was unelectable because he couldn't possibly raise the dough.

-- Mal

[Crowman1979]

9. And this is why print media is DEAD!

Alongside the media mergers that have occurred over the past two decades.

[Enthusiast]

34. Precisely.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. More likely it makes him a threat.

[TheNutcracker]

11. Go Bernie!!!!! You have our votes!

[zeemike]

13. It seems the argument being made is that

The rich PTB are so powerful that democracy is dead...money and power has the vote now.

[jwirr]

14. Claim is a out of context. It claims that Bernie wants to have "far higher taxes on the wealthy".

They are taking the statement that Eisenhower had a 90% tax on the wealthy to mean that is what Bernie would do.

What Bernie actually said when asked if he thought that was too high was no. And back then it was NOT too high because Eisenhower was paying for a war. A war that like all wars leads to profits for the rich. Eisenhower was making the rich pay for their war. 90% was not too high.

Since the Korean War we have had on the credit card wars. It is a big part of our problems.

As to being unelectable - the NY Times is out of touch. The American people have had enough of war profiteering.

[bvar22]

24. 90% on the top 1%?.... seems about right.

Eisenhower made the Rich & The War Profiteers pay their share for the WAR.
That worked well.
Time to try that aghain.
We still have 2 Republican WARS that haven't been paid for.

[Enthusiast]

33. No problem. The Social Security trust fund will pay for Iraq.

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[Overseas]

15. K&R. Sad that NYT is admitting billionaires own our govt and Dems wouldn't allow Bernie to win.

[Major Nikon]

18. Sad state of affairs when the most fiscally responsible candidate is shunned by both sides

[True Blue Door]

19. They always do this when they get nervous.

They start printing things that would be thrown out of a middle school newsletter, asserting shrill opinions as facts without evidence in articles marked "news" rather than editorials.

The majors never change. They are private property of rich, arrogant, overwhelmingly Republican pieces of shit, who chime in with bald-faced propaganda whenever they feel like it.

NYT, as far as I'm concerned, still hasn't been called to answer for its war criminal propaganda. Some of its former (and perhaps current) editors and management belong in prison for life. BTW, does their style guide still force writers to call it "enhanced interrogation"?

[bvar22]

37. Absolutely Agree.

Jailed for life...or longer if we can figure out a way.
All money made from the illegal WAR must be repaid to the American People.

I don't know what we can do to actually help the people of the ME whose lives, families, and countries THEY destroyed, but we certainly owe them something besides an apology.


I used to love the NY Times, and considered it the Paper of Record.
Thats GONE now, and won't be coming back since actively helped Bush Invade the Wrong Country.

[TBF]

21. I hope no one thought this would be easy -

the capitalists WILL fight back. Remember, though, that there are many more of us. We can do this.

[SmittynMo]

22. Higher taxes on the wealthy and deep military spending cuts?

The NYT is totally FOS. I don't have a problem with this at all.

NEXT!!!!

[ZX86]

23. NYT is freaking clueless.

I get so tired of some inside the beltway pundit declaring some candidate, "He/she just disqualified himself/herself", by stating the truth or proposing a real solution to a real problem.

It reminds me of when early on they dismissed OWS and then the crowds kept growing and growing, all over the world. Not just drum banging hippies but students, union workers, office workers, food and service workers, veterans, etc.

[Enthusiast]

32. Maybe Rupert Murdoch secretly owns the NYTs. Seems like it.

[Warren DeMontague]

25. They were right about those WMDs in Iraq, werent they?

... Oh, wait

[grasswire]

26. where did you get that Bernie thing at the bottom?

I want it.

[Scurrilous]

27. NYTimes - Not worth the walk to the end of the driveway.

@#$% it!


After weeks of front page top of the fold Hillary email etc foofaraw, I noticed the Times decided to bury the latest Hastert sex abuse revelations on today's page 10A.

Liberal media my @#$.

[Enthusiast]

31. +1 an entire shit load.

[hifiguy]

28. This quote still gives me a bit of hope

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

Mahatma Gandhi

[grahamhgreen]

29. ROFL! The Vast Majority of the American People want to do both!

[Enthusiast]

30. First off, fuck the NYT.

Hey, while I'm thinking about it, boycott the NYT. Obviously they are running one right wing article after another. What good are they? Boycott their ass!

[NaturalHigh]

36. If he wins the nomination, I will definitely vote for him in the general election.

[bvar22]

38. Raising Taxes on the RICH has strong Nationwide suppport.

Most of the polls I've see have Raise Taxes on the Rich at about 70%.

[kentuck]

39. Why?

If the public is given the complete information by the news organizations, in the process of informing an uniformed public, the public would choose not taxing the wealthy and spending more on defense projects over the social needs of the people? They say that so assuredly but is it true?