Category: Journalism

New York Times summarizes Lindsey Graham’s 71-year life as “Trump ally” while reminding us that the true American heroes aren’t, strictly speaking, American

by philg

Today’s New York Times…

A Mexican national whom we are informed was shot at random by ICE (they were looking for an undocument migrant and shot the unfortunate Mr. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo for no reason and, as it happened, Mr. Araujo was also an undocumented migrant (what are the odds in a country where we’re informed that only a tiny percentage of residents are undocumented migrants?)):

Lindsey Graham, whose entire life can be reduced to, simply, “Trump Ally”:

Democrat connections on Facebook are filling up their feeds with glee regarding Senator Graham’s death. Some examples:

“I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.”
— Clarence Darrow, “The Story of My Life”, 1932

According to Dante, Lindsay’s final destination would be Antenora.

X users who previously expressed support for the Gazans and hatred of Israel are also happy. Example from someone affiliated with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee:

The mere existence of an American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee seems like something that evolved during Lindsey Graham’s adulthood (until Hart-Celler in 1965, Arabs generally weren’t eligible to immigrate to the U.S.). Let’s look at what else has changed since Lindsey Graham was born in 1955.

Lindsey Graham served in the USAF for 33 years, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, unusually, did not become disabled by his work at a desk. VA Benefits cost $4.5 billion in 1955. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about 55 billion 2026 mini-dollars. That’s during a period where nearly 100% of American men were veterans of three brutal wars (WWI, WWII, and Korean). The population was smaller because we hadn’t discovered the miracle of open borders and, thus, the U.S. was home to only about 22 million living veterans in 1955. Today, VA benefits, not including military pensions earned via length of service, cost about $440 billion. There are only about 16 million living veterans and a high enough percentage of them are classified as “disabled”, thus forcing taxpayers to pay out more than $200 billion in disability compensation, e.g., to Graham Platner in Maine. The average American who actually pays any significant federal income tax will work approximately 2-3 hours per week to fund payments and services to veterans, despite the fact that it is tough to think of any war that we’ve won since Korea. ChatGPT: “real federal spending per veteran has risen by substantially more than a factor of eight”.

(Note that we will soon be spending more on disability payments to veterans than the Chinese spend on their entire active-duty military. The majority of disabled veterans were never in combat so we can’t blame our enemies becoming tougher for this epidemic of disability. A majority of veterans who left the U.S. military during the Biden-Harris administration were classified as disabled. There are some tough-to-quantify costs of these disability ratings. Veterans who receive TDIU (Total Disability based on Individual Unemployability) can’t work without risking the loss of the taxpayer cash. Veterans who are rated 100 percent disabled, such as Graham Platner, pay no property tax on a primary residence in Florida (imagine if this fearless fighter were to move into Ron DeSantis terrirtory!).)

Lindsey Graham started out wanted to give nearly every undocumented migrant in the U.S. “amnesty” and a passport. The percentage of immigrants in the U.S. has risen from about 5 percent when Lindsey Graham was born to at least 15 percent today (Pew). If we were to look at “immigrants plus children of recent immigrants” the growth would be much more dramatic due to the U.S. having closed its borders in 1924. If we corrected Pew’s numbers with the 2X likely population of undocumented migrants that Yale found, the percentage of the U.S. population that was foreign-born would likely be around 20 percent (and maybe 30 percent for immigrants plus children of recent immigrants since immigrants have higher fertility than the native-born Americans whom they are definitely not “replacing”).

Not in any way related to this enrichment via immigration, the cost of an existing single-family house (i.e., not one in some exurb) relative to median income, is now 2-3X what it was in 1955, relative to median male worker’s earnings, depending on how one adjusts for square footage.

Graham was, like all members of Congress, responsible for setting federal spending levels. Federal debt was about 65 percent of GDP in 1955, not too long after massive borrowing to fund WWII. Today it is 125 percent of GDP. Federal spending has grown from 16.5 percent of GDP to about 23 percent (don’t forget state and local as well!). ChatGPT: “The decline in military spending since 1955 was more than fully absorbed by the growth of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, other transfers, and interest on the debt.”

Loosely related…

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Front page news from the folks who tell us that we’re in a Climate Emergency and losing our democracy

by philg

The New York Times repeatedly informs us that we are currently facing a Climate Emergency, that our democracy is being eliminated by Donald Trump (the 2026 elections will, presumably, be suspended indefinitely; also it would be a tragedy if this #1 threat to our democracy were to die), and that various other dire issues demand our attention (and our votes for Democrats).

What’s front page news? The wedding of a 36-year-old female (27 years older than ideal, for a pious Muslim, under the Hadiths), Taylor Swift:

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Pride Games in the New York Times; Dubai and Pride at Shake Shack

by philg

Word games this month in the New York Times:

Shake Shack, Palm Beach Gardens, promotes “Pride” and “Dubai” (Arabic-inspired script) simultaneously:

Dubai follows Sharia law and, in theory, people with too much Pride could be executed, but more likely “under Article 409 of the UAE Federal Crimes and Penalties Law, consensual same-sex relations are criminalized with prison sentences starting at six months.”

Canada also combines Pride and Islamic rule:

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Father’s Day at the New York Times

by philg

The latest from the Scientists, “To My Daughter, My Gender Was Never Complicated”.

The daughter is named “Elliot”, which in no conceivable way could encourage her to think that maybe her sex was incorrectly assigned at birth:

(Also, how was a child produced if there aren’t any Y chromosomes anywhere among the people who call themselves “parents”?)

Science is passed down to the younger generation:

A question that any American father might be asked, “How long did you have breasts for, Dad?”

Happy Father’s Day once again. I hope that none of the dads reading this blog are experiencing any pain or irritation from their breasts/bra today.

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New York Times searching for a motive

by philg

Like OJ searching for the real killer, the New York Times is trying to figure out what could have motivated a patriot to try to kill a person whom the New York Times characterized as literal Hitler. The front page right now:

In case you too are searching for a motive, the New York Post published “Cole Allen’s full anti-Trump manifesto”:

And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.

(Well, to be completely honest, I was no longer willing a long time ago, but this is the first real opportunity I’ve had to do something about it.)

I would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary (on the basis that most people chose to attend a speech by a pedophile, rapist, and traitor, and are thus complicit) but I really hope it doesn’t come to that.

Objection 1: As a Christian, you should turn the other cheek.

Rebuttal: Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. I’m not the person raped in a detention camp. I’m not the fisherman executed without trial. I’m not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration.

Turning the other cheek when someone else is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.

Objection 4: As a half-black, half-white person, you shouldn’t be the one doing this.

Rebuttal: I don’t see anyone else picking up the slack

Related:

From the above, a New York Times reminder that the righteous might want to eliminate a “danger”:

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Schrödinger’s job market: “strong” and “slow” at the same time (NYT)

by philg

Home page of the New York Times today, the job market is “strong” (top story) and “slow” (just below):

We were informed that Donald Trump’s border closure would destroy the U.S. economy (see U.S. economy defies Science and Immigrants expand our economy, but millions of immigrants exiting the U.S. don’t shrink our economy) and that native-born Americans aren’t willing to work. Yet the number of workers in the U.S. keeps growing even as the number of migrants shrinks and also as the number of federal government jobs shrinks.

Details:

The labor market put in a strong showing in March, as wintry weather receded, strikes concluded and businesses started looking beyond the significant uncertainty of President Trump’s first year in office.

[We had certainty under the capable steady hands of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Now we have frightening uncertainty]

  • Health care dominance: Even factoring in the addition of 31,000 jobs from workers ending a strike in California, the sector continued to lead gains, adding 76,000 positions. Manufacturing, which has been trending down for three years, added 15,000 jobs and construction grew by 26,000.
  • Federal government still contracting: The federal government shed another 18,000 jobs in March and is down a total of 355,000 positions, or 11.8 percent, since reaching a peak in October 2024.

Separately, we’ve been told that Donald Trump’s “without any plan” war against Iran would destroy both the world economy and the U.S. economy. Do investors agree with the wise prophets at the New York Times and CNN? Compared to the no-war situation a year ago, U.S. stocks are up 22% in nominal terms (19% in real dollars if we use official BLS CPI):

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Don’t kill your enemies if you want to win a war (NYT)

by philg

Curtis LeMay: “I’ll tell you what war is about, you’ve got to kill people, and when you’ve killed enough they stop fighting”

New York Times, regarding the untimely death of Ali Larijani, the guy who’d been running Iran: “Israel’s Killing of Ali Larijani Could Allow Military to Tighten Grip on Iran … had a reputation for acting as a bridge between hard-line figures in the armed forces and more moderate political factions”.

If that wasn’t clear enough for communicating how foolhardy the idea of killing the enemy is as a warfighting technique, the NYT ran a second article explaining that killing the enemy “can backfire” (i.e., will backfire).

(The Iranians retaliated per usual by launching missiles at civilians in Tel Aviv. One odd feature of this war is that the Iranians complain that it is against the laws of war when the U.S. kills some civilians by mistake while at the same time the Iranians mostly attack civilian targets, e.g., in Israel or the Gulf Arab states. Similarly, folks in the West don’t complain that Iran attacks civilians, but point out that if we were to shut down Iran’s weapons factories by disabling oil production and electric power generation that would be a war crime because civilians also benefit from oil sales and electric power.)

The New York Times doesn’t explain its rationale for why killing the enemy is a sure way to lose a war, but maybe it follows logically from Islam being the Religion of Peace. If Muslims are by definition peaceful then killing a Muslim such as Ali Larijani reduces the amount of peace in the world.

A good companion piece, from state-sponsored PBS: don’t be concerned about the four Islamic jihads waged domestically in the first two weeks of March (Ayman Mohamad Ghazali trying to kill 140 preschoolers in Michigan, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh killing Lieutenant Colonel Brandon Shah, an Army helicopter pilot, in Virginia, Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi throwing bombs in Manhattan, and Ndiaga Diagne killing Texans). Islamophobia is the real problem here in the U.S.

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We are being absolutely crushed by Iran (NYT)

by philg

Let’s have a look at the New York Times right now. Every story on the front page seems to be about a failure of U.S. military. Russia is winning. We stole some oil tankers and that’s actually costing us money instead of making us money. Missiles are falling in northern Israel. Maybe we’re firing some missiles at Iran from Bahrain, but they certainly aren’t hitting anything. We’re suffering an “oil shock” like in the bad days of the 1970s.

Let’s compare to a random day in the middle of our involvement in World War II. The British-spec’d P-51 hadn’t come into action yet so we were losing B-17 bombers and crews at a ridiculous rate. Nonetheless, the focus of the stories was on the enemy’s losses, not our own.

This is the first time that I can remember when more than half of Americans seem to be invested in the idea that the U.S. is doomed to lose a war.

(I personally believe that our best option for winning is to use bombs to (1) disable Iran’s oil production and export infrastructure, and (2) disable Iran’s electricity generation. Without money from selling oil, the Islamic Republic won’t be able to do too much that we don’t like. Without electric power, Iran won’t be able to produce a lot of sophisticated weapons. (Yes, they can use generators for some stuff, but that’s not the same as plugging a massive factory into the power grid.))

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New York Times Iran Vibe

by philg

It’s been a week since the U.S. attacked the peace-loving leaders of a peaceful Islamic theocracy. Let’s look at some of the wartime propaganda.

Sunday, March 1, a day after the hated dictator launched airstrikes while poolside in Palm Beach, the deaths of most of Iran’s senior leaders was just slightly more important than the second most important story: the Jeffrey Epstein saga. 93 million Iranians were without leadership for the first time since 1979, but also why didn’t the hundreds of U.S. government lawyers across multiple administrations manage to prosecute more of Jeffrey Epstein’s elite friends? (We know that it can’t be because it wasn’t actually criminal for Larry Summers to try to have sex with a 43-year-old or for Prince Andrew to be introduced to a 26-year-old female in a jurisdiction where the age of consent was 16.)

Today, the stories all seem to be reminding readers that Donald Trump is incompetent and mindlessly aggressive. Here’s part of the NYT front page in which Trump refuses to compromise while the Iranians are reasonable (apologizing):

CNN assembled PhD experts to do a “forensic analysis” and they concluded that war is damaging to infrastructure:

NYT, today, says that attacking Iran is pointless and, by implication, only a moron would order such an attack:

Also from today, the NYT says that only an incoherent (stupid) person would consider killing folks who chant “Death to America” while building nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles to deliver them to American cities:

The peaceful people of Lebanon, who declared war on the Zionist entity, never recognized the State of Israel, supported the October 7 attacks by Hamas (80%; 60% support among Lebanese Christians; 32% wanted to bravely attack Israel to help their brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters in Gaza), and continue to fire projectiles at Israeli civilians are sadly forced to flee their homes because of Jewish aggression:

(The Israeli attacks on Beirut actually do confuse me. The Israelis told the Lebanese to evacuate and then bombed some empty buildings. How does that reduce Hezbollah’s ability to fight? The apartment buildings weren’t being used as forts.)

Another sympathy-provoking story from Lebanon. Merely because they declared war on their neighbor and refused to accept any peace treaty over a 75-year period, some Lebanese can’t sleep comfortably in their own beds:

Trump is far worse than Vladimir Putin (March 6): “Mr. Trump has demonstrated a willingness to disregard international norms and engage in foreign adventurism by fully exploiting Washington’s might.”

From March 3, perhaps it would make sense to prevent a nation of 93 million people from building nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that could deliver them anywhere in the world, but not if 900 people are killed:

(Comparison to the Bad Old Days: The U.S. killed 100,000 residents of Tokyo on March 9, 1945 and rendered 1 million homeless.)

In a politically diverse discussion group on Facebook, a passionate Democrat posted about 20 times about rising oil prices. In other words, Donald Trump has now convinced Democrats to support Islamic theocracy and also cheap fossil fuels for maximizing climate change. (Greta Thunberg has similarly been posting in support of the Islamic Republic of Iran; you’d think that at least she’d be happy that oil prices are higher and, therefore, that consumption will be lower.)

My own social media post on how Donald Trump has caused suffering on the home front:

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TSA employees working without pay

by philg

The Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 guarantees 100 percent pay for federal workers who either (1) show up to work during a “shutdown”, (2) relax at home during a “shutdown” as blessed non-essentials, or (3) vacation in Europe during a “shutdown” without using any vacation days (again, limited to those who can get classified as non-essential).

How does the New York Times characterize the potentially-slightly-delayed paychecks of TSA employees (funding ran out a week ago)? “T.S.A. Workers Brace for Another Shutdown They Didn’t Cause”:

Lawmakers left town this week without a deal to fund the department over a disagreement about reining in the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration enforcement tactics. Most of the hardships faced by employees — who are working without pay — will go unnoticed by the public with a few possible exceptions, including the people who check IDs, scan baggage and complete other security tasks at U.S. airports.

Officers are frustrated that they have to pay the price for a political fight that has nothing to do with them. It’s even worse this time, because they have to work without pay while immigration officers will continue to be paid through a separate fund.

Nowhere do the journalists mention that TSA employees are guaranteed to receive 100-percent pay so long as the U.S. government is able to print money.

Here’s another fun one… “With Latest Rollback, the U.S. Essentially Has No Clean-Car Rules” NYT, February 16, 2026):

The momentous end to the federal government’s legal authority to fight climate change makes it official.

The United States will essentially have no laws on the books that enforce how efficient America’s passenger cars and trucks should be.

That’s the practical result of the Trump administration’s yearlong parade of regulatory rollbacks, capped on Thursday by its killing of the “endangerment finding,” the scientific determination that required the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases because of the threat to human health.

“The U.S. no longer has emission standards of any meaning,” said Margo T. Oge, who served as the E.P.A.’s top vehicle emissions regulator under three presidents and has since advised both automakers and environmental groups.

With no emissions standards, then, it would be legal for Toyota, GM, and Ford to stop including catalytic converters ($300-$1,500?) with their new vehicles? Here’s part of what ChatGPT said regarding the greenhouse gas limits that are potentially gone and the “no emission standards of any meaning” world described in the New York Times…

——————-

If greenhouse-gas (GHG) limits on cars were removed in the U.S., a substantial set of non-GHG emissions regulations would still remain. These target pollutants that directly harm human health and local air quality rather than global climate.

Below is a structured breakdown of what would still be regulated.

1) Criteria Air Pollutants (Clean Air Act “criteria pollutants”)

Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA regulates tailpipe emissions that contribute to smog, soot, and toxic exposure.

Key regulated pollutants from light-duty vehicles

  • Nitrogen oxides (NOₓ)
    • Major driver of ground-level ozone (smog)
    • Causes respiratory illness, asthma exacerbation
  • Non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHC) / Volatile organic compounds (VOCs)
    • React with NOₓ to form ozone
    • Includes unburned fuel vapors
  • Carbon monoxide (CO)
    • Interferes with oxygen transport in blood
    • Acute toxicity risk in urban corridors
  • Particulate matter (PM / PM₂.₅ / PM₁₀)
    • Soot from combustion (especially gasoline direct injection and diesels)
    • Linked to cardiovascular and lung disease

These limits are embedded in EPA Tier 3 standards (phased in from model years 2017–2025).

2) Air Toxics (Hazardous Air Pollutants)

Vehicles are also regulated for toxic compounds under the Clean Air Act’s Mobile Source Air Toxics (MSAT) program.

Key examples:

  • Benzene – carcinogenic fuel component
  • Formaldehyde – respiratory irritant, carcinogen
  • Acetaldehyde
  • 1,3-Butadiene
  • Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)

Regulation occurs via:

  • Tailpipe limits
  • Fuel composition controls
  • Evaporative emissions standards

3) Evaporative Emissions

Even when parked, cars emit fuel vapors. These rules would remain:

Regulated sources

  • Fuel tank permeation
  • Hose and seal leakage
  • Refueling vapor loss

Controls required

  • Charcoal canisters (evaporative capture)
  • Onboard Refueling Vapor Recovery (ORVR)
  • Low-permeation fuel systems

These standards are especially important in hot climates (e.g., Florida, Arizona).

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