While it has every right to editorialize on behalf of global warming alarmists, the NYT should at least acknowledge the existence of updated research and the simmering scientific disputes, which have greatly unsettled the so-called “consensus” green activists have used as a rationale to advance the  Kyoto Protocol and other regulatory schemes…

Precious little progress has been made from the alarmist perspective since the United Nations climate change conference held last December in Copenhagen, Denmark, a blogger for the New York Times concedes. Looking ahead to the next conference, which opens at the end of November in Cancun, Mexico there is now speculation that this may be last gathering. Although green activists continue for push for a binding international agreement to lower emissions, government officials are unlikely to advance any substantive measures.

“Now many are wondering whether the process itself, under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is so flawed that it should be scrapped,” the blog says.  “Is it realistic to expect that 200 nations with vastly different interests, from China to Saudi Arabia to Bolivia to Micronesia, can come together to address a problem that will affect them in vastly different ways? Is there a better way to attack a global problem largely caused by a handful of large industrialized countries? Should the next so-called `conference of the parties’ be the last?”

Since the mid-1990s, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been invoked as the final authority on the question of man-made global warming. But it has come under severe criticism recently over its methodologies and procedures.

The U.N. tasked The InterAcademy Council (IAC), based in Amsterdam, to investigate the IPCC. Its findings, published on August 30 concluded that the IPCC was predisposed toward conflicts of interest, made multiple assertions about climate change that lack scientific support, and inappropriately interjected itself into the policy making process.

Yes, the process is flawed but somehow the NYT never gets around to raising questions about the so-called scientific consensus that has been used as a rationale for international regulatory agreements.

“A relatively small group of countries — the United States, China, Russia, India, Brazil and the European Union — are responsible for the vast bulk of global carbon emissions,” the blogger observes. “Why can’t they get together and agree on some common steps and a plan for providing aid to smaller, more vulnerable countries? Why do Cuba and Sudan have to sign onto whatever they agree to? In fact, such discussions now regularly take place outside the United Nations ambit, whether in the Group of 20 or other international forums, or in bilateral talks like those between the United States and China on clean energy innovation.”

Just prior to the November elections, the NYT ran yet another editorial criticizing public officials who have raised questions about the evidence offered to support the idea that human activity has been driving climate change. This despite an avalanche of data that shows nature forces are largely responsible for warming and cooling trends.

Fred Singer, an atmospheric physicist and professor emeritus with the University of Virginia, suggests in a recent essay for The American Thinker, that NYT become better acquainted with recent developments and the sentiment of its own readership.

“The NY Times may be seriously out of step with its own readers,” he wrote. “At least that’s how I would judge the results of a survey of readers of Scientific American, a magazine that has been just as alarmist about AGW as the Times:

**77% believe that current climate change is caused by natural processes

**68% think we should do nothing about climate change, are powerless to stop it

**90% approve of climate scientists debating the issue in public forums

**83% believe that the UN-IPCC is corrupt, prone to groupthink, and has a political agenda.

The New York Times is doing a disservice to its readers and to the US public in stoking unreasonable fears not based on solid science.”

George Soros, the radical, far-left billionaire, with a long history of antipathy toward American interests, now sits on a U.N. panel charged with organizing a $100 billion wealth transfer from the developed world to the underdeveloped world in the name of environmentalism. News of his involvement here is buried away in a NYT report but it should be the lead sentence.

Developing countries must help combat the many challenges associated with global warming, according to a United Nations (U.N.) panel. That is assuming all concerned parties accept the premise of catastrophic human induced climate change and the New York Times certainly does. The price tag has been fixed at $100 billion and the villain here is of course the United States, which refuses to comply with anti-emissions regulations.

It’s a familiar script that is wearing thin. The alarmist rationale has been dealt serious setbacks in recent months thanks to updated research and the growing “climategate” scandal. But international bureaucrats and transnationalists opposed to America’s free market system remain undeterred in their course of action.

Last December, “international leaders” agreed that it would be necessary for the developed world to fork over 100 billion by 2020 during the Copenhagen climate summit. But the methodology and details of this transfer remain a point of consternation and contention. The U.N. panel has just released a report that offers up some suggestions.

“The attitude of the developing nations was that the industrialized world caused the pollution, so the richer states should cut a check for reparations and another check to help pursue clean development,” the NYT report notes. “The richer nations balked at the prospect. Some of those differences remain in the report: the developing world thinks the financing should come in the form of public aid, whereas the developed world wants to rely heavily on private investment, for example. The differences were indeed on display during the release of the report.”

The nexus between environmentalism and anti-Americanism is not difficult to unravel. Van Jones, an avowed communist, who previously served as a czar for the Obama Administration, was forced to step down when far left history came to light. Buried deep in the NYT piece is a revealing nugget that should have been in the lead.

“The 21-member United Nations panel included Lawrence H. Summers, the White House’s departing national economics adviser; the billionaire financier George Soros; Ernesto Cordero Arroyo, the finance minister of Mexico; and Christine Lagarde, the French economic minister,” the NYT reports.

That’s right, the same George Soros who has railed against American independence and sovereignty is now organization a massive wealth transfer to third world countries in the name of environmentalism.

The headline should read: George Soros Led United Nations Panel Organizes $100 Billion Anti-U.S. Shakedown Effort.

These a remarkable front page report appearing on the front page of Monday’s edition the demonstrates how minimum wage laws undermine the economic well being of the most vulnerable and needy members of society. So why not examine how the same intrusive policies undermine younger, low-skilled workers in the U.S?…

What may be economically unsound is often politically expedient, which helps to explain why government agencies continue to mandate job-killing minimum wage laws.  Self-described champions of the poor who advance these policies are rarely called out for their perfidy in the news media, which often sympathizes with intrusive public policy schemes.

That’s why a front page report appearing in Monday’s edition of The New York Times is so remarkable. The unemployment crisis in South Africa has become so severe to the point where the harmful effects of minimum wage laws are undeniable.

The political window dressing surrounding South Africa’s policy unraveled in dramatic fashion on the floor of a Newcastle factory that employed workers for $36 a week, which was $21 below what the government stipulated. The opening paragraphs of the NYT article tells a compelling story.

“The sheriff arrived at the factory here to shut it down, part of a national enforcement drive against clothing manufacturers who violate the minimum wage, the report says. “But women working on the factory floor — the supposed beneficiaries of the crackdown — clambered atop cutting tables and ironing boards to raise anguished cries against it.

`Why? Why?’ shouted Nokuthula Masango, 25, after the authorities carted away bolts of gaily colored fabric.

She made just $36 a week, $21 less than the minimum wage, but needed the meager pay to help support a large extended family that includes her five unemployed siblings and their children.

The women’s spontaneous protest is just one sign of how acute South Africa’s long-running unemployment crisis has become. With their own industry in ruinous decline, the victim of low-wage competition from China, and too few unskilled jobs being created in South Africa, the women feared being out of work more than getting stuck in poorly paid jobs.”

From here, the report proceeds to offer up commentary from various economists, academics and government officials who seek to account for dire financial climate.  Remarkably, the NYT also acknowledges experts who identify “politically powerful trade unions” as the culprit since they often demand higher wages that do not square with reality.

The trick here is to have the NYT and other liberal publications report on the job-destroying features of minimum wage laws here in America.

A great source here would be the “War on the Young Series” that NetRight Daily’s own Adam Bitely has carefully and methodically weaved together. Entry level positions that pay modest hourly rates allow unskilled workers to gain experience and credibility that translate into higher paying positions.  Minimum wage workers do not stay in place, they move up. This basic point is often overlooked in media coverage of labor issues, Bitely has explained.

“The minimum wage increased from $5.15 an hour in 2007 to $7.25 an hour in 2010,” he wrote. That is quite an increase and one that is hard to ignore. This increase has forced many employers of under skilled laborers to reconsider how many they can afford to hire for summer jobs, when most of America’s youth are seeking seasonal employment between college semesters and high school summer breaks.”

“While the New York Times completely disregarded the minimum wage increase in their recent write-up on teenage unemployment, famed economist Don Boudreaux of George Mason University noted that the Times would probably notice a drop-off in subscriptions if the government mandated a 41% increase in their subscription price. It is wrong to simply allow this increase to go by unnoticed,” Bitely continues.

Hiking the minimum only serves to acerbate unemployment among the young and low-skilled in the U.S. and overseas. Those public officials who are willing to cut against the grain of elite opinion and dismantle government mandates on business deserve a fair hearing in the press. The report from South Africa shows that NYT is quite capable of exposing the fallout from misguided policies.

They cover a lot of bases here but omit any discussion of the environmental movement’s international dimensions. Polls shows that the public is evenly divided over a ballot initiative that would suspend California’s global warming law until after unemployment falls. Here, the NYT seeks to swing public sentiment by questioning the motives of private donors who are linked in with the Tea Party.

A California ballot initiative that could potentially unravel the anti energy policies Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law four years ago is the subject of a report aimed against free market groups. Charles and David Koch described here as the “billionaires from Kansas who have played a prominent role in financing the Tea Party movement” are the primary targets. But out of state business interests also come in for criticism.

Both sides acknowledge that initiative could have national ramifications for the environmental movement and its pursuit of “cap and trade” policies. State-level regulatory efforts that mimic the Kyoto Protocol rippled out of California’s Global Warming Solutions Act and could recede if pro-energy activists prevail in November. The initiative, known formally as Proposition 23, calls for a suspension of anti-emissions restrictions until after unemployment falls to 5.5 percent or lower for at least four consecutive quarters.

Over the past year, the environmental movement has been beset with setbacks that undermine long-standing scientific and economic arguments activists and government officials have invoked to advance regulatory directives. It is evident from this report that the NYT and other left leaning media outlets are panicked by recent developments. The idea here is to discredit the opposition and explain away public opposition as an understandable, albeit misguided byproduct of the recession.

“Traditionally, public support for environmental measures suffers during tough economic times,” the report says. “Here in California, backers of the initiative have seized on that anxiety — which is particularly acute in this state, with its 12.3 percent unemployment rate — in search of a victory.”

The stipulations included in Proposition 23 “could have the practical effect of killing the law,” the NYT correctly notes. Over the past several decades, the unemployment rate as rarely fallen to such relatively low rate for an extended period of time. AB 32, the Global Warming statute, calls for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions to be reduced back to 1990 levels by 2020. Private industry officials say they that the high cost of compliance would result in job losses and rising gas prices.

There are a number of detailed, scholarly studies that bolster and substantiate the concerns of private industry. The Institute for Energy Research (IER), for instance, has published a report that goes into great detail about the higher costs attached to renewable standards and emissions restrictions. But these hard facts have no place in an agenda laced report that works over time to sully the reputation of business groups, Tea Party activists and individual donors who are committed to private enterprise.

“The campaign against California’s greenhouse gas law comes as business groups have invested heavily across the country in trying to defeat members of Congress who voted for a cap-and-trade  bill that also mandated emission reductions; the bill passed the House but failed in the Senate in the face of strong opposition from lawmakers in industrial states,” the report says.

Looking ahead to November, current polls show that the competing sides are evenly matched.

“Yet supporters said they were concerned that the proposition could slip through at a time when Democratic spirits are low,” the NYT points out. “More significant is the question of how much more supporters of Prop 23 can raise to finance their campaign. Of the $8.2 million raised so far, $1 million came from the Koch firm, $4 million from the Valero Energy Corporation and $1.5 million from the Tesoro Corporation; both corporations are based in San Antonio.”

The article concludes with a spokesman from the NRDC quoted at length expressing concern over the influence and financial backing of anti-regulatory organizations. That’s the pot calling the kettle black.

“We have every reason to believe that they are going to put the money in to run a big television campaign in the most expensive media market in the country,” said Annie Notthoff, the California advocacy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. “We certainly are expecting to have a fight on our hands.”

As of 2006, the NRDC has net assets in excess of $125 million and enjoys consistent, steady substantial support from well-endowed left-leaning foundations, according to The Capital Research Center.

NRDC is part of  large, expansive network of left-wing organizations operating under the guise of environmentalism that have worked on national and international level to restrict and restrain America’s economic development.

These outside groups that operate in concert with the European Union and the United Nations at the expense of U.S. taxpayers and consumers deserve greater exposure and attention.

Former Secretary of State George Schultz, who supports Calif.’s global warming law, should be asked about the international backing of environmental groups like the NRDC receive since he’s so concerned about the activities of American citizens who favor affordable energy.

Supposedly, Australia’s ambitious clean energy network will cost households just eight dollars a week over the next ten years, the NYT declares in a recent report. But new studies show that renewable, green technology is quite costly and cannot be sustained without government intervention. These facts go missing from the report…

So called renewable energy sources comprise just 6 percent of Australia’s power supplies, but this could change dramatically in the next few years if environmentalists have their druthers, according to a New York Times “Green Column” that highlights pending projects. Current plans call for the largest wind farm in the Southern Hemisphere to be built between now and 2013, the report says.

Although the report concedes that there are enormous logistical challenges connected with the project, it permits renewable industry advocates to talk around the engineering obstacles. The NYT also claims the renewable energy initiatives will generate modest costs for Australian citizens. But the experiences of European countries and U.S. states suggest otherwise and should be reported.

Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Spain, has produced a  study that shows green jobs are mostly temporary, heavily subsidized and subtract away from economic performance. The study also describes how higher energy prices associated with renewable have worked against Spain’s ability to compete internationally. The same is true in the U.S. where electricity rates are almost 40 percent higher in states with renewable standards than they are in states that do not have such standards, according to the Institute for Energy Research (IER).

Readers would greatly benefit if these numbers were juxtaposed with some of the blanket assertions made in the NYT piece. Unrealistic cost estimates are typically attached to political agendas at odds with the public interest. Ideally, journalists should work to expose rather than advance government perfidy.

Australia could switch over to renewable in just 10 years by constructing 12 thermal solar stations and 23 wind farms, a Melbourne University study cited in the report has concludes.

“This ambitious clean energy network would cost 370 billion dollars over 10 years, but the cost to each household is estimated at a mere 8 dollars a week,” the article declares. This is very questionable number in light of what has been experienced in America and Europe. But policymakers are proceeding full speed ahead.

“Worldwide, investment in renewable energies has boomed in recent years, with some $190 billion worth of new clean energy in 2008, according to the Renewables Global Status Report for 2009,” the report says. “The number of large solar plants tripled to 1,800 between 2007 and 2008, with the majority of new plants in Spain, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea and Portugal. The United States, the world’s biggest source of wind energy, installed five times Australia’s total wind energy capacity in 2008 alone.”

Yes, and it’s costing these countries a substantial amount without any appreciable impact on the climate at the expense of cheap, reliable energy sources. The NYT does a great disservice to readers here by way of cheerleading for renewable development in a country that has plenty of alternatives. Instead, it views Australia’s rich supply of resources as an obstacle.

“One of the problems in Australia is that the country has too many energy resources, and too much cheap coal,” the NYT observes. “The country is the leading exporter of coal in the world, and it generates about 80 percent of its electricity through coal-fired power stations.”

The political class understands that coercive measures such as “cap and trade” are needed to force private industry off politically incorrect energy sources. But key voices of dissent have emerged and that’s good news for Australians.

“While campaigning for elections on Saturday, the governing Labor Party and the conservative opposition appeared divided over whether to set such a `carbon price,’ which would force coal power operators to invest in cleaner technology and make renewable energy more competitive,” the report says.  Prime Minister Julia Gillard favors what the NYT describes as a “market-based carbon program,” while Tony Abbott is opposed.

Although environmental groups maintain that “cap and trade” policies have market-like qualities, their arguments do not hold up, especially on the cap side of the equation. The emissions restrictions are imposed through regulation not voluntary, market-based decisions. Moreover, because they are set through regulation and legislation they can be imposed for political reasons, not economic or environmental reasons.

This remains an unexplained part of the story that should be pursued and unpackaged in future reports.

Sen. Carl Levin is using phony small business advocates to push for double taxation on U.S. businesses that profit overseas. Even the NYT is forced to concede that the activity is “unusual,” but declines to do any serious investigation. The organizations in question all have far left affiliations suggestive of a big government agenda. That much is evident from just cursory glance of web sites…

Small business groups have joined forces with Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) to block offshore tax havens for large companies and wealthy Americans that come at the expense of job producing enterprises, according to The New York Times.  Or have they?

Although Sen. Levin has never been a friend of the free market system in the past, he has suddenly developed a concern for law abiding business owners who lose out when more sizable corporate operations exploit tax shelters, a July report informs readers.

Three non-profit organizations — the American Sustainable Business Council, Business for Shared Prosperity and Wealth for the Common Good — are indentified as the primary authors of a 25 page report that calls out multinational companies for avoiding $37 billion in federal taxes; an estimate that is probably on the low end.

“The campaign is unusual because it is the first time that small businesses have organized to combat offshore tax avoidance and evasion in a significant way,” The Times observes. But instead of investigating the coalition’s self-proclaimed business concerns, the Gray Lady blithely invokes the report’s major recommendations, which are not reflective of free market values.

The operative word here is not “unusual” but duplicitous. All three non-profit groups have tangible links with far left activists who favor greater government control of the private sector, according to new research published by Americans for Limited Government. This places the coalition’s partnership with Sen. Levin into a logical and understandable context that would better serve readers.

Unfortunately, the NYT remains more committed to its big government agenda than it does to straight reporting. Here are some hard facts that should be included in subsequent reports about the coalition and its key players.

Holly Sklar is currently the director of Business for Shared Prosperity. She has served as senior policy adviser for the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign and as an affiliate staff member for Demos, a think tank allied with ACORN and the Institute for Policy Studies. Chuck Collins, who co-founded Wealth for the Common Good has served as an affiliate staffer of Demos and as the Tax Program Director of Business for Shared Prosperity. He is also a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and directs IPS’s Program on Inequality and the Common Good.

The other lead author here, the American Sustainable Business Council, makes no attempt to camouflage its progressive leanings. Its home page includes a long and copious list of allied organizations that advocate for left wing causes. Key personnel include Atlee McFellin, who works as a strategy consultant. McFellin was previously a member of Students for a Democratic Society and the Radical Student Union.

The website for Business and Investors Against Tax Haven Abuse also opens the way for an informative investigation. It contains a list of 25 businesspersons who signed the petition oppose the use of tax havens. An examination of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) records shows that most of the campaign contributions from these same individuals went to Democratic organizations and liberal activist groups.

Why is this not considered news?

The concluding paragraph from the NYT lists some of the major recommendations included in the report that is aimed against larger companies. They are as follows:

“The report calls for laws that would block transfers of intellectual property designed to evade taxes; ban shell corporations that earn profits offshore, even when a corporation’s management team is based in the United States; repeal a rule that allows American corporations to reduce or eliminate their United States tax bills if 80 percent of their business takes place overseas; and set penalties for government contractors that use tax havens.”

Those are not immodest proposals.

The NYT piece suggests any additional tax revenue collected could be used to boost small business. In reality, the anti-profit, anti-capitalist mentality animating this non-profit coalition suggests otherwise.

With the 2010 mid-term elections approaching, time is running out for big spenders to force through new Keynesian measures and the New York Times is not pleased. A new report warns against the political fallout for Republicans who prioritize budget cuts over stimulus programs. There is limited value in the standard back and forth between competing lawmakers. Instead more economists should be permitted to debate the merits of new spending plans..

“Deficit Hawks” who are ambitious to roll back the Obama Administration’s spending binge could jeopardize job creation and further sink the economy, according to lawmakers, union officials and public policy analysts who have been quoted recently in The New York Times.

When Congress reconvenes, it will only have one month to pass additional spending programs before leaving for the August recess. Keynesian economists who believe government spending spurs economic activity are alarmed because legislative efforts typically stall during election seasons.

Although budget cutters now appear to have the upper hand politically, the reporting suggests that Republicans who obstruct new spending initiatives could delay economic recovery and antagonize voters.

“Somehow the politically correct position on the deficit has become cut, cut, cut, irrespective of the economic consequences,” Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, a New York Democrat is quoted as saying. “Most economists agree the economy is too fragile to sustain the kinds of spending cuts politicians are talking about now.”

Alan Krueger, the treasury department’s chief economist, favors tax increases over spending cuts as a way to alleviate rising deficits and to boost jobs. He offered congressional testimony in May that has been cited in the New York Times as a rejoinder to law makers who favor less spending.

“He testified that the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 `did not result in better performance in the labor market than was achieved in the 1990s, a period when government revenue increased, and the deficit was reduced and eventually eliminated,’ the Times reported.

“Whether that perspective will shape the policy debate will become clear in the coming months. In the meantime, some experts say that job creation and deficit reduction are not mutually exclusive.”

Other key sources here include Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.Com, who has argued in favor of “additional temporary stimulus to the economy.”

There are sharp divisions here between those who favor additional government expenditures and those who see deficit reduction as the more paramount concern. The Times deserves credit  for providing prominent Republicans with an opportunity to voice their concerns and make the case for fiscal restraint. Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) both make some pointed observations that bring balance to the reports.

However, there is an implication made here that the prevailing view among economists is in sympathy with plans to advance spending programs. This is most certainly not the case and future reports should include the perspective of free market scholars who have debunked Keynesian thinking.

Russell Roberts, an economist with George Mason University, offered testimony before the U.S. Senate that addresses the current economic climate and argues government intervention. Some of the following comments should find their way into future reports that also cite Keynesians.

“While politicians may not be good at creating confidence, they can be very good at creating increased uncertainty,” Roberts explained. “Right now, the government is either intervening in numerous parts of the economy or considering expanded intervention in major ways…In the areas where the government has already intervened, the timing and nature of the exit strategy is up in the air. In the areas where the government is considering major intervention, the timing and entrance strategy are equally uncertain. This uncertainty discourages the risk-taking needed to get the economy going.”

Another proponent of parsimonious government spending patterns that deserves notice and attention is Howard Rich, Chairman of Americans for Limited Government. In response to a New York Times column by Paul Krugman, one of the leading lights of Keynesian theory, Rich correctly notes that government was already growing “by leaps and bounds” before the severe recession took hold.

“This is not rocket science, it is common sense, he observed. “The more government grows, the more the economy suffocates. Conversely, the more government contracts, the freer we will be as a nation to prosper.”

A strong case can be made that the Republic will be much safer if Congress declines to take any further action. That’s not the view of progressive economists connected with the Center for American Progress (CAP) and with top labor leaders who are often quoted in the Times.

“It is a national disgrace that members of Congress are heading home to celebrate our nation’s birthday after having voted repeatedly not to create jobs or to extend unemployment aid,” Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO said.

Given how well positioned Trumka is with the Obama White House it is certainly helpful for readers to have an understanding of his policy stance. But what are the economic arguments for and against expanded government benefits?

There’s another option open for subsequent reports that defer to Keynesian thinking. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has issued a new report that also takes jaundiced view of so-called stimulus plans. The organization has been a consistent and revered source for The Times and should figure into policy debates. Although its language is measured, the IMF clearly favors frugality in America and Europe.

“Lower risk appetite could initially reduce capital flows to emerging and developing economies,” the report says. “But relatively more robust growth prospects and low public debt could eventually result in higher capital flows, as some emerging economies become more attractive investment destination than advanced economies… At a global level, policies should focus on implementing credible plans to lower fiscal deficits over the medium term…such plans…should emphasize policy measures that reform pension entitlements and public health systems, make permanent reductions in non-entitlement spending, improve tax structures and strengthen fiscal institutions.

Contrary to what the Obama White House recommends, Ireland is cutting its budget and alleviating debt. Other European countries now appear inclined to do the same even as The New York Times makes every effort to sell the EU on discredited Keynesian schemes…

Ireland’s “Celtic Tiger” economy, the envy of Europe throughout the 1990s and the first decade of the 21^st Century, has slowed dramatically and The New York Times recommends stimulus spending to grease the engines. The Irish Prime Minister is quoted offering a sober, straightforward assessment of the economic climate that sharply contrasts with Keynesian thinking that maintains favor in the liberal media.

“The facts are that there is no easy way to cut deficits,” Prime Minister Brian Cowen is quoted as saying. “Those who claim there’s an easier way or a soft operation – that’s not the real world.” But where the prime minister sees a need for budget cutting, The Times sees an opportunity for greater government intervention and higher levels of spending. The other European nations to their great credit are lining up behind Ireland and in opposition against so-called “stimulus” strategies.

“Other European nations, including Britain and Germany are following Ireland’s lead, arguing that the only way to restore growth is to convince investors and their own people that government borrowing will shrink,” the report says. “The Group of 20 leaders set that in writing this weekend, vowing to make deficit reduction the top priority despite warnings from President Obama that too much austerity could choke a global recovery and warnings from a few economists about the possibility of much sharper 1930s style downturn.”

The European rebuke of Obama is of particular importance. While U.S. Administration falls back on Keynesian polices with a checkered historical past, the European Union appears more inclined to revive its private sector. The Times makes every effort to discourage any movements away from further government intervention.

The headline that runs on the jump page is particularly instructive.

“As Europe Looks to Cut Deficits, Ireland Shows the Cost of Austerity.”

Not too subtle.

Europe should eschew government budget cuts so as avoid the economic pain that follows from belt tightening – that’s the central message in this front page piece. Here The Times joins forces with the Obama Administration to cajole and pressure Europe into Keynesian practices that are a proven failure.

As Bill Wilson, president of Americans for Limited Government (ALG) has observed, Obama has positioned himself on the outside of rationale thought and mainstream economic thinking.

“Unfortunately, Obama is apparently the only leader on Earth who doesn’t think there is an overspending problem with government,” Wilson said. “Despite a $13 trillion national debt at home, he urged world leaders to ratchet up the deficit-spending — only to find that the world has gone chilly on the idea of “stimulus” in the wake of the debt crisis.”

Instead of offering readers tangible facts to substantiate its stance in favor of big government, The Times falls back on anecdotes.

“In the impoverished Ballymun neighborhood, developers began razing slums to make way for new low-income housing,” the report says. “Halfway through the project, the financing dried up, leaving some residents to languish in graffiti-covered concrete skeletons. `Welcome to Hell,’ read one of the tamest messages.”

To be sure, Ireland has cycled back into tough economic times that are not unfamiliar in its long history. But it is well positioned to lead Europe away from Obama and back in the direction of restrained government. Fortunately, Ireland has a receptive audience as ALG’s Wilson has noted.

“While the rest of the world is taking on the grave and growing problem of unsustainable sovereign debt, Obama calls for more spending,” he said. “He has asked Congress for another $47 billion to balance state budgets this year, including $23 billion to bail out unsustainable public school spending.”

Deficit spending is going out of style much to the chagrin of the liberal news media.

With public attention now turned onto the late Sen. Edward Kennedy’s just released FBI file, now would be an appropriate moment to investigate his confidential correspondence with the KGB, which is well-documented, but under-reported. Paul Kengor, a Grove City College professor, has preserved documents that have now been resealed in Moscow. He is an excellent source and a good starting point for the NYT and others…

Senator Edward M. Kennedy offered to work in close concert with high level Soviet officials to sabotage President Ronald Reagan’s re-election efforts and to arrange for congenial American press coverage of General Secretary Yuri Andropov, according to a 1983 KGB document.

Specifically, Kennedy offered to have “representatives of the largest television companies in the U.S. contact Y.V. Andropov for an invitation to Moscow for the interview.” The idea here would be for the Soviet leader to make an end run around Reagan and make a direct appeal to the American people.

Kennedy suggested that Walter Cronkite, Barbara Walters and Elton Raul, the president of the board of directors for ABC, be considered for the interviews with Andropov in Moscow. He also asked the KGB to consider having “lower level Soviet officials, particularly the military” take part in television interviews inside the U.S. where they could convey peaceful intentions.

The confidential correspondence between Sen. Kennedy and Soviet agents first came to light in a Feb. 2, 1992 report published in the London Times entitled “Teddy, the KGB and the Top Secret File. Paul Kengor, a Grove City College political science professor, included the document in his 2006 book: “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and The Fall of Communism.”

However, the material has received a paucity of media attention even after Kennedy’s death last year and Monday’s release of his FBI files. Kennedy’s long history of secret overtures to the Soviets at the expense of his own president deserves further exploration as they could provide additional insight into the final, pivotal years of the Cold War.

The KGB document in question includes a letter dated May 14, 1983 from KGB head Viktor Chebrikov addressed to Andropov. Former Senator John Tunney (D-Calif.) traveled to Moscow in May of that year on behalf of Kennedy where he outlined a potential collaborative scheme aimed against Reagan, the KGB letter says.

In the interest of world peace and improved American-Soviet relations, Kennedy offers specific proposals built around a public relations effort designed to “counter the militaristic politics of Reagan and his campaign to psychologically burden the American people,” Chebrikov wrote.

Although it is not made clear who Tunney actually met with in Moscow, the letter does say that Sen. Kennedy directed the California Democrat to reach out to “confidential contacts” so Andropov could be alerted to the senator’s proposals.

“Tunney told his contacts that Kennedy was very troubled about the decline in U.S -Soviet relations under Reagan,” Kengor the Grove City professor said in an interview. “But Kennedy attributed this decline to Reagan, not to the Soviets. In one of the most striking parts of this letter, Kennedy is said to be very impressed with Andropov and other Soviet leaders.”

In Kennedy’s view, the main reason for the antagonism between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1980s was Reagan’s unwillingness to yield on plans to deploy middle-range nuclear missiles in Western Europe, the KGB chief observed in his letter.

“Kennedy was afraid that Reagan was leading the world into a nuclear war,” Kengor said. “He hoped to counter Reagan’s policies, and by extension hurt his re-election prospects.”

Tunney also discussed Kennedy’s presidential ambitions with the Soviet contacts, according to the letter. Kennedy was looking to run in 1988 when he would be remarried and his “personal problems” resolved. However, the letter also said he did not rule out 1984.

Kennedy also offered to travel to Moscow with Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.) to meet with Andropov. Both senators favored a freeze on the nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

“There’s a lot more here that needs to found,” Kengor continued. “This was a shocking revelation.”

Tunney has previously acknowledged his role as an intermediary not just for Kennedy for but other U.S senators. There’s an opening here for enterprising reporting in the New York Times and other media outlets that have so far ignored the story. It is worth noting that Tunney told the London Times he made 15 separate trips to Moscow.

An investigative piece might begin by asking which other U.S. senators were involved in correspondence which could be in violation of an obscure law dating back to the time of the early American Republic called the Logan Act, which prohibits U.S. citizens  from “directly or indirectly commenc[ing] or carr[ying] on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States.”

The 2,352 pages covering the period of 1961 through 1985 included in Kennedy’s FBI file have enabled the Times and others to supply readers with rich, detailed reports. The following nugget from the Gray Lady’s Monday edition gives good cause to keep reading:

“They [the FBI files] document the keen interest the bureau took when Mr. Kennedy met with “ ‘intellectuals’ of leftist tinge” on a visit to Mexico in 1961; the relationship the Kennedy family had with J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the F.B.I.; and the efforts of the Nixon administration to find out more about the 1969 Chappaquiddick accident, in which a young woman drowned after a car being driven by Mr. Kennedy plummeted off a bridge near Martha’s Vineyard.”

So why not delve more into a KGB document that has been preserved by Professor Kengor and others in anticipation of Russian government figures resealing those same files?

In his blog appearing on the American Thinker, Kengor details his many media frustrations.

“In 2006, when my book was released, there was a virtual media blackout on coverage of the document, with the exception of conservative media: talk-radio, Rush Limbaugh, some websites, and mention on FoxNews by Brit Hume,” he wrote. “Amazingly, I didn’t even get calls from mainstream reporters seeking to shoot down the story. I had prepared in great detail to be grilled on national television, picturing the likes of Katie Couric needling me. I didn’t need to worry.”

There is no escaping the “blame America first” mentality at work in Kennedy’s correspondence that omits and discussion of Soviet aggression in Europe and belligerence toward the U.S.

“Senator Kennedy, like other rational people, is very troubled by the current state of Soviet-American relations,” Chebrikov observes. “Events are developing such that this relationship coupled with the general state of global affairs will make the situation even more dangerous. The main reason for this is Reagan’s belligerence, and his firm commitment to deploy new American middle range nuclear weapons within Western Europe. According to Kennedy, the current threat is due to the president’s refusal to engage in any modification of  his policies.”

According to the New York Times opinion page (and more often than what passed for objective reporting) Reagan was also a threat to world stability. With the Berlin Wall demolished, enslaved nations set free and the capitalist system vindicated, the NYT and other media organizations that long sought to discredit the anti-communist cause ought to consider probing into perfidious exercises operating at odds with American interests.

There’s long history here concerning government regulations that force companies into compromising positions offshore. Unfortunately, The New York Times and other media outlets continue to overlook and discount flawed decision making in Washington D.C. that complicated exploratory efforts. BP, the company responsible for the oil leak, has been called out for negligence and rightly so. But the political class is far from innocent…

Researchers inside and outside of government are concerned that the environmental fallout from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion has become more acute and damaging than first anticipated, according to the most recent news reports. The New York Times has offered up several informative pieces that carefully outline some of the latest findings. Readers, for example, learn that the plumes have become so large to the extent where sea life may not be able to reproduce.

“Scientists outside the government noted that the plumes appeared to be so large that organisms might be bathed in them for extended periods, possibly long enough to kill eggs or embryos,” a new report points out. “They said this possibility added greater urgency to the effort to figure out exactly how sea life was being affected, work that remains in its infancy six weeks after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded.”

The discovery of oil plumes beneath the surface contradicts earlier comments from officials with BP, the oil company responsible for the leak, readers are told. There is a policy angle that extends beyond discrediting BP, which has come under legitimate criticism. The liberal media has seized upon the crisis as a way to discredit private industry on the whole and rationalize new government regulations.

To be sure, the news is disconcerting.

“Descriptions of the plumes from the two groups of scientists are filling in details of one of the most remarkable findings to come from the disaster: the realization that much of the oil in a deepwater blowout may remain below the surface,” the report says. “The scientists say the plumes are not bubbles of oil, as many people have imagined them, but consist of highly dispersed or dissolved hydrocarbons. In some spots, enough oil is present to discolor the water, but in most places, water samples come up clear.”

A little history is in order here.

Contrary to what The Times is attempting to peddle, government regulations have actually been quite harmful and counterproductive up until now in that they have forced energy companies to move offshore. Unlike other nations, the U.S. has locked away most of its resources. Although the Gulf of Mexico contains over 40 billion barrels of oil in undiscovered reserves, according to the Minerals Management Service (MMS), the continental U.S. has more onshore.

And here’s the rub. Companies are permitted to explore offshore but not so much on land. Consequently, most of the activity takes place offshore where accidents tend to be more severe and widespread.

It does not require a lot of imagination to cast BP in bad light as its negligence is undeniable. However, the government’s role has been overlooked. Instead of offering readers an uncritical defense of the moratorium that is now in  place against drilling under certain conditions, The Times should more closely examine the environmental restrictions and provisos that force energy outfits into compromising positions.