Posted on 08/01/2007 3:46:35 PM PDT by Western Civ 4ever
Having failed to thwart a Murdoch purchase of the WALL STREET JOURNAL, the NEW YORK TIMES intensifies battle with the NEWS CORP. empire on Thursday, newsroom sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.
The paper is preparing a provocative examination of Republican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani's relationship with FOX NEWS chief Roger Ailes.
MORE
TIMES reporter Russ Buettner has been pestering and pumping Murdoch executives for details on Rudy and Roger, company sources claim.
The duo "have been pulling for each other for nearly two decades," reports Buettner.
"Ailes served as a consultant to Giuliani's first mayoral campaign. Giuliani officiated at Ailes' wedding and intervened when FOXNEWS blocked from securing a cable station in the city."
NYT editors have set a Page One placement for the report, insiders claim.
FOX says the Rudy and Roger relationship "has not and will not affect coverage, but Giuliani, the frontrunner, already has more face time on the network this year than any other candidate," zaps Buettner.
Developing...
If Murdoch is going to constantly be accused of it by the Left, I think it is high time he uses his media empire to return fire on these clowns.
Hey Mr. Shultzberger, how would you like a rectal exam on your financial and political dealings?
The New York Times have had their noses up Hillary’s butt for 8 years.
The NY Times must be really scared of Murdock taking over the WSJ. This the fourth or fifth article attacking Murdock and his News Corporation. I assume they fear more competition and are concerned eventually they could be taken over by a big bad corporation.
He said butt.
How bout the Old York Times investigate themselves and the DNC??? See who is on every one of the writers #1 speed dial??
Pray for W and Our Troops
OMG, Giuliani and Ailes have been friends for 20 years. Wht a revelation—better put this in the “Giulian Truth File” on FR.
Then Fox News are idiotic. They gave FreeRepublic about $2 million worth of free publicity in the last few days, not to mention what they did for Kos.
Don’t get all your pants twisted in a knot.... in “Fair and Balanced” both sides are pinpointed for some flaws, mishaps and mistakes. And please do not tell me we are all perfect here.
As for the Old Gray Farting Lady... she is a dead rag waiting to be showered with gasoline.... Rupert can now hold up his lighter.
Newscorp aka NY Post and WSJ can now burn up what is left of that rat nest called the OGL. NWS will offer package ad deals that will toast the Times fiscally. NWS will offer internet and broadcast deals as well. Murdoch is pure genius.
Now if you want to burn that old rag and along with it the old “HAG HILLIARY” .., rethink your position of purism when it comes to support RG.... think about it.
That’s one axis I’ll gladly join.
As a second-term mayor, Giuliani significantly expanded the size of government and spent at rates far exceeding the rate of inflation (and this is excluding the unavoidable costs of 9/11). Paul, Tancredo, Thompson, probably McCain and possibly Romney are all more fiscally conservative than Giuliani is.
And Giuliani’s problems go beyond social issue — his record on the Constitution is deplorable and makes him utterly unfit for office.
Sorry, pal. Tell that to someone who wasn't around for the Buchananuts and their "there's not a dime's worth of difference between Bush and Gore" routine in 1999. Had we listened to these cranks, there'd be no tax cuts, labor goons and enviro-Nazis would be in charge of regulation, and the WOT would have been eight years of licking Kofi Annan's boots.
I may well support Thompson in the primaries, but it won't be because of the ultrapurists screaming "RINO" at the other candidates.
Any libertarian, smaller government minded conservative should find Rudy to be utterly repulsive. He's an authoritarian and has a big government streak in him a mile wide.
No, ellery is absolutely right.
From the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (Edmund J. McMahon):
"Even with the tax cuts of the last several years, New York remains by far the most heavily taxed big city in the country."
TAXES: From 1996-2001 Giuliani and the City Council agreed to reduce mariginal city income taxes by some $2.0-billion, an effort that offset the $1.8-billion tax increase put in place by Mayor Dinkins a few years earlier. So in reality, individual city income taxes were actually cut by a modest $200-million. Freezing the 12.5% surcharge on high wage earners was good, but Giuliani made no effort to abolish that surcharge. Nor did Giuliani attempt to make permanent changes to the city income tax code. The primary reason Rudy and the City Council agreed to cut business taxes, was to make NYCity more appealing to companies thinking about locating/relocating to the Big Apple. A smart move, however, when Rudy left office he left NYCity straddled with some of the highest income taxes, property taxes and utility rates in the entire nation.
GOVERNMENT SPENDING: Spending under Rudy`s reign as Mayor went up 35.6%, compared to the inflation rate of 22.2%. Rudy left NYCity with a projected, pre-9/11 deficit of $2.0 billion and an increased debt total topping $42-billion. Second largest debt after the federal government. Giuliani also added 15,000 new teachers to the city employment rolls. Increasing the membership of two major liberal organizations, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
"The scope of government was not reduced at all. The mayor abandoned his most visible initiative in this spherethe proposed sale of the city hospital systemafter a struggle with the unions and defeats in the courts. He did cut costs in social services; even before the new federal welfare reforms took effect in 1997, the city had begun to significantly reduce caseloads. But money saved on social services has only helped to subsidize big increases in other categories. Today the array of social services sponsored and partially funded by the cityfrom day care to virtually guaranteed housingis as wide as ever.
"In the final analysis, Mayor Giuliani sought to make the city deliver services more efficientlynot to make the city deliver fewer services. Gains in efficiency were offset, however, by a spike in the costs of outsourced contracts (see point 2 below). Thus, in two areas where inroads might have been made, the city instead failed to reduce spending."
"1. Personnel Increases. In 199596, the city entered into a series of collective bargaining agreements with its public-employee unions. In addition to granting pay increases that ended up roughly equaling inflation, the city promised not to lay off any workers for the life of the contracts. These agreements were expected to add $2.2 billion to the budget by fiscal 2001. But that estimate didnt reckon with renewed growth in the number of city employees. After dipping in Giulianis first two years, the full-time headcount rose from 235,069, in June 1996 to over 253,000 by November 2000. Thanks largely to this growth in the workforce, the total increase in personnel service costs since 1995 has been $4 billion.
2. "Outsourced Services. The failure to shrink the scope of city government made it all the more imperative that Mayor Giuliani vastly increase its efficiency. In the attempt to increase productivity, the mayor farmed out some city services to private contractors. But as the number of outsourced contracts doubled under Giuliani, contractual expenses also nearly doubledfrom $3 billion to $5.8 billion. While it may be argued that the city saved money by outsourcing these services, the net savings turned out to be marginal at best. In practice, outsourcing proved to be more of a bargaining chip in negotiations with unions than a serious means of pruning expenses."
Hard evidence that Rudy Giuliani was NO fiscal conservative. Another run-of-the-mill NYCity liberal.
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