Eric Alterman, The Nation
April 11, 2013 | Below is a copy of a letter I sent to The Forward regarding the newspaper’s coverage of the hiring of Josh Block to run The Israel Project. The sections in bold are the ones they chose not to run. (It was edited without my participation and The Forward does not appear to have updated the “letters” section of its website since December.)
1 April 2013
To the Editor:
I was disappointed to read The Forward’s coverage of The Israel Project’s hiring of ex-AIPAC flack Josh Block to be its new head. According to your coverage, “Block entered a highly publicized quarrel with the Center for American Progress, a progressive Democratic think tank whose views on Israel, according to Block, were biased and at times ’borderline anti-Semitic.’”
Actually, Block did not accuse the entire center with this term. He referred specifically to yours truly. I thought it rather funny at the time, given that I was also a columnist for The Forward, which rarely offers regular columns to anti-Semites, “borderline” or otherwise. Moreover, the quote of mine to which he specifically referred as allegedly anti-Semitic merely called attention to AIPAC’s desire to see the United States attack Iran. This is hardly a controversial view regarding AIPAC’s aims, even among its supporters. As it happens, I felt forced to resign my Forward column over the enforced delay I experienced in responding to Block’s McCarthyite attack on CAP and myself in the Forward’s pages. So that was one victory for Mr. Block. He has won yet another with the Forward’s coverage of his appointment. Here, again, Block’s false charge against the Center for American Progress (where I was, and remain, a senior fellow) was repeated, albeit inaccurately, without any response from the accused, nor any context for readers unfamiliar with Mr. Block’s nefarious tactics. (It was a rather big deal at the time, and was covered in The Forward’s news and editorial pages).
Full story…
Related:
10 ‘Chained CPI’ Facts the White House Doesn’t Want You to Know, Richard (RJ) Eskow, Campaign for America's Future
- The chained CPI is the wrong answer to the wrong problem at the wrong time and it’s time for the White House to recognize that, cut its losses and ditch this turkey of an idea.
- Top 5 Myths About Chained-CPI, Debunked
More BS About 'Both Sides', Eric Alterman, The Nation
- Alas, to judge by the willingness of so many in the mainstream media to parrot the nonsensical arguments of Tea Party Republicans, not even science is "science" anymore. And therein lies our problem.
- Truth Is Offensive
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April 25, 2013 | "The stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost." -- Reverend Jeremiah Wright 
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April 10, 2013 | Our political system is barely functional. The recently concluded 112th Congress set a record for the lowest number of laws passed since record-keeping began, in 1948. We are in the midst (and at the mercy) of a budget sequester that was intended only to scare Congress into behaving responsibly. Republicans, in thrall to Tea Party fanatics, refuse even to discuss new sources of revenue. Barack Obama, meanwhile, has not only proposed a remarkably impecunious domestic budget but has also broken what has been an iron rule of nearly all Democratic politicians for more than half a century by offering to reduce future Social Security payments through the mechanism of a "chained CPI" that slows down the cost-of-living increases built into the payments received by seniors. Predictably (and understandably), he has infuriated his base by doing so.
March 28, 2013 | In the wake of the Sandy Hook School shooting public incredulity with the official version of events led to numerous speculations on what really happened. In short order corporate media marshaled pundits to disparage such alternative interpretations as “conspiracy theories” and the work of deranged and even malevolent Sandy Hook “truthers.”
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April 2, 2013 | Tribune Company’s moves to 
April 4, 2013 | If your daily routine took you from one homegrown organic garden to another, bypassing vast fields choked with pesticides, you might feel pretty good about the current state of agriculture.
