Oh, the irony with this one is thick, it is:

[Jill] Abramson chose not to attend the announcement, and not to pretend that she had volunteered to step down.

As with any such upheaval, there’s a history behind it. Several weeks ago, I’m told, Abramson discovered that her pay and her pension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, as managing editor were considerably less than the pay and pension benefits of Bill Keller, the male editor whom she replaced in both jobs. “She confronted the top brass,” one close associate said, and this may have fed into the management’s narrative that she was “pushy,” a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect.

Oh, this is delicious. John Ekdahl had a lot of fun with this tonight on the Twitter.

Ekdahl links this flashback to March 25 of this very year, when the New York Times ran a piece titled Moving Past Gender Barriers to Negotiate a Raise:

ASKING for a raise is the type of conversation that can make even the most confident among us uncomfortable. Women, however, may have good reason to feel that way.

Discrimination persists in the workplace and it isn’t necessarily intentional or overt, experts on gender and negotiation say.

But it can emerge when women act in ways that aren’t considered sufficiently feminine, and when women advocate for themselves, these experts say, some people find it unseemly, if on a subconscious level.

As a result, women need to take a more calibrated approach, whether in asking for a higher salary or a new position. Otherwise, they can risk being perceived as overly demanding and unlikable, experts say, and their requests can backfire.

Irony is rarely this tasty. Hey, Ekdahl also linked a New York Times piece titled As Obama Spotlights Gender Gap in Wages, His Own Payroll Draws Scrutiny:

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Tuesday will call attention to what he has said is an “embarrassment” in America: the fact that women make, on average, only 77 cents for every dollar that a man earns.

It’s not a “fact,” of course, as we have pointed out here before. There are numerous gender-neutral factors that explain the differences. But when free-market advocates cite these gender neutral factors, publications like the New York Times tend to discount those explanations. Which is what makes tonight’s denial from the New York Times so very, very sweet:

“Jill’s total compensation as executive editor was not less than Bill Keller’s, so that is just incorrect,” New York Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy told POLITICO on Wednesday. “Her pension benefit, like all Times employees, is based on her years of service and compensation. The pension benefit was frozen in 2009.”

Oh, there’s a gender neutral explanation for your pay disparity, New York Times? My oh my. Isn’t that interesting? My next question: was Jill Abramson earning 77 cents to Bill Keller’s dollar? Or less? I think we need some figures, don’t you?

Abramson’s successor? Our old friend Dean Baquet, formerly of the L.A. Times. Posts about him are collected here. Baquet espouses using the pages of newspapers to “push back” against bloggers. He declined my request for an interview back in 2007 and stonewalled when I asked for permission to publish the reason he gave me.

He should work out great.

P.S. Meanwhile, I wonder if Abramson is Googling “tattoo removal” tonight.

I have two [tattoos] then on my back that are the two institutions that I revere, that have shaped me. One is unsurprisingly the amazing ‘T’ in The New York Times newspaper.

Unsurprisingly!

Shudder.

[guest post by Dana]

Last night, Jeb Bush spoke to a group of the nation’s wealthiest donors. As immigration reform was one of the main themes of the night, Bush followed up on his “act of love” comments made last month:

Yes, they broke the law, but it’s not a felony. It’s an act of love. It’s an act of commitment to your family. I honestly think that that is a different kind of crime that there should be a price paid, but it shouldn’t rile people up that people are actually coming to this country to provide for their families.

…by making yet another emotional appeal,

“For the life of me I have a hard time understanding why people are fearful of our own heritage, our own history. … The rules are you come to this country, you pursue your dreams, you create value for yourself and your families and others and great things happens to you and to our country. Why would we ignore that at time when we need to restart and rejuvenate our economy? It makes no sense to me.”

Clearly Bush is getting a jump start on securing the Hispanic, moderate and independent votes. And speaking of fear, yes, people might be fearful, but not fearful of heritage or history or anything else so ridiculous.

Border Patrol agents in South Texas have arrested nearly 180 illegal immigrants convicted of sex crimes since last October, Customs and Border Protection announced this week.

The majority of the offenders’ crimes were committed against children, the worst of which included “sexual assault of a child; sodomy, lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14; aggravated sexual assault of a child; and aggravated indecent assault and corruption of a minor,” CBP said in a release Tuesday.

According to CBP, the nearly 180 illegal immigrants’ prior convictions were for sex crimes all over the United States.

This is on the heels of yet another disturbing report

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released 36,007 convicted criminal aliens last year who were awaiting the outcome of deportation proceedings, according to a report issued Monday by the Center for Immigration Studies.

The group of released criminals includes those convicted of homicide, sexual assault, kidnapping and aggravated assault, according to the report, which cites a document prepared by the ICE.

A majority of the releases were not required by law and were discretionary, the organization says.

According to the report, the 36,007 individuals released represented nearly 88,000 convictions, including:

-193 homicide convictions
-426 sexual assault convictions
-303 kidnapping convictions
-1,075 aggravated assault convictions
-1,160 stolen vehicle convictions
-9,187 dangerous drug convictions
-16,070 drunk or drugged driving convictions
-303 flight escape convictions

According to Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies,

This information is sure to raise concerns that, despite professions of a focus on removal of criminal aliens, Obama administration policies frequently have allowed political considerations to trump public safety factors and, as a result, aliens with serious criminal convictions have been allowed to return to the streets instead of being removed to their home countries.

–Dana

Weak:

HANNITY: Why are people so offended by this? Anybody offended by the idea that they have to present an identification to show that they are who they say they are… Why is that so offensive to people?

PAUL: Like I say, I think both sides have made mistakes in…this issue. But it’s mainly in presentation and perception, not in reality. In the sense that, if Republicans are going to go around the country and this becomes a central theme and issue, you have to realize, rightly or wrongly, it is being perceived by some — and this is the point I was making and I think it’s still a valid point, that I’m trying to go out and say to African Americans ‘I want your vote and the Republican Party wants your vote’. If they perceive, rightly or wrongly, that showing their ID is an attempt to get them not to vote because they perceive it in the lineage of a time when it truly did happen through poll taxes and questioning to try and prevent people, if they perceive it that way, we have to be aware that the perception is out there and be careful about not so overdoing something that we further alienate a block of people we need to attract.

Dude. They’re not going to vote for you anyway.

So it’s really not necessary to tiptoe around an issue like the integrity of our election system, just to appease a bloc of voters that will never vote for you.

This is the same thinking that goes into amnesty. Sure, there is the small issue of the rule of law — but if we talk about the rule of law too much, we’ll lose votes from people who were never going to vote for us anyway. With amnesty, it’s even worse, because the GOP is hellbent on making voters out of millions of lawbreakers who currently have no right to vote.

There actually is a positive case to be made for free-market principles and how they help all of society, including minorities. Larry Elder has noted how Social Security reform would benefit blacks. School vouchers, eliminating the “war on poverty,” and fighting abortion would help black people far more than any mealy-mouthed garbage about downplaying voter ID laws.

My kingdom for a candidate who could actually make that case.

[guest post by Dana]

In 2012, Obama cautioned Assad against crossing a “red line” of using chemical weapons against civilians, something the administration and European allies accused the Syria military of doing last August. But Obama canceled his threat to strike Assad’s chemical weapons sites after reaching the deal with Putin.

With 92 percent of Syria’s chemical weapons handed over or destroyed, it unfortunately still left enough available to be used against the Syrian people. Again.

Fabius said that the evidence suggests that Assad still can produce chemical weapons even though OPCW inspectors have said the equipment needed to manufacture and load chemical weapons has been destroyed. Most of Syria’s chemical weapons stores have been shipped out of Syria, but a small amount remains on a base in Damascus. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel acknowledged Tuesday reports that the last shipment has been delayed because rebels control the roads leading to Syria’s coast.

John Kerry emphatically urged the international community to insist that Syria be fully compliant in its commitment to dismantle its entire stockpile,

We will remain vigilant until this is achieved.

–Dana