Virginia

Even as Liberal Hopes Fade, WaPo Reporter Still Mocking GOP Candidate's 'Fetus' Handouts
By Tim Graham | November 3, 2011 | 7:54 AM EDT

In the last week of the state campaign in Virginia, Democrats are still desperately trying to scare voters into thinking Republicans are extreme -- and so is The Washington Post. On Wednesday, reporter Anita Kumar wrote a stale old rerun of the attack on Republican state Senate candidate Richard Black because he sent pink "fetus" models before an abortion vote -- the same tactic she tried in September. The story began like a negative TV ad.

"Dick Black once questioned whether a husband commits rape if he forces his wife to have sex," she began. "The former member of the House of Delegates introduced a bill to ban gays from adopting children. He voted to limit access to birth control. But the Republican who opposes abortion rights is probably best known on Capitol Square for sending plastic pink models of fetuses to lawmakers as they prepared to vote on an abortion bill."

CNN to Rick Perry: Are You 'Overconfident' for Campaigning In Virginia?
By Matt Hadro | September 15, 2011 | 12:59 PM EDT

CNN's Jim Acosta asked Rick Perry Wednesday if he was "a tad overconfident" for stumping in a battleground state like Virginia so early in the campaign season. Perry, a leading Republican presidential candidate, delivered a speech at Liberty University earlier in the day.

"It seems as if you're already looking past the primaries and into the general election," CNN's political correspondent posed to the candidate. "Aren't you being a tad overconfident?" he obnoxiously added.

WaPo on Virginia GOP: 'Nut Jobs' That Make Rick Perry Look Sane
By Tim Graham | September 6, 2011 | 6:22 AM EDT

On some days, it’s hard to tell whether The Washington Post is a newspaper or just a copy-and-paste Democratic Party newsletter. On the front of Monday’s Metro section, in a story with a modest headline – “Republicans hope to take Va. Senate” – Post reporter Anita Kumar spent the first five paragraphs (and the last five paragraphs) selling the Democratic Party of Virginia spin that the Republican nominees were “nut jobs” that made Rick Perry look sane.

Inside the paper, the headline was clearer. "Democrats: GOP too extreme to win Va. Senate." Here’s how it began:

WaPo's Abortion Debate: Antiabortion Conservatives vs. Comprehensive Nonprofits?
By Tim Graham | August 27, 2011 | 7:40 AM EDT

The Washington Post knows how to signal which side in the abortion debate they favor. In both Friday's and Saturday's Metro sections, they describe the two sides in a tilted way as they cover new clinic regulations in Virginia, which insist abortion clinics be just like ambulatory surgical centers, since many abortions are still surgical.

One side is "conservative" and "antiabortion." The other side is not labeled liberal, but they are "reproductive-health activists," and the Guttmacher Institute, which was founded as a division of  Planned Parenthood and is named after Alan Guttmacher, a past Planned Parenthood president and "Old Testament prophet", is described as a "nonprofit reproductive health research center that gathers the most comprehensive data on abortion in the United States." In other words, bow to their comprehensive, nonpartisan authority.

Yes, Virginia There Is a Surplus
By Cal Thomas | August 23, 2011 | 8:00 AM EDT

While the federal government continues to drown in a sea of debt, several states are reporting surpluses, thanks to policies Washington would do well to emulate.

Nowhere has the economic turnaround been more immediate than in Virginia. When Governor Bob McDonnell took office in January 2010, he was faced with a $2.2 billion shortfall bequeathed to him by outgoing Democratic governor (and now Senate candidate) Tim Kaine. In less than two years, McDonnell has delivered two budget surpluses without raising taxes or causing harm to the "most vulnerable." Instead, he has judiciously cut spending.

It Doesn't Bleed, But Will It Lead?: Richmond Newspaper Finds Drop in Gun Crimes After Va. Allowed Guns in Bars
By Ken Shepherd | August 15, 2011 | 12:57 PM EDT

Here's a story I don't expect the media to trumpet, partly because it cuts against the MSM's preferred narrative on gun laws.

"Virginia's bars and restaurants did not turn into shooting galleries as some had feared during the first year of a new state law that allows patrons with permits to carry concealed guns into alcohol-serving businesses," Mark Bowes of the Richmond Times-Dispatch noted in an August 14 story:

 

Longtime DC Bureau Chief Donates, Advocates for Liberal Gay Democrat in Virginia
By Tim Graham | June 27, 2011 | 10:12 PM EDT

Cragg Hines, a longtime Washington bureau chief and columnist for the Houston Chronicle (who retired in 2007), announced his very strong backing of a liberal gay Democrat for the Virginia State Senate. In the gay magazine Metro Weekly, Hines wrote "it would be worth electing him just to see the look on the faces of right-wing Republican legislators and their sometimes vicious, off-the-wall supporters" when he was sworn in. 

Hines has also put his money where his mouth is, donating $250 to Delegate Adam Ebbin's Senate campaign.

When PC Gets Ridiculous: AP Says 'She' Tried to Saw Off Her Genitals In Prison
By Tim Graham | June 12, 2011 | 9:52 PM EDT

The Associated Press is just like any other "prestige media" outlet in utterly failing the accuracy test when it comes to "transgender" stories. A man is a woman as long as he says he's a she. Take this stark prison story from  AP's Dena Potter on Tuesday:

DILLWYN, VA. -- Crouched in her cell, Ophelia De'lonta hoped three green disposable razors from the prison commissary would give her what the Virginia Department of Corrections will not — a sex change. It had been several years since she had felt the urges, but she had been fighting them for weeks. But like numerous other times, she failed to get rid of what she calls "that thing" between her legs, the last evidence she was born a male.

WaPo Poll: 62% of Virginians Approve of GOP Governor; Paper Shuffles Story to Metro Section
By Ken Shepherd | May 10, 2011 | 5:29 PM EDT

A new Washington Post poll of Virginians finds that Old Dominion voters are optimistic about the direction of the state, approve of the job of their conservative governor, and are divided on the question of same-sex marriage.

Guess how the Post handled reporting the results.

That's right, the paper hyped the same-sex marriage numbers on A1 but shuffled the good news for McDonnell over to page B1, even though an astonishing 50 percent of Old Dominion Democrats approve of his job in office, and arguably by extension his conservative policies.

 

PETA Asks Virginia to Sponsor a 'Fishing Hurts' Road Stop on Interstate 81
By Tim Graham | April 3, 2011 | 11:12 PM EDT

The Roanoke Times has discovered that opening Virginia's highway rest stops to sponsors might not mean just more advertising for fast food. It could lead to  requests from opponents of the mainstream ideas of food and leisure activities:

Gov. Bob McDonnell announced an initiative last week that would allow for sponsorships at Virginia's highway rest areas to help offset the cost of operating the facilities.

And now the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants in on the action. PETA has sent a letter to the Virginia Department of Transportation expressing its interest in sponsoring the Interstate 81 rest stop at mile marker 158 near Troutville and renaming it the "Fishing Hurts" rest area. It also would like to get a reduced sponsorship rate as a nonprofit.

Blast From the Past: Backdoor 2011 Porker Moran (D-Va.) Used Expletive in 2006 Boast Over His Earmarking Intentions
By Tom Blumer | March 7, 2011 | 6:19 PM EST

Democratic Congressman Jim Moran of Virginia caused a bit of a stir last week when he said on CSPAN's Washington Journal program that, as paraphrased by Daniel Strauss at The Hill, "lawmakers are getting around the new ban on earmarks by convincing Obama administration officials to fund their pet projects."

Those who have followed Moran's less than illustrious career recall something he said in 2006 that makes his determination to make earmarks happen by any means necessary not at all unexpected.

In June of that year, Scott McAffrey at Northern Virginia's Sun Gazette reported on Moran's intentions if the Demcrats were to win a Congressional majority the following November (one example of R-rated language follows):

WaPo Describes Vote by Va. Senate to Regulate Abortion Clinics as 'Unwanted'
By Ken Shepherd | February 28, 2011 | 6:53 PM EST

Providing Washington Post Metro section readers a review of the just-closed legislative session of the Virginia General Assembly, staff writers Rosalind Helderman and Fredrick Kunkle today deployed some colorfully loaded language that portrayed conservative Republicans in an unfavorable light.

For example [emphasis mine], the "divided legislature reached a compromise on budget amendments that mollified Republicans bent on paring government to its core services and Democrats eager to restore spending on schools, health care and other priorities as the economy improves."

But what really struck me was the part a few paragraphs later where Helderman and Kunkle described the successful effort Republicans waged to pass a bill opposed by pro-choice activists and politicians [emphasis mine]: