As I demonstrated last week, MSNBC and CNN, the two also-rans in the cable news race, survive in large part because about half of their revenues are, once contracts are signed with cable and other providers, guaranteed for several years. This insulates them from much of the financial impact of declining viewership.

MSNBC's far-leftism is particulary painful to watch — so painful that it's hard to imagine anyone other than a critic voluntarily watching it. One of the more egregious recent examples of far-left lunacy came about this weekend on tax scofflaw Melissa Harris-Perry's show, where a guest actually said that "you don’t have to have a white person around to have white supremacy play out.” Thus, Baltimore's descent into lawlessness, despite having entirely black leadership, is still apparently whites' fault.

The Baltimore Sun has no trouble noting for readers the political affiliation of politicians who face an ethical scandal and/or official investigation. That is, of course, if the pol in question is a Republican.

Last Wednesday, I noted how the Sun's Julie Scharper failed to note Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's Democratic party affiliation in a story about her voting on city contracts where her husband's company had a competing bid.

The very next day, however, Scharper's colleague Nicole Fuller promptly noted the Republican affiliation of two-term Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold. Here's how Fuller opened her story:

Despite being convicted of stealing gift cards intended for poor Baltimore residents and using them for her own personal shopping spree, outgoing Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon (D) will still be able to collect a mayoral pension after she resigns from office early next month.

Reported Baltimore Sun's Julie Scharper:

Dixon pleaded guilty last week to one count of perjury for failing to disclose on city ethics forms the gifts she received from a developer. As part of a plea deal, she will keep her $83,000 pension. She will receive probation before judgment for the perjury count and the embezzlement conviction. She also must donate $45,000 to charity and is banned from seeking city funds to pay her legal bills or working for the city or state during her probationary period.

This development, understandably, has quite a few Baltimoreans outraged, so Sun editors gave Scharper 25 paragraphs to report on incoming interim mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's pledge to look into the pension system and sew up loopholes that allow for convicts like Dixon to benefit from taxpayers in their retirement from public service. 

Yet nowhere in Scharper's January 12 article was Dixon's Democratic Party affiliation mentioned, nor the fact that Council President Rawlings-Blake and the rest of the city council are likewise all Democrats.