2012 Governors

AP's Bauer Covers Whining About Walker's Security Costs, But Not 'John Doe' Thuggery
By Tom Blumer | April 26, 2015 | 11:35 PM EDT

The Associated Press is one of many national establishment press outlets which has from all appearances utterly ignored National Review's chronicling of police-state tactics used by law enforcement in a "John Doe" investigation targeting Republican Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin. Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm's fishing expedition, which began in 2012, has attempted but thus far failed to find evidence of illegal "coordination" between conservative political advocacy groups and Walker during his recall election campaign.

A search on Chisholm's last name at the AP's main national site at 9 PM ET this evening returned nothing relevant; ditto at its "Big Story" site. But the wire service's Scott Bauer found the time on Friday to relay opponents' petty, hypocritical complaint that the state is spending too much money protecting Walker, his family and his lieutenant governor from potentially violent fever-swamp leftists who Democrats could arguably be accused of encouraging (bolds are mine throughout this post; numbered tags are mine):

Did Chuck Todd Say Too Much About MSNBC?
By Jeffrey Meyer | November 12, 2014 | 12:22 PM EST

Chuck Todd, NBC News Political Director and moderator of Meet the Press, just released his latest book “The Stranger: Barack Obama In the White House” chronicling the Democrat’s first six years as president. While much of the book details the numerous political battles the administration was engaged in, three excerpts from the book are quite striking. Not only does Chuck Todd concede that MSNBC is openly leftist, the NBC host writes that “perhaps most frustrating to Team Obama was that even their allies weren’t always allies.”

Anti-Voter ID March Requires Participants Bring Photo ID; Most Media Outlets Omit Hypocrisy
By Tom Blumer | February 9, 2014 | 9:46 PM EST

Leftist protesters trying to portray themselves as mainstream gathered in Raleigh, North Carolina yesterday to protest moves made by the Republican-dominated state government yesterday.

One of protesters' major objections is to a voter-identification law passed last year. That's more than a little ironic, because guess what organizers required march participants to have? That's right: photo identification. Though he waited 13 paragraphs to do so, Gary D. Robertson at the Associated Press, apparently aware that several prominent center-right Internet outlets had already noted the breathtaking hypocrisy (examples here, here, and here), actually told his readers about it; I could not find another establishment press outlet which did. However, Robertson, in classic AP style, cited a Republican critic instead of simply reporting the damning fact (bolds and numbered tags are mine):

Newly Obtained E-Mails Show Lerner Gave Tea Party Tax Info to FEC, Big Three Networks Censor
By Geoffrey Dickens | November 4, 2013 | 4:00 PM EST

On October 31 the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard reported the following: “The Internal Revenue Service shared highly confidential tax information of several Tea Party groups in the IRS scandal with the Federal Election Commission, a clear violation of federal law, according to newly obtained emails. The public watchdog group Judicial Watch told Secrets Thursday that it was former scandal boss Lois Lerner who shared the information on groups including the American Future Fund and the American Issues Project.’”

So far none of the Big Three (ABC, NBC, CBS) networks have reported the latest IRS scandal finding. In fact, they’ve stopped reporting on the IRS scandal altogether.

Ann Coulter Discusses New Book With NewsBusters: Evidence Suggests Liberals Can’t Learn
By Noel Sheppard | October 14, 2013 | 12:24 AM EDT

On Friday, NewsBusters had the privilege of being the first organization to interview New York Times bestselling author Ann Coulter about her new book, “Never Trust a Liberal Over Three - Especially a Republican.”

What follows is the first part of the discussion (video follows with transcript):

WashPost Raves About Leftist 'Laramie Project' Play by Ford's Theatre; Fails to Disclose Paper's Official Partnership
By Tim Graham | October 3, 2013 | 3:05 PM EDT

The Washington Post launched two stories today promoting “The Laramie Project,” a leftist play staged by Ford’s Theatre that blames the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard on the bigotry of America. In neither story did the Post disclose to the reader that The Washington Post is an “Official Media Partner” of this play and the larger “Lincoln Legacy Project” to “create dialogue around the issues of  diversity, equality and acceptance.”

Drama critic Celia Wren wrote a rave review on page 2 of the Style section headlined “In any space, Ford’s ‘Laramie Project’ is a thoughtful and provocative work.” When reached by NewsBusters, Washington Post spokesperson Kristine Coratti insisted that the partnership has no relationship to that unbiased newsroom:

MSNBC: North Carolina Is Lab Where GOP Has ‘Perfected Its Frankenstein Monster’
By Paul Bremmer | August 22, 2013 | 5:55 PM EDT

Former DNC press secretary Karen Finney continues to use her MSNBC show to brazenly fly her partisan flag. On Sunday’s Disrupt with Karen Finney, the half-black host slammed North Carolina as a state that showcases the Republican “agenda on steroids.” One of her guests went further, dubbing North Carolina “the laboratory where the GOP has perfected its Frankenstein monster.”

Finney began the segment by telegraphing her feelings about Republican policies in general: “While the national Republican Party is in disarray and discord, at the state level Republican leaders have been frighteningly well-organized enacting so-called reforms.” Apparently Finney is frightened by effective Republican governance. MSNBC pundits often gripe that the national GOP says no to everything and refuses to govern. But when Republicans govern by enacting their policies, they frighten Karen Finney. She also dismissed GOP reforms as “so-called reforms” because, as we all know, only liberal  Democrats make real reforms.

MSNBC Continues to Distort Proposed N.C. Voter ID Law
By Jeffrey Meyer | July 22, 2013 | 3:39 PM EDT

Over the past few weeks, the folks at MSNBC have done their part to promote the “Moral Monday” protests in North Carolina, objecting to new laws passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature. In typical MSNBC fashion, rather than having a balanced panel discussion on the validity of the “Moral Monday” protests, guest host Craig Melvin simply brought on a representative of the NAACP to chastise the Republican legislature.

Speaking on July 22, Melvin introduced a segment with the NAACP’s Jotaka Eaddy by claiming that this week’s “Moral Monday”, “the focus will be a harsh new voter ID bill before Republican controlled state legislature.” From the start of the interview, Melvin clearly showed sympathy for the protestors, failing to challenge Ms. Eaddy for going against the will of the people. Plenty of polling data show voter ID laws are popular nationwide, and that they are favored by Democrats, Hispanics, blacks, and the elderly, all demographics which the liberal media insist would be "disenfranchised" by such laws.

NY Times Hypes NAACP Protests Against GOP-Led N.C. Legislature
By Jeffrey Meyer | June 12, 2013 | 12:33 PM EDT

You can tell that members of the liberal media are uncomfortable that a southern state legislature is finally reflecting the conservative values of its electorate. For the first time in over a century, the GOP in North Carolina controls both chambers of the state legislature as well as the governorship, a feat that has the left-leaning staff at The New York Times extremely nervous and uncomfortable.

Take for example a story in the June 12 edition of the paper which highlights how “Weekly protests challenge conservative shift in state politics.” In a 26-paragraph piece, Times writer Kim Severson sympathizes with liberal protestors and relies heavily on anti-GOP quotes while including only two quotes from Republicans.  

Media Didn't Worry About Dems Overplaying 'GOP War on Women' or 'GOP Culture of Corruption'
By Noel Sheppard | June 4, 2013 | 10:16 AM EDT

You can't swing a dead cat these days without hitting some liberal media member cautioning the Republicans to not "overplay their hand" concerning the various scandals now plaguing the White House.

Do you remember the press being concerned that the Democrats would overplay 2006's "Republican Culture of Corruption" or last year's "Republican War on Women?"

Politico's Jonathan Martin: 'Progress for Other African-American Politicians (Not Named Obama) Remains Elusive'
By Tom Blumer | April 29, 2013 | 8:42 PM EDT

They must be paying by the word over at Politico. It's difficult to come up with another explanation as to why reporter Jonathan Martin would slog through about 3,100 words on an item entitled "Black pols stymied in Obama era." He could have easily summarized why this is the case in eight words: "Because Barack Obama is all about Barack Obama." Oh, he could have added a few more, namely "and everybody knows Barack Obama is all about Barack Obama."

Since he didn't limit himself, yours truly will note a few things Martin still left out, identify a few interesting points that were made, and then quote certain naive and/or inflammatory statements contained in Martin's mess.

First-Quarter GDP, Part 2 of 3: AP Argues With Itself
By Tom Blumer | April 28, 2013 | 12:48 PM EDT

On Friday, the government reported that the economy grew by an annualized 2.5 percent during the first quarter. As I noted in Part 1 (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), three establishment press outlets (CNN, Bloomberg, and Reuters) pronounced the result "disappointing" -- but not Martin Crutsinger and Christopher Rugaber at the Associated Press, whose headline read "AFTER NEAR-STALL IN LATE 2012, US ECONOMY PICKS UP," and whose content described the economy as having "quickened its pace" as "the strongest consumer spending in two years fueled a 2.5 percent annual growth rate in the January-March quarter."

It turns out that the AP pair's enthusiasm was not only not shared at other news organizations. It wasn't even shared within AP, as will be seen after the jump.