Clay Waters

Reporter Maggie Astor wrote the liberal-boasting New York Times lead National section story: “Democrats In the House Give Science New Respect.” But are Democrats really the party of science they and Astor assume?They fear safe, clean nuclear power, and spread paranoia about genetically modified “Frankenfood,” or promote scaremongering over vaccinations. Astor found science-challenged GOP congressmen, but ignored Democratic ones.

Friday’s New York Times covered the start of the second term of Venezuelan autocrat Nicholas Maduro, but managed to avoid unflattering descriptions like that, in “With Venezuela in Free Fall, Its President Starts New Term." Yet other stories on Friday tossed around the word “autocrat” to complain about President Trump’s embrace of Egypt’s leadership. Also as usual, the Times’ use of the S-word (socialism) was limited and perhaps even positive, even though socialist economics have ravaged oil-rich Venezuela and rendered it a starving basket case.

New York magazine’s Eric Levitz spent nearly 3,000 words making excuses for the many factual errors committed so far by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the gaffe-prone young socialist representing part of Brooklyn, in “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Critique of Fact-Checking Is Valid.” Levitz excused the verbal missteps in the name of a higher progressive morality while cheerfully dismissing the vaunted media “fact checking” that was until last week so vital in keeping the Donald Trump administration in line. Now, after some modest media pushback on some of Ocasio-Cortez’s wackier claims, especially in the Washington Post, fact checking is suddenly unfair to the left.

The front of Wednesday’s New York Times declared all was well on the Southern border, no matter what President Trump or his alarmed supporters may say: “No Crisis Here, Say Neighbors Close to Mexico -- Citing Other Problems ‘That Need Fixing.’” The reporting team found nothing but “tranquility” all along the border. The jump-page headline: “No Immigration Crisis Here, Tranquil Town Along Southern Border Says.” Even as the television networks reluctantly aired a few concerns about border security, the tone of the Times story was utterly dismissive of border security concerns.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did a dance while in college several years ago, an edited version of it hit social media. Newsweek’s Jason Le Miere squeezed two misleading articles out of the spat, furthering  the media myth that Republicans are somehow offended or outraged by her dancing, while never actually naming a single outraged conservative. The first was  "Conservatives Mock Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for College Dancing Video, Everyone Else Thinks It’s Adorable.”

New York Times deputy Washington editor Jonathan Weisman made the Sunday Review with the dramatically titled “American Jews and Israeli Jews Break Up.” Weisman is author of the book (((Semitism))) Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump, which blames Trump and the alt-right for a rise in U.S. anti-Semitism. But he is unwilling to acknowledge anti-Semitism on the left, as Ben Shapiro found in his evisceration of Weisman’s book. That held true in his latest for the Sunday Review, where he made Trump the villain.

The New York Times Thursday ran a long investigative piece by climate reporter Hiroko Tabuchi, “E.P.A. Retreat Leaves Wound In Small Town.” The online headline made it political: “A Trump County Confronts the Administration Amid a Rash of Child Cancers.” It’s the old “cancer cluster” concept that alarmist reporters use to push business regulations or in this case protect regulations from repeal, with the Times trying to imply a link that isn’t proven or even substantiated, even by the scientists quoted,, while keeping the Trump administration (which had nothing to with the underlying pollution) front and center and suggesting hypocrisy by Trump supporters.

New York Times congressional reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg went all out in “glorifying” the election of Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota a left-wing woman with a history of anti-Israel rhetoric newly elected to Congress: “Glorified and Vilified, Former Somalia Refugee Makes Her Way to Capitol.” The text box to the Monday edition story: “Sure-footed and tough, with a flair for inspirational rhetoric.” Stolberg didn’t completely avoid Omar’s controversies, but carefully spun them in Omar’s direction, and minimized or skipped the creepier aspects, totally avoiding Omar’s paranoid anti-Israel tweet from 2012, that Israel had “hypnotized the world” to ignore its “evil doings.”

New York Times politics editor Patrick Healy led an informal, unprofessional roundtable of the paper's political reporters Matt Flegenheimer, Astead Herndon, and Katie Rogers, who happily passed around liberal stereotypes of conservatives in their year-end wrap-up discussion. Healy joined the list of media elite who just loved Saturday Night Live's anti-Kavanaugh skit: "[Actor Matt] Damon reminded us how Kavanaugh’s aggressive, grievance-driven performance turned the tide for the Republicans against a credible woman, not unlike what Trump’s aggressive, grievance-driven performance did in 2016." Katie Rogers lamented of Trump's rally music: "Elton John is forever ruined for me."