Name That Party

This is almost too obvious. Many readers may already be familiar with recent exposure of the treasury plunderers disguised as public officials serving up hefty salaries to themselves while allegedly serving their constituents in the LA suburb of Bell, California. Here's some of the latest from the Associated Press, carried at the Los Angeles Times, which broke the original story, for those who…

The Associated Press is still failing to tag the currently imprisoned former Detroit Mayor and former beneficiary of President Barack Obama's high praise Kwame Kilpatrick as a Democrat. I know, same-old, same-old. And Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead. But there's more to this particular chapter in this ongoing "Name That Party" narrative. The wire service kept its near-perfect…

An Associated Press writer has perpetuated a long-standing allegation of bias with two stories about corruption in New York State she wrote last Monday.In one story, "NY AG: ‘Everyone does it' not a fraud defense'", Colleen Long wrote about the New York Attorney General's office rejecting arguments for dismissing corruption charges against Hank Morris, a former aid to State Comptroller Alan…

The order of just desserts that many of us hoped was on its way to Detroit serendipitously arrived today, in the form of a stiffer-than expected sentence of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for violating the terms of his probation -- so severe that, for perhaps the first time in his life, Kwame and his clan are, to borrow from Elvis, all shook up. It's too bad that readers of Associated Press…

When I saw the Associated Press's headline ("Disgraced former Ohio congressman dies at 79"), I started thinking about whom the wire service might be referring to. Of course I knew he would be a Republican, because the establishment media never treats Democrats, even those who leave women who aren't their wives to drown in a submerged car, as "disgraced." But even I never thought that the AP…

Today, the Associated Press generally did what is supposed to do when reporting on scandal-plagued politicians. Here are the first five paragraphs of the AP's brief report on Indiana Congressman Mark Souder's resignation announcement (link is dynamic and will probably be updated; "where's the worst one we can find?" picture of Souder at top right is via AP): Here's the opening of the coverage…

Okay boys and girls. It's time again to play that favorite NewsBusters game...Name That Party! Today's game is a real challenge. The politician in question was a Broward County Commissioner sentenced to prison for money laundering. Hmmm... Broward County? Could the clue as to the party label be found from that fact? Nope. Too tough. The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel does us no favors by completely…

Columbus Bureau Chief Jim Provance at the Toledo Blade is a one-man "Name That Party" creativity machine: In March of last year (covered at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), in a story about late financial reports from Ohio's state government, Provance identified State Auditor Mary Taylor, who criticized Governor Ted Strickland's administration for being so tardy with the numbers that they could not…

Consistency, thy name is AP. The Associated Press's story roll-out on former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann's anticipated guilty pleas to ethics violations followed the usual script: The initial report, carried here at Cleveland.com, failed to mention Dann's Democratic Party affiliation. A later extended report breaks down and reveals Dann's party membership in its ninth of eleven paragraphs…

Hosting a debate segment this morning between  Republican strategist Alex Conant and Democratic strategist Mo Elleithee that examined the political dimensions of the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill, MSNBC's Tamron Hall played soundbites from two politicians with rather divergent views on offshore drilling. The first was liberal Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) opposing expanding offshore…

Last August, Maryland state delegate Jon Cardin (D-Baltimore County), nephew of the state's junior U.S. Senator Benjamin Cardin (D), proposed marriage to his girlfriend. But unlike normal folks who might propose via the jumbotron at the ball park or by having a waiter slip the diamond ring in a champagne flute, Del. Cardin decided to get the local cops to help arrest his woman's heart -- by…

The Pentagon rescinded the invitation of evangelist Franklin Graham to speak at its May 6 National Day of Prayer event because of complaints about his previous comments about Islam. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation expressed its concern over Graham's involvement with the event in an April 19 letter sent to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. MRFF's complaint about Graham, the son of…

Just call it "journalism as usual." One thing you can say about the Associated Press's and most of the rest of the establishment media's treatment of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick during the past two-plus years is that they've been almost totally consistent. They pretend not to know or care what political party Kilpatrick represented throughout his political career, and fail to…