Former WashPost Defense Reporter Says Let's Kick Texas Out of the USA
The Sunday Outlook section of The Washington Post offered a list of “Spring Cleaning” items, “things to toss out.” Some were light topics: Jonathan Capehart picked summer “Flip-flops.” But former Post defense reporter Thomas Ricks suggested we toss Texas out of the USA. “I’m just sick of ‘em and all their BS,” he proclaimed.
“For decades, Texans have been clamoring about leaving the Union.…
NYT's Stelter Berates Fox for Daring to Report on Deadly Texas Blast
Brian Stelter, media reporter for the New York Times, foisted his peculiar news judgment on Fox News, weighing President Obama's petulant remarks after the defeat of his gun control plans as more newsworthy than a fire at a Texas fertilizer plant that has killed at least 12 people and injured up to 200.
Stelter also sounded offended that Fox cut off Obama's live Rose Garden remarks, in his…
Daily Kos Week in Review: Lance Lied Like a Republican
Kossacks often put a lefty spin on non-political stories, and it happened again this week with Lance Armstrong's admission of doping. One resident of Kosland declared that Armstrong wasn't merely an athlete who cheated, but someone who, in terms of mendacity, thievery, and hypocrisy, behaved like a typical Republican.
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.
New York Times Reporter Lays Out 'Far-Right Agenda' of Texas Tea Party
The New York Times's Manny Fernandez greeted the opening of the biannual Texas legislative session in Austin in Wednesday's paper: "Texas Budget Surplus Proves as Contentious As a Previous Shortfall." After explaining how Texas has become flush with cash over the last two years, going from a budget deficit to surplus, Fernandez couldn't help working in a cut against the "far-right" Tea Party.
Reporter Wonders if Matt Damon’s Anti-Fracking Film Will Have Any Ef
If Hollywood doesn’t like something, then clearly state legislators should react. At least that’s what Dave Fehling, NPR’s StateImpact Texas reporter suggested. StateImpact is a “reporting project of local public media and NPR,” and has many financial backers including George Soros (through his Open Society Foundations).
“Chances may be better this time around that the Texas legislature…
Networks Ignore Pipeline Protesters in Texas
There are reckless protesters in Texas chaining themselves to trees, houses, and halting precious jobs, but you won’t hear about that on ABC, CBS, or NBC broadcast news programs.
Extending the Keystone pipeline, which Obama blocked earlier this year, has actually been embraced by people on both sides of the aisle. According to a news story titled “Democrats Joining the G.O.P. on Pipeline” in…
NYT Editor Gail Collins Vexed by Conservative Texas in New Book; 'Bloo
Erica Greider reviewed on Tuesday the recent conservative-bashing book by New York Times columnist and former editorial page editor Gail Collins, As Texas Goes – How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda. Greider covers the region for the Economist and knows something about Texas history, which puts Collins at a disadvantage. Greider wrote:
...Her book, 'As Texas Goes... ,' pays…
WashPost's Krissah Thompson Gives Readers Distorted Picture of Fight O
In today's 16-paragraph page A6 story, "Legal challenges tie up new voting restrictions,"* the Washington Post's Krissah Thompson reported that many "[s]tricter ID laws and other controversial voting restrictions" could be held up in the courts until after November election.
At no point in her story, however, did Thompson note recent polling shows 70 percent of Americans back photo ID for…
MSNBC's Mitchell: There's 'Anxiety' From Texas Women About 'Their Heal
"There's a lot of anxiety for thousands of women in Texas today about their health care," MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell alarmed viewers of her 1 p.m. Eastern program today. "They're going to lose health care coverage this week, on Wednesday, when the Texas state legislature enforces a law cutting funds to any health care center affiliated with an abortion provider, and that means Planned Parenthood…
What Does the New York Times Have Against Texas A&M
What does the New York Times have against Texas A&M, a rare public university whose student body leans right? Manny Fernandez reported Saturday from the campus in College Station, on an illegal immigrant who lost his bid for student body president: "Vying for Campus President, Illegal Immigrant Gets a Gamut of Responses." Who was to blame? A conservative student body who made him feel…
NYT Rushes to Texas Planned Parenthood's Aid in Front-Page Story
The New York Times defended the Texas branches of Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, on the front page Thursday: "Women in Texas Losing Options For Health Care" was reported by Pam Belluck and Emily Ramshaw, a reporter for the Texas Tribune, which produces a twice-weekly local section for the Texas edition of the Times.
Ramshaw was last covered in Times Watch in…
Pro-Regulation NYTimes Laments 'Bureaucratic Nightmare'...When It Invo
Emily Ramshaw’s New York Times report on new abortion regulations in Texas, “Required Delay Between Sonogram and Abortion Creates Logistical Issues,” made the national edition Sunday. In an odd twist for the liberal Times, Ramshaw lamented the plight of abortion clinics having to comply with regulations. And isn’t it ironic for the pro-regulation Times to criticize a “bureaucratic nightmare…
Biased WashPost Headline: 'Justices Throw Out Texas Electoral Maps Fav
In an unsigned per curiam opinion issued today, the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out a federal judge's revision of Texas's congressional redistricting map, finding that the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas had "substituted its own concept of 'the collective public good' for the Texas Legislature’s determination of which policies serve 'the interests of the citizens of Texas…
Attention Texans: WaPo Compares Occupy D.C. to the Alamo
It's possible I missed something in history class, but I'm pretty sure Davy Crockett never urinated in public as a sign of protest.
I say this because the Washington Post's Pamela Constable and Fredrick Kunkle today compared the Occupy D.C. movement to the Texan freedom fighters at the Alamo in today's 25-paragraph front-page story (emphases mine):
