Virginia

Here's a story I don't expect the media to trumpet, partly because it cuts against the MSM's preferred narrative on gun laws. "Virginia's bars and restaurants did not turn into shooting galleries as some had feared during the first year of a new state law that allows patrons with permits to carry concealed guns into alcohol-serving businesses," Mark Bowes of the Richmond Times-Dispatch noted…

Cragg Hines, a longtime Washington bureau chief and columnist for the Houston Chronicle (who retired in 2007), announced his very strong backing of a liberal gay Democrat for the Virginia State Senate. In the gay magazine Metro Weekly, Hines wrote "it would be worth electing him just to see the look on the faces of right-wing Republican legislators and their sometimes vicious, off-the-wall…

The Associated Press is just like any other "prestige media" outlet in utterly failing the accuracy test when it comes to "transgender" stories. A man is a woman as long as he says he's a she. Take this stark prison story from  AP's Dena Potter on Tuesday: DILLWYN, VA. -- Crouched in her cell, Ophelia De'lonta hoped three green disposable razors from the prison commissary would give her what…

A new Washington Post poll of Virginians finds that Old Dominion voters are optimistic about the direction of the state, approve of the job of their conservative governor, and are divided on the question of same-sex marriage. Guess how the Post handled reporting the results. That's right, the paper hyped the same-sex marriage numbers on A1 but shuffled the good news for McDonnell over to…

The Roanoke Times has discovered that opening Virginia's highway rest stops to sponsors might not mean just more advertising for fast food. It could lead to  requests from opponents of the mainstream ideas of food and leisure activities: Gov. Bob McDonnell announced an initiative last week that would allow for sponsorships at Virginia's highway rest areas to help offset the cost of operating…

Democratic Congressman Jim Moran of Virginia caused a bit of a stir last week when he said on CSPAN's Washington Journal program that, as paraphrased by Daniel Strauss at The Hill, "lawmakers are getting around the new ban on earmarks by convincing Obama administration officials to fund their pet projects." Those who have followed Moran's less than illustrious career recall something he said…

Providing Washington Post Metro section readers a review of the just-closed legislative session of the Virginia General Assembly, staff writers Rosalind Helderman and Fredrick Kunkle today deployed some colorfully loaded language that portrayed conservative Republicans in an unfavorable light. For example [emphasis mine], the "divided legislature reached a compromise on budget amendments that…

The Washington Post celebrated the first gay bar in populous Fairfax County with a splashy front-page article headlined "Rainbow flag aloft, nightclub is Fairfax County's first gay bar." Next to the headline was a color picture of the drag queen "La Countess Farrington." Reporter J. Freedom du Lac may want to celebrate, but it's a poor choice of metaphors to compare the hot homosexual night…

The metaphor “The War on Christmas” can be mocked – as if Santa and his reindeer are dodging anti-aircraft fire. But many of our public schools have church-and-state sensitivity police with an alarming degree of Santaphobia. Anyone who's attended a school's “winter concert” in December with no traditional Christmas music – not even “Frosty the Snowman” – knows the drill. The vast Christian…

 On Thursday’s Fox and Friends, FNC hosts Gretchen Carlson and Steve Doocy gave attention to a University of Virginia study which found that, since Prince William County in Virginia became more strict in dealing with illegal immigrants in 2007, the jurisdiction has enjoyed a substantial drop in crime - including a 32 percent drop in violent crime - while neighboring Fairfax County has seen…

A letter to the editor of The Washington Times really underscored how little attention the D.C. media are paying to Congressman Jim Moran, who represents the easternmost part of northern Virginia (including MRC headquarters in Alexandria). A letter writer complained:

Ten years after the USS Cole bombing, the alleged mastermind of the attacks hasn't been tried in a military commission, angering survivors and families of the dead. Yet for its coverage of the 10 year anniversary memorial service in today's paper, the Washington Post elected to go with an 11-paragraph article by Newport News [Va.] Daily Press's Hugh Lessig rather than assign a Post staffer to…

In today's print edition of the Washington Post, the top editorial, "Virginia is for gun lovers,"* attacked the Old Dominion as "one of the nation's leading gun-buying bazaars for out-of-state criminals.""[T]he commonwealth's gun shows -- where criminals can purchase weapons without a background check -- and its gun shops are a regular source of easy-to-get firearms," the Post complained.While…

The Washington Post's undisguised loathing for conservative Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is on display again Tuesday. Post reporter Anita Kumar put him on the "far right" and questioned the propriety (and even the constitutionality) of his working relationship with other Republicans in Richmond.  Kumar began by noting a list of Cuccinell's "controversial" legal opinions, that "police…