Lyndsi Thomas's blog

There they go again. Once more, a liberal print journalist has seen racism behind conservative concerns about Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Yesterday, NewsBusters noted a blog post by a Chicago Tribune journalist which claims that Obama’s “supposed patriotism deficit” is because white Americans view African Americans in general as less patriotic.

In a May 5 Washington Post article appearing on page A2, “Department of Human Behavior” writer Shankar Vedantam asserted that it is not Revered Jeremiah Wright’s incendiary comments that have damaged Obama, it is his race, sex and public style. If Wright were a white female who wrote her outlandish ideas in a scholarly journal, Vedantam thinks the effects would not be the same.

Another journalist has gone on-the-record equating conservative concerns about the liberal Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) with racism. In a May 5 blog post on the Chicago Tribune’s “The Swamp” blog, writer Frank James expressed his concern about racist white people. James wondered, “How much of Sen. Barack Obama's supposed patriotism deficit among voters has to do with his being African-American?”

Why does James think that whites view African-Americans as less patriotic? According to James’s post, it’s because there is “an assumption on the part of white Americans that a racial group whose ancestors were slaves and which still complains about racial inequalities and injustice must by definition be less patriotic.”

Families USA is at it again and as usual the liberal media are dutifully parroting their rhetoric.

The liberal, pro-universal healthcare advocacy group recently released a report attacking President Bush’s budget proposal for Medicaid. In the report, Families USA Director Ron Pollack asserted that Bush’s proposed budget decreases funding for Medicaid. Like last time, Families USA has released state-specific studies showing that Bush’s supposed Medicaid cuts would cause the individual state to lose so many jobs and so much money. Local newspapers took the bait.

There’s just one problem: President Bush’s 2009 budget proposal does not cut funding for Medicaid. In fact it calls for an increase in Medicaid spending by $12 to $13 million as compared to the expected spending for 2008. The decrease in the president’s budget proposal is not really a decrease at all. What the president is proposing amounts to a slightly smaller annual average growth rate for Medicaid spending (7.1 percent) than the projected annual average growth rate of 7.4 percent over the next five years. (More information here).

News agencies across the country are still largely refusing to inform readers of the liberal-leanings of Families USA. The organization has a fresh crop of new news articles thanks to its latest study.

In March, Families USA published a report which attributes lack of health care coverage with premature death. Local newspapers across the country are attracted to this report because it includes state-specific data that give the number of fatalities in each state which are linked to a lack of insurance.

You might remember Families USA from its advocacy for expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) which would have increased the income eligibility limit from 200 percent to 300 percent above the Federal Poverty Level and started a contingency fund which would serve to come to the rescue of states who spend over the amount of their federal allotment. Needless to say, liberal Democrats including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) and Sen Barack Obama (D-Ill.) make up the organization’s political allies.

Another Empire State Democrat appears ensnared in a juicy political scandal involving misappropriated money and political patronage.

An article in the April 3 New York Post reports that New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s office has been hoarding millions of dollars in taxpayer money. The money was allocated to fake organizations so that it could be saved and used later for political favors.

The Post noted that the money constituted what essentially turned out to be a “slush fund” for the Speaker as it was later used at Quinn's discretion whether it be to reward loyal groups or to provide funding for projects of favored council members.

The Post's Frankie Edozien should be congratulated for the exclusive, but one thing is missing from the story: Quinn’s political party affiliation. Although the newspaper reported that this “bogus bookkeeping” is subject to federal as well as city investigations, not once did the New York Post note that Quinn is a Democrat. NewsBusters appreciates good investigative reporting, but it is important to be consistent in labeling political party affiliation.

From windy Washington, D.C., to sunny Palm Beach, Florida, the liberal print media are refusing to note the liberal bent of an interest group vocal in the health care debate.

The March 26 edition of the Palm Beach Post -- a broadsheet notorious to conservatives for its unbalanced treatment of Rush Limbaugh -- featured not one but two articles which pushed government-run universal health care. In both of them, the Post asserted that Floridians are dying daily due to a lack of health care coverage.

The source for the Post’s assertion was a recent study by the liberal group Families USA. Not surprisingly, the Post described the organization as simply a “nonpartisan” group that advocates for “comprehensive health care” while conveniently leaving out the group’s liberal tendencies, its support of socialist-style universal healthcare and that its political allies include liberal Democratic politicians such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.)

As the ongoing Tony Rezko trial yields more news of corruption, once again the mainstream media aren't identifying the party affiliation of the Democratic perpetrators. This time, the culprit is the Chicago Tribune in an article regarding a witness testimony that Alderman Richard Mell, father-in-law of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, hoped to receive kickbacks from an insider deal at a state pension fund. The article goes on to describe this new information along with the details of the deal for which Mell hoped.

The Tribune also noted that this finding adds to the "Mell-Blagojevich relationship that has devolved to downright dysfunctional in recent years."

Yet despite running a thirty paragraph article over two pages, the Tribune failed to recognize either Mell or Blagojevich are Democrats.