Take three liberal policy advocates, stir into a 12-paragraph story, and strain out any dissenting voices.

That's the recipe for pushing Washington Post writer Martin Ricard's June 24 story on illegal immigrants who rallied yesterday in Washington, D.C., for a bill before Congress to make it easier for illegal immigrants to get access to financial aid for college.

In "Students Stage Mock Graduation To Advocate for Undocumented," Ricard noted "[a]lmost 400 students and their supporters" yesterday who "were drawn this year" to a mock graduation ceremony in Washington, D.C., "organized by United We Dream." Nowhere in his article did Ricard describe any of the students as "illegal immigrants," preferring instead to label them "undocumented."

There may be no limit to how far establishment media reporters will go in their attempt to prop up the public perception of failing state-run health care programs.

The latest example comes from Massachusetts. The Bay State's CommonwealthCare (aka RomneyCare, so nicknamed because Governor Mitt Romney, rumored to be a Republican and pictured at right, championed the legislation's passage and signed the bill in 2006) continues to implode -- as anyone with a brain could have predicted, and as many, including yours truly (fourth item at link), did predict.

Despite deep cuts, which essentially amount to large-scale rationing of care and cash-starving of providers, the Boston Globe's Kay Lazar, in an allegedly straight news story, felt compelled to describe the state's health care arrangement as "trailblazing," and to characterize a 12% budget cut as "trimming."

Here are key paragraphs from what amounts to Lazar's lament, with "rationing" tags added by yours truly for emphasis:

A chyron which accompanied a report on CNN’s Newsroom program on Wednesday about the arrest of a leader of an organization inspired by the Minuteman Project, referred to her and her accused accomplices as “extremists.” Despite qualifying how the largest Minuteman organization had distanced itself from the suspects, anchor Rick Sanchez questioned how she became a “player in the anti-immigration movement.”

Sanchez took the human interest story approach to the segment, which began 26 minutes into the 3 pm Eastern hour of the CNN program. He first displayed the picture of a young girl who was one of two murder victims in the case, and gave the following description: “Things are not always as they seem, right? And I want to illustrate this now with a picture of a beautiful little girl- there she is. Her name is Brisenia Flores- take a close look, because it may be the only way that you’ll be able to see this little girl. Why? Because this little girl- Brisenia Flores- is now dead.”

After giving some details of the crime, the anchor continued by describing the suspects: “Shawna Ford and two other suspects are now being held on a bond of a million dollars for the deaths of Brisenia Flores and her father....Let me tell you who Shawn Forde is. She’s the executive director of a group that’s called Minuteman American Defense. Police say that Forde planned the killing of the little girl and her father to steal drugs and money, and make it look like it was the work of a drug cartel.”

On Saturday, CBS’s Anthony Mason blamed tough economic times in a small Iowa town on immigration enforcement: "...the small town of Postville, Iowa, is still struggling to recover from an immigration raid last year that left its economy in tatters."

Reporting for Saturday’s Evening News, correspondent Seth Doane followed Mason’s introduction by similarly arguing: "...last May when Agriprocessors, a kosher meat processing plant, and the town's largest employer, was raided by Homeland Security. Hundreds were arrested, accused of illegally working in the U.S...After the raid, the plant declared bankruptcy. At one point, leaving hundreds of legal workers without jobs." Doane described the town’s commemoration of the one-year anniversary of the raid: "A few weeks ago at the one-year anniversary of the raid, church bells tolled 389 times, one for each person arrested. It served as a reminder, as if anyone here needed one."

In November, Doane issued an almost identical report on the impact of the raid on the Early Show: "With empty streets and shuttered shops, this small town is facing economic calamity. Mayor Bob Penrod is taking steps this weekend to declare a state of emergency here. But it's not a natural disaster. Rather, one that's manmade...It all started May 12th, when hundreds of federal immigration authorities raided Agriprocessors and arrested 389 workers."

The national unemployment rate is 8.9 percent and even higher in places like Cambridge, Md. So you might find it strange to see NBC advocating an expansion of legal migrant labor when so many Americans are struggling.

Nonetheless, former "NBC Nightly News" anchor Tom Brokaw did just that in the first part of a new series called "American Character." The former anchor will travel U.S. Highway 50 from coast to coast to report on people struggling in this economy. On "Nightly News" May 27, Brokaw visited a crab picking house in Cambridge, Md. that's suffering from a shortage of workers.

"Jack Brooks runs J.M. Clayton's, one of the oldest crab processors in the area," Brokaw said. "He's got all the crabs he can handle. What he doesn't have, even in this brutal economy, is enough workers to pick them."

Those who believe that Politico is a hangout for former establishment media journalists who want to recreate a combination of the New York Times and Washington Post on the web -- complete with the insufferable biases of those two publications -- can look to the disparate treatment of two challenges to party congressional leaders as affirmative evidence.

In a search on "Cindy Sheehan" at Politico, I found that in covering the congressional candidacy of former media darling Cindy Sheehan in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Northern California district, the online news site carried two tiny items. Only one of them was originally produced there.

Brian Alexander, an MSNBC.com contributor with his Sexploration column, has apparently delved into the world of political commentary with this new piece which ties conservatives to viral racism in the media.

The title itself is a little misleading:

Amid swine flu outbreak, racism goes viral

Anti-immigrant hatred spreads on talk radio, Web sites

If we're targeting conservative talk radio, and Alexander is, then the term ‘anti-immigrant' should be corrected.  Conservatives aren't anti-immigrant, they're anti-criminal, much like liberals are anti-tax filing.  Loving your country enough to request that anyone who wishes to be a member abide by their immigration laws, is not anti-immigrant, and making such an assessment by accusing the entire conservative philosophy as being racist is... well ... anti-intellectual.  But then, that is the norm for commentary presented by MSNBC.

Further down in the column, Alexander explains that the real problem isn't just talk radio and Web sites in general.  No, the main problem is actually racist conservatives (emphasis mine throughout):

A grisly late 2007 quadruple-murder case in the Cincinnati suburb of Sharonville has apparently been solved with the arrest of Santiago Moreno.

Moreno apparently brutally stabbed his four other apartment mates with near-surgical precision.

It is horrible that these men died. It is great news that the monster who did it has apparently been caught.

What is hard to understand is why after nearly 1-1/2 years, it's finally okay to use a certain "I-word" to describe the victims' immigration status that was almost never used when the original stories broke:

"Good Morning America" co-host Diane Sawyer interviewed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Thursday and skipped any mention of a controversial report by the agency warning of right-wing extremist activity and disgruntled returning war veterans. In separate interviews, both the CBS "Early Show" and NBC's "Today" discussed the hot-topic issue with the top government official. Instead, Sawyer pressed Napolitano with incorrect numbers about gun violence and Mexico. "95 percent of the guns used were out of the United States. What is the U.S. going to do to stop the guns from getting there," she asked.

In fact, the number of guns traced to the U.S. is only about 17 percent. (MRC intern Mike Sargent wrote about this on April 2.) Even the Homeland Security secretary seemed to be uncomfortable with the statistic. Before answering the question, Napolitano prefaced, "And I won't quibble about numbers. That's not the point." On the issue of terrorism, the GMA host posed this not-exactly pressing question: "Do you see, in your reports that you're now reading in great detail, do you see an increase in the threat to the U.S. homeland? Or do you have them on the run?"

The New York Times finally noticed -- kind of -- the nationwide "tea party" protests against the bailouts, the stimulus plan, and President Obama's budget. Reporter Liz Robbins' story, "Tax Day Is Met With Tea Parties" is the first Times news report to deal with any of the conservative anti-spending protests, and does so in a predictably snide manner and in a relatively short article on Page 16 of Thursday's edition.

This paragraph from Robbins' initial version of the story, posted at nytimes.com Wednesday afternoon at 2:30 (no longer online), got a few facts about conservatives wrong:

Fox News was covering the events and streaming live video as its own commentators Neil Cavuto and Michelle Malkin were headlining the protests in Sacramento, Sean Hannity appeared in Atlanta, and Newt Gingrich showed up at City Hall Park in New York.

Oops. Neil Cavuto is a host at Fox News, not a commentator, and given that her story was filed Wednesday afternoon, Robbins couldn't have actually reported on Newt Gingrich's speech at City Hall Park, which didn't start until sometime past 7:30 p.m.

An attack from that first filing that didn't make it into the print version accused the protestors of "group therapy" and of "expressing their anger, but offering no solutions."

Of course, when the small band of colonists dressed as Indians and dumped tea in Boston Harbor in 1773 to protest King George's import tax and imperial government, that movement led to independence.

All of these tax day parties seemed less about revolution and more about group therapy. At least with the more widely known protest against government spending, people attending the rallies were dressed patriotically and held signs expressing their anger, but offering no solutions.

**UPDATE ADDED BELOW!**

 Recycling the mid-1990s liberal smear campaign against grassroots conservatism, CNN has posted an article on the new DHS threat report complete with a Getty Images photo (shown at right) of neo-Nazi and white supremacist flags.

If the report were about Nazi extremists, that picture would be warranted. However, the DHS report warns against an amorphous “right-wing extremism,” failing to mention by name any particular threatening group or intelligence of any planned attacks.

The DHS report did cite returning war veterans as at-risk for recruitment by right-wing extremist groups. It seems strange to think that those men and women who risked their lives to protect this country and their government could be or become Nazis, but that seems to be the implication.

Moreover, one wonders where exactly the CNN report on the other extremism report was.

Here is something that you NewsBusters fans can help me with because I am having difficulty deciding what is going on with this one. We have a shooting incident in Minnesota perpetrated by three Muslim Somali immigrants but for some reason almost every single media report about the incident omits the names of the shooters, names of obvious North African or ethnic origin. So, the question is, did the Old Media in Minnesota purposefully leave the names unreported so that they could cover up the fact that the criminals were Somali immigrants? And, if so, why would they do this?

We start with the Minneapolis Star Tribune that reports that "three suspects were in jail Sunday following a shooting in Lakeville that injured four other people." Apparently one of those arrested took umbrage at being told to leave a party and began shooting up the place as he and his friends left. But, all we get from the StarTrib is "three suspects." No names or descriptions.

Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz reported Monday on President Obama’s "more inclusive" press strategy (with black and Hispanic media outlets), which naturally led to Obama assuring Hispanic radio hosts and TV anchors that amnesty for illegal aliens (or "comprehensive immigration reform") is still an important item on his agenda.

Kurtz noted that Obama granted an interview to the Spanish-language TV network Telemundo after they complained about being excluded in a round of interviews with ABC, CBS, and NBC. Kurtz failed to note that Telemundo has been NBC-owned since 2002, but his reporting surely reminded opponents of illegal immigration how Telemundo sounds more like a lobbying group than a news outlet:

And [anchorman Pedro Secvec] noted that "our network, Telemundo, is starting a big campaign for Hispanics to make sure that they are counted in the next census. A lot of them are afraid, you know, of participating, because they think, 'I don't have the papers to live in this country.' " The president responded by encouraging Latinos to participate and saying it has been "true historically" that such information has not been shared with immigration authorities.

FNC's Bret Baier did something Friday night you rarely, if ever, hear from a journalist: He apologized for incomplete reporting, specifically for failing to identify as an illegal alien the man charged with murdering Chandra Levy. Picking up on a Friday Washington Times article which quoted media coverage information reported Tuesday night on NewsBusters (and Wednesday on MRC.org), Baier noted in his “Grapevine” segment: “The Washington Times reports CBS, CNN and the Associated Press described Ingmar Guandique either a 'Salvadoran immigrant' or a 'laborer from El Salvador.'” He then acknowledged:

Fox News is not escaping criticism on this. Although Bill O'Reilly has referred to Guandique as an "illegal alien," the report points out that Fox newscasts, including this one, have used the term "Salvadoran immigrant." We apologize for not being more precise.

CBS, CNN, FNC and the AP on Tuesday all failed to identify Ingmar Guandique, for whom an arrest warrant was issued for the 2001 murder of Chandra Levy, as an illegal alien. In a full story on the CBS Evening News, reporter Bob Orr described him simply as a “Salvadoran immigrant.” During CNN's Situation Room, Zain Verjee benignly called him “a laborer from El Salvador” and later, on Anderson Cooper 360, news reader Erica Hill referred to him as “a U.S. prison inmate from El Salvador.” (In between, the contrarian Lou Dobbs did identify Guandique as “a criminal illegal alien.”)

FNC's Bret Baier, on his 6 PM EST show, cited the new charge against “a Salvadoran immigrant” while multiple dispatches from the AP's Brian Westerly described Guandique as “an imprisoned Salvadoran immigrant.”

Wednesday's front page Washington Post article cited the murder suspect's immigration status, but not until the third paragraph: “Guandique, who entered the United States illegally in 2000 and had trouble scraping together a new life in Washington...” In contrast, the free Washington Examiner put the relevant fact in the lead of its story for the Wednesday paper:

Nearly eight years after the disappearance of congressional intern Chandra Levy dominated national headlines, D.C. authorities charged with murder an illegal immigrant who had been questioned in the early stages of the investigation.

If you haven't figured it out yet, the fact that lawmakers in Washington who voted for the mislabeled "stimulus" bill championed by Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid did so without reading it, let alone understanding it, means that in the coming weeks (or months?) we'll be learning about all manner of items in the legislation that "nobody" knew about. But that didn't stop House and Senate majorities from passing the legislation. My educated guess is that you won't hear much about these buried provisions from Old Media, because they're largely designed as stealth advances of longtime liberal agenda items.

Remember "net neutrality"? It's back, after probably a year or so of neglect.

Declan McCullagh at CNet explains that whoever wrote the legislation (will we ever know?) is attempting to force anyone who receives government money for broadband expansion to comply with something that isn't law, or even a regulation (links were in original):

It seems that the media, as highlighted by NewsBuster Kyle Drennen, seems to think border security is a joke. That must be why none of the supposed mainstream media sources are bothering to cover the group of illegal aliens who sued a US citizen for 32 million dollars in federal court. The defendant is an Arizona rancher who is trying to prevent said illegals from destroying his property. According to a report in the Washington Times online newspaper, the illegals filed suit against Arizona resident and US citizen Roger Barnett " for violating their civil rights". The Washington Times says that,

An Arizona man who has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his property is being sued by 16 Mexican nationals who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Roger Barnett, 64, began rounding up illegal immigrants in 1998 and turning them over to the U.S. Border Patrol, he said, after they destroyed his property, killed his calves and broke into his home.

His Cross Rail Ranch near Douglas, Ariz., is known by federal and county law enforcement authorities as "the avenue of choice" for immigrants seeking to enter the United States illegally.

On Friday’s CBS Evening News, correspondent Steve Hartman made fun of Texan Robert Havercamp, who helps monitor border cameras via the internet as part of the virtual border fence: "Whether you think I'm naive or he's paranoid, this is a story that will astound you regardless...It's about how concerned citizens like Robert Havercamp, a truck driver from south Texas, are taking on illegal immigrants and drug smugglers from the comfort of their own computers...Although it's hard to say exactly how much safer he's really making us...Paranoid? Maybe. Patriotic? Unabashedly."

In addition to mocking Havercamp’s efforts, Hartman criticized the funding for the virtual fence program: "Donald Reay oversees the project...He runs the Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition, which got a $2 million grant to put up the cameras and run the web site for a year...And yet, so far the program has only produced eight arrests and four drug seizures. Not much bang for the buck." Following his report, Hartman remarked: "After the grant expires, the coalition hopes to keep the site up by selling ads, and since it is a virtual stakeout, the first sponsor they're hoping to get is Dunkin’ Donuts." Anchor Katie Couric chimed in that people like Havercamp could be rewarded for their work with: "Maybe a free doughnut at some point?"

However, NewsBusters called up Mr. Reay and asked him if he had a donut discussion with Hartman. Reay replied: "None. It never came up. The truth of the matter is that most of the towns that we serve don’t have a Dunkin’ Donuts....In El Paso, Dunkin’ Donuts went broke here. Sorry, it wasn’t cute." Reay said the interview wasn’t that jokey: "We had a very serious discussion of close to three hours with him" and said "considering some of the publicity we’ve gotten, it’s not that bad." He tried to persuade Hartman of the seriousness of fighting crime on the border with concerned citizens. Reay also said "The Daily Show" has been calling around, trying to do a segment. Apparently, there’s nothing but comedy in border vigilance.

"For an illegal immigrant, getting into UCLA was the easy part," lamented the headline for a Groundhog Day article by Los Angeles Times's Jason Song.

"A San Pedro girl's undocumented status means no financial aid. Money is tight, classes are tough, and just getting to campus takes 2 1/2 hours," reads the subheader for Song's February 2 Column One story.

Yes, despite the national and state economies in recession and California in a major budget crunch, the L.A. Times has the chutzpah to lament the obstacles to a taxpayer-subsidized college education for an illegal immigrant.

It seems considering legal immigrants and American citizens the victims of the high social and governmental costs of illegal immigration just isn't in Song's liberal hymnal. Apparently Song's aim was to paint one Karina De La Cruz as a downtrodden Cinderella in need of a beneficent fairy godmother (emphasis mine):

Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand is the new senator from New York, replacing Hillary Clinton, who resigned her Senate seat to become Secretary of State in the Obama administration. But the New York Times hasn't exactly rolled out the welcome mat. So far the paper has done little but nag Gillibrand for being insufficiently liberal, pushing her to back away from her stands against amnesty for illegal immigrants and her support of gun rights.

A Metro section story by Kirk Semple on Wednesday, "Drawing Fire on Immigration, Gillibrand Reaches Out," argued that Gillibrand must adapt by moving to the left to appease her diverse and apparently angry vast new constituency.

During her one term in the House of Representatives, from a largely rural, traditionally Republican district, Kirsten E. Gillibrand was on safe political ground adopting a tough stance against illegal immigration.

Ms. Gillibrand, a Democrat, opposed any sort of amnesty for illegal immigrants, supported deputizing local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration laws, spoke out against Gov. Eliot Spitzer's proposal to allow illegal immigrants to have driver's licenses and sought to make English the official language of the United States.

But since her appointment by Gov. David A. Paterson last week to fill the Senate seat vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ms. Gillibrand has found herself besieged by immigrant advocates and Democratic colleagues who have cast her as out of step with a majority of the state, with its big cities and sprawling immigrant enclaves.

Reading Sandy Banks' column in the L.A. Times we are supposed to feel optimistic. But, instead of optimism, all one can see is complaints about the USA coming from the immigrants in Washington D.C. that Banks ran across during her inaugural week visit. Instead of uplift, we see Banks celebrating the fact that these people feel that the USA is a bad place, has failed them, or is not what it's cracked up to be. So, where is the "profound message" that Banks found in DC?

Why it's that these same immigrants think Obama will remake the US into something better for them, naturally. You see, Banks agrees with these immigrants that the USA is a bad place and that The One will wipe away our sins and re-invent this nation into something it wasn't. Banks isn't celebrating the USA with her "profound message" but celebrating its recreation into something different.

ABC aired an incredibly insulting and condescending hidden camera news special on Tuesday that purported to probe the hidden racism of Americans. It also featured actors hired by the network to go to France and portray "ugly Americans," complete with a "Bush '08" t-shirt that was derided by one German woman as similar to saying "I like Hitler."

The "What Would You Do?" special attempted to see how real people would react to racism or over-the-top behavior. As part of the experiment, host John Quinones introduced "Bob" and "Bonnie," actors sent to Paris to represent obnoxious U.S. citizens. Quinones began the segment by cheerfully explaining, "They're the ugly Americans. And for more than a century, they've been fixtures in American literature and film."

Although the New York Times enthusiastically supports the appointment of Janet Napolitano as Homeland Security secretary, they fear a downside for the state of Arizona. Evil Republicans would be left in charge. The Times editorial lays out the tone of their concern starting with the very title: "State of Fear." You can pretty much tell the liberal Times attitude towards Republicans right from the get-go of their editorial (emphasis mine):

If Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona is confirmed as homeland security secretary, she will leave behind a state in full Republican control, with immigration zealots embedded in both houses of the Legislature, and not enough moderates to go around.

I suppose the Associated Press wants us all to feel sorry for Mexico. With so many illegals here either having trouble finding work or actually returning home, Mexico is finding that its citizens illegally in the US have fewer American dollars to send home. AP says the "situation is so serious" that the Mexican government is trying to create new programs to reinforce ties between illegals here and its citizens at home. Of course, no where in AP's story does it seem to occur to anyone that Mexico clean itself up and offer opportunities there as opposed to trying to squeeze money from people here.

The whole story is reported as a legitimate economic issue instead of the thievery by illegals that it really is. The AP sternly informs us that as the "economic crisis worsens" Mexico finds that the money sent home is at "record lows." And we are treated once again to the euphemism for this theft of American dollars that is doled out in every such story. The AP calls this sending of American money back to Mexico a "remittance revenue stream," as if it is some sort of legitimate economic matter. It's a great way to gussie up the word "theft," isn't it?

The truth is that the Mexican government is trying to undermine our nation yet the AP treats this as if it is just an average story.

Attention, y'all in the South: Urban crime is partly your fault.

You see, if you didn't own so many guns, you wouldn't have so many of them stolen or sold at gun shows. Right now, those evil guns cross state lines and get used to commit crimes in urban areas.

Got that?

I know all of this because the Associated Press's Seanna Adcox, acting as a mouthpiece for the Mayors Against Illegal Guns, has told me so (link is dynamic; 2 AM version saved here for future reference):

Report: South a big exporter of guns used in crime

At first glance, it's hard to figure out who is the bigger buffoon:

• Is it Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, for suggesting that Arizona Governor and Obama Homeland Security Secretary-Designate Janet Napolitano is perfect for her presumptive position because she's single and can therefore "have no life"?
• Or is it CNN's Campbell Brown, for criticizing Rendell's sexism and bias against employees who don't have families -- after Brown herself suggested in September that Sarah Palin shouldn't have accepted John McCain's vice-presidential nomination because of her daughter's pregnancy?

Here are excerpts from the program transcript (video here), including Rendell's howler, and Brown's subsequent hypocritical editorializing (HT Tall Cotton):

A criminal without legal status deported by US immigration officials is the subject of the latest pity party thrown by The New York Times. The Times seems to find it lamentable that this gang member and armed robber was deported from "his homeland" -- that would be the USA -- to Cambodia, the land of his birth (one he left when he was a 3-year-old). Why does the NYTimes bemoan the deportation of this thug? Why would he make a fine American despite his criminal history? He can dance, man!

The Times waxed maudlin that their friend "K.K." was deported at 26-years of age ending up in Cambodia, a land with which he was quite unfamiliar. Apparently, the Times feels "K.K." is doing wonderful work there, though, by teaching Cambodian street kids how to street dance. Yes, despite that he is a "former gang member" and convicted felon, the Times thinks he's a swell fellow because he is bringing "a little slice of Long Beach, Calif." to street kids in Cambodia.

Now that Eric Holder is in the process of trying to graduate from Barack Obama's vice-presidential search committee to President-elect Obama's apparent nominee for Attorney General, it's a good idea to remind people of Holder's role in the Elian Gonzalez case in 2000. This post largely reprises one I put up in June.

_______________________________________

In between hosannas, someone should consider Barack Obama's "Judgment to Lead" in light of his selection of Eric Holder as his nominee for Attorney General.

Besides his already-known role as former Clinton Administration Deputy Attorney General in facilitating the Clinton pardons, including that of fugitive billionaire financier Marc Rich, there's the matter of Holder's involvement in the Elian Gonzalez case in 2000.

As the April 23, 2000 edition of the Media Research Center's CyberAlert noted at the time, Andrew Napolitano of Fox News charged that the early-Saturday seizure of the then 6 year-old Gonzalez from those who were taking care of him flagrantly disobeyed a ruling of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In response to a question from Fox News anchor Jeff Asman, Napolitano said the following (bolds are mine throughout this post):

"It's one thing to cover the honeymoon and it's another to be in bed with the honeymooners," NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell quipped of the Obama-fawning mainstream media while on the November 19 "Fox & Friends."

"It is a sheer embarassment," the Media Research Center president continued, noting that a network executive he talked to said "there are seasoned professionals, who may be liberals, who are just shocked at what's happened to their industry." [audio available here]

In another segment on the same program, Bozell talked about the media's double standard in reporting on crimes involving immigrants.

Those who don't understand why paid circulation at major metro newspapers has been declining steeply for at least the past five years need look no further than yesterday's disgraceful reporting by Tawnell D. Hobbs in the Dallas Morning News (DMN).

The Dallas Independent School District (DISD) has been committing crimes that would cause private companies performing similar acts to be raided and/or shut down: issuing fake Social Security numbers to foreigner with visas and/or illegal immigrants to get them on the payroll.

This is serious stuff. Yet Hobbs and her paper did everything they could to minimize the impact of the story, as seen in these excerpts: