Driving Mr. Daschle: HHS Nominee Has $100,000 'Geithner Problem
Former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle (picture at right is part of a Getty Images pic at a related New York Times story) has just upped the ante in Washington's tax-avoiding/evading game of "Can you top this?" Whereas recently confirmed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner "only" $40,000 in back taxes and interest, principally relating to unpaid Social Security and Medicare taxes (with a dash of…
NY Pol Indicted... But What's That Party
Today we have the corresponding opposite to prove the point of our favorite game, “Name That Party.” You see, today we have the case in point of the former Senate leader of New York's legislature Joseph Bruno. Mr. Bruno has been indicted on those ever lovin' federal corruption charges for "defrauding the people of New York from 1993 through at least 2006."
He's a rotten so-and-so, of course…
Democrats in Chicago and Alabama in Trouble, Neither IDed as Democrats
One convicted on bribery, the other attacks cops at crime scene saying she wasn't driving drunk
Now that the media has had it's near orgasmic reaction to Obama's inaugural, it's apparently time for some more "name that party" fun for everyone. Today we have incidents widely separated by distance, but not separated at all in at least one way. We have in Alabama a pair of convictions on bribery…
AP's 'Q&A' on Geithner's Taxes Has Excuses Galore, No Mention of 'Reim
The Associated Press's record of running interference for Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner continues mostly unabated.My chronicle of AP's largely weak coverage, most of which has been previously detailed at NewsBusters (here, here, and here), is at the end of this post.No AP report I have seen has noted that Geithner applied for and merely pocketed partial "reimbursements" from the…
Name That Party: He's a Mayor Accused of Soliciting Sex From Child
Mayor Gary Becker of Racine, Wisconsin, received some unwanted attention from the Old Media and the local police today because of his arrest for using a computer to solicit sex from a child. According to the Associated Press, Becker is "tentatively charged with attempted second-degree sexual assault of a child, child enticement, possession of child pornography, exposing a child to harmful…
Maureen Dowd Bares Bitter-Ending Bush- and Cheney-Despising Fangs, Onl
When historians look back in wonder at how a long-established publication like the New York Times could have declined from its virtual king-of-the-world status in mid-2002 to its Bush-deranged, 85%-devalued shadow of its former self, they will surely make a few stops at Maureen Dowd's twice-weekly, lost-in-another-world columns (the Dowd picture is from the Times's web site).Today's offering from…
CNN Omits Democratic Party Affiliation of Indicted Baltimore Mayor
During a breaking news brief on Friday’s Newsroom program, CNN anchor Kyra Phillips failed to identify the party affiliation of Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon, a Democrat, who earlier in the day had been indicted on 12 counts related to a corruption probe by Maryland state officials. She did identify Dixon as “the first woman to serve as the city’s mayor” and “the first African-American female to…
Bay Area TV Station Notes 'Professional Protester' Influence in Riot
Here's something you don't see every day. A video report about last night's riot in Oakland related to the shooting death of an unarmed man at the hands of a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer actually calls it .... a riot. What's more, the reporter notes, as is really often the case in situations such as these, how people he characterized as "professional protesters" egged others on…
Name That Party, Baltimore Edition; Brief Running in WaPo Leaves Out
If ever there was a new year's resolution the mainstream media could take up, it would be to note the party affiliation of indicted politicians regardless of their political party and especially when noting indictments in urban areas where one party holds a monopoly on city government. Take for example a January 8 Baltimore Sun article running on page B4 of the same day's Washington Post*, that…
Coulter Spars With Kathie Lee and Hoda About Her 'Venom' in Second 'To
Ann Coulter made a second appearance during the 10 am Eastern hour of Wednesday’s Today show, and hosts Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb continued the discussion about the apparent “venom” in her books. Kotb asked if Coulter’s style was “kind of like shock jock, shake the cage, freak everyone out, wake everybody up,” and later stated that she felt the tone of the conservative’s writing was “…
CNN Scrubs Palin from NewsBusters Covered Criminal Politicians Story
As most of you know, I originally posted this story on Sunday under the headline CNN Places Sarah Palin With 2008's Criminals, Sex Addicts, and the Corrupt here at NewsBusters. It raged all day Sunday in the Blogosphere and into the night among Palin fans and center right bloggers. Greta Van Susteren even posted about it on her FoxNews blog (It garnered 4 pages of comments there, too). A quick…
CNN Places Sarah Palin With 2008's Criminals, Sex Addicts, and the Cor
**UPDATE** CNN Removes Palin From Criminals List
Showing they have no sense of morality, no grasp of corruption and no understanding of what defines a criminal, CNN gives us another one of those ubiquitous year in review stories, this one titled "Politicians who fell from grace in 2008." In this one, CNN has decided to reveal for us their top eight politicians that found 2008 to be a "career-…
Madoff Gives Us Lots to Think About This Christmas
This is a timely op-ed from Dan Gainor of BMI.Christmastime is the time of giving. So we can thank Bernie Madoff for giving Americans some special gifts this holiday season.Yes, I said thank him. OK, maybe not a lot. But the one-time financial wizard's downfall is a morality tale that provides so many lessons it's almost impossible to know where to start. If you've been living under a rock, the…
AP's 'Novel' Name That Party Wrinkle: Purging Dem Party IDs from Origi
Two situations over the weekend illustrate that the Associated Press's habitual failure to identify the political party of Democrats in trouble is more than likely a conscious decision. This is despite the AP Stylebook's guidance (as of 2000, the latest free edition I can find; a PDF is here) that a reporter should "include party affiliation if readers need it for understanding or are likely to…
