Crime

On Tuesday’s Situation Room, CNN host Wolf Blitzer tried to downplay the significance of the arrest of the Democratic governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich by making an unequivocal statement about Republicans: “You know, most of the scandals -- most of the political scandals...in recent years have involved Republicans...and they’re all pretty well-known.” He continued by labeling the Democrat’s…

(Also, see Matthew Balan's NB post on CNN.com's Name That Party Blagojevich whiff, and related posts by Mark Finkelstein and Warner Todd Huston.)Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested today. The Associated Press's Mike Robinson actually identified "Blago's" party in the third paragraph of his 10:27 a.m. report (link is dynamic; cited report is also here for future reference; underlying…

Updated below: CNN.com now noting Blago's Democratic affiliation An unsigned CNN.com article on Tuesday which broke the news that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich had been arrested by federal authorities omitted his Democratic party affiliation. Both Blagojevich and his chief of staff John Harris face conspiracy and bribery charges related to the appointment of Barack Obama’s successor to his…

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…

The Columbus Dispatch has done some impressive work exposing the unauthorized and arguably illegal database diving done by State of Ohio employees into the records of Joe the Plumber in October. The rest of Ohio's and the nation's media have been virtually asleep. In a previous post (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted that Vanessa Niekamp, the state employee who blew the lid off the…

Updating Kerry Picket's NewsBusters post yesterday on the arrest of former (as of four days ago) Democratic California Assembly member Fabian Nuñez's son on murder charges -- Esteban Nuñez and others charged with murder pled not guilty Thursday. The party-ID treatment of Fabian Nuñez, whose term as California Assemly Speaker ended on May 13, but whose term in the Assembly ended just this past…

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…

Admission: Lawrence O'Donnell is emerging as one of my favorite media liberals.  On the one hand, almost exactly one year ago, his anti-Mormon rant spurred me to action.  But lately, watching him as a frequent MSNBC guest, I've been impressed by his acumen and willingness to call them as he sees them.  Take O'Donnell's intervention on tonight's "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," where he made the…

In her story about pardon applications submitted to the Bush Justice Department before the President leaves office, the Associated Press's Lara Jakes Jordan made it seem as if pardon applicants appealing directly to the president is a new thing, and whitewashed the last-minute flurry of pardons granted by Bill Clinton in 2001. Here are the key passages from Jordan's story: Some high-profile…

Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Larry Langford has been arrested. His party is not mentioned in the story at AL.com. Langford is Democrat (even Wikipedia took a while before naming his party). Here are key paragraphs from the story:

Of all the genres of interviews, those conducted by the media with family and friends of victims of tragedy are among the most difficult and often least successful.  A remarkable exception to that rule comes in the form of the interview David Gregory conducted on this morning's Today show with Rabbi Shalom Paltiel, who was a friend of the Chabad couple murdered in Mombai and is a fellow member of…

This is not a promo for the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) per se, as there may be other similarly effective organizations out there to help families who homeschool their kids. But if the following examples don't prove that homeschooled children and their parents need to have access to legal help at a moment's notice, I don't know what will. I will present blood-boiling excerpts…

It may not be an automatic disqualifier for an Obama administration appointment, as Ed Morrissey at Hot Air suggested on Friday, but it's certainly an affront to the personal privacy rights of individuals and families.The Politico reported Thursday evening about the fallout resulting from an intrusive question on the president-elect's 63-question personnel form:President-elect Barack Obama’s…

It's very doubtful that the name "Vanessa Niekamp" rings a bell with very many readers here. That's because the media elites like some whistleblowers, and not others. In other circumstances, someone like Ms. Niekamp would be a heroine. In the current circumstances, she's barely a footnote. In my opinion, it's because she was involved in exposing shenanigans conducted on behalf of the then-…