The Austin American Statesmen Can Kiss My Big Blue Butt
So, on the front page of today’s Austin American Statesman, there’s a story about poor little pitiful Rick Perry and how the big bad Democrats are just beating up on him for extorting a public official.
Get this:
That sounds pretty bad, right?
Well, I guess it would be until you realize that a grand jury has 12 members and even the Statesman itself admits that this grand jury has only 3 (and possibly 4) Democrats on it. I dunno, maybe I slept through fifth grade math, but even 4 out of 12 ain’t exactly Democratic leaning.
Note to people in foreign states: We don’t register by party in Texas. By voting in a party’s primary, you swear to be a member of that party. The reason we can’t know for sure which primary a grand jury member voted in is because we only have their names and there’s a whole mess of people named Festus Thigpen or Maria Lopez in Texas.
So, let’s be generous and say it’s 4 Democrats. So, it breaks down like this, 4 Democrats, 4 people with no primary voting history, 2 people who are not registered to vote, and 2 Republicans.
So, calling 30% “leaning” ain’t just yellow journalism, Honey. It’s neon yellow with a poopie del pollo stripe down the middle. As far as we know, all 8 of the others are Republicans.
In my mind, that grand jury leans toward people who don’t care about polities all that much.
Sometimes I wonder why I read that newspaper. No, wait, make that damn near most of the time.
Thanks for the headline – I never read that newspaper – not enough comics in it to make it worthwhile to read.
1Poor, pitiful Perry (it’s alliterative, anyway) who has cost Texas taxpayers a very large bundle, who took federal hurricane relief money to pay for part of the mansion-restoration work, who’s refused to enlarge Medicaid so Texas poor can get medical coverage under ACA, who’s made a laughingstock of Texas by running so ineptly for the Republican Presidential nomination…
Alas, my sympathy barrel is empty for him.
2Headline writers. I guess we’re lucky we didn’t get:
This One Weird Ttrick Will Tell If You Have A Sympathetic Jury!
or
Voting Secrets the Grand Jury Doesn’t Want You To Know!
or
You Won’t Believe What This Grand Jury Wore To Court!
or
Twelve People Who Will Decide The Fate of Texas.
3@Elizabeth … love your comment! Especially your ending line: Alas, my sympathy barrel is empty for him.
LOL
4The only useful purpose of the Austin American Statesman is as either fishwrap or bird cage liner.
5JJ, I don’t read that newspaper.
Furthermore, I don’t read many newspapers….. at all.
We used to have “journalists, and investigative reporters,” who wrote for newspapers.
Now, we have “people who write for newspapers.”
There is a BIG difference.
Cheers.
6The special prosecutor who called for this grand jury is a hard core republican.
7Hope that special prosecutor is also a hard core prosecutor who will get to the bottom of things no matter who is in need of indictment.
8One of my friends was asked in a survey from AAS what she thought would improve the STATESMAN and she replied, “not having all the news articles advertising Republicans” or something like that. I agree. I get very annoyed that if you do read something that mentions a “D” candidate, you won’t find out till the last paragraph that really the whole thing was supposition or biased against the Democrat etc. Y’all go on over to the STATESMAN page and tell ’em what you think. Thank you. Marge the Bossy Old Grandmother of the World.
9Growling here. I know. I had my turn. Y’all carry on, I’ll see if I can pull up the STATESMAN website. And yes, WE SUBSCRIBE TO IT.
10Who trusts corporate-owned media?
11Corinne, nobody trusts them but what are we to do? I know, alternate media and JJ’s.
12If 4 out of 12 is Demo “leaning”. That’s the definition of “slanted” in the news business.
13I believe the standard is “one drop of liberal blood” makes you 100% liberal.
There is historical precedent.
14Frankly, it sounds like this rethug owned rag is desperate for business. And their reportage sounds totally cornball!
15I haven’t had any respect for the aas since 2000 when they endorsed dubya and damn well should have known better.
I wouldn’t even wrap my scraps for the compost in that drivel.
16Major points to Ralph Wiggam. Yes sir, one drop of tainted blood, and we and all “others” are what the RWNJs decide to conveniently define us to be. Except when they find it convenient to redefine us. At times they find it convenient to ‘see’ no difference between liberals like Sen Harry Reid or me. Trust me, Harry and I have our differences.
We really need to find a copy of their “exclusions, clauses and complete denial” playbook.
My read on all the RWNJ redefinitions of us is an indictment on their inability to re-brand themselves and package their same old failure 40 plus years size of failure into an election cycle size sack.
17Marge Wood, as much as this rag deserves our comments and scorn, the way their advertisers see $ is by subscriptions. Could we better send them a message by learning the twitter accounts of their editors, contributors, etc, then send our collected responses to those sources directly to their advertisers? Or, we could save time, ignore the Austin American Statesman and its personnel and go straight to their ad revenue.
18Wow! PKM, great idea! and it goes along with an idea I’ve had simmering on a back burner for awhile. I believe that the Koch bros et al are having a larger and larger influence in Texas and in Austin in particular. Can you find out more about advertisers and who they are behind? or who is behind them? Hmm. I guess we need some folks to work on this systematically. I mean, I know that TPPF is Koch bros and they have big offices about a block south of the Capitol and they have regular columns in the AAS.
19Marge Wood, I have saved several links to the Koch dark money, and you obviously have local knowledge.
This is just a sample: http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/koch-networks-fueled-2012-dark-money
There’s more. Maybe if you link the advertisers in the AAS, I can connect them to the money trail with your help and the help of everyone here.
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