Note: This post will be kept at the top all of Friday.
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I wanted to rip on this over a week ago when Bronson’s column appeared, but I had heard that some improvement in the Enquirer’s Invisibler’s coverage of the US Senate race was coming.

Silly me. I should have known better.

Peter Bronson, in a February 28 Cincinnati Enquirer Invisibler column about RINOs (Republicans in Name Only), wrapped up with this question and answer:

Is DeWine threatened?

No. RINOs apparently have no natural predators in the Republican Party except Blackwell, and he’s stalking Petro.

Bronson has apparently never heard of Bill Pierce, David Smith, or John Mitchel, all of whom are listed at the Secretary of State’s web site.

Bronson’s ignorance is in a way understandable but still unforgivable — no one else at The Cincinnati Enquirer Invisibler is acknowledging the existence of DeWine’s challengers either.

They should.

Folks, I’ve followed politics around here for a bit over 30 years, and I can tell you this: I have never, ever, seen an incumbent US Senator from Ohio of either party suffer as many stinging rebukes as Mike DeWine has suffered at the hands of county endorsement groups this year. In every DeWine rebuke, the beneficiary has been challenger Bill Pierce (in Knox, Clermont, and Preble Counties; the other two challengers have as of yet had no breakthrough performances).

I also have never seen the party establishment of either party “cleverly” manipulate the county endorsement process, in so many cases, and so obviously, to ensure that an incumbent US Senator from Ohio is not further humiliated. They have even, in the case of Hamilton County, taken endorsement-process manipulation to the extreme of completely “scripting” the meeting to ensure that challengers weren’t fairly considered. Even though the scripting was exposed (including the script itself) and never disputed, the Enquirer Invisibler totally ignored it.

There’s a reason for Mike DeWine’s difficulties: He is unpopular with rank and file GOP voters. Mike DeWine cannot win the May primary if one of his challengers gains visibility and recognition as a genuine alternative with clear positions, a clear message, and authentic conservative values, as Bill Pierce is oh-so-close to doing (I have reasons for believing that Pierce is near the threshold beyond what is generally known).

All of this is newsworthy by any objective standard. Yet The Cincinnati Enquirer Invisibler has run no news about the Pierce campaign since he announced his candidacy in November, and its so-called Politics Extra blog has been similarly silent.

To find out what’s happening with Ohio’s most viable GOP US Senatorial challenger, who happens to be a hometowner, a Cincinnati news consumer has to visit the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s blog, where Bill Sloat has noticed the news blackout from over 200 miles away, and has picked up on the establishment’s attempts to avoid further humiliating DeWine.

There are still 7-1/2 weeks remaining in the primary campaign, which is plenty of time for the Enquirer Invisibler to find and appropriately cover what may turn out to be the political story of the year in Ohio (as I’ve noted, in a lot of ways, it already is). If the political reporters at the Enquirer Invisibler end up missing this story, someone at Gannett could reasonably conclude that no one will miss their absence from the paper.
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UPDATE: I should also ask others around the country who are reading this — When is the last time an incumbent US Senator of either party got taken out in a primary?

From Editor & Publisher (HT Drudge), about the news that The Washington Post Company is cutting 80 newsroom jobs, or about 10%, through buyouts and attrition:

Sources said editors explained that some of the foreign cuts were the result of high costs covering the Iraq war, up to $1 million per year. But they stressed that war coverage would not be reduced, at least for the moment.

So ….. if Bush hadn’t gone into Iraq, some of those 80 jobs would still be there. Uh-huh.

Snide comment 1: How many more wars does Bush have to start before The Washington Post has to shut down?

Snide comment 2: Covering a war from the Baghdad Sheraton is probably more expensive for the company than covering it out in the field, though the reporters will have to learn how to get by without the shrimp cocktail.

Additional snide remarks are welcome from the snidely inclined.

Finally, in one place, Michael Fumento cuts through the clutter in his critique of CBS’s coverage of stem cell research (link to previous item added by me; bolds are mine):

CBS’s Stem Cell Shenanigans
By Michael Fumento (03/08/2006)

A year ago I wrote an article titled: “Why the Media Miss the Stem Cell Story.” It discussed the almost total disregard of adult stem cells (ASCs) and the glorification of “miraculous” human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) – notwithstanding that the adult ones treat over 80 human diseases while embryonics haven’t even made it to human testing.

For a wonderful example of this triumph of hype and politics over reality, look no further than two CBS News 60 Minutes segments that aired towards the end of February. One was “Scientist Hopes for Stem Cell Success” hosted by Ed Bradley (who also hosted the 1989 show that began the Alar “poison apple” scare). The other was a “Surplus of Embryos” hosted by Leslie Stahl. Both presented ESCs as potentially curing every disease known; both omitted any reference to ASCs.

Bradley, in his opening words, informed viewers that ESCs comprise “a field that shows enormous promise, but has been restricted by a ban on federal funding for research because it involves the destruction of human embryos.”

Sorry Mr. Ed, but there is no ban on federal funding for ESC research, as even your colleague Stahl pointed out a week before. The ban covers only cell lines developed after August 2001. Further, if ESC research were so “enormously promising,” why is progress so agonizingly slow?

Apologists say it’s because the first human line of ESCs wasn’t established until 1998. What they don’t say is that this is because, while ESCs were discovered in the 1950s at the same time as ASCs, ESCs are so terribly complicated to work with it that took almost half a century to establish that line. Further, they remain terribly hard to work with.

That’s why despite all the cures and treatments we have with ASCs and the nearly 1000 clinical trials currently using them, there have been no ESC clinical trials. Nor will there be until, ESC researchers work out “minor” difficulties with their alleged miracle workers.

For one, they tend to be rejected by the recipient. ASCs are rarely rejected and naturally are never so when culled from the recipient himself. ESCs also have a nasty tendency to form cancerous teratomas (“monster tumors”) in recipients.

Until these problems are solved, ESCs are going nowhere fast. Yet neither Bradley nor Stahl mentioned them.

….. Since 2002 it’s been known that (adult) stem cells repair damaged human brains. These stem cells can be plucked from the brain itself, but also a much more easily accessed source – bone marrow. Repaired cells include both neurons and glial cells.

As to fixing broken hearts, that’s old hat with adult stem cells. Marrow cells are now easily and painlessly extracted from the blood, cultivated, and injected back into the bloodstream where they zero in on the damage and repair it. They also grow new blood vessels, bypassing the need for heart bypass surgery.

CBS either knew or should have known about all of these developments, yet it mentioned none. Like most of the media, it remains obsessed with promoting a will o’ the wisp science while ignoring an alternative that’s been saving lives for decades and also avoids ethical concerns.

The network needs to have somebody in charge who can restore a higher level of honesty. You know, like Dan Rather.

Summary:

• Adult stem cell research (ASCR) — in scores of situtations, very close to being used for successful treatment of some of the most deadly and debilitating diseases we face.
• Embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) — The “Hail Mary pass” of science, promising the moon but at this point delivering nothing.
• Coverage by the WORMs (Worn-Out Reactionary Media, known to most as the Mainstream Media) — almost exclusively slanted towards ESCR. Why? Successful ESCR would go a long way towards “legitimizing” the devaluation of human life inherent in abortion, euthanasia, cloning, and the like. On the other hand, successful ASCR would (and I believe will) make ESCR unnecessary, and happily advances medical ethics at the same time. If you’re a WORM reporter, pushing ESCR and dissing ASCR a no-brainer. If you’re a person who wants to see progess in research that will actually bear fruit, you support ASCR.

Free Links:

• Watching local news stories on health issues may be bad for your health (HT Lucianne).
• 2005, the year Hollywood would rather forget (covered in previous posts here, here, here, here, and here) was apparently a worldwide phenomenon.
• Following up on a post from Wednesday, S.O.B. Alliance member Porkopolis caught a press release from Senator Jim DeMint’s office urging the President not to spend any money allocated to earmarks that were not specifically included in the actual text of legislation passed. According to the Congressional Records Service, non-specified earmarks of this nature are not legally binding. Regardless of whether or not the president actually does so, if it really is true that earmarks have to have the transparency of forced presence in actual legislation, the Era of Out-of-Control Pork may be coming to a whimpering end. We can only hope.
• S.O.B. Alliance member Large Bill found a story about a homeowners association in Tampa threatening the wife of a soldier deployed in Iraq who has a “Support our Troops” sign in her yard with a $100 per day fine if she doesn’t remove it. Homeowners’ assocations have far too many petty tyrants with far too many petty rules.
• It’s a good morning for scavenging posts from the Alliance — Conservative Culture found a story of uber-Political Correctness about a childcare center in Britain that “is teaching children to sing Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep rather than Baa Baa Black Sheep to avoid causing offence.” You can’t make this stuff up.
• Forbes’ latest “Richest in the World” list has 793 billionaires, up from 691 a year ago. A look at the detail indicates that none of them appears to be a relative.
• Greedy Oil Baron Gets a Pass — Most people don’t know that Citgo is owned by the government of Venezuela (actually, “the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela” as described at the company’s About page). Because of the fact that it has raised money from the general public in the past by issuing bonds, it has to submit its finanancial statements to The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) like any other “publicly held” company. This does not please Venezuelan ruler Hugo Chavez. Citgo announced on March 2 that it will “go dark” and avoid future SEC and public scrutiny by buying back those bonds. Hmm…. an oil company with less accountability and transparency. This sounds like something the WORMs (Worn-Out Reactionary Media, known to most as the Mainstream Media) would jump on as a corporate scandal. But, as Ken Shepherd of the Free Market Project notes, the story has garnered zero coverage. Kid-glove treatment for leftist dictators is more important than making them accountable, especially when there’s ExxonMobil nearby to kick around at any time.

Yes, this is a postiive post — A woman defended herself and is safe and sound, while those who wanted to rob her are in custody. You can’t beat that (HT S.O.B. Alliance member Made4TheInternet):

75-Year-Old Woman Defends Herself Against Thieves

A couple of thieves in Akron picked the wrong house to rob, ONN Affiliate WEWS reports.

75-year-old Eleanor Lynn saw strangers coming inside her house and took action.

She pulled out her chrome-plated automatic pistol that she calls, “The Peacemaker,” and the thieves ran away.

Neighbor Loleta Gill knew that the strangers were up to no good when she saw them walking slowly in front of her neighbor’s house at around 10 a.m.

“They stopped and I was looking out the kitchen window and I could see they kept looking at the house and everything,” Gill said.

Within minutes, the thieves were at the front door of Lynn’s home.

Lynn said that she keeps her gun in her chair with her. After pulling out the gun, the thieves saw it and quickly left the premises.

She called the police and they caught the thieves a short time later.