Progressive News Feeds

With the U.S. Senate having voted to take up legislation to strengthen gun laws, which will likely include a bipartisan proposal to expand federal firearms background checks, Media Matters reviews myths the media has promoted about the background check system. How do federal background checks work

Tags: desktop, discrimination, economy, environment, government, hate speech, media matters, opinion, pennsylvania, the nation

Fox News is using its lack of knowledge about the Voting Rights Act and basic civil rights law to smear the nomination of Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas Perez for Secretary of Labor. The Voting Rights Act (VRA) and Section 5, a provision within the law that requires jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting practices to submit election changes for federal review, has been a source of difficulty for Fox News. On the March 14 edition of America Live , Fox News host Megyn Kelly and frequent guest Jay Sekulow attacked Perez by incorrectly describing the role of race in race-conscious civil rights law, such as the VRA.

Tags: america, discrimination, economy, environment, feeds, health, opinion, science

A top executive at a Colorado newspaper has sparked controversy after he sent an email to a state senator opposing legislative efforts to strengthen gun laws that the legislator took as a threat of retaliation by the paper. Ray Stafford, general manager of the  Pueblo   Chieftain , sent a March 3  email  to State Sen.

Tags: breaking news, democratic, environment, foreign-policy, health, network, opinion, progressive news

The Washington Post ‘s ombudsman responded to claims that the paper’s coverage of the same-sex marriage debate is too “pro-gay,” noting that one reporter called it an issue of “justice and fairness.” The debate over the Post ‘s stance highlights a growing and significant divide in the way that journalists choose to write about the fight for LGBT equality. On February 22, the Post ‘s ombudsman Patrick Pexton published a response to reader complaints that the paper “has a ‘pro-gay agenda’ and publishes too many ‘puffy’ stories about gay marriage.” Recounting an exchange between one reader and a WaPo reporter, Pexton defended the Post ‘s coverage, comparing anti-gay discrimination to the kind of discrimination faced by African-Americans during the 1950s and 60s: Replied the reporter: “The reason that legitimate media outlets routinely cover gays is because it is the civil rights issue of our time. Journalism, at its core, is about justice and fairness, and that’s the ‘view of the world’ that we espouse ; therefore, journalists are going to cover the segment of society that is still not treated equally under the law.” The reader: “Contrary to what you say, the mission of journalism is not justice.

Tags: africa, america, author, discrimination, environment, health, lgbt, opinion, science, the nation, video

National media tend to assume conservative Justice Antonin Scalia’s vote in the upcoming Voting Rights Act case – a federal trial court  and  a federal appeals court  found, there is no room for equivocation [as in recent school desegregation cases]. If Justice Kennedy votes to strike down Section 5, he will be calling a halt to an unfinished effort to end what the Supreme Court once called  “an insidious and pervasive evil.” Congress gathered an enormous amount of evidence in 2006 about the persistence of voting discrimination in covered jurisdictions

Tags: civil-rights, congress, economy, environment, foreign policy, foreign-policy, jobs, media matters, opinion, political, security, war

Fox News contributor Bill Kristol has recently headed a relentless attack campaign against former Sen. Chuck Hagel after President Obama nominated Hagel to be the next defense secretary. However, Kristol used to speak favorably towards Hagel, only changing his opinion when Hagel voted in favor of a withdrawal timeline for the Iraq War in 2007

Tags: america, articles, breaking news, discrimination, economy, environment, iraq, media matters, network, opinion, science

Fox News host Megyn Kelly and frequent Fox guest Lars Larson attempted to compare Bob Costas’ discussion of gun control to Hank Williams Jr. associating Obama with Hitler and Don Imus calling a women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos.”  Fox has joined the right-wing media in criticizing NBC’s Costas for questioning America’s gun culture following the murder-suicide committed by Kansas City Chiefs football player Jovan Belcher. On the December 3 edition of Fox’s America’s Newroom , Larson and host Megyn Kelly attempted to make a series of bizarre comparisons between Costas’ comments and remarks by former MSNBC host Don Imus and former ESPN personality Hank Williams Jr

Tags: author, elections, feeds, health, kansas, media, media matters, opinion, planned parenthood, security

A widely mocked article attacking feminists prompted Rush Limbaugh to justify his own decades of sexism and feminist-bashing, as well as to repeat a discredited attack on a feminist professor. On the November 30 edition of his syndicated radio show, Limbaugh read from a Fox News.com article by Suzanne Venker claiming that she has “accidentally stumbled upon a subculture of men who’ve told me, in no uncertain terms, that they’re never getting married” because “women aren’t women anymore” and arguing that “the dearth of good men, and ongoing battle of the sexes” is “women’s fault.” Venker cited as evidence that “for the first time in history, women have become the majority of the U.S. workforce

Tags: articles, economy, education, elections, jobs, michigan, opinion, science, taxes, university, war

A Washington Times op-ed by Ammon Simon promotes arguments made in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Wall Street reform law known as “Dodd-Frank,” but fails to acknowledge that these arguments are based on constitutional theories that the Supreme Court rejected decades ago. Simon, policy counsel for the Judicial Crisis Network and a former assistant attorney general of Missouri, calls for greater support in the lawsuit against Dodd-Frank, arguing that the case is the “latest example of the important role that state attorneys general can play when it comes to resisting the federal government’s excesses.” He promotes the challengers’ argument that the reform law is unconstitutional and writes that: Dodd-Frank’s kiss is intensified by an unconstitutional regulatory structure. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau grants its director czar-like power, combining the authority with little legislative, executive or judicial oversight

Tags: congress, economy, elections, foreign-policy, health, media, media matters, opinion, science, security

The Florida’s Ethics Commission said Wednesday that it found 11 potential ethics violations by freshman Rep. David Rivera (R-FL) from his time as a state legislator.

Tags: author, david rivera, fbi, health, mitt-romney, opinion, progressive news, thinkprogress