Let’s see if the MSM notices this story

So far, the mainstream media (including The N&O) has ignored or drastically downplayed the story that shots were fired into Virginia Republican Congressman Eric Cantor’s office in his district. Meanwhile, the MSM has vastly overplayed the questionable, and probably made up, stories of spitting and epithets aimed at Democrats.

Let’s see if they ignore this story:

Today, a two-count complaint and warrant was filed charging Norman Leboon with threatening to kill United States Congressman Eric Cantor and his family, and threatening to kill Congressman Eric Cantor, who is an official of the United States, announced United States Attorney Michael L. Levy and FBI Special Agent in Charge Jan Fedarcyk.

Michael Mann: Gee, I wish I’d been ethical back then

Woulda, coulda, shoulda:

Penn State global warming scientist Michael E. Mann regrets he did not instantly object when a fellow climatologist asked him in 2008 to delete e-mails subject to Freedom of Information requests.

”I wish in retrospect I had told him, ‘Hey, you shouldn’t even be thinking about this,”’ Mann told The Morning Call in his first interview since the university last month launched an investigation into his conduct. ”I didn’t think it was an appropriate request.”

It’s the Bad Economy…Or Is It?

The state of North Carolina is behind on issuing income tax refunds. It’s easy to presume the lag is due to the poor economy. But what role have state legislators and the governor played in the delay? (emphasis is mine)

Joe Coletti – director of fiscal policy studies for the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank – said the Democratic-controlled state legislature can’t blame the delay only on the economy because that legislature increased the budget this year despite falling revenues.

“It’s something the legislature should have planned for,” he said.

But Coletti said he doubted there is much political hay to be made of the delay.

“By November I think it’ll be forgotten,” he said.

In other words, when you continue to spend, spend, spend when you know the economy is struggling and revenues will be sluggish, this is what you get.

Don’t Mess With Mama

Politico reports on the growing number of conservative women who have joined the fight over health insurance and health care. In fact, a recent Quinnipiac University poll finds that 55 percent of the members of the tea party movement are women — deflating the leftist talking point that tea party members are just angry white males.

Then there’s the observation below. While I disagree with the professor’s assertion about conservative women having to struggle for political inclusion, her thought is interesting. Elected leaders should take note.

Melanie Gustafson, an associate professor of history at the University of Vermont who has studied and written about the role of women in politics, said the tea party has provided a more direct way for conservative women to have influence than the Republican Party, where she says “women have always struggled for inclusion.”

Gustafson said the surge of female activism in the tea parties is similar in some ways to the response to Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party in 1912 from “women who couldn’t vote, but who saw it as moment where they could enter directly into politics, rather than by influencing their husbands.”

“There’s something happening here (in the tea party movement) in the same way which is bypassing the parties and I think women are comfortable with that type of organizing, because it’s community organizing” that revolves around family rituals.