LoHud.com reports (HT to an NB e-mailer) that White Plains, New York Mayor Adam Bradley "turned himself in to police headquarters … (Sunday) morning after his wife filed a complaint with police that he jammed her finger in a door around 9:30 a.m. Bradley was then arraigned on a third-degree misdemeanor assault charge at White Plains City Court."

The web site does not identify Bradley’s Democratic party affiliation, which is perhaps forgivable under a belief that most local readers might know it already.

The Associated Press has no such excuse, at least once one of its stories goes over the national wires, as this one has:

That’s pretty "clever" headlining, isn’t it? Given that many "suburban" mayors, even in the Empire State, are Republicans, quite a few readers will naturally believe that the city’s mayor is a GOP member.

There’s no reason to believe that whatever readers attempt to discern from the headline will change after they read the unbylined story, which repeats the "suburban" theme and also fails to identify Bradley as a Dem:

This obvious AP journalistic failure to follow its own stylebook, which tells reporters to name a public official’s party "if readers need it for understanding or are likely to be curious about what it is," nonetheless can be viewed as an agenda-based "success" in one respect. After all, if the wire service story doesn’t change future stories to flag Bradley’s party affiliation, and if it keeps its practices consistent in similar future stories about other politicians, here is what searches on "Democrat arraigned" will continue to return:

Fareed Zakaria used his CNN program Sunday to campaign for a national sales tax.

This came just two weeks after he absurdly accused the tax cuts implemented by George W. Bush of being the biggest cause of today’s budget deficit.

Zakaria began the most recent installment of "GPS" by first discussing how great a country America is, but "we have big problems."

"[T]he biggest one, by far, the one to worry about is the growing national debt."

Of course, his solution was to raise taxes (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST: Now, we have big problems, but the biggest one, by far, the one to worry about is the growing national debt. It’s worth reminding ourselves, however, this is not a fact of life that we simply have to accept. There are many simple economic measures that would correct the budgetary fix easily.

Let me give you just one, a value-added tax. Now, this is a tax that 130 countries have. It’s a tax on consumption, a national sales tax, if you will. Most countries have one that ranges from 5 to 25 percent. We have none.

Were we to adopt a national sales tax in the 10 to 14 percent range, it would allow us to eliminate the income tax for anyone earning 100,000 dollars, which is 90 percent of American households. If we went up to the highest rate, which is used in Scandinavian countries, many of which have grown faster than United States over the past two decades, we could eliminate the income tax for the vast majority of people, balance the federal budget, fund healthcare for all Americans, and slash the top income tax rate to 25 percent. So the solutions are out there. We just need leadership in Washington to implement some of them, stabilize the budget, and thus revive the fortunes of this country. Is there anyone in Washington willing to show that courage?

The first thing that should pop out is how once again Zakaria didn’t discuss cutting spending to address the growing national debt. With him, it’s always taxes.

And, as we made quite clear two weeks ago, he wants taxes dramatically raised on January 1, 2011, by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire.

Beyond this, when Zakaria said America has no national sales tax, he was ignoring that unlike most countries that do, we have state sales tax. In fact, all except Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon have some form of sales tax.

Obviously, this complicates matters greatly.

Beyond this, although most VAT schemes have a regressive component – meaning that they can have a greater percentage negative impact on folks making less money – Zakaria made his progressive tax proclivities quite clear:

Were we to adopt a national sales tax in the 10 to 14 percent range, it would allow us to eliminate the income tax for anyone earning 100,000 dollars, which is 90 percent of American households. If we went up to the highest rate, which is used in Scandinavian countries, many of which have grown faster than United States over the past two decades, we could eliminate the income tax for the vast majority of people.

Clearly, his vision is one where a continually greater amount of the total taxes collected are paid by those he and his ilk consider wealthy, which more and more means having a decent job or owning a business.

As such, the scheme he advocated, which includes funding "healthcare for all Americans," is just another redistribution of wealth scam liberal media members love.

Now, if Zakaria wants to discuss a strategy whereby income taxes are completely replaced by sales taxes, I’m all ears.

Until that point, his modus operandi is quite transparent, and not at all in the best interest of working Americans across the fruited plain.

In a week where several news outlets recognized significant happenings involving the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the Associated Press seems to have decided that none of them merit mention. A search on "acorn" at the AP’s main site returns the following:

This search doesn’t completely eliminate the possibility that AP ran local or regional stories, but I didn’t locate any in a Google News search on "ACORN."

What follows is a small sample of other coverage generated as a result of goings-on at ACORN during the past week. Readers can decide whether the wire service has decided that recognizing negative news about a scandal-ridden "progressive" organization is a bad idea:

• Fox News, Feb. 23 — "ACORN Hopes New Image Can Save Disgraced Advocacy Group"
• New York Times City Room Blog, Feb. 23 — "Restart, ACORN Edition"
• Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 23 — "ACORN breaks apart in scandal’s wake"
• New York Daily News, Feb. 23 — "ACORN’s New York branch to cut all ties with national parent group"
• Reuters, Feb. 22 — "Scandals weaken liberal group ACORN"

AP has done stories with far less substantive raw material from elsewhere. Why not on ACORN?

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Chris Matthews believes it’s too soon for George W. Bush nostalgia.

Such was discussed during this weekend’s syndicated program bearing his name.

In fact, Matthews made this his big question of the day asking his guests, "Will there be George W. Bush nostalgia this November when his book comes out?"

To his discredit, Matthews was the only person of the five in front of the camera that felt the answer was no concluding, "I think he needs a little more time to be away" (video embedded below the fold with transcript):  

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Welcome back. On Friday, George W. Bush said his memoir comes out November. That’ll be two years since Barack Obama’s victory, which some say was a repudiation of the Bush years. And that brings us to this week’s big question: Will there be George W. Bush nostalgia this November when his book comes out? Kelly.

KELLY O’DONNELL, NBC NEWS: Well, every president gets a bit of that and I think the more George Bush is not visible, not talking now, the more there will be interest in what he had to say.

MATTHEWS: Will there be nostalgia?

O’DONNELL: For some there will be.

MATTHEWS: Okay, David Ignatius.

DAVID IGNATIUS, WASHINGTON POST: It depends in large part on where things are in Iraq. If after the election next month, Iraq looks stable, a lot people are going to say, you know, we weren’t comfortable with it at the time but George Bush was right.

MATTHEWS: Kathleen, Bush nostalgia for the young Bush?

KATHLEEN PARKER, WASHINGTON POST: I think David makes an excellent point. That will be the key to whether there’s any nostalgia. But, you know, George Bush has conducted himself awfully nobly since he left office in terms of hanging back.

MICHAEL DUFFY, TIME MAGAZINE: Compared to Cheney.

PARKER: Yeah. Compared to Cheeney, as Chris would say.

MATTHEWS: No, that’s how his name is pronounced actually.

PARKER: I think people will appreciate that. And they, you know, there’s admiration for certain things about him that transcend his accomplishments.

MATTHEWS: So, there will be nostalgia?

PARKER: Some, yes.

DUFFY: Sure, as long as everyone’s competing memoirs don’t open up all the debates we’ve been talking about. And they are all coming out. But I think these things get better with time.

MATTHEWS: I think it’s too soon. I think he needs a little more time to be away before he gets the David McCullough treatment.

Interesting how even those who disagreed with Matthews did so rather guardedly and with disdain for the former President with the possible exceptions of Ignatius and Parker.

Exit question: Who’s right?