Voting Rights Bill Blocked by Parties Unknown—According to Headlines

With the GOP leaning ever more heavily on a strategy of voter suppression and election manipulation to gain power, Democrats finally made an effort to stop some of those maneuvers by bringing a voting rights bill before the Senate. But Wednesday’s unified GOP filibuster—and the refusal by Democratic senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin to modify Senate rules to allow a majority vote on this one bill—killed the attempt.

To the New York Times headline writers (1/19/21), the story went: “After a Day of Debate, the Voting Rights Bill Is Blocked in the Senate.” Their counterparts at CNN.com (1/19/21)...