Neglecting any thought about cutting spending anywhere within the federal budget, for instance some of the soaring entitlement spending, CBS's Katie Couric on Thursday night wondered if taxpayers are “ready to spend” the “trillions” needed to repair the nation's infrastructure. Just the night before, Couric's newscast illustrated why entitlement spending keeps rising faster than inflation and population growth, as she aired a sympathetic look at “getting medical coverage for the millions of American children who don't have it,” a relatively (compared to total entitlement spending) small plan which would hike spending by $50 billion over five years.

Couric's assumption about higher taxes came as she introduced an August 2 CBS Evening News story from Nancy Cordes on the estimate by the American Society of Civil Engineers, a group obviously in favor of additional public works project spending, that it will cost $1.6 trillion to address infrastructure needs. Live from Minneapolis, Couric asked: “Experts have been warning for years that this country's infrastructure is crumbling. But are taxpayers ready to spend the billions, maybe trillions, it would take to fix all the pipelines, tunnels and bridges?” (Comparative budget numbers below)

Jebediah Reed at Radar Online interviewed Cindy Sheehan about, among other topics, her treatment on CNN. The woman CNN hailed and promoted as the "Peace Mom" was outraged that anchor Anderson Cooper had the audacity to bring on two men who disagreed with her after an interview: "I just thought that was really uncalled for." Apparently, what’s called for is Cindy Sheehan being awarded an unopposed platform to spew against the Iraq War and President Bush. Here’s an excerpt:

You're also not a fan of Anderson Cooper. What did he do?
He came down to Camp Casey to do a hit piece on me. It was just handled very badly. He had me on, and then he brought on some people right afterwards—a father whose son died in Iraq and a Dallas talk-show host—who just said some despicable things about me. I just thought that was really uncalled for.

CNN's Jack Cafferty on Thursday afternoon managed to use the Minneapolis bridge collapse tragedy to take another shot at the Iraq war as he pointed out how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost $600 billion and featured an e-mailer who complained spending on infrastructure is “a drop in the bucket compared to $450 billion wasted in Iraq.”

[UPDATE, 8:35pm EDT: Cafferty's question during the 7pm EDT hour of The Situation Room: “In light of the Minnesota bridge collapse, how could the U.S. better spend the $2 billion a week that we're pouring into Iraq here at home?” Cafferty later decided to feature an e-mail response from Steven in Hawaii who sarcastically suggested: “Just identify all of America's infrastructure as Taliban, or Islamic extremists or gay marriage proponents and presto all the money in the federal budget will be thrown at it to 'attack' the problem!”]

On tonight's Hardball, Mike Barnicle, substitute-hosting for Chris Matthews, used the tragedy of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis to call for bigger government and wondered, "Does this help the Democrats?" All throughout tonight's show, Barnicle repeatedly pressed his guests to call for an increase in the size of government and at one point even demanded: "Government's gotta get bigger!"

First up Barnicle asked the liberal Barney Frank where he would find the money to pay for bridge repair. After Frank responded that he would "end the war in Iraq" and raise taxes to improve America's infrastructure, Barnicle took the Congressman's cue to advance the tax hike/big government theme for the entirety of the show.

The following are just some of the exchanges as they occured on the August 2, edition of MSNBC's Hardball:

If all else fails – blame the housing market. It works for NBC.

This time a struggling housing market is the reason auto sales are struggling. The week before, it was responsible for the drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.  

Good thing “Nightly News” is focusing on global warming solutions or the network might even try to pin that on the housing market.

“Even Toyota sales fell and blamed a weak housing market for a plunge in light truck sales,” said “Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams on August 1. Williams also managed to mention that the DJIA finished up 150 points “despite the fact that the housing and mortgage market are showing even more signs of weakness now.”

If the Ethics Bill just approved by Congress had passed this time last year, a media hell-bent on giving Democrats control of that governmental branch would have lambasted the legislation as an election year stunt by Republicans desperately trying to distance themselves from their own culture of corruption.

Yet, twelve months later, with Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) at the helm, it seems a metaphysical certitude Katie, Charlie, and Brian will hail this bill's passage as a crowning achievement of Democrats that vowed to clean up Washington.

In fact, you can already see the self-congratulations in the Associated Press article written shortly after the votes were counted (emphasis added throughout):

If anyone in the media blames the Minnesota bridge collapse on "cheap Republicans" who like tax cuts, it would not be the first time. In 1989, after a memorable San Francisco earthquake, an interstate highway bridge collapsed and killed hundreds. Media figures demanded new taxes, and some even suggested the Proposition 13 ballot initiative may have caused unnecessary deaths. We reported in the November 1989 MediaWatch:

As aftershocks rumbled through the San Francisco Bay area, media figures began calling for more taxes. On the October 18 Nightline, Ted Koppel asked an agreeable Democratic politician from California: "We all remember a few years ago Proposition 13 which rolled back taxes. And at the same time the point was made you roll back the taxes, that's fine, but that means there are going to be fewer funds available for necessary projects. Any instances where the money that was not spent because of the rollback of Proposition 13 where money would have made a difference?"

I found a rarity in Iraq media coverage in the August 2 Washington Post: a positive story on U.S. troops in Iraq. And it was on page 11. Not A-11 or B-11 but T-11, or the 11th page of my "Prince George's Extra," a special tabloid section that comes with Thursday editions of the Washington Post.

Home delivery subscribers get the local extra section tailored to their respective county or city of residence. Glancing over the front page of the Extra section, I spotted this teaser headline: "Military Matters. Puppets are helping soldiers connect with children in Iraq."

I flipped to page 11 and sure enough found a positive "Military Matters" story by reporter Steve Vogel. Unfortunately, I'll have to wait two weeks to see if the next one is similarly upbeat.

The Young America's Foundation (YAF) is being threatened with legal action for including Robert Spencer, the author of several books on terrorism and Islam, in its line-up of speakers this week in Washington, D.C.

Spencer spoke Thursday afternoon at George Washington University as part of YAF's 29th National Conservative Student Conference. His topic was entitled "The Truth About the Council on American Islamic Relations." This same organization, CAIR, demanded that YAF either withdraw its invitation to Spencer or take alternative steps to prevent any false remarks from being made.

"We will not be intimidated by radical Islamic thugs," a YAF spokesman said. "Not only will we let Robert Spencer speak, but we will invite even more people to hear him. We are not going to fluctuate the conference just to suit their demands."

Commonsense teaches that, if one deliberately with aforethought puts oneself into oncoming traffic, one is going to get run over. As such, that is what you deserve.

To some, such a sentiment brings to mind elderly grandmothers crossing the street and young children absentmindedly chasing after an errant ball. However, that is not what I am referring to.

Those I am referring to are protestors and self-appointed revolutionaries thinking that they are so important and much more better than you that they somehow have the right to literally bring your life to a screeching halt to compel you to listen to their juvenile tantrums by impeding the flow of oncoming traffic

Two incidents in recent months hint that this tactic may become more prevalent in the future as leftists ratchet up their propensity towards mayhem and violence in an attempt to intimidate the American people into acquiescing to their socialistic demands.

On this morning's Today show, NBC's Meredith Vieira and Dr. Nancy Snyderman became born-again libertarians in their opposition to New York City's ban on bottle feeding babies. Vieira called the measure "drastic" and Snyderman urged, "not so fast." The ban even inspired "Today" to coin a new series segment called "Nanny State." However, back in 2006, when New York City infringed on another right - the right to eat fatty foods, Snyderman struck a different tone, as she gravely warned about the dangers of trans fats.

First up Vieira opened the bottle feeding ban segment on the August 2, "Today" this way:

(h/t Allahpundit of Hot Air)

Sounding more like ABC's Sam Champion or Al Gore than a "fair and balanced" news anchor, Fox's Shepard Smith slammed Americans in general and his studio audience in particular in a recent "Studio B" interview with a British man who swam at the North Pole as a global warming-related publicity stunt.

See the YouTube video below the fold. Here's an excerpt of the exchange:

The mainstream press has been shying away from a case that should worry everyone who is concerned about freedom of speech and how terrorism is funded. Faced with a civil suit, the Cambridge University Press has agreed to destroy any unsold copies of the book "Alms for Jihad" (2006). The publisher has also said it will contact some 200 libraries to ask that copies in their possession be returned.

Written by American authors Robert Collins and J. Millard Burr, the book became the subject of a libel suit in Britain when one Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz claimed it defamed him as a terrorist. Rather than fight the allegations in court, the publisher apologized, said it would destroy the remaining copies, and will pay damages and court costs. (Interestingly enough, Sheikh Mahfouz is worth $3.1 billion. He plans to donate the money to UNICEF.)

Updated. See below fold.

If you have trouble imagining the establishment media speaking at CPAC -- although I do remember a slick Tim Russert and a prickly Ted Koppel attending one at the invitation of Accuracy in Media ten years ago -- it's not as hard to imagine "objective" reporters at the second annual lefty-blogger Yearly Kos convention, this year in Chicago. Mike Allen of the Politico (formerly of Time), Matt Bai of the New York Times Magazine (formerly of Newsweek) and Time deputy Washington bureau chief Jay Carney will all be speaking at the Chicago event. At the Huffington Post, blogger Ari Melber explains he will be moderating a let's-kiss-and-make-up panel on Friday between the media and bloggers featuring Allen and Carney:

I'm moderating a panel that will pair bloggers Glenn Greenwald and Jill Filipovic with The Politico's Mike Allen and Time magazine's Jay Carney, to discuss whether media-blog relations can evolve towards more constructive interactions. We're calling it "Blogs and the MSM: From Clash to Civilization."

Bai will help moderate a "presidential leadership forum" on Saturday. The Kosmonaut hosts boasted:

Is it the pinnacle of an anti-American, socialist actor's career to be praised by an anti-American, socialist dictator?

If so, Sean Penn is on quite a high today -- which of course is nothing unusual -- as the so-called president of Venezuela -- the lovable Hugo Chavez -- had wonderful things to say about the actor made famous as a pot-smoking surfer in the teen movie "Fast Times at Ridgemont High."

As reported by the Associated Press (emphasis added throughout, h/t Dan Gainor):

When leading Republican candidates Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney demurred on attending a Republican presidential debate hosted by the video-hosting site YouTube, some web-savvy Republicans protested. That's the background for New York Times reporter Katharine Seelye's "Allies Urge Republicans to Join YouTube Debate" Thursday.

"When the leading Republican presidential candidates started to squirm last week about attending a Sept. 17 YouTube debate, in which the public would ask questions via video, there was a surprising backlash from the world of Republican and conservative bloggers."

What's so "surprising" about bloggers wanting their party's candidates to participate in an Internet debate?

Seelye later referred to the situation as "a mess." Then there was this identification of blogger-author Andrew Sullivan

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has received plenty of flak from both the Left and the Right for various reasons, but CNN's "American Morning" on Wednesday spent more than six minutes discussing an article critical of Giuliani's wife in the latest issue of the left-wing glossy magazine "Vanity Fair." Co-host John Roberts interviewed the author of the article, Judy Bachrach, as well as got a response from Giuliani friend and campaign aide Randy Mastro. In addition to this, "American Morning" ran a segment from "Anderson Cooper 360" political reporter Tom Foreman on Giuliani's criticism of the universal health care proposals of several Democrat presidential candidates. Foreman, using an overexcited tone in his voice, compared Giuliani to Tony Soprano, and portrayed Giuliani in a pretty unflattering light. (see more including transcript after the jump)

Video (0:56): Real (1.54 MB) or Windows (1.74 MB), plus MP3 audio (309 kB). 

On the heels of an earth-shattering exploration of the 237 reasons people have sex --I swear, someone's going to make this into a coffee table book and get rich off of it -- Chicago Tribune faith and religion blogger Manya Brachear wondered, "Can sex bring you closer to God?"

Brachear opened her August 1 "The Seeker" blog entry:

Why do so many people of faith seem obsessed with sex? Or it just the people who cover them?

Although Brachear tossed out the possibility that it's the media that are sex-obsessed, she quickly turned her attention to just how prudish she thinks America's numerous faith traditions are: