Matthew Sheffield's blog

We already know that the punitive tax hikes on a small number of wealthy individuals favored by liberals will do almost nothing to pay off the national debt. What we didn't know is just how divided Democrats are as to who will get the shocking tax increases.

The Hill reports today that congressional Democrats can't agree on who should be targeted to pay more in taxes, those families making $250,000 or more or those making more than that. The prolonged debate (most of which hasn't been too public) reveals just how much of a political game the whole thing is:

If you’ve ever wondered why you don’t hear much reporting on some of the dreadful traditions and lack of rights that women in the Islamic world often face, MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry provided a perfect illustration in a recent discussion with Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy.

Eltahawy’s essay, which appeared in the magazine Foreign Policy, is a straightforward attempt to disabuse people of the notion that there is any sort of equivalence between the treatment of women in the Islamic and Western worlds. In her words, non-Arabs need to “resist cultural relativism and know that even in countries undergoing revolutions and uprisings, women will remain the cheapest bargaining chips.”

It appears we have a trend, ladies and gentlemen. Significant numbers of Democratic voters in several states have now voted their displeasure against the extreme liberalism of the Obama Administration.

The president faced another embarrassment Tuesday night as over 40 percent of Democratic primary voters in the states of Kentucky and Arkansas voted against Barack Obama. The two states joined West Virginia where 43 percent of Democrats voted in favor of an imprisoned Texas felon over the imperious chief executive:

A new biography of legendary CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite reveals some amazing facts about Cronkite's liberal bias and various transgressions of journalistic ethics which expose the falsity of the establishment media's carefully-crafted image of neutrality.

As Jonathan S. Tobin wrote for Commentary, the revelations about Cronkite undermine “the mainstream media’s myth about its own impartiality” before the birth of Fox News. If you believe the self-described mainstream media, it is Fox News which is irredeemably biased and not themselves:

File this one under wishful thinking -- or simply just another case of a liberal newspaper trying to help President Barack Obama's floundering re-election effort. The Tennessean, the daily newspaper in Tennessee's capital city Nashville, over the weekend trumpeted this headline: "Vanderbilt Poll: Obama Closes Gap With Romney."

According to the article, Obama is just one point behind Romney in one of the reddest states in the South, a state John McCain won in 2008 by 15.1 percentage points over Obama. It's also a state where the Republican Party captured near two-thirds majorities in both houses of the state legislature in 2010 and where voters chose Republicans in 7 of 9 congressional districts. The state has a popular Republican governor elected in landslide that same year, and both its U.S. Senators are Republicans.

So … how does it appear that Obama has “closed the gap” with Romney?

YouTube has reversed its decision to censor the views of a pro-traditional marriage organization after attention was drawn to its removal of a video last week produced by Christian preacher and hard rock drummer Bradlee Dean.

Last week, YouTube – owned by Google, whose corporate motto used to be “Don't Be Evil” -- removed the video, which spotlights how gay rights extremists are using laws in Canada to censor those who disagree with their perspective.

Liberals insist that they, too, can be trusted with national security matters and yet we keep seeing reports like this where sensitive materials are being leaked--not to help America's enemies but to gain popularity for the White House, in this case, accidentally revealing to the media about a double agent inside Al Qaeda:

In a victory for gay rights extremists, YouTube has agreed to remove a video critical of Canadian laws concerning homosexuality from its website, even though the video discusses policy issues and does not use any derogatory language about gays and does not advocate violence against them.

The video created May 16 by preacher and hard rock drummer Bradlee Dean to accompany his weekly column published by WorldNet Daily and other news outlets, exposes facts about the hatred and oppression directed at conservative Christians and opponents of gay marriage in Canada by the radical Left toward people of faith, those who hold to traditional marriage. The video also details a solemn warning to American’s to get vocal on the issue or prepare for the cultural overhaul under way in Canada.

It's become quite a bit of a refrain among liberal journalists that nefarious conservatives are unwilling to compromise and unite with more moderate GOPers in order to "get things done," yet in many cases, the very opposite is true. In several recent elections, conservative unknowns have scored the primary victory (think Sharron Angle) and gone on to receive only tepid establishment support despite calls for "unity." That does not appear to be happening in the state of Nebraska after Deb Fischer defeated two better known candidates, Jon Bruning and Don Stenberg, to receive the Republican nomination for that state's federal Senate race.

Instead of whining like Indiana Republican Dick Lugar did after he went down in defeat, Bruning and Stenberg are banding together to support Fischer's candidacy:

As previously noted here at NewsBusters, while the predominantly liberal hosts of The View did generally coddle and flatter President Obama during his appearance on their show yesterday, they do deserve some credit for questioning at least one ridiculous thing he said when he claimed that he might lose the election due to his untraditional name.

In his appearance, Obama suggested that prejudice among some voters will make it more difficult for him to be re-elected. When asked how close he expected the November presidential election to be, Obama said: "When your name is Barack Obama, it's always tight." After one of the hosts noted that Obama's full name was "Barack Hussein Obama," the president repeated his full name twice, stressing his middle name and implying that it caused voters to vote against him.

Hours after New York blogger Christian Browne wrote on his blog, “The New York Conservative,” that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should be quickly executed, Google shut down his blog, which was hosted on Google's free Blogger service.

While the blog – including the post that appears to have triggered its deletion – have since been restored, the circumstances of its deletion by Google remain murky – and raise a serious issue both for Google and for conservatives who use the web to spread conservative ideas and messages.

Color me confused.

The media are fixated today on something Mitt Romney did way back in high school, almost 50 years go, and is hyping it as evidence that he's a gay-bashing bully or something (even though the actual facts of what happened nearly 50 years ago are very much in dispute.)

But on the other side of the election campaign, there's a candidate who -- admittedly -- assaulted a girl on the playground in school, then used cocaine in college and hung out with fellow druggies who had a penchant for violence.

You've probably already heard about how reforming Wisconsin governor Scott Walker managed to get more votes than his top two Democratic challengers in that state's primary. What you may not know is the reason why: The state is booming contrary to the dire predictions of the union bosses who swore that Walker's reforms would destroy the Badger State. Walker's choice to reform and cut the budget instead of raise taxes has proved for a perfect contrast with neighboring Illinois which did the very opposite, with poor results:

Does Alex Trebek owe Republicans equal time on his Jeopardy! game show? Answer: Yes, the show has become overrun by Democratic politicians and is only going to get even more politically imbalanced in the days to come.

Last week and this week, the popular game show, in which contestants are given clues and must provide the answer in the form of a question, has been presenting its annual "Teen Tournament" shows with young Americans as contestants -- and First Lady Michelle Obama presenting some of the clues. The show is being broadcast from Washington DC during the Teen Tournament.

In today's Wall Street Journal, top economist Robert Barro has an important essay on why so-called "stimulus" spending really is a drag on economies. It's must-reading for anyone opposed in principle to wasteful liberal spending passed off as some magic Keynesian pill:

After vice president Joe Biden stated that he supported gay marriage and provoked a media and public firestorm, President Obama just moments ago made it official that he supports the idea as well.

Do you see his announcement as having any bearing on the presidential election due to black or Hispanic socially conservative Democrats being disenchanted with Obama or would such individuals vote Obama anyway?

The liberal press clearly are going to be positively beside themselves over the announcement as well so stay tuned for some particularly egregious media bias.

The Obama Palace Guard is waging a losing battle to suppress the truth in a new ad from Americans for Prosperity, which explains how more than $2 billion in “stimulus” money went to foreign companies.

The “Wasteful Spending” ad, airing in 8 states with a media buy of $6.1 million, has also drawn criticism from the self-styled arbiters of political truth at the Washington Post.

You can imagine why: Obama promised the “stimulus” would “create or save” millions of American jobs, but with election day now less than six months away and millions more Americans jobless than before Obama took office, an ad questioning why Obama sent tax dollars to foreign companies really undermines the  campaign's efforts to distract people.

While its leftist critics continually ignore them, Fox News Channel employs a number of liberal commentators. Unfortunately, it is continuing to stand by one of them, Democratic strategist Jehmu Greene, who insulted Daily Caller editor Tucker Carlson as a “bow-tying white boy.”

Greene, former national director of the liberal group Project Vote, made the insult during a debate with Carlson on last Thursday’s “America Live” show and has since apologized privately, however in an interview with Accuracy in Media, the network did not indicate that Greene would face further repercussions for her racist outburst.

It happened yesterday but still big news today is the exit of presidential candidate Newt Gingrich who announced that he is ending his campaign for the Republican nomination.

Now that he's out, what are your thoughts on his campaign? Do you think he ran it as well as he could have? What major flaws or mistakes did he make in your mind that prevented him from winning the GOP nomination? Do you feel like his candidacy will have an impact on the general election? Sound off on this and any other topic you'd like right here.

They've tried and failed repeatedly to install the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" as a means of using the government to silence conservatives, now a George Soros-connected "ethics" group is taking another route to censorship.

The Hill reports that Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is asking the Federal Communications to cancel Fox's broadcasting licenses in the United States because of the phone hacking scandal involving a newspaper owned by a sister company utterly separate from it in the United Kingdom.