Campaigns & Elections

Buzzfeed's Ben Smith, who used to toil at Politico, must be blind in one eye and can't see out of the other.

In what appears to be a sudden revelation in his column ("Obama Prepares To Screw His Base") on ObamaCare's harsh treatment of young people, Smith notes how they "will pay disproportionately for ObamaCare." What this really represents is something which alarmed those who studied the bill both before and after its passage in March 2010. In other words, people who follow these things closely have known about this situation for years. But course, it has fallen on deaf, deliberately ignorant, or deliberately negligent establishment press ears. Thus, most low-information voters don't know what's coming. Beyond that, Smith acts as if the Obama administration hasn't been shafting young people ever since Barack Obama took his first oath of office in January 2009, when it has been doing so in a variety of ways on a daily basis. Excerpts from Smith's somnambulance, wherein he actually tries to blame Sarah Palin for what's coming, follow the jump (bolds are mine throughout this post):

Filling in for host Chuck Todd on Friday's MSNBC Daily Rundown, The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza gushed over the popularity of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: "Hillary Clinton is just day's removed from public office, but a new poll finds her public image soaring. Time to put another log on the 2016 speculation fire....Look, I can't get enough of Hillary Clinton, I'll just admit it. I'm just fascinated by the story." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Comparing Clinton to a list of other potential 2016 presidential candidates, both Democrats and Republicans, Cillizza proclaimed: "She's more popular than anyone else on this list....These numbers are not terribly surprising, I mean, she just spent four years as our top diplomat."

CBS’s Bob Schieffer has come to the president’s defense again. Conveniently forgetting about the media's obsession with the “war on women,” and how the media tag-teamed with the president's reelection campaign on social issues, Schieffer insisted that Barack Obama based his successful reelection campaign on the economy.

Schieffer, who moderated the final presidential debate in 2012, appeared  on the January 28 edition of The Kalb Report alongside fellow debate moderators Martha Raddatz of ABC and Jim Lehrer of PBS for a discussion of the 2012 presidential and vice presidential debates. After the discussion, the panelists fielded questions from the audience, and one audience member asked Schieffer:

Reporters at the Washington Post need a refresher already on the November elections. Obama beat Romney 51-47; Senate Democrats gained two seats, up to 53; House Democrats gained eight seats, but still trail 234-201. Somehow, the Post says this is a “shellacking.” That’s a word Obama used more accurately after the wave election of 2010, when the Republicans added a historic 63 seats.

In Friday’s Post, reporters David Nakamura and Rosalind Helderman discussed whether Republicans would move toward the center on immigration: “Months after GOP leaders began signaling that the party would shift positions on immigration in response to their shellacking in the November election, Republicans are still working out their stance.” The Post website carried a similar line from an AP article: 

Does the Politico do so little noteworthy original work that it has to make it appear as if it's taking credit for stories it didn't break? It sure looks like it from here.

In a story about President Obama's Organizing For Action organization, the not-for-profit lobbying result after Obama and those running the presidential campaign's Organizing For America chose to become a permanent fixture, Politico's Byron Tau predictably whitewashed the seriousness of OFA's violation of IRS rules against partisan political activity in allowing a supporter of Democrat Terry McAuliffe to recruit signature gatherers for his gubernatorial campaign. Tau also acted as if his web site had gotten the story either first or at the same time as a competitor when he wrote in his second paragraph that "OFA removed the post after it was flagged by POLITICO and the Weekly Standard." Then, in the final sentence of his 11-paragraph entry -- one I guess he hopes nobody will read -- Tau wrote:

UPDATE: The post has been revised from its original presentation to reflect the fact that the Cincinnati Enquirer covered the story but chose not to identify the person involved, even though her name is a matter of public record.

On Wednesday, local Cincinnati TV station WCPO did a report (HT John Fund at National Review via Doug Powers at Michelle Malkin's blog) on how "The Hamilton County Board of Elections is investigating 19 possible cases of alleged voter fraud" (Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County).

The most potentially outrageous case involves Melowese Richardson, who "admits to voting twice in the last election." Even though "she has worked the polls since 1988," she offered a hopelessly lame excuse for the multiple vote. She may also have voted four additional times under others' names, and also appears to have helped her granddaughter vote twice. Excerpts concerning Ms. Richardson's alleged voter fraud, which the left insists never, ever happens, follow the jump (bolds are mine throughout this post):

In what has become a recurring theme for the Spanish language network Univision, one of their employees took to social media recently to smear Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).  According to the Miami Herald, a top assistant to a Univision news boss criticized Rubio being chosen as the Republican response to the State of the Union.

The employee at the center of the controversy is one Angelica Artiles who took to Facebook to post the following vicious attack:

Giving advice is easy; accepting it, not so much. One day after Chris Christie downed a doughnut and joked that he's “the healthiest fat guy you've ever seen in your life” on Monday night's edition of “The Late Show With David Letterman,” a medical expert on presidential health said the New Jersey governor's weight is no laughing matter.

"I'm worried he may have a heart attack. I'm worried he may have a stroke," former White House physician Connie Mariano said in an interview with Jim Acosta, CNN's national political correspondent regarding the GOP "heavyweight."

Wrapping up a panel discussion on Tuesday's NBC Today about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie poking fun at his weight during a David Letterman appearance, co-host Willie Geist argued the issue was a major political obstacle to Christie: "I think if he didn't weigh what he weighed right now, he'd be talked about as the shoo-in to be the nominee next time. But that's a real problem that people have to think about if they want to cast a vote for him, is his health." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Check out this photograph snapped recently in northern Virginia. [h/t MRC's Ed Molchany; posted below page break]

The license plate blurred to protect the guilty. You'll notice this fellow has both an Obama-Biden bumper sticker and a Media Research Center (MRC) "Don't Believe the Liberal Media" bumper sticker. Cognitive dissonance? A family with divided politics? Or is it possible for the liberal media to be too liberal for even some Obama voters' tastes?

The journalists of Good Morning America offered, perhaps, a preview of 2016, highlighting Chris Christie's weight and what "could be a major campaign issue." After playing clips of the New Jersey governor talking to David Letterman, guest co-host Amy Robach scolded, "He's going to have to lay off the doughnuts."

Co-anchor George Stephanopoulos lectured, "[Christie] knows it. If he wants to run, he is going to have to lose some real weight." Reporter Dan Harris found a medical expert. The correspondent related, "Former White House physician Connie Mariano, who helped President Clinton lose 30 pounds in office, said she cringed when she saw Christie eating that doughnut and that she's worried about him dying on the job." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Marking Hillary Clinton's final day as Secretary of State on Friday's NBC Nightly News, chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell gushed: "Clinton's State Department farewell was bittersweet. She took time to tour the building, saying goodbye to cafeteria workers....[her] departure had the energy of a campaign rally. As she left, some women were shouting, '2016.'" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

On Saturday's Today, White House correspondent Kristen Welker continued the lovefest, proclaiming that Clinton was "starting a new chapter in her storied life," and noting: "Her journey to secretary of state was somewhat improbable. From the White House's first lady, to the Senate, to a tough campaign against her now-former boss."

The regularity with which Joe Scarborough refers to having won his congressional races has become a matter of mirth on Morning Joe. When Joe did so yet again this morning, he wound up contradicting himself on the issue of the electability of conservative candidates.

Scarborough was criticizing candidates who are supposedly too conservative to win, citing Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli of Virginia, whom he called "certifiable" on some issues. But—unable to resist a boast—Scarborough then contradicted himself, recalling that when he ran for Congress from Florida, "Newt Gingrich and the the Republican establishment worked against me, because they thought I was too conservative to win my district." Uh, yeah--and yet you won.  View the video after the jump.

The media's gushing and fawning over Hillary Clinton running for president in 2016 knows no bounds.

On the syndicated Chris Matthews Show Sunday, Time magazine's Washington bureau chief Michael Duffy cooed over a Clinton-Biden "dream ticket" that could make Joe vice president for sixteen straight years (video follows with commentary):

Washington Post diplomatic correspondent Anne Gearan has repeatedly blown kisses to Hillary Clinton in the past few months with her gauzy coverage of the departing secretary of state's handling of Benghazi. Today she took her show on the road, make that air, as she appeared on MSNBC's Martin Bashir program with Democratic strategist Kiki McLean and guest host former DNC communications director Karen Finney. With MSNBC looking forward giddily to a possible 2016 presidential run, the segment was titled onscreen as "Until We Meet Again."

Sure "[s]he leaves office without huge accomplishments" like groundbreaking peace talks or the like, but she does have "enormous goodwill around the world," Gearan gushed. "Some of her greatest accomplishments really were just showing up," the Post staffer insisted.

Mara Liasson hyped Hillary Clinton as "the most popular politician in the country" on Friday's Morning Edition on NPR. Liasson asserted that "there's no question that being out of politics for four years has enhanced her political reputation," and devoted her report to touting how the supposedly "fireproof" Mrs. Clinton's experience as secretary of state would make her a "field-clearing frontrunner" in the 2016 presidential race.

The NPR journalist played soundbites from just two pundits during the segment, both of them close political associates of the Clintons: former White House Press Secretary Dee Myers, and Geoff Garin, who was the chief strategist for the former First Lady's 2008 presidential bid. Liasson merely identified Garin as some one who "has worked for Clinton in the past."

Someone needs to tell Dylan Byers at the Politico that the 2012 presidential smear campaign is over, and their guy won.

Byers seems not to have gotten the memo, and is still engaged in associating Mitt Romney with the firm he left in 1999 any time it has involvement in decisions relating to layoffs. In the current instance, Bain was engaged as an advisor to a new CEO at Time Inc. -- meaning that management of the company involved could have ignored the firm's advice -- and not as an investor. It doesn't matter to Byers, who named Romney anyway, even though Ad Age, the underlying source, didn't (presented in full because of its brevity; bolds are mine):

As if comparing Hillary Clinton to Thomas Jefferson wasn't hyperbolic enough, ABC's Cynthia McFadden on Wednesday practically begged the Secretary of State to run for president. The Nightline co-anchor lobbied Clinton, lecturing her about the "obligation" she has to "break through that glass ceiling." Yet, the reporter could only manage the most gentle probing into the issue of the terrorist attack in Libya.

McFadden pressed the Democrat to run in 2016, asking the question no less than four times. If it appeared, the journalist wondered, "that you might be the person who could actually break through that glass ceiling and become the first female president of this country, would you feel a certain obligation to seize that mantle?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Any answer other than yes seemed not good enough.

In a column which went up this morning, Fox News Political Analyst Kirsten Powers, whose political positions certainly lean left and is a self-described liberal, ripped into President Obama and his administration for what she correctly characterizes as their "strategy to delegitimize a news organization" -- hers.

Her column is about far more than Obama's recent complaint to the New Republic's Chris Hughes (covered by Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters) that "If a Republican member of Congress is not punished on Fox News or by Rush Limbaugh for working with a Democrat on a bill of common interest, then you'll see more of them doing it." What Powers recounts is a strategy first employed in 2009 and apparently being revived, now that Obama no longer has to answer to America's voters, to marginalize the only U.S. network which still tries to be fair and balanced (bolds are mine):

On Monday's CBS This Morning, Norah O'Donnell gushed over Steve Kroft's interview of President Obama and Hillary Clinton, twice emphasizing the supposed "warmness" between the two Democrats. O'Donnell asserted that the interview was "a long way from where they were in 2008 in that bitter primary battle....This time, they were leaning into each other. There was clearly a warmness between them."

John Dickerson later hyped how the Kroft segment on Sunday's 60 Minutes came at an opportune time for Mrs. Clinton, after her contentious appearances before a Senate committee about the Islamist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya:

Here's something I discovered in the course of preparing a column which will appear elsewhere. It appears to speak to the lengths to which Barack Obama's administration and his campaign went to avoid having any kind of bad economic news appear before the fall elections.

By July of last year, the increase in food stamp program participation in the 42 months since Obama took office exceeded the increase seen during George W. Bush's entire eight years. But "somehow," the last monthly report issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture before Election Day didn't reflect that reality. It turns out that USDA made an almost unheard-of substantial upward revision to reported July participation on December 7 in its second -- not its first -- post-election report. It is not at all unreasonable to believe that the original understatement was designed to ensure that Mitt Romney and other Republican candidates would not be able to capitalize on that grim comparative milestone, and that the revision delay until the second post-election report was designed to minimize the deception's visibility. The establishment press should have caught this, and didn't -- or worse, someone caught it and didn't care to report it.

It's not very often that a federal judge begins a ruling by saying that "Sometimes even a person with excellent vision does not see the forest for the trees." That happened yesterday in a case involving former First District Democratic Congressman and sore loser Steve Driehaus, whose district mostly comprised the western two-thirds of Cincinnati's Hamilton County. Yet it's not news at Gannett's Cincinnati Enquirer -- or anywhere else, for that matter.

After his 2010 defeat at the hands of Republican Steve Chabot, Driehaus sued the Susan B. Anthony List in federal court  for defamation and -- get this -- "loss of livelihood." Why? Because, during that campaign, SBAL told Driehaus's constituents -- correctly, it has since been proven -- that his vote for ObamaCare was a betrayal of his pro-life principles. Yesterday, despite his obvious conflict of interest as former president and director of the Planned Parenthood Association of Cincinnati, Judge Timothy Black, a Barack Obama appointee, found a way to do what he should have done in the first place, and rejected Driehaus's nonsense. 

File this under "careful what you wish for."

In 2012, with a Democrat in the White House, union membership declined, not only as a percentage of the workforce, but in absolute numbers. Even though the related report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that the number of employed wage and salaried workers increased by almost 2.4 million, union membership fell by just under 400,000. Union membership is down by over 1.7 million since 2008, and fell by 961,000 during the past three years of supposed economic recovery. These results aren't sitting well with Sam Hananel at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, whose reporters are represented by the Occupy movement-supporting News Media Guild. Excerpts from the AP reporter's Wednesday report follow the jump.

Leave it to Obama-boosting MSNBC to carry water for the Obama administration over the terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi.  Speaking with Congressman Chris Smith (R-N.J) on her MSNBC program Wednesday afternoon -- prior to Smith's committee's hearing with Clinton but following this morning's Senate hearing -- Ms. Mitchell spouted off numerous White House talking points to excuse Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s failure to secure our embassy in Benghazi. 

Mitchell’s regurgitation of Obama/Clinton talking points comes just hours after she claimed Clinton had a “stellar term” as Secretary of State.  The segment began with Congressman Smith outlining his expectations for Ms. Clinton’s testimony:

On Wednesday's CBS This Morning, John Dickerson stood by his Friday column for Slate where he concluded that President Obama "can only cement his legacy if he destroys the GOP." Dickerson answered conservative critics of his piece by claiming that he "wasn't trying to give advice. I was trying to highlight, in a very stark way, what seems like an impossible-to-avoid conclusion about this second term."

The liberal CBS News political director also repeated many of the points he made in a follow-up column for Slate on Tuesday [audio clips available here; video below the jump]:

Joe Scarborough often riles up conservatives for his continual trashing of his fellow Republicans, but his most recent claim might be a new low for the MSNBC conservative.  Appearing on Morning Joe on Wednesday January 23, Scarborough insisted that he was not a Republican-in-name-only (RINO), but instead is more conservative than most in Congress.

Scarborough, who NewsBusters has repeatedly documented slamming conservatives, suddenly views himself as the epitome of conservative values.  Earlier this month, Scarborough made similar comments when he claimed to be a, “really conservative guy.”  Addressing the usual all-liberal MSNBC panel on today's Morning Joe, Scarborough argued that he is “Mr. Cut.”  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

Remember then-obscure Senator Barack Obama's speech to the 2004 DNC? All the no blue state, no red state stuff?  Fugedaboutit.  Now, he's all about killing—figuratively of course—his political opponents.

Ed Schultz sees Obama for what he is: and applauds him for it, of course.  On his MSNBC show tonight, Schultz repeatedly claimed--polls notwithstanding--that America is a center-left, progressive country. On Obama's coming battles over his liberal agenda, Schultz said--with a sly grin--that when it comes to Republicans, the president's plan is to "grab the jugular." View the video after the jump.

For four years (and really going back further when you consider former President George W. Bush's halting attempt to reform Social Security in the middle of last decade), Barack Obama and his party have paid lip service at best to the idea of entitlement reform while refusing to provide any specifics about what they would do to fix Social Security and Medicare, both of which are unsustainable in their current forms. Obama rejected his own Simpson Bowles commission's recommendations. Democrats have treated serious proposals coming from Republicans as grannycide.

Yet the Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown, who must be gaining strength in her arms and shoulders from all of her water-carrying for Obama and his party, wants us to believe that Obama has a "deeply conflicted relationship with entitlement reform." And in case you missed it (I certainly did), Obama has tried "harder than any other Democratic president to tackle the issue" (no Democratic Party president has "tried hard" to tackle the issue). Several paragraphs from her Tuesday dispatch follow the jump (bolds are mine):