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Obama advisers, Democrat senators, and terminally stupid ideologues that have been for almost two days blaming Standard and Poor's downgrade of America's debt on the Tea Party have all been ignoring a very inconvenient truth.

According to MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell, "Last week's vote for a debt ceiling increase was the most bipartisan vote to increase the debt ceiling we have seen in a very, very long time" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

For over 24 hours, Obama advisers, Democrat senators, and terminally stupid ideologues in the media have been blaming Standard and Poor's downgrade of America's debt on the Tea Party.

On Monday, one of the only sane voices in the mainstream media stood up and said, "If it wasn't for the Tea Party, they would have passed the debt ceiling thumbs up, we would have been rated BBB" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Dylan Ratigan joined Andrea Mitchell Monday on the list of MSNBC anchors who appear to be losing faith in President Barack Obama's leadership.

Discussing the type of president required to lead the country in times of crisis, Ratigan remarked, "Wouldn't anybody who wrote a memoir before the age of 50 be rather screwed up anyway?"

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As NewsBusters reported Sunday, Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) set off a liberal firestorm when he called Standard and Poor's U.S. credit rating change the "Tea Party Downgrade."

On Monday's "Morning Joe," host Joe Scarborough told "terminally stupid ideologues" that "really don't understand" anything because they're "so dogmatic [they] can't think for [themselves]" to "stop using the Tea Party as a piñata" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It wasn't enough for "Meet the Press" host David Gregory to nicely set up Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) to blame Standard and Poor's downgrade of America's credit rating on the Tea Party Sunday.

The producers actually felt Kerry's "Tea Party Downgrade" comment was important enough to replay again at the end of the show (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Want to know just how scared of the Tea Party America's media are?

On Sunday, the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page published a column entitled "Is The Tea Party Over?":

Ever the dutiful Obama shills, the New York Times on Saturday downplayed the seriousness of the announcement by Standard and Poor's that it had downgraded America's debt rating to AA+.

As you read this, imagine how this front page article would have differed if a Republican was in the White House:

New York Times columnist Joe Nocera took a lot of heat this week for writing an article calling Tea Party members "terrorists" wearing "suicide vests."

On Saturday, he apologized:

Christina Romer, the former chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers on Friday offered a rather strong opinion concerning the announcement by Standard & Poor's that the credit rating agency downgraded America's debt to AA+.

Appearing on HBO's "Real Time," Romer said we're "pretty darn f--ked" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As has been expected, despite the recently reached debt deal, America's debt got downgraded tonight by credit ratings agency Standard and Poor's.

In an analysis posted on its website, S&P explicitly stated that it "takes no position on the mix of spending and revenue measures," however that is a fact that will likely be glossed over by the self-described mainstream media.

There is much more in the analysis, but since you won't likely see this info in the big media outlets, I am reproducing portions of the report which repeatedly mention excessive spending as a problem:

For the second week in a row, Bloomberg's Margaret Carlson got a much-needed education from Charles Krauthammer on PBS's "Inside Washington."

After Carlson gave the typical Keynesian response to Friday's unemployment report - "We’re cutting spending at a time when we should be adding spending to stimulate the economy and jobs" - Krauthammer without skipping a beat quipped, "The way it worked in ’09 and in ’10" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The past three weeks in the stock market have gone as follows: Week ended July 22 -- Pretty good; week ended July 29 -- Really bad; week just ended -- Absolutely awful.

After I received a remarkably vague e-mail from CNN just after 4 p.m. today, I thought I'd go back and see how it handled its closing-bell emails during the previous two weeks. It was quite revealing.

The three emails follow the jump:

CNBC's Rick Santelli had to explain the economy to MSNBC contributor Ezra Klein on today's Morning Joe (h/t Hot Air). Klein argued that another recession would "move money around in ways that are unfair."

An exasperated Santelli concisely described what was wrong with Klein's characterization of what recession does to an economy:

I don't normally get emails from CNN when the markets go from negative territory to positive, or vice-versa. But I did today, as the Dow and the S&P 500 oh-so-temporarily showed plus signs?

So why did CNN send the email? Could it be that the markets' plunge is getting more widely known, and the network feels the need to tamp down the spreading pessimism?

The CNN email, along with a separate graphic of the ridiculously puny momentary upward blip the network was celebrating, follow the jump.

Appearing on Wednesday's NBC Today, CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer blamed the debt ceiling standoff for stocks falling on Wall Street: "All people can talk about is the whole slow down that Washington triggered, the 'manufactured crisis,' as the President mentioned..." Co-host Ann Curry wondered: "To what degree did the spending cuts called for in this bill have an influence in this perception?"

Cramer argued: "We've seen a trillion dollars lost in the stock market. Much of it is associated with companies that were doing well because of government – some people call it hand outs, I would say spending – and I think that, that is a huge part of the decline." Curry touted an over-the-top prediction: "One advocacy group, the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute, says the economy could lose 1.8 million jobs in the next year due to the cuts in this deal."

If the economy stagnates or falters in the coming months, it seems a metaphysical certitude Obama-loving media will do everything in their power to blame it on Tuesday's debt ceiling agreement rather than any of the other factors already in play.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews gave us a foreshadowing of such deception on "Hardball" when he blamed Tuesday's stock market collapse on the newly-signed legislation rather than the bad economic data announced in the morning (video follows with transcript and commentary):

A trend is emerging on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," whereby guests make inflammatory statements likening conservatives to terrorists, and none of the co-hosts insist on a more elevated level of dialogue.

Following in the footsteps of Newsweek's Tina Brown and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), two MSNBC analysts called conservatives in Congress "economic terrorists" and "crazy" on Friday, yet none of the program's co-hosts questioned the offensive choice of words or called for a more civilized tone.

Disgraced former Obama car czar Steve Rattner went first, framing Tea Partiers as suicide bombers:

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After only his third day on the job, Fox News senior White House correspondent Ed Henry was accused by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney of intentionally "creating" a dispute to please his new employer.

"I know you're creating a thing here for Fox," charged Carney toward the end of a testy exchange with the former CNN correspondent during Wednesday's press briefing.

As members of the White House press corps giggled off camera, Henry retorted: "That's not what I'm doing, you know better than that."

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MSNBC's Martin Bashir not-so-subtly suggested Wednesday that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is a "baby" who should "go the f*** to sleep" and let Democrats deal with the debt ceiling issue.

Anchoring the afternoon program that bears his name, Bashir excoriated Boehner's latest deficit-reduction proposal, which he dubbed a "ludicrous lullaby," blaming the Ohio Republican for "this ridiculously prolonged, tortuous, and confused attempt to raise the debt ceiling."

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In his White House speech tonight, President Obama renewed his call for a debt-ceiling impasse solution which requires "the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to give up some of their breaks in the tax code and special deductions." In other words, he wants tax increases, even though earlier in the day, he backed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's "plan" (using the term loosely, as explained here and here) which, according to two separate reports (USAT; ABC), includes no tax increases.

In other words, the President, from all appearances, changed his mind -- again. Calling the President's performance in the debt-ceiling matter during the past several weeks "Jello-like" would appear to be an insult to the referenced food product.

Two items I've seen on President Obama's speech tonight -- David Jackson's "live blog" item at USA Today and David Espo's coverage at the Associated Press -- did not recognize this seemingly clear point.

Barack Obama might give Chris Matthews a thrill up his leg, but the bromance MSNBC's "Hardball" host has with former President Bill Clinton knows no bounds.

On Monday's program, Matthews finished by nominating Clinton as Secretary of the Treasury, "Because in many ways it’s a life saver" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Quoting a British politician who claimed "right-wing nutters" pose the most serious threat to the international financial system, MSNBC's Martin Bashir asked his conservative guest on Monday: "He's right, isn't he?"

The MSNBC anchor posed this question at the end of a contentious interview with Tea Party Nation Founder Judson Phillips, after asking Phillips four times whether he wanted the U.S. to default on its debts.

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On Wednesday evening (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted the absurdity of Associated Press coverage characterizing the 5-page document with 3-1/2 whole pages of text issued by the "Gang of Six" as a "plan" -- 12 times, plus in the item's headline. Though I didn't bring it up then, an obvious point to make about any of these items floating around Washington is that if the Congressional Budget Office can't score it, it can't be a plan. A month ago, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf told a congressional committee, in response to a question about President Obama's April proposal, that "we can't score speeches." By contrast, there's no reason to believe it can't score Cut, Cap & Balance, because it's actual legislation passed by the House.

Last night at Investors Business Daily, Mark Steyn, the self-described "One-Man Global Content Provider," made more generalized comments about the media coverage of the debt ceiling-tax-spending-amending discussions and its identification of anything stated in a semi-coherent sentence as a "plan" (press-related items in bold):

ABC, CBS, and NBC ignored the existence of the Cut, Cap and Balance (CCB) bill until last week, a Nexis search revealed, despite multiple polls demonstrating overwhelming public support.

In addition to the blackout, none of the broadcast networks ever mentioned the positive polls in their coverage of the bill, even though 65 percent of the public backed a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget in a Mason-Dixon poll from May and 72 percent approved of such a measure in a Fox News poll from June.

In a USA Today email I received 20 minutes after Tuesday's closing bell, I was informed that the exceptionally good day occurred because the stock markets were "buoyed by strong earnings reports by IBM, Coke and others." A visit to the email's linked article also partially attributed the rise to "renewed hopes that U.S. lawmakers would be able to break their stalemate and strike a deficit-reduction deal in time to avert a catastrophic government default."

That's strange, because the CNN Headline email I had received 20 minutes earlier struck a totally different and completely absurd pose, as seen after the jump:

As NewsBusters previously reported, Chris Matthews had quite a heated debate with Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) on Tuesday's "Hardball."

Amidst a series of ridiculous questions asked of the Congressman, possibly the most absurd was, "If we have a crisis in August [as a result of not raising the debt ceiling], will you resign?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was the featured guest on both CBS's "Face the Nation" and NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday.

For some reason, hosts Bob Schieffer and David Gregory didn't ask the most important question every person in the world currently following the debt ceiling is dying to know the answer to:

If you believe every word uttered by hysterical news anchors and political commentators lately, you would think the world ends August 2nd if the debt ceiling isn't raised.

Not only isn't this true, it's another indication of the press's total ignorance about our nation's budget and/or their willingness to lie to the American people in order to get taxes raised.

Let's start our truth dig by looking at the monthly debt payments so far this fiscal year:

On the July 1 edition of "Martin Bashir," the MSNBC anchor after which the show is named made a statement that reveals a great deal about his worldview.

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With a month to go before the next supposedly "drop dead date" regarding the nation's debt ceiling, liberal media members are out in force with hysterical claims about the world ending if Congress isn't free to spend more money it doesn't have.

Ever the faithful shill, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman did his part Friday cautioning that any spending cuts at this time "would destroy hundreds of thousands and quite possibly millions of jobs":