James Moran

Q. How does a liberal describe giving seniors choice over their health care coverage?

A. Murder.

On Cenk Uygur's MSNBC show this evening, Jonathan Alter claimed that in proposing to issue Medicare vouchers, Republicans voted "to throw granny into the snow."

For good measure, Cenk came out in favor of the "Robin Hood" approach to taxation--robbing from the rich and giving to the poor.

View video after the jump.

Update (14:30 EDT): Joe Schoffstall of NewsBusters sister site MRCTV.org has video of Moran berated a 27-year military veteran who asked Moran questions at last night's townhall. Click here to access the video.

In his 20-paragraph April 8 article* on a congressional townhall hosted by liberal Democrat Jim Moran (D-Va.), reporter Ben Pershing buried in the very last paragraph the complaint of at least one attendee about the failure of Democrats to approve the 2011 budget last year when they controlled both houses of Congress:

Even before finishing his opening remarks, Moran was sharply interrupted by members of the audience. One asked why Democrats hadn’t completed a spending bill for 2011 last year, when they still controlled both chambers of Congress. Moran didn’t answer but said he wasn’t there to “argue or defend any of this.”

Moran's district is a very safe Democratic seat, so it is instructive that this was the very first question Moran was posed in last night's townhall meeting.

All three network morning shows on Friday skipped a Washington Post report revealing that powerful congressional Democrats such as John Murtha, James Moran and others on a defense panel are the subject of an ethics investigation for a relationship with a lobbying firm. The Democrats, and some Republicans, are under intense scrutiny for steering over $200 million in earmarks to clients of a company called PMA.

However, ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s Today show and CBS’s Early Show somehow managed to ignore this potentially damaging problem for the Democratic majority. Instead, NBC’s hosts found time to dress up as Star Wars characters. (Ann Curry appeared as Darth Vader.) Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith went drag and impersonated Julia Child for a cooking segment (See video and blog here.) Even though it’s October, GMA promoted a new version of A Christmas Carol.

It seems unlikely that these news outlets would ignore a similar story that involved possible allegations about a group of mostly Republican lawmakers who are in charge of earmarking federal funds. Washington Post staff writer Carol D. Leonnig explained: