Paul Ryan

Bill Maher is either a blithering idiot, a pathological liar, or both.

On HBO's Real Time Friday, the factually-challenged financier of Barack Obama actually had the gall to say the President didn't support the recommendations of his National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (aka Simpson-Bowles) because - wait for it! - Republicans didn't support it (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Friday blamed the media and "especially" cable television for the nasty tone in politics today.

Such occurred during a discussion with Jay Leno on NBC's Tonight Show (video follows with transcript and commentary):

With less than six months to go before Election Day, the Obama-loving media's advocacy has passed shameful and is now approaching downright unimaginable.

On Saturday, the Associated Press actually published a piece with the headline, "Is GOP Trying to Sabotage Economy to Hurt Obama?":

"Sometimes you do wonder if [Republicans] are moles, Manchurian candidates for I don't know who, if their real job is to bring down America."

So said New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on MSNBC's Martin Bashir show Friday (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN's Fareed Zakaria asked a question this weekend guaranteed to raise some eyebrows not only on both sides of the aisle but also on both sides of the Atlantic.

On the program bearing his name, Zakaria amazingly asked Sunday if the economic problems in Europe are caused by democracy and not austerity (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MSNBC political analyst Karen Finney kicked horrific tales of the so-called GOP war on women into high gear on Friday's Martin Bashir show.

In a segment about the Obama campaign's portrait of a fictional woman's life under his leadership versus the Republican presidential candidate's, Finney said, "Here’s what life under the Romney-Ryan plan would be like for Julia...She’d be in the grave by her mid-30s" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

There ought to be a law against newscasters blatantly lying to the public.

On Monday, MSNBC's Martin Bashir falsely claimed the economic plans put forth by Great Britain and Spain are "the Romney-Ryan budget in action...almost exactly, word for word" without informing his viewers that those countries raised taxes to fight their deficits (video follows with transcript and commentary):

[UPDATE: CNN covered the story throughout the day, interviewing Fr. Reese from Georgetown University not twice, not three times, but a total of four times on Thursday. Aside from the liberal James Salt of Catholics United, no other guest appeared on CNN to discuss the issue.]

When liberal Catholics protested Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) speaking at Georgetown University on Thursday, CNN jumped all over the story and gave it 11 full minutes of coverage during the 9-11 a.m. hours of Newsroom. In contrast, when the Obama administration issued its birth control mandate and Catholic bishops voiced their staunch opposition, CNN mentioned the story once in ten days.

Anchor Carol Costello brought on two guests protesting Ryan's budget, and hosted no supporter of Ryan although she did read his own statement in defense of his budget. She reported the "collision of politics and faith" and that the congressman was "about to get his knuckles rapped by dozens of Catholic priests." The CNN headline blared "Fellow Catholics Blast Ryan."

For over a year, the Left and their media minions have dishonestly claimed Congressman Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) proposed budgets would "end Medicare as we know it."

At the end of a discussion about Monday's report from the Medicare trustees predicting the program goes bankrupt in 2024, Special Report host Bret Baier got NPR's Mara Liasson to admit Medicare will end as we know it even if Congress doesn't pass the Ryan plan (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Charlie Rose did his best to forward liberals' talking points about Rep. Paul Ryan's budget proposal on Wednesday's CBS This Morning, during an interview of House Speaker John Boehner. Rose played up Mitt Romney's endorsement of the Ryan plan and how the former governor "talked about, perhaps, abolishing H.E.W. [sic]- I mean, HUD, as well as Department of Education."

The anchor even went so far to tout how "Catholic bishops today said that the Ryan budget fails to meet moral criteria and disproportionately cuts programs that serve the poor and the vulnerable, which sounds like the President." By contrast, Rose didn't even bring up Nancy Pelosi's notorious dissent from Catholic doctrine during a recent interview of Boehner's immediate predecessor on PBS.

On Monday's Morning Edition, NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty touted how "liberal religious leaders said the Republican [budget] plan...was an affront to the Gospel, and especially Jesus's command to care for the poor." At the same time, Hagerty avoided mentioning the left-wing ideology of two critics of the proposal: Peter Montgomery of People For American Way, and liberal academic Stephen Schneck.

The correspondent did, however, clearly identify Ryan as a "Wisconsin Republican" and Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention as part of a "conservative resistance to taxation." She also highlighted how "for other religious conservatives, the Bible is a blueprint for robust capitalism," and cited evangelical radio host David Barton as an example.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's Monday column "The Gullible Center" bashed -- you guessed it -- Rep. Paul Ryan, and perhaps took a hidden swipe at "self-proclaimed centrists" who take Ryan's budget seriously, like fellow Times columnist David Brooks (Michael Calderone at Huffington Post noticed the jab).

It would not be the first time Krugman and Brooks conducted a secret grapple (Times policy discourages columnists from taking issue with each other.) In the fall of 2007 Krugman accused Ronald Reagan of launching his successful 1980 presidential campaign from outside Philadelphia, Miss., where three civil rights workers were murdered, as a sop to Southern racists. Brooks, himself an Obama fan, delivered an able defense of Reagan against Krugman's twisting of history, without mentioning Krugman, referring only to the slur "being spread by people who, before making one of the most heinous charges imaginable, couldn't even take 10 minutes to look at the evidence." Ahem.

In an interview with Congressman Paul Ryan on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry slammed the Wisconsin Republican's proposed budget: "Where is the empathy in this budget?...Do you acknowledge that poor people will suffer under his budget? That you have shown a lack of empathy to poor people in this budget?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Curry cited a left-wing non-profit group in condemning the plan: "...the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities....says 62% of the savings in your budget would come from cutting programs for the poor. That between 8 and 10 million people would be kicked off of food stamps. That you would cut Medicare by 200 billion, Medicaid and other health programs by something like 770 billion."

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Friday said President Obama wins the budget debate if the electorate is as gullible as people like NPR's Nina Totenberg.

Just three minutes later on PBS's Inside Washington, as if on cue, Totenberg said people making between $60,000 and $125,000 pay the most in taxes (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Are the folks at MSNBC the slightest bit concerned anymore with showing even a hint of impartiality in their so-called "news" programming?

On Wednesday, Ed Schultz began the nationally televised show bearing his name saying, "Suck it up Righties!" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Charlie Rose boosted two of the left's talking points about Rep. Paul Ryan's budget proposal and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Wednesday's CBS This Morning. Rose asked Republican Senator John McCain, "Does Mitt Romney have to redefine himself...against the charges that he's out of touch, and that by endorsing the Ryan budget, it is a prescription for American decline?"

Rose also highlighted how McCain and President Obama both slammed the Court's Citizens United decision. But the Arizona Republican clarified that "I agreed that it was a bad decision, but certainly...I never questioned that they didn't have the right to do that. Apparently, the President doesn't read the Constitution the way some of us do."

Filling in for Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation, Norah O’Donnell hit Republican Congressman Paul Ryan from the left, using White House talking points to contend his budget plan helps the rich and hurts the poor, but with her next guest, liberal Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, she simply cued him up to react to Ryan and ruminate on whether ObamaCare will be a campaign issue.

“The current tax rate for the wealthiest Americans is 35 percent, you would reduce it to 25 percent and the White House says, that under your plan, you would give millionaires in this country a 150,000 tax cut,” CBS’s chief White House correspondent asserted. Ryan reorted: “Those numbers obviously are not credible.” Not dissuaded, O’Donnell cited “$810 billion in cuts to Medicaid” and demanded: “How can you guarantee people that you’re not giving tax cuts to the wealthiest and taking away aid to the poor?”

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer gave quite a tongue lashing to Mark Shields on Inside Washington this weekend.

When the liberal PBS contributor said Congressman Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) budget proposal lacked vertebrae, Krauthammer scolded, "Talk about absence of spine, your guys haven’t introduced a budget at all on anything" (video follows with transcript and commentary, file photo):

Historically, Republicans have been reluctant to put forward proposals to reform and reduce the size of government for fear of being denounced by the liberal press. Hours after U.S. Representative Paul Ryan unveiled a new Republican budget proposal, the Associated Press right on cue printed a story that savaged the plan for “cut[ing] spending much more deeply” on popular programs and relied on information favoring Democrats and anonymous “tax experts” to support its claims.

“Mixing deep cuts to safety-net programs for the poor with politically risky cost curbs for Medicare, Republicans controlling the House unveiled an election-year budget blueprint Tuesday that paints clear campaign differences with President Barack Obama,” the news article by Andrew Taylor stated in its first paragraph.

Today Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and House Republicans unveiled a budget and tax reform plan. But for Center for American Progress alumna Alex Wagner, it was Christmas morning, with the Ryan budget as a handy cudgel with which Democrats and MSNBC could bludgeon politically hapless Republicans.

"[S]ome Democrats are calling it Christmas in March," MSNBC anchor Wagner quipped on her March 20 Now program as she presented a quick overview of the "nuts and bolts" of the plan such as "repealing the Affordable Care Act," simplifying the federal individual income tax down to two brackets, 10 and 25 percent, and reducing the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. 

Showing that he either knows absolutely nothing about current events, or that he's just willing to blatantly lie on the so-called "news" network that foolishly employs him, MSNBC's Martin Bashir falsely claimed Tuesday that Congressman Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc) "previous budget was excoriated by both Republicans and Democrats."

Actually, 97 percent of Republicans that cast votes in the House and Senate approved Ryan's budget last year (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Charlie Rose surprised Rep. Paul Ryan on Tuesday's CBS This Morning by promoting the latest smear from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Rose displayed their fake horror-movie poster with Ryan's face beside House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Speaker John Boehner. It included the caption, "Just when you thought Medicare was safe, THEY'RE BACK. This time, they want to finish it for good."

Rose told the Wisconsin Republican, "Democrats have tried...to portray you as someone who wants to destroy Medicare, and they have a poster in which you are, in a sense, the poster boy of that. And their argument is that you will, in fact, by a voluntary system, lead to the destruction of something that seniors have come to depend on" [audio available here; video below the jump].

Let's stipulate up front that it might well have been an innocent mistake. Even so, until explained, it was shocking to say the least.  On today's Morning Joe, as Mika Brzezinski read a David Brooks op-ed about the shooting of civilians in Afghanistan in which he wrote of "monstrous acts that shock the soul and sear the brain," suddenly the screen cut--for an extended period--to three different photos of . . . Republican Paul Ryan.

Even Joe Scarborough couldn't resist joking about the incident revealing the show's liberal bias.  As it turns out, an op-ed by Ryan was up next, and the control room guys might simply have transitioned a bit too quickly--though some readers might not be willing to give Morning Joe the benefit of the doubt.  View the video after the jump.

CNN's Erin Burnett on Monday did a segment correctly castigating Congress for not passing a budget in over 1000 days.

The only problem was that while she did this, pictures of House Republicans were shown on the screen despite the blame resting solely with Senate Democrats (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Tuesday's CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose lobbed a series of questions from the left at Republican Congressman Paul Ryan. Rose wondered if the recent trend towards social issues in the Republican presidential race was "troubling." The Wisconsin Republican replied, "It's not troubling for me, and...I think that's more about the media, and maybe the Democrats, who are trying to move it in that direction."

The anchor also touted the auto bailout as an Obama administration success: "The bailout- should that be an issue, and should the voters look at Governor Romney and Governor Santorum [sic] and say, we had an economic bail-out of the auto companies and look what happened? Profits are up, and they're both doing well." Rose later asked Ryan if he thought that the apparently better economic numbers was "good news for President Obama" [audio available here; video below the jump].

On Tuesday's CBS This Morning, Erica Hill played up the "overwhelming majority" that apparently support raising taxes on the rich, and urged Rep. Paul Ryan to consider supporting such a tax hike: "68% of people support raising...taxes on incomes of $250,000 and higher. Is that something that you could, perhaps, at least have a conversation about?" [audio available here; video below the jump]

Co-anchor Charlie Rose also suggested that Ryan and congressional Republicans had refused to work with President Obama, and that the Democrat needed to try to bring them on board. Rose asked White House advisor David Plouffe, "What can the President say this evening that might bring Paul Ryan to work with him on issues that concern the country?"

As NewsBusters reported Sunday, Newsweek's most recent cover astonishingly asked, "Why Are Obama's Critics So Dumb?"

This critic of the President analyzed the contents of so-called conservative Andrew Sullivan's piece and has come to the conclusion that it is he and the unashamedly liberal magazine he writes for that are lacking in intellectual capacity and/or integrity.

All one needs is read the following from Sullivan's third paragraph to understand the absurdity on display:

Tuesday's Early Show on CBS brought on PolitiFact's Bill Adair to reveal what he labeled as the "biggest lie of the year" inside politics, which was "the claim by many Democrats that the Republicans voted to end Medicare." But CBS let Democratic operatives spout that falsehood several times without scrutiny earlier in 2011.

The network did stand out in bringing on the PolitiFact editor, something ABC and NBC didn't do on Tuesday. Adair stated that Democrats "say that the House voted to end Medicare. That's not what they did. What the House did was vote to protect Medicare on people who are 55 and older, but to privatize it and restructure it...for people who are younger...it's wrong to say 'end Medicare,' and it's a...classic scare tactic that we've seen targeting the elderly for many years."