Budget

National Review's Jim Geraghty notes today that House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer hasn't gotten the memo on the new tone in Washington. “I think we’re playing Russian roulette with the nation’s credit-worthiness, and unfortunately, all the chambers seem to be loaded on the House side. They want to shoot every bullet they have at the President” said Hoyer on Wednesday's "Morning Joe."

Wednesday’s New York Times lead story on the debt ceiling standoff by Jennifer Steinhauer and Carl Hulse,  “Facing Obstacles, G.O.P. Delays Vote On Plan For Debt – Conservatives Restive – Boehner’s Grip on His Caucus Is Put to the Test in Standoff,” is the second consecutive Times lead overloaded with “conservative” labels, as if only one side of the debate has an ideological motivation.…

House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have both released debt limit plans, but if House Republicans don't support Boehner's plan, they could be handing President Obama an easy victory. The debt limit debate has not only sharply divided Republicans and Democrats, but it might also be forcing a schism among Republicans who favor a permanent solution now versus…

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on Tuesday said it was a "moral issue" for the press to censor conservative views about the debt ceiling. Quite shockingly, the Nobel laureate took to his blog to complain that the news media are being too fair and balanced in their coverage of this highly contentious issue:

On Election Day 2010, then-CBS Early Show anchor Harry Smith posed a hypothetical question about newly-elected Republicans to Ann Coulter: “There’ll be a routine vote, for instance, to increase the debt ceiling and the Tea Party guys are going to say, ‘Over my dead body,’ and the government comes to a screeching halt. Then what happens?” The conservative author confidently predicted: “Well, the…

If there's a reason why Dayton Daily News staff writer Drew Simon wrote his Tuesday morning story ("Seniors fear losing Social Security checks") other than to scare the elderly, I don't know what it is. Nowhere in his report did Simon say who was the first person to invalidly raise the specter of Social Security checks not going out on August 2 (it was President Barack Obama, in case you…

MSNBC's Chris Matthews Tuesday exposed his own debt ceiling hypocrisy without realizing it. As he absurdly asked his "Hardball" guests why America isn't having a "big debate" about what the federal government should pay for - like that's not what's happening at the moment! - he relayed how his parents balanced their household budget, but never once said anything about raising revenues. It was…

CNN's Wolf Blitzer put Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on the defensive Tuesday in a testy interview on the debt ceiling, lecturing the congressman and asking provocative questions about any divides within the party on Capitol Hill. Blitzer told Jordan that "you've got to deal with reality now" after reporting that the Balanced Budget Amendment, a brainchild of House Republicans, failed in the…

During a roundtable discussion on the debt ceiling deadlock on his July 26 program, MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan, egged on by a former Durbin and Biden staffer-turned-lobbyist, argued that the bulk of the national debt was run up prior to the time President Barack Obama entered office, by Republicans:

In the ongoing budget negotiations, it is becoming quite clear that President Obama, quite contrary to his posturing, is the major fly in the ointment. Even the Democratic leadership is more flexible than President Obama, putting the lie to the oft-stated speculation that Obama is a mere puppet. He is his own counsel.

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said Tuesday that as a result of how the debt ceiling negotiations are going, the Tea Party freshmen in Congress "may just have proved to be the most cunning and rational of all players in Washington, D.C." The host of "Morning Joe" told former Democrat Congressman Harold Ford this comes despite media depicting them as radical, reckless extremists (video follows with…

Has Barack Obama lost New York Times columnist David Brooks? In his piece Tuesday, the so-called conservative said the President last Friday "lectured the leaders of the House and Senate in the sort of patronizing tone that a junior high principal might use with immature delinquents...personalizing the issue like a spurned prom date":

The New York Times on Tuesday told its readers, "House Republicans have lost sight of the country's welfare." In an editorial entitled "The Republican Wreckage," the Gray Lady disgracefully claimed, "They have largely succeeded in their campaign to ransom America's economy for the biggest spending cuts in a generation" dimming "the futures of millions of jobless Americans":

Acting as if he were trying out for a MSNBC gig, Piers Morgan used his half hour of CNN’s prime time, following President Barack Obama’s 9 PM EDT speech on the debt ceiling and House Speaker John Boehner’s response, to hit his guests from the left, presuming Obama holds the reasoned moral high ground while Boehner represents an obstinate and selfish position.  “A lot of people blame the…