Congress

It's bad enough, as Bryan Ballas at NewsBusters noted on May 16, that the Washington Post's Philip Bump dishonestly used last week's Amtrak tragedy to rip Republican members of Congress for somehow being responsible for the (theoretically) for-profit entity's "constant struggle" for funding. As Sean Davis at the Federalist explained, Amtrak has really had no funding struggles. Bump had to make…

On Tuesday, Associated Press reporter Martin Crutsinger celebrated the federal government's large April budget surplus, caused by "a flood of tax payments (which) pushed government receipts to an all-time high." He didn't mention that the tax payments were higher largely because of tax increases passed in 2013. It certainly didn't occur because of an improving economy — because it's not…

With at least seven dead and hundreds more injured in Tuesday’s Amtrak crash, many in the nation have paused for a moment to lament and pray for the dead and wounded. The same cannot be said for Philip Bump of the Washington Post, who rushed on Wednesday to note “House Republicans had planned to spend Wednesday marking up a transportation spending bill that included steep cuts to the budget for…

On Wednesday night, the top English and Spanish networks showed no interest in covering the news that the House of Representatives approved pro-life legislation that would largely ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy that will now move over to the Republican-led Senate. While English-language networks ABC, CBS, and NBC combined with Spanish-language networks MundoFox, Telemundo, and…

New York Times White House correspondent Michael Shear specializes in one-sided fawn-a-thons over President Obama, and Wednesday's report on a panel discussion at Georgetown University featuring Obama talking race and poverty, was the work of a master of the craft: "Obama Urges Unity in Poverty Fight." Shear, who carried Obama's water over the President's anti-business "you didn't build that"…

Despite now knowing that the Amtrak train that derailed outside of Philadelphia on Tuesday night was going more than double the speed limit, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC continued pushing the need for more infrastructure funding and an increase in Amtrak’s budget on their Wednesday evening newscasts. In addition, CBS and NBC failed to mention the fact that train engine in…

On Tuesday, ABC’s World News Tonight and the CBS Evening News chose to ignore news that Senate Democrats voted to block debate on a series of trade measures pushed by President Barack Obama as part of a push to eventually approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal. NBC Nightly News did cover the story with a news brief by Lester Holt who billed the failed vote as “[a] major setback…

With Camden Yards set to hold its first fan-attended Baltimore Orioles game in over two weeks tonight, it's a good time to go back to a May 2 item by Meredith Shiner at Yahoo Politics. Readers may remember the Duke-"educated" Shiner as the person who was flabbergasted that GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz cited "God-given rights" when he announced his candidacy on March 23, tweeting in part…

According to columnist Eric Alterman, prominent journalists tend to realize that most Republicans are “ideological extremists” whose agenda, dictated by “the super-wealthy,” warps our politics. The problem, he added, is that the news stories those journalists write don’t reflect that realization. Instead, argued Alterman in a piece for the magazine’s May 18 issue, “even our best reporters feel…

On Monday night, English-language networks ABC and CBS joined Spanish-language networks MundoFox, Telemundo, and Univision in ignoring the news that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has finally agreed to testify before the House Select Committee on Benghazi regarding the 2012 terror attack in Libya and her usage of a private e-mail account while at the State Department.

It must be nice to be a leftist Washington politician representing congressional districts in or the entire state of Ohio. You can serially fib about something for years on end, and ordinarily the folks back home won't know any better. Even when you're caught red-handed by the national press occasionally breaking down and doing its job, your area's or the Buckeye State's press will ignore it. A…

For liberals, the great mystery of the last few decades is how Republicans usually have won enough votes to control one or both houses of Congress even as the party moves increasingly to the right. As political-science profs Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson put it in their 5,500-word article in the spring issue of The American Prospect, “In a 50-50 nation, Republicans have learned how to have their…

One week ago tonight, Chris Matthews told his Hardball audience that Florida mailman Doug Hughes should pay for his illegal gyrocopter stunt by being sentenced to community service consisting of Hughes lecturing Congress for an hour on campaign finance reform. Tonight Matthews doubled down on that suggestion and gave Hughes a platform on MSNBC's airwaves.