Congress

At the top of NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, moderator Chuck Todd wondered if a Republican rising star could overcome a major obstacle that has occurred "year after year" for the GOP: "Can Iowa's Joni Ernst avoid becoming the latest victim of the curse of the State of the Union response?" 

On Sunday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Lester Holt touted how President Obama's plan to "propose tax hikes for wealthiest Americans" during Tuesday's State of the Union address would be "potentially putting Congress in the position of appearing to defend the highest income earners over the middle class."

Boston.com and associate editor Victor Paul Alvarez have parted ways, according to fierce crosstown rival Boston Herald, after Alvarez wrote a glib and snarky account of an alleged plan by an Ohio bartender to poison House Speaker John Boehner. Here's how it was reported in the Herald --

Denise Oliver-Velez argues that Love is merely “another brown face to shove in front of the cameras” as supposed proof that the Republican party cares about non-white people, but “she certainly isn't going to convince any black folks who aren't Teapublican patsies already.”

As of 6 pm Eastern on Thursday, CNN has devoted just 19 seconds of air time to the release of five prisoners from Guantanamo Bay detention facilities – a news brief during the New Day program. This is still more coverage than CBS and NBC, as both Big Three networks ignored the story on their Thursday morning newscasts. ABC gave a 16-second news brief on Good Morning America.

In an interview with newly elected Colorado Senator Cory Gardner for PBS's Charlie Rose, Bloomberg View columnist Al Hunt grilled the Republican on conservatives in Congress being obstructionist: "Some of your Republican colleagues, Ted Cruz in the Senate, those twenty-four House members who voted against Speaker Boehner, they're not interested in getting things done as much as they are in…

On Wednesday, ABC’s Good Morning America had a segment that promoted how, due to budget cuts, the IRS will be forced to “delay those refund checks,” “increase the risk of identity theft,” conduct “46,000 fewer audits,” and maintain an “IRS help line” that “is going to become much less helpful.” Co-host George Stephanopoulos lamented about “fewer audits means less revenue to the Treasury” to run…

Carol Costello badgered Rep. Sean Duffy on Wednesday's CNN Newsroom over House Republicans' attempt to defund President Obama's executive action granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants: "The Department of Homeland Security protects the United States from terrorist attacks. Some Senate Republicans – among them, Lindsey Graham – say the strategy should be revised in light of what…

Victor Paul Alvarez's LinkedIn profile says that he's an "Associate Editor - Boston.com at The Boston Globe," with previous stints at East Bay Newspapers and the Baltimore Sun. He was a copy boy at the Sun in 1994 while he was also a student at Towson University, which would likely make him a bit over 40 years old now. It is beyond comprehension that someone with Alvarez's decades of experience…

The New York Times' message to the new Republican congress? Don't cross Obama. That was the gist of three political stories on Wednesday. Sheryl Gay Stolberg's profile of grizzled Senate veteran John McCain included this harsh attack: "...despite hints that he is trying to reinvent himself from cantankerous Obama critic to elder statesman, Mr. McCain still seems to be in clobber mode."

The latest report out of Venezuela by the Associated Press's Hannah Dreier has a time stamp of 1:15 p.m. today. This means that the wire service has had plenty of time to report, and has chosen not to report, a powerful pastoral letter issued yesterday by that country's Catholic bishops (original in Spanish; full Google Translation) denouncing that country's descent into a system they described…

Well, they're nothing if not consistent. When the Obama administration lost a court ruling against its ban on Gulf of Mexico drilling after the BP oil spill, it simply issued another ban. When it lost at the Supreme Court in the Hobby Lobby case, it just issued a new rule which hardly differed from the one the Court nullified. Now, when it becomes clear that the administration won't get the…

The ability of tiny numbers of far-left fringe group demonstrators to get undue press attention virtually any time they want continues to be intensely annoying. In mid-2007, Barack Obama made closing the prison at Guantanmo Bay a core promise of his 2008 campaign. That was 7-1/2 years ago. Obama has been in office six years. Gitmo is still open. So naturally, the aggrieved professional…

Friday's NBC Nightly News enthusiastically promoted President Obama's proposal to provide "free" community college education, to the tune of $60 billion over ten years. Brian Williams hyped the "ambitious offer that could help so many families." Chris Jansing asserted that the President's plan is a "a goal everyone can agree on," but also underlined that the multi-billion dollar program is going…