AP's Shameless Headline As Dem Senators' Opposition Prevents DREAM Act
If you look at the description of yesterday afternoon's U.S. Senate Roll Call Vote Number 278 ("A bill to amend title 28, United States Code, to clarify and improve certain provisions relating to the removal of litigation against Federal officers or agencies to Federal courts, and for other purposes."), you'd never know it had anything to do with illegal immigration.
But it did. It was a…
AP, Seattle Times Blame GOP for Downing DREAM Act; In Truth, Five Demo
Today liberal Senate Democrats failed to garner the 60-vote threshold to end debate on and move to a final passage vote for the DREAM Act.
In covering the story, the news wire credited Republican opposition for "doom[ing]" the legislation, but the math doesn't work out when you look at the breakdown of the votes on the motion to end debate -- also known as invoking cloture. [h/t reader Kevin…
AP Headline: Keeping 2011-2012 Income Tax Rates the Same Is 'Big New T
Did you know that the "big new tax law" signed by President Obama yesterday "will save taxpayers, on average, about $3,000 next year," and that it will have "tax breaks for being married, having children, paying for child care, going to college or investing in securities"?
Don't spend that extra $3,000 yet, because it mostly won't be there. With the only major exception being the 2-point cut…
Reporter Notes Big Change in Catholic Republicans and Democrats in Hou
Nancy Frazier O'Brien of the Catholic News Service reports that the number of Catholics in Congress will decline from 162 to 150 -- but underneath the numbers is a dramatic party shift among Congressional Catholics:
For the first time in recent memory, the number of Catholic Republicans in the House -- 61 -- nearly equals the number of Catholic Democratic House members, at 65. That marks a…
CNN's Spitzer Twice Referred to START Treaty as Being With the Soviet
It seems that Eliot Spitzer's mind is still in the 1980s, as he twice stated on Thursday's Parker-Sptizer on CNN that the new START Treaty was with the Soviet Union. Spitzer trumpeted "the all-important START Treaty, that will finally cement a nuclear disarmament agreement with the Soviet Union," and then noted that the treaty would deal with the "nuclear warheads that are pointed by the Soviet…
CBS: Letting Americans Keep Their Own Money = 'Holiday Gift' From Cong
On Friday's CBS Early Show, congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes reported on the passage of legislation to extend current tax rates and described it as: "an early holiday gift for every American taxpayer." She pointed out how "The cost of all that led 112 Democrats and 36 Republicans to vote no."
Moments later, she falsely claimed: "The bill also cuts the estate tax rate from 45% in…
GOP Calling ObamaCare 'Government Takeover' of Health Care Is Biggest
ABC's "Nightline" touted a PolitiFact story Thursday that rated the five biggest lies of 2010 in politics. The number one lie? Republicans calling the health care bill a "government takeover of health care."
When asked why the claim received the status of biggest lie of the year, PolitiFact.com editor Bill Adair answered that it was "so pervasive" and "just not true."
"It was so…
Scarborough Says 'Judge Not' . . . Then Calls Kyl And DeMint 'Un-Chris
Update: Joe denies judging Kyl and DeMint. See video after the jump.
Call it an episode of Short Self-Attention Span Theater . . .
Mere moments after citing Matthew 7's instruction to "judge not, that ye be not judged," Joe Scarborough judged Jon Kyl and Jim DeMint to be "un-Christlike."
Scarborough's strange self-contradiction came in the course of his diatribe against the two…
CNN's Yellin: Congress's Low Polls Numbers Due to Failure to Repeal DA
On Wednesday's Newsroom, CNN's Jessica Yellin bizarrely implied that Congress's low poll numbers was linked to their failure to repeal "don't ask, don't tell." After noting the public's support for repeal, Yellin stated that "Congress has its lowest approval rating in the history of polling...So it's clear that the American people are in one place, and one place where they're not so happy with…
Senate Liberals Looking to Ban Filibuster in
With an even smaller majority in the 112th Congress next year, some Senate Democrats are pushing harder in their attempts to stop the use of the filibuster, the exclusive-to-the-Senate procedure that requires votes to have a 60-vote majority instead of a 51-vote majority.
MSNBC's 'Morning Joe': Tax Cut Compromise Is Another 'Steaming Pile of
Comparing the current tax cut compromise with Barack Obama's stimulus plan of 2009, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough labeled the tax cuts a "steaming pile of garbage" on his December 13 show. Complaining that the compromise will add another $900 billion to the deficit, Scarborough compared it to the stimulus plan that cost a similar amount in the name of "stimulating" the economy.
"This is a…
AP Item Serves as Press Release for Benefit-Duplicating, Power-Grabbin
How did the nation ever survive without the government telling its schools what foods they should serve?
This is one of many questions the Associated Press's Mary Clare Jalonick did not explore in her brief de facto press release this morning trumpeting the wonders of the "nutrition bill" President Obama is signing into law these days (presented in full for fair use and discussion purposes):
AP's Ohlemacher Continues Press's Persistent Promotion of Social Secur
One of the press's longest campaigns to systematically obfuscate the truth about a specific government program is the one that has protected Social Security from reasonable scrutiny for most of the 75 years of its existence.
The Associated Press's Stephen Ohlemacher did his part to continue the misdirection in his coverage of the possible effects of the payroll tax cut President Obama and…
Deceive the Children: NYT 'Learning Network' Frames Federal Income Tax
A New York Times "Learning Network" graphic informs us that under the proposed Obama-GOP tax and spending compromise, "rates will not change for at least two years for anyone."
Wow. Somebody at the Learning Network needs to tell the Old Gray Lady's beat reporters, editorial board, and opinion columnists. Just today, reporter Helene Cooper, in noting how Vice President Joe Biden is playing a "…
