Congress

The Congressional Budget Office just reported that in the past two years since President Barack Obama took office, federal spending is up 21.4 percent. The national deficit was $1.29 trillion in 2010 (second to the $1.4 trillion in Obama's first year in office, 2009), which means that for every $1 the federal government spent this past year, it borrowed 37 cents of it! The feds will tell…

Not that it justifies the horrible consequences of leaking classifed information, thereby endangering our troops, our allies, our friends, and their families (of course it doesn't), but the WikiLeaked documents being carried at outlets like the New York Times are revealing some truths that are proving quite inconvenient for Iraq war opponents. Earlier today (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I…

On Friday morning, after airing a full report on the Democratic strategy of painting Republican candidates as "dangerous" and "extreme," CBS’s The Early Show co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez seemed surprised when Republican guest Eric Cantor disagreed with her view that "there is no question these Tea Party Republicans are outside the Republican mainstream," and her suggestion that next year…

At an open NewsBusters thread this morning, commenter "ThisnThat" pointed to a Friday unbylined Associated Press item that twice used the label "ultraconservative" to describe Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle. Just for the heck of it, AP also threw in Reid's reference to Angle as being "too extreme," and his parroting of that biennial Democratic falsehood that a GOP candidate is for…

When a Democrat or leftist makes an ill-advised remark, it seems that there's a three-stage process at the Associated Press, and perhaps in most other establishment press outlets, for handling it. It goes roughly like this: Stage 1 - Ignore it as long as you can. If there isn't much outcry, keep ignoring it. Stage 2 - If there ends up being enough of an outcry from conservatives or…

MSNBC anchor Dylan Ratigan believes the recent developments in the GOP – including the rise of the Tea Party – have shredded the party of its "political traction" in the Senate. When asked by guest-host Peter Morici, an economist and professor of business at the University of Maryland, how much the Tea Party has set the Republicans back in their bid to retake the House and Senate, Ratigan…

 MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan is apparently so intent on depicting Republican candidates for office as stupid that he's willing to make asinine assertions to do it. Today in his "Ads Gone Bad" segment, Ratigan falsely insisted that an ad by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) attacking his Democratic opponent Rep. Charlie Melancon communicated to viewers that "illegal immigrants [were] crossing the border…

When it comes to so-called Super PACs spending money on TV ads targeting swing House districts, the Baltimore Sun seems to care a lot more about who's behind Republican ones than Democratic operations. Yesterday I noted how Sun staffer Paul West wrote about a PAC running ads against freshman Democratic Rep. Frank Kratovil (Md.). West portrayed the PAC's ads as a clever end-run around…

The Democrats'  "localized approach to the midterms is understandable, defensible—and wrong. The best way to keep control would have been a national message targeted at independents," Newsweek's Jonathan Alter complained yesterday in an article at the magazine's website. And what exactly should the Democrats have touted in a national campaign strategy for the midterms? Why, shovel-ready…

In 2011, the two major legislative initiatives of the tea party Congress (pray the voters deliver such a congress) will be to get a grip on the deficit, and to begin to reverse the intrusion of the federal government in American lives and business. It remains to be seen whether Congress will have the guts — and even the tea party public will give their support-for the entitlement cutting that…

Liberal radio host Randi Rhodes attacked Rush Limbaugh Friday for an argument which he never made – namely that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid never privately practiced law. Limbaugh, in fact, affirmed that Reid practiced law – for two years. Smearing Limbaugh as a "fat freak," Rhodes criticized him for making facts up about Reid. "After [Limbaugh] said he did his research, he came back…

Exploring the question, "Why Are Democrats Down in Pennsylvania?" Newsweek's Ben Adler determined the answer was fairly simple: not enough stimulus spending to benefit the rural areas of the Keystone State, which he says is "sometimes called 'Pennsyltucky'" by virtue of its being largely "white, rural, blue-collar, and poor":

Conservative Republican Senator "Jim DeMint relishes life on the Republican fringe," a teaser headline on the website for the Los Angeles Times noted this afternoon (see screen capture below at right). "The South Carolina senator's refusal to compromise has made him a conservative hero. He showers cash on 'tea party' candidates like Sharron Angle and Rand Paul, but he's winning few friends in…

To Associated Press writer Jim Abrams, the 111th Congress seems to be the Rodney Dangerfield of American politics. It just gets no respect. This despite the fact, Abrams laments in an October 18 story, that it's been a thoroughly "productive" Congress. Apparently to the AP writer, American voters are just ingrates who don't appreciate the "historic" nature of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid…