Government shutdown

Treasury claims possible debt standoff would be ‘worse’ than 2008; CNBC says fear is White House ‘aim.’

“Animal-semen exporters were furloughed” sounds like a bad joke, but to left-wing publication Mother Jones it’s a problem caused by the government shutdown. Right up there with 50 Nubian goats in New Jersey being furloughed. And don’t forget about the Whale Counters! The Oct. 2 article listed “30 Ways the Shutdown Is Already Screwing People.” Most of the items on this list wee the same talking…

Not 90 minutes after CNN first reported that Capitol Hill was on lockdown on Thursday, anchor Wolf Blitzer brought politics into the breaking news coverage. "An incident like this which clearly scares everyone up on Capitol Hill, staffers, workers, members of Congress. You think it's going to propel you guys up there, Democrats and Republicans, to say you know what, enough is enough, let's get…

Nancy Cordes stood out on Wednesday's CBS Evening News for pointing out Senator Harry Reid's eyebrow-raising "why would I want to do that" answer to a question about approving funding for cancer research for children. Meanwhile, on NBC Nightly News, John Yang hyped how "200 patients a week...including about 30 children" had been turned away from "last-resort medical treatment" due to the…

It's only three days into the federal government shutdown, and Senate majority leader Harry Reid is already showing signs of stress. That was especially apparent on Wednesday, when he was asked by Cable News Network reporter Dana Bash if the Senate would vote to pass a resolution if it was already approved by the House to restore funding for the National Institutes of Health, which among other…

Jay Leno clearly isn’t pleased with the government shutdown. On Wednesday’s Tonight Show, the host spent most of his opening monologue railing against the President and Congress concluding with him holding a sign up that read “F U Politicians” (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

As I noted in a previous previous post today (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), a CNNMoney.com email tried to spin a 0.4% decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and tiny drops of less than 0.1% in the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ into proof that the government shutdown and the "looming U.S. default" were having awful effects on investors. Given that the ADP Employment Report today was a…

In an exclusive interview with President Obama on Wednesday, CNBC chief Washington correspondent John Harwood lobbed this softball on the political fallout of the government shutdown: "Before the election last year, you said you thought there was a possibility your re-election would break the fever within the Republican Party. Didn't happen. Do you see this moment as a chance, through this…

Veteran journalist Carl Bernstein unleashed a tirade against House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and “his Republicans” on Wednesday’s Morning Joe. After co-host Mika Brzezinski read a passage from Thomas Friedman’s scathing indictment of Tea Party Republicans in The New York Times, Bernstein promised, “I’ll go farther than Friedman.” He certainly did: “Eric Cantor and his Republican Party are the…

A sure sign that Dear Leader in the White House is under siege? His most ardent followers in media are sounding like denizens of Radio Rwanda circa 1994. Latest example -- liberal radio host Stephanie Miller, aka the "Sexy Liberal" (yes, she actually calls herself that) upping the ante with a bedwetter of a caller who feared for his children's safety because of the partial government shutdown. (…

For two straight days, Nancy Cordes strongly hinted on CBS This Morning that House Republicans were to blame for the ongoing government shutdown. On Tuesday, Cordes hounded GOP Congressman Robert Pittenger: "All the polls show that a majority of Americans don't want to see the government shut down over ObamaCare. How can you say the American people is on your side?" The correspondent tossed a…

On Tuesday's PoliticsNation, MSNBC.com Executive Editor Richard Wolffe -- formerly of Newsweek -- predicted that, because Republicans embraced the Tea Party, setting up the path to a government shutdown, Republican party members are "destroying their brand" and "will not be trusted" "for a generation to come." Wolffe began:

  As Barack Obama wrapped up a speech from the White House on Tuesday, reporter Jon Karl of ABC actually shouted a tough question at the President, wondering, "...If you won't negotiate, how can you get a solution? How can you bring an end to this if you won't talk to the congressional leaders?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Anchor George Stephanopoulos noted that "Obama ignor[ed] a…

On Tuesday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams sneered that the government shutdown was "being driven by a committed core of Republican members of Congress who are all but assured of re-election in their districts, and just can't be conservative enough for many of the folks back home." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] In the report that followed, chief White House…