MSNBC's Brewer Annoyed at Barton's 'Shakedown' Reference, But Colleagu
In a satellite interview with Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.) held shortly before 1 p.m. EDT today, MSNBC's Contessa Brewer criticized Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) for denouncing the president for pushing BP to agree to a $20-billion escrow account for oil spill damages as a "shakedown": So, there's Joe Barton calling the $20 billion in escrow a shakedown, and as you point out, there are people in…
Doing the Job Media Won't: Fact-checking Obama's Gulf Spill Address
Plenty of prominent media figures were upset with President Obama over his substandard address to the nation last night (full text). While most are distraught, none seem to be doing what should be the essential journalistic task of the day: pointing out all of the factual misstatements the president made.So, in absence of a serious attempt at fact-checking from the legacy media, let us undertake…
CNBC Analyst: BP to Lose Offshore Leases, Faces Bar from Government Co
With the federal government - both on Capitol Hill and in the White House - beginning to take investigative and punitive action against BP (NYSE:BP), the future of the company, at least in the United States, is in peril. On CNBC's June 14 "The Kudlow Report," John Kilduff, a CNBC contributor and the vice president of MF Global was asked by host Larry Kudlow about a potential debarment from…
Leaked ObamaCare Docs: Majority of Employer Health Plans Won't Be 'Gra
Earlier this year, in his "Can we lose health coverage? Yes we can" column, syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock made a point asserted in dozens if not hundreds of columns and reports during the hide-and-seek legistlative process that ultimately led to the passage of what is commonly known as ObamaCare: The President's core promise relating to the statist health care legislation that ultimately…
MSNBC's Mitchell: Oil Spill An 'Opportunity' for Obama to Push Energy
Speaking to New York Magazine columnist John Heilemann on MSNBC Friday, anchor Andrea Mitchell wondered if the Gulf oil spill could be a political opportunity for President Obama: "Is there an opportunity now to do something real on energy?"Heilemann proclaimed the disaster was "a triggering action for us to try and get toward a greener future...break our addiction to oil..." The…
Antiquated Law Preventing Foreign Naval Aid for Gulf Oil Spill Says CN
When a protectionist law is enacted and nearly a century later it is inhibiting a recovery from major ecological catastrophe, it's probably time to scrap it or at least temporarily waive it. But instead a nearly century old provision known as the Jones Act of 1920 is wielding the wrath of unintended consequences. According to the Heritage Foundation, this protectionist measure was put in place…
Huffington on ABC’s This Week: ‘Absolutely a Thousand Percent Bush
“Sooner or later, we’ll blame this on George W. Bush,” George Will presciently predicted on Sunday’s Week during the roundtable’s look as how President Barack Obama is handling the gulf oil leak. Seconds later, the Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington didn’t let Will down, declaring “the truth is, that right now we have precisely the regulatory system that the Bush-Cheney administration wanted.…
CNN Waits 2 Weeks to Release and Then Bury Anti-ObamaCare Poll Results
CNN tried to downplay poll results it released on Wednesday which indicated continuing opposition to ObamaCare, while emphasizing how the poll also found "growing support" for the President's call for increased federal regulation of the financial institutions. The network and its partners at Opinion Research also took two weeks to publish the results of only two questions from the poll.The…
CNN's Griffin to Reich on Idea to Seize BP: 'Illegal;' 'Smacks of Vene
On Wednesday's Rick's List, CNN's Drew Griffin pressed former Clinton administration official Robert Reich on his call for a federal takeover of BP and its efforts against the Gulf oil leak. Griffin first questioned Reich if his proposal was serious, and later stated that the Democrat's idea "sounds not only highly illegal...but seems to me to smack of something that we might see in Venezuela" […
CBS Touts Grayson’s Push for Legally Mandated Paid Vacation, Looks t
On CBS's Sunday Morning show, correspondent Jim Axelrod filed a report touting the movement in America to make it the law of the land that some employers must provide paid vacation to their employees, even giving controversial Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson - known for making vicious attacks against conservatives – a chance to plug his proposal to make paid vacation, which the Florida…
Time’s Joe Klein: Oil Spill is ‘Bush’s Second Katrina,’ ‘Rep
On Sunday’s syndicated Chris Matthews Show, Time magazine columnist Joe Klein joined the ranks of left-leaning media figures like Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann in blaming the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on the Bush administration. As the panel discussed President Obama’s handling of the disaster, Klein opined that "this is more Bush’s second Katrina than Obama’s first," and, after…
Margaret Carlson Despairs that After Bush-Cheney Big Oil is 'Too Big t
“Eight years of the Bush-Cheney administration removing regulations” has made it so “now the oil industry is too big to regulate,” former Time magazine Deputy Washington Bureau Chief Margaret Carlson fretted on Friday's Political Capital show on Bloomberg TV.Defending Barack Obama against the notion the gulf oil disaster is “Obama’s Katrina,” Carlson, a columnist for Bloomberg News, argued on the…