Minutes After Defunding Vote, NPR Airs Interview with Bloomberg Report

March 18th, 2011 7:05 AM
Just minutes after the House of Representatives voted to deny federal funding to NPR headquarters on Thursday, NPR was displaying its typical liberal bias on the show Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Substitute host Dave Davies was whacking corporate tax avoidance, or  "How Offshore Tax Havens Save Companies Billions." The guest was Jesse Drucker, an obviously liberal reporter with Bloomberg News.…

MSNBC Touts WaPo Columnist 'Taking Apart' GOP Budget Argument by Claim

March 16th, 2011 6:13 PM
On Wednesday's Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC, fill-in host Norah O'Donnell spoke with  liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne about his claim that the United States is "not broke," but simply needs to "raise revenue" through higher taxes. She teased the segment by wondering: "Is Washington really as broke as lawmakers make it seem?" O'Donnell described Dionne's latest column as "…

NPR's Michele Norris Wonders if U.S. Can 'Afford' a Job-Creating Tax H

March 16th, 2011 11:52 AM
NPR's Michele Norris expressed the liberal skepticism of any tax incentive to spur job growth on Tuesday's All Things Considered during an interview of Intel CEO Paul Otellini. Otellini proposed a tax holiday for any company that built a new factory in the U.S. Norris replied, "Can this country afford that right now?" The host asked the CEO about job creation near the end of her interview.…

Reporting on Record One-Month Deficit, AP's Crutsinger Blames 'Lower

March 10th, 2011 11:06 PM
This afternoon's report by the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger on the government's February Monthly Treasury Statement, which shows the highest single-month deficit in U.S. history, has more spin in it than the complete library of this group's songs. A complete rundown would take more space than readers could stand, so let's just concentrate on two paragraphs. Here's the first: The…

Stephen King Bashes Reagan and Republicans For Making His Taxes Too Lo

March 10th, 2011 11:21 AM
Horror writer Stephen King on Tuesday bashed Ronald Reagan and a number of Republicans at a Wake the State rally in Sarasota, Florida. His main beef with conservatives is they allow him to pay too little in taxes (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

Carl Bernstein: If the Country Was Serious About Cutting the Deficit

March 9th, 2011 5:27 PM
Twice within the span of a few minutes on Wednesday's "Morning Joe," journalist Carl Bernstein pressed for a gas tax to be implemented to help deal with the nation's budget crisis. The panel was covering the debate over the deficit taking place in Washington when Bernstein voiced his sentiments. When the question was if the country is truly serious about fixing the deficit, Bernstein…

Early AM Engine-Starter: Guess the Costs of Milwaukee School District

March 9th, 2011 4:22 AM
On Monday, in a story I will link after the jump, the Associated Press reported that on March 1 the  Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association (MTEA) dropped a lawsuit it initiated last year over the school district's refusal five years earlier to cover a prescription drug the union described as "an issue of discrimination, of equal rights for all our members” (that link will also appear after…

NYT: 'For the Sake of a Cleaner Planet, Should Americans Wear Dirtier

March 8th, 2011 6:06 PM
"For the sake of a cleaner planet, should Americans wear dirtier clothes?" So comically began a New York Times article on the front page of the Gray Lady's Science section Tuesday ironically titled "When Energy Efficiency Sullies the Environment" (photo courtesy Viktor Koen):

CNBC Reporter Gives Full-Throated Support for Higher Gas Taxes

March 8th, 2011 2:44 PM
On MSNBC's "Daily Rundown" today, Steve Liesman robustly defended raising gasoline taxes as a way to address rising oil prices. The CNBC senior economics reporter minced no words to show his support for hiking the unpopular consumption tax in the midst of a sluggish economic recovery: "I want to offer that one of the real solutions here is a gas tax." After positing that the problem with…

NY Times Columnist Tom Friedman Calls for Tax to Keep Gas at $4 a Gall

March 7th, 2011 10:39 AM
On Sunday's Face the Nation, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman denounced the proposed White House plan to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to curb rising gas prices: "That would rank in my top five worst ideas of 2011 so far....one thing we should finally be doing is using this opportunity to have a credible energy policy that begins to reduce our addiction to oil." Friedman's idea of…

Double D'oh! Another Maddow Guest Undermines Her Premise, This Time on

March 4th, 2011 11:12 AM
If this keeps up, the shrinking number of guests on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show could dwindle even more. For the second time this week, a Maddow invitee offered an awkward contrast to what Maddow claimed earlier in the same segment. On her show Monday, Maddow cited three reports claiming that $61 billion in spending cuts proposed by Republicans on Capitol Hill would lead to massive job…

Martin Bashir and Bernie Sanders Agree: Hike Taxes on Wealthy and Oil

March 3rd, 2011 5:10 PM
MSNBC's Martin Bashir has only been on the job for a few days, but the newly-minted anchor is already letting his liberal flag fly. On his eponymous program today, Bashir was dumbfounded as to why Congress is reluctant to hike taxes on the rich and end tax deductions for oil companies. "Why won't Congress simply do what the people want?" lamented Bashir, interviewing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-…

Jon Stewart Hits Conservatives and Wealthy for Focusing on Cuts for Te

March 1st, 2011 3:46 PM
Jon Stewart's latest anti-conservative screed included a satirical defense of top income earners and a tongue-in-cheek plea for teachers to pay their fair share, in the wake of the Wisconsin protests. On Monday's "Daily Show," the Comedy Central host offered a shallow assessment of the entire Wisconsin situation with not a single critical look at the state's public sector unions. Stewart's…

Arguing with Rand Paul, Letterman Urges Tax Hike to Pay Wisconsin Work

February 28th, 2011 1:56 AM
Catching up with a Thursday night appearance by Senator Rand Paul to plug his new book, Paul’s segment on the Late Show exposed David Letterman as an arrogantly ill-informed ally of Wisconsin’s public employee unions: “Why don't we just raise the taxes and let these folks have their collective bargaining, have their union representation and go back to their jobs? Raise the taxes on the wealthy…