Tea Parties

Tuesday's World News on ABC stood out as the only Big Three network evening newscast to cover a new "watchdog report" that found that the IRS "handed out more than $1 million in bonuses to employees who were delinquent on their federal taxes." Jeff Zeleny also pointed out how "more than 1,000 IRS workers, who didn't pay their taxes, received not only cash bonuses, but extra time off." [MP3…

On the Friday, April 18, PoliticsNation, Al Sharpton hyped President Obama's dubious claims about the Affordable Care Act's alleged success as the MSNBC host asserted that the program has "exceeded expectations," and that Republicans are suffering from a "hangover" in denying its success. Sharpton claimed to see "lies, fearmongering and paranoia" from the GOP, and brought up questionable claims…

The folks at MSNBC seem to be doing their best to try and minimize the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups. Ever since the initial reports broke in 2013, liberals have characterized conservative outrage as nothing more than a political stunt and one of many “faux scandals and conspiracy theories.” The most recent example came from Obama activist turned MSNBC host Joy Reid, who on Wednesday…

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, conservative columnist George Will had some harsh words for the Obama Administration’s handling of the IRS scandal. In response to a question from host Chris Wallace about how little is known about the IRS scandal, Will observed that Obama’s “appointed an employee of his who is also a donor of his to investigate him and before the thing starts he says, oh, by the…

Friday's NBC Nightly News played up the latest dust-up between Senators John McCain and Ted Cruz over the latter's criticism of three of the Republican Party's presidential candidates, including Bob Dole. Brian Williams underlined the apparent "genuine and palpable tension today in Washington," after Senator Cruz criticized Dole, McCain, and Mitt Romney's campaigns during a speech at CPAC: "…

How do we know that the tea party has become a force that can't be shrugged away in the five years since it emerged? When liberals in media smear tea partiers with ludicrous, over-the-top comparisons. Appearing on Ed Schultz's radio show, Mother Jones reporter David Corn rendered himself incapable of being taken seriously when he likened the tea party to one of the most depraved criminals to…

This week marks the fifth anniversary of the Tea Party movement, and on Sunday, CBS and NBC did their best to squash its momentum, with CBS’s Face the Nation snubbing the event altogether. Meet the Press moderator David Gregory hyped how on its anniversary Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) had “a message for his party, basically you know be careful how you’re conducting yourself.”

NPR celebrates political anniversaries – when it likes them. They celebrated the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, when when it had already faded away. This week, NPR aired five stories discussing the fourth anniversary of Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative to get kids to eat better and exercise. But there was no story on the fifth anniversary of the Tea Party. The closest…

The limited government, anti-bailout Tea Party movement party turned five years old on Feb. 27. They marked the occasion with an event in Washington, D.C. including speakers Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. Sen. Rand Paul, R- Ky., and Sen.Ted Cruz, R-Texas. But after the five years of the media painting tea partiers as “wingnuts” and “racist” time and again, ABC, CBS and NBC went virtually…

The Tea Party is now five years old. On Tax Day 2009, one CNN correspondent went off on Tea Party protesters. Here is the blog I posted on Newsbusters that day: April 15, 2009, about CNN's report from Chicago. CNN is finally covering the tea parties - by attacking the participants. After anchor Anderson Cooper made an obscene sexual joke about attendees, CNN correspondent Susan Roesgen rudely…

Five years ago, CNBC’s Rick Santelli reacted to the possibility of a mortgage bailout with frustration on live television. Quickly, his speech on the trading floor became known as the “rant heard round the world.” Santelli, an on-air editor who reports live from the Chicago Board of Trade, is frequently interviewed during “Squawk Box” and “Squawk on the Street.” It was during one of those…

On Wednesday the House Ways and Means Committee released new emails proving that former IRS executive Lois Lerner secretly helped craft, with Treasury officials, new rules that would make it easier to crack down on conservative groups like the Tea Party. These new rules were being written in 2012, at the height of the IRS’s targeting of the Tea Party. So far the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC)…

Known more for getting in the faces of celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber the tabloid/paparazzi show TMZ turned its camera sights on conservative Ted Cruz and the Tea Party. Not surprisingly the cast couldn’t get through the segment without mocking conservatives as racist, homophobic and just totally uncool. After ambushing the GOP senator to get his take on a coloring book…

CBS finally ended its almost six-month long ban on the IRS-Tea Party investigation to announce to its viewers, on Tuesday’s CBS This Morning, that the FBI is not expected to “file criminal charges” and has yet to find “proof of political bias.” However in the time since CBS last reported on the scandal on July 24, they have censored bombshells in the investigation like: Rep. Darrell Issa…