Latest Blogs

Yesterday, White House spokesmouth Jay Carney made yet another claim concerning how grrrrrrreat the economy is compared when President Barack Obama took office (bold is mine): The economy is vastly improved from what it was when Barack Obama was sworn into office as president. To no one's surprise, this howler was not considered news at the Associated Press. No article found in a search at…

CNN's John King on Thursday recycled the now debunked claim that, in a similar situation to the current debt ceiling debate,  Ronald Reagan lobbied for a tax increase compromise to avoid an economic default. This was the fifth time in less than a week that the cable network peddled the distorted quote provided by congressional Democrats. Discussing the national debt, King spun, "Believe it…

As soon as the Senate rejected the "Cut, Cap and Balance" plan, CNN.com shot out a biased Breaking News alert to e-mail subscribers that labeled the measure as one "favored by hard-line conservative [sic]" (screen capture attached below page break):  

CNN's Fareed Zakaria Thursday called the debt ceiling battle a "sideshow" caused by the Tea Party. Appearing on "In the Arena" as a supposed "astute observer of the economy," Zakaria proceeded to bungle economic and historic facts like a high school dropout (video follows with transcript and commentary):

While the media have been busy persistently denouncing the Cut, Cap and Balance plan as Republicans "wasting time" with a "show" plan that has "no chance of passage," the public aren't accepting the media spin. A CNN poll shows nearly 2/3rds of Americans favor that approach to tackling the national debt and balancing the budget, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell noted on the July 21 "Hannity…

Today's starter topic: Rick Perry. He's continuing to generate buzz in the context of the 2012 Republican presidential primaries and now for the first time, the Texas governor is favored by bettors on the oddsmaking site Intrade to actually get the nomination: Texas Gov. Rick Perry may not have formally declared his presidential candidacy yet, but bettors on the news-futures website…

Iowa Senator Tom Harkin was at his worst Wednesday morning in a press conference. Sure, there was the usual immature Democratic Party name-calling -- calling Republicans "dead-beat debtors" and characterizing Republicans who oppose raising the debt ceiling as a "cult fringe," even though polls seem to be showing that 60% of Americans are in that "fringe." But beyond that, Harkin uttered a…

logorrhea: excessive and often incoherent talkativeness or wordiness. -- Merriam Webster When watching lefty professor and MSNBC regular Michael Eric Dyson, the notion often occurs to me that the man suffers from the condition described above.  Just yesterday, as James Taranto noted in his Best of the Web column at WSJ online, Dyson digressed, during an MSNBC appearance, into a riff to the…

CNN touted results from its newly-released poll Thursday showing Americans favor a balance of spending cuts and tax increases in the debt ceiling debate, as well as raising the debt ceiling. What the network completely failed to report -- although NewsBusters reported it -- was that Americans also favored two conservative positions – passage of a balanced budget amendment, along with spending…

The media's attention on Rupert Murdoch and the British hacking scandal hit a new low Thursday. Filling in for MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Michael Smerconish finished "Hardball" with a segment floating the conspiracy theory that Rupert Murdoch staged Tuesday's Parliamentary pie throwing incident to distract everyone's attention from his testimony (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It seems Rep. Michele Bachmann is under increased scrutiny for her religious views, even as she climbs ever higher in the presidential polls. With tea party support, she is now No. 2 in the Republican polls even though she has been in the race for only a short time. The numero uno, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, is himself the victim of gentler bigotry for his religious views. He is a…

The CNN Belief Blog's latest hit-job on Republicans involved Boston University religion scholar Stephen Prothero pronouncing that Republican politicians taking conservative pledges is "unbiblical" and "unchristian." Republicans have made news recently for taking pledges that are anti-tax, pro-life, and opposing same-sex marriage. According to Prothero, the Bible argues that the "recent orgy…

In the past week, you couldn't swing a debt cat without hitting a press report about how irresponsible the "Cut, Cap and Balance" bill passed by House Republicans is. A new CNN/ORC poll released a few hours ago finds the media very much on the wrong side of public opinion concerning this issue:

Halfway through the July 21 edition of "NewsNation," MSNBC anchor Tamron Hall brought on Time magazine assistant managing editor Rana Foroohar to diss a Boy Scout cited by John Thune (R-S.D.) on the Senate floor. After Hall aired a clip of Thune reading the Boy Scout's letter admonishing senators to spend only what the government can afford, she and Foroohar set about to dismiss his concern…