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The debt deal, if it sticks, is a triumph for the bipartisan, status quo-clinging Washington establishment. Here is a prediction: Between now and January 2013, total actual spending cuts will be minimal. That will result from the following: (1) The $900 billion deficit reduction is almost all back-loaded to the years beyond 2012. (2) The select committee created by the budget deal will fail to…

Leave it to the New York Times to worry about income disparity and gentrification… in Cuba. In his August 3 story “Cubans Set for Big Change: Right to Buy Homes,” correspondent Damien Cave reported on how Cubans will finally be able – albeit doubtless with numerous restrictions – to own their own houses come legislative changes expected to be enacted later this year. “[E]ven with some state…

If all you knew about the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization controversy was what MSNBC's Martin Bashir told you on August 3, you'd only know that it exists and that House Republicans are at fault. Bashir claimed the thousands of furloughed FAA workers should blame Republican intransigence, but the truth is that the Democratic-controlled Senate let funding for the agency…

MSNBC's Chris Matthews took his hateful attacks on conservatives to a new level, Wednesday, smearing the Tea Party as "southern" "secessionists" who want to "kill" Obama. The Hardball host quickly amended, "politically."  After guest Howard Fineman suggested Republicans have opposed the President from the start, the Hardball anchor retorted, "What? 'We hate you, want to kill you–' …

Both House Democrats and Republicans opposed the debt ceiling compromise, but CNN's Don Lemon gave softball interviews to three Democrat congressmen who voted against the bill, while scrutinizing Tea Party Congressman Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) for his opposition. "Why the change of heart, Congressman?" the CNN host asked Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) Tuesday on his decision to switch his vote to no.…

What does it take to be able to own and operate a taxi and earn $30,000, $40,000 or more a year? You need to purchase a used car and liability insurance. Compared with other businesses, the startup cost to become a taxi owner/operator is modest; that's until you have to come up with money for a license. In May 2010, the price of a license, called a medallion, to own one taxi in New York City…

On Tuesday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams fretted: "There's still enough congressional gridlock to go around....One thing that did not get resolved today, a stalemate over the Federal Aviation Administration budget. And partisan bickering on this one is costing real Americans, tens of thousands of workers, costing them their paychecks." Correspondent Lisa Myers quickly found who…

NBC's Andrea Mitchell, in an exclusive Wednesday interview with Nancy Pelosi aired on her MSNBC show, hit the Democratic House Minority Leader from the left on the debt agreement as she pronounced it "a bad deal" because "there's no taxes in it" and whined: "Was the President a bad negotiator? Did he give away too much?" For her part, Pelosi agreed that it was a "bad deal" but rationalized…

An arguably unconstitutional effort in San Francisco at regulating the speech of pro-life crisis pregnancy centers was portrayed by New York Times reporter Jesse McKinley as an effort to “stem… misleading advertising”: Seeking to stem what they call misleading advertising, San Francisco officials on Tuesday began a two-pronged attack on ‘crisis pregnancy centers,’ which are billed as…

I don't normally get emails from CNN when the markets go from negative territory to positive, or vice-versa. But I did today, as the Dow and the S&P 500 oh-so-temporarily showed plus signs? So why did CNN send the email? Could it be that the markets' plunge is getting more widely known, and the network feels the need to tamp down the spreading pessimism? The CNN email, along with a…

During a discussion of Rep. Doug Lamborn's use of the term "tar baby," The View's Sherri Shepherd misrepresented conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh by accusing him of racism for use of the phrase "Barack the Magic Negro." "You're calling President Obama, Rush Limbaugh - Barack Obama, the magic negro. I mean it's all these little things that I go, wait a minute, I'm tired of giving people…

Appearing on Wednesday's NBC Today, CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer blamed the debt ceiling standoff for stocks falling on Wall Street: "All people can talk about is the whole slow down that Washington triggered, the 'manufactured crisis,' as the President mentioned..." Co-host Ann Curry wondered: "To what degree did the spending cuts called for in this bill have an influence in this perception…

New York Times columnist Joe Nocera on Tuesday viciously attacked Tea Party Republicans as "terrorists" who wore a "suicide vests" during the debt ceiling debate. Continuing the paper's habit of comparing congressional GOP members to murderers, Nocera derided:

If you thought Comcast buying into NBC was going to change the overtly liberal bias at the network's news divisions, think again. On Monday, MSNBC announced that Christopher Hayes, the Washington editor of the far-left magazine The Nation, will be getting his own show in September: