Congress

Hey Wall Street Journal: Open Borders-Amnesty is the Hugest Cronyism of All
By Seton Motley | November 9, 2015 | 1:04 PM EST

The political definition of Cronyism is: government policy that favors one or more specific beneficiaries - at the expense of everyone else.  To wit: $80 billion of the 2009 “Stimulus” was wasted on “green energy” companies - 80% of whom were Barack Obama donors.  Amongst the parade of horribles contained therein: the government took money from energy companies - to fund competitors to their energy companies.  

Sadly, a $3.5-trillion-a-year federal government budget is filled to the rafters with nigh-endless Cronyism.  There’s so much to undo - one must triage and prioritize.  And while we work to reduce and eliminate, we most certainly should not create a whole new Cronyism - that will dwarf all the others combined. 

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) late last week gave us a quintessential example of aiming at the tiny - while they have for years championed the huge.  Behold:

NYT's Calmes Again Hits 'Far Right' Talk Radio and Steve Deace, Who 'Speaks for Angry Republicans'
By Clay Waters | November 7, 2015 | 7:14 PM EST

In the New York Times Sunday magazine, reporter Jackie Calmes issued an unwanted sequel to her 16,000-word summer screed "'They Don't Give a Damn About Governing,' this one focusing on conservative radio host Steve Deace: "Such is the mood on the far right these days....This strain of conservative media, and its take-no-prisoners ideology, have proliferated on websites, podcasts and video outlets, greatly complicating the Republican Party’s ability to govern and to pick presidential candidates with broad appeal."

AP Credited Obamacare When Arizona Co-op's News Was Good, Buried It When It Failed
By Tom Blumer | November 5, 2015 | 11:51 PM EST

Add Arizona's Meritus Health Partners to the growing list of Affordable Care Act co-op failures. The Daily Signal reports that this makes 11 of 23 such state Obamacare co-ops which will have closed their doors by the end of 2015 after three or fewer years in operation.

The Associated Press, which, along with most of the rest of the establishment press, has been playing aggressive defense on behalf of Obamacare since its passage and especially since Barack Obama's reelection in 2012, has no coverage of Meritus's crackup at its main national or "Big Story" site. Beyond that, readers will see after the jump that the AP's local stories about Meritus highlighted its association with ACA/Obamacare when things appeared to be going well, and buried it when they went south.

Carl 'Hard-Right' Hulse Mars the Times With His Contemptuous Tone Toward Tea Party GOP
By Clay Waters | November 3, 2015 | 1:19 PM EST

New York Times congressional reporter Carl Hulse delivered a balanced column Tuesday recounting why reformist, Tea Party-minded conservatives have aligned against more traditional Chamber of Commerce Republicans. But it was marred by Hulse's contemptuous tone ("the anti-chamber crowd") and labeling habits, with Hulse making not one, not two, but six references to "hard-right" conservatives in a 1,050-word story, with two "hard-line" labels for good measure. Yet the Times' uses of the term "hard-left" in U.S. political stories are vanishingly rare.

CNN Presses Ryan on Paid Leave, US 'Way Far Behind' 'Most Civilized Nations'
By Brad Wilmouth | November 3, 2015 | 1:04 AM EST

After pressing Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan on the issue of whether the federal government should require employers to provide paid family leave in a pre-recorded interview aired on Sunday's State of the Union, CNN correspondent Dana Bash made two appearances on Monday in which she used this portion of the interview to again bring up the issue.

Appearing on both CNN New Day and again on CNN Newsroom with Carol Costello, Bash described the U.S. as "way far behind" other countries. She also recounted that "most civilized nations" mandate such a guarantee to their workers.

Not News: Obama-Clinton Emails Render His Related Kroft Interview Statements False
By Tom Blumer | October 31, 2015 | 11:58 PM EDT

A Friday evening story at the New York Times covered the Obama administration's decision to "try to block the release of a handful of emails between President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton."

In it, reporters Michael D. Shear and Michael S. Schmidt demonstrated that President Obama undoubtedly did not tell the truth in his interview with CBS News's Steve Kroft in a 60 Minutes episode which aired on October 11.

As GOP Selects Ryan, NY Times Throws 'Far-Right...Hard-Right...Hard-Line' Labels
By Clay Waters | October 31, 2015 | 10:21 PM EDT

The election of a new Speaker of the House had the New York Times firing up its reliably crooked labeling machine. On Thursday, reporter and repeat offender David Herszenhorn lamented that "Many Republicans, including members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus who had hounded Mr. Boehner from the speakership, accused him and other party leaders of betraying them with a late-hour deal that was negotiated in secret." Veteran congressional reporter Carl Hulse interviewed former Speaker John Boehner and took his side against his allegedly irresponsible opponents: "Mr. Boehner...eventually became the power structure, only to be forced out by hard-line conservatives he deems 'knuckleheads' for their inability to recognize that compromise is sometimes necessary in politically divided government."

Blogger Kevin Drum: Krauthammer’s Too Smart to Believe All That Right-Wing Nonsense About Obama Scandals
By Tom Johnson | October 31, 2015 | 6:34 PM EDT

Even though Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum describes Charles Krauthammer as a “hardcore conservative,” he suggested in a Friday post that Krauthammer is too enlightened to be on the same page as most right-wingers regarding Obama White House scandals.

When Krauthammer argued recently against the effort to impeach IRS commissioner John Koskinen, he commented that on matters including the IRS/Tea Party flap and the Benghazi attack, Republicans, despite not persuading the majority of the public of Obama-administration “malfeasance,” had had “the facts and the argument” on their side. Drum wrote, “Does [Krauthammer] really believe this? Or does he know it's baloney but figures he needs some kind of acceptable cover to get Republicans off their Ahab-like zeal for investigating nothingburgers?” According to Drum, Dr. K does indeed understand that it’s baloney.

Why Does the Media Hate (Poor) People Having Cheap Food?
By Seton Motley | October 28, 2015 | 12:48 PM EDT

The media are, of course, almost uniformly Leftist - which means they just about always toe the Party line.  Including the belief that in order to help the poor - government must perpetually grow.  Of course we conservatives also want to help the poor - we just think shrinking government is the way to actually do it.

When things get more expensive - the poor get hammered hardest.  But the media misses the obvious - the more government there is, the more things cost.  It is axiomatic - in (at least) two ways. 

Journalists vs. the 'Far Right,' 'Hardline' and 'Ultra-Conservative' House GOP
By Rich Noyes | October 28, 2015 | 10:05 AM EDT

Over the past four weeks, as the broadcast networks have covered the House leadership contest, reporters have gone out of their way to relentlessly paint House Republicans, especially the Freedom Caucus, as ideologues who are outside the American political mainstream.

From September 25 to October 23, MRC analysts reviewed all 82 ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news stories about John Boehner’s resignation as House Speaker and the race to succeed him. The coverage included a whopping 106 ideological labels of Republicans, including 35 casting conservatives as extreme: “far right,” “hardline,” “very conservative” or “ultra-conservative.”

CNN's Cuomo Hits Begala from Right on Hillary Changing Benghazi Story
By Brad Wilmouth | October 28, 2015 | 1:09 AM EDT

On Tuesday's New Day on CNN, during a discussion of how the latest poll numbers might affect the upcoming Republican presidential debate, co-anchor Chris Cuomo predicted that the debate would include discussion of the revelation that Hillary Clinton initially told people close to her that Benghazi was a terrorist attack before switching to the discredited story of a video merely inciting a violent protest.

Cuomo first brought up the issue of Clinton changing stories as he turned to right-leaning commentator Kevin Madden and posed:

Networks Yawn at House Starting Impeachment Process for IRS Commissioner Koskinen
By Curtis Houck | October 27, 2015 | 9:07 PM EDT

On Tuesday, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC censored from their evening newscasts any mention of the House of Representative beginning the procedures to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen on the heels of Republican Congressman and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s expected ascension to Speaker of the House.