Many people fantasize about what they’d try to accomplish if they were president of the United States. Some even write it down, and a few publish their thoughts, as Moore did earlier this week in the 150th-anniversary issue of The Nation. A few of the ítems on Moore’s list of twenty seem to be meant humorously (e.g., “free HBO for everyone”) but he’s serious about the clear majority of them, which are consistent with the lefty views on economic and political issues that he’s expressed since the 1980s, first as a print journalist and then in movies such as Roger & Me and Fahrenheit 9/11.
Taxes
Michael Moore’s Presidential Dream: Free Health Care, Free College, Massive Defense Cuts, and Three-Down Football
By Tom Johnson | March 28, 2015 | 12:59 PM EDT 
By Tom Johnson | March 21, 2015 | 11:01 AM EDT
Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig claims that the use of “taxpayers” (rather than "people") in discussions of fiscal and economic issues benefits conservatives for reasons including that it “seems to subtly promote the idea that a person’s share in our democratic governance should depend upon their contribution in taxes” and bolsters the makers-vs.-takers argument that became associated with Republicans during the 2012 campaign, so "we should eliminate it from political rhetoric and punditry."
Bloggers: In the GOP’s ‘Cult of Reagan,’ They Believe He Was a ‘Law-Giver Like Moses’ Or a ‘Prophet Like Zechariah’
By Tom Johnson | March 18, 2015 | 12:29 AM EDT New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait claims that for today’s GOP, “everything Reagan thought or did was presumptively correct, even the things that contradict the other things he did.” Specifically, “the Reagan cult is largely (though not entirely) a propaganda vehicle for the anti-tax movement,” even though “in reality, Reagan veered wildly out of step with anti-tax orthodoxy.” The Washington Monthly’s Ed Kilgore thinks the Cult of Reagan has been strengthened by its de facto alliance with a newer movement, the Tea Party.
By Seton Motley | March 16, 2015 | 9:26 AM EDT
As we know - America’s media is for the most part decidedly Leftist, often befuddled and rarely right. So when they wade into an intricate issue like President Barack Obama’s Net Neutrality Internet power grab - we can only expect even more Leftism, befuddlement and wrongness.
On February 26, the Obama Administration’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) pretended to be Congress and rewrote law. To suddenly start regulating the Internet under the 1934 Telecommunications Act - under rules written to regulate the landline telephone.
By Tom Blumer | March 14, 2015 | 10:26 AM EDT
The only surprise should be that anyone is surprised.
Those who are used to how frequently the word "unexpectedly" appears in reports about disappointing economic data certainly won't be at all shocked at a Friday Bloomberg News report by Steve Matthews and A. Catarina Saraiva telling readers that "U.S. economic data have been falling short of prognosticators' expectations by the most in six years." The report has three problems. First, it treats the latest U.S. jobs news as an upside surprise, when it's really the result of difficult-to-justify seasonal adjustments. Second, it acts as if the appearance of lots of downside surprises in key areas is a recent phenomenon. Finally, it fails to explain a likely underlying cause, namely that Keynesian-trained economists and analysts can't imagine that their models might be misleading them.
By NB Staff | February 25, 2015 | 6:43 PM EST
Appearing on the Fox News Channel’s (FNC) Your World with Neil Cavuto on Wednesday, Media Reserach Center President Brent Bozell reacted to dual news stories surrounding ObamaCare and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as “business as usual” for an “out of control” administration ruling “government by fiat.”
The first story came on February 20 that 800,000 ObamaCare enrollees had received incorrect tax information and then followed by news on Tuesday that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has allowed enrollees to keep extra money on their refunds due to the taxing error.
By Matthew Balan | February 20, 2015 | 11:12 PM EST
Julianna Goldman spotlighted the latest ObamaCare glitch on Friday's CBS Evening News. The same evening, ABC's World News Tonight aired a ten-second news brief on the "outrage over another glitch to the ObamaCare website – nearly 800,000 people received inaccurate forms from the site." However, Friday's NBC Nightly News ignored this story completely. Instead, the evening newscast hyped Rudy Giuliani "doubling down" over his recent remark that "the President of the United States doesn't love America."
By Tom Blumer | February 11, 2015 | 9:54 PM EST
The federal government today reported a $17.5 billion budget deficit for January. That brings this fiscal year's shortfall through four months to $194.2 billion, up from $182.8 billion during the same period last year.
As usual, the Associated Press's coverage, this time delivered by Martin Crutsinger, named the nation's "Worst Economic Writer" by National Review's Kevin Williamson two years ago, gave an incomplete historical explanation for the $1 trillion-plus annual deficits incurred from fiscal 2009 through 2012, and "somehow" forgot that President Barack Obama, who is demanding higher taxes in the budget he recently submitted, already got a significant tax increase on higher incomes just two years ago. Excerpts follow the job:
By Clay Waters | February 8, 2015 | 8:55 AM EST
On successive front pages Saturday and Sunday, the New York Times hit from the left presidential prospects from each party: liberal Democrat Hillary Clinton and Bobby Jindal, the conservative Republican governor of Louisiana.
By Mark Finkelstein | February 3, 2015 | 8:31 AM EST
Rand Paul to reporter: "Calm down a bit here, Kelly. Let me answer the question." Joe Scarborough to guest: 'Let me finish my sentence and then you can be a condescending liberal Emanuel." The two responses sound similar, don't they? Two guys getting frustrated by their interlocutors' interruptions.
The irony is that Joe Scarborough devoted a segment on today's Morning Joe to rapping Rand Paul for "shushing" that reporter, whereas a bit later in the show, Scarborough himself shut down a guest with such similar language.
By Curtis Houck | February 3, 2015 | 12:00 AM EST
Following the unveiling of President Obama’s 2016 budget proposal, two of the three major broadcast networks made time to mention the story during their Monday evening newscasts, but only in the form of short news briefs.
ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir dedicated 16 seconds of airtime to the subject and while it brought up how much of the President’s proposal centers around tax increases, anchor David Muir failed to note that the prospects of the budget proposal coming to fruition is slim to none.
'Inequality'-Obsessed NYT Makes News Story Sound Like Liberal Protest: 'The Rich Are Getting Much Richer'
By Clay Waters | February 2, 2015 | 8:03 PM EST Two Jonathan Weisman reports from Monday on Obama's big-spending new budget underlined the New York Times' ongoing liberal obsession with "income inequality," with Weisman's report loaded with language that could have come straight from a liberal protester: "the rich are getting much richer."