Welfare

Nice, But Not Enough: WaPo's Kessler Gives 'Four Pinocchios' to Dems' Koch Bros. Ad Claim
By Tom Blumer | March 14, 2014 | 4:13 PM EDT

Washington Post "Fact Checker" blogger Glenn Kessler has given "Four Pinocchios" ("a whopper") to a pro-Democratic group's political ad opposing the U.S. Senate candidacy of Louisiana Republican Bill Cassidy. The claim: The Koch Brothers, who are prominent financial supporters of the pro-GOP group Americans for Prosperity, want to protect, in the ad's words, “tax cuts for companies that ship our jobs overseas.”

Unfortunately, I have been told that Kessler's post did not make the paper's print edition; to no one's surprise, the Post has a tendency to give Kessler posts which fact-check Republicans greater print edition visibility. Additionally, at least one other Post writer and career race-baiter Al Sharpton have praised the anti-Koch ad and the strategy behind it. The likelihood that either will acknowledge Kessler's debunking is extremely low. Here are the key paragraphs from Kessler's work (bolds are mine throughout this post):

Washington Post Wants You to Pay More for Food -- If the Money Goes to the Government
By Seton Motley | March 4, 2014 | 9:13 AM EST

The Washington Post Editorial Board has long had a government agriculture policy position that is actually grounded in Reality. 

Going back at least half a decade - to the passage of the last terrible Farm Bill - they have been rightly pointing out that the Crony Socialist, picking-losers-at-the-expense-of-winners matrix of taxes, subsidies and quotas is simply a disaster.

ABC’s Stephanopoulos Asks Paul Ryan If Pope Francis Would Endorse His Budget
By Jeffrey Meyer | February 2, 2014 | 12:41 PM EST

George Stephanopoulos must be spending too much of his free time watching MSNBC as he used their talking points to attack Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) during an interview on This Week on February 2. 

The Republican congressman appeared with the ABC host and former Press Secretary for President Bill Clinton on Sunday morning and was immediately hit with a barrage of attacks over his opposition to President Obama’s use of executive orders to his views on poverty. Stephanopoulos went so far as to suggest that Pope Francis would reject Paul’s conservative philosophy and claimed that, “You don't think he'd endorse your budget, do you?”

MSNBC’s Richard Lui Hypes GOP’s Supposed ‘Empathy Gap’
By Jeffrey Meyer | January 7, 2014 | 5:28 PM EST

It should come as no surprise that when Republicans don’t support liberal polices such as raising the minimum wage, expanding Medicaid or extending food stamp benefits that MSNBC will slander them as heartless and compassionless. That was the basic message during a segment on January 8 between fill-in host Richard Lui and NBC News Senior Political Editor Mark Murray.

The segment began with Lui hyping a NBC News “First Read” piece discussing how the GOP needs to close its “empathy gap” with Democrats and essentially support liberal policies in order to do so. Mark Murray began his analysis by claiming that, “2013 wasn't a really good year for the Republican Party delivering on what that RNC after-election autopsy recommended.” [See video after jump.]

MSNBC's Taylor: Republicans 'Almost Single-Handedly Blew Up This Economy'
By Brad Wilmouth | December 27, 2013 | 12:23 PM EST

On Thursday's PoliticsNation on MSNBC, during a discussion of Republican resistance to extending unemployment benefits, MSNBC political analyst Goldie Taylor charged that the  GOP "almost single-handedly blew up this economy," and that it was "as if" they "blew up" the "bridge" and then "dared people to cross to the other side of the canyon on their own."

After host Al Sharpton played several soundbites of Republican elected officials and complained that they "act as though" the unemployed are "dependents, that they're some kind of beggars," he turned to Taylor who responded:

MSNBC's Hayes: GOPers 'Screwing Over' People, View 'Poverty as Punishment'
By Brad Wilmouth | December 20, 2013 | 6:35 PM EST

On Thursday's All In show, MSNBC's Chris Hayes repeatedly used words like "screwing over" to describe Republican policies toward the poor, and claimed that Tea Partiers in Congress believe in "poverty as punishment" as he fretted over a delay in the extension of unemployment benefits and then hyped Georgia Republican Rep. Jack Kingston's suggestion that school children do chores in exchange for subsidized lunches.

After characterizing recent statements by congressional Republicans as being like immaturely declaring, "Yeah, and your mother," the MSNBC host a bit later whined:

MSNBC’s Witt and Guest Draw Far-Left Conclusions From Study on Poverty
By Paul Bremmer | November 26, 2013 | 1:44 PM EST

MSNBC took advantage of a golden opportunity to advocate its left-wing agenda on Sunday’s Weekends with Alex Witt. The host brought on Derek Thompson of The Atlantic to discuss the piece he wrote about a recent study on the cognitive effects of poverty. In a nutshell, the study found that being poor can actually lead to bad decision-making.

Naturally, Witt took this study as a chance to tout the welfare state and take a swipe at lawmakers who want to slow its growth. She asked Thompson:

How the Liberal Media is Misleading You About Food Stamp 'Cuts'
By Amy Ridenour | September 23, 2013 | 11:10 PM EDT

If you listen to the left, you're probably hearing about food stamp "cuts."

What you're probably not hearing is, as Ira Stoll reported in the New York Sun, that the Democrats wanted to increase food stamp spending by 65% over the next ten years but Republicans passed a bill to raise it by only 57%, so partisan spinners and liberals in the media are calling what the GOP passed "a cut."

Obsessed Sharpton Distorts O'Reilly 'Parasites' Comment Seven Times in a Month
By Brad Wilmouth | September 16, 2013 | 6:42 PM EDT

Between August 13 and September 13, MSNBC's PoliticsNation host Al Sharpton has been so obsessed with FNC host Bill O'Reilly's criticism of food stamp abuse, the MSNBC host has on seven separate occasions played a clip of O'Reilly complaining that some food stamp recipients are "parasites" who abuse the system.

But Sharpton has repeatedly portrayed O'Reilly's comment as a general attack on the poor, as his PoliticsNation program seven times has played the same clip -- or a shorter version -- of the FNC host. O'Reilly, from the Monday, August 12, The O'Reilly Factor on FNC:

MSNBC Slams FNC on Welfare Fraud, GOP's 'Stunning New Attack' on Food Stamp Recipients
By Brad Wilmouth | September 6, 2013 | 2:43 PM EDT

On Thursday's PoliticsNation on MSNBC, Washington Post political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson and MSNBC contributor Goldie Taylor joined host Al Sharpton to go after Republicans for trying to cut back food stamp allowances, with Sharpton seeing "vile rhetoric" from conservatives and a "stunning new attack on millions of Americans trying to put food on the table."

The MSNBC host also fretted over reports of Fox News sending copies of its special on welfare fraud to members of Congress, and again distorted FNC host Bill O'Reilly's contention that some recipients are "parasites."

Before a commercial break, Sharpton teased:

MSNBC's Sharpton Repeats Distortion That O'Reilly Tagged 'People in Need' as 'Parasites'
By Brad Wilmouth | August 20, 2013 | 4:13 PM EDT

On Monday's PoliticsNation on MSNBC, host Al Sharpton again raised a distortion against FNC host Bill O'Reilly as he accused O'Reilly of applying the word "parasites" to "people in need," even though the FNC host was referring to people abusing the welfare system.

After Sharpton asserted that O'Reilly "slammed food stamp recipients as parasites," he played a clip of the FNC host. O'Reilly:

MSNBC's Sharpton Accuses FNC's O'Reilly of 'Hypocrisy'
By Brad Wilmouth | August 19, 2013 | 6:32 PM EDT

On Friday's PoliticsNation show, MSNBC host Al Sharpton reacted to FNC's Bill O'Reilly criticizing him the night before, as the FNC host had called out Sharpton for taking out of context his contention that some who receive food stamps are "parasites" who take advantage of the system, and divulged that he had made a donation to one of Sharpton's charities in the past.

After having tagged O'Reilly with "hypocrisy" in a plug before the segment, Sharpton brought up the donation from O'Reilly and declared: