Patty Murray

Andrea Mitchell Laments Democrat's Contraception Legislation Won’t ‘Get Through Congress’
By Jeffrey Meyer | July 9, 2014 | 1:23 PM EDT

MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who is known for softball interviews with pro-abortion activists, appeared distraught during her Andrea Mitchell Reports program on Wednesday, July 9 at the chances of a Democratic bill meant to reverse the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby passing Congress. 

Speaking with Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), one of the co-sponsors of the legislation, Mitchell fretted that the bill “can get through the Senate, but it’s not going to get through Congress.” [See video below.] 

Big Three Networks Out to Lunch on Benefits Cuts To Disabled Military Veterans
By Matthew Balan | December 18, 2013 | 1:20 PM EST

ABC, CBS, and NBC's morning and evening newscasts, which hyped the sequester's "deep, across-the-board spending cuts" earlier in 2013, have largely been silent about the reductions in the annual cost of living increases for military veterans – part of the budget deal proposed by Republican Congressman Paul Ryan and Democratic Senator Patty Murray. But more egregiously, these programs have failed to notice that disabled veterans are not exempt from these cuts, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon on Tuesday.

As of Wednesday morning, Norah O'Donnell's question to Rep. Ryan himself on the December 12, 2013 edition of CBS This Morning is the only mention of the reductions in the veterans' pensions on the broadcast networks' news shows:

CBS Berates Rubio For Opposing Budget Plan, A 'Rare Outbreak of Bipartisanship'
By Matthew Balan | December 13, 2013 | 1:03 PM EST

Norah O'Donnell and Charlie Rose predictably conducted a hostile interview of Senator Marco Rubio on Friday's CBS This Morning, badgering the Republican for his opposition to a budget proposal from Republican Rep. Paul Ryan and Democratic Senator Patty Murray. O'Donnell hinted that he was in the pocket of conservative special interest: "I want to ask you about the criticism that you may be more beholden to these conservative groups than to your own party."

The anchor later wondered if "these groups have too much power". Rose himself carried water for the supporters of the proposal: "Speaker Boehner has said, and others have said, is that it's going – it's the first step in the right direction, and you've got to find common ground and you've got to find compromise – otherwise, you'll have government shutdowns, which everybody loses." [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]

CBS Hails 'True Compromise' on Budget; Hypes Opposition From 'Some Conservatives'
By Matthew Balan | December 11, 2013 | 8:54 PM EST

Nancy Cordes heralded the proposed budget deal from Rep. Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray as a "true compromise" on Wednesday's CBS This Morning, and asserted that "the reason it's so important is that it could bring an end to this terrible cycle, where Congress can't agree on a yearly budget." Cordes also revisited her network's slanted language about sequestration, stating that the proposal "partially rolls back those deep, across-the-board spending cuts."

The correspondent also played up how "the agreement won't win support from some conservatives", and that "there are bound to be some conservatives who don't like it". She didn't use such ideological labeling in reference to opposition from liberals. Instead, Cordes merely noted that "many Senate Democrats...don't think the deal's perfect, but they can live with it." [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]

Sen. Patty Murray Argues With NPR Anchor that Americans Are Ignorant of Obamacare's Great Benefits
By Tim Graham | September 27, 2013 | 8:40 PM EDT

Kudos to NPR All Things Considered anchor Robert Siegel, who on Thursday night pressed liberal Sen. Patty Murray to consider that perhaps Democrats might want to bend a little on Obamacare. He cited a Pew poll showing the partisan blame for a shutdown would be 39 percent Republican, 36 percent Democrat.

But it really got amusing when Murray wouldn’t budge – in fact kvetched that Obamacare was based on a “Republican idea” – when Siegel suggested that if Obamacare remained unpopular a year from now, would she then concede something might be wrong? Murray, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, actually suggested the American people are simply unaware they have already benefited:

Scarborough Ribs Shameless Schmoozer Ford, Jr.: Is There Anyone You Don't 'Like and Respect'?
By Mark Finkelstein | March 13, 2013 | 9:45 AM EDT

Five days ago, this NewsBuster wrote that Harold Ford, Jr. "seems more interested in cultivating friends and avoiding offense than in saying anything interesting." On Morning Joe that day, Ford had managed to praise a trio of pols, even breaking out the old "my dear friend" line to describe one of them.  When Ford employed the same shtick on today's show, Joe Scarborough eventually had enough, sarcastically asking Ford whether there's anyone he doesn't "like and respect."

This morning, Ford variously praised "the great Tip O'Neill," said he has "great respect" for Patty Murray, and even professed "I like Paul [Ryan] too." When Scarborough hit him with his pointed question, Ford responded  by saying that he was a Christian who sees the good in all.  That led to more ribbing from Scarborough and Willie Geist, who recalled a campaign ad from Harold's Tennessee days in which he posed in a church pew.  View the video after the jump.

MS-D&C: MSNBC Thoroughly in the Tank for Planned Parenthood
By Ken Shepherd | February 2, 2012 | 5:27 PM EST

MSNBC has been mocked as MS-DNC and MS-LSD by conservative critics. But given the network's constant drum-beat against the Komen Foundation for its decision to cut off grants to Planned Parenthood affiliates, it might be sensible to rename the liberal cable outlet MS-D&C, after the abortion procedure.

Throughout live coverage this morning and early afternoon, MSNBC hosts turned to pro-choice politicians and Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards to rebuke the breast cancer charity for its decision. Finally, in the 1 p.m. hour, veteran journalist and breast cancer patient Andrea Mitchell interviewed Komen's founder, Ambassador Nancy Brinker. Yet that discussion turned out to be a hardball interview that was followed immediately afterwards by a softball chat with hard-left U.S. senators Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

WaPo Casts Liberal Free-Love-for-Sixth-Graders Agenda As a 'Women's Rights' Cause
By Tim Graham | December 9, 2011 | 8:52 AM EST

The Washington Post headline on a Friday story on over-the-counter abortifacients ("morning after" pills)  for middle-schoolers was "Administration's Plan B move draws strong and mixed reaction." That's a terrible headline, because reporters Anne Kornblut and N.B. Aizenman only sought out liberal reaction, and then provided a Team Obama defense. Conservative reaction was omitted. (Why would conservatives read The Washington Post? Certainly not to read about themselves.) Worse yet, the Post routinely labeled feminist defenders of "morning after" pills for sexually active sixth graders as "women's rights advocates" -- when they're fighting for the sexual opportunities of sixth-graders.

There was real comedy in the story, from ultraliberal Senator Patty Murray, suddenly in the tank for Big Pharmaceuticals: "Pharmaceutical companies here in this country make some very expensive decisions, and they need to know the FDA is going to make a decision based on science."

The Debt Panel's Patty Murray Problem
By Michelle Malkin | August 12, 2011 | 5:10 PM EDT

Everything that's wrong with the so-called debt "super-committee" can be summed up in the person, partisan hackery and policy ignorance of Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray.

On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid named Murray co-chair of the dog-and-pony deficit-reduction panel tasked with identifying $1.5 trillion in spending cuts by late November. Murray, an unrepentant Nanny State cheerleader and patron saint of the Washington lobbyist, is a double-exclamation point on the debt deal's rotten joke.

CNN Politics Reports 'Republicans Name Fiscal Conservatives to Debt Committee,' Ignores Liberals Picked by Democrats
By Mike Bates | August 10, 2011 | 4:42 PM EDT

Today CNN's Politics Web site carries the story "Republicans name fiscal conservatives to debt committee," written by Deirdre Walsh and Tom Cohen.  The piece begins:

"Republican leaders on Wednesday named fiscal conservatives for their six picks for a new congressional "super" committee charged with crafting a plan to cut the country's deficit."

OK, the GOP's selections would be seen by most as fiscally conservative.  Senator Jon Kyle (R-AZ), for example, has received an A in the most recent rankings of the National Taxpayers Union and a 97 percent rating for 2009 from Citizens Against Government Waste, as reported by Project Vote Smart.

More NY Times Double Standards on Death Threats Against Congressmen
By Clay Waters | April 7, 2010 | 1:04 PM EDT
After harping on unsubstantiated reports of racial epithets hurled at black congressmen during protests against Obama-care, no reporter for the New York Times bothered to cover in print an actual arrest made in the case of an actual death threat against Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 Republican in the House. (The paper made do with an Associated Press brief.)

Yet David Herszenhorn filed a 10-paragraph story Wednesday on news that an arrest was made in regard to death threats against a prominent Democratic senator, Patty Murray of Washington: "Threats to Kill Senator Lead to Arrest." (The print version is slightly condensed from the online version.)

Herszenhorn, who last week was still throwing around accusations of racism at the Tea Party protests on Capitol Hill, took care to note Murray's prominence and reminded readers of the previous weeks threats that had targeted "mostly Democrats."
Sell Us Marcelas: Fifth-Grade Protester Has Entire Family of Liberal Activists
By Tim Graham | March 10, 2010 | 11:29 AM EST

Brent Baker recounted how CBS Evening News spotlighted fifth-grade protester Marcelas Owens on Tuesday night. David Shuster interviewed him on MSNBC on Tuesday morning. What neither network shared with the viewer is how Marcelas has become a constant talking point for his home-state Democrat Sen. Patty Murray, and how he is a spokesman for a liberal lobby, the Washington Community Action Network.

On February 26, Les Blumenthal of The Olympian reported Murray shared the Marcelas talking point at the White House health care summit:

"Sen. Patty Murray has told the story of Marcelas Owens dozens of times before, but Thursday she may never have had a bigger audience as she talked of the 10-year-old Seattle boy whose mother died after she lost her health insurance coverage."

...Marcelas, in a statement released by the Washington Community Action Network, thanked Murray for sharing his story with the president.