The Talking Points Memo editor and publisher claims that illegal immigration is similar to same-sex marriage in the sense that “even if you think those things are terrible it's very hard to find a victim. And it's even harder to explain why that victim is you.” He writes that it doesn’t make sense to argue that “anti-immigration Americans -- and let's be honest, mainly white people -- are oppressed in some way by having undocumented immigrants be able to walk around in the open and be able to work in the open.”
Tom Coburn
Blogger Josh Marshall: ‘Inherent Silliness’ in Idea That Obama Immigration Plan Oppresses or Injures Anyone
By Tom Johnson | November 23, 2014 | 4:40 PM EST 
By Curtis Houck | November 21, 2014 | 12:44 PM EST
In a segment on his PBS show Thursday night, Charlie Rose and his guests discussed President Obama’s executive order on illegal immigration and described the responses from those in the Republican Party as “a bit extreme” and “ludicrous” while also harping on the conundrum that Republican leadership now supposedly faces in dealing with conservatives now that the executive amnesty is announced.
Joined by Karen Tumulty of The Washington Post and Michael Shear of The New York Times, the three discussed the President’s executive action in a segment that was taped prior to his speech during the program’s first 15 minutes.
By Tom Blumer | May 14, 2014 | 12:20 AM EDT
According to a Government Accountability Office report released in March but inexplicably only getting attention just now, the pain resulting from last year's sequestration "cuts," which were mostly reductions in the growth of spending in comparison to the previous year, bore no resemblance to the Armageddon-like warnings which preceded their imposition. Only one federal employee was laid off. You read that right — one. Only seven agencies out of 22 furloughed any employees, and they were ultimately given $2 billion in back pay.
What the results exposed by the GAO demonstrate, in addition to the fact that the government had plenty of places to cut and funds to access to keep its operations going without meaningfully affecting the federal workforce, is either that almost nobody in the establishment press cared about what the GAO had to say, or that if they did, they didn't believe that they should tell the nation that the Obama administration's scare tactics had no basis. Excerpts from one of the establishment press reports I found via CBS News's Stephanie Condon predictably turned the whole thing into a "Republicans attack" exercise:
By Randy Hall | December 13, 2013 | 10:40 AM EST
During his 19-year tenure as host of the Hardball cable TV political talk show, Chris Matthews has made several mistakes, but the one he will probably be remembered for most was his 2008 off-the-cuff remark that “I felt this thrill going up my leg” while listening to a speech given by then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Even though he has been razzed about it many times over the years, when the situation calls for it, Matthews isn't above repeating that statement, as he did on Wednesday's edition of his weeknight program. “At least I got my thrill up my leg from Obama,” he told former John McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt. “You got it from Sarah Palin.”
By Brad Wilmouth | October 30, 2013 | 6:58 PM EDT
On Tuesday's PoliticsNation on MSNBC, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank joined host Al Sharpton in lambasting Republican Senators Mitch McConnell and Tom Coburn for attending a fund-raiser in New York City the day before the first anniversary of Hurricane Sandy. Sharpton griped:
Treasury Omits All IRS and Other Bureaus' Conference Costs in 2012 Response to Coburn; Politico Calls It 'Incomplete Disclosure'
By Tom Blumer | June 9, 2013 | 4:59 PM EDT Although there are stories at Fox News and the Daily Caller, there appears to be almost no interest on the part of the establishment press in covering the Treasury Department's failure to report over 99% of its conference costs when Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn asked for an itemized listing a year ago.
The Politico, the repository for stories which cause Democrats and the left discomfort that the rest of the press would prefer to ignore ("Oh, the Politico did something with it, so we don't have to"), buried the item in a "Morning Tax" report Thursday. Writer Lauren French held off as long as she possibly could presenting how the $50 million in omitted IRS costs dwarfed the measly $500,000 which was reported (paragraph breaks added by me; bolds are mine throughout this post):
By Matthew Balan | May 22, 2013 | 8:16 PM EDT
On Wednesday's CBS This Morning, open Obama supporter Gayle King strongly hinted to Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn that he would face voter backlash for seeking cuts in the federal budget to pay for tornado disaster relief: "You voted against relief plans for Hurricane Sandy, and it sounds that you would do the same if it was raised in Oklahoma. Do you worry about alienating your constituents?"
The Republican politician shot back that he didn't want the next generation to foot the bill for the recovery from the EF-5 tornado that devastated Moore, Oklahoma on Monday, and then strongly criticized the multi-billion dollar Hurricane Sandy relief package audio available here; video below the jump]:
By Matt Hadro | May 21, 2013 | 10:29 AM EDT
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) wants any federal disaster relief sent to his tornado-ravaged state to be offset by other spending cuts, but CNN's Carol Costello thinks his stand to be either "extreme" or very untimely.
"This is either extreme fiscal responsibility or a raging case of 'this is not the time,'" Costello mocked on Facebook and Twitter. The Senator is sticking to his fiscal principles, since he has in the past demanded the same be done with federal aid to other states, but the liberal CNN anchor decided to inject her own bias into the story.
Civility Succumbs on NPR: Connecticut Gov Slams Gun Makers and NRA 'Monster,' Imagines Mass Shooting in Iowa
By Tim Graham | April 20, 2013 | 4:52 PM EDT National Public Radio’s brand is soothing and civil news and interviews. That certainly didn’t fit when Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy was interviewed Thursday on All Things Considered after the gun-control measures were rejected in the Senate.
Anchor Melissa Block read back to Malloy his comments that gun makers don’t care if mentally deranged people buy their guns. He not only doubled down on that, calling the NRA a “monster,” but when asked what it will take to pass gun control, he suggested Sen. Chuck Grassley might need a mass-shooting in Iowa, or one in Alabama or Mississippi. Civility went out the window on the evening commute.
CBS's Kroft Downplays Harry Reid's Responsibility For Senate Impasse; Hints GOP to Blame For Deadlock
By Matthew Balan | November 5, 2012 | 4:39 PM EST
On Sunday's 60 Minutes, CBS's Steve Kroft tried to paper over Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's role in fostering deadlock in the Senate. Kroft spotlighted Reid's "responsibility" for setting the body's agenda, but quickly added that the Nevada senator has "just as much of a responsibility as Senator McConnell - to make the system work and to do some things."
The correspondent also turned to Steven Smith, who hinted that the Republican minority in the Senate was to blame for the "deadlock" in Congress, despite Reid's Democratic majority not passing a budget in over 3 years: "If you're in the minority...you know that if you can slow down everything, the majority will have less time to get to its entire agenda....when the minority blocks a piece of legislation, who does the public blame? Is it the minority for its obstructionism, or is it the majority that just wasn't willing to compromise enough?" He failed to mention that Smith is a former fellow at the liberal Brookings Institution.
By Matthew Balan | March 27, 2012 | 4:24 PM EDT
Charlie Rose boosted New York Times's staff "conservative" David Brooks for his endorsement of the individual mandate on Tuesday's CBS This Morning, but Senator Tom Coburn was having none of it. Rose quoted from Brooks, whom he labeled a "a Hamiltonian, and someone...you share views with." Coburn slapped down the pro-ObamaCare argument: "We just don't have the authority to tell people to do that" [audio clips available here; video below the jump].
The Oklahoma Republican continued, in part, that "Brooks...[is] a Hamiltonian. I'm not. I'm a Madisonian, and that says, as government grows, freedom diminishes, and what we've seen is our freedom diminished." The anchor followed up by spotlighting ObamaCare benefits: "So, therefore, you don't...support the requirement for pre-existing conditions, nor the fact that children, up until the age of 26, will come under their parents' plan?"
By Brad Wilmouth | December 12, 2011 | 6:40 AM EST
On Sunday's World News on ABC, correspondent David Kerley filed a report highlighting anti-Newt Gingrich comments from a number of Republicans who used to serve in the House of Representatives with the former Speaker, and, although at least half the members cited as criticizing Gingrich have a history of being moderate Republicans, Kerley did not inform his viewers of this aspect of their political history which may affect their negative view of him.
After beginning the piece by asserting that Gingrich is "now frightening some of his own party," Kerley used a clip of centrist New York Representative Peter King: