Budget

Monday evening at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, Hope Yen, with the help of lead AP pollster Jennifer Agiesta and three other reporters, tagged 20 percent of Americans as "rich." To do so, she reinvented what it is to be "rich" or "affluent." It apparently has nothing to do with how it is normally defined, i.e., based on current net worth (assets owned minus debts owed…

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan made some rather ominous economic observations Sunday. Appearing on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, Greenspan said, “[T]he level of uncertainty about the very long-term future is far greater than at any time I particularly remember.” He blamed it on “government intervention [that] has been so horrendous that businesses cannot basically decide what to…

On Tuesday's PoliticsNation, MSNBC.com Executive Editor Richard Wolffe described Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan as having put together a budget that was "harsh" and "showing absolutely no compassion" as he appeared as a guest on the MSNBC show. Wolffe:

On Sunday's 60 Minutes, CBS's Steve Kroft boosted the agenda of Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-identified socialist, by granting him 30 seconds of air time to attack billionaire Pete Peterson, who was featured on the November 17, 2013 edition of the news program. However, this half-minute block was 2.5 times the amount that Peterson got during Charlie Rose's report [MP3 audio available here;…

HealthCare.gov is so insecure that IT experts say they wouldn't use it themselves. The supposedly firm November 30 deadline for the web site's repair and recovery really isn't. Back-end problems abound. Earlier this week, Henry Chao told a congressional committee that "the back-office systems, the accounting systems, the payment systems, they still need be built." That is, they apparently haven…

On Wednesday's CBS Evening News, Nancy Cordes zeroed in on the three Republican congressmen who grilled top administration officials during a hearing on ObamaCare, ballyhooing that "none of them were really able to explain why this product they worked on for years was so flawed". Cordes played extended clips from the hearing totaling 51 seconds – nearly twice the combined number of ABC's World…

In the midst of the unmitigated disaster that has been the roll out of ObamaCare, on Saturday's NBC Today, co-host Lester Holt had the audacity to suggest to Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus that Republicans should be the ones on defense: "...you took it on the chin when you fought it in the last budget battle. When we go back around to the budget in January, are…

Even though government operational outlays didn't really go down at all in fiscal 2013 compared to fiscal 2012, several government agencies ended up raiding slush funds (my term) to get through sequestration, the tiny reductions in previously increased projected spending which took effect during the second half of the fiscal year. This evening at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's…

The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward made an interesting observation Sunday. Appearing on Fox News’s MediaBuzz, he claimed that the White House blames him for starting the media’s criticism of President Obama’s lack of leadership (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Sam Stein, who poses as a journalist while toiling at the Huffington Post (he lost any legitimate claim to the title when he wouldn't back away when caught red-handed pretending to know something he couldn't possibly know about John McCain's vetting or lack thereof of Sarah Palin in September 2008), wrote on Thursday (HT Hot Air) that "The Obama administration is considering a fix to the…

After NBC warned viewers that the partial government shutdown that ended weeks ago may be "the Grinch that stole Christmas," on Tuesday's Today, correspondent Stephanie Gosk fretted that Thanksgiving would be ruined as well: "Macy's, the company that sponsors the Thanksgiving Day Parade, will open its doors on the holiday for the first time in 155 years....But there is a risk, the identity of one…

Exhibit A on Friday night for how the news media are an impediment to any rational discussion of reining in federal spending. “The ax falls for more than 47 million Americans struggling to put food on the table as tonight time has run out,” NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams ominously and fatuously intoned Friday night, as if payments to them are about to be eliminated. Spending on the…

On the Thursday, October 31, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, after host O'Donnell raised new numbers showing that the federal budget deficit has shrunk, MSNBC.com executive editor Richard Wolffe -- formerly of Newsweek -- dismissed Republican concerns over the deficit. O'Donnell began by posing: