Budget

Three New York Times reporters' coverage of HealthCare.gov's systemic failures is inadvertently funny. Its opening paragraph quotes Henry Chao, described as "the chief digital architect for the Obama administration’s new online insurance marketplace," as "deeply worried about the web site's debut" way back in March, and hoping that "it’s not a third-world experience." The Third World, many of…

Does Candy Crowley work for CNN or the Democratic Party? It was tough to tell Sunday when after the State of the Union host asked guest Rand Paul (R-Ky.) if recent polling indicated the beginning of the end of the Republican Party, she actually asked him if he’d ever consider becoming a Democrat (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The Obama-loving media couldn't wait to report findings from an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll concerning how the public are giving far more blame for the government shutdown to Republicans than the President. What they chose not to report was that 51 percent of respondents in the very same poll said of Barack Obama, "He is putting his own political agenda ahead of what's good for the country…

Are you starting to get the feeling that the media are REALLY afraid of Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tx.)? Consider the following headline published at the Daily Beast hours ago: "Ted Cruz is the Miley Cyrus of the Senate"

Jonathan Karl and Rick Klein of ABC News teamed up recently for an online interview with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Posted to the ABC News/Yahoo! News “Power Players” blog, the interview consisted mostly of Karl and Klein trying to get Jindal to criticize his fellow Republicans, particularly those in Congress. Karl got right down to the GOP-infighting business with his first question: […

After NBC spent weeks painting congressional Republicans as the villains who caused the government shutdown, on Thursday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams opened the broadcast by smugly announcing: "Who do the American people blame for the shutdown of their government? Tonight our new NBC News poll is out and the answer is clear." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump…

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews said one of the dumbest things he’s ever said in his life Thursday evening, and that’s saying something. When NBC Tonight Show host Jay Leno asked if he thought John Boehner (R-Oh.) would lose his Speakership as a result of the current government shutdown/debt ceiling debate, Matthews responded, “It might be the greatest thing he ever does in his life” (video follows with…

  According to Chris Matthews, a new NBC poll showing bad poll numbers for the Republican Party is comparable to "Watergate." Finding that Americans blame Republicans over Democrats for the shutdown by a 22 percent margin, Matthews marveled, "I get the sense that this is a historic poll." Talking to Chuck Todd, the Hardball anchor prompted, "Compared to Watergate?" This was too much for…

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer smells a rat concerning the current negotiations over the government shutdown and the debt ceiling. Appearing on Fox News’s Special Report, Krauthammer said, “I suspect a bait and switch here on the part of the Obama administration.”

Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's The Last Word, MSNBC.com executive editor Richard Wolffe joined MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell in tagging Tea Party Republicans as "crazies" as O'Donnell fretted over whether conservative activists Charles and David Koch would be able to convince Tea Party Republicans to cave on the debt ceiling issue.

[***UPDATED*** October 11, 11:15 ET, More analysis and full transcript added] In an interview with Senator John McCain for The Daily Beast's annual Hero Summit on Thursday, the blog's editor-in-chief Tina Brown launched into an unhinged rant blaming conservatives for the government shutdown: "The story of this political crisis is really, you know, the culpability not just of the Republican…

British historian Niall Ferguson brought a breath of fresh air to the set of MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Thursday, effortlessly cutting through the show’s typical left-wing spin. Co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were engaged in their new favorite pastime – slamming Ted Cruz and other GOP “extremists” – when Ferguson jumped in and suggested that President Obama may also be culpable in…

On Wednesday's The Last Word on MSNBC, host Lawrence O'Donnell opened the show by calling Republicans "frighteningly ignorant" and "childish" because of the battle over the debt ceiling issue. Taking off on the terms 'Holocaust deniers" and the more recently dubbed "global warming deniers," the words "Default Deniers" appeared on screen behind the MSNBC host as he began the show:

NewsBusters readers know that one of the problems with liberal media members is their poor math skills. Barbra Streisand demonstrated this perfectly Thursday publishing an op-ed on the tenth day of the new fiscal year that began, "As we now enter the third week of the unnecessary government shutdown."