Campaigns & Elections

The story about Michele Bachmann's migraines was not the product of a "liberal media conspiracy." Instead, it was a "calculated hit piece" by one of Bachmann's rivals for the Republican presidential nomination. That's the view emphatically propounded by John Heilemann on Morning Joe today.  As evidence, the New York magazine editor and Game Change co-author noted that the story first…

Last night, nine Republicans and five Democrats broke with their parties on the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act, which would require a balanced budget amendment if the debt ceiling were to be raised. Two of the Republicans who voted against it were presidential hopefuls: Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and Rep. Ron Paul (Texas), both of whom believe the act doesn't goes far enough. Bachmann instead…

The fact that the American left is deathly afraid of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann can be interpreted in several different ways. First of all, if both ladies are as big of fools and bumblers as they claim, why are they wasting so much time and energy trying to destroy them? If they were the idiots the self-proclaimed elitists in the mainstream media would have us believe, they'd simply…

For having made a shocking revelation that deeply undermined one the most repeated stories of Obama's 2008 campaign and 2009 health care debate, Janny Scott is staying extremely quiet. Scott's new book, 'A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother,' proved false Obama's claim that his mother was fighting with insurance companies from her death bed, one of Obama's favorite lines…

In an unbylined update of the latest developments in the budget-tax-spending-debt ceiling discussions in Washington this morning, the Associated Press committed several blunders in attempting to explain what's going on and how we got to where we are. First and foremost was its list identifying "contributors" to the $8.5 trillion growth in the national debt since 2001. Here's the AP's you-can'…

Per Reuters blogger James Pethokoukis, Goldman Sachs, demonstrating Democratic-friendly timing similar to that seen at the New York Times a month or so ago, published an extraordinarily gloomy economic forecast last night. Here are some of the details he quotes: "Following another week of weak economic data, we have cut our estimates for real GDP growth in the second and third quarter of…

As Clay Waters at the Media Research Center's Times Watch reported earlier today ("One of Obama's Emotional Arguments for Obama-Care Proven Wrong in NYT Staffer's New Book"), the New York Times's Kevin Sack ran a story yesterday which "reflects badly on Barack Obama and how he misled people in his campaign for Obama-care." I'll say. As reported by Sack (bolds are mine throughout this post):

Last night (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted that the State of Minnesota, where the government is shut down but spokesman for the Department of Public Safety Doug Neville is somehow still working, is demanding that MillerCoors pull its products from Gopher State store shelves within days, and identified a number of questions non-inquisitive Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Eric Roper…

The Constitution is specific when it prohibits a "religious test" for "any office or public trust" -- Article VI, Paragraph III That doesn't mean that voters are prohibited from taking a person's faith (or lack thereof) into account when deciding for whom they will vote. No law could stop them.

It's no secret that most campaigns are heavily funded by big checks from lobbyists, PACs, and rich donors, but President Obama's campaign team is turning away from that assertion, instead showcasing the claim that it is 98-percent-funded by grassroots support. Jim Messina, Obama's campaign manager, said "we did this from the bottom up," pushing the idea that the $86 million fundraising figure…

The mainstream media reluctantly started covering President Obama's Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy roughly one year after Fox News's Sean Hannity alerted his viewers to the controversial preacher's "God damn America" rants in 2007. But when it comes to the 2012 Republican presidential aspirants, it appears the media are determined not to be late to the game in vetting their (real or…

Well, I guess it's getting serious now in the melodrama known as the Minnesota state government shutdown. If the Gopher State shutdown goes on much longer, hundreds of bars and restaurants will lose their ability to serve alcohol because they can't renew their liquor licenses. Worse, as reported by Eric Roper at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, MillerCoors, whose "brand license" somehow expired…

The Federal Election Commission, which serves to govern the financing of federal elections, ended its second quarter for presidential fundraising on June 30. Of the Republican candidates who released their numbers, former Gov. Mitt Romney led the Republican presidential hopefuls with $18.3 million, trailed by Rep. Ron Paul with $4.5 million, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty with $4.2 million, and…

You mean, like the Americans who made president someone who two years before had been a state legislator and ran on "hope and change"? Seriously, just who did Zbigniew Brzezinski have in mind when he said this on Morning Joe today? "We have a large public that's very ignorant about world affairs, and very susceptible to simplistic slogans by candidates who appear out of nowhere, have no…