Campaigns & Elections

HBO's Bill Maher spouted his usual anti-conservative and anti-Fox News rhetoric on Monday's Situation Room on CNN, attacking the Tea Party movement as "teabaggers [who] are all carrying the banner...of corporatist America" and accusing CNN's competitor of "filling people with misinformation." Maher also labeled Republican voters "far right" and a "fringe group of people who are very forceful…

For newly empowered congressional Republicans, priority one must be an extension of the Bush tax cuts. There should be enough votes not only from a new Republican majority, but also from some of the decimated and dispirited (and even newly elected) Democrats. If President Obama is smart, he won't veto the bill. If the tax cuts are allowed to expire, everyone who gets a paycheck and has taxes…

One of the more egregious results of the Democrat-controlled Congress skipping town without passing a budget, thus failing to address the issue of whether scheduled income tax increases will really go into effect for everyone, the highest income-earners, or no one at all, is that the Internal Revenue Service and employers have been left in the lurch with no idea of how to prepare for next year…

On Saturday's CBS Early Show, correspondent Wyatt Andrews previewed the Washington DC 'Rally to Restore Sanity And/Or Fear,' organized by comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert: "Almost all of the folks we found said they hope it's about the moderates of America....Stewart seems to have touched what you might call the anti-anger nerve." Andrews went on to chide conservative figures for…

Good Morning America on Sunday skipped the hateful signs at Jon Stewart's rally in Washington D.C., Saturday. Reporter David Kerley instead played a clip of the comedian and hyped, "Comedy on the mall, a little Daily Show with its star offering a bit of a sermon." Although journalists were quite eager to play up extreme signs at Tea Party rallies, Kerley did not show a sign featuring Glenn…

Christine O'Donnell may have had to deny being a witch, but she wasn't the only election-year Halloween bogeyman for Democrats to trick voters with this year. Did you hear the one about how Republican candidate fill-in-the-blank, fill-in-the-district, wants to privatize Social Security? Even former president George W. Bush got thrown into that mix, for regretting his inability to get his Social…

On Monday, while both ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today covered the scandal involving reporters at CBS Anchorage affiliate KTVA caught on tape discussing ways to attack Republican Joe Miller's senate campaign, CBS's Early Show failed to make any mention of the incident. On Good Morning America, White House correspondent Jake Tapper reported: "In Alaska, some reporters with the local…

 Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos on Monday cajoled Republican National Committee Chairman into agreeing that a GOP victory on Tuesday wouldn't be validation for the Republican Party, using half of a "startling" quote by Jeb Bush as proof. Stephanopoulos began, "...The Republican Party, even though they do seem poised for pretty big gains, is no more popular than the Democrat…

NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center president Brent Bozell appeared on last night's special Sunday edition of "Hannity" to address what's easily become the liberal media's closing campaign tactic for liberal Democrats: attempting to discredit the Tea Party movement and its candidates. For example, in an October 26 interview with former president Jimmy Carter, Chris Matthews…

In an interview with Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour on Monday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith was already predicting failure if the GOP won control of Congress: "1994 was an important year for Republicans....Some people would say that didn't end so well for the Republicans, especially with the stalemated government. Have you any concerns that that might happen again?" Barbour, who…

Barely 36 hours before Washington State voters go to the polls, CBS News aired a 14-minute unregulated in-kind campaign expenditure on behalf of “Yes on 1098" and its chief cheerleader, Bill Gates Sr, sandwiched by Lesley Stahl hailing rogue Reagan adviser David Stockman as “brave” for advocating the end to the Bush tax rates and imposition of a 15 percent national income surtax. Stahl…

The audio and transcript are at BigGovernment.com. Here's the story, as relayed by Big Gov's Publius (HT Dan Riehl): ... (A) voice mail message was inadvertently left on the cell phone of Joe Miller campaign spokesperson Randy DeSoto.   The voices are believed to be those of the news director for CBS Anchorage affiliate KTVA, along with assignment editor Nick McDermott, and other…

Per MerriamWebster.com -- Gaffe: 1) a social or diplomatic blunder; 2) a noticeable mistake. The Associated Press's Calvin Woodward has had a few shining analytical moments during the first two years of the Obama administration (examples here and here). The AP reporter's dispatch on "gaffes and gotchas" Friday morning, which attempted to communicate a sense of bemusement tinged with…

Americans are voting with their "lizard brains" and leaning Republican simply out of fear, according to Arianna Huffington. Although challenged by MSNBC's Joe Scarborough Friday that the 2008 election of Obama was out of fear, Huffington responded that it was driven by "hope" and that Bush won in 2004 because of fear. Now Americans are now driven by fear to vote the Republicans into the…