Congress

Left-wing Daily Beast columnist Michael Tomasky today took to his keyboard to hack out a defense of the federal estate tax. Tomasky insisted taxation-without-respiration is "moral" and, what's more, agreeable to the Founding Fathers.

Introducing a segment on Thursday's NBC Today about parents saving for college, co-host Matt Lauer and the show's financial editor Jean Chatzky spent a scant twenty-four seconds on President Obama's recently announced proposal to hike taxes on college savings accounts. Lauer noted: "Talk to me a little bit about what President Obama was referring to when he gave the State of the Union address and…

NBC News senior White House correspondent Chris Jansing did her best to provide some White House spin during Wednesday’s NBC Nightly News, hailing President Obama as “an energized, combative President” whose policies made for a “carefully choreographed, populist message with the details generally panned by Republicans.” Also within her report, Jansing found time to chide House Speaker John…

On Tuesday night, NBC News anchor Brian Williams charged that “a lot people hope” a reality check by Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd was wrong in asserting that most of President Obama's initiatives proposed during his State of the Union address won’t become law. “Some people hope you’re right, a lot of people hope you’re wrong,” interjected Williams following Todd’s brief outlook on whether…

Appearing on PBS's Charlie Rose Tuesday night following President Obama's State of the Union address, Bloomberg View columnist Al Hunt praised it as "one of the best speeches of his presidency" and "remarkably effective," before admitting: "I don't think he's going to get much done....This is not a cycle where you get much done. He may get a little stuff on trade and infrastructure."

Wednesday's CNN Newsroom aired an ESPN-style highlight reel of "some of the moments that got us talking" from President Obama's State of the Union address. The mash-up featured dramatic music and bold graphics, and zeroed in on the Democrat's "burn" of congressional Republicans during his speech. Bizarrely, the program also repeatedly played clips of the President winking and Vice President Biden…

The Daily Kos founder and publisher argues that the recent jump in Obama’s approval rating shows that Obama should have governed as a staunch liberal “from Day One, instead of wasting years of his life trying to make nice with an intractable and hostile Republican Party…Republicans are on a holy war to destroy everything that is good and noble about government. They have no interest in peace.”

In a softball interview with Joe Biden on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer fretted over there being "more tension than normal" during Tuesday's State of the Union address with Republicans in control of Congress and slammed GOP reaction to a line in the speech: "...the President was talking about having arguments that are worthy of the body and the country, and then he said, 'I've run my…

On Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer actually grilled White House chief of staff Denis McDonough on President Obama's tax hike proposal: "During the President's last press conference of 2014, he was asked how he might be able to work with the new incoming Republican-controlled Congress and he said, quote, 'The tax area is one area where we can get things done.' And now he's proposing a…

Ahead of President Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, the networks offered previews of his speech during their Monday evening newscasts with ABC and NBC working particularly hard to paint a rosy picture for Obama with rising poll numbers and having “redefined” the “model of how to sell the State of the Union.”

At the top of NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, moderator Chuck Todd wondered if a Republican rising star could overcome a major obstacle that has occurred "year after year" for the GOP: "Can Iowa's Joni Ernst avoid becoming the latest victim of the curse of the State of the Union response?" 

On Sunday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Lester Holt touted how President Obama's plan to "propose tax hikes for wealthiest Americans" during Tuesday's State of the Union address would be "potentially putting Congress in the position of appearing to defend the highest income earners over the middle class."

Boston.com and associate editor Victor Paul Alvarez have parted ways, according to fierce crosstown rival Boston Herald, after Alvarez wrote a glib and snarky account of an alleged plan by an Ohio bartender to poison House Speaker John Boehner. Here's how it was reported in the Herald --

Denise Oliver-Velez argues that Love is merely “another brown face to shove in front of the cameras” as supposed proof that the Republican party cares about non-white people, but “she certainly isn't going to convince any black folks who aren't Teapublican patsies already.”