What 'Pivot'? OFA's 'Action August' Has No Events Tied to Economy

July 29th, 2013 8:43 PM
Organizing For Action claims that its mission is to "support President Obama in achieving enactment of the national agenda Americans voted for on Election Day 2012." Presumably, on a day-to-day and month-to-month basis, that means it's able to divine the President's priorities and follow them (you see, OFA is "independent," so there can't pooooossibly be any communication between its officials…

Virtually Unreported: Detroit's Bankruptcy Came With Sky-High Tax Rate

July 29th, 2013 3:12 PM
Just over a week ago, MSNBC's Melissa Harris Perry claimed that Detroit's bankruptcy is a result of "when government is small enough to drown in your bathtub," and analogized it to "exactly the kind of thing that many Republicans would impose on us." The truth, of course, is that Detroit has had quite a large government. It also had and still has frightening rates of violent and nonviolent…

Breathless AP 'Exclusive': '4 in 5 in U.S. Face Near-Poverty, No Work

July 28th, 2013 3:27 PM
If you've been wondering where the Associated Press's 2013 entry into the "Worst AP Report Ever" contest has been hiding, have no fear. It's here. Oh, it's not as bad as the current worst-ever leader, the laughably execrable "Everything seemingly is spinning out of control" in June 2008. Nevertheless, it's a "strong" entry -- as in almost indescribably weak as journalism. The AP's (Abandon…

George Will Schools Katrina Vanden Heuvel and Steve Rattner on Detroit

July 28th, 2013 1:12 PM
ABC This Week viewers on Sunday were treated to a classic socio-economic debate between liberals and a lone conservative. With the issue at hand being Detroit's announced bankruptcy and whether the federal government should bail it out, the liberal view was championed by the Nation's Katrina Vanden Heuvel and MSNBC's Steve Rattner. On the right was George Will who clearly won the scrum…

Peggy Noonan: Obama Got To Point Where People Stopped Listening To Him

July 28th, 2013 12:06 PM
"I think every president in the intense media environment we have now, certainly every two-term president, gets to a point where the American people stop listening, stop leaning forward hungrily for information. I think this president got there earlier than most presidents. And I think he's in that time now." So said the Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan on ABC's This Week Sunday.

Bitter Thrush at Politico: GOP Cemented 'A Ten-Year Grip on the House

July 28th, 2013 11:37 AM
Has Glenn Thrush at the Politico thrown up the white flag on Democrats regaining control of the House until 2022, the first election cycle after the next wave of congressional and statehouse redistricting? If so, he clearly underestimates Republicans' ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but I digress. It would appear that Thrush has thrust himself into the throes of despair,…

Leno: Obama Says We’re Distracted By Phony Scandals, Time to Get Dis

July 27th, 2013 1:42 PM
Jay Leno once again took some comedic swipes at the current White House resident Friday. During his NBC Tonight Show monologue, the host said, "In his speech about the economy, President Obama said we've all been distracted by phony scandals, and it's time we started getting distracted by the phony recovery."

Steele Rips Matthews: ‘Don’t Sit in This Little Bubble and Act Lik

July 25th, 2013 6:32 PM
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews apparently forgot that at the beginning of the year, a variety of tax increases hit virtually every wage earning American. Fortunately for the limited number of Hardball viewers Thursday, former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele was on the set to offer the truth telling his clueless host, “Everybody’s taxes went up at the beginning of the year, so…

MSNBC Panel: Republicans are Like 'Terrorists,' 'Threatening to Bomb t

July 25th, 2013 5:28 PM
Former Governor Ed Rendell (D-Pa.) drifted a bit too far off MSNBC’s pro-Obama message on Thursday’s Now with Alex Wagner, receiving a strong left-wing rebuke after suggesting that President Obama should be willing to compromise with Republicans on upcoming budgetary battles. MSNBC contributor Joy Reid likened Republicans to terrorists, claiming that the president’s situation is like “when…

Scarborough Defends Conservative Republicans, Schools Liberal Panel In

July 25th, 2013 2:07 PM
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has been making some fairly conservative arguments on his program as of late. On Thursday’s Morning Joe, for instance, he took his liberal guests to task, blasting Politico’s Jim VandeHei and The New York Time’s Steve Rattner for characterizing the House GOP as a do-nothing, radical conference. Scarborough insisted that Republicans have stood for the same…

'Déjà Pivot': MSNBC Host Calls Out Obama On His Repetitive Pivots On

July 25th, 2013 9:05 AM
Yesterday, President Obama gave another warmed-over version of the same economic policy speech that’s been given for the past five years at Knox College in Illinois.  He saved the automobile industry.  He’s overseeing an economic recovery.  Republicans are intransigent. And he’s the best person to ever breathe oxygen on this planet. Yada, yada, yada.  Now with polls showing a record number of…

Scarborough Scalds Carney For Calling IRS Targeting Of Conservatives A

July 24th, 2013 8:58 AM
When on today's Morning Joe, Obama spokesman Jay Carney had the chutzpah to call the IRS mess a "phony scandal,"Joe Scarborough ripped into him, calling Carney out for using "talking points," instructing him to "answer my question" and informing Carney that "I'm not somebody you talk down to from your podium." Ouch! H/t NB reader cobokat. Scarborough reminded Carney that he hadn't told the…

MSNBC: Sequester Hurting You Even If You’re Too Dumb to Realize

July 23rd, 2013 4:38 PM
MSNBC has apparently realized that Americans are not concerned about the sequester, so the Lean Forward network has made another attempt to convince us how terrible it really is. In an article published Monday on msnbc.com, writer Timothy Noah sent readers a grim message that was summed up in the article’s title: “The Sequester Isn’t Hurting You? Think Again.” Noah struck a strikingly…

Size and Potential Problems of ObamaCare's Army of 'Navigators' Going

July 22nd, 2013 11:59 PM
If the employment numbers seem better than one might have expected during the next few months, it may have nothing to do with private companies hiring people to provide goods and services people actually want. It may instead relate to the army of paper-pushers who are being hired to help individuals and families apply for ObamaCare subsidies starting on October 1. If California's situation is…