Government shutdown

Joshua Freed's Friday afternoon report on the week's results in the stock market at the Associated Press spent nine paragraphs telling readers how the current budget battle in Washington and possible government shutdown are causing stocks to retreat. Though he obviously didn't admit it, Freed's narrative fell apart in later paragraphs as he discussed "mixed economic signals" which aren't mixed…

Melanie Hunter at CNS News reports Al Gore launched some hot rhetoric at the normally sedate Brookings Institution on Friday on the threat of a shutdown over Obamacare. " I think the only phrase that describes it is political terrorism." He spoke in an alleged Tea Party voice: "‘Nice global economy you got there. Be a shame if we’d have to destroy it. We have a list of demands. If you don’t meet…

CNN's Jake Tapper hosted conservative radio show host Mark Levin for a lengthy interview on Friday's The Lead. Levin touched on President Obama's foreign policy, Obamacare, what happens in a government shutdown, and he previewed his forthcoming book "The Liberty Amendments." Levin skewered President Obama for talking with the President of Iran but refusing to negotiate with Congress over…

At the top of Thursday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams issued a dire warning to viewers about the possibility of a government shutdown: "Time running out until a big deadline, now days away, and it's getting ugly in Washington. Tonight, can anything be done to save our government from itself?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] Introducing the later report,…

  The journalists at ABC News have not made an effort to hide their disgust with the conservative effort to oppose funding ObamaCare. On Wednesday, Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos derided Ted Cruz's fight against it as "bizarre." On Thursday night, World News's Jon Karl sneered that it was "absurd." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Karl described the possible government shutdown…

Appearing on Thursday's NBC Today, Meet the Press moderator David Gregory was already predicting the GOP would get the blame for a government shutdown: "Washington loves to engage in the same kind of destructive behavior every couple years, whether it needs to or not....There's a universal feeling that the party that's more divided, that's Republicans, will feel most of the heat on this from the…

Pundits and politicians are normally so slick that they can weasel their way out of even the most glaring of contradictions. "Depends on what the meaning of is, is," anyone?  So it's particularly delicious, to use Noel Sheppard's trademark phrase, to see a talking head left absolutely cornered, babbling without response, when caught in the hypocrisy of a double-standard. On today's Morning Joe…

If I could briefly interrupt the Republican firing squad aiming at Ted Cruz, let's talk about something we all agree on. And by "we all," I mean a majority of the American people, the Teamsters, many Democrats and every single last Republican. Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster.

  The networks on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning derided the conservative uprising against ObamaCare, mocking Senator Ted Cruz's "bizarre," "long-winded protest" against funding for the law. This stands in stark contrast to how ABC, CBS and NBC hyped "folk hero" Wendy Davis. On Wednesday, Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos opened the program by needling the "Tea Party senator's…

President Obama pledged to end partisanship, but instead has exacerbated it. He recently accused House Republicans of being extortionists for opposing a raise in the debt ceiling and wanting to defund Obamacare. Dictionary.com defines extortion as "the crime of obtaining money or some other thing of value by the abuse of one's office or authority."

On Monday's PoliticsNation on MSNBC, host Al Sharpton charged that the Tea Party has a "radical agenda," and, after guest Joan Walsh of Salon accused Republicans of wanting to "repeal the 20th century," the PolitisNation host accused the GOP of not caring if they "ruin" the country. Sharpton:

PBS put its late-night leftism on display on Meet the Press when PBS host Tavis Smiley used his slot, on the Sunday morning NBC News show’s panel, to regret President Barack Obama’s supposed touting of “American Exceptionalism” and claim the presumed desire of conservatives in the House, to shut down the federal government, means “we are going to lose our democracy. It’s that serious.” Smiley…

Throughout Friday morning's coverage of the House vote on the continuing resolution (CR), CNN repeatedly slapped Republicans for supposedly risking a government shutdown to defund Obamacare. A CNN chyron even stated that they were voting on a "shutdown," though that is inaccurate since the bill voted on would still fund the government, just not Obamacare. Below is the worst of CNN's contempt…

It's gotten to the point where CNN anchor Carol Costello makes Ted Baxter look like Edward R. Murrow. Costello is dispensing with any pretense of objectivity and has decided to let her left-wing flag fly -- this while the execs at CNN scratch their heads over the network's abysmal ratings. If I want liberal media on cable, I'll turn to MSNBC thanks very much and thereby avoid, to borrow from…