Liberal Tea Party good, actual Tea Party bad?

NBC Cheers Wall Street Protests As Liberal Version of Tea Party But Denounced Actual Tea Party
October 3, 2011 by Kyle Drennen

On Monday’s NBC “Today,” correspondent Michelle Franzen reported on the left-wing “Occupy Wall Street” protests in New York and proclaimed: “Protesters fed up with the economy and social inequality turned out en masse over the weekend….Voicing their discontent and marching for change.”

Touting the protest as “a movement that has taken off in the past few weeks with protests spreading to other cities around the country,” Franzen declared: “Labor experts say uprisings overseas have empowered protesters to speak out.” A sound bite was included of Columbia University’s Dorian Warren arguing: “Those movements, those revolutions led by young people [in the Middle East]…I think that’s another, let’s say, inspiration for why they are sitting-in now.”

On Saturday’s “Nightly News,” Franzen offered a similar report, including another sound bite from Warren, who asserted the Wall Street protests were “a liberal version of the Tea Party.” He added: “I think this could potentially carry over into the 2012 elections and get people to the polls.”

On Sunday’s Meet the Press, host David Gregory asked liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne about the movement: “…your column out tomorrow talks about the equivalent Tea Party movement on the left. What did we see over the weekend in lower Manhattan and in Brooklyn, this ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement….does the President, in a way, need more of this, more activism on the left to say, ‘We need a response to what we’re seeing on the conservative side’?”

Dionne agreed and lamented: “I think the President has been hurt by the lack of an organized left….A left would be out there saying, ‘Wait a minute, Barack Obama is a moderate or a moderate sort of liberal. We want to push farther than this.’ Right now, the whole discussion is skewed because the media has been obsessed by the Tea Party.”

That media “obsession” with the Tea Party actually began as an attempt to completely dismiss it.

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New York Times Freelancer Arrested In Occupy Wall Street Protest
October 2, 2011 by Noel Sheppard

The folks at the New York Times aren’t happy with just reporting the news. They want to be a part of it.

Such is quite apparent given the arrest of Times freelancer Natasha Lennard during an Occupy Wall Street protest Saturday:

In a tense showdown above the East River, the police arrested about 500 demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street protests who took to the roadway as they tried to cross the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday afternoon. [...]

A freelance reporter for The Times, Natasha Lennard, was among those arrested. She was later released.

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Selective attention to polls, most believe economy is over-regulated

Media Silent on Poll Showing 74% of Voters Think Economy Is Over-regulated
September 14, 2011 by Ken Shepherd

On Monday, the Tarrance Group released a poll showing that 74 percent of American voters believe “that businesses and consumers are over-regulated.”

What’s more, “another two thirds (67%) believe that regulations have increased over the past few years. These percentages include majorities of all partisan affiliations, with 91% of Republicans, 75% of Independents and 58% of Democrats saying businesses/consumers are over-regulated,” the polling firm noted in a press release.

What’s more, “[a] key fear among voters is that regulations will hinder job creation, as most believe the result of new regulation will be either job losses (47%) or increased prices for American made goods and services (22%).”

Yet a search of Nexis of both major newspapers and broadcast network transcripts found no mentions of this poll and its results, perhaps because the numbers show the public agreeing with conservative arguments about how regulation is burdening American business and stifling economic recovery.

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How does increasing gov’t spending equal a funding cut?

Krugman’s Delusion: The Past Year Proves Cutting Spending Doesn’t Create Jobs
September 5, 2011 by Noel Sheppard

Exactly what country does New York Times columnist Paul Krugman actually reside in?

Before you answer, consider the following sentence from his article Monday:

Although you’d never know it listening to the ranters, the past year has actually been a pretty good test of the theory that slashing government spending actually creates jobs.

For the past year to be a good test of this theory, there would have needed to be a slash to government spending, right?

Was this the case?

Hardly.

In fiscal 2010, total federal outlays were $3.72 trillion. In fiscal 2011 which ends September 30, we’re projected to spend $3.83 trillion. That’s a $111 billion increase.

Yet this Nobel laureate in economics thinks government spending was slashed.

In reality, since the last time such outlays declined year over year was 1965, we should really be testing Krugman, Obama, and the Democrats’ theory that dramatic increases in government spending creates jobs.

Democrats have been radically increasing outlays since they took over Congress in 2007. During this time, as spending rose by 41 percent, the economy lost roughly seven million jobs sending unemployment skyrocketing from 4.4 percent to 9.1 percent.

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News media think American people are dumb, prefer the political class

Michelle Bachmann has been getting a lot of grief from our impartial news media of late. But it is interesting to see what the media are pushing.

Gregory Scolds Bachmann for Listening to Public Opinion on Debt Ceiling
August 14, 2011 by Noel Sheppard

It appears David Gregory is a bit confused about how our system of government works.

During intense questioning of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) on Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” the host scolded his guest for having the nerve to actually care what the American people thought about raising the debt ceiling (video follows with transcript and commentary):

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CNN’s Candy Crowley Insists to Michele Bachmann That She’s ‘Outside the Mainstream’
August 15, 2011 by Tim Graham

On her Sunday interview show State of the Union, CNN host Candy Crowley pushed Michele Bachmann hard from the left, suggesting her stance on the debt ceiling is “outside the mainstream” of political society. Touting a CBS-New York Times poll which found the Tea Party were losing popularity among Republicans, she added, “we have a poll where the majority of Americans said you all need to compromise on this debt ceiling, you all need to raise the debt ceiling, and it out to be — the deal ought to include a combination of tax increases and spending cuts. You are opposed to both raising the debt ceiling and that kind of compromise. So doesn’t that put you outside the mainstream?”

Bachmann said “absolutely not” to that pushy question:

BACHMANN: Oh goodness, absolutely not. I haven’t gone…

CROWLEY: Even if most people disagree?

BACHMANN: I have not gone one place in Iowa or South Carolina or New Hampshire where anyone has said, please, raise my taxes they are not high enough already. Never happens. And people, I will almost every event I go to, and we don’t poll in just certain people, it’s open to the public, people are not there saying raise the debt ceiling, we want you to borrow more money. It doesn’t happen, Candy.

People are very upset and nervous about where the economy is at now. And what we saw yesterday in the straw poll, people in Iowa sent a message loud and clear to President Obama. They said we are done with your policies. We want something very different, because after all in this debt ceiling debate, this wasn’t about default. Remember, the president had no plan. I offered a plan. My plan says we don’t default, but what we do is pay the interest on the debt, our military and senior citizens and prioritize our spending. That’s what Washington is unwilling to do.

Crowley built up to that point with a series of inquiries about why the Tea Party’s popularity is collapsing among Republicans. Bachmann did not point out the obvious media bias in this polling. Was anyone polling the popularity of the Daily Kos/MoveOn/”anti-war” movement on the left in 2004 or 2008? CBS and The New York Times never did! And so it went, with a series of “but, but” questions returning to the poll:

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bias, crisis, economy, funding, government, ideology, indoctrination, left wing, liberalism, nanny state, news media, pandering, politics, propaganda, recession, separation, taxes

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Fed Chief clueless on economic slump

How many times are we going to hear government spending is the solution to our economic troubles, find out the people saying this don’t know what they are doing, and that the next solution must be more government spending?

Economic trouble puzzles Fed chief, too
June 22, 2011 by PAUL WISEMAN and MARTIN CRUTSINGER

WASHINGTON (AP) – The economy’s continuing struggles aren’t just confounding ordinary Americans. They’ve also stumped the head of the Federal Reserve.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told reporters Wednesday that the central bank had been caught off guard by recent signs of deterioration in the economy. And he said the troubles could continue into next year.

“We don’t have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting,” Bernanke said. He said the weak housing market and problems in the banking system might be “more persistent than we thought.”

It was the Fed chief’s most explicit warning yet that the economy will face serious challenges next year. For several months, he had said the factors working against economic growth appeared to be “transitory.”

crisis, economics, economy, funding, government, politics, public policy, recession, spending

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Obama Health Care Plan Forces Tough Choice For SEIU

Union Drops Health Coverage for Workers’ Children
November 20, 2010 by Yuliya Chernova

One of the largest union-administered health-insurance funds in New York is dropping coverage for the children of more than 30,000 low-wage home attendants, union officials said. The union blamed financial problems it said were caused by the state’s health department and new national health-insurance requirements.

politics, government, liberalism, economics, economy, funding, spending, public policy, nanny state, family, bureaucracy, health care, reform, children, tragedy, recession, sacrifice, entitlements, unintended consequences

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Progressivism vs Reality – national debt is a myth?

Rep. Phil Hare Explains that the $13.3 Trillion Debt is a Myth

Is this ideology or idiocy?

“Everyday that I am here is going to be spent, debunking the MYTH, that this country’s in debt and we just can’t spend. Well you can spend.”-Rep. Phil Hare, D-IL

Democrats, bailout, budget, economy, elitism, funding, government, ideology, left wing, liberalism, nanny state, philosophy, politics, public policy, recession, socialism, spending, video

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Cuba makes way for capitalism because Marxism failed

MARXISM A BUST… Cuba Lays Off Half a Million – Allows Private Enterprise
September 13, 2010 by Gateway Pundit

Cuba says it will fire at least half a million state workers by mid-2011 and will free up private enterprise to help them find new work – radically remaking employment on the communist island.

The layoffs will start immediately and run through the first half of next year, according to an announcement Monday by the nearly 3 million-strong Cuban Workers Confederation – the only labor union the government tolerates.

To soften the blow, it said the government would authorize simultaneous increases in job opportunities in the non-state sector, allowing more Cubans to become self-employed, to form cooperatives run by employees rather than government bureaucrats and to increase private control of state land and infrastructure through long-term leases.

capitalism, communism, economics, economy, government, recession, spending, unintended consequences

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Congress cutting food stamps because Mrs. Obama says so?

Dems may use food-stamp money to pay for Michelle Obama’s nutrition initiative
August 14, 2010 by Russell Berman

Democrats who reluctantly slashed a food-stamp program to fund a state-aid bill may have to do so again to pay for a top priority of first lady Michelle Obama.

The House will soon consider an $8 billion child-nutrition bill that’s at the center of the first lady’s “Let’s Move” initiative. Before leaving for the summer recess, the Senate passed a smaller version of the legislation that is paid for by trimming the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as the food-stamp program.

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Will Democrats raise taxes on middle class afterall?

Dem Leader Hoyer: Middle Class Tax Cuts Aren’t ‘Sacrosanct’; WaPo Buries Story on Page A13
June 22, 2010 by Ken Shepherd

In a recent interview, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that the Bush tax cuts that affect the middle class should not be considered “totally sacrosanct.”

The number two Democrat in the House of Representatives “acknowledg[ed] that it would be difficult to reduce long-term deficits without breaking President Obama’s pledge to protect families earning less than $250,000 a year,” reported Lori Montgomery in the June 22 Washington Post.

That certainly sounds worthy of front-page placement, especially in the midst of a contentious midterm election year, but Post editors instead parked the 9-paragraph story below the fold on page A13 of the print edition and gave it a snoozer of a headline: “Hoyer: Tax cuts need to be examined.”

“Middle-class benefit may not be affordable long-term, he says,” the subheader dryly noted.

The online version headline gave a similarly bland headline, “Rep. Steny Hoyer says middle-class tax breaks may not be affordable long-term.”

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