DOWNLOADS: (110)

PLAYS: (597)

Embed

If anyone wants to know who is winning the media wars for the way they've governed and for an example of how no bad behavior by the Republicans ever goes unpunished, look no further than this segment with MSNBC's Chuck Todd and his panel on this Thursday's The Daily Rundown.

Todd more or less accused President Obama of being responsible for Republicans not wanting to work with him and continuing their obstruction and making sure our government does not function, because heaven forbid, President Obama is out there raising money for House Democrats. Even though Todd admitted that the GOP is playing politics and using this as an excuse not to work with him, he turned right around in the next breath and asked if there are some of them who might have been willing to cooperate with him, but who are now going to legitimately be turned off by the campaigning.

Given that the Republicans entire governing philosophy since President Obama has been elected has been just to obstruct everything he does, even if it means blocking things they previously supported, he should have known the answer to his question before he asked it.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (134)

PLAYS: (530)

Embed

Chuck Todd and the rest of the beltway Villagers over at MSNBC just can't stop themselves. Todd treated his viewers to yet another infomercial from the network for the Fix the Debt campaign, this time with former Republican Rep. Mark Kennedy having a seat at the table instead of their regular contributor, Ed Rendell, who is usually the one who we see shilling for that organization on the network.

After showing some footage of Republican Paul Ryan blaming the budget sequester on President Obama, but completely ignoring Ryan's hypocrisy on the matter, Todd opined and asked Kennedy why, if this current threat of sequester didn't force both sides to come together, how in the world are we ever going to believe they'll ever work anything out?

Kennedy responded by blaming the problem on the lack of trust between the two parties (never mind which party we can rightfully blame for the better part of that), and he blamed a good portion of the impasse on what he called “debt deniers."

It looks to me like this is taken straight out of the latest attack on Paul Krugman from Todd's fellow MSNBC contributor, Joe Scarborough. After Krugman came on the air with Scarborough and handed his ass to him, Scarborough continued to rant that he was right about the debt.

Here's more on that from Jonathan Chait: Scarborough and Friends Trying to Make ‘Debt Deniers’ Happen:

The deficit scold cause has suffered significant intellectual erosion over the last year or so. In the short run, the interest rate spike they keep insisting will happen keeps not happening. In the long run, the health-care-cost inflation that is at the root of the long-term fiscal predicament is growing markedly less dire. The case for prudent fiscal adjustment remains strong, but the case for bug-eyed, table-pounding terror is growing increasingly ridiculous.

But bug-eyed, table-pounding terror is the stock-in-trade of the fiscal scold movement. And so they are striking back by labeling anybody with a calmer view of the deficit as a “debt denier.” Joe Scarborough, who may have launched the new catchphrase on Twitter, has a new op-ed in Politico brandishing the epithet. Meanwhile, the anti-deficit lobby “Fix the Debt” — for whom Scarborough has served as one of many media spokespersons — has taken up Scarborough’s favorite label with a new campaign, debtdeiners.com, which, alongside its latest attempt to generate a viral dance video, amounts to a concerted counteroffensive against Paul Krugman and others who have ever so slightly mitigated the tone of apocalyptic hysteria surrounding the fiscal debate. They even have their own debt deniers hashtag. They are trying very hard to make “debt deniers” happen.

Go read the rest of Chait's post on why pushing for deficit reduction now is harmful to our economy and helping it to recover and how ridiculous the position of these deficit scolds has been.

Never mind that though if you watch this interview. In the world of Chuck Todd and his guest Mark Kennedy, the almighty Thomas Friedman must be listened to -- because everyone knows that's what all the Very Serious People out there do. He's never been wrong about anything and "debt denier" is now the new phrase they're going to use for anyone who actually wants us to grow our economy by enacting some progressive policies -- instead of using the deficit as an excuse to slash our social safety nets.

DOWNLOADS: (181)

PLAYS: (2100)

Embed

As Susie already noted here, Elizabeth Warren's first chance to ask questions as a member of the Senate Banking Committee and to take some of these SEC chairs to task for not prosecuting anyone on Wall Street for their behavior, apparently hurt some of the bankers' feelings. MSNBC's Chuck Todd used the occasion to play the Villagers' favorite false equivalency game and compare wingnut McCarthyite Sen. Ted Cruz to Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Funny, how he sounds an awful lot like that anonymous Wall Street executive who was complaining about her.

And as Susie also pointed out, Warren telling the truth is not the same as Cruz' sorry display. What's really pathetic about Todd and and his cheap shot at Warren here is that even his colleague Chris Matthews went after Cruz and his attacks on Hagel for being the "new McCarthyism" in one of his segments on Hardball this Friday.

What I found humorous about the segment above is that even though Todd and his guests, Ruth Marcus and Michael Steele, did their best to be dismissive of Warren by even mentioning her in the same sentence as Cruz, you could also tell something else: They're scared to death of her.

Marcus admitted that maybe it was alright because Warren "was in her wheelhouse" (which I'd say is the understatement of the year), and they all had to admit that she'd be formidable if she decided to run for president -- -- although I find putting her in the same category as Marco Rubio is insulting as well.

There is no "Marco Rubio of the left," because the left doesn't need to prop up the few members of their party who are minorities to try to cover for their racist policies.

DOWNLOADS: (211)

PLAYS: (1682)

Embed

From this Tuesday's The Daily Rundown on MSNBC, Chuck Todd brought in authors Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann to discuss the thesis of their new book and how the media has completely failed to cover the fact that we've got one party in this country that has gone completely off the rails and that all sides are not equal with who is at fault with our dysfunctional political system right now and in the process, managed to prove their point for them by doing the very thing they were writing about.

Egberto Willies at Addicting Info summed up the interview nicely here: Chuck Todd Argues Relevancy Of Mainstream Media With Authors, Mann and Ornstein (VIDEOS):

The mainstream press is starting to listen. Its fear of irrelevancy was evident in a nine minute segment on MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown where Chuck Todd interviewed Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein on media reaction to their book, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism and subsequent Washington Post essay, “Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.”

The segment demanded a post mortem. It shows that the mainstream press is actively engaged with what is occurring in the alternate media, but seems unwilling or unable to correct their modus operandi. The introduction to the segment is fascinating. Chuck Todd relays the premise of Mann and Ornstein’s argument with a sarcastic caveat where he implies that their ostracism from the mainstream media was imagined. Their appearance on The Daily Rundown is likely the outcome of the impact the virality of their piece had on the Internet. [...]

Later in the interview Chuck Todd tries to defend the ineptitude of the mainstream media implying that balanced coverage was based on the party really believing the tenets it was espousing. [...]

His defense is a factually inaccurate characterization of how the press has been covering Republicans. One need only revisit the Healthcare debate. Much of the bill, (mandates, private insurance, etc.) was a product of the conservative think tankm “The Heritage Foundation,” yet Republicans opposed the bill on grounds they once stood for. [...]

Immediately after Ornstein talks about false equivalences, Chuck Todd shows that he still does not get why the mainstream press is held in disrepute. He immediately tries to link the past Democratic intransigence with the debt ceiling debate, with the economically damaging scenario perpetrated by the Republicans in 2011.

He just can't stop himself. More there so go read the rest. It was very frustrating to see Todd called out to his face for his terrible reporting and making the false equivalencies and watching it just fall on deaf ears and seeing him continue to do the very same thing they were talking about all throughout the interview.

And as far as Todd pretending he's doing them some big favor by finally having them on his show months and months late, and that they haven't been shunned, as Nicole pointed out back in June when Chris Hayes had them on his show, even though they were regular guests in the past, they weren't getting any phone calls for the Sunday shows shortly after they published their article.

DOWNLOADS: (258)

PLAYS: (2183)

Embed

I caught this segment with MSNBC's Chuck Todd this Thursday morning and almost thought I was listening to a segment on Fox, because they've generally been the ones pushing this Washington Post story and carrying water for the Romney campaign, pretending that he wasn't still at the helm at Bain while they were shipping jobs overseas.

Karoli already broke this down for us here: Romney's Desperate Need for Counterspin Captures FactCheck.org. Never mind as Karoli explained in her post, and Stephanie Cutter in the clip above, that there is ample evidence that Mitt Romney was still at Bain Capital and the ads the Obama campaign has been running are factual -- Chuck Todd was going to badger her about whether or not they should be taking the ads down or not.

And there is absolutely no comparison between the two campaigns when it comes to the amount of lying they've been doing. As Blue Texan reminded us this week in his post on Ann Romney carping about negative campaigning, Steve Benen has been attempting to keep track of Romney's lies, and the list is so long it makes your head hurt. The latest edition is here: Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XXIV.

DOWNLOADS: (359)

PLAYS: (3560)

Embed

Any time someone has to use James O'Keefe and one of his phoney sting videos to validate their argument, they don't have one, which is exactly what Heritage Foundation flack Brian Darling did this Monday to justify the GOP's voter suppression laws they've been passing across the country: Heritage Foundation ‘Expert’ Cannot Cite Any Examples Of Actual Voter Fraud:

In an interview with Chuck Todd on MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown this morning, Heritage Foundation senior fellow Brian Darling argued for the importance of Florida-style voter suppression laws in order to stop potential voter fraud. But when pressed by Todd to identify any actual examples of voter fraud, Darling appeared stumped:

DARLING: And there’ve been examples of voter fraud… in Florida. Look at ACORN.

TODD: Where is this voter fraud? I mean it is not this giant…

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (569)

PLAYS: (759)

Embed

In another exercise where our corporate media is pretending that Democrats have moved to the left to counter the fact that the Republican Party has moved way to the right, Chuck Todd treated his viewers to Conserva-Dem and former Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln pretending she received a primary challenge from some "extremist" in the Democratic Party.

I don't think anyone who has taken an honest look at her challenger, Bill Halter's career, could rightfully paint him as being someone who's some far left extremist, but Todd let Lincoln get away with that here.

Todd played a campaign ad running in Texas against Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst by "tea party" candidate, Ted Cruz, attacking Dewhurst as being a "moderate" and naturally Lincoln took the opportunity to decry the fact that she faced a primary challenge herself and how terrible it is that the "extremes" have taken over both parties and asked how are we going to get anything done when good "moderates" like herself are run out of politics.

What Todd and Lincoln omitted of course is that Lincoln was challenged by someone who had actual grass roots support and who would be considered a "moderate" Democrat by most of the readers here. Progressives and the unions in her state were tired of her continually voting with Republicans in favor of the insurance companies and the financial industries and mucking up the works for Democrats at every turn, like she did when they were trying to get the health care law passed. She wasn't looking out for the interests of her constituents. She was looking out for those big monied interests that were sponsoring her; a point I made when she was on this same show last year and it was Chris Cillizza hosting and doing some revisionist history for Lincoln and her time in office.

But they continue to peddle the lie that what happened to her is the same as these AstroTurf teabaggers coming into these Republican primary races and ousting incumbents and pushing the Republican Party even further to the right and deeper into the pockets of corporations and people like the Koch brothers.

What we saw here was the false equivalency game where people who would like to see some of the money out of politics and some good governance are painted as "extremists" and are somehow the equal of a Republican Party that's fallen off the cliff with their move to the right, their refusal to support ideas that used to be their own just because a Democrat has proposed them now and who have basically been captured by the Libertarian/John Birch Society wing of their party.

And it's a lie that gets told over and over in the media every day. Candidate A says the earth is flat, so rather than tell the audience that Candidate A is crazy, we'll bring in Candidate B who disagrees and "you decide." And it's a lie that refuses to acknowledge the problems in both parties with the amount of money it takes to get elected and the media companies that are paying Chuck Todd's salary that are benefiting from it. And it's the lie that conflates the word moderate with corporatist and conflates actual grass roots movements with the AstroTurf "tea party" and their Republican rebranding effort.

DOWNLOADS: (148)

PLAYS: (196)

Embed

While discussing whether Gov. Mitch Daniels is going to support Richard Mourdock, who just defeated incumbent Sen. Richard Lugar from his home state of Indiana and Mourdock's statement that his idea of compromise equals Democrats voting with Republicans if we're unfortunate enough to see them gain control of the Congress and the presidency again, Daniels was apparently suffering from a severe case of amnesia when he made this statement that was flagged from our friend Jed Lewison over at Daily KOS:

Another dazzling display of Romnesia: Mitch Daniels says we're in 'peacetime':

As you watch this or read the transcript, keep in mind that from 2001 to 2003—during which time the Bush administration launched two wars, one of which we are fighting to this day, and two rounds of tax cuts for the wealthy—Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels was George W. Bush's budget director. Yet now he is blaming President Obama for allegedly creating a debt bomb:

Well, you know, he's been the president of this nation for the three years in which we have drifted ever closer to the biggest peacetime crisis we may have ever faced. There's no doubt it. It's a mathematical certainty. [...] To me the central question of this election is why such an administration deserves a second chance.

The fact that Mitch Daniels apparently has forgotten we are at war in Afghanistan—even though he served in the White House when we began the war more than a decade ago—is a fitting tribute to the Romnesia that has infested the Republican Party.

As he noted, Daniels and his ilk want to erase from our memory banks the fact that George W. Bush busted the budget with billions wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is someone who worked for an administration that gave us those two "wars" off the books, an unfunded prescription drug plan and the Bush tax cuts which weren't paid for. And despite that, he's treated as someone we're supposed to take seriously by the media month after month.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (185)

PLAYS: (865)

Embed

This has to be one of the more pitiful attempts to spin low enthusiasm for the current crop of Republican presidential primary contenders that I've seen yet from one of the most obnoxious campaign surrogates around, former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu.

From Think Progress -- Romney Campaign Spins Low Turn Out: Voters Staying At Home Secretly Support Romney:

With just 33,000 voters showing up to the Nevada caucuses on Saturday, Republicans may be quietly concerned about a lack of enthusiasm for their candidates — and especially front-runner Mitt Romney — after another primary state produces lower-than-expected turnout.

But not former New Hampshire governor John Sununu. The Romney campaign surrogate appeared on MSNBC this morning and offered a novel interpretation of the low figures:

SUNUNU: In an odd sense when turnout is down, contrary to what you are hearing, people are satisfied with the winning and the candidate that’s winning. They are satisfied with Mitt Romney.

In fact, a new poll out today shows that the more voters are learning about Romney, the less they like him. Read on...

DOWNLOADS: (107)

PLAYS: (199)

Embed

Chuck Todd really should have just stuck to being a pollster, because ever since Tim Russert brought him on at MSNBC, he really has gone from someone who used to be pretty good at analysis of voter trends and elections for Roll Call and with his regular appearances on C-SPAN, to pretty much just another Villager hack once MSNBC hired him. I remember actually enjoying him sharing some of his insights on election coverage on Washington Journal, before he decided to join the D.C. cocktail circuit with the rest of the Villagers.

Todd seems to have made the move quite easily and unfortunately from someone who used to be more concerned about reporting facts and statistics and trends to the typical inside the beltway type of "reporting" we see from his colleagues Chris Matthews, David Gregory and Andrea Mitchell, among others.

His interview with Rep. Tom Price from this Wednesday is just the latest example of that. Todd was terribly upset with Stephen Colbert for making a "mockery" of his brand of "journalism" but sadly as Nicole noted, Todd's done a good enough job of that all by himself.

He did it again here by letting Price claim that you're going to kill the Confidence Fairies if you raise the capital gains tax and that will somehow lead to more offshoring of jobs.

That you shouldn't tax capital gains because that money has supposedly already been taxed.

That the Community Reinvestment Act and giving loans to poor people somehow caused the housing crisis.

That Republicans care anything about closing loopholes for businesses or doing anything about offshoring our jobs.

That unions are harming our economy or the working class.

That we need to lower the corporate tax rate.

And that we'd be "punishing businesses" if we dared to tax them if they want to repatriate the money they've been hiding offshore to avoid taxes in the United States.

If Chuck Todd considers himself a "journalist" you'd think he'd have bothered to push back a bit more harshly at any one of these lies, but that's not what we got during this interview. Heaven forbid he might lose some access for the next interview with Price or one of his colleagues to potentially keep the ratings up on his show if he dared to call him out for anything he lied about here.

I'm sure the salary is much better for Todd since he made the move to MSNBC from Roll Call. Sadly what he's contributing to the national political dialog for the most part has gone down the sewer while his salary has gone up for adding to the pollution.