DOWNLOADS: (88)

PLAYS: (393)

Embed

For the second night in a row, old Bill-O couldn't manage to keep his temper in check with a Fox Democrat who dared counter his lies on whether President Obama put forth any specific proposals to reduce the deficit. This time it was Kirsten Powers' turn in the box, who actually bothered to bring material printed straight from the White House's web site to read to O'Reilly, but as she told him during the segment, he just responded by moving the goal posts on what would satisfy him.

Bill O’Reilly to Kirsten Powers: ‘You Can’t Give Me One Specific on Obama’s Proposed Spending Cuts’:

The Daily Beast columnist said it’s “completely untrue” that Obama hasn’t proposed any cuts, citing Medicare as an example. In the president’s fiscal year 2013 budget, Powers said there’s $400 billion in cuts to federal health care spending.

O’Reilly began grilling Powers on how those health care cuts will manifest themselves and asked her to name one specific drug company the administration wants to negotiate prices with.

“Hold on,” Powers interjected. “This is what you do, you change the discussion. […] I’m giving you specifics. What you said last night was the president did not propose anything. The president proposed this to the Republicans.”

After charging that the other is in fact “100 percent wrong,” O’Reilly reasoned, “We’ll let the folks decide.”

Laughing, Powers retorted, “You are wrong about this and now you’re playing a game […] because we can’t name a drug company, I mean come on.”

“Listen Powers, you say you’re going to negotiate with drug companies to bring down spending on drugs and you don’t have one company mentioned,” O’Reilly argued. “[…] This is where you and I will never agree.”

“Because I use facts?” chastised Powers.

h/t Media Matters

DOWNLOADS: (373)

PLAYS: (3592)

Embed

The Daily Show's Jon Stewart takes his viewers through our self-inflicted wound called the sequester which he believes he's finally found the perfect metaphor for -- auto-erotic asphyxiation:

STEWART: Because Congress did rig it up and if they had pulled off the compromise, I guess it would have felt amazing to them, but as usual, they did it wrong and yet somehow, we're the ones blacking out while they're all still jerking off.

Stewart wasn't much kinder to the media for obsessing over President Obama's Star Wars/Star Trek gaffe and completely ignoring that House Speaker John Boehner called taxation "theft."

DOWNLOADS: (78)

PLAYS: (215)

Embed

Fox & Friends hosted Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council and an advisor to President Obama on economic policy, to preview the president’s State of the Union address tonight. Although Sperling told them that the focus would be on jobs and strengthening the middle class, the Curvy Couch Crew responded by obsessing over cuts to “entitlements” and carping about spending. Boosting employment? Helping the middle class? They neatly avoided the whole subject.

Sperling, when asked for a “20-second preview” said the president would hone in on “what we can do, working together, bi-partisan way, to strengthen the middle class.” He added that “a stronger middle class, better educated, working, in manufacturing, innovation, entrepreneurship, small business, these are the things that drive further economic growth.” He said that the administration has made “a lot of progress since the deep recession of 2009” but that “we have a lot further to go on job creation, on bringing down the deficit, and investing in our people.”

The only discussion about jobs was Brian Kilmeade’s comment that unemployment has just gone up in “year five” of Obama’s presidency. Apparently, he and his co-hosts thought that was all the consideration the subject deserved. He moved on to cite a Fox News poll that found 83% of respondents think government has a “spending problem.” From there, he took a swipe at Nancy Pelosi for saying otherwise and “asked” if the White House agrees.

In my opinion, Sperling should have sidestepped and highlighted what was obviously a pre-planned gotcha question that had nothing to do with the State of the Union address. But, instead, Sperling fell right into the trap of framing cuts as the Big Issue and, even worse, threw Democratic Leader Pelosi under the bus by saying the Obama administration believes “you absolutely have to bring down spending” but “in a balanced way.” He touted how much has already been cut and that there are more cuts on the table.

But, of course, that wasn’t good enough. Steve Doocy griped, “You’ve had five years, why hasn’t this administration addressed fixing entitlements with the Republicans?”

When it was Gretchen Carlson’s turn, she said, “One of the big buzzwords” in the SOTU would be “investment, which is another word for 'stimulus.'” She sneered, “Is the president really going to ask this country for more stimulus money?” She didn’t seem to care about how the previous stimulus increased employment for millions of Americans.

Sperling brought it back to jobs. “Today, we have now created twice as many jobs in this recovery as happened under President Bush in the previous recovery, even though this recovery (sic) was far deeper. …The economy has created 500,000 manufacturing jobs, we haven’t seen that in over 20 years. So you are totally right to suggest we have a lot further to go. That’s why the president has a singular focus on the economy, on middle class jobs, and making more progress.”

Oops, time up. But even as the segment was closing, Kilmeade was changing the subject. “It’s just hard to believe that we’re gonna print more money in order to pull ourselves out of it.”

The hosts could have questioned whether President Obama’s policies would accomplish any of his job-creating, middle-class-strengthening goals. But they were so busy talking about spending, they never got there. Which suggests the Republicans have no plan for the middle class and that that’s what the hosts really didn’t want to talk about.

DOWNLOADS: (127)

PLAYS: (446)

Embed

From this Sunday's Meet the Press, despite all of his rhetoric attempting to help the Republican party with their so-called rebranding effort, Eric Cantor didn't do a very good job of hiding just who his party is looking out for, and it sure as hell isn't the average worker out there: Cantor: We Can’t Raise Taxes ‘Every Three Months’:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said Sunday that he does not support bringing in new revenue by closing tax loopholes in order to avoid sequestration, during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"We can't be raising taxes every three months in this town," Cantor said, referring to the tax increases that went into effect in early January.

Cantor added that he doesn't want the sequester to go into effect and said it's up to President Obama to make a move now on avoiding it.

Politicususa has more on Cantor's interview here: Eric Cantor Embarrasses Himself Playing Sequester Blame Game and here: Hypocrisy Alert: Eric Cantor Added $3.4 Trillion to Debt But Blames Obama for His Debt. NBC has the full transcript up here, but for this segment, I think I prefer the Bobblespeak version.

Meet The Press - February 10, 2012 :

Gregory: the sequester automatic
spending cuts could happen in a
few days and would cripple
Virginia's economy

Audience: yes Virginia there
is a Sequester Clause

Cantor: these are horrible
indiscriminate cuts I supported

Gregory: so why can't you make
a deal with Obama?

Cantor: because Obama wants to raise taxes

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (132)

PLAYS: (691)

Embed

House Republicans are pushing to amend the "fiscal cliff" deal that just passed in the Senate, but as Rep. Barney Frank told TPM, "if House Republicans amend the Senate bill to include spending cuts, they'll effectively kill the deal.":

"If they do, that'll kill the package," he said after a Democratic caucus meeting.

"I would not predict what these people will try to do because they are in thrall to extremists," Frank said. "But if they amend this I don't know how they think they -- an amendment basically says, our ideology is too rigid and we're not really trying to really [reach a deal]."

Speaker John Boehner's (R-OH) office said his members have expressed "universal concern" with the agreement's lack of spending cuts. Rumors on Capitol Hill are that the House GOP is considering amending the legislation and sending it back to the Senate.

House Democratic leaders demanded an up-or-down vote on the Senate deal on Tuesday afternoon.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) declined to discuss whether a GOP amendment to include spending cuts would threaten the bill.

"Look, the country deserves an up or down vote on the compromise bipartisan bill that passed the Senate," he told TPM. "What we're calling for is an up or down vote. Let democracy work its will. ... Let's just take this step by step."

Here's more from The Hill: Senate-passed 'fiscal cliff' agreement in trouble in House:

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (101)

PLAYS: (317)

Embed

The GOP's leading wordsmith and propagandist, Frank Luntz, made an appearance on CBS News this Wednesday morning and stated the obvious to anyone who has watched how the NRA reacted to the tragic shooting in Newtown, CT and who understands who the organization actually represents -- they're not paying attention to public opinion.

Of course they're not Frank. They're representing the gun manufacturers. Luntz's own polling has shown that the NRA's membership doesn't even agree with them.

GOP pollster: "I don't think the NRA is listening":

Luntz said that based on his polling and conversations with lawmakers in Washington, "the public is asking, if not insisting that something be done so that this does not happen again."

"The public wants guns out of the schools, not in the schools," Luntz said, speaking to the NRA's response to the Newtown shooting, in which the organization advocated for armed guards in schools across the U.S.

"I don't think the the NRA is listening. I don't think they understand," Luntz said. "Most Americans would protect Second Amendment rights and yet agree with the idea that not every human being should own a gun, not every gun should be available at any time, anywhere, for anyone - that at gun shows you should not be able to buy something right there and then without any check whatsoever."

Luntz added that what Americans are looking for from gun control legislation is "a common sense approach that says that those who are law-abiding should continue to have the right to own a weapon, but don't believe the right should be extended to everyone at every time for every time of weapon."

And when it comes to public opinion on the looming "fiscal cliff," Luntz said his polling indicates that Americans believe the GOP is primarily fighting for "the rich" and "big business" over "hardworking taxpayers," but added that on the other side of the aisle, "what the Democrats don't understand is the hostility towards how much Washington spends."

Luntz might be right when you talk in broad generalities about that spending, but when you break it down to specific issues like whether they want to see Social Security or Medicare cut, you're going to see some different results.

h/t Raw Story

DOWNLOADS: (221)

PLAYS: (1005)

Embed

From this Sunday's Face the Nation, Speaker of the House John Boehner repeatedly refused to specify which programs Republicans would be willing to cut in order to get out deficit under control despite being continually pressed about it by Norah O'Donnell. O'Donnell also allowed Boehner to get away with one of the lies they tell repeatedly, which is that it's President Obama who ran up the deficit.

As we've pointed out here already, it is George W. Bush's policies that are primarily responsible for the deficit Boehner is fearmongering over here. And par for the course, O'Donnell let him get away with it with no push back.

O'DONNELL: Let's turn now to another issue in this campaign and that is of course government spending. You have attacked Obamacare as something that this government can't afford. Are you willing to go forward to the American people and say, you're not going to be able to enjoy the same kind of services you have in the past, we've got to cut those services as part of shrinking the government?

BOEHNER: We clearly have a problem. This President's driven the debt up $5 trillion in less than four years. We've got a $16 trillion national debt now, a $1.3 trillion budget deficit this year. You can't continue to spend money that you don't have.

And I do believe that it's time to deal with this. I tried everything I could last year to work with the President to try to come to some agreement to begin the process of getting our debt under control.

O'DONNELL: So can you look people in the eye and say you are not going to enjoy the same services you have before?

BOEHNER: We've got to make changes to all of our programs, because if we don't, they will, not, exist.

O'DONNELL: So people won't have the same kind of services?

BOEHNER: We've got to make adjustments to them. How we do it, that's going to be the subject of a great debate as we get into this election cycle and as we get into the post-election cycle.

O'Donnell didn't ask him which programs he was talking about, but who wants to take dibs he would have lumped Social Security in with Medicare and Medicaid if she had?

DOWNLOADS: (199)

PLAYS: (1197)

Embed

President Obama had stern words for any Republicans who are thinking about trying to reverse the automatic cuts that will take place now that the super committee has failed to reach an agreement -- Obama threatens to veto changes to $1.2T in cuts:

President Barack Obama says he will veto any effort to get rid of automatic spending cuts that would take effect in 2013 if Congress can't find other ways of trimming government deficits. [...]

Obama issued his threat Monday an hour after leaders of Congress' deficit-reduction supercommittee announced that they had failed to reach agreement on cutting the debt. The inability of the committee to meet its deadline means the government is facing about $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts in January 2013.

Obama said the threat of those reductions should remain in place to maintain pressure on Congress find a compromise.

DOWNLOADS: (313)

PLAYS: (2891)

Embed

Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman warned Sunday that proposed spending cuts in a deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling would end up hurting the economy.

"From the perspective of a rational person, we shouldn't even be talking about spending cuts at all now," Krugman told ABC's Christiane Amanpour. "We have nine percent unemployment. These spending cuts are going to worsen unemployment... If you have a situation in which you are permanently going to raise the unemployment rate -- which is what this is going to do -- that's actually going to reduce future revenues."

"These spending cuts are even going to hurt the long-run fiscal position, let alone cause lots of misery. Then on top of that, we've got these budget cuts, which are entirely -- basically the Republicans [saying], 'We'll blow up the world economy unless you give us exactly what you want' and the president said, 'Okay.' That's what happened."

"We used to talk about the Japanese and their lost decade. We're going to look to them as a role model. They did better than we're doing," he added. "There is no light at the end of this tunnel. We're having a debate in Washington which is all about, 'Gee, we're going to make this economy worse, but are we going to make it worse on 90 percent the Republicans' terms or 100 percent the Republicans' terms?' The answer is 100 percent."

Jon Stewart slammed House Minority Leader Eric Cantor for his heartless demands that aid for tornado victims in Joplin MO must be offset by spending cuts that he made on Face the Nation last week.

STEWART: You know, Republicans are always so worried about Socialism permanently transforming America. But what's a more fundamental transformation of America than if your town is taken by a tornado, we can only help you if we make the numbers work? I mean seriously.

Right now elephants from the Missouri circus are helping clear heavy debris from the tornado, which means when it comes to helping Joplin, MO residents, actual elephants are more useful to them than the GOP. That's just insane. [...]

Actually that sounds like good common sense until you think about it for two seconds and then is just seems like bulls**t masquerading as common sense, but alright, I'll allow it.

Stewart then proceeds to rip Cantor's we've got to run the government like a family manages their budget and the whole lot of them for the we can't raise taxes on the rich because it's "punishing them" nonsense taking point that every Republican has been blathering endlessly without challenge from our corporate media.