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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was asked by CNN's Candy Crowley about whether or not their attempt to blame President Obama for rising gas prices was going to be successful, given recent polling showing that Americans primarily blamed the oil companies for the problem and the fact that Americans blamed the GOP by only three fewer percentage points than they did the president.

When McConnell responded by taking up for the oil companies and their subsidies, Crowley asked him if he thought those tax breaks were fair given their record profits and McConnell responded by accusing Crowley of "using all of the Democratic talking points" -- because that's generally what these guys do when they're trying to defend the indefensible. You go on the attack and accuse the interviewer of being biased.

Anyone who regularly watches Crowley's show on CNN knows full well whose talking points she's generally repeating, and they're not from the Democrats.

Transcript below the fold.

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After walking out of the debt ceiling negotiations this week, which Chris Wallace conveniently forgot to ask Sen. Jon Kyl about, Kyl defended the Republicans refusal to raise taxes during this interview on Fox News Sunday. Republicans continue to pretend that trickle-down economics work with their claims that raising taxes on the rich will hurt the economy and Kyl went so far as to pretend raising taxes on those making over a half a million dollars a year would eventually mean taxes being raised on everyone.

I've heard some whoppers as excuses for not raising taxes on upper earners, but this one has to take the cake.

WALLACE: We're going to get to the economic growth aspect in a minute. But let's just go through the taxes because the White House says -- and let's just make it clear what we're talking about here -- the White House says they've given up on the idea of raising tax rates for individuals, even those over $250,000. They understand the politics, as you say, the House, it's just a nonstarter.

But let's go through some of the things, Senator, that they are proposing. Let's put them on the screen.

Limit deductions -- tax deductions for households making more than $500,000 a year to 10 percent of gross adjusted income. They said that would bring in $210 billion over the next decade.

And here's the argument the White House is going to make. I want you to respond to it. They say, do you really want to be protecting mortgage deductions for millionaires at the same time that you are cutting Medicare for seniors?

KYL: Well, let's be clear. What they are talking about is charitable giving, mortgage deductions, that sort of thing. And it always happens -- they aim at the millionaires and billionaires.

But there's not enough money for those folks to run the government for very long. So, they end up affecting everybody. That's what the alternative minimum tax did. And I think that's what actually happened here.

And naturally Wallace let him get away with that with no follow up. Full transcript below the fold.

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House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) explained Sunday that Republicans had walked away from negotiations on raising the debt ceiling because Democrats had suggested closing special interest tax loopholes for big corporations.

"Leader Cantor can't handle the truth when it comes to these tax subsidies for big oil, for corporations sending jobs overseas or giving tax breaks to the wealthiest people in the country, while they're asking seniors to pay more for less, as they abolish Medicare," Pelosi told CNN's Candy Crowley.

"In the Bush years the Republicans said that tax cuts will produce jobs," she later added. "They didn't. They produced a deficit."

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Another Sunday, another week where Republicans are allowed to come on the air unchallenged and lie about the reasons for their hostage-taking on raising the debt ceiling. Paul Ryan tells CNN's Candy Crowley that the reason we're running into this debt ceiling is due to "the spending spree that has occurred over the last two years." Never mind that Bush broke the bank with two illegal invasions and tax cuts for the rich.

Never mind, as our own Jon Perr wrote here, that Republicans have proven time and time again they really don't care about the deficits, unless a Democrat is president.

Never mind that the only reasons the Republicans now care about raising the debt ceiling is they want an excuse to dismantle all of our social safety nets. No, all of our problems with the economy supposedly started just in the last two years.

Ryan also claims that they need to slash the budget, which will make the economy worse, in order to keep us from having another recession. And in order to supposedly keep us out of recession, Ryan and his cohorts are willing to threaten not to raise the debt ceiling, which in turn would cause a recession or worse.

Of course Crowley didn't want to "get into a numbers game" but was more interested in what he thought of the politics being played out. And then she allows Ryan to pretend like all of town hall meetings he held "went phenomenally" with no mention of the booing and angry constituents he ran into at them.

Crowley also allowed Ryan to rattle off some talking points from the American Petroleum Institute on ending the tax subsidies for the oil companies, claiming that it would raise gas prices and harm job creation in America.

So par for the course, not only were the Sunday shows loaded up with Republicans this week, they were allowed interviews like this to read off their talking points unchallenged.

Transcript via CNN:

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So what are we supposed to believe -- what Paul Ryan says at a town hall meeting, or what Ryan says with the way he votes? I'd say the latter is a safe bet.

From Think Progress -- Paul Ryan Endorses Ending Oil Subsidies, Even Though He Voted For Them:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) agreed to end subsidies to oil companies during a town hall in Waterford, Wisconsin, this morning, eliciting great applause from an overflow crowd in a very conservative section of his district. “We also want to get rid of corporate welfare,” Ryan insisted. “So we propose to repeal all that”:

Q: The subsidy for the oil companies that the federal government gives. They’ve gotta stop.

RYAN: Sure.

Q: End the oil company subsidies…

RYAN: I agree.

Q: …and you will gain a lot of that money in the red back.

More there on Ryan's voting record so go read the rest. If anyone actually believes that Republicans are going to throw one of their major campaign donors under the bus, as they noted, all you have to do is look at John Boehner's whiplash on the subject.