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Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said on Sunday that by passing Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) budget to slash the size of government and shift Medicare into a voucher system, the party had proved that it was not grandstanding or obstructing President Barack Obama.

At a fundraiser in Chicago last week, the president explained to supporters that electing a Democratic Congress was the best way to "work around" GOP obstructionism.

But Priebus told Fox News host Chris Wallace that Obama was working to defeat Republicans "so he can be even further unchecked."

"I hesitate to ask this because it sounds like a softball," the Fox News host noted. "But do you think this president is serious about trying to deal, to negotiate, to compromise?"

Wallace pointed out that The New York Times had recently accused Republicans of "grandstanding" with congressional hearings and investigations into the president.

"I just don't see that," Priebus insisted. "I see one of my best friends in Paul Ryan, that offers up year after year after year, a serious position and legislation on tackling our 10-year debt window, getting our economy under control long term, doing it at his own political peril. But yet, he stands there in the House and passes it every time, and it goes nowhere."

Wallace noted that Democrats had also recently passed a budget and Republicans in the Senate were now refusing to allow a conference committee to reconcile the two budgets.

Priebus, however, dodged that question, saying only that "big things can happen in this country. I think that trust is an issue. I think this president says one thing and does another."

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CNN media critic Howard Kurtz on Sunday pushed back against a Fox News pundit who slammed the "deafening silence of too much of the media" over coverage of a Philadelphia doctor accused of killing seven babies and one woman while performing late-term abortions.

In a USA Today column last week, Fox News political analyst Kirsten Powers pointed to former Pennsylvania abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell as evidence that Planned Parenthood has been wrong to claim that it's "highly unusual" that infants survive late-term abortions.

Powers said that there was a double standard because conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh had received front page coverage after he called Sandra Fluke a "slut" over her advocacy of contraception coverage for students, but Gosnell had not gotten the same attention.

"You don't have to oppose abortion rights to find late-term abortion abhorrent or to find the Gosnell trial eminently newsworthy," the Fox News pundit wrote. "The deafening silence of too much of the media, once a force for justice in America, is a disgrace."

In his "Media Monitor" segment on Sunday, Kurtz agreed that the Gosnell case had not gotten enough national coverage, but suggested that conservatives had oversimplified the argument to attack the "liberal media."

"Some conservatives are saying this amounts to blackout by the so-called liberal media, but it's more complicated that that," he explained. "First, the Gosnell case has drawn some coverage since the FBI first raided that clinic back in 2010, in such outlets as Time, NPR, the AP, The New York Times, Slate and The Daily Beast. Now since Gosnell's trial began, CNN has done a half dozen segments, including one by Jake Tapper back on March 21 and Fox News did a story that same day."

"MSNBC, like Fox, has done a few stories," Kurtz continued. "CBS and ABC carried evening news segments back in January, but there hasn't been nearly enough on the trial. Almost nothing in The Washington Post, not enough in The New York Times. Perhaps the mainstream press is less attuned to a story that cast a shadow on abortion, but the conservative media didn't do much either."

"And it's not like even the staunchest pro-choice advocate would defend what Gosnell is alleged to have done. This is a gruesome case that journalists on both sides of the abortion question have told me is hard to stomach."

The Philly Post's Simon van Zuylen-Wood wrote last week that the media should cover the Gosnell case, but it was wrong to use it as a tool to fight against abortion rights.

"Powers is a liberal and an evangelical Christian; she criticizes the right on women’s rights, the left on abortion," he observed. "Powers’s aim is to draw attention to the fact that the Gosnell murder charges should make us consider whether there’s really a difference between killing a baby inside the womb, or outside, as he so horrifically did. But this is misleading."

"The moral to be drawn from the Gosnell trial is not that current abortion laws are screwed up. Indeed, Gosnell broke them, which is why he’s on trial. Rather, it’s that as individual states increasingly restrict abortion rights, more and more illegal clinics, like Gosnell’s may crop up."

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Thom Hartmann takes our corporate media and the cheerleaders for war with Iraq to task and ten years after our invasion, asks 'Where are the apologies?'

Via Truthout: How the Media Fueled the War in Iraq:

Yesterday, the U.S. marked the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. And, over the course of the past ten years, we've learned more and more about how the war with Iraq actually started.

It's incredibly easy to blame the Bush administration for its lies that led us into Iraq. But Cheney, Rumsfeld and company weren't the only ones who played an integral role in convincing this nation that Saddam Hussein was a threat, and that WMD's were a forgone conclusion.

In the days and weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq, corporate media – and even NPR and PBS - were abuzz with the talking points of the Bush Administration, echoing claims that Iraq had its hands on "yellow cake uranium" and that it had a massive arsenal of "weapons of mass destruction."

Thanks to the media's repeated claims that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were immediate threats to our nation, in the weeks leading up to the invasion, nearly three-quarters of Americans believed the lie promoted by Donald Rumsfeld that Saddam Hussein was somehow involved in the attacks of 9/11.

One of the biggest proponents of the Iraq War was Bill O'Reilly.

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You can add this interview to "part the infinity" as to why anything David Brooks says should never be taken seriously again. Why, oh why is this man paid to write a column for The New York Times every week? From this week's The PBS Newshour, Brooks apparently believes that GOP Ayn Rand fanboy Paul Ryan, who has never met a budget he could actually balance should be considered a policy "wonk."

Listening to this tragedy on PBS reminded me of Esquire's Charlie Pierce and his similar dismay over the praise of Ryan in Politico, or as he appropriately calls them, Tiger Beat on the Potomac: Things In Politico That Make Me Want To Guzzle Antifreeze, Part The Infinity:

Sometimes, it's the way it does its business, and sometimes, it's simply what's in it.

Obama, who has always regarded Ryan as one of the leading intellectual forces of the opposition...

Is this a dagger I see before me? Let me plunge it into my eyeballs.

His budgets don't balance. The CBO has his picture up on the wall like the mug shots of stalkers that hang in the guard shacks of Hollywood studios. Actual economists look at his work, when he actually shows it, which is not often, and they tell the tales of it to their children to scare their children out of ever becoming economists. His performance on the national stage last autumn was a clown show of epic proportions. He is a Leading Intellectual Force in a party full of people who eat oatmeal with their toes. [...]

It goes without saying, but we will say it anyway, and again, but there is simply nothing that the zombie-eyed granny-starver could propose that should be treated by any Democratic president any differently than a free introductory case of the mange. He has nothing to offer to any progressive vision of the country, not even the president's, which is admittedly a fairly pale one. He wants to demolish the social-welfare component of the government because he considers it philosophically illegitimate. He wants to establish an oligarchical system, not because it will profit him personally, although it will, but because he considers it the natural order of democracy. In every sense of the word, he is an extremist, the Louie Gohmert of economic policy.

Never mind that though. Here's what passes for a very Serious conversation by the "adults" in Washington where Brooks is downplaying the damage this sequester might do to our economy if it's allowed to go on, and praising Ryan as though he cares about anything other than lowering taxes on the rich at the expense of the rest of the country.

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MSNBC host Joe Scarborough on Friday recommended that Republicans "walk out" of talks completely because President Barack Obama's first budget offer was "loaded with Democratic priorities," citing an imperfect memory of the way President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) harmoniously "worked together" to reach a deal in 1995.

On Thursday, Republicans aides circulated what they said was the first White House budget offer. It reportedly included $1.6 trillion in taxes, $400 billion in entitlement spending cuts and $200 billion in new stimulus of payroll tax cuts and an efforts to encourage homeowners to refinance. The White House also wants a debt limit increase as part of the deal to avoid the crisis that ended with U.S. credit being downgraded in 2011.

On MSNBC Friday morning, Scarborough said that he would have laughed out loud if he had been in the room when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was making the offer.

"I would have said, 'We're all busy people, this is a critical time, if you're going to come over here and insult us and intentionally try to provoke us, you can do that but I'm going back to work now,'" Scarborough explained. "And I'd walk out."

"Was it necessary for the president to be so proactive with something even The New York Times said was -- quote -- 'loaded with Democratic priorities' and really gave Republicans nothing?" the conservative MSNBC host wondered. "I think they were awfully reckless yesterday with this first offer."

"Look at the other side that they're dealing with," co-host Mika Brzezinski pointed out. "Look at who they're dealing with, many of the same people as the last four years. So, what would you do if you knew who you were up against? Would you come out there with something that was incredibly giving from the get-go?"

"My response to [House Speaker] John Boehner would be very simple, just stop talking to them," Scarborough opined. "Don't talk to them until they make a serious offer... I've got to say that I'm really stunned by what happened yesterday."

"I can tell you, it's not a hard ask, it's a partnership," he added. "And actually as much as Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich loathed each other at times, they worked together to deal with Republicans like myself on balancing the budget on the first time in a generation, balancing it four years for for the first time since the 1920s, paying down the national debt. And you know what? Newt Gingrich always had to fight us on his right flank and he and Bill Clinton sat in the White House and strategized."

In fact, the budget negotiations between Clinton and Gingrich were no where near as smooth and cordial as Scarborough remembers. After Clinton passed his 1993 budget (and tax increases) with no Republicans votes, Gingrich led a 1993 effort to impeach the 42nd president of the United States in the House of Representatives. Clinton later was forced to shut down government for a total of 28 days in 1995 and 1996 over drastic cuts to spending on Medicare, education, public health and the environment. In the end, the parties did work together to create four consecutive balanced budgets for the first time since the 1920s. Forcing the government shutdown, however, marked the beginning of the end of Gingrich's career as Speaker.

The Washington Post's Ezra Klein noted on Thursday that the first White House budget proposal was a signal that President Barack Obama would no longer begin negotiations by conceding to Republican demands as he had done so many times during his first term.

"Previously, Obama’s pattern had been to offer plans that roughly tracked where he thought the compromise should end up," Klein wrote. "Perhaps the key lesson the White House took from the last couple of years is this: Don’t negotiate with yourself. If Republicans want to cut Medicare, let them propose the cuts. If they want to raise revenue through tax reform, let them identify the deductions. If they want deeper cuts in discretionary spending, let them settle on a number. And, above all, if they don’t like the White House’s preferred policies, let them propose their own."

"The GOP is right: This isn’t a serious proposal. But it’s not evidence that Obama isn’t serious. He’s very serious about not negotiating with himself, and his opening bid proves it."

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CNN host Howard Kurtz on Sunday blasted News Corp chief executive Rupert Murdoch for an "atrocious" suggestion that stereotyped the "Jewish owned press" as having a hidden agenda.

In a tweet on Saturday, Murdoch had lashed out at what he called the "Jewish owned press" for its coverage of a recent conflict between Hamas and Israel.

"Why is Jewish owned press so consistently anti-Israel in every crisis?" he wrote.

The Daily Beast's Peter Beinart quickly noted that Murdoch's tweet managed to offend both journalists and Jews.

"It’s offensive to journalists because it implies that institutions of the 'press' should reflect the ideological biases of their owners," Beinart wrote. "Reading Murdoch’s tweet, it would be logical to conclude that he believes that any newspaper he owns should reflect his right-wing views, even in its news coverage."

"Murdoch’s tweet is offensive to Jews because he’s suggesting that when it comes to Israel, Jewish media-owners should let their Jewishness guide their journalism. ... Murdoch seems upset that Jewish media owners are not Israel-firsters. He wants their tribal loyalty to a Jewish state to trump their professional obligation to oversee fair-minded, unbiased journalism."

In his Sunday media analysis on CNN, Kurtz also tore into Murdoch.

"Last night, he went beyond outrageous to offensive," the media critic said of Murdoch, observing that most media organizations -- with the exception The New York Times -- were owned by public companies like Viacom, Comcast, Disney and Time Warner.

"And beyond that, this media mogul who isn't shy about interfering in his own newsrooms is suggesting that Jewish Americans have a hidden agenda in which their religion trumps their commitment to journalism," he added. "That is atrocious and it is beneath Rupert Murdoch."

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Mitt Romney's political director, Rich Beeson, on Sunday suggested that The New York Times -- and not the Republican presidential nominee -- was responsible for an op-ed calling for the U.S. auto industry to "go bankrupt."

During an interview on Fox News, host Chris Wallace asked Beeson why the Romney campaign was running a "misleading" advertisement which implied that Jeep is sending U.S. jobs overseas when, in fact, the company is adding American jobs.

"I found it interesting that President Obama would attack Gov. Romney on that when they put up an ad saying that Gov. Romney says, 'Let Detroit go bankrupt,' when that's a headline from a New York Times op-ed," Beeson replied.

While it's true that The New York Times selected the title "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" for Romney's 2008 op-ed, the former Massachusetts governor was reportedly given an opportunity to approve the headline.

Romney also personally repeated the line during a television interview earlier this year.

"Yeah, that's what I said," he told CBS News. "The headline you just read, 'Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,' points out that the companies needed to go through bankruptcy to save those costs."

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The man who is likely to be Alabama’s next chief justice is warning that God will continue to punish America until same sex marriage and abortion are outlawed.

Speaking to around 100 anti-abortion supporters at the Stand Up for Religious Freedom rally on Saturday, former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore said that "Satan is out to destroy everything that God has created."

"This is not just about religion, this is about law; the organic law of our country," the candidate explained. "When they pretended to give the right of choice to that woman, they took away the right of life to that child."

Moore added that Satan was also "convincing many in our land that they can form a marriage between the same gender. My, how God must be sad about this. He has a controversy with the inhabitants of this land, and until we reject those evils, we shall suffer accordingly."

"We wonder why we’re suffering economically, why we’re suffering economically, why we’re suffering the moral decay, and now they want to take away that natural union between a man and woman that’s called family."

The Alabama Court of the Judiciary was forced to strip Moore of the chief justice title in 2003 because he rejected a federal court order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the state courthouse, and now that he is running again, many Republicans in the state "are privately despondent over the prospect of a Moore victory and its effect on the state’s image," The New York Times reported on Sunday.

Earlier this year, Moore told conservative talk show host Steve Deace that secular government would eventually lead to Islamic law in the United States because “a government that is denying God” allowed Sharia law to take hold.

Moore's entire speech at the Stand Up for Religious Freedom rally is available here.

(h/t: Right Wing Watch)

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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Sunday blasted President Barack Obama's administration for agreeing to discussions with Iran about the county's nuclear program because 'the time for talking is over."

The New York Times reported on Sunday that Obama administration officials had said the White House had agreed in principle to one-on-one meetings with Iran, a result of efforts to pressure Tehran that began soon after Obama took office.

"The Iranians are trying to take advantage of our election cycle to continue to talk," Graham told Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday. "As we talk with the Iranians, whether it's bilaterally or unilaterally, the vice president and the president have said, 'We will do nothing without coordinating with Israel.' So, we've talked with them in Moscow, we've talked with them in Baghdad, they continue to enrich."

"I think think the time for talking is over," he continued. "We should be demanding transparency and access to their nuclear program. They've doubled their centrifuges so I think this is a ploy by the Iranians. I hope we are talking to the Israelis."

Graham added that he hoped that the U.S. would not "take the bait" and agree to one-on-one discussion with Iran.

"I would like to talk with Israel before we make any major decisions with Iran," he explained.

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As Media Matters noted, it seems Laura Ingraham wants to play assignment editor and tell the New York Times where to station their reporters -- outside of Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton's houses, so they can harass them about the recent GOP witch hunt over the Libya embassy attack.

Ingraham tried to compare this to the way Scooter Libby was treated after the Bush administration outed CIA agent Valerie Plame. Ironically once again, it's the Republicans who are the ones outing the CIA and who are putting playing politics ahead of national security.

We'll never hear that on Fox though, where they've decided they're going to ride this horse right through to the election, hoping it helps them get Mitt Romney elected.

WALLACE: Laura?

INGRAHAM: Well, I think about Susan Rice going out there on this show and four other shows on Sunday, and I'd like to know did Susan Rice have any direct or indirect contact with anyone from the Obama campaign, David Axelrod, Plouffe, maybe Valerie Jarrett? She still works in the White House, but obviously very close to the president.

HUME: Tom Donilon.

INGRAHAM: Yeah, Tom Donilon. I would like to know that. I'd like Mr. Axelrod to answer that question.

I would hope that the New York Times, as they camped outside of Scooter Libby's house during the whole Valerie Plame thing, are they -- are you guys camped outside of the Susan Rice residence?

I mean, seriously, whether she was put out as a -- as a sacrificial lamb or not...

WOODWARD: It's great...

(CROSSTALK)

WOODWARD: ... another assignment...

(CROSSTALK)

INGRAHAM: No, but this is -- we have a dead ambassador, two Navy SEALs, dead, another security officer dead. The president answers this the next morning by flying to Vegas for a fund-raiser. If I -- I submit that if this were a Republican president and this went down this way, you'd have reporters camped outside of Hillary's house, Rice's house, and demand that the president do a full-blown press conference on what happened. Maybe it is just incompetence, maybe it's a series of innocent mistakes, but my goodness, when you had three attacks, violent attacks inside Benghazi, on the Red Cross office, the consulate and then postings on Facebook we're coming after you on September 10th, they didn't have any actionable intelligence? What? I mean, this is ridiculous. And I think the press is partly culpable here.