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After watching Ali Velshi fill in on some of CNN's coverage over the holidays on this "fiscal cliff" debacle, I would definitely be happy to see him take Erin Burnett's place on CNN in the evening. He corrected wingnut Rep. Tim Huelskamp on the air this Tuesday and the following evening after the House finally voted to pass the Senate's bill, he didn't let Rep. Tom Cole get away with trying to blame S&P's downgrade of our credit rating on the budget deficit.

After Cole again explained that he was happy with the Republicans passing this deal because they got a lot of what they liked and that they planned on leveraging the debt ceiling to get some of the spending cuts they want, Cole said this:

COLE: We didn't have a downgrade because of the debt ceiling debate. We had it because we weren't dealing with our deficit. This is...

VELSHI: That's not entirely true. (CROSSTALK) No, no, It's not entirely true.

COLE: It actually is. (CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: Congressman, I really enjoy talking to you. I think you're one of the best around. It's just not entirely true.

COLE: Look, you can't have trillion dollar deficits for four consecutive years and have it going forward...

VELSHI: Give me five minutes and I'll pull out S&P's report. I mean, I'm not the guy to have this fight with. I don't know as much about Congress as you do, but I do know about this.

Velshi went on to give him a hard time about the Republicans not being able to get their act together in the House and he's exactly right, that report did not blame the deficit. It blamed the politicians not being able to work together.

When Cole attempted to put most of the blame for the Simpson-Bowles commission going nowhere onto President Obama, Velshi reminded him that their vice presidential candidate, Paul Ryan voted against the plan as well. Velshi didn't give Democrats a pass for their part in any of this brinksmanship we've seen going on, but he made sure to let the viewers know we're dealing with a really dysfunctional House right now.

It was nice to at least see the Representative not be allowed to get away with just completely revising history. I'd have been happier after watching this if he wasn't allowed to pretend that it's going to be acceptable behavior for them to continue their hostage taking during this upcoming debt ceiling debate. I've still got my issues with Velshi, mainly due to the fact that's he's on board for austerity measures and cuts to our social safety nets and like so many of them, seems obsessed with the deficit instead of getting Americans back to work. But compared to Burnett, who he's been filling in for, he's a breath of fresh air. It would really be nice to see more of these anchors do what he did here again, which is call out a politician on the spot when they lie on the air.

For a little reminder, here's what that S&P report said about the downgrade:

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More fearmongering on the Super Committee failing to reach a deal to avoid the automatic triggered cuts that will come if the committee can't reach agreement soon. If you knew nothing about what the Republicans latest offer was and were just watching the segment above, you'd think both sides were being terribly unreasonable and wondering why, oh why that silly John Kerry won't give in and let the Republicans have what they want and that the Democrats had been offered some sort of "balanced" deal.

From Dave Dayden over at FDL News Desk, here's what the Republicans were offering today -- Republican’s Latest Super Committee Offer is a 181:1 Ratio of Spending Cuts to Tax Increases.

Whoo boy that's some real balance there. Why won't those silly Democrats agree to that very "serious" plan? I can't imagine. Here's more from DDay.

Republicans apparently just submitted a last-ditch effort to get agreement on the Super Committee. It was a $545 billion proposal, less than half of the minimum requirement to avoid all of the automatic trigger cuts. And it included $3 billion in tax increases.

For those of you scoring at home, that’s a ratio of about 181:1.

Democrats rejected it.

It’s almost getting fun to watch the catfood commission fail so thoroughly. If we’re already submitting proposals of less than half the minimum requirement, then there’s nothing left to fear from this thing. It’s also good news that the unbalanced proposal was rejected, because that probably included a lot of cuts already offered in past proposals by Democrats.

It will be fun to watch Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles and David Walker and Maya MacGuineas and all the rest whine and cry next week when this thing gets a real Viking funeral. What they know, but won’t tell you, is that simply doing nothing would lead to $7.1 trillion in deficit reduction. In other words, just offsetting any changes to current law will accomplish about twice as much as their alleged goal for cutting deficits. They won’t tell you this because it comes primarily from letting tax cuts expire. [...]

The point is not to let all of this happen; the point is not even to pay for all the fixes to this, necessarily. The point is to show that the medium term budget is ALREADY in primary balance, and that just relatively following that guide path – even while allowing for targeted measures to improve the economy – is completely sufficient, rather than cutting everyone’s Social Security and Medicare benefits.

181:1, and host Erin Burnett and her panel of Jim Bianco, John Avlon and David Gergen were allowing the viewers of CNN to think the Democrats were being offered anything they should have taken seriously. We need to just let these Bush tax cuts expire and put an end to this saber rattling over austerity measures, but the Villagers in the corporate media are desperate to continue to push the narrative that there are no solutions for this other than inflicting pain on the majority of the electorate rather than ask the richest among us to pay any more taxes.

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

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Fox's Neil Cavuto claimed he really didn't want to take up for Standard and Poor's and defend their record, but it didn't stop him from accusing the Congress from conducting a "witch hunt" in their defense now that investigations are being called for after they downgraded the United States' credit rating.

Apparently Cavuto and some of his cohorts on Fox have been carrying water for S&P for the last week or so.

From Media Matters -- Fox News Objects To S&P Downgrade Inquiry By Screaming "Witch Hunt":

Fox News personalities have expressed outrage that Congress is reportedly considering investigating Standard & Poor's (S&P) controversial decision to downgrade its U.S. credit rating. But S&P has significant credibility issues, and executives at rating agencies - including S&P - have routinely testified before Congress, including about their role in the Enron scandal and the financial crisis.

As Congress Prepares To Investigate S&P's "Downgrade" Of The U.S. Credit Rating ...

AP: Senate Moving To Investigate S&P's Downgrade Decision.

On August 8, the Associated Press reported that the Senate Banking Committee "is gathering information on Standard & Poor's decision to issue the first-ever downgrade of the government's credit rating." [Associated Press, 8/8/11] ...

Fox News Shouts Intimidation And "Witch Hunt" ...

Fox's Cavuto On Possible Investigation Of S&P: "You Can't Threaten Everyone."

From host Neil Cavuto's discussion of a possible Senate investigation of S&P with Larry Sabato on Your World: Read on...

While telling every one else not to panic in reaction to drops in the stock market after the S&P downgrade, Stephen Colbert packed his "hobo satchel" full of gold, weapons and a chicken as he prepared to make his escape from the United States.

After noting that the only other two countries with a rating of AA+ are Belgium and New Zealand, Colbert concluded:

The credit downgrade reduces Americans to waffle-eating Kiwis who put mayonnaise on their French fries and have a serious Hobbit infestation.

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During the opening of Andrea Mitchell's show today before President Obama came on to talk about Standard and Poor's downgrading the credit rating of the United States, Chris Matthews made the ridiculous assertion that they actually had some credibility after all we've seen out of that ratings agency over the last few years.

MITCHELL: Let's talk about the S&P. Clearly a political judgment by the S&P about the future of debt reduction and long term solvency. Is that exceeding their grasp? And was it wrong as the White House and Treasury claimed?

MATTHEWS: Well it's done. And it has power in itself and uh... they have credibility. We live with the S&P everyday. And the value of our stocks and how our portfolios are doing, depending on how the S&P rates it. I think it probably has more to do with our dollar and the value of our dollar. I think gold's going up because of that. And that's a more of a near term thing than the obviously unrealistic assessment that we might actually renege on our debt.

But I tell you, I think this is really big and I think it has to do with the towering size of the U.S. debt. And the more we read about Greece; the more we read about the periphery countries of Portugal and Spain and Italy too... in trouble, the more we look at one thing, how's their debt compared to their GDP? And by that standard we have problems.

We can't keep saying we're different, that there's American exceptionalism at work here. Because if we're exceptional why do we keep rolling up our debt? And that's a question I think the liberals, the Democrats, progressives are going to have to deal with. They can't simply say it's a problem of the idiot right. You can't blame it all on them. There are some idiots out there on the right. There's some people on the right who will not look at the overall big picture. But the big picture's indefensible. And that's the problem.

Thankfully CNBC's Ron Insana was there to say... well, not so much Chris. As he pointed out for reasons that have already been noted here, S&P has no credibility. And as he noted, we're not Greece.

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Deadbeat dad, Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) Tuesday rejected the notion that tea party Republicans' brinkmanship and refusal to raise taxes contributed to S&P's decision downgrade U.S. credit.

Both Obama adviser, David Axelrod and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) had referred to S&P action as "the tea party downgrade" Sunday.

"If it wasn't so pathetic, I mean, it's almost comical," Walsh told CNN's Kyra Phillips. "We were told months ago that a downgrade was likely, because this economy is falling off a cliff, and we have a debt crisis. That's all on the door of the president. His policies are responsible for this. And for him here at the last minute, him and his minions, to trot out this thing called the tea party downgrade, is comical, and it won't work, because most Americans see right through it."

When he asked to explain why congressional approval was at an all-time low, Walsh again attacked the president.

"This president never ceases to not provide leadership. Why is he focused on name calling now?" the congressman wondered.

"But this downgrade has happened because of how the debt deal turned out," Phillips noted. "It is a reaction to what happened among lawmakers during the debt deal. So, are you saying that the trillions of dollars that have been lost now in the stock market, you know, has been worth all that back and forth and that bickering? I mean, is partisan politics helping this country move forward at all?"

"Kyra, folks in the market are a lot smarter than you and I are," Walsh insisted. "It had nothing to do with an August 2 deadline. It had to do with our debt crisis. We've known about this for ages. And I got to tell you something, thank God for all these troublesome House Republicans who came to this town. Can you imagine what life would be like if we hadn't? We would have raised the debt ceiling without thinking about it last February or March. We'd be spending money every single day. We would have been downgraded months ago."

"These House Republicans have forced this town to finally get serious about spending. That's a good thing."

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Appearing on CBS Monday, House Financial Services Committee ranking member Barney Frank (D-MA) pointed to growing military spending as one of the causes of S&P's downgrade of U.S. credit.

"I would hope there would be one bipartisan agreement we can reach and I've been working for," Frank told CBS' Nancy Cordes. "There is one area in American policy where we are doing things disproportionate to the rest of the world. We don't give our older people more medical care, we don't have a better retirement, we don't spend more on the environment. Where America is disproportionate is our extraordinary willingness to be the military policemen for the whole world."

"We spend far more of our economy as a national percentage on the military than just about any nation except a beleaguered nation like Israel, which has to do with self defense. We are spending well over $120 billion a year in Iraq and Afghanistan. The time has come to find a place where we could, I think, together, make some savings. So, I am -- that's going to be my mantra for the next few months."

"We could be the strongest nation in the world for $400 billion instead of $700 billion, or $450 billion instead of $700 billion," he added. "We could easily save more than $200 billion without in any way endangering our security."

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Alex Seitz-Wald over at Think Progress seemed to think this exchange between Paul Ryan and Chris Wallace potentially signaled some shift by him with his rhetoric on whether he'd be open to revenue increases after we ended up getting our credit rating downgraded by S&P. I would beg to differ and think it just sounded like a lot of the same weasel words we've been hearing out of the lot of them when it comes to whether they'd actually ever support raising taxes on their rich campaign donors.

While he did not draw the hard line that we've been hearing out of him that any deal has to be "revenue neutral", so much of this just sounds like the same old same old with what they consider a revenue increase in the first place and with the demands that any deal had better include "entitlement reform", I find it hard to believe that what he said to Chris Wallace here represents any real shift from what we've been hearing from this guy for some time now.

And given his track record, does anyone actually believe that Ryan would ever support tax increases in any way, shape or form? And he never says he'll support raising taxes on anyone. What he said is this:

RYAN: So if you just raising revenues to chase ever higher spending that is not good policy. And I don't think that's a good agreement. If we are convincingly restructuring these entitlement programs and getting that spending line down to meet that revenue line, then can you have higher revenue growth through more economic growth and tax reform, yes -- the answer is yes.

"Higher revenue through more economic growth and tax reform" does not equal raising taxes on anyone. It equals their same double talk that if you lower rates for upper earners and corporations, you're going to get more tax revenues coming in, which is trickle-down economics nonsense that we've been hearing from this Ayn Rand fan for as long as he's been allowed an interview on television. And tax "reform" equals lowering rates while supposedly closing loopholes, tax loopholes that can just be put right back in place later. And tax loopholes that Republicans stubbornly refused to support from day one of these negotiations over raising the debt ceiling in the first place.

I don't think we heard any shift from Ryan here on his previous positions. It's just more weasel words and double-speak trying to con Americans into thinking that we should support more policies that make the income disparity in the United States worse and that do nothing to fix our problem with the deficit or actually raise tax revenues, unless of course those taxes are raised on the middle class, or what's left of it, and the poor, or taking it out of their hides with destroying what's left of the social safety nets that are currently protecting a good deal of our elderly and our sick living in abject poverty.

I'll be glad to eat my words later if Republicans do actually agree to tax increases as part of these negotiations over the coming months, but I'm not holding my breath for Ryan or whoever gets appointed to this new committee to do so. I think Think Progress gave him way too much credit for looking like he might actually be willing to bend from the rigid stance we've seen Republicans take ever since President Obama got elected and especially since they got control of the House.

Full transcript below the fold.

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From Mother Jones -- VIDEO: Tea Partiers Cheer the Downgrade of America's Credit Rating:

Is the tea party happy that Standard and Poor's, the credit rating agency, downgraded the United States' credit rating for the first time ever?

You'd think that was the case if you were in the crowd at a tea party rally in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, on Sunday morning. The Tea Party Express rolled into that northeastern city as part of its tour to bolster the six GOP state senators facing recall elections on Tuesday. But the most shocking moment of the event wasn't the vitriol spouted by tea party leaders, which has dominated news of the tour stops in recent days. Instead it was the cheers that erupted when one of the Tea Party Express' speakers described the recent downgrade as the tea party's fault.

Here's what happened: Midway through the Fond du Lac event, Florida talk show host Andrea Shea King took the stage. She told the audience that commentators were describing the downgrade of US debt to AA+ from AAA as the "tea party downgrade," laying the blame squarely on Congress' right-wing faction and its supporters. But rather than boo those who claim the tea party caused the downgrade, the 200 or so Wisconsinites in attendance cheered, sounding almost proud to blamed for the downgrade.

As they noted, pretty astounding that these people seem pretty happy to be taking credit for the full faith and credit of the United States taking a knock. Makes me wonder if they even understood what the hell the speaker was talking about.

Transcript via Mother Jones:

SHEA KING: This week—I wrote it down—they are blaming the credit downgrade on the tea party movement.

CROWD: Yeah! [Cheers, clapping]

SHEA KING: They are calling it "the tea party downgrade." They are objectivizing [sic] us.

Let's just all hope these astroturfers are wasting their time up there with these recall elections this week. God knows how much outside money is pouring into that state over the last few weeks.

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Well, we had one bright spot on the Sunday morning talks shows this weekend -- the fact that Rachel Maddow was a panel member on Meet the Press. The downside, she got stuck debating Republican hack, Alex Castellanos who just regurgitated one Republican lie-filled talking point after another during the entire segment.

When responding to whether his buddy Mitt Romney should have shown some leadership and weighed in on the debt-ceiling debacle before it was over with or not, Castellanos tried blaming the downgrade by S&P on government spending and too much debt. But Maddow corrected him about just who exactly they blame if you actually read their report -- Republicans playing chicken with the debt ceiling and their rigid refusal to ever allow taxes to be raised.

MADDOW: To the extent that we are taking the S&P downgrade as a serious thing, that we believe that S&P has the credibility to have done this, and this actually does levy a blow against the U.S. economic credibility. I mean, honestly, we should talk about the fact that during the financial crisis, S&P was handing out AAA ratings to any pile of junk tall enough to reach the doorbell and ask. So they do not have the most credibility on this. But if we are going to take them seriously, let's take them on their word about why they did this. They said they did this because of brinksmanship over the debt ceiling. They did not say they did this because there's too much government spending.

GREGORY: All right. Let's, let...

MADDOW: They said they did this because of Republicans holding the debt...

CASTELLANOS: Because of the debt.

MADDOW: No. The debt ceiling. Brinksmanship...

CASTELLANOS: Yeah, but the debt ceiling is the ceiling...

MADDOW: ...is their word.

Naturally Castellanos did his best to interrupt her so she couldn't make her point. Austan Goolsbee got a chance to follow up and agree with Maddow on the fact that Republicans were the ones out there actually insane enough to be pretending that default might be acceptable.

Steve Benen made some similar points in his post from today A pox on one house:

But for all the complaining I do about this, it’s only fair to note when someone gets this right. National Journal’s Edmund Andrews, for example, had a good piece yesterday that specifically rejected the notion that the downgrade is “a pox-on-both-your-houses curse at the intransigence of both Republicans and Democrats.” [...]

And who instigated this brinksmanship, refused to compromise, and delayed a resolution until literally the last day?

Putting aside, at least for now, whether S&P has the credibility to make such sweeping condemnations, it’s worth emphasizing the extent to which the agency pointed the finger at congressional Republicans. It not only directly attributed blame to the GOP hostage strategy of the past few months, it lamented the very idea of allowing “the statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default” to “become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy,” before complaining that “the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues.”

Andrews added, “[I]t’s hard to read the S&P analysis as anything other than a blast at Republicans.”

Full transcript below the fold.

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