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Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert had a field day this Wednesday evening with The Wall Street Journal's Dorothy Rabinowitz and her op-ed ranting against NYC's Citi-Bike program.

For anyone who would like to see how this was handled over in wingnut world at Fox, here's the final segment from this Saturday's Journal Editorial Report, where the her cohort Joseph Rago called her op-ed "a hit" and wrote off the criticism from "the left" as being from people who don't have a sense of humor. So I guess they're trying to pretend it was satire now rather than defend it.

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Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham -- who once accused opponents of the Iraq invasion of trying to "subvert America" -- is now blasting the The Wall Street Journal for beating the "war drums" because the editorial board expressed support for President Barack Obama's use of drones.

Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday asked Ingraham what she thought of the split within the Republican Party after Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) criticized Sen. Rand Paul's (R-KY) filibuster of CIA Director John Brennan over speculation that President Barack Obama might target citizens inside U.S. borders with drone strikes.

"John McCain, Lindsey Graham and The Wall Street Journal editorial board, extremely dismissive of Rand Paul," Ingraham pointed out. "Wall Street Journal said, 'Calm down;' said, 'You don't have to do more than fire up impressionable libertarians in their college dorms.'"

"I thought to myself, when is the last time a Republican managed to capture the imagination of young people, some people on the left, Mitch McConnell, John Thune, John Cornyn, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio?" she added. "There was a wide range of Republicans and people on the left who said, 'You know something? I think the attorney general should be able to answer a simple question [about the use of drones] with an unequivocal yes or no.' He couldn't do that, and Rand Paul served an enormously important function during that filibuster. He wasn't waving his hands and ranting and raving, contrary to what the Journal condescendingly said."

Liberal contributor Juan Williams argued that the targeted killing policy needed to have transparency and judicial review, but Paul was "grand standing" with his filibuster.

"But the fact is that no U.S. citizen has ever been targeted or killed by a drone on U.S. soil," Williams explained. "And secondly, the Constitution gives the president authority to go after a U.S. citizen if that U.S. citizen is somehow involved in colluding with an enemy of the United States."

"I just want to say that I love the fact that we have the hawk, Juan Williams, and the dove, Laura Ingraham," Wallace snarked.

Continue reading »

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After previously giving dire warnings about the sequester in a recent op-ed he penned for The Wall Street Journal, House Speaker John Boehner did an about face and told Meet the Press' David Gregory that he wasn't sure if it was going to hurt the economy or not and he told Gregory “I don't think anyone quite understands how it gets resolved." If he really wants to get the country out of this self-inflicted mess, there's a pretty simple way, which is to pass the bill introduced by Rep. John Conyers this week, entitled the Cancel the Sequester Act of 2013.

While they're at it, they could pass the Progressive Caucus' budget rather than insisting on more austerity measures. Instead we're being treated to this Kabuki theatre: Boehner: 'I don't think anyone quite understands' how sequester gets resolved:

In an exclusive interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, House Speaker John Boehner said there is no easy way to stop the budget cuts -- known as the “sequester” – that began taking effect Friday night, and voiced uncertainty over how Washington can solve the overall fiscal problems that have consumed the nation’s politics for more than two years.

In an exclusive interview on Meet the Press, House Speaker John Boehner weighs in the economic impact of the sequester and whether or not it will hurt the country's economy.

“I don't think anyone quite understands how it gets resolved,” Boehner admitted in his interview with NBC’s David Gregory. [...]

But Boehner said, “I don't know whether it's going to hurt the economy or not. I don't think anyone quite understands how the sequester is really going to work.”

The speaker said the House would pass a spending plan this week to fund the government through the end of the current fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30, and that in his conversation with Obama at the White House Friday, the president had agreed “that we should not have any talk of a government shutdown. So I'm hopeful that the House and Senate will be able to work through this.”

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Tea party-backed Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) on Wednesday excused Walmart's decision to decline an invitation to the White House to discuss gun violence because "they are trying to grow the economy."

The nation's largest seller of munitions told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that it refused to participate in Vice President Joe Biden's task force because of a scheduling conflict.

Walmart also explained to CNN's Christine Romans that the company had already scheduled month sales meetings in Bentonville, Arkansas and none of its 2.2 million employees could make it to Washington.

CNN host Soledad O'Brien on Thursday told Johnson that "when people tell me they have a scheduling snafu, I just don't believe them."

"They're probably out there trying to grow the economy," the Wisconsin Republican shrugged. "You know, they're concentrating on their business and I'll take them at their word."

"I think the concern is -- from people who actually do want to protect gun rights -- is that this is a fast-moving train to try and restrict those gun rights," Johnson added. "So, people are suspicious of that."

"From my standpoint, if they've got sales meetings, those things are probably pretty important. They are trying to grow our economy and that's a good thing."

New Yorker magazine Washington Correspondent Ryan Lizza pointed out that Walmart had a fleet of corporate jets in Bentonville and could easily send someone to D.C. for meetings.

"It's just a slap in the face to publicly say you've been invited to the White House and you're not going," he explained. "Whenever someone in politics says it's a scheduling issue it means they don't want to be there."

During his appearance on CNN's Starting Point panel on Wednesday, Lizza also asked Johnson to respond conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, who recently asserted that liberals were trying to "normalize pedophilia" by legalizing same sex marriage.

"Senator, Rush Limbaugh and pedophilia?" Lizza pressed. "What do you got?"

"Not gonna happen," Johnson replied.

UPDATE (2:15 p.m. ET): A Walmart spokesperson on Wednesday said that the company had "underestimated the expectation to attend the meeting on Thursday in person, so we are sending an appropriate representative to participate."

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CNBC on-air editor Rick Santelli, who is credited with helping to launch the tea party movement, flew into a rage and stomped off camera on Friday because a supporter of President Obama plans to pay shareholders a dividend before taxes are scheduled to go up at the end of the year.

During a discussion on CNBC's Squawk Box, senior economic reporter Steve Liesman observed that the government could "extract more from the wealthy and even from business" as a part a deal to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff.

Santelli interrupted by pointing to a Wall Street Journal op-ed that criticized former Costco CEO Jim Sinegal because the company he founded intends to pay out dividends before before the Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire at the end of the year.

"He spoke at the Democratic National Convention!" Santelli shouted. "You know, doesn't that bug you a little bit? It's very depressing that people that claim the president's fairness, those wealthy people that he wants to go after? They escape it. They escape it."

Liesman replied by calling attention to a separate Wall Street Journal op-ed that "has a list of GDP by year and completely leaves out the eight years of the Bush administration."

"You know what? Don't give me the switcheroo!" Santelli yelled. "I'm not talking about that one. I'm talking about the one below it, Steve."

"I'm talking about the one above it," Liesman taunted. "I'm rising above it."

"Of course you are because it's so reprehensible!" Santelli exclaimed. "It's reprehensible that people go to Charlotte and say, 'fairness' and then they run to try to beat the tax man!"

"He's doing his job," Liesman noted.

"Shame on them!" Santelli howled as he threw his copy of The Wall Street Journal at the camera. "I can't even talk about it anymore!"

With that, the on-air editor turned and stormed off the air.

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Former Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee asserted on Sunday that Republicans "would classify Mitt Romney's horse as a small business" if they thought it would help them convince Americans that taxes shouldn't be raised on the wealthy.

During an ABC News discussion about the federal deficit, The Wall Street Journal's Kimberly Strassel argued that the 3 percent of small businesses that would be impacted by ending the Bush-era tax cuts for the richest Americans were actually the "most important and productive business generators in the country."

"Republicans talk about small businesses like you want them to think about mom-and-pops [shops]," Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) explained, adding that Republicans would classify Bain Capital -- the firm presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney founded -- as a small business.

"They would classify Mitt Romney's horse as a small business," Goolsbee interrupted.

"It's true!" Van Hollen agreed. "Hedge fund owners, Fortune 100 companies all come under this rubric of small business."

Earlier this month, Ann Romney’s dressage horse, Rafalca, competed in the 2012 London Olympics.

In 2010, the Romneys took more tax deductions on their horses than most Americans earn in a year. According to The New York Times, the couple “declared a loss of $77,000 on their 2010 tax returns for the share in the care and feeding of Rafalca.”

Census Bureau statistics show that the mean yearly per capita income for individuals in the U.S. between 2006 and 2010 was $27,334.

Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan suggested on Friday that Romney's background was "starting small businesses."

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After discussing the pick of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate and whether or not the columns at either the Wall Street Journal or the National Review might have pushed Romney into choosing Ryan or not, host John Roberts asks Bill Kristol about the likely attacks coming against Ryan from Democrats. And even Bill Kristol had to wonder if Republicans are going to be able to defend the tax cuts for the wealthy.

KRISTOL: I think taxes are the tougher attack ads. They combined, obviously, they're cutting Medicare. Why do they have to cut Medicare and gut education and do all these other horrible things when they insist on giving those tax cuts to the wealthy. But actually, if you look at polling, it's a pretty close call. People do know that entitlements have to be reformed. Even President Obama has said so. Hasn't done much about it. I think Republicans can pretty easily, honestly hold their own on that.

It's the tax cuts for the wealthy where Republicans have not done a particularly good job of defending it and I think you'll see the Democratic attacks really focus on that side of the equation.

ROBERTS: Steve Moore?

MOORE: Well, Bill is right. We know, we've known this for two years that the Democratic attack line would be we're going to cut entitlements and give tax cuts to the rich, because that's what the Democrats always do. Bill what I think is really exciting about having Paul on the ticket now is, who's better to defend those policies than Paul is and he knows this stuff better than anyone.

As the Think Progress post linked above noted:

Paul Ryan’s infamous budget — which Romney embraced — replaces “the current tax structure with two brackets — 25 percent and 10 percent — and cut the top rate from 35 percent.” Federal tax collections would fall “by about $4.5 trillion over the next decade” as a result. To avoid increasing the national debt, the budget proposes massive cuts in social programs and “special-interest loopholes and tax shelters that litter the code.”

But 62 percent of the savings would come from programs that benefit the lower- and middle-classes, who would also experience a tax increase. That’s because while Ryan “would extend the Bush tax cuts, which are due to expire at the end of this year, he would not extend President Obama’s tax cuts for those with the lowest incomes, which will expire at the same time.” Households “earning more than $1 million a year, meanwhile, could see a net tax cut of about $300,000 annually.”

Later in the segment Moore called anyone who dares to point out that Republicans want to do exactly that, gut our social safety nets while giving tax cuts to their rich friends, running on the politics of fear and envy. You hear that all you lazy moochers out there? You're just jealous of those job-creating achievers.... yeah, that's the ticket.

Here's to hoping things work out for Mitt Romney as they did for the last person who took Bloody Bill Kristol's advice as to who to choose for a running mate.