BiasAlerts

On October 31 the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard reported the following: “The Internal Revenue Service shared highly confidential tax information of several Tea Party groups in the IRS scandal with the Federal Election Commission, a clear violation of federal law, according to newly obtained emails. The public watchdog group Judicial Watch told Secrets Thursday that it was former scandal boss Lois Lerner who shared the information on groups including the American Future Fund and the American Issues Project.’” So far none of the Big Three (ABC, NBC, CBS) networks have reported the latest IRS scandal finding. In fact, they’ve stopped... continue reading

Promoting his new book about the 2012 election, Double Down , with co-author Mark Halperin on Monday's NBC Today , New York Magazine national affairs editor John Heilemann offered Obama campaign spin to excuse the President's disastrous performance in the first debate against Mitt Romney: "...[Obama's] disdain for Romney, his contempt for Romney, he couldn't figure out how to deal with that. He would say, 'What am I supposed to do when he starts spewing his BS?'" [ Listen to the audio ] Heilemann laughably added that Obama also had "contempt for the theatricality of politics," which, "all got mixed... continue reading

Monday's CBS This Morning revealed how "a trusted Obama health care adviser warned the White House it was losing control of ObamaCare ." Major Garrett underlined that " the warnings were dire and specific, and ultimately ignored " by the Obama administration. Instead, they " relied on appointed bureaucrats and senior White House health care advisers " to implement the health care law. Garrett also pointed out how " the White House became secretive about the law's complexity and regulatory reach" because they were apparently "fearful of constant attacks from congressional Republicans" over the controversial issue. [MP3 audio available here... continue reading

On Thursday's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell , during a discussion of Republican Senator Ted Cruz's father, Rafael Cruz, making a birther joke about President Obama, MSNBC political analyst Joy Reid asserted that Republicans prefer minorities who "repudiate" political views supported by minorities. Singling out Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, she griped: The thing that's sort of interesting about when Republicans try to recruit minorities and bring them into the fold, what they wind up doing is they bring in people whose sort of primary feature, or one of their primary features is repudiation of other members of their... continue reading

After offering sympathetic coverage to the disastrous roll-out of the ObamaCare website, ABC on Monday actually uncovered "new troubles" and alerted viewers to misleading comments by the White House. Near the top of Good Morning America on Monday, co-host George Stephanopoulos trumpeted, "ABC News has obtained copies of internal administration memos revealing for the first time that extensive hurdles to signing up for insurance are not limited to the website." Reporter Jon Karl quoted from internal memos destroying the idea that signing up for ObamaCare by mail or phone is any easier. Karl quoted from one of the people working... continue reading

Exhibit A on Friday night for how the news media are an impediment to any rational discussion of reining in federal spending. “The ax falls for more than 47 million Americans struggling to put food on the table as tonight time has run out,” NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams ominously and fatuously intoned Friday night, as if payments to them are about to be eliminated. Spending on the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), aka “food stamps,” will increase “ over the next decade by 57 percent ,” as the number of Americans on the program has doubled under Obama,... continue reading

On the Thursday, October 31, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell , after host O'Donnell raised new numbers showing that the federal budget deficit has shrunk, MSNBC.com executive editor Richard Wolffe -- formerly of Newsweek -- dismissed Republican concerns over the deficit. O'Donnell began by posing: "Richard Wolffe, the deficit just sliding right down there to virtually no comment." Wolffe mocked Republicans has he responded: Right, well, you know, I thought having tracked all of the Republican comments over the last several weeks that we were facing this budget armageddon, this unsustainable debt that was crushing our children and their... continue reading

On Wednesday's PoliticsNation , as MSNBC weekend host Karen Finney joined host Al Sharpton in slamming Republicans who liken President Obama to a "dictator," Finney charged that President Bush "lied us into a law" that has resulted in U.S. troops still being in Afghanistan "12 years later," apparently without noticing that President Obama is the commander-in-chief who currently is in charge of whether troops remain in Afghanistan. Finney: "Well, how about George W. Bush lied us into a law thwarting Congress that 12 years later, we still have men and women dying in Afghanistan. If we want to talk about... continue reading

On her 1 p.m. ET MSNBC show on Thursday, host Andrea Mitchell whined about Senate Republicans blocking some of the President's recent nominees and worried about the impact of Obama's sagging poll numbers: "...in terms of presidential power, polls affect votes.... this is diminishing the President's clout, when he can't frighten – you know, have enough political weight to frighten everybody into line to try to peel off some Republican votes." [ Listen to the audio ] Noting that one of the nominees was sitting Congressman Mel Watt, NBC senior political editor Mark Murray warned: "You know, this something where... continue reading

In the world that Ed Schultz lives in, journalists have just been too negative about ObamaCare, showering the President's law with insults. The MSNBC anchor on Tuesday theorized as to why the implementation of the health care law has been received so poorly: " I think that network reporters throughout the entire industry maybe caught in a dilemma that ObamaCare is so positive and going to have such a tremendous impact on American life and American society." [See MP3 audio here .] Later, he mocked the "crappy" insurance that many Americans are losing. According to Shultz, these reporters "are having... continue reading