Taxes

On Monday's New Day on CNN, anchor Chris Cuomo complained about Republicans wanting to defund Planned Parenthood as he questioned the "urgency" of doing so "before you investigate the allegations," leading guest and former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to decry the "grotesque" revelations about the abortion provider. During a discussion of House Speaker John Boehner's announced resignation…

In the pre-social media days, we endured "threats" from various people, mostly celebrities with far-left political views, that they would leave the country if a Republican presidential candidate won election or reelection. Late director Robert Altman, actor Alec Baldwin, actress Kim Basinger, singer Barbra Streisand, and others threatened to leave the U.S. in 2000 if George W. Bush won that year'…

In a near 180-degree reversal to his interview the previous evening with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, Democratic presidential candidate and socialist Bernie Sanders found himself on Friday’s CBS This Morning being repeatedly slammed from the right by co-host Norah O’Donnell on his far-left tax plans and hope for a universal health care system. 

Either Nicholas Riccardi at the Associated Press is woefully ignorant, or he set out to deliberately mislead readers about the impact of Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush's tax plan. I'll report the details; readers here can decide for themselves. Riccardi's "analysis," contained in his Sunday morning writeup covering the tax proposals of Bush, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, contained the…

Friday's report on the federal government's budget deficit through August told us that with one month remaining in the fiscal year, Uncle Sam will certainly "achieve" an all-time single-year record in tax collections accompanied by all-time record spending. The Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger apparently didn't consider either item newsworthy. Instead, he decided that the real news is this…

Democrats' current and potential candidates for their party's 2016 presidential nomination continue to complain about various aspects of the economy. They continue to make no connection between their complaints and the fact that Democrat Barack Obama has been in the White House for over six years. Obama has for the most part operated either under the conditions created by the 2009-2010 Congress…

The debate rages on as to whether Donald Trump represents the essence of the Republican party. Very broadly speaking, conservatives say he doesn’t and liberals say he does. One liberal, Michael Tomasky, claims that Trump, despite his left-of-center positions on several fiscal and economic issues, nonetheless embodies the “two qualities more than any others [that] have driven conservatism in our…

Silly me. I really thought that every state's lottery operation was walled off from the rest of its finances. They collect bets, pay out winnings and administrative costs, and turn over the profits to general fund. End of discussion. No muss, no fuss. Right? In Illinois, based on recent developments, we know that's obviously not the case — leading me to wonder how many other states potentially…

Wednesday night on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC political analyst Jonathan Alter claimed that Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge “has helped to wreck the United States." The discussion centered around New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s decision to sign the pledge, and Jeb Bush’s refusal to do so. The Newsweek veteran declared the pledge was “about the worst kind of public policy…

In his MSNBC show The Last Word Tuesday evening, Lawrence O’Donnell dedicated a segment to describing his opinion of what “good and bad socialism” looks like. Naturally his example of “good” socialism included the man and policies Bernie Sanders. It also included a 6 year old cover from Newsweek magazine that proclaimed “We Are All Socialists now,” which detailed how it's becoming normal (and…

Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act on August 14, 1935. In anticipation of the New Deal-era program's 80th anniversary, the Associated Press's Stephen Ohlemacher presented as facts several unfortunately widely believed distortions. His worst offense against common sense was an item in his list of "modest changes" which could "save" the actuarially…

In a Wednesday column, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman extended his odd obsession with raising the gas tax into the 2016 Republican presidential debate. But Friedman will have a hard time convincing Republicans to listen if he keeps throwing around insults, like describing the party's donors and supporters as embracing the "angry anti-science, anti-tax, anti-government, anti-minorities,…

On Tuesday and Wednesday, CNN's New Day aired pre-recorded segments in which co-anchor Chris Cuomo spoke with six New Hampshire voters about the presidential race. Although the group was supposedly balanced by including two Republicans, two Democrats, and two independents, four of the six participants -- including one of the Republicans -- seemed more aligned with Democrats in their interests…

In addition to his usual tired historical revisionism, the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger, in his report on May's budget deficit of $82 billion, failed to mention that the nation is once again operating at the legal limit of its authorized debt. Additionally, he mailed in his final five paragraphs, virtually copying what he wrote on May 12 in covering April's surplus. The nation's debt…