Barney Frank

Did Frank Rich read Charles Blow's column and sub-consciously subsume it? Rich's NY Times opus of March 27 is a virtual echo of Blow's item of March 26.  Coincidence or not, the two Timesmen are very much on the same wavelength.  Their shared theory: conservative opposition to Obamacare is fueled not so much by the substance of PBO's plans as it is by the racism, homophobia and sexism of people…

Good Morning America on Thursday worried about the possible violence Sarah Palin's Twitter page could cause to Democrats who voted for the health care bill. Guest host Bill Weir interviewed Barney Frank and fretted, "Some on the left have also been pointing to Sarah Palin's Twitter message encouraging her followers to 'Do not retreat. Instead, reload.'"He ominously explained to viewers, "And her…

On Monday’s Morning Joe show on MSNBC, during a discussion of President Obama’s recent suggestions that he would be willing to talk with Republicans about health care reform, co-host Mika Brzezinski recounted Obama’s initial refusal to include the GOP, and claimed that Republicans "ARE the ones, you could argue, who wrecked the economy," which set off co-host Joe Scarborough. After Brzezinski…

At this point, there should be little doubt that there is a concerted attempt underway to use the war in Afghanistan as a justification for punitively taxing high earners. Last weekend (noted at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), the New York Times discovered that wars cost money. It cited Wisconsin Democratic Congressman David Obey's concern that funding the Afghanistan effort at the level requested…

You've got to hand it to the propagandists at the AFP. When heavy-hitting members of the party they favor announce an idea whose main purpose is, as the New York Times suddenly "discovered" last weekend, to remind people that wars cost money and distract from supposedly more important priorities, the wire service leaps into action. Even AFP acknowledges that the tax proposal by several top-tier…

Disclaimer: we're talking politics here, not personal stuff . . . If there's a bigger sourpuss in Congress than Barney Frank, I wouldn't want to meet him. On MSNBC this evening, the dyspeptic Member from Massachusetts got into it with, of all people, Ed Schultz.  You might think the two libs would make beautiful progressive music together, but what made this spat especially entertaining was that…

It is bad when an anchor from a sister network feels compelled to call out a colleague about the lack of ideological balance, but that's just what CNBC's Larry Kudlow did on his Oct. 27 program.  In a time when some of CNBC's critics demand the network be held to a high standard when it comes to balance, a different standard is applied to MSNBC. And a lack of balance is something Kudlow pointed…

Is it possible for a sitting president to ignore a war his own country is waging? According to the Boston Globe, it depends on who that president is.The war in Afghanistan has presented a rare look at two different presidents faced with the same situation in the same theatre. Following initial Allied success, 2003 saw the Taliban regroup for a long-term fight, and by late 2007 Bush had begun to…

Interviewing Barney Frank this morning on proposals to regulate the financial markets, MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan seemed set on appeasing the notoriously rude representative.  Ratigan had surely seen the video of Mark Haines' CNBC interview of Frank back in June, and was determined not to suffer the same fate, in which Frank ripped off his earpiece and ended the segment short.Even before posing his…

ABC, CBS and NBC on Wednesday night all showcased liberal Democratic Congressman Barney Frank's rejoinder -- “On what planet do you spend most of your time?” -- to a woman's question: “Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy as Obama has expressly supported this policy?” As if the premise were coming from a typical anti-ObamaCare conservative, ABC's Charles Gibson set up the exchange by…

As President Obama repeatedly tells America that his plan for healthcare reform will not lead to the elimination of private health insurance, statements he made in 2007 and 2003 tell a different story altogether.In shocking video uncovered by our good friends at Naked Emperor News, Obama, speaking at SEIU's New Leadership Health Care Forum on March 24, 2007, said, "My commitment is to make sure…

It's a conversation, Barney, not a soliloquy . . . Discussing the regulation of executive pay with CNBC's Mark Haines today, the testy liberal Dem from Massachusetts was affronted when Haines tried to get in a word edgewise.Before long, Barney announced that the interview was over, and ripped off his earpiece.  Unruffled, Haines got off a good last line: "Fine, goodbye sir. We'll manage without…

Is it okay to call them socialists yet? (/sarc)And to think we were "only" worried about having a known Tax Cheat overseeing everyone's taxes.With Barney Frank's help, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is trying to expand his power (and by inference that of his Dear Leader boss) well beyond that. The "Pay for Performance Act," which has already gotten out of committee, would give him veto power…

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) chats with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner before a hearing on AIG chaired by Frank on March 24, 2009.