The opening line of an AP report on the ongoing attempt by House Democrats to shove through the Cap (our economic growth) and Trade Tax bill:

House Democrats have narrowly won an important test vote on legislation to combat global warming and usher in a new era of cleaner energy.

Doesn't that sound a lot more like a press release from the White House or Speaker Pelosi's office than a straight news account? Another day, another instance of DeMSM bias.

Update: The Obama tax increase on 100% of Americans passed the House of Representatives, 219 to 212.

From the AP, President Obama, speaking today to the AMA, simultaneously engages in and denounces fear-mongering:

President Barack Obama asked skeptical doctors Monday to get behind an overhaul of the nation's health care system, declaring the system a "ticking time bomb" for the federal budget that could force the entire nation to "go the way of GM."

Then just a couple of paragraphs later:

"...Obama struck back at critics of his efforts to reshape the health care delivery system to bring skyrocketing health care costs under control and expand coverage to the millions of uninsured.

He had his sharpest rhetoric yet for those critics, calling them "naysayers," "fear-mongers" and peddlers of "Trojan horse" falsehoods who should be ignored. He warned interest groups and lobbyists not to use "fear tactics to paint any effort to achieve reform as an attempt to socialize medicine."

The man who seemed willing to say anything to get elected continues the practice. Truth doesn't matter, consistency doesn't matter, reality doesn't matter, words are just a means to an end. This is what we get without a skeptical or adversarial press holding politicians accountable.

Visiting Iraq, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sounds like a Rethuglican shill for the deposed Bu$hCo regime:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in unannounced visit to Baghdad that the recent spate of bombings is a sign that the situation in Iraq is improving, downplaying sectarian violence and said that U.S. support will not waiver.

"We are committed to Iraq, we want to see a stable, sovereign, self-reliant Iraq," Clinton told an audience including 120 invited Iraqi civilians at the U.S. embassy. "As we make this transition, the United States will stand with the people."

Clinton's visit comes after two days of bombing that targeted Shiite Muslims and killed nearly 150 people.

"I think the suicide bombings ... are, in an unfortunately tragic way, a signal that the rejectionists fear that Iraq is going in the right direction," she said, referring to two days of bombings that killed nearly 150 people. "Are there going to be bad days? Yes there are. But I don’t know of any difficult international situation anywhere in the world or history where there haven’t been bad days."

Maybe those who argued before the election that the Democrats needed to take ownership of the war on terror to start acting more responsibly had a point. We can only Hope. Now if Mrs. Clinton could just have a talk with her national security-undermining boss ... the more people on our side the better.

From The Hill, the Obama Administration goes after Rush Limbaugh again:

[White House Press Secretary "Baghdad Bob"] Gibbs said he thought "it would be charitable to say he [Rush Limbaugh] doubled down on what he said in January in wishing and hoping for economic failure in this country."

But this is a complete and total lie. Limbaugh did not ever say, nor imply, that he hoped for economic failure in America. He essentially said the opposite - he wants America to succeed, and believes President Obama's policies will hurt the country. (A quick look at your favorite stock market index since inauguration day will show that belief is not without foundation.)

It's disturbing to see the president's press secretary standing up before the American people and lying through his teeth so blatantly. But unfortunately this kind of disregard for truth is all too common on the left.

"I can only imagine what might have been said a few years ago if somebody might have said that on the other side relating to what was going on in this country or our endeavors overseas," Gibbs said.

Yes, one can only imagine if the Democratic leader in the Senate had said the war in Iraq "is lost". Or if the 2nd ranking Democrat in the Senate had compared US troops serving at Guantanamo Bay to Pol Pot and the Nazis. Or if Democrats had called a Republican president a Nazi, a war criminal, a racist, etc. etc. for eight years. One can only imagine the reaction of Gibbs and his Democrat friends in the press.

The Democrats didn't just hope for failure under President Bush, they actively worked to accomplish it for eight years.

From a report on the effort to create a new seat in the House of Representatives for Washington, D.C.:

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who spoke in favor of the bill earlier this month, said the question of constitutionality should be resolved by the courts, not Congress.

Aside from her support for this unconstitutional bill, that statement alone should be disqualifying. Senator Collins, like all senators, takes an oath to uphold the Constitution. That oath is an independent obligation; her sworn duty cannot simply be passed off to the courts. Collins really needs a primary challenger the next time she's up for re-election.

A CNN blog reports on Democrats' desire to censor conservative talk radio hosts:

Dems target right-wing talk radio

WASHINGTON (CNN) — More and More Democrats in Congress are calling for action that Republicans warn could muzzle right-wing talk radio.

Representative Maurice Hinchey, a Democrat from New York is the latest to say he wants to bring back the "Fairness Doctrine," a federal regulation scrapped in 1987 that would require broadcasters to present opposing views on public issues.

"I think the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated," Hinchey told CNNRadio. Hinchey says he could make it part of a bill he plans to introduce later this year overhauling radio and t-v ownership laws.

Democratic Senators Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Tom Harkin of Iowa added their voices recently to those calling for a return of the regulation.

Republicans oppose the Fairness Doctrine, arguing it would be wrong for the federal government to monitor political speech on the airwaves, in order to require opposing views.

It isn't hard to imagine a different level of reaction from places like CNN if Republicans were in the majority and threatening the licenses of broadcasters who don't have enough conservative views on the air. They'd probably even go so far as to report it on the air, rather than merely on a blog post on their website. Words like "fascism" and "Mccarthyism" would be used. And they'd be right. The Democrats are ready to go after talk radio only because the most popular voices on the air are conservative. It is entirely based on viewpoint.

In a similar story from the AP:

China to create blacklist of local journalists

BEIJING (AP) — China plans to create a blacklist of journalists who break its reporting rules, state media reported Friday, adding to an array of controls used to restrict its domestic media.

According to a report in the China Press and Publishing Journal, the agency that exercises control over the state-owned Chinese media plans to "establish a database of media professionals with a bad record."

It said reporters who violate the rules or laws will have their press cards taken away. "Their names will be entered into the list and they will be restricted from news reporting or editing work," Li Dongdong, deputy director of the General Administration of Press and Publication, was quoted as saying.

As noted here at Townhall.com, the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" isn't the only way for Democrats to try to suppress conservative speech. There are a number of less direct or perhaps less visible ways for them to try to accomplish the same goal. The Democrats' willingness to even consider such an open and direct assault on the 1st Amendment should be very troubling to every American who values the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

And a fascist doctrine roundup from Michelle Malkin.

Democrats have a particular knack for shamelessly making completely conflicting arguments at different times, as political conditions of the moment require. They'll passionately argue a point one day, and just as passionately argue the exact opposite later, as needed for principle-free political effect. If the DeMSM held them accountable for any of this, it wouldn't work, but we know (and they know) that's not going to happen.

A particularly egregious example of this occurred this morning on Meet the Press.

Here's Congressman Barney Frank, in response to a point by Senator John Ensign of Nevada, condemning "bloated spending" during Republican control of the White House and Congress:

SEN. ENSIGN: ... But the other thing, to get back to what Congressman Frank said, is that, you know, we're going to be laying off teachers and firefighters. You know, that's just fearmongering. We're not going to be doing that in any of the states. The states have grown, in their budgets, faster than population growth, faster than inflation for the last several year--actually, probably about the last 15 years. Their budgets are bloated, the federal government's budget is bloated. What we should be doing is cutting back.

REP. FRANK: Well, first of all, on the bloated spending, this comes from a man whose party controlled the federal government--House, Senate and White House--for six years. We've had it for two. And in fact, we didn't have the presidency. So the bloated spending, once again, you're getting...

But just a moment later, here's Senator Claire McCaskill:

SEN. McCASKILL: I, I, I do think that there was some spending in the [so-called stimulus] bill that was makeup for a starvation diet under the Bush administration, some important priorities of our party; frankly, of the American people. ...

Was the federal budget in the last eight years "bloated" or on a "starvation diet"? Two Democrats, sitting at a table right across from each other, can make both arguments at the same time, all for political effect. It's all about scoring points at that moment; without any regard for intellectual consistency or truth. And in any case, it's ridiculous to suggest that irresponsible spending now is justified by alleged irresponsible spending in the past.

Incidentally, why does Congressman Frank assume that the first budget items states are going to cut will be cops, firefighters, and teachers? What responsible elected official is going to put those things at the bottom of the budget priority list? Frank appears to have a pretty low opinion of state and local officials. Of course, Senator Ensign is right, this is just pure fear-mongering. But for Frank, whether it's true or not is irrelevant.

In a story about President Obama rushing to sign a pro-abortion executive order, the AP asserts there's a "consensus" on closing the terrorist detainee facility at Guantanamo Bay:

Obama has spent his first days in office systematically signing executive orders reversing Bush administration policies on issues ranging from foreign policy to government operations. But, save for ending the ban, Obama has largely refrained from wading into ideological issues, perhaps to avoid being tagged a traditional partisan from the outset after his campaign promises to change "business as usual" in the often partisan-gridlocked capital.

Rather, Obama has chosen to focus initially on issues in which there is consensus across the political spectrum and support from the public, such as closing the prison camp for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to making government documents more accessible.

But from The Campaign Spot at National Review Online there's this:

A few days ago, Gallup asked, "Do you think the United States should - or should not - close the prison at the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba?" The respondents split 35 percent "yes," 45 percent "no," 20 percent "no opinion."

And from polling organization Rasmussen Reports:

Nearly half of U.S. voters (49%) say the United States should not close the terrorist prison camp at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba, but the identical number (49%) also say Barack Obama is Very likely to close it in the first year of his presidency.

Only 32% of voters say the Guantanamo prison camp should be closed, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. One-out-of-five (19%) are undecided.

So where did the ObamAP get the idea there's a consensus for closing the facility? They must have asked all the liberal Democrats in the news room, no doubt there's a consensus there. They seem to have just made it up. This is not professional journalism, it's partisan advocacy. Par for the course by this point, but they still need to be called on it.

The San Francisco Chronicle opens an editorial today with this line:

On Jan. 20, President-elect Barack Obama and the new Congress will have their hands full with two wars and the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression.

By what measure is that statement true? Has every lefty "journalist" in America forgotten, or do they purposely wish us to forget, the Carter years? By what objective numerical measure is the current economy worse than the economy of the late 1970s? Democrat politicians routinely call the economy under any Republican "the worst since Herbert Hoover." Bill Clinton did it, Gore did it, Kerry did it, and Obama did it. It's the job of the press to call them on this nonsense, but instead they aid and abet the revisionism by simply repeating the partisan talking points.

On Meet the Press this morning, veteran journalist Tom Brokaw regurgitated an old nutroots talking point in a question to President-elect Barack Obama about his appointment of General Eric Shinseki to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs:

BROKAW: He's [Shinseki] the man who lost his job in the Bush Administration because he said we will need more troops in Iraq than Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld thought we would need at that time.

But Shinseki did not "lose his job", he retired as scheduled. Don't they have any staff to do basic fact-checking at NBC News? An intern maybe? Anyone? NBC News is thoroughly untrustworthy.

So the Evil, Fascist, Cheney/Rove/Bu$hCo Regime is just going to go quietly?

With the economy in a downward spiral, U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and the nation under threat from terrorists, President Bush pledged Saturday to make a smooth transition to an Obama administration a top priority for the rest of his days in office.

This will no doubt cause some cognitive dissonance among all the BDS-sufferers* out there. What are all the poor hate-filled souls at places like The Daily Kos, Think Progress, The Huffington Post, The NY Times and MSNBC going to do when their nemesis is back enjoying his life in Texas?

From the AP:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called her critics cowards and jerks Friday for deriding her anonymously and insisted she never asked for the expensive wardrobe purchased for her use on the presidential campaign.

She's right, and the "journalists" who are repeating this nonsense are as bad as the anonymous attackers they're quoting. The obvious campaigning for Barack Obama by the DeMSM was bad enough, but this isn't journalism, it's spreading cheap gossip. Are there no ethical or professional standards left anywhere in the mainstream media?

Update: A defense, on the record, with a named source.