Running a brief excerpt from his Sunday night Dateline special, “Taking the Hill: Inside Congress,” Brian Williams on Thursday evening showcased one and only one question he posed to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. He demanded: “Why shouldn't rich folks pay more?” Williams insisted on NBC Nightly News that’s “a hot topic, no tax increase in any of these plans being discussed” in “what has become a big charge from the left that in any of these debt ceiling deals the poor are likely to get hit while the rich are likely to get a pass.” McConnell countered, in the interview conducted on Wednesday, with the fact the wealthy “do” indeed already pay more, explaining: “They pay an extraordinary amount more, and in fact about half of Americans don't pay any income taxes at all.” Let’s see if Friday’s NBC Nightly News , or in the Dateline itself, Williams challenges any Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill with a conservative point/argument. He didn’t in the excerpts aired Wednesday and Thursday night. Meanwhile, fill-in CBS Evening News anchor Bob Schieffer decided to bring aboard Senator John McCain one day after McCain had insulted Tea Party Congressmen for “ foolish” and “bizarro ” demands: We’re joined now live by Republican Senator John McCain who was so frustrated by all of this yesterday he called the situation “bizarro.” Senator, have you seen anything today to cause you to step back from that description? [McCain: “Not really...”] From the Thursday, July 28 NBC Nightly News: BRIAN WILLIAMS: We are just back from Washington where we spent yesterday on Capitol Hill, all over Capitol Hill in fact. NBC News cameras were given special access for a special broadcast this Sunday night. We talked to nearly every member of the leadership, including the GOP leader in the Senate, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. And I asked him about a hot topic, no tax increase in any of these plans being discussed. WILLIAMS TO McCONNELL: Why shouldn't rich folks pay more? SENATE MINORITY LEADER MITCH McCONNELL: They do. They pay an extraordinary amount more, and in fact about half of Americans don't pay any income taxes at all. That isn't a sticking point. The President in signing a continuation of the current tax rates back in December made the argument that Republicans had made, which is that raising taxes in the middle of a recession is not a good idea. I don't know that anybody thinks the economy's in better shape now than it was six months ago. But all of those issues are being discussed in conjunction with how we put together a package here that will actually begin to get us to head in a different direction. WILLIAMS: Mitch McConnell on what has become a big charge from the left that in any of these debt ceiling deals the poor are likely to get hit while the rich are likely to get a pass. We will have more from him, from all the players in this, in our prime time special, “Taking the Hill: Inside Congress.” That's Sunday night, 7 o’clock, 6 central.
Continue reading …Running a brief excerpt from his Sunday night Dateline special, “Taking the Hill: Inside Congress,” Brian Williams on Thursday evening showcased one and only one question he posed to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. He demanded: “Why shouldn't rich folks pay more?” Williams insisted on NBC Nightly News that’s “a hot topic, no tax increase in any of these plans being discussed” in “what has become a big charge from the left that in any of these debt ceiling deals the poor are likely to get hit while the rich are likely to get a pass.” McConnell countered, in the interview conducted on Wednesday, with the fact the wealthy “do” indeed already pay more, explaining: “They pay an extraordinary amount more, and in fact about half of Americans don't pay any income taxes at all.” Let’s see if Friday’s NBC Nightly News , or in the Dateline itself, Williams challenges any Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill with a conservative point/argument. He didn’t in the excerpts aired Wednesday and Thursday night. Meanwhile, fill-in CBS Evening News anchor Bob Schieffer decided to bring aboard Senator John McCain one day after McCain had insulted Tea Party Congressmen for “ foolish” and “bizarro ” demands: We’re joined now live by Republican Senator John McCain who was so frustrated by all of this yesterday he called the situation “bizarro.” Senator, have you seen anything today to cause you to step back from that description? [McCain: “Not really...”] From the Thursday, July 28 NBC Nightly News: BRIAN WILLIAMS: We are just back from Washington where we spent yesterday on Capitol Hill, all over Capitol Hill in fact. NBC News cameras were given special access for a special broadcast this Sunday night. We talked to nearly every member of the leadership, including the GOP leader in the Senate, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. And I asked him about a hot topic, no tax increase in any of these plans being discussed. WILLIAMS TO McCONNELL: Why shouldn't rich folks pay more? SENATE MINORITY LEADER MITCH McCONNELL: They do. They pay an extraordinary amount more, and in fact about half of Americans don't pay any income taxes at all. That isn't a sticking point. The President in signing a continuation of the current tax rates back in December made the argument that Republicans had made, which is that raising taxes in the middle of a recession is not a good idea. I don't know that anybody thinks the economy's in better shape now than it was six months ago. But all of those issues are being discussed in conjunction with how we put together a package here that will actually begin to get us to head in a different direction. WILLIAMS: Mitch McConnell on what has become a big charge from the left that in any of these debt ceiling deals the poor are likely to get hit while the rich are likely to get a pass. We will have more from him, from all the players in this, in our prime time special, “Taking the Hill: Inside Congress.” That's Sunday night, 7 o’clock, 6 central.
Continue reading …Need a good cry? This could help. The above clip is from the 1979 remake of the movie The Champ, starring Jon Voight as a boxer and a tiny Ricky Schroder as his son. The end of the film features a scene (found in the last minutes of the above clip) where Voight’s character, Champ,
Continue reading …This will bring a smile to whale fans: A humpback freed from fishing nets performed what one rescuer could only describe as a “thank-you dance.” Again and again and again. A group from the Great Whale Conservancy freed the whale off the coast of Baja California, Mexico. Afterward, it leaped…
Continue reading …Las Vegas couple Patricia and Bruce Wright apparently made a pact to end their lives Sunday at the same Florida church where they married 40 years ago, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. A pastor discovered the couple early Sunday morning under a tree behind the church, with a rifle and…
Continue reading …Despite years of a coordinated advertising and branding campaign, a new study shows that use of the color pink doesn’t work so well for awareness of and fundraising for women’s issues like breast cancer. The problem is not that some women are turned off by the traditionalism and underlying stereotype of a pink brand, but rather that too
Continue reading …Norway doesn’t have the death penalty, and that means it’s “legally and morally” unprepared to deal with the likes of Anders Breivik, the man allegedly responsible for the Oslo massacre, argues legal scholar Thane Rosenbaum in the New York Times . Americans, meanwhile, are outraged over the acquittal of Casey Anthony….
Continue reading …If you love Gmail and need to access it on the go you probably already know that Google’s Android platform is the best way to access it, and with v2.3.5 that just hit it’s getting even better. The top two new features this time around include the ability to sync only priority messages (saving battery life and keeping unimportant messages at bay) and the ability to individually set notifications and ringtones for any of the labels in your inbox. The Android Market website is still showing version 2.3.4.1, but we successfully upgraded via the Market on our devices . Also new are features like the ability to remember “Show Pictures” for specific senders, better TalkBack support, turn off sticky message actions in all orientations and improved performance. Gmail v2.3.5 for Android adds label-specific ringtones and sync priority mail only options originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …News of the World has been linked to another shocking case of phone hacking—and this might be an even bigger betrayal. Police have informed Sara Payne that she was on a list of people seized from a private investigator employed by NotW , Reuters reports. The twist: The paper’s editor,…
Continue reading …It’s been quite the up-and-down week for Airbnb, a start-up that helps people rent their homes to vacationing strangers. All began great when the company secured a $1 billion valuation, notes the Wall Street Journal . Then a PR disaster: A San Francisco woman blogged about how she returned from a…
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