Only Media Matters can bury the lede of their latest Christian-bashing missive five graphs down into a story. After starting one story on Tim Tebow, the article plunges headfirst off the cliff into insanity by switching gears and blaming poverty in America on … Christians:

… but as the network exaggerates the threat to Christianity in America, it simultaneously downplays — even mocks — the very real plight facing those whom Christian teachings demand be shown compassion: the poor.

Poverty in the U.S. is on the rise. Incomes are decreasing. According to the Census Bureau, right now there are over 46 million Americans in poverty, more than there have been at any time since they started publishing poverty estimates. Fifteen percent of U.S. households are “food insecure,” meaning they lack money to properly feed themselves on a daily basis. They face a host of problems, both quantifiable and not: lack of access to health care, chronic underemployment, disrupted family life, and so on.

But to hear Fox News tell it, the poor don’t have it so bad. Earlier this year, the conservative Heritage Foundation released a report on how the ownership of household appliances demonstrates that “most of the persons whom the government defines as ‘in poverty’ are not poor in any ordinary sense of the term.” Seizing on Heritage’s laughably superficial assessment of poverty, Bill O’Reilly asked: “How can you be so poor and have all this stuff?”

I love when progressives pause their Bible-bashing long enough to pose as sudden experts on Scripture. Oh please, let’s do this. (You’ll see my reason why at the end.)

1) “Poverty in the U.S. is on the rise. Incomes are decreasing. According to the Census Bureau, right now there are over 46 million Americans in poverty, more than there have been at any time since they started publishing poverty estimates.”

And  when did this start exactly? The answer: with this administration. Remember when Newt Gingrich called Obama the “food stamp president?” While the Dixified minds of dog whistle progressives are certain that “food stamps” is code for “black people,” the reality is that more white Americans are on food stamps–in fact, more Americans, period, are receiving government assistance now than ever:

A record 18.3% of the nation’s total personal income was a payment from the government for Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, unemployment benefits and other programs in 2010. Wages accounted for the lowest share of income — 51.0% — since the government began keeping track in 1929.

The income data show how fragile and government-dependent the recovery is after a recession that officially ended in June 2009.

More:

Americans on the government dole received an average of $7,427 each in benefits in 2010, up from an inflation-adjusted $4,763 in 2000 and $3,686 in 1990. Thus, benefits have more than doubled in the last 20 years! Keep in mind that the federal government pays about 90% of these benefits.

How can this be? Under the Obama administration, families have watched jobs disappear, incomes shrink, food and gas prices rise, and the economy downgraded for the first time in a century. Ace of Spades with the numbers:

All while government spending increased at a record pace:

Don’t you think this has something to do with the increased poverty rate? And while we’re waxing poetic on Scripture, what say you of this racket presented in the graph above, of the astronomical increase in non defense federal spending?

WWJD?

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Most transparent administration ever.

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Last week, Miami New Times Blogger Kyle Munzenrieder accused Matt Drudge of trying to stroke racial flames for reporting the facts in the news.

Mr. Munzenrieder is upset because Drudge linked to stories that reported the violence surrounding the Miami Beach Urban Weekend as part of a larger collection of links covering multiple incidents of youth related violence that gripped such cities as Boston, Nashville, Charlotte, and Rochester over the Memorial Day weekend.

Munzenrieder decried Drudge because some of the incidents in question involved Blacks and gangs, stating in his blog that he thought that covering such story was “kinda racist.” Munzenrieder went as far as to offer a quote a racial Gawker conspiracy theory: “since the president of the United States is a black man, and since black voters tend to align with his party, it is to the advantage of the Republican Party and its allies to inculcate fear and apprehension about people who look like him. Hence the top stories on the Drudge Report today.”

Mr. Munzenrieder is entitled to his opinions and theories–no matter how farfetched they may be–but to accuse an editor of racism for reporting the facts in the news is the sign of a sick mind. (more…)

From the “figures lie, but liars figure” department we find that left-leaning cable newser MSNBC reported that the main reason Obama’s job stats are tumbling and unemployment is so high is because of the harsh tornado season and other natural disasters we have been experiencing over the first half of 2011. Yet, hypocritically, if we take a peak back to the unemployment rates reported by MSNBC in 2004, during Bush’s era, his jump in hiring was called false because of — you guessed it — hurricanes and other natural disasters.

That’s right, folks, MSNBC is using natural disasters to explain away Obama’s high unemployment rates when they used the very same excuse, natural disasters, to say that Bush’s rise in employment was false.

Talk about tailoring the “news” to fit the ideological objective that MSNBC wants to push, eh?

Rusty Weiss has a lot of details from Monday, but I want to focus on two examples.

On Monday, MSNBC contributor Eve Tahmincioglu lamented that, “Disasters wipe out jobs along with lives .” In her piece, Tahmincioglu blamed job loss directly on the tornadoes and floods that have bedeviled the central US.

The hardest-hit states already are seeing claims pour in for unemployment benefits. Since a deadly wave of tornadoes swept through Tuscaloosa, Ala., and other Southeast towns in late April, more than 6,000 people have applied for disaster-related jobless benefits, said Tom Surtees, director of the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations. Typically about 24,000 people file for jobless benefits each month in the state, where the jobless rate is 9.3 percent, a bit above the national average.

Might make sense, of course. If your towns have been wiped out by natural disasters, well, it might stand to reason that jobs would be wiped out, too. This might help explain the sad jobs picture during this, the Obama administration. MSNBC would love if it were that simple, love to have something other than Obama to blame for the high unemployment figures, certainly. (more…)

10)      It’s really, really hard to be President – people expect you to do things and stuff.

9)      America needs to be more like China.

8)      Five year plans: they’re not just for Stalin anymore.

7)      It’s still Bush’s fault.

6)      Equity demands that it should be ten times more expensive to go to college in order to do something productive than it should be to go to college in order to become a bureaucrat.

5)      Spending more public money on health care will still reduce the deficit. Really. It will.

4)      Ending the influence of lobbyists and operating transparent government remains as important a promise to make today as it was during the 2008 campaign.

3)      Joe Biden is very, very bored.

2)      The problem with Washington is that everyone is eternal campaign mode. Accordingly, everyone should follow the President’s example and limit themselves to no more than 158 interviews and 411 speeches per year. (more…)