With his book entitled No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the U.S. Surveillance State set for release on Tuesday, the GQ website posted an extensive interview with radical-left reporter Glenn Greenwald in which he covers a wide range of topics, ranging from his continuing friendship with Snowden to his strong distaste for the presumptive Democratic candidate in the upcoming 2016 presidential election.
Hillary Clinton is “banal, corrupted, drained of vibrancy and passion,” he told interviewer Michael Paterniti in a move that is bound to diminish his stature among liberal Democrats. However, Greenwald admitted, the "f**king hawk" is going to be the first female president, and women in America are going to be completely invested in her candidacy.”
Twins David and Jason Benham were working on a pilot for a series to be called Flip It Forward in which they would assist families in building dream homes and fixing up run-down houses when the Home & Garden Television cable channel abruptly canceled the project when the producers learned that the brothers have a history of preaching against homosexuality, abortion and divorce.
As you might expect, gay organizations hailed HGTV's decision while the brothers – sons of evangelical minister Flip Benham – released a statement that said: “If our faith costs us a television show, then so be it.”
Just when it seemed that long-time interviewer Larry King and his successor, Piers Morgan, had settled into nice, quiet lives after both left the Cable News Network, along came an interview with radio “shock jock” Howard Stern on Wednesday, when King asserted that CNN should have hired American Idol host Ryan Seacrest instead of making the mistake of putting a “Britisher in prime time.”
Soon after, Morgan snarled back in a series of tweets in which he said he had always tried to be respectful to his predecessor but noted that King has been “a constant poisonous twerp towards me for three years, and I'm bored with it.” He added that there is no such word as "Britisher'” before growling that “research and facts were never your strong point, were they, Brooklyner?”
During the Monday evening edition of Comedy Central's The Daily Show, host Jon Stewart accused the reporters at the Fox News Channel of having “hypocritical outrage and sanctimony” regarding the war in Iraq a decade ago compared to the situation in which four Americans were killed in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012.
It didn't take long for Greta van Susteren -- host of the weeknight On the Record program on Fox News – to tweet that even if his assertion regarding the Iraq conflict was correct, “2 wrongs don't make a right.” Meanwhile, Megyn Kelly said during an interview with Eric Kelsey of the Reuters news agency that Stewart had called her after the host of The Kelly File said on the air that he was being mean to her, and when he went “looking for absolution,” she didn't give him any.
During the past two months, most of what we've heard about the Affordable Care Act was the administration's announcement on March 31 that the target total of more than 7 million people had signed up for ObamaCare, and by May 1, that figure had grown to 8 million enrollees.
However, four polls were released during the past week that resulted in the same message: ObamaCare isn't getting any more popular -- and probably won't in the future, according to an article published in Tuesday's edition of the Washington Post by reporters Scott Clement and Aaron Blake.
Former CBS investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson had some harsh words to share about the Obama administration and its supporters while she was a guest on Monday morning's Fox & Friends program.
After viewing some clips from Sunday's edition of ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos in which conservative pundit Laura Ingraham and Democratic analyst David Plouffe clashed over the death of four Americans in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, Attkisson said she believes that a concerted effort is taking place to divert investigations into that deadly attack, an effort that is being orchestrated by people close to the White House. [See video below.]
Les Moonves, chairman and chief executive officer of the CBS Corporation, responded to criticism that the network was replacing David Letterman, a liberal comedian and longtime host of the weeknight Late Show program, with Stephen Colbert, another liberal comic and host of The Colbert Report, who is likely to continue making fun of conservatives and Republicans when he leaves his Comedy Channel program to replace Letterman sometime in 2015.
“Ironically, Stephen Colbert is much more moderate than people think he is,” Moonves said on Wednesday. "He's a great social commentator, and that's sort of what we want. That's sort of what David Letterman has been."
During Tuesday morning's edition of the Fox & Friends program, conservative radio host Laura Ingraham hammered the lack of political fallout over secretary of state John Kerry's remarks that Israel could become an “apartheid” state if that nation doesn't adopt “a two-state solution” to achieve peace with their Palestinian neighbors.
“He's kind of apologized,” Ingraham noted before stating that on the other hand, the Left “rushes to demonize people who are either Republican or conservative who misspeak.” [See video below.]
While a guest on the 92Y American Conversation program on Sunday, TIME magazine political analyst Joe Klein vented to host Jeff Greenfield of the Public Broadcasting System: “I miss being able to turn on a straight newscast” after returning home at 6 o'clock on weekdays.
He added that the only place he can find such a program in that format and at that time is the Fox News series Special Report With Bret Baier before declaring: “It is such an embarrassment to our profession" that the Cable News Network “has gone in the toilet the way it has.”
Meet the Press host David Gregory has been the focus of turmoil since the Sunday morning NBC program suffered its lowest ratings since 1992 during the past year and was the subject of a meeting with network news president Deborah Turness in March. After that gathering, NBC “doubled down” on Gregory as host of the series, along with giving him additional duties on the network's news website.
However, an article written by Paul Farhi in Sunday's edition of the Washington Post stated that during the first three months of 2012, the NBC program finished a distant third, far behind CBS's Face the Nation and This Week With George Stephanopoulos on ABC. Just four days later, Turness sent a memo to the show's staff declaring that coverage of Gregory's troubles has been “vindictive, personal and above all -- untrue.”
Recent Fox News Channel addition George Will took advantage of being a guest on Comedy Central's weeknight The Colbert Report program on Tuesday to explain to the faux conservative host the difference between news on the “mainstream” ABC network and the cable television Fox News Channel.
“Fox News is like getting on a Southwest Airlines plane,” the columnist stated. “Everyone’s happy, they’re at the top of the heap and feel like insurgents.” “Wow, that’s great,” Colbert replied. “That sounds almost dangerous.” [See video below.]
The host of MSNBC's weekday afternoon program The Ed Show has often hammered the donations to GOP candidates and projects made by wealthy conservative brothers David and Charles Koch, but does he feel the same when rich Democrats enter the political fray?
We got our answer on Monday, when Schultz happily interviewed Tom Steyer, a prolific Democratic donor who has pledged $50 million of his own money -- which will be matched by other members of “the party of the little guy” -- to support candidates who oppose the Keystone XL Pipeline and attack Democrats who support the project, which has interestingly been delayed by the Obama administration until after this November's midterm elections.
Thursday was a busy time for White House press secretary Jay Carney. First, he claimed that the toughest interview president Barack Obama had in 2012 was moderated by Comedy Central's Jon Stewart. As if that wasn't bizarre enough, he later stated that “there has never been a more transparent administration,” a situation that “creates headaches for us and ridiculous stories on Fox News.”
It didn't take long for Greta van Susteren, host of that channel's weeknight On the Record program, to come out swinging and post a message asking: ”White House delusional? Obsessed with Fox News Channel? Thinks we are the only ones that spotted this BS?”
During the most recent edition of Fox News Sunday, political analyst Brit Hume asserted that attorney general Eric Holder had become a “crybaby” and that he and president Barack Obama have “benefited enormously” from being the first African-Americans to hold the offices they now inhabit.
Then on Monday, Hume was accused of “race-baiting” by the host of MSNBC's The Ed Show. Later, he was supported by Bill O'Reilly, who exclaimed “Wow!” regarding Hume's “very provocative soundbite” and Twitter feedback that ranged from emails telling the conservative analyst he was “right on” to others who hammered him as a racist.
On Friday, Erik Wemple -- a blogger for the Washington Post -- announced that the “renowned investigative reporter” Michael Isikoff was leaving the “Peacock Network” that day because “it was increasingly clear" that the news division “was moving in directions in which there were going to be fewer opportunities for my work,” Isikoff told the New York Times.
After 33 years, NBC investigative reporter Lisa Myers left the network in January. In a statement later on Friday, Richard Esposito -- the senior executive producer of the shrinking NBC News investigative unit -- praised Isikoff by asserting:
The Democratic National Committee has accused the MSNBC cable channel of having "a pretty big double standard" regarding its “confusing policy” of forbidding some anchors from attending political fundraising events while others are allowed to speak at similar programs, according to a letter written to Phil Griffin, president of the liberal television network.
Mo Elleithee, the DNC's communications director, indicated that channel executives prevented Ed Schultz -- host of the weekday afternoon program The Ed Show – from appearing at a Democratic Unity Dinner in Broward County, Fla., on March 15, while Joe Scarborough, a co-host of the weekday Morning Joe program, is slated to give the keynote address at next month's Cheshire County Republican Lincoln Day Dinner in New Hampshire.
On Tuesday, the host of The Kelly File on the Fox News Channel discussed Honor Diaries, a documentary intended to depict the “systematic, institutionalized misogyny against Muslim women around the world.”
The first segment aired on Monday and drew a demand for an apology from the Council of American-Islamic Relations. Twenty-four hours later, Megyn Kelly told CAIR: “Well, guess what -- you’re not getting it.”
Longtime NBC sportscaster Bob Costas appeared on Wednesday's edition of the network's hour-long Late Night program, which is hosted by Seth Myers. The former member of the Saturday Night Live cast threw softball questions at his guest regarding “minor controversies” he caused by inserting liberal political commentary into his sports coverage.
After a discussion that included the TV broadcaster's views on the “gun culture” within the National Football League, his fawning description of Vladmir Putin at the beginning of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and his strong dislike of the name of the Washington Redskins NFL team, Costas was praised by Myers for “making sports a lot more interesting.” Costas suggested mostly "angry" people on "extreme" venues were upset, not so much the average American on the street.
Anchors and analysts on the Fox News Channel rarely talk about liberal competitor MSNBC because the low-rated cable channel isn't “fair and balanced” and usually treats its few conservative guests with disdain. A recent example of this behavior came when All In host Chris Hayes introduced Jennifer Stefano as someone who is “waking up every day” plotting “to destroy ObamaCare.”
That incident caught the attention of Bill O'Reilly -- host of The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel -- and liberal analyst Juan Williams, who accused MSNBC of trying to make conservatives out to be “the bad guys” and treating Stefano like “a living piñata” so “they don't have to talk about the real issues.”
When the “Lean Forward” network hired Ronan Farrow last October to host his own weekday news/interview show, the 20-something son of actress Mia Farrow was hailed as “an original thinker” who could bring his 250,000 Twitter followers to watch him on MSNBC.
However, only a month after Ronan Farrow Daily debuted in mid-February, an anonymous source inside the channel told the New York Daily News that Farrow's ratings have been poor, and his program “has been a disaster for MSNBC” because the young host “sort of stinks on TV” and “hasn't turned out to be the superstar they were hoping for,” even in the relevant demographic of younger viewers ranging from 25 to 54 years of age.