While Republicans officially took control of both the House and the Senate on Tuesday, NBC, ABC, and CBS all touted GOP setbacks. NBC's Today led the way, with correspondent Peter Alexander seizing on comments from the top Senate Republican: "Among incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's main goals for his party: don't be scary."
2014 Congressional
By Jeffrey Meyer | January 6, 2015 | 11:32 AM EST
On Tuesday, the newly elected members of the 114th Congress were officially sworn in and CBS This Morning co-host Norah O'Donnell sat down with Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) the youngest woman ever elected to Congress at age 30. While the interview was mostly friendly, co-host Norah O’Donnell found time to push her guest on the GOP’s standing with minority voters and asked Stefanik “does the Republican Party have an image problem?”
NY Times Prepares Ground to Sink GOP Prospects With Front-Page Stories on Hypocrisy, 'Image Problem'
By Clay Waters | January 5, 2015 | 10:28 PM EST As Republicans take control of both the House and Senate, the New York Times is preparing the political ground for GOP failure. Exhibit A: Monday's front-page story by Times congressional reporter Carl Hulse, who quickly got to the "sour note" of John Boehner's struggle for re-election as House Speaker. Exhibit B: Michael Shear's front-page story Sunday on the GOP turning to the courts for what they can't achieve through elections (sound familiar?).
By Jeffrey Meyer | January 4, 2015 | 9:53 AM EST
President Obama’s annual Christmas vacation wraps up this weekend and on Saturday CBS Evening News did its best to promote the president’s 2015 agenda. CBS reporter Chip Reid filed a report from Hawaii that offered no soundbites from Republicans opposing Obama and instead found time to quote liberal presidential historian Douglas Brinkley who argued that Obama’s “starting to learn that he could be like FDR and Theodore Roosevelt--don't worry about Congress, just lay down these executive orders.”
By Tom Blumer | December 31, 2014 | 4:09 PM EST
Chris Megerian at the Los Angeles Times, in a report first published online on Tuesday, had a difficult time trying to downplay the fact that Democrat and leftist mega-donors outspent their Republican and conservative couterparts by an overwhelming margin during the past election cycle.
But Megerian made the best of it, giving readers the impression that David Koch, of the supposedly evil Koch brothers, was the fourth-largest such donor. Times editors did their part to keep the news as quiet as possible by publishing the obviously national story in the California secion of its Wednesday print edition.
By Curtis Houck | December 31, 2014 | 11:33 AM EST
Each of the network morning shows devoted some time on Wednesday to looking back at the biggest news stories of year and, while they certainly could not have included every story in the allotted time, they all failed to spend even a few seconds on topics such as Jonathan Gruber, pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, President Obama’s unpopularity, and the Hobby Lobby case to name a few.
In addition, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC each mentioned the midterm elections and how Republicans were able to win control of the Senate (in addition to the House), they devoted a scant 21 seconds to the topic over the course of their roundups, which totaled 42 minutes and 50 seconds.
By Jeffrey Meyer | December 29, 2014 | 12:30 PM EST
President Obama sat down with Steve Inskeep, host of NPR’s Morning Edition, for an interview that aired on Monday, December 29 and was repeatedly tossed softball questions from the lefty reporter throughout their conversation. Inskeep began the discussion by asking President Obama “Since your party's defeat in the election, you have made two major executive actions — one on immigration, one on Cuba...Is there some way in which that election just passed has liberated you?”
By Mike Ciandella | December 24, 2014 | 12:12 PM EST
Liberal billionaire Tom Steyer has had a really bad year.
He failed to get other left-wing donors to join his crusade to make climate change the No. 1 election issue. Then he wasted nearly $75 million backing liberal candidates. Four out of the seven politicians he and his NextGen Climate Action group backed lost. And the few races where liberals won owed little or nothing to Steyer’s bizarre and sometimes inaccurate campaign ads.
By Tom Johnson | December 21, 2014 | 10:56 PM EST
Mark Sumner contends that since the Reagan years, “conservatism has been more than just an argument about tax rates and regulat[ions]. It's become an open and honest war on the whole idea of governing.”
By Rich Noyes | December 21, 2014 | 11:57 AM EST
Continuing the review of the MRC's Best Notable Quotables of 2014, the "Blue State Brigade Award," showcasing the media's attempt to deny or deflect the anti-liberal wave seen in this year's elections that swept Democrats from power in the U.S. Senate.
GQ: Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Joni Ernst Among ‘America’s 20 Craziest Politicians’; Only Three Are Democrats
By Curtis Houck | December 17, 2014 | 1:21 AM EST The magazine GQ released its list of the “20 craziest politicians” in the U.S. on Tuesday and, not surprisingly, the liberal publication selected 17 Republicans for the list compared to only three Democrats.
Among the more prominent Republicans included Senators and possible presidential candidates Rand Paul (Ky.) and Ted Cruz (Texas) as well as incoming Senator Joni Ernst (Iowa). The only three Democrats named to the list were Congressman Hank Johnson (Ga.), Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), and Vice President Joe Biden.
By Jeffrey Meyer | December 15, 2014 | 11:18 AM EST
On Sunday night, ABC’s Barbara Walters hosted her annual 10 Most Fascinating People program which featured billionaire businessman and conservative donor David Koch as one of the “most fascinating people of 2014.” A preview of the interview aired during Sunday morning’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos portraying Koch as “one of the biggest Republican donors, a reclusive billionaire, David Koch. Democrats love to hate him.” During the full interview, Walters expanded on the liberal attacks against Koch but also detailed the hundreds of millions of dollars he has donated to philanthropic causes over the last several decades.