During a discussion on MSNBC’s The Cycle about the disparaging comments ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber made about the law’s passage and the “stupidity” of voters, New York Times writer and substitute Cycle co-host Josh Barro sought to defend him by blasting the expectations that Americans have about health care as “completely incoherent” and lying was the only solution to make them happy. Barro told fellow panelists and guest Lauren Fox of National Journal that “what drives me crazy about this story” was that: “Jonathan Gruber was right. Public opinion on health care policy is just completely incoherent.”
2014 Congressional
By Jack Coleman | November 12, 2014 | 3:08 PM EST
Who says left wingers have no sense of tradition? Sure they do, at least when it comes to revision of history.
Arguably their most ardent practitioner these days is Rachel Maddow, she of Democrat house organ MSNBC, and her most recent example qualifies as textbook. During her program Monday night, Maddow recounted release of White House visitor logs by the Obama administration in 2009, several months after Obama took office.
Salon: Conservatives Fear Strangers Seeking ‘Unearned Government Benefits or…Kinky Sex With Your Daughter’
By Tom Johnson | November 12, 2014 | 2:11 PM EST Edwin Lyngar argues that right-wingers not only “creat[e] and exploit…irrational fear” but also disdain empathy, whereas “kindness…is the hallmark of liberalism.” The article was headlined I was a conservative coward: How the midterms evoked my past of shame, terror and Fox News”.
By Jeffrey Meyer | November 12, 2014 | 12:22 PM EST
Chuck Todd, NBC News Political Director and moderator of Meet the Press, just released his latest book “The Stranger: Barack Obama In the White House” chronicling the Democrat’s first six years as president. While much of the book details the numerous political battles the administration was engaged in, three excerpts from the book are quite striking. Not only does Chuck Todd concede that MSNBC is openly leftist, the NBC host writes that “perhaps most frustrating to Team Obama was that even their allies weren’t always allies.”
By Jeffrey Meyer | November 12, 2014 | 10:30 AM EST
Early Wednesday morning, Republican Dan Sullivan officially defeated incumbent Senator Mark Begich (D-AK) more than a week after Election Day. With the victory, the GOP now has 53 Senate seats and could pick up a 54th seat if Congressman Bill Cassidy (R-La.) defeats incumbent Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) in December’s runoff election. Despite the GOP victory, NBC’s Today ignored the story altogether during its Wednesday morning broadcast but found time to talk about the world’s largest corn maze.
By Curtis Houck | November 11, 2014 | 10:24 PM EST
On Tuesday, NBC Nightly News channeled President Barack Obama from the day after the midterm elections and pointed to the low voter turnout for the election that saw Republicans gain control of the United States Senate as well as make additional gains in the House of Representatives.
In a news brief, anchor Brian Williams highlighted the latest turnout estimate for “last week’s wave election for the GOP” as being “very bad” at “36.3 percent.” Williams noted that it would be the lowest in both “the modern era” and “since 1942, when a unified and preoccupied nation” was engaged in World War II when only 33.9 percent came out to vote.
By Curtis Houck | November 11, 2014 | 8:59 PM EST
Following a story on campaign spending ahead of the midterm elections on October 30, CBS News congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes filed a similar report on Tuesday night’s CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley with the topic focusing specifically on the “dark money groups” that are not required to disclose their donors.
In setting up Cordes’s story, anchor Scott Pelley pivoted from a report on corruption and brutal crackdowns by the authoritarian Communist regime in China to saying that “[w]ell, government even in America is becoming murkier because of campaign finance laws that have become nearly a free-for-all.” When the report ended, he hailed it as “insight from Capitol Hill” from Cordes.
By Tom Blumer | November 11, 2014 | 8:50 PM EST
Far be it from me to talk a leftist columnist out of an ignorant, self-satisfied position which might, if anything, cause his fellow travelers to hit the accelerator a little less aggressively in future political campaigns.
At the Atlantic on Monday afternoon, Richard Reeves, policy director of the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution, claimed that the left shouldn't be so glum after Tuesday's election results, because "progressive policies are working." His very first graph makes a mockery of his claim:
By Mark Finkelstein | November 11, 2014 | 8:01 PM EST
Note to Hillary: hire Chris Witherspoon of theGrio as your presidential campaign spokesman--please! He could help set up a 50-state sweep . . . for the Republican candidate.
Appearing on Al Sharpton's MSNBC show this evening, Witherspoon defended Hillary against an RNC email criticizing her for expensive private-jet travel billed to the campaigns of candidates for whom she made appearances. Witherspoon generated this gem: "they're the Clintons. They're American royalty. I don't want to see them flying on domestic Delta flights in first class. I mean, they were flying on Air Force One for eight years. How do you go from that to not staying on private jets and kind of having like that luxurious travel experience?"
By Tom Johnson | November 10, 2014 | 9:50 PM EST
Kurt Eichenwald says that for right-wingers, “ignoring expert opinion is a fatal flaw, one that has proven to do immense damage to this country -- financial catastrophes, arming enemies, bloody wars, and the like.”
By Mark Finkelstein | November 10, 2014 | 8:14 PM EST
How far left is frequent Ed Show guest Mika Papantonio? The class-action lawyer has criticized AG nominee Loretta Lynch for being too business-friendly.
On Schultz's show today, Papantonio was asked to comment on the possibility that Ted Cruz would block Lynch's confirmation should President Obama issue executive amnesty. According to the lefty lawyer, once Cruz and other Republicans "get the memo" from Wall Street on how Lynch supposedly lets white-collar crime flourish, they will change their tune.