Appointments

As Rush Limbaugh Routinely Demonstrates: The Media’s Lockstep Leftist Talking Points
By Seton Motley | October 13, 2015 | 8:42 AM EDT

We’ve time and again seen the media receive their messaging orders  - and then march off all mouthing the Leftist talking point(s) of the day.  Washington, D.C.-based talk radio host Chris Plante quotes a military friend of his describing the media not as a gaggle, but as a centipede.  Multitudinous legs in coordinated movement - all headed in the same direction. 

Talk radio impresario Rush Limbaugh has long made audio cavalcades of this media mal-practice a routine feature of his show.  He strings together “media montages” - innumerable examples of “reporters” magically all arriving at the exact same Leftist term(s) to describe the news of the day.  

Kim Davis, the Media, and the Constitution
By Jeffrey Lord | September 6, 2015 | 8:09 PM EDT

If it were up to today’s media, there would still be slavery. And once the Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery, today’s media would have championed segregation and racism. 

Say what? 

NY Times Headlines Make Clarence Thomas Look Like a Plagiarist
By Tom Blumer | August 30, 2015 | 10:42 AM EDT

The leftist press has despised Clarence Thomas ever since he fought off their attempt at what he properly characterized as a "high-tech lynching" to become a Supreme Court justice almost 24 years ago. It has worked to smear and discredit him ever since.

The latest such effort was posted online at the New York Times on Thursday and published in its Friday print edition. The online and print edition headlines at the piece by Adam Liptak, the paper's Supreme Court correspondent, made it appear as if the Times had discovered serious instances of plagiarism.

Scarborough: Pro-Biden White House Sending Justice Department Message About Hillary?
By Mark Finkelstein | August 25, 2015 | 8:23 AM EDT

If you're Hillary Clinton or one of her supporters, this should make your blood run cold.  On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough said that the unequivocally pro-Biden statement from Obama spox Josh Earnest yesterday not only sent "a strong, strong message to Hillary" but, echoing the Wall Street Journal, "you wonder whether they're sending a message to the Justice Department as well."

Has there ever been anything quite like this in the history of American politics? It's one thing for a president to encourage his veep's presidential ambitions. It's entirely another for a president to put his 800-lb. thumb on the political scales by suggesting to his Justice Department that he'd like it to launch an investigation of the veep's main rival.

Scarborough's Damning Indictment of Hillary's Email Mishandling of Classified Material
By Mark Finkelstein | July 27, 2015 | 9:19 AM EDT

It's a point of pride at Morning Joe that the show is unscripted. But in a notable deviation that might reflect the gravity of the moment, Joe Scarborough clearly seemed to be reading off a teleprompter today as he promulgated a damning indictment of Hillary Clinton's mishandling of classified information on her private email system. Scarborough's statement was interspersed with clips of Hillary making statements about her email use that in light of the Inspectors General statements seem clearly to be untrue.

Even more ominous for Hillary and her presidential ambitions was that none of Andrea Mitchell, Mark Halperin nor Ron Fournier--who claimed that as a former Arkansas resident he had probably voted more often for Clintons than any other journalist in DC--deigned to offer a defense of Hillary's actions.

AP Lines Up Blame for Congress, Not Obama, For OPM Data Breach
By Tom Blumer | July 10, 2015 | 6:39 PM EDT

Of all the media memes ever attempted, the one blaming Republicans for the fact that now-resigned Office of Personnel Management Director Katherine Aruchleta was confirmed is high on the list of the most ridiculous ever. A reasonably close runnerup is the idea that Congress failed "to adequately fund OPM."

Matt Balan at NewsBusters covered CNN's ridiculous tweeted claim that "Republicans acknowledge ... they didn't properly vet Archuleta's qualifications." It's as if only Republicans — who, I must remind the media herd, were in the minority in the Senate in late 2013 when she was confirmed, and who opposed her by a 35-8 margin — were the only ones responsible for vetting this woman. Why isn't the press asking Harry Reid why his Senate Democratic Party majority didn't do its job? Far more fundamentally, did the president's responsibility for selecting competent people vanish when Barack Obama was elected?

Net Neutrality Hits the Web, The Media Misses -- Badly
By Seton Motley | June 15, 2015 | 10:29 AM EDT

As we’ve often discussed, the Tech Media is just as hopelessly Leftist and lost as the broader Jurassic Press.  They are both echo chambers - talking points and terrible ideas bounce with great rapidity around their tiny little worlds.  They are the Bubble Boys (and Girls) of news.

When a Tech Media story crosses over to the broader Jurassic Press - their ridiculous Leftist repetitiveness is truly comical.  And highly disquieting.

On Friday, President Barack Obama’s huge Internet Network Neutrality power grab officially went into effect.  A crossover story - with predictable, pathetic Press results.

Press Ignoring Obama Admin's De Facto Invocation of Executive Privilege in Immigration Lawsuit
By Tom Blumer | May 6, 2015 | 11:08 PM EDT

Remember the cries of "Bush Lied" during the previous administration — even though he didn't? Or the obsession over the 16 words relating to Saddam Hussein's attempt to obtain nuclear materials from Niger, which George W. Bush's opponents tried to pretend were false but were really true? Good times.

In federal court in February, the Obama administration seriously "misrepresented" the degree of its adoption of the President's executive actions relating to illegal immigrants issued late last year. The establishment press has largely treated the matter as a minor bump in the road. Hardly.

A Tale of Three Governors, Media Bias Edition
By Seton Motley | April 16, 2015 | 9:25 AM EDT

It was the best of coverage - it was the worst of coverage.

CNN's Baldwin Highlights Bipartisan Attacks on Durbin's 'Back of the Bus' Smear
By Matthew Balan | March 19, 2015 | 4:34 PM EDT

On Thursday's CNN Newsroom, Brooke Baldwin actually pointed out that both Democrats and Republicans are "pretty angry" with Senator Dick Durbin for his incendiary "back of the bus" attack on Senate Republicans, after they delayed the confirmation vote of Attorney General Nominee Loretta Lynch. Republican guest Margaret Hoover attacked Durbin for his "incredibly divisive" remarks, and underlined that "this has absolutely nothing to do with her race."

'Godzilla With Mothra Riding His Back': Heilemann on How 'Dumb' of Hillary To Use Personal Email
By Mark Finkelstein | March 3, 2015 | 6:47 PM EST

On the Bloomberg TV show he co-hosts, John Heilemann—asked today to quantify on a scale of "1-to-Godzilla" how "dumb" politically it was of Hillary Clinton to use personal email—answered "Godzilla with Mothra riding on his back dumb."  Heilemann also revealed having reached out to former Hillary aides and that "to a person" they responded that the situation is a political "disaster."

Mark Halperin claimed that, substantively, Hillary might have "a leg to stand on" but that politically her decision to use personal email was "moronic."

Morning Joe: NYT Reporter Fearing 'Retribution' From Hillary Camp for Email Story?
By Mark Finkelstein | March 3, 2015 | 8:19 AM EST

When Joe and Mika interviewed New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt on today's Morning Joe, Scarborough had to work to get Schmidt to say something that was in his own article: that while Colin Powell also used private email as Secretary of State, there were no rules prohibiting that at the time. Later, Joe and Mika later remarked that they were "taken aback" by the interview and that "something else was happening" during it.  Mika mentioned that there was a "massive onslaught" of Twitter "hatred" from Hillary supporters overnight.  She wondered whether Schmidt had been on the receiving end of that hatred, and if the "fear of retribution or something" had gotten into his head.