The rich are "horrible people" -- at least those who lean to the right -- declares economist turned pompous New York Times columnist Paul Krugman in Friday’s “Privilege, Pathology and Power.” The text box: “Can we survive rule by self-centered billionaires?” (Liberal billionaire activist George Soros had no comment.) Krugman channeled opportunistic moralism, citing “science” to confirm his prejudices that rich people who disagree with him politically are bad, bad folks, though Krugman is no prince of humility and civility himself.
Campaigns & Elections
By Mark Finkelstein | January 2, 2016 | 8:55 AM EST
If two weeks ago I claimed it was raining when it was not, but today it does rain, does that make my original statement a prediction, one that was "right?" No, if you're honest about it. But maybe yes if you're ABC News, and instead of me talking about rain, it was Hillary Clinton talking about Donald Trump in ISIS recruitment videos.
On today's Good Morning America, co-host Dan Harris suggested Hillary Clinton "may actually have been right" about Donald Trump turning up in ISIS videos. And during the subsequent segment, reporter Mary Bruce said Hillary "predicted" Trump "would" be used in ISIS videos. There's only one hitch: Hillary hadn't "predicted" what ISIS "would" do. On December 19th, during a Dem debate, Hillary claimed that ISIS was already using Trump in recruitment videos. But no terror group used Trump in a video before today, when he turned up in a video not by ISIS but from an al Qaeda-affiliated group.
By Tom Blumer | January 2, 2016 | 2:19 AM EST
On Wednesday, Nate Cohn at the New York Times, who by some accounts is being anointed the next Nate Silver of polling, made a clumsy and despicable attempt to inject race into his political "analysis" of the Donald Trump phenomenon.
Cohn's tediously long writeup, which made Page A3 in the New York version of the Old Gray Lady's print edition on Thursday, attempted to identify and characterize Donald Trump supporters. Apparently troubled by finding that Trump's support crosses into a number of groups with whom Republican presidential candidates have usually fared poorly, he felt the need to go far afield for evidence of something sinister. Thus, he attempted to correlate the level of current support for Trump's presidential candidacy to regional levels of racism as seen in Google searches. That's right, Google searches — 9-12 years ago.
Lefty Pundit: Conservatives’ Opposition to Political Correctness Rooted In Loss of White Male Privilege
By Tom Johnson | December 31, 2015 | 5:06 PM EST If Paul Waldman had wanted to put the main argument of his Monday American Prospect column in Obamaesque terms, he might have written that conservative opponents of political correctness have gotten bitter and are clinging to their supposed right (and maybe even their duty) to act like jerks.
“For today's Republican, if people think you're a jerk then you must be doing something right, and the political correctness charge has become an all-purpose answer to criticism of any sort,” contended Waldman. “You say my beliefs are abominable? Take your political correctness and shove it! It's a way to pose as a brave truth-teller, even if all that's actually happening is that people are pointing out that you're a brave crap-teller.”
By Curtis Houck | December 31, 2015 | 1:50 PM EST
Closing out 2015 on the Thursday morning newscasts, NBC’s Today churned one of its most fawning pieces on President Obama as NBC News correspondent Ron Allen reviewed Obama’s top photos by White House photographer Pete Souza while hushed, soft piano music played in the background.
By Curtis Houck | December 31, 2015 | 12:01 PM EST
With New Year’s Eve upon us, NBC’s Today dedicated a segment in its 9:00 a.m. hour on Thursday to looking back at the year in news, politics, and entertainment. Not surprisingly, the liberal network made no mention of the Planned Parenthood baby parts video scandal, Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server, the Clinton Foundation scandal, and Benghazi to name just a few.
By Mark Finkelstein | December 31, 2015 | 8:39 AM EST
"Is that right? Fourteen??" That's Alisyn Camerota, 1:21 into the video clip. The shock and incredulity in the voice of the CNN host is stupendous! Yes, who could possibly imagine that, as CNN commentator Errol Louis stated, there are 14 women who could potentially make allegations of improprieties against Bill Clinton.
If Camerota had consulted CNN's own files, she wouldn't be so shocked. The Starr report includes Monica Lewinsky's testimony that Clinton personally told her that "he had had hundreds of affairs" before the age of 40. And Dick Morris is on record saying Clinton had "hundreds of women" just during his time in the White House. Whatever the precise number, does Camerota assume that Clinton conducted himself like Sir Galahad in all his encounters?
By NB Staff | December 31, 2015 | 12:43 AM EST
Appearing on Wednesday’s edition of The Kelly File, MRC President Brent Bozell and Fox News contributor Judith Miller made the case to fill-in host Sandra Smith that Donald Trump’s recent pledge to begin airing millions of dollars in television ads is not exactly necessary given the fact that the liberal media have been giving Trump a lion’s share of their 2016 election coverage.
'Progressives,' As Their Sex Harassment and Assault Problems Become Obvious, Won't Even Mention the Clintons
By Tom Blumer | December 30, 2015 | 11:50 PM EST Liberals and "progressives," who are supposedly big on dealing with "root causes," are apparently not interested in the root cause of their now-acknowledged problem of sexual harassment and abuse in their ranks.
At Acculturated.com, Carrie Lukas, managing director of the Independent Women’s Forum, contended that "liberals treat women worse" than do others in positions of power on the ideological spectrum because of "The Bill Clinton Effect" — an effect with so much staying power that "progressives" still won't dare mention its obvious impact, or even the Clintons' names.
By Tom Johnson | December 30, 2015 | 9:14 PM EST
If you’re looking for the ultimate contradiction in terms, it’d be hard to top “Christian narcissist.” Nonetheless, David Masciotra alleged in a Tuesday Salon piece (originally published on the left-wing site AlterNet) that “conservative evangelical Christianity” somehow “encourages narcissism,” and that this unholy communion explains Donald Trump’s relatively high level of popularity on the religious right.
“In order to appeal to evangelical voters, candidates…have to project narcissism and selfishness,” asserted Masciotra. “Having perfected his personality through years of reality television performance, Trump is able to successfully sway evangelicals to his side, despite his lack of Christian credentials, because narcissists take comfort in each other.”
By Curtis Houck | December 30, 2015 | 2:51 PM EST
While the left constantly goes after conservatives for any and all rhetoric they view as inciting violence, they almost never follow their own prescriptions and that was certainly the case on Tuesday night as MSNBC’s The Last Word featured liberal Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson warning that Trump has marked the end of the Republican as he’s been “driving a truck bomb into the middle of the Republican Party.”
By Curtis Houck | December 30, 2015 | 12:09 PM EST
With the year winding down and the news cycle slowing (aside from the weather), Wednesday’s CBS This Morning found it proper to reserve 59 seconds for fawning over Hillary Clinton receiving a question on Tuesday from a young boy about equal pay. Spinning it in the on-screen headline as some “pay perspective” from Clinton, fill-in co-host Margaret Brennan started the brief by making clear that the former secretary of state “did not mention Trump by name at a rally in New Hampshire” and instead “argued the economy does better when a Democrat is president.”