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.
Corporate Liberalism
By Erik Soderstrom | December 11, 2015 | 2:37 AM EST
If you’re a regular reader, you may remember when Limitless featured a big-business CEO at a bioweapons firm who murdered an American general because he wanted to divert funds to other projects. Apparently CBS thinks all corporate deals involve capital crimes. Last night’s episode of Elementary, “The Games Underfoot,” brought a very similar plot to the Sherlock Holmes-inspired procedural.
By Curtis Houck | November 24, 2015 | 11:38 PM EST
Thanks to some fabulous work by American Commitment’s Phil Kerpen digging through on Tuesday e-mails from Clinton State Department staffer Philippe Reines, he found that suspended CNN global affairs correspondent Elise Labott had communicated with Reines on multiple occasions to the point of taking marching orders over what she tweeted.
By Tom Blumer | November 23, 2015 | 3:50 PM EST
New York Daily News covers on November 18 ("NRA'S SICK JIHAD" — noted at the time by NB's Kristine Marsh) and today ("NOWHERE TO HIDE, JIHADI WAYNE") have accused the NRA of placing the right to purchase guns ahead of public safety from terrorist attacks.
The paper's bogus claim is based on the NRA's opposition to legislation prohibiting anyone on the government's "terror watch list" from purchasing a gun. While the idea might appear to have sensible on the surface, it doesn't survive scrutiny, as the folks at the group's legislative arm painstakingly explained over four years ago:
By Tom Blumer | October 17, 2015 | 1:02 AM EDT
As I noted on Friday, the New York Times has become the de facto head cheerleader for Truth, the movie which purports to tell the story behind CBS News's 60 Minutes report on President George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard service in the early 1970s aired in September 2004.
The Old Gray Lady has hosted a TimesTalk video in which one of the film's lead actors, Robert Redford as Dan Rather, claims that the movie gives the offending journalists "their day in court." (Trust me, Bob. The last place they want to be is in a real courtroom; Rather found that out the hard way several years ago.)
By Randy Hall | September 30, 2015 | 8:34 PM EDT
In an effort to resolve the ongoing debate about whether or not to fly the Confederate flag, Studio 30 -- a weekly public radio program -- commissioned 70kft, a Texas-based design firm, to come up with a new flag to represent "the modern South."
According to an article by John Hammontree – who writes features and opinion pieces for the AL.com Alabama website, the result of the project was a banner that combines the tried and true colors of red and blue diagonal stripes -- but no stars -- on a white background that represents “different people, with unique backgrounds, experiences and values. They are equal to each other, but different in color.”
By Tom Blumer | September 20, 2015 | 6:28 PM EDT
A year ago, Tim Graham at NewsBusters noted that the New York Times was "offering 13-day tours of Iran guided by Times journalist Elaine Sciolino" at the bargain rate of $6,995 per person. Among other things, it promised "excellent insights into ... (the) life and accomplishments" of Ayatollah Khomeini, the ruthless Islamist leader who posed as a liberator, but then imposed a fundamentalist Islamic state after taking control of that country in the late 1970s. Those tours are still active, and popular.
Given that background, I suppose we really shouldn't be all that surprised that Ira Stoller at SmarterTimes.com reported a related development this morning. With the imminent lifting of Western sanctions against Iran, the ever-opportunistic International division of the Times is cohosting an October 6-7 "Oil and Money" conference in London (I promise, I'm not making this up).
By Tom Blumer | September 6, 2015 | 9:00 PM EDT
At the New York Times, a Thursday report by Alan Blinder and Tamar Lewin, with assistance credited to two others, originally identified Rowan County clerk Kim Davis, the center of national attention who has been jailed over her refusal to issue marriage licenses containing her name to homosexual couples, as a Republican. (The press has been mighty quiet about acknowledging that Ms. Davis would be okay with licenses being issued as long as they do not contain her name.)
Obviously, the "editors" must have thought, she has to be a Republican to be such a stubborn dinosaur. Problem is, she's a Democrat and was elected as a Democrat, facts that that have been widely known — including (not kidding) by the Times itself on September 1, in a writeup which Blinder co-authored, and in Rowan County election records available online since last November. The Times has added the following "correction" at the conclusion of the pair's report:
By Clay Waters | August 29, 2015 | 9:02 PM EDT
Well, he may have been a "cynical figurehead," a "sinister puppet master" and "saber-rattling menace," but he did have nice hair. President Ronald Reagan is still a reliable figure of mockery in the liberal entertainment world, and a compliment about his hair was the most flattering thing in a New York Times story on the current crop of Reagan impersonations on 1980's-themed shows.
By Jeffrey Meyer | August 2, 2015 | 1:45 PM EDT
Reacting to the news that Jon Stewart and President Obama had secret meetings at the White House, media critic David Zurawik argued that the Daily Show host has become a “tool really of the Obama administration.” During an appearance on Fox News' MediaBuzz, the Baltimore Sun columnist argued that Stewart’s meetings with Obama expose the liberal comedian’s true ideology.
By Clay Waters | May 15, 2015 | 11:34 AM EDT
ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos, who helped President Bill Clinton juggle various scandals during the 1992 campaign and as White House communication director, has apologized for failing to disclose a total of $75,000 in donations to the controversial Clinton Foundation, even before grilling Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash. The New York Times ran a surprising front-page story , "Stephanopoulos Gifts Reinforce G.O.P. Doubts," which actually touched on examples of Stephanopoulos bias against the GOP, though claiming that such bias had previously been only "circumstantial." Oh really?
By Jack Coleman | April 6, 2015 | 6:28 PM EDT
Though he's best known as a leading and fearless voice among conservatives, Rush Limbaugh is also a tech aficionado who keeps his finger on the pulse of what's coming next.
With the Apple Watch due out this month, Limbaugh on his radio show today said he's "not hot to trot for it" yet but sees possibilities for the gizmo that its creators may have missed.