By Tom Johnson | September 12, 2015 | 12:41 PM EDT

To Steve Benen, Obamacare is a high-quality dress shirt that Republicans treat like a greasy rag. Benen, a producer for MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, wrote in a Friday post on the TRMS blog that even though “every GOP prediction about the Affordable Care Act has been discredited,” conservatives keep trying to use it to tarnish other measures they oppose, including the Iran nuclear deal.

“If there is a compelling parallel between ‘Obamacare’ and the international nuclear agreement,” contended Benen, “it’s this: Republicans abandoned rational thought in their contempt for the idea, and despite pleas for an alternative solution to an important pressing problem, they offered nothing but slogans and cheap talking points.”

By Tom Blumer | August 31, 2015 | 12:32 PM EDT

In the course of evaluating a claim made by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a prolife group, PolitiFact Georgia's crack investigators learned from a spokesperson for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America that the organization "does not provide mammograms at any of its health centers." Since such facilities must be licensed by the Food and Drug Administration, no PPFA facility can legally perform a mammogram.

The claim ADF made in a tweet is that "ZERO @PPFA facilities are licensed to do mammograms." On August 21, despite PPFA's de facto acknowledgment that ADF is correct, PolitiFact Georgia determined that ADF's claim is only "Half True."

By Tom Blumer | August 29, 2015 | 10:21 AM EDT

Three weeks ago, concerning Associated Press coverage of investigations into Planned Parenthood's baby body parts business, I noted that "Bad news for Planned Parenthood gets only local coverage," while "Exculpatory news, even if artificially concocted, gets national exposure."

Add the following to that observation: Obama administration attempts to punish states for attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, clearly nationally significant, only get local coverage. Kansas provides such an example.

By Mark Finkelstein | August 24, 2015 | 5:32 PM EDT

Old enough to remember when the liberal media tried to pin the "wimp" label on George H.W. Bush, the guy who lied about his age to get into WWII and who is still jumping out of planes decades later?

John Heilemann of Bloomberg TV has taken things a vulgar step further with another member of the Bush family. On his With All Due Respect show today, Heilemann called Jeb Bush the "low-T" candidate.  A laughing Josh Green, subbing for Mark Halperin, suggested that "there are pills for that but Jeb is not taking them."

By Tom Johnson | August 21, 2015 | 4:33 PM EDT

Tales of people awakening in hotel bathtubs to find their kidneys had been removed were an Internet staple in the 1990s. Taub, who's expecting her first child, argues that those bogus stories have something in common with unwanted pregnancies, given that pregnancy is a “category of living organ donation.”

“The idea of forcing someone into an organ transplant is indeed so appalling that it is the subject of several horror films, not to mention urban myths the world over,” commented Taub in a Friday article. “But the idea of forcing someone, by law and against their will, to endure the physical tolls and dangers of pregnancy is somehow considered a mainstream political position.”

By Tom Johnson | August 20, 2015 | 10:48 AM EDT

It’s a matter of political record that since at least 2009, Republicans have talked at length about health-care reform, especially alternatives to Obamacare. Apparently almost all of them were, as Jon Lovitz’s Master Thespian would put it, “Acting!” That’s essentially what The Week's Paul Waldman alleged in a Wednesday post.

“Republicans have faced a real health care problem for many years now, which is that health care just isn't their thing,” asserted Waldman. “It's one of those ‘mommy’ issues that liberals care about, while conservatives are much more likely to be interested in topics like tax policy or national defense. Yet throughout the Obama years, they've had to act like they both care about and understand the substance of this issue.”

By Spencer Raley | August 7, 2015 | 12:27 AM EDT

During Thursday night's MSNBC coverage of the Republican presidential debate, Andrea Mitchell praised Ohio Governor John Kasich’s defense of expanding Medicaid in his state: "Kasich's defense of taking the Medicaid money was absolutely a great defense. It could sell with Republican primary voters and it is terrific for a general election candidate."

By Brad Wilmouth | August 5, 2015 | 10:38 AM EDT

Appearing on Wednesday's New Day, CNN political reporter Sara Murray sounded more like a liberal CNN political commentator as she slammed GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush's comments about the federal government perhaps spending more money than it should on women's issues, as she called his remarks "cringeworthy" and "demeaning." She went on to declare that the Bush soundbite was a "gift" for Hillary Clinton and, referring to these women's programs, oddly asserted that "this is how we reproduce in America," as if federal programs were necessary for human reproduction.

By Ken Shepherd | August 4, 2015 | 6:32 PM EDT

Leave it to the Daily Beast to find objectionable a completely voluntary religious, not-for-profit alternative to for-profit ObamaCare-regulated health insurance. 

By Matthew Balan | July 28, 2015 | 5:33 PM EDT

On Tuesday's New Day, CNN's Alisyn Camerota made no mention of the outrage over Planned Parenthood varying its abortion techniques in order to preserve unborn babies' organs for medical research, as was revealed in two undercover videos. Instead, Camerota zeroed in on "these representatives from Planned Parenthood negotiating" over prices for these organs. She even touted how the "exchange of fetal tissue...obviously, does a lot of good. There's a lot of research – cures for diseases that come from it."

By Connor Williams | July 28, 2015 | 3:05 PM EDT

Tuesday on Morning Joe, regular contributor Mike Barnicle slammed Republicans who want to continue the fight against ObamaCare. Barnicle was aghast that Mike Lee (R-UT) expressed frustration at Mitch McConnell for the Kentucky Senator’s refusal to put another ObamaCare repeal on the floor. Barnicle shouted: “What is wrong with these people? I mean, what is going on?...Are they so unbound from reality that they continue to do this?”

By Tom Johnson | July 26, 2015 | 9:25 PM EDT

The Brooklyn birth-control clinic to which Planned Parenthood traces its roots opened in the fall of 1916, but according to Molly Redden, there’s concern on the left that the two recent so-called sting videos have damaged PP’s reputation to the point that the organization might not even be around for its hundredth anniversary.

“That Planned Parenthood is the target of a withering attack by anti-abortion activists is no surprise,” wrote Redden in a Thursday piece. “But this time seems different, with some of Planned Parenthood's strongest allies drawing nervous comparisons to the 2009 sting operation that destroyed” ACORN. Redden contended that the videos have taken the focus from PP the “critical women's health care provider” and instead made it “seem like a sinister outfit that profits wildly from abortion.”