Russia

Josh Earnest Excuses Putin's Obama Snub: 'Chaos' Inside UN Building
By Mark Finkelstein | September 29, 2015 | 9:54 AM EDT

Vladimir Putin probably had to wait 20 minutes for an elevator. Yeah, that's the ticket . . . 

Josh Earnest, Barack Obama's spokesman, has excused Vladimir Putin's snub of the President of the United States, in which the Russian strongman turned up 20 minutes late for their lunch at the UN yesterday.  On today's Morning Joe, Earnest lamely defended Vlad's tardiness: "anybody that's been around the UN during the General Assembly knows it's total chaos inside that building, so people ae running late quite frequently. " Right. And if you believe that, we've got an oceanfront condo in Moscow to sell you.

MSNBC Panelists Fret Obama Syria Policy That Is 'Failure,' 'Disaster'
By Brad Wilmouth | September 29, 2015 | 1:03 AM EDT

During MSNBC's live coverage before President Obama's speech to the United Nations on Monday, a panel consisting of NBC's Chuck Todd and guest Ian Bremmer of Eurasia Group fretted over the "disaster" of President Obama's Syria policy in the aftermath of Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent success in using the civil war to increase Russian influence in the Middle East.

ABC and NBC Ignore Suspension of Obama’s Failed Rebel Training Policy in Syria
By Curtis Houck | September 28, 2015 | 10:52 PM EDT

While the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC all covered on Monday night the developments at the United Nations (U.N.) and the meeting between President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin, ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News failed to go the distance and report that Obama’s disastrous rebel training initiative in Syria had been suspended. In contrast, the CBS Evening News not only covered the announcement from the Pentagon but led the newscast with the story.

MSNBC Guests Compare Iran Deal to Opening of China, Lament the ‘Political Climate’ Caused by GOP
By Curtis Houck | September 11, 2015 | 8:08 PM EDT

During a segment on MSNBC’s The Last Word late Thursday, all three liberal panelists spouted off on the ability of the Soviet Union to follow treaties (in context of the Iran deal), comparing the Iran nuclear agreement to Richard Nixon’s China visit, and lamenting the “partisan...political climate” Republicans have caused the deal to be implemented under. 

State-Run RT Stumbles, Inaccurately Reports Russian Space Launch
By Matthew Balan | September 2, 2015 | 11:58 PM EDT

RT, a media outlet funded by the Russian government, desperately needed a fact checker for its Wednesday article about the launch of a Russian Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station earlier in the day. The unsigned item reported that "the 500th Soyuz rocket has successfully lifted off from the Gagarin's Start launchpad marking a historic milestone for Baikonur Cosmodrome." In reality, it was the 500th overall launch from the launch site in Kazakhstan, which has hosted several different types of rockets

Undisclosed Hillary Bundler at CNN: She 'Revived America's Reputation'
By Tom Blumer | August 18, 2015 | 3:43 PM EDT

Yesterday, CNN.com published a attempted defense of Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State by Eleni Kounalakis. An "Editor's Note" before the piece begins describes Ms. Kounalakis as the "United States ambassador to Hungary from 2010 to 2013," the author of a book on her time there, and "a senior adviser to the Albright Stonebridge Group" (as in "Madeline Albright").

The "editor" at CNN "forgot" to mention one "little" thing, noted by John Hinderaker at Powerline: "... she was one of Hillary’s top (2008) fundraisers, a fundraiser who was paid off with an ambassadorship, and therefore hardly an objective observer of Hillary’s successes (or lack thereof) as Secretary of State."

Troll Examples? NY Times Lists ISIS Backers, 'Right-Wing Agitators'
By Tim Graham | June 4, 2015 | 1:55 PM EDT

The New York Times can show a liberal bias even when it writes on Internet trolls. How do we illustrate the problem? 

"Today an ISIS supporter might adopt a pseudonym to harass a critical journalist on Twitter, or a right-wing agitator in the United States might smear demonstrations against police brutality by posing as a thieving, violent protester."

Soundbite of the Week: Soviets Feared ‘Reagan, AIDS and Jews’
By Brent Baker | May 16, 2015 | 10:24 PM EDT

“There’s three things I tell people that the Russians were afraid of: AIDS, Jewish people and Ronald Reagan.”Question: “In that order?” Reply: “I think Ronald Reagan took the top spot. They thought he would push the button.” One more reason to love Reagan.

FX’s The Americans Wraps Up Season With KGB Agents Distraught at Reagan’s ‘Evil Empire’ Speech
By Brent Baker | April 25, 2015 | 9:47 PM EDT

A great third season ending Wednesday night on FX’s The Americans, as the episode juxtaposed then-President Ronald Reagan’s “evil empire” speech with two undercover KGB agents in the U.S. distraught by the charge as their frantic teenage daughter, who just recently learned their true identity, gets on the phone to tell her pastor that her parents are Russians. Plus, a cameo of the voice of Chris Wallace.

CBS Remains Silent on New Clinton Foundation Allegations; NBC Uses Soros-Funded Expert to Dismiss Claims
By Curtis Houck | April 23, 2015 | 9:37 PM EDT

On Thursday night, CBS and Spanish-language networks MundoFox, Telemundo, and Univision continued their silence on the latest controversy involving the Clinton Foundation and claims made in the upcoming book Clinton Cash about donations to the group while a Russian company purchased an American-owned uranium mine. Meanwhile, NBC ended its blackout on the story with a full report on NBC Nightly News, but downplayed the claims by touting an expert with the Soros-funded Sunlight Foundation, who declared that the book’s allegations offer “no smoking gun” regarding Clinton’s behavior.

Morning Joe Slams Howard Dean's 'Jihad' Against Clinton Exposé Authors
By Mark Finkelstein | April 23, 2015 | 10:14 AM EDT

On today's Morning Joe, ardent Hillary Clinton fan Howard Dean ran into a buzzsaw when he tried to defend her against serious charges of conflict of interest by going after the authors of the stories rather than the substance of the allegations.

Joe Scarborough ripped Dean's "comic-book politics" and called his conduct "unbecoming."  New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters accused Dean of maligning his fellow reporters, and Mika Brzezinski taunted Dean, saying "you can go on your little jihad against the author, but it's not going to change the facts."  

NYT's John Burns, Hero of Iraq War Coverage, Rips Apart Communist Regimes
By Clay Waters | April 14, 2015 | 12:07 AM EDT

New York Times veteran foreign reporter John Burns has retired after 40 years with the paper, closing a career of covering hotspots like Afghanistan, China, and Iraq, where Saddam Hussein threatened his life for his brave reporting from Baghdad for the Times and CBS News. A friend gave him the title to this essay of recollections of some of the worst places on Earth: "It's not how far you’ve traveled, it’s what you’ve brought back." What Burns brought back "was an abiding revulsion for ideology, in all its guises," from the Communist dictatorships of China, North Korea, and the Soviet Union, a revulsion some of his fellow reporters have never learned.