Esquire’s Pierce considers the web site/newspaper Politico an embarrassment to journalism (he habitually refers to it as “Tiger Beat on the Potomac”). Recently, Pierce found more fuel for his ire, a Politico story that to his disgust 1) merely hinted, rather than stated, that Scott Walker is an “unprincipled scoundrel,” and 2) virtually endorsed Walker’s “fundamental mendacity” as long as it’s effective -- in other words, if it helps him to “lie his way into the presidency.”

Pierce added that Walker’s shiftiness won’t matter to the GOP base, which “is filled with crazoids, Bible-bangers, and people with short-wave radios for brains. All they know is that Walker knuckled all the people of whom The Base is terrified. The only way Walker's bone-deep dishonesty can hurt him is if the people who stoke the plutocratic engine of the party believe that it might make him a loser. So far, they seem quite happy with the way he's done business for them.”

The front page of Friday’s Washington Post wasn’t at all objective about the FCC’s imposition of a “net neutrality” regime. The headline was “FCC makes Internet history: PROVIDERS DEEMED PUBLIC UTILITIES / New regulations aim to keep Web fair and open.”

The same thing happened on the cover of the Post’s Express tabloid, where liberal HBO host John Oliver was honored. “Net hero: The FCC’s ruling to protect Internet speeds might have gone the other way if comic John Oliver hadn’t helped spark mass outrage.”

This past Nov. 28, legendary Mexican comedian Roberto Gómez Bolaños, creator and protagonist of several television comedy series enjoyed for decades throughout the Spanish-speaking world, died at age 85. 

As to be expected, Univision, the leading Spanish-language television network in the United States, featured the news of Gómez Bolaños, better known as “Chespirito”, prominently as the lead story of its flagship newscast that day. But Chespirito’s passing wasn’t only the lead story on Nov. 28. It was the ONLY story during the entire Noticiero Univision broadcast, not only on the day of his passing, but on Nov. 29 and Nov. 30 as well. 

"Well, it is Friday night."  That was Al Sharpton's sheepish way of excusing the not-suitable-for-network-TV line that a guest had just uttered on this evening's Politics Nation.  Australian satirist Josh Zepps' zinger came during a discussion of a video ad in which young girls drop repeated f-bombs, supposedly in furtherance of feminism.

The ad was produced by a clothing company trying to cash in with t-shirts bearing PC messages against sexism and racism.  Zinged Zepps: "I'm offended by the shamelessness of the cheap ploy of the people that got them to do it  . . . There's something about this company that rubs me the wrong way. They sell t-shirts for men that say 'This is What a Feminist Looks Like.'" Read the racy rest of Zepps' comment after the jump.

Is the U.S. government doing enough to screen travelers potentially carrying Ebola into the country?

That question was ignored by the vast majority of stories on the three broadcast network’s news programming, even after Thomas Eric Duncan was diagnosed with Ebola after coming to the U.S. from Liberia. Duncan died from the disease in a Dallas hospital on Oct. 8.