Filling in for Alex Wagner on her MSNBC show Wednesday, Luke Russert had a segment on NFL player and defensive end Michael Sam, who was signed earlier in the day to the Dallas Cowboys after being released by the St. Louis Rams on Saturday. Russert opined that the reason there was a delay before Sam was signed by another team was not because of any media “distractions" or that he was not a good enough player, but it was “probably because he’s gay.”

In the first portion of the over five-minute-long segment, Russert cited reports from anonymous NFL general managers to two sports media outlets that teams wanted to sign Sam, but “fear[ed] the media attention” and “the circus coming to town” in additional media. [See video below]

Last week Newsbusters analyzed the strange new respect granted a local Texas candidate (and Bush family member) George P. Bush: His global warming advocacy which, according to an approving headline, "Stray[ed] From Party Ideology."

Reporter Neena Satija of the Texas Tribune praised Bush, a candidate for Texas Land Commissioner, for avoiding making a "Tea Party talking point" and admitting the threat of global warming “honestly keeps me up at night.” But that's not what Bush actually said, according to the full transcript of the Satija-Bush interview posted at the Texas Tribune, a left-leaning journalism center which partners with the Times. In fact, reporter Satija was the one constantly introducing the subject of climate change, and used egregiously out-of-context quotes to make a phony case that Bush was a true believer in human-caused global warming. Sarah Rumpf at Breitbart has the scoop:

DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz ramped up “War on Women” rhetoric to an accusatory new level. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports the Florida congresswoman said the Governor of Wisconsin is a domestic abuser: "Scott Walker has given women the back of his hand. I know that is stark. I know that is direct. But that is reality."

Wasserman Schultz added: "What Republican tea party extremists like Scott Walker are doing is they are grabbing us by the hair and pulling us back. It is not going to happen on our watch." The Democratic candidate for governor there, Mary Burke, was backtracking:

The family of Steven Sotloff, the second American journalist beheaded in the past two weeks by members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria -- or ISIS -- is reportedly “outraged” at President Barack Obama and his staff for making “deliberate leaks,” which the relatives interpret as “an attempt to absolve the administration of inaction.”

While this might seem to be the basis of an extensive news article investigating that angle of the conflict between the terrorist group and America, the New York Times reported on it -- in the final three paragraphs of a lengthy article in its Tuesday edition.

On Wednesday night’s NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams completely missed the mark on President Obama’s mixed signals regarding how his administration intends to deal with the threat of the Islamic terrorist group ISIS and omitted remarks from Obama that ISIS can be contained to the point of being “a manageable problem.”

At the top of the broadcast, Williams made this blatant falsehood: “[F]or all those who may be wondering if the U.S. is going to rise up, take the bait and get into the fight to root them out, the answer today from both the President and Vice President appeared to be clear and unambiguous.” [MP3 audio here; Video below]

Plenty of commentators have predicted that Republicans will pick up seats in this fall’s midterm elections, but haven’t opined whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Then there’s Esquire’s political blogger Charles Pierce, whose gloomy forecast for the midterms is that “the power of the insane party will likely be enhanced.”

In a Tuesday post, Pierce lamented the impact of Republican madness on American foreign policy, stating that in a time of serious problems that include jihadism and Vladimir Putin’s designs on former Soviet republics, “the United States [is] scrambled and paralyzed by the kind of petty vandalism” that the congressional GOP has specialized in since President Obama took office.

Here at NewsBusters, we've documented how Chris Matthews has gushed about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and how she could be a "truly great president." We've also noted how Matthews did his best to spin Mrs. Clinton's bumpy book tour, comparing it to a rehearsal run in New Haven before a Broadway production goes live on the Great White Way.

But now it seems the Hardball host has a thrill up his leg for the prospect of Vice President Biden jumping into the ring, perhaps beating Clinton to the punch by declaring his candidacy before she does. Matthews discussed the prospect tonight with Washington Post reporter Perry Bacon and former Biden speechwriter Matthew Littman. When the latter laid out the case for why Biden should "want to run," Matthews interjected:

Ultra-left-wing blogger Amanda Marcotte targeted an apparent societal "tyranny" in a Wednesday item for Slate: the "burden" that the "home-cooked meal" places on women in particular. Marcotte played up a recent study by a feminist professor and her two colleagues that underlined that "while home-cooked meals are typically healthier than restaurant food...the stress that cooking puts on people, particularly women, may not be worth the trade-off."

The writer played up how men are supposedly a large part of this "tyranny" on "middle-class working mothers:"

Ever since Piers Morgan's weeknight television program on the Cable News Network was canceled in February and left the air in late March, the future of the gun-hating, staunchly liberal host has been in limbo. That changed on Tuesday, when the British anchor tweeted that “I am no longer a CNN employee.”

In a series of posts, Morgan stated that he “was offered a new two-year deal by CNN boss Jeff Zucker to host 40 big interview 'specials'” but “decided not to accept it -- and to try pastures new.” Of course, the liberal anchor couldn't resist taking one more potshot at the National Rifle Association, stating: “I'm not done with you lot.”

On Tuesday night Mark Halperin and John Heilemann stopped by Charlie Rose’s PBS show to throw cold water on GOP hopes of re-taking the Senate as the co-authors of Game Change and current Bloomberg Politics editors spouted the typical inside-the-beltway view of the Republican Party’s 2014 chances.

Halperin claimed the GOP was hampered by having “no real message” whereas the Democrats could run on “keeping Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security” - basically the same ideas they have run on since the 1930s.  Heilemann also told Republicans to cool their jets. (Video after the jump)