After a five-week hiatus, the Republican presidential candidates meet tomorrow night for their next prime time debate, moderated by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. Based on how the various networks handled the first four debates, viewers of Tuesday's CNN debate should expect: 1) the questions will be aimed at getting the candidates to fight with one another; 2) Donald Trump will take more airtime than any of his competitors; 3) Blitzer and his colleagues will gobble up more speaking time than any of the individual candidates; and 4) the audience will be much higher than for the Democratic debates.
Rand Paul
By Geoffrey Dickens | December 10, 2015 | 9:30 AM EST
An MRC analysis of interviews from January 1 to December 4 finds the broadcast networks have pounded the candidates with a blizzard of hostile and left-wing questions.
By Matthew Balan | December 7, 2015 | 1:49 PM EST
On Monday's New Day, CNN's Alisyn Camerota badgered Senator Rand Paul over President Obama's call for Congress to ban terror suspects from buying firearms: "That's one that seems as though it should be easy to fix. Why not close the loophole that allows suspects on the FBI's no-fly list to buy guns?" When Senator Paul cited how Ted Kennedy was on the no-fly list, Camerota shot back, "Look, I mean, I hear you, but fix the watch list. That's an issue of fixing the watch list...not to, somehow, let terrorists get their hands on guns."
By Matthew Balan | December 3, 2015 | 1:03 PM EST
Three CNN programs on Wednesday night and Thursday morning promoted the anti-prayer front page of the New York Daily News: "God Isn't Fixing This." Unsurprisingly, pro-gun control anchor Carol Costello quoted from the liberal newspaper's headline and sub-headline on Thursday's CNN Newsroom: "It's gotten a lot of buzz this morning...It reads, 'God Isn't Fixing This,' and slams [Ted] Cruz and other 2016 contenders as — quote, 'cowards who continue to hide behind meaningless platitudes.'"
By Tom Johnson | November 11, 2015 | 5:29 PM EST
Robin Williams’s first album was called Reality…What a Concept. More than one lefty blogger implied that Unreality…What a Concept would have been a fitting title for Tuesday night’s Republican presidential debate.
By Geoffrey Dickens | October 27, 2015 | 1:46 PM EDT
The RNC may regret its approval of John Harwood as lead moderator for Wednesday night’s GOP presidential debate on CNBC if recent history is any guide. The CNBC anchor and New York Times columnist admitted he and a producer helped make Rick Perry’s infamous “oops” moment even worse.
By Julia A. Seymour | September 18, 2015 | 1:20 PM EDT
The healthy living editor for The Huffington Post reacted to the CNN GOP debate by criticizing Donald Trump and others for “peddling dangerous and bad ideas about health,” because of their remarks about vaccinations.
Criticism of “anti-vaccination” stances is rich coming from Huffington Post, which has repeatedly been a platform for anti-vaxxer opinions including actor Jim Carrey’s. In 2009, Carrey insisted that there was still uncertainty about the safety of vaccinations. Over the years, others also stoked fear about vaccination safety including David Kirby, Dr. Bob Sears and comedian Bill Maher.
By Mark Finkelstein | August 10, 2015 | 7:48 PM EDT
In the liberal universe, there's no correlation between hard work or ingenuity and financial success. As President Obama recently put it, the rich are simply "society's lottery winners."
Sounding a similar theme, Al Sharpton today declared it "astounding" that Rand Paul believes that income inequality is due to "some people working harder." Astounding, indeed! What's wrong with Rand? How could he possibly believe that someone who works, say, 60 hours per week might earn more than someone else who works 20?
By Jeffrey Meyer | August 6, 2015 | 10:03 AM EDT
During an appearance on CBS This Morning to preview Thursday's GOP presidential debate, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul harshly criticized the media for giving Donald Trump so much coverage while ignoring the other 16 candidates running for president. After Charlie Rose wondered why Paul’s message failed to connect with the voters in the same way as Trump, the Kentucky senator explained that Trump "had a little bit of help. Y'all covered him with about a billion dollars’ worth of news media.”
By Brad Wilmouth | July 6, 2015 | 4:48 PM EDT
On Monday's New Day, CNN again reminded its viewers that the news network's idea of a politically balanced group of voters is to have Democrats who articulate liberal viewpoints paired with Republicans who themselves sound liberal with few conservative views expressed by anyone. After being bumped from the June 26 show in favor of breaking news, the third planned segment featuring a group of six voters from Charleston, South Carolina, finally aired, and again featured political talk heavily slanted to the left in spite of the presence of two self-identified Republicans with two Democrats and two independents. One Republican in particular, Ashley Caldwell, complained that South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham is "super conservative," and fretted that he has not supported a "woman's right to choose."
By Clay Waters | June 18, 2015 | 9:47 PM EDT
Frank Bruni went petty to accuse the Republican candidates of backwards sexism in his latest New York Times column, "The G.O.P.'s Blinkered Contenders." Bruni, who previously served as a White House correspondent for the Times, used a single word by Sen. Rand Paul to bizarrely condemn the entire party for sexism – "a medieval metaphor" that "revealed an antiquated mind-set." The word? "wife."
By Ken Shepherd | June 4, 2015 | 5:18 PM EDT
Kudos to the Daily Beast for spotlighting an interesting story that most of the rest of the liberal media will no doubt ignore.