Brian Williams marks ten years as anchor of NBC Nightly News on December 2 and it’s been a decade full of absurdly softball interviews with Barack Obama and trashing of Republicans and Tea Partiers.
Paul Ryan
By Curtis Houck | November 21, 2014 | 12:44 PM EST
In a segment on his PBS show Thursday night, Charlie Rose and his guests discussed President Obama’s executive order on illegal immigration and described the responses from those in the Republican Party as “a bit extreme” and “ludicrous” while also harping on the conundrum that Republican leadership now supposedly faces in dealing with conservatives now that the executive amnesty is announced.
Joined by Karen Tumulty of The Washington Post and Michael Shear of The New York Times, the three discussed the President’s executive action in a segment that was taped prior to his speech during the program’s first 15 minutes.
By Tom Johnson | October 14, 2014 | 9:14 PM EDT
The blogger argues that Paul Ryan’s “ideological fantasies prevent him from accepting even basic scientific facts” after Ryan says scientists don’t know if humans have contributed to global warming.
By Matthew Balan | September 29, 2014 | 5:54 PM EDT
Open Obama supporter Gayle King made sure she got her liberal viewpoint across on Monday's CBS This Morning as she interviewed Rep. Paul Ryan. King spotlighted an excerpt from the congressman's new book: "You said, 'In order for the Republican Party to save the country' – some people don't think it needs saving, by the way – but you said the GOP has to change from within. What do you mean by that?"
By Jeffrey Meyer | September 15, 2014 | 11:22 AM EDT
Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) sat down with Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd on Sunday, September 14, to promote his new book “The Way Forward” and was met with a barrage of questions challenging his conservative principles.
Ryan appeared on Meet the Press’ Press Pass and was asked by Todd to comment on Governor Sam Brownback’s (R-Kan.) 2014 reelection bid. During the interview, the NBC Political Director insisted that if Brownback “loses re-election, he’s going to essentially have lost because he cut taxes too much.”
By Tom Johnson | August 26, 2014 | 6:56 PM EDT
Don’t look now, but there may be a Paul Ryan scandal, or at least a scandalette, and in this context New York magazine blogger Jonathan Chait is both Woodward and Bernstein. In a Monday post, Chait related that Ryan, in the newsmagazine The Week, had named his “six favorite books about economics and democracy,” and that the “huge omission” from the list was Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, which Ryan has so often praised to the skies.
Chait remarked that Ryan appears to be backing away from his politically problematic Randian makers/takers rhetoric and readopting a previous persona: “The new Ryan looks like the Bush-era version, with lots of giving to the rich without all the taking from the poor.”
By Tom Blumer | August 19, 2014 | 4:07 PM EDT
Imagine that a prominent Republican activist proposed a campaign of malicious destruction against Hillary Clinton's latest book. Does anyone doubt that the press would be all over it as proof that conservatives and Republicans are disrespectful and mean-spirited?
Well, Erica Payne is a prominent, aggressively self-promoting progressive. The advanced nature of her activist bona fides might cause you to assume that she would think before stooping to openly suggesting destruction of property. Nope. Via Daniel Halper at the Weekly Standard (link is in original; bolds are mine):
By Randy Hall | August 18, 2014 | 7:54 PM EDT
“Don't go away mad,” an old saying goes, “just go away.” That seems to be the case with David Gregory, who is receiving a grand total of $4 million to end his six-year tenure as host of the NBC News Meet the Press program.
Part of the 43-year-old anchor's contract is a “nondisparagement clause,” which specifies that he is not to speak out against the network, according to an article written by Emily Smith and Stephanie Smith of the Page Six website.
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By Tim Graham | August 16, 2014 | 2:22 PM EDT
The absolute coziness of the Hollywood Left and the Clintons is demonstrated by a new video made for the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. Kevin Spacey appears as his “House of Cards” character Frank Underwood and calls up Hillary and does a Bill Clinton impersonation. It’s hard to see it as anything but cheesy, smoochy material – unless you’re a big Clinton fan.
The media and political elites adore “House of Cards,” and Colby Itkowitz and Sebastian Payne at The Washington Post singled out Congressman Paul Ryan for disliking its moral turpitude in an article titled “If it’s Clinton vs. Ryan in 2016, Frank Underwood already has his pick.” (Video below)
By Scott Whitlock | August 16, 2014 | 11:08 AM EDT
In an exclusive preview of his interview with Paul Ryan, CBS This Morning journalist Richard Schlesinger on Friday chose to highlight a shot at the "brown-noser" Congressman. The reporter recounted Ryan's high school career.
He noted that the Representative was named prom king and added, "Along the way, he picked up another title -- brown-noser. And that he doesn't talk about too much." Schlesinger prompted, "You proud of the brown-noser title?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
By Jeffrey Meyer | July 27, 2014 | 1:37 PM EDT
Meet the Press moderator David Gregory did his best to condemn Congressman Paul Ryan’s new anti-poverty proposal during an interview on Sunday, July 27.
The NBC host played a clip of Ryan from 2013 in which he criticized a “dependency culture” in America which Gregory interpreted as not sounding “like there’s a lot of sympathy for people you think need the government's help. What you seem to be saying is that people have a problem with their own dependency here the government is only furthering.” [See video below.]
By Curtis Houck | July 24, 2014 | 9:25 PM EDT
Ed Schultz spent a portion of his opening monologue on his MSNBC show Thursday attacking Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and his latest policy proposal to reform government welfare programs, declaring that Ryan is “more radical than ever” and he’s “out there selling turd in the punch bowl.”
After trumpeting the long-standing liberal policy of increasing the minimum wage (which never works), Schultz moved to attack Ryan and a speech he made Thursday in which he offered, among many topics, plans to consolidate government welfare programs and reform federal education spending. [MP3 audio here; Video below]