The focus of the CNBC Republican presidential debate was supposed to be economic policy: taxes, trade, immigration and how to generate economic growth.
The two-part Oct. 28, debate, titled “Your Money, Your Vote,” focused on the broad categories of jobs, taxes and the deficit, the general health of the economy, and the financial freedom of Americans.
Bill Mann, freelance "humor" writer, who has been published by USA Today and the Huffington Post, got nasty with multiple Republican candidates for president during the Oct. 28, CNBC debate. Mann also describes himself as a media critic, but during the debate it wasn’t the media he was slamming, it was the candidates.
The Democrats are determined to make the issue of gun control a presidential campaign issue, according to The Washington Post. And they already have the help of the news media.
Although the broadcast network evening shows said nothing about gun control immediately following the first Republican presidential debate, the Oregon community college shooting on Oct. 1, changed the media’s agenda. It also changed the agenda for the liberals running for the Democratic nomination.
Businessman and reality TV star, Mark Cuban, seems to be jealous of the attention Donald Trump has received while campaigning for the GOP presidential nomination. In an email exchange with CNBC, Cuban discussed how presidential campaigning has changed and how he would structure his own campaign.
When he was asked whether he would run for president, he responded: “I get asked every day. It's a fun idea to toss around. If I ran as a Dem, I know I could beat Hillary Clinton. And if it was me vs. Trump, I would crush him. No doubt about it."
As part of its HighTaxHillary campaign, Americans for Tax Reform has rediscovered video of Hillary Clinton supporting a 25-percent tax on gun sales. She lent her support for the gun tax during a Senate Finance Committee hearing back in 1993, while she was First Lady.
ATR released a story and accompanying video on Sept. 8, but the major media have yet to cover the story in the two days since.
Bernie Sanders is polling better than Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, while the liberal broadcast networks continue to downplay his extreme views.
A New Hampshire poll released Sept. 8, 2015, indicated Sanders had pulled ahead of fellow presidential candidate Clinton. The networks jumped to report the poll’s findings, but haven’t properly labeled Sanders’ political views in more than two months. The last mention was on NBC Nightly News on July 3.
On Tuesday's Morning Joe, the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson attacked the Republican Party for “going way, way, way to the right on abortion.” The columnist based this opinion on Marco Rubio’s refusal to rule out voting for a bill that wouldn't have exceptions for cases of rape or incest. No word from Robinson about a move to the left in the Democratic Party despite a surge in the polls from self-avowed socialist Bernie Sanders.
Carol Costello took great offense to an ad from Ted Cruz showing the Texas senator humorously cooking bacon on a machine gun. Tuesday on CNN Newsroom, the host argued “we no longer respect our weapons. We forget that guns can actually kill.” Costello lamented “America’s cavalier attitude toward guns” and thought Cruz’s ad may have crossed the line.
On Monday's Morning Joe, panelists Al Hunt, Mark Halperin, and Steve Schmidt discussed Scott Walker’s entry into the race for the 2016 Republican nomination. All three of them voiced concern about the Wisconsin governor and criticized him for “flip-flopping” and for supposedly being inauthentic. Bloomberg’s Hunt: “I think it's a question of authenticity. He has flipped on a number of issues. And you can do some of that, you can change your mind, but, you know, you have to be authentic. And I'm not sure Scott Walker has passed that test yet.”
At MSNBC, many are rallying behind Barack Obama’s foreign policy, despite his seemingly aimless goals. On the August 12 edition of The Last Word, host Lawrence O'Donnell mentioned Hillary Clinton's comments about the President's foreign policy, in which she claimed that ‘don't do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle. O’Donnell couldn’t help but defend Mr. Obama, even if it meant attacking the likely 2016 presidential nominee for the Democrats.
After citing a quote from a Clinton spokesman designed at easing the tension between the former Secretary of State and the President, O’Donnell claimed: “Don't do stupid stuff, if it was the organizing principle of American international relations, would be the single best organizing principle we have ever had. We would finally stop doing stupid stuff.” [MP3 audio here; video below]
In a discussion about Rand Paul’s presidential chances on MSNBC’s The Last Word, a panel featuring Josh Barro and Richard Wolffe managed to hit Republicans for being anti-immigrant while also accusing Paul and conservatives – not the Obama administration – of misleading on Benghazi. Paul has received media criticism for supposedly fleeing a dinner with Rep. Steve King when the Iowa Republican was approached by two so-called “Dreamers” regarding his opposition to the President’s DACA program. Paul says he got up from lunch to conduct a pre-arranged interview with reporters a few feet away.
The New York Times’s Barro, who recently caused a stir for suggesting on Twitter that socially conservative attitudes need to be ruthlessly “stamped out,” had unkind things to say about those who support more border security as well. He whined that “so much of the Republican base...is just very strongly anti-immigration.” He elaborated further on the subject: “And when Republicans talk about these immigration issues, they come off as sort of nasty.” In Barroland, it’s “nasty” to want the President to enforce the nation’s immigration laws, but perfectly civil to daydream about society blackballing social conservatives for their religious beliefs. [MP3 audio here; video below]
Continuing the liberal media narrative that the Republican Party is doomed without passing comprehensive immigration reform, MSNBC’s Chuck Todd on Tuesday insisted that the party is in a virtual political trap that it will not find its way out of any time soon.
The Daily Rundown host stated that the Republicans are “in the worst political box I've ever seen. If they pass immigration reform they will split their party in two and it could be disastrous for them for a few years, if not a decade.” Furthering this line of thinking, Todd argued that the short-term prospects for the Republicans in presidential elections are catastrophic [MP3 audio here; video below]: