Conservatives & Republicans

ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today on Friday did their best to downplay Senate Democrats' Thursday move to curtail the Republican Party's filibuster power. The two newscasts devoted a combined 39 seconds to the controversial vote, which ABC's Dan Harris labeled a "bold move". GMA apparently thought the potential marriage of serial killer Charles Manson was more important, as it devoted…

HealthCare.gov is so insecure that IT experts say they wouldn't use it themselves. The supposedly firm November 30 deadline for the web site's repair and recovery really isn't. Back-end problems abound. Earlier this week, Henry Chao told a congressional committee that "the back-office systems, the accounting systems, the payment systems, they still need be built." That is, they apparently haven…

Morning Joe sidekick Mika Brzezinski hurled a favorite liberal accusation at Republicans on Thursday’s episode. She started by presenting it merely as a question that she and Joe Scarborough received often during his book tour: “One of the points [Joe] makes [in his book] was illuminated in a question that we get everywhere we went, which is why do Republicans not want Americans to have health…

On Wednesday's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC.com Executive Editor Richard Wolffe credited Hillary Clinton with a "monumental effort" in "recovering from" the Bush administration's alleged mistakes as he responded to conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer's assertion that the former Secretary of State had no significant accomplishments she could point to in a presidential run…

CNN's Chris Cuomo and Kate Bolduan cautioned against MSNBC suspending or firing host Martin Bashir for his latest broadside against Sarah Palin, on Thursday's New Day. Cuomo actually asked if he wasn't just trying to make a "rhetorical point" rather than be "hurtful" to Palin. Bashir had clearly stated that Palin was "the outstanding candidate" to receive a certain punishment for slaves –…

If only "Republican" Nicolle Wallace would be as critical of Democrats as she is of members of her own putative party . . . On today's Morning Joe, Wallace—adviser to Sarah Palin during the 2008 campaign—decided that in order to praise Republican governors, she had to pound Republicans in Congress. Wallace took her shot at congressional Republicans in the course of discussing Chris Christie…

During a discussion on the Martin Bashir program Wednesday, The Daily Caller's Matt Lewis decided he had simply had enough. Fellow panelist and Georgetown professor Dr. Michael Eric Dyson was holding forth about how President Obama's political opposition was grounded not in criticism of his ideology or his (lack of) leadership but, you guessed it, racism. Fed up with conservatives constantly…

Ed Schultz knows nothing about misdemeanor sentencing guidelines . . . Playing the race card over the arrest and conviction of Republican congressman Trey Radel for cocaine possession, Ed Schultz has claimed there is "no doubt" that an African-American who committed the same crime "would be facing jail time." Really? Radel's crime was a misdemeanor, and he was a first-time offender. It would…

On Tuesday's PoliticsNation, MSNBC.com Executive Editor Richard Wolffe accused Texas Senator Ted Cruz of "encouraging, inflaming and yes, flirting" with "fringe elements" who are "very ugly" and "racist" as he responded to a clip of the Texas Republican suggesting that the House could have grounds to impeach President Obama. Host Al Sharpton set up the segment by recounting birther conspiracy…

Wednesday's CBS This Morning stood out as the only Big Three morning show to spotlight Henry Chao's stunning revelation to Congress – that a significant portion of the I.T. infrastructure needed to support HealthCare.gov has yet to be built. NBC's Today completely ignored Chao's testimony, while GMA aired a 19-second brief that vaguely summarized the hearing. Meanwhile, the ABC show devoted a 1…

Appearing on Tuesday's Tonight Show, former President George W. Bush got a laugh from the audience with this one-liner: "We've always had such great relations with NBC." Host Jay Leno added to the joke by taking his own shot at the network: "I'm glad one of us has." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] The brief exchange was prompted by Leno asking the former commander-in-…

Never one to let facts get in the way of the proabort narrative, Mark Sherman at the Associated Press characterized today's 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to allow Texas's abortion law to stand while on appeal as one rendered by "the court's conservative majority." Really? Anthony Kennedy is one of the justices in the critical "Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), which reaffirmed in…

Can anyone imagine a top Bush 43 adviser, say Karl Rove, telling a reporter that his boss couldn't attend an important American historical anniversary event because "he's too busy trying to save the Republican Party"? Dan Pfeiffer is "Assistant to the President of the United States and Senior Advisor to the President for Strategy and Communications." Today, in response to a tough but fair…

Appearing as a guest on Monday's PoliticsNation on MSNBC, syndicated columnist Cynthia Tucker charged that Republicans "pandered" to "bigot" and "homophobes" in the 2004 presidential election, and later threw in the word "racists" as well, as she and host Al Sharpton responded to Wyoming Republican Senate candidate Liz Cheney's dispute with sister Mary over the same-sex marriage issue. Tucker…