Political Groups

Joe Scarborough has denied having it in for Marco Rubio. But on today's Morning Joe, he went on an anti-Rubio rant so protracted that one segment wasn't enough to contain it. Scarborough first called Rubio the "Republican Obama," who's been marketed like a "bag of potato chips," and the "emptiest suit" in the campaign. After a commercial break, Scarborough hectored Rick Santorum, who has just…

Of all the things you can call John Heilemann, one thing you cannot is "clandestine Republican operative." So it might be a sign of just how frazzled the Hillary campaign has become that her spokesman has in essence accused Heilemann of being a GOP catspaw. On today's With All Due Respect, Heilemann pressed Clinton spox Brian Fallon as to whether Hillary would call herself a liberal. Fallon…

In the November 2000 presidential election, the Big 3 TV networks prematurely declared Democrat Al Gore the winner before the polls in those portions of the Sunshine State in the Central Time Zone had even closed. According to one post-election study, the networks' arguably politically motivated calls cost Republican George W. Bush 10,000 votes, led to the most bitter post-election battle over…

A Sunday morning report by Associated Press political writer John O'Connor acts as if the the sordid history of fiscal irresponsibility in the State of Illinois is a new development brought on by a stubborn Republican governor in just the past seven months. What hogwash. The state has had a large backlog of delinquent unpaid bills for a decade, if not longer. Five years ago, a Democratic…

In trying to explain the current situation in Venezuela, the Washington Post's Matt O'Brien, in a post at the paper's Wonkblog, also inadvertently identified two reasons why authoritarian socialist tyrants like Huge Chavez and Nicolas Maduro are able to achieve and retain power. The formula is simple: When you first gain power, garner international and media goodwill by giving stuff away, like…

This afternoon, Catherine Herridge at Fox News reported that "the intelligence community has deemed some of Hillary Clinton’s emails 'too damaging' to national security to release under any circumstances." This eighth "smoking gun" — on top of the seven an Investor's Business Daily editorial identified last week — wasn't enough to move the Associated Press Bradley Klapper from the AP's default…

With news of the death of Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane, let's borrow a line from another group of the late '60s, Buffalo Springfield: "there's something happening here." What it is ain't exactly clear, but it doesn't seem to bode well for Hillary Clinton. Today's Morning Joe featured an ominous exchange between Joe Scarborough and Mark Halperin. The notion was that a variety of sources--…

On today's Morning Joe, a seething Mika Brzezinski ripped Bill O'Reilly for his failure, during his interview of Donald Trump on last night's Factor, to defend Megyn Kelly against Trump's attacks on her. Trump has called Kelly a "third-rate reporter," a "lightweight" and "not good at what she does." Rather than challenging Trump over his criticism of Kelly, O'Reilly spent the segment importuning…

Critics who warned in 2010 that the odious Dodd-Frank law's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would become a rogue agency which would become a largely unaccountable behemoth on a mission to create problems where none exist could not have been more correct. Sadly, searches on terms relevant to one of the agency's latest controversies involving the distribution of funds in a two year-old auto-…

Despite his ongoing feud with Fox News, Donald Trump honored a previous promise and appeared on The Factor tonight. Bill O'Reilly tried a variety of tactics to convince Trump to participate in Fox's GOP debate tomorrow night. Nothing was working, so O'Reilly played his trump card, citing Christianity: "the tenet of forgiveness . . . don't you think that's the right thing to do?" Shot back Trump…

If you only read establishment press reports, you might (finally) know about the "unexpectedly" competitive race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, but you would have no sense of the deep concern within the left's ranks about their unsavory choices. Card-carrying lefty Dana Milbank, from his perch at the Washington Post, laid that near-panic bare in his Tuesday evening column.…

Imagine that in some future presidential election, two Mexican-American candidates are vying for the Dem nomination. The Dem frontrunner announces he won't participate in the next debate. And a conservative pundit sneeringly says "who's going to watch a debate between the two Mexican guys?" Now imagine all hell descending on that hapless conservative for his breach of political correctness. Will…

Disabled, divorced, with a degree, working several jobs yet making less than $10,000 a year. Struggling to pay bills. Unable to buy presents for her children. Waiting for her disability to come through. Dependent on her parents. That was the sad story that a woman told Bernie Sanders at an event in Iowa yesterday. On today's Morning Joe, after airing that clip, a visibly moved Mika Brzezinski…

In an unexpected development which may ultimately qualify as a "be careful what you wish for" exercise, the District Attorney in Harris County, Texas, whose county seat is Houston, has indicted Center for Medical Progress videographers David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt. Yes you read that right, via coverage in the Houston Chronicle (bolds are mine):