CNN’s Bash to Paul Ryan: How Can You ‘Control’ the Freedom Caucus?

On Sunday’s State of the Union, fill-in host Dana Bash sat down with newly-elected Speaker of the House Paul Ryan about his goals for the new job but did her best to play up the supposed dysfunction among House GOPers. The CNN host played up the liberal line that members of the House Freedom Caucus are a major problem for Republican leadership and asked Ryan “How are you going to control the 40…
Jeffrey Meyer

Cruz Declares War on 'Media Agenda,' Columnist Declares War on Cruz

The Dallas Morning News reports Ted Cruz’s campaign “raised $1.1 million in 22 hours” after the CNBC debate by “declaring war on the liberal media agenda.” It’s the third straight million-dollar post-debate fundraising haul for the campaign. This led Chicago Tribune columnist Rex Huppke to write an allegedly humorous column declaring war on Ted Cruz:
Tim Graham

Obama-Clinton Emails Make His Related Kroft Interview Statements False

A Friday evening story at the New York Times covered the Obama administration's decision to "try to block the release of a handful of emails between President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton." In it, reporters Michael D. Shear and Michael S. Schmidt demonstrated that President Obama undoubtedly did not tell the truth in his interview with CBS News's Steve Kroft in a 60…
Tom Blumer

Not News: Mediocre Economy Has Cost Americans Thousands Each

On Thursday, the government reported that the nation's economy turned in yet another quarter of poor economic performance, estimating that its gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 1.5 percent in the third quarter. The business press almost universally downplayed the news, and told readers that the fourth quarter will be better. No one talked about how much the tepid growth of the…
Tom Blumer

NYT Throws 'Far-Right...Hard-Right...Hard-Line' Labels at GOP

The election of a new Speaker of the House had the New York Times firing up its reliably crooked labeling machine. On Thursday, reporter and repeat offender David Herszenhorn lamented that "Many Republicans, including members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus who had hounded Mr. Boehner from the speakership, accused him and other party leaders of betraying them with a late-hour deal that was…
Clay Waters

Study: NY Times Calls Jill Biden 'Dr.' Much More Often Than Ben Carson

R.J. Lehmann at the R Street Institute tired a little searching on the Nexis news database and discovered that Jill Biden is more than three times more likely to be called “Dr.” by The New York Times as Ben Carson is! Ben Carson was a neurosurgeon. Jill Biden has a doctorate in education.
Tim Graham

AP Story Fails to Tag NY Co-op's Crackup As an Obamacare Failure

Many of the state cooperative health insurers, or "co-ops," set up under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, have gotten into serious financial trouble quite quickly. Almost half have cracked up completely. Specifically, as noted at Forbes.com on Thursday morning, "[O]f the 24 Obamacare co-ops funded with federal tax dollars, one (Vermont’s) never got approval to sell…
Tom Blumer

Media Mum? Chick-fil-A Drifting Away from Traditional Values

Terry Mattingly at the media-analysis site GetReligion wonders why no one outside the religious or conservative media discovered this story at Baptistnews.com: “Chik-fil-A [sic] challenged for sponsoring LGBT-themed film festival.” It began: "Three years after evangelical Christians designated a day to eat more chicken in support of Chik-fil-A’s defense of traditional marriage, the Southern…
Tim Graham

HBO's Maher Repeats False Claims in Trashing 'Insane' Ben Carson

On Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher, the liberal HBO comedian opened the show trashing GOP presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson by not only including him in a joke about Bill Cosby's history of rape, but also by advancing false assertions that Dr. Carson claimed to be "cured" of prostate cancer by a controversial nutritional supplement when video shows Carson clearly did not claim the…
Brad Wilmouth

Blogger Kevin Drum: ‘Virtually No Scandal’ In Obama White House

Even though Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum describes Charles Krauthammer as a “hardcore conservative,” he suggested in a Friday post that Krauthammer is too enlightened to be on the same page as most right-wingers regarding Obama White House scandals. When Krauthammer argued recently against the effort to impeach IRS commissioner John Koskinen, he commented that on matters including the IRS/Tea…
Tom Johnson

Time for a Talk-Radio GOP Debate...In the Newly Open NBC Slot

It’s time for a GOP talk radio debate. Specifically on February 26th of next year. Why February 26th? Because of this news…welcome news…from Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus.  The RNC has now pulled the GOP from the February 26th GOP debate that was to be hosted by NBC. In the wake of the disaster that was the CNBC debate - which was an open attack on the candidates - Priebus has…
Jeffrey Lord

Surprise: CNN Touts Model 'Giving Hope To Others With Disabilities'

CNN refreshingly spotlighted a teen model with Down syndrome on Wednesday's New Day. Dr. Sanjay Gupta reported that 18-year-old Madeline Stuart's "modeling career is taking off. She walked the runway during Europe Fashion Week this fall, and won a contract to be the face of lipstick company Glossigirl — all of which her mom says is giving hope to others with disabilities." Down syndrome people…
Matthew Balan

Politico Story on Mentally-Ill Politicians Features Photo of Goldwater

Politico Magazine runs a long article by Alex Thompson today with the provocative headline: "Could America Elect a Mentally Ill President? Yes. In fact, we probably already did." The story discusses the possible mental issues, and documented consumption of drugs used to treat mental illness, of numerous politicians, including several presidents, among them JFK, LBJ and Nixon. But here's the—…
Mark Finkelstein

CBS's 'Blue Bloods' Confronts Black Lives Matter

Okay, so this is pretty much going to boil your blood. On Friday night’s edition of Blue Bloods, an episode titled “Rush to Judgment,” Black Lives Matter, or the made-for-TV equivalent thereof, take center stage as Jamie Reagan (Will Estes) son of police commissioner Frank Reagan (Tom Selleck) confronts an angry mob of protestors who are…well…angry. What else would they be?
Dylan Gwinn