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On Thursday, HLN – the network formerly known as CNN Headline News – premiered a new program: News and a Movie. A Tuesday press release from CNN detailed that "each News and a Movie presentation...features a dedicated celebrity media panel primed to explore issues sparked by the film, its place in pop culture, and the current creative and critical climate of Hollywood."

Here’s a question. What is the difference between Brian Williams and Rush Limbaugh? What is the dog that isn’t barking? Answer? The audience. There is no sudden groundswell of outraged NBC Nightly News viewers rallying to the support of the suspended anchor, angrily demanding he be restored to his job. On the contrary, when Rush Limbaugh ran into trouble in the Sandra Fluke episode and a handful…

It was inevitable. A "Hitler" parody video about the downfall of Brian Williams. What was not necessarily inevitable was how brilliantly funny this video is. One of the best, if not THE best of all the thousands of these parody videos based on the bunker scene from the movie "Downfall."

That Brian Williams six-month suspension has fallen flat. His critics aren't mollified. His supporters are clearly dispirited. Everyone knows this one is not over -- though his tenure at NBC may very well be done. The suspension isn't going to work for the same reason his apology went nowhere. It resolves nothing.

In recognition of Black History Month, Planned Parenthood is honoring 99 “extraordinary Black leaders” as the Top 99 Dream Keepers (99 being the number of years since the abortion conglomerate’s inception) because “they inspire us to break down barriers to opportunity posed by poverty, racism, and sexism.”   This year, the "distinguished" list included Melissa Harris-Perry and Joy Reid, both…

Late Friday afternoon, roughly two hours ("shortly after noon" Pacific Time) after the press release announcing Oregon Democratic Governor John Kitzhaber's resignation effective next Wednesday, Philip Bump at the Washington Post's "The Fix" blog tried to explain away the national press's nearly complete failure to cover Kitzhaber's mounting ethical and now potentially criminal problems for nearly…

Friday's CBS Evening News and ABC's World News Tonight both devoted less than half a minute each of air time to the resignation of the Democratic governor of Oregon, John Kitzhaber. CBS's Scott Pelley failed to provide Kitzhaber's party ID during his 20-second news brief. By contrast, ABC's David Muir gave the outgoing politician's political affiliation during his 17-second brief.

Appearing as a guest speaker at the Reagan Library in 2008, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams was asked who his "wow interview" was with, or what person would fit the bill. Williams tweaked the question before responding in a way that prompted an approving murmur through the audience, which presumably was what he intended.

Gov. Bobby Jindal's name is not first on most people's list of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, but maybe we should at least start paying attention to him. If one's political enemies are any indication of potential strength, Jindal of Louisiana may be a more formidable force than some people realize. During a visit to Washington Monday, Washington Post columnist…

NBC News took the step of acknowledging on Friday’s Today show that the man accused of killing three Muslims in North Carolina held atheist beliefs after having ignored that element of this tragic story in both their morning and evening newscasts since the first stories aired on Wednesday night. During the program’s 7:00 a.m. hour, newsreader Natalie Morales referred to Craig Stephens Hicks in a…

To Yesha Callahan of The Root, actor Vince Vaughn's critique of affirmative action -- which is rooted in his libertarian political leanings -- is not worth engaging on an intellectual level as a debatable philosophical proposition. It's just straight-up invalid because Vaughn is "tall," "rich" and "white."

Chris Matthews on Thursday snarled that the Republican Party has rejected Abraham Lincoln and become the home to racists. The Hardball anchor equated voter ID laws with bigotry, sneering that "you would think" that "no political party would want to be seen putting up obstacles to voting, that no party would want to be seen as the declared enemy of a large voting group." 

Frank Pallotta of CNN Money hyped in a Friday article that "in just one week, the media world has lost, in one way or another, four of its titans" – suspended NBC News anchor Brian Williams, liberal Comedy Central host Jon Stewart, CBS correspondent Bob Simon, and David Carr of the New York Times. Pallotta played up that "if the impact of losing Williams wasn't enough, in the same hour on Tuesday…

NPR’s All Things Considered was surprisingly honest on Wednesday night about Jon Stewart’s departure from The Daily Show. Stewart was credited for “influencing the way a generation of young people, especially liberals, view the news and politics.” Correspondent Don Gonyea admitted the president of the College Democrats “sees Jon Stewart as being on her side” and cited research that shows Stewart…