Friday Open Thread

In response to commenter demand, an open thread for your Friday. First topic -- what happens when the media starts eating itself, metaphorically? At the beginning of the Lewinsky scandal, it took three days for the media to start bashing itself. Things may be truly getting awful for Obama when you see Matt Bai, formerly of Newsweek and The New York Times Magazine, whacking "TV pundits" for…
NB Staff
March 14th, 2014 8:00 AM

Big Bang-ing Hypocrite

Mrs. Cooper's sexual hypocrisy is actually a good portrayal of Christians.
Evan Mantel
March 14th, 2014 1:01 AM

CBS's Bill Plante Laments Obama's Strict Grip on Media, Mourns for Whe

Longtime CBS reporter Bill Plante gave an interview to Steve Johnson at his hometown Chicago Tribune and discussed how we face a “state-run media” in recent years. It began under Bush, he suggested. “He was neither as stupid or as disconnected as people thought, not at all. If he saw somebody leaking he didn't like it,” Plante said. “And this president doesn't like it any more than that.” He…
Tim Graham
March 13th, 2014 11:10 PM

Uh-oh: NBC News President to Discuss Future of 'Meet the Press' With D

During a brief visit to Washington, D.C., Deborah Turness – the president of NBC News – is slated to discuss the fate of the network's Sunday morning program with host David Gregory and executive producer Rob Yarin regarding possible changes to the format of Meet the Press, which recently saw its ratings tumble to their lowest point since the third quarter of 1992. According to Dylan Byers,…
Randy Hall
March 13th, 2014 8:11 PM

Column: Health Care Numbers Are Stacked Against Obama

From its inception, everything about President Barack Obama's health care law has been controversial. The latest controversy came with the government release of new numbers. Through February, 4.2 million Americans had signed up for health insurance on the government exchanges. Supporters believe that while the numbers are lower than they'd hoped, the problem was simply a poor website rollout.
Scott Rasmussen
March 13th, 2014 7:03 PM

Column: Governed by Rules, Not Men

What kind of rules should govern our lives? I'd argue that the best rules are those that we'd be satisfied with if our very worst enemy were in charge of decision-making. The foundation for such rules was laid out by my mother. Let's look at it. My mother worked as a domestic servant. That meant that my younger sister and I often lunched at home by ourselves during our preteen years. Being…
Walter E. Williams
March 13th, 2014 6:59 PM

Ronan Farrow Condescends: 'Irresponsible' Catholic Church Dogma Is 'Co

MSNBC's Ronan Farrow marked the one-year anniversary of the election of Pope Francis on Thursday by browbeating the Catholic Church for supposedly thwarting the fight against AIDS in the developing world, and for the Church's apparent lack of action in stopping genocide. Farrow played up how "Church social policies often fly in the face of skyrocketing HIV rates," and bemoaned how "the Church…
Matthew Balan
March 13th, 2014 6:48 PM

Ed Schultz Rewrites History to Ignore His Bogus ObamaCare Prediction

Apparently, Ed Schultz doesn't mean it when he says "get your tapes rolling at home." The MSNBC anchor on Wednesday attempted to rewrite his bogus, boastful prediction about ObamaCare. As noted by the Washington Post, on December 11, 2013, Schultz prognosticated: "I'm going to make a prediction tonight. It's going to hit five million by March 1st. That's right. Five million people signed up by…
Scott Whitlock
March 13th, 2014 6:33 PM

AP's Boak Hypes Weak Feb. Retail Sales Growth as 'Rebound

February's retail sales as reported may have been expectations of a 0.2 percent seasonally adjusted rise, but the 0.3 percent increase turned in was still far from impressive, especially after considering that the Census Bureau revised January's result down to -0.6 percent from an originally reported -0.4 percent. Naturally, that didn't stop the Associated Press's Josh Boak and his story's…
Tom Blumer
March 13th, 2014 5:33 PM

BBC Censored Gay Muslim's Inquiry in 'Free Speech' Forum Held at Mosqu

In a conflict that pits two politically correct minority "victim" classes against one another, which one will win out? That's a fun parlor game to play, and today across the Pond it seems the answer is observant Muslims when the conflict involves the aforementioned and gays, even if the gay person in question is, himself, a Muslim. Breitbart London managing editor Raheem Kassam has the story…
Ken Shepherd
March 13th, 2014 4:58 PM

Seth Meyers Wants to Have Rachel Maddow's Baby

You know how Chris Matthews gets a thrill up his leg when Obama's rhetoric soars to unprecedented heights from the television monitors at MSNBC? Seth Meyers undergoes a full-body thrill whenever Rachel Maddow is in the same zip code. Maddow appeared on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" Tuesday for an interview that quickly degenerated into Meyers essentially revealing he's a lesbian trapped in a…
Jack Coleman
March 13th, 2014 4:32 PM

'View' Crew Features GOP Strategist Nicolle Wallace: 'To Know Bill [Cl

The co-hosts of The View brought on Republican strategist Nicolle Wallace, Thursday, to give the Republican view on politics. But instead of offering the loyal opposition, the former top aide to John McCain gushed over the Clintons.  Asked by Jenny McCarthy if Bill Clinton's personal problems will be an issue in 2016, Wallace blurted, "No. That's baked in the cake. I mean, to know Bill is to…
Scott Whitlock
March 13th, 2014 4:08 PM

Nets Spend 100 Times More Coverage on Plugging Obama Joke Interview Th

This week, anchors and reporters practically fell over themselves laughing at Barack Obama’s Funny or Die collaboration with comedian Zach Galifianikis as they hailed the ObamaCare promotional video was “great” and urged viewers “you gotta check it out!” The Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks devoted a total of 16 and a half minutes to the fake interview, but the reason Obama had to do the…
Geoffrey Dickens
March 13th, 2014 3:31 PM

NBC Touts Anti-Gun Professor Asking: 'When May I Shoot a Student

Reacting to Idaho passing a law to allow teachers and students to carry guns on college campuses, Thursday's NBC Today promoted a Boise State University professor opposed to the legislation who authored a New York Times Op/Ed absurdly titled: "When May I Shoot a Student?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] Co-host Matt Lauer hyped how the satirical essay was "spurring…
Kyle Drennen
March 13th, 2014 3:11 PM