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September shows job gains, unchanged 9.1% unemployment rate

Appearing on Friday's NBC Today, Meet the Press host David Gregory discussed the political impact of the Wall Street protests and wondered: "How does the President try to harness this anger, this sense of unfairness about the economy, about income inequality in this country, about the middle class stagnating for the past 30 years? That's what the President wants to try to tap into here."…

Energy Department bureaucrat Jonathan Silver tendered his resignation on October 6, effective the following day. Silver led the Energy Department office that approved the ill-fated $528 million loan to solar energy firm Solyndra, despite concerns from some in the White House that it was a disaster waiting to happen. Although the development occurred the same day as President Obama reiterated…

At the top of Thursday's Anderson Cooper 360, CNN's Cooper ran his first critical "Keeping Them Honest" segment on GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain since he is "no longer a voice on the fringe." Cooper pulled up quotes Cain made months ago, using a "Think Progress" clip, in an effort to hold him accountable for months' worth of statements on Sharia law and Planned Parenthood, among other…

Last week was filled with Chris Christie fat jokes. This week, Sen. Scott Brown was the target of Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren's joke about Brown's nude photos from college. Brown posed for the pictures to help pay for his schooling, but during the Massachusetts Senate debate earlier this week, the moderator reminded everyone of the issue, and asked Warren what she had done to pay for…

The media said there was "good" but "not great" news on the unemployment front in September with 103,000 jobs added, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate remained 9.1 percent. But even with that growth, Obama's jobs promises have fallen far short. His economic policies were supposed to create 4 million jobs by the end of 2010. Now, ten months later the economy…

William F. Buckley, Jr., founding father of the modern conservative movement, famously asserted his doctrine of voting for the most conservative candidate who is electable. Let me presume to add an analytic codicil: The GOP and the conservative movement have tended to support the most conservative policies only when they are understood to be conservative and are plausibly supportable by the…

At the top of Friday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer wondered if a joke by Republican Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown in response to a jab by Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren was a "comeback or insult" and noted that "women's groups are giving him a big dressing down today." In a later tease of the story, fellow co-host Ann Curry proclaimed: "A senate race in Massachusetts has…

ABC's Brian Ross on Friday investigated the alleged misdeeds of "billionaire boosters" to the Tea Party and even used a liberal documentary to attack the conservative group. Appearing on "Good Morning America," Ross touted a Bloomberg report hitting the "secret sins" of Koch Industries and whether the corporation traded with Iran. An ABC graphic linked, "Billionaire Boosters of the Tea Party…

Occupy Wall Street might not just be for smelly hippies any more. Major unions and some high-priced Hollywood stars and starlets are throwing their support to the protest. But that’s not enough. During the live video feed of the protest Thursday afternoon, a woman who identified herself as “Beth Bogart,” stopped by the media table and expressed concern they would get “overwhelmed.” She…

UPDATE AT END OF POST: O'Donnell evaded draft with college deferment. Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain and MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell had quite a heated battle on Thursday's "The Last Word." During one segment, after O'Donnell besmirched his guest for not enlisting for military service during the Vietnam War despite having worked for the Department of Navy as a ballistics…

During the "Psycho Talk" segment of The Ed Show on Thursday, MSNBC host Ed Schultz complained that Massachusetts Republican Senator Scott Brown "has degraded women" as he highlighted liberal criticism of Senator Brown for a joke he recently made about Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren. [Yes, the same  Ed Schultz who was briefly suspended earlier this year by MSNBC for calling…

Strangely claiming to still be an "independent," actor-slash-Obama-advisor Kal Penn wrote for the God's Politics blog on September 29 that his heart was broken by the crowds at Republican debates, but urged  Obama's young voters it's "time to re-engage!" That doesn't sound very "independent" of Obama at all. But, then "Kumar" of the marijuana-addled "Harold and Kumar" movies has only donated…

Twenty years ago, Senate Democrats and National Public Radio reporter Nina Totenberg colluded to try and ruin the Supreme Court nomination of Clarence Thomas by promoting the never-substantiated sexual harassment allegations of Anita Hill. If a woman ever claimed Barack Obama talked up Long Dong Silver porn films to her, you can bet it would be seen as an ugly, racist right-wing smear promoted…