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At the end of the 11 am hour on Wednesday, MSNBC fill-in anchor Milissa Rehberger interviewed Newsweek/Daily Beast contributor Melissa Lafsky Wall to discuss Newsweek's list of political "rising stars." The funniest pick was one-percent-in-the-polls GOP candidate Jon Huntsman, who Wall said "seems patient... seems willing to build gradually and bring his name to a national level." Many viewers…

Is there, or should there ever be, a point when a state is no longer penalized for its discriminatory past? Not according to the Department of Justice, which last Friday rejected a South Carolina law that would have required voters show a valid photo ID before casting their ballots. Justice says the law discriminates against minorities. The Obama administration said, "South Carolina's law…

New York Times media reporter Jeremy Peters was seeing things in Wednesday’s story on secret, “dog-whistle” religious appeals by GOP candidates past and present: “Appealing to Evangelicals, Hopefuls Pack Religion Into Ads.” “Dog-whistle politics” is a derogatory term, often employed to describe what liberals consider to be coded, subliminal racist messages “pitched” too high for the general…

On the front of Wednesday’s Style section is another one of those anti-“Islamophobia” articles starring comedians. The Post’s Tara Bahrampour began: “Beware, America. The Muslims are coming, and they look and act suspiciously like you.” If “you” were a profane secularist, apparently. Bahrampour is promoting a documentary film on a tour Muslim comedians made through Southern states called “…

In an item which still has a breaking news tag, Josh Funk at the Associated Press (saved here for future reference, fair use, and discussion purposes) call retiring Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson a "centrist," and almost seemed to mourn over "an increasingly polarizing climate" which made it clear that Nelson's reelection would have been a steep uphill fight. Of course, there was no mention of the…

While reporting on candidate Newt Gingrich "taking a pummeling" from "brutal" attack ads, ABC's Jonathan Karl noted Gingrich's positive response – a "bizarre" Gingrich campaign Christmas video that Karl laughed off as "disturbing." Karl's report aired during the 7 a.m. hour of Good Morning America. "Uh, it's a little disturbing, let me tell you," Karl scoffed at the festive video. A clip…

NPR marked Christmas morning by whacking at the Tea Party. NPR anchor Audie Cornish handed over her Weekend Edition Sunday microphone to American Enterprise Institute scholar Norman Ornstein, who gave the Tea Party a B if the goal was to “try and keep government from functioning,” but in “actually trying to make things happen in a constructive fashion, we’re down in the D-minus level, and that’…

Tom Blumer recorded today's New York Times coverage of the Kim Jong-Il funeral, including the communist regime's claim that the heavy snowfall surrounding the funeral showed "heaven's grief" over the dictator's death. San Diego radio host Mark Larson (from KCBQ/KPRZ) reminded me of the American version of this, from NBC's Andrea Mitchell praising a Democratic icon when rain soaked his funeral…

New York Times environmental reporter Justin Gillis took the left-wing idea of extreme weather equaling harmful global warming to heart in his front-page Christmas Day “news analysis” lamenting the Republican block of measures that would document “climate change” more closely, in “Harsh Political Reality Slows Climate Studies Despite Extreme Year.” But an environmental scientist eviscerated…

At the New York Times Thursday morning, reporter Choe Sang-Hun's covering the funeral for late North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il made it clear to readers that it "The funeral, and the mourning, appeared to have been meticulously choreographed by the government." Meanwhile, over at the Associated Press (saved here at host for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes), a story involving…

As America heads toward the 2012 general elections, it's become quite apparent that with little positive record to run on, President Barack Obama is ramping up a strategy of inspiring anger and fear at conservatives and Republicans. Key to this idea, at least in the view of Investor's Business Daily, is creating a strategy of crisis:

On Tuesday's World News on ABC, correspondent Jonathan Karl used the phrase "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" to label the tendency of Republicans presidential candidates to restrain negative attacks from their own campaigns, while independent groups that support the candidates are running more negative ads. While showing negative ads by supporters of Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, Karl declared:

On Tuesday's The Early Show, CBS's Katrina Zish filed a full report on the trend toward more women becoming gun enthusiasts. Last October, The Early Show notably ran a report documenting public opposition to gun control. Co-anchor Chris Wragge and substitute co-anchor Rebecca Jarvis set up Tuesday's report: (Video below)

Occupy Wall Street attacks income inequality and the richest 1 percent, adopting as its slogan ''we are the 99 percent.'' In October, its protesters staged a ''millionaires march' 'in New York City, parading to the homes of wealthy citizens such as Rupert Murdoch and David Koch. But only some riches bother the Occupiers, who have ignored the massive wealth of celebrities in their own ranks.…