MS NOW (formerly MSNBC)

If Chris Matthews' preview, on Tuesday's Hardball, of his heavily promoted MSNBC documentary Rise of the New Right, is an indicator of what his special will be like expect a lot of rehashing of Matthews' various attacks on the Tea Party over the past year as he links them and Rush Limbaugh with the birther movement and ominously warns of their potential for violence. Matthews told his viewers…

Appearing on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports on Tuesday, Politico columnist Roger Simon described a recent interview with President Obama: "...he showed a genuine irritation....when people like Bobby Jindal, you know, standing up, screaming about more federal action...a small-government, no federal aid kind of guy. And the President is calling out those people for hypocrisy."Simon was discussing…

When asked what President Obama needs to do to prove to Americans that his administration is on top of the Gulf cleanup, Ed Schultz pressed that the President needs to call the shots and go "dictator" in his dealings with BP."I think the President has to make it very clear to the American people tonight, Chris, that we're not going to be stuck with the bill on this," Schultz said about the BP oil…

Mika Brzezinski, the self-proclaimed Democrat and co-host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," thinks the two men who tried an "ambush interview" of Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-N.C.) acted wrongly, along with the congressman. In a video that surfaced online Monday, the Congressman was caught on camera grabbing a man by the wrist, swatting at his video camera, and demanding to know who he was. The man videotaped…

MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Monday said, "Democratic Congressman Bob Etheridge of North Carolina was ambushed by a group of unknown activists."The "Hardball" host began his report concerning the Congressman's unprovoked attack on two students, "Next: ginning up a skirmish."This came just a few hours after Matthews' colleague Tamron Hall made similar on air allegations concerning the incident.…

After wondering on Friday if President Obama should help push energy legislation through Congress, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell continued her cheerleading for a new energy agenda on Monday. On her afternoon show "Andrea Mitchell Reports," Mitchell downplayed the cost of last summer's Cap and Trade bill, and opined that solar energy should be a part of the American energy future."Ed Markey's bill–…

Newsweek's Howard Fineman, on Monday's Hardball, pushed Barack Obama to "overdo" and "overstep" in his efforts to get BP to plug the leak and stop the oil spill in the Gulf, something Fineman claimed Obama hadn't done yet because "he's usefully and rightfully dangerous about power. I think he thought...George W. Bush overstepped in terms of executive power...he's an observer by nature." This…

The legacy media love to paint steadfast conservatives as "far right" "ideologues" who are destroying the GOP's "big tent" and "purging" moderates. The notion that the Republican Party has drifted too far to the right, however, is contradicted by a new Gallup poll showing that Americans are more concerned about Democrats' fringe elements.About half (49%) of poll respondents told Gallup that they…

Sometimes even the seemingly most unreasonable characters as far public policy goes can be reasoned with if the circumstances are right. Just sometimes it takes someone like Steve Forbes to pull it off. On the June 14 broadcast of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Forbes explained that a flat tax might be the medicine that Greece, a country on the fiscal brink needs. "Well, when you engage in binge…

Ad hominem attacks supplanted thoughtful discussion yet again on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” On Monday, co-host Joe Scarborough chastised Republicans as “genuinely stupid” for criticizing President Barack Obama’s handling of the BP oil spill, adding that the GOP must think the American people are “dumb as hell.”“The Republicans blaming Obama look genuinely stupid because of eight years of deregulation…

California's Democrat gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown on Tuesday called his Republican rival Meg Whitman a Nazi.You probably didn't hear about this because America's media largely ignored it. By contrast, the press had a field day when Republican senatorial candidate Carly Fiorina made a comment about Barbara Boxer's (D-Calif.) hair that was picked up by an open microphone Tuesday evening.Why…

Chris Matthews on Friday got himself marvelously smacked down by a Louisiana Congressman.In an at times heated discussion about energy policy with Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and Steve Scalise (R-La.), the "Hardball" host continually bashed the GOP."The smartest move for your party is to screw things up for the next couple of years, right through November, get the country completely…

On Friday’s Countdown show, after having decided not to include Helen Thomas as a nominee in his "Worst Person" segment for her anti-Semitic declaration that Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go home" to Germany and Poland, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann included Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace in his "Worst Person" segment for suggesting that it would be "poetic justice" if Fox…

MSNBC’s Savannah Guthrie thinks the Vatican has “minimized” the clergy abuse scandals for months, before Pope Benedict’s Friday apology. And MSNBC seemed to do their level best to “minimize” that, during the 9a.m. EDT news hour.Guthrie reported that the Vatican publicly apologized for the sex abuse scandals within the Catholic clergy Friday,  “after months of minimizing” the scandals. “I have to…