PBS

On Friday’s Need to Know program on PBS, during the show’s semi-regular allegedly humor-based "Next Week’s News" portion of the show, Andrew Borowitz devoted the entire segment to mocking Sarah Palin’s intelligence as he faux-predicted that, after winning the 2012 presidential election, "Her first official act will be to cancel the agreement between nouns and verbs," and that she will then "…

Chrystia Freeland, global editor-at-large for Reuters, believes the new financial regulations are still pretty loose."It is still a very feudal, very Byzantine regulatory system," Freeland complained on the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer, referring to the Senate's approval of a financial regulations bill yesterday.A radical policy, Freeland maintained, could have done away with the current "…

Travel writer and public television personality Rick Steves lauded Europeans's "more relaxed" attitude about nudity in public and on television while labeling Americans "overly prudish" by comparison in a Tuesday column on CNN.com: "I like a continent where the human body is considered a divine work of art worth admiring openly."Steves's ode to European nudity began six paragraphs into the column…

Apparently, Tavis Smiley of PBS knows what's best for Gulf residents, even if it would mean widespread unemployment.Smiley hosted a Wednesday night interview with Rep. Henry Waxman (D) on his show, where the liberal Californian admitted that while alternative energy sources need to be explored and developed, America still needs to drill for oil, albeit safely.But Smiley wondered aloud how…

Advocacy groups have increasingly labelled their opposition as "astroturf," or corporate-funded fake grassroots, groups in order to demean them and lessen the fact that both sides enjoy some measure of public support. Many of the organizations throwing around accusations of astroturfing, such as the Marxist net neutrality advocacy group Free Press and the liberal ThinkProgress not only engage in…

Given that our tax dollars are subsidizing her salary, is it too much to expect PBS's Bonnie Erbe to have at least some intelligent command of the issues of the day?On second thought, don't answer that.In her latest blogging misadventure at USNews.com, the "To the Contrary" host portrayed yesterday's 5-4 ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago as a blow to "local rights":The Supreme Court's…

For taxpayer-funded PBS, the blueprint for America's future is centered on advancing the Obama administration's taxpayer-funded green agenda. In the June 17 installment of "Blueprint America," Miles O'Brien, a "NewsHour" special correspondent, hailed Dubuque, Iowa as the "city of the future" for transforming itself into a liberal beacon of environmental sustainability.O'Brien's piece showered…

Appearing on Charlie Rose's PBS program, Time magazine's Mark Halperin dismissed the GOP responses to President Obama's Oval Office speech as "childish" and "churlish" adding that the GOP "mocked" the President on Tuesday night, instead of seeking common ground with him on new energy legislation.The Time reporter thinks the present Gulf disaster constitutes a "national crisis," but also posited…

Have liberals blacked out the sex-and-perjury impeachment of Bill Clinton? MSNBC's Chris Matthews appeared on the Charlie Rose show on PBS Thursday, and Rose asked him about how Sen. Blanche Lincoln had a “secret weapon” in her primary race in Arkansas. Matthews responded by laying it on thick about how great Bill Clinton is. Surely viewers giggled as Matthews talked about Clinton giving Lincoln…

Nearly two months ago, atheist feminist and PBS "To the Contrary" host Bonnie Erbe insisted that the pro-life movement is essentially a church pew-packing conspiracy:What is the religious right doing by campaigning against abortion? First and foremost, its efforts seem aimed at trying to keep church pews filled by bringing more and more poor people into the world.She's still at it. In her…

Is it the government’s job to spread happiness? A former president of Harvard University, who was profiled on the June 2 PBS “NewsHour,” seems to think so. Derek Bok, author of The Politics of Happiness, believes the government should be in the business of manufacturing happiness.“I think a government that tries, systematically, to relieve what causes lasting misery and emphasize what gives…

In a PBS interview June 2, Vice President Joseph Biden predicted 700,000 to 1.4 million jobs would be created by the end of 2010. But at most, that would still be more than 5.2 million jobs shy of matching President Obama's claims about economic stimulus. Biden forecast job creation "between 100,000 and 200,000 jobs on average all the way through this year" in an interview with Charlie…

PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler on Tueday addressed Tavis Smiley's claim that Christian terrorists commit far more violence than Muslim ones. Smiley also issued a statement that defended his comments, though it misrepresented what those comments actually were. "I don't think he made his case, or even came close," Getler said. He rightfully noted that the 2000 Columbine massacre, Smiley's only…

PBS station managers made a big push last year to drive any trace of “sectarian” Christianity out of the taxpayer-funded broadcasting system, banning any church services or religious lectures that appeared on a handful of stations. They ultimately compromised and banned any new church programming. But on at least one program, PBS sounds like it’s declaring war on Christianity, including smears on…