Fed Govt. Watchdog GAO Says Bergdahl Swap Broke Federal Law; Networks

Here's more evidence that the Big Three broadcast newscasts are failing to act as Obama administration watchdogs. Today the federal Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan arm of the legislative branch, released a report finding that the Obama/Hagel Department of Defense broke federal law with the manner in which it negotiated the Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl prisoner swap earlier this year. Such…

AP Reporter Slams State Dept. Claim That Journalist Beheading Was 'Not

During a press briefing on Wednesday, deputy State Department spokesperson Marie Harf condemned the beheading of American journalist James Foley by Islamic terrorists while adding that the threat posed by the terror group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) “is not about the United States and what we do.” That comment led Associated Press reporter Matt Lee to ask if President…

Bird Watching: Obama’s an ‘Odd Duck,’ But His GOP Critics ‘Scr

The Obama administration is in the doldrums, and not only because it’s August. Is it that the president has a short attention span, or that he’s insufficiently ideological, or have Republicans just worn him down? Three lefty pundits opined on the issue earlier this week. In a Tuesday New Republic piece, Georgetown history professor Michael Kazin identified “Obama’s sober mistrust of ideology…

Networks Ignore 'Unpatriotic' Tax Decisions of Obama Donors

President Barack Obama has come out strongly against corporations moving their addresses overseas in an attempt to pay lower taxes – while several of his own donors saved money by employing this very tactic, known as “inversion.” Yet, ABC, CBS and NBC have completely ignored that hypocrisy since the president addressed the issue on July 24. White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz told…

Networks Refuse to Mention Latest Fast and Furious Development

On Wednesday night, the major broadcast networks ignored the latest news from the Fast and Furious scandal as a federal judge ruled that the Department of Justice (DOJ) must turn over a list of documents regarding the botched gun-running scheme that was formally called Operation Fast and Furious. U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled in court hearing Wednesday that the DOJ will…

Irate Chris Matthews Taken Aback by Obama Reax to Foley Beheading; Say

"I don't know why he used the word 'justice.' It's not appropriate here. This is an attack on our country, we have to react to it," an upset Chris Matthews reacted to a video excerpt of President Obama's statement today about the beheading by an ISIS member of American freelance journalist James Foley.  "This is our country versus this group that's declared war on us. What's justice mean in…

NYT's Front Page Gushes on Eric Holder, 'Leaning Forward' on Race in F

More pampering of Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder on the front page of the New York Times: Wednesday's edition featured "Shared Vision, Varying Styles," yet another defense of Holder (and criticism of Obama from the left) in a "news analysis" in the paper's off-lead slot by White House reporter Peter Baker, with Matt Apuzzo. Strangely for a story on racial matters under Obama, the story…

Spike Lee Claims ‘War on the Black Male’ Is 'Tearing This Country

Ten days after police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African-American, in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, black filmmaker Spike Lee added his voice to the tumult over the incident. During Tuesday night's edition of Anderson Cooper 360, he told the CNN anchor: “Something smells bad in Ferguson, and it’s not just tear gas.” “I do not think you should be…

ABC Reports Obama Team Knew In Advance of ISIS Plans to Kill U.S. Jour

In a stunning report by ABC News online, we learned that President Barack Obama and his White House knew that ISIS "recently threatened to kill U.S. journalist James Foley to avenge airstrikes the United States has conducted in Iraq." A video surfaced on Tuesday showing what appears to be an ISIS terrorist beheading Foley with the stated reason of revenge on Obama, suggesting they will do it…

Ezra Klein: ‘The White House No Longer Believes Obama Can Bridge Div

The major left-right disagreement regarding President Obama as a speechmaker hasn’t been over whether he’s talented (most conservatives concede he’s got a flair) but over whether he’s effective. Now, however, Ezra Klein thinks that a certain key group of liberals has lost confidence that Obama speeches in general, and specifically one about the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, would bring about…

Mika: Obama Has Done 'Great Things' On Race

Like what?  Seriously, Mika Brzezinski, when you claim as you did on today's Morning Joe that Barack Obama has done "great things" on race, precisely what do you have in mind? H/t NB reader Ray R. Was it choosing to make the racist Reverend Wright his personal pastor?  Appointing Eric Holder as Attorney General?  Accusing the Cambridge police of acting "stupidly" in the arrest of a black man…

MSNBC Contributor Michelle Bernard Sees 'War on Black Boys' in America

Move over, War on Women, there's a new war in town. On the August 18 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, contributor Michelle Bernard warned there is a "war on black men" in the United States, as evidence both by the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and persistent criticism of President Barack Obama from Republicans. What's more, Bernard insisted, there would be a "genocide" of…

Not National News: Mass. Obamacare Exchange Requires Everyone to Re-en

Recent news about Obamacare hasn't exactly been good, but the press has been pretty effective in keeping it quiet. To name just a few items, Enrollment is shrinking, because perhaps as many as 20 percent of enrollees aren't keeping up with their premiums. Rising costs have moved insurers to beg for bailouts, which appear to be forthcoming.  Then there's this: Just last week in Massachusetts,…

Salon: Hillary, Like Reagan, Thinks ‘Conquering “Evil” Is the Sp

It’s widely known that when Hillary Clinton was in high school, she was a big fan of Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign. But would Hillary, if elected POTUS, take after the 20th century’s uber-conservative, Ronald Reagan, at least in terms of a hawkish foreign policy? Elias Isquith made that case in a Saturday article in Salon. Isquith scrutinized the ideas Hillary expressed in her…