Randy Hall's blog

During Wednesday's edition of MSNBC's weeknight program “The Last Word,” host Lawrence O'Donnell responded to a statement made earlier in the day by President Obama about the Internal Revenue Service's discrimination against conservative groups seeking non-profit status: “Across the board, everybody believes” what was revealed in the report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration is “an outrage.”

“Everybody but me,” O'Donnell insisted. “I believe that the IRS agents in this case did nothing wrong.”

It's easy to tell that President Obama is going through a scandal-ridden “tough time” since he's even under fire from Jon Stewart, host of “The Daily Show” on the Comedy Central cable channel, who said on Tuesday that the Democratic occupant of the White House “can't keep saying you found out about news at the same time as us!”

The liberal comedian said he found it strange that the president didn't learn much sooner about the Internal Revenue Service persecuting groups with “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their names and the Justice Department confiscating phone records about Associated Press reporters.

Ever since libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch expressed an interest this past March in buying the Los Angeles Times, half of the daily newspaper's staff has threatened to quit if the deal goes through because the paper would become an “ideological mouthpiece” for conservative Republicans.

Well, the people who oppose the sale -- including union members and the Los Angeles City Council -- don't need to worry since the newspaper has already proven its overwhelming bias by endorsing every Democratic candidate in the upcoming May 21 election.

During an interview with MRCTV, U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, asked what has become one of the most common questions across the country: Why won't the mainstream media give the murder trial of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell the coverage it deserves?

“We're talking about people being murdered,” she declared. Is the lack of attention “because we’re talking about poor women in minority neighborhoods, or is it because the media is trying to protect the abortion business?”

One of the unwritten rules of comedy is to always attack the people in power. Apparently, that concept has mostly eluded Comedy Central's Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who have staunchly defended the reaction by President Barack Obama and his administration to the death of four Americans in the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012.

Instead, the hosts of “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” have, on a regular basis, harshly criticized Republicans and other critics of the Democrat in the White House.

The drama surrounding the trial of Kermit Gosnell took another surprising turn on Monday, when Jack McMahon, the lawyer for the Philadelphia “abortion doctor,” charged that the Fox News Channel's hour-long documentary entitled “See No Evil -- The Kermit Gosnell Case” was an example of “irresponsible” journalism.

The attorney unleashed his verbal barrage on Monday morning, when he called the decision to air the program on Friday and Sunday evenings “shameful” and “outrageous” since the jury is still deliberating on the fate of the 72-year-old physician.

What's the difference between someone with a “far-left” philosophy and a person who's a “liberal?” Bill O'Reilly received an interesting answer to that question while interviewing Democratic strategist James Carville during Thursday night's edition of “The O'Reilly Factor.”

Carville said that far-left people, including the protesters who clashed with police in Seattle on May 1, are criminals who are “breaking the law,” a standard he used when rejecting the conservative host's assertion that “the MSNBC people” are “starting to dominate the political conversation.”

When MSNBC announced in March that Ed Schultz's weeknight program, “The Ed Show,” was being replaced by “All In,” which is hosted by 34-year-old Chris Hayes, the executives of the "Lean Forward" network hoped that the new hour-long program would hold onto the channel's liberal audience and even draw in younger viewers.

Instead, the ratings for Hayes' broadcasts in April were down 18 percent in total viewers from that month's numbers in 2012 for “Ed,” and it appears that “All In” is also dragging down the viewership for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” which was off by seven percent from its ratings during that period a year ago, and “The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell,” which also fell eight percent in a year-to-year comparison.

It used to be that whenever an important news story broke, cable television viewers would quickly turn to CNN for must-see coverage of what was happening. However, according to a poll conducted regarding the five-day coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing, that is definitely no longer the case.

The survey, which was conducted by the liberal Huffington Post website and the international marketing agency YouGov, determined that former titan CNN came in as far less trustworthy than Fox News over which was the most believable cable news channel.

As part of the Fox News Channel's coverage of the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Texas on Thursday, Dana Perino, co-host of the channel's “The Five” weekday program and a White House press secretary for the 43rd president, interviewed her former boss “not to break any news here” but for viewers to meet and get to know him “as I do.”

That seven-minute discussion immediately drew fire from Howard Kurtz of CNN and the liberal Daily Beast website. He asked on the Tweeter social site whether the softball interview might have made a “mockery” of Fox's coverage of the event.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is famous for saying: “You never want a good crisis to go to waste.”

Apparently, that's also the motto of the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center's Marilyn Elias, who last week wrote an article amid the hunt for the Boston marathon bombing suspects which urged both caution against jumping to conclusions that Muslims might have perpetrated it but also attempted to smear its favorite target: regular conservatives.

While discussing the ongoing manhunt for the second suspect behind the bombing of the Boston Marathon, Chris Wallace -- the host of Fox News Sunday -- linked the Monday terrorist attack with the debate on gun rights currently going on across the country.

Pointing to the fact that most of the region is in a tight lockdown due to the search for 26-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Wallace asked how many people in the area “do you think, might like a gun to be able to protect themselves and defend their homes?”

Whenever a disaster like the bombing at Monday's Boston Marathon occurs, members of the press try to be the first to report any “scoops” they can find regarding the catastrophe. However, news organizations are often so anxious to beat the 24/7 news cycle that they don't always check all the facts before posting a story.

One recent example of this problem is an article on the CNN website entitled “Boston Marathon bombs have hallmarks of 'lone wolf' devices, experts say,” in which an anonymous senior U.S. counter-terrorism investigator is quoted as saying that pressure cooker bombs have been “a signature of extreme right-wing individuals in the United States,” even though the report provides no evidence to support that claim.

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh used his Tuesday radio program to criticize members of the mainstream media and others on the political left for diverting any potential blame from Muslims as the possible terrorists behind Monday's Boston bombings while suggesting that “right-wing” groups were possibly involved in the attack on the marathon.

“If you are a Muslim, and it turns out that a Muslim did bomb the Boston Marathon,” Limbaugh said, “how do you feel? I daresay that if you are a Muslim, you can be pretty certain … that everybody in the media will circle the wagons and say: ‘This is not because of Islam.’”

Viewers who tuned in to the Fox TV musical dramedy “Glee” on Thursday night saw students run for cover after they heard two gunshots fired near their choir room in William McKinley High School. The incident forced the frightened teenagers to face their mortality and record final messages for friends and family in case they didn't get out alive.

After many people watched the episode, which was entitled “Shooting Star,” they posted notes on Twitter claiming it was “too soon” after the December 14 tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newport, Conn., for this television program to deal with that topic, “if ever.”

The tumult over the death of Margaret Thatcher on Monday has continued online, where Geri Halliwell, an original member of the Spice Girls singing group, apologized to the many people who were angered when “Ginger Spice” called the former British Prime Minister “the original Spice Girl.”

“I'm sorry if I offended u...x,” @GeriHalliwell posted regarding her earlier Twitter message that stated: “Thinking of our 1st lady of girl power ... a green grocer's daughter who taught me any thing is possible.”

Upon learning that former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher had died of a stroke on Monday, the Daily Telegraph published an obituary that stated she “was not only Britain’s first woman prime minister, she was also the outstanding peacetime leader of the 20th century.”

But just hours later, the newspaper had to shut down all comment sections on articles related to the passing of the 87-year-old baroness due to “abuse” by posters discussing both positive and negative stories about Thatcher.

Just when you think you've heard it all, along comes Philip Kent -- chairman and chief executive officer of the Turner Broadcasting System, which owns the Cable News Network – who says that CNN “is a serious news network” that viewers would appreciate more if they would watch the channel “more critically.”

Kent made the laughable comments during an interview published in this week's edition of Broadcasting and Cable magazine, when he admitted that the “biggest misconception about CNN is that it's a liberal news network,” which “drives me crazy” because “it's not.”

When the Associated Press reported on the upcoming “Sex Week” program at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, the reporter calmly noted that the “student-initiated” event will begin on Friday, April 5, and include several generic seminar topics.

However, when Fox News Radio's Todd Starnes described the same program, he indicated that it will include such controversial aspects as seminars by a lesbian bondage expert and a campus-wide scavenger hunt for a golden condom.

It's easy to tell when a television series is a success because elements from the program start popping up in the oddest places. The latest example of this is the History Channel's wildly popular “The Bible” miniseries, which featured an actor representing the devil in last Sunday's episode. Soon after, Glenn Beck asked in a tweet if anyone else thought the character looked exactly like President Obama.

On the following day, CNN's Erin Burnett accused the “right-wing radio host” of having an “ugly history” of demeaning the Democratic occupant of the White House by calling him “That Guy,” “Satan” or “the Antichrist.” Beck responded on his Wednesday program by calling the accusation “complete hogwash” and “a blatant smear.”

During a rousing speech that led to six standing ovations, Wayne LaPierre -- chief executive officer of the National Rifle Association -- told the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md., on Friday that the “liberal media can keep on hating me, but I'm still standing.”

The speaker then turned his attention to a remark made on March 1 by Vice President Joe Biden that if anyone is in danger, he or she should take “that double barreled shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house.” LaPierre told the Democratic official: “You keep your advice, we'll keep or guns.”

When a New York state Supreme Court justice on Monday invalidated a New York City law that prevented the “sale of sweetened drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces” at certain establishments, it came as no surprise that conservatives hailed the ruling as a victory “for liberty-loving soda drinkers.”

However, even as Mayor Michael Bloomberg promised to appeal judge Milton Tingling's ruling, several liberals joined the celebration, including the Teamsters, which declared the decision a “big victory” for the union, and CNN's John King, who mocked “Nanny Bloomberg” by tweeting a picture of a huge 52-ounce cup of soda.

During Thursday night's edition of CNN's “Piers Morgan Tonight,” the musician previously known as Snoop Dogg told the leftist British host that guns have become a part of everyday life, a fact he laments in a new reggae song entitled “No Guns Allowed.”

“We are guilty as Americans of promoting the gun as one of the most highly touted things that you can have in your life,” Calvin Broadus, aka Snoop Lion, told Morgan. “And I felt like I got to the point of my career and my life when I didn't need guns in my life because I didn't project that energy, and I was positive and peaceful.”

Liberal columnists don't need much information to brand Republicans as extremists. Among their meager requirements are an analogy taken out of context or a false extrapolation of something a GOP official said.

A recent example of this is an article by Bloomberg News Washington editor Al Hunt, who twisted a remark made by Rep. Steve King to declare the Iowa Republican a “fringe fanatic” because he said the United States gets “the cream of the crop” of legal immigrants and compared that to getting “the pick of the litter” when choosing a bird dog.

As the viewers of America continue to tune out his program in droves, CNN host Piers Morgan can at least take solace from the knowing that fellow anti-gun zealot Dianne Feinstein thinks he's a swell guy for being so shamelessly biased.

Honestly, though, that's not much of a consolation considering that the very edition of Morgan's show on which Feinstein gave him the compliment turned out being one of Morgan's lowest-rated episodes ever, drawing only 87,000 viewers in the key 25- to 54-year-old demographic that advertisers crave.