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On Monday's NBC Nightly News, correspondent Andrea Mitchell seized on NSA leaker Edward Snowden attacking former Vice President Dick Cheney, who labeled Snowden a traitor for publicizing classified information: "Snowden wrote, 'Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American.'" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Mitchell went out of her way to hit Cheney on Monday's Today, noting that he "helped institute warrantless evesdropping, no court orders required, a policy Congress later rejected in favor of the current surveillance programs."

There has been a rash of stories about U.S. State Department employees taking drugs and cavorting with prostitutes. In addition, the Ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, was accused of soliciting prostitutes and minor children. While all of these alleged crimes are reprehensible, the Catholic League only has interest in the charge that Gutman “routinely ditched his protective security detail in order to solicit sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children.” (My italics.)
 
No media outlet was more outraged over minors being molested by priests than the Boston Globe, but it has shown no interest in this story; it has not run a single piece on it. The New York Times ran one story; the Washington Post ran one story, but unlike the Times, it never mentioned “minor children”; the Los Angeles Times, like the Globe, ignored the story altogether.

CBS’s David Letterman made a disgraceful joke Monday evening comparing Iran’s crazed despot Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to former President George W. Bush.

During the opening monologue of the Late Show, the host said, “Ahmadinejad is retiring. He's going to spend all of his time on his ranch in Crawford, Texas” (video follows with transcribed lowlights and commentary):

In a study finding that should be completely obvious to anyone who spends an hour with the media, the liberal-leaning Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism has found media coverage “was tilted massively against those who favor traditional marriage.”

Pew’s study of more than 1,000 stories from March 18 to May 12 found what anyone could find. Washington Post media blogger Erik Wemple noted the numbers back up the lament from Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage that even Fox News doesn’t want to hear their side of the argument:

As NewsBusters previously reported, CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson announced last Friday that her computers had been hacked into “by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions in late 2012.”

On Monday, Attkisson told Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly that she thinks she knows who did it (video follows with transcript and commentary):

New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza caused a bit of a stir in the conservative media world today in a report he filed for the New Yorker about the ongoing debate in the U.S. Senate over an immigration bill that is currently opposed by many conservatives. According to the piece, the so-called Gang of Eight see the role of Florida Republican Marco Rubio as being to “neutralize” conservative talk radio and to get opinion hosts on Fox News Channel to either talk up the legislation or at least not oppose it.

In their view, Rubio, who was initially touted by many conservatives nationally as their great hope even though he was regarded far more skeptically by Florida conservatives, has succeeded in his assignment.

Whatever it takes to divert attention from Dear Leader as he struggles through yet another scandal.

Once again Ed Schultz resorts to misdirection, trying to deflect attention from the burgeoning controversy over domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency and its damaging fallout for the Obama administration. (Audio clips after the jump)

On Monday morning, NBC and ABC ignored a new poll showing President Obama's approval had fallen by eight points in a month, from 53 to 45 percent. CNN reported on its own poll numbers, while CBS and MSNBC picked up the numbers as well.  

While CBS This Morning briefly reported the poll numbers, CNN touted them repeatedly throughout the morning. New Day co-host Chris Cuomo said the President's image was "taking a beating," while correspondent Jessica Yellin noted that his support among young voters has "collapsed" and "is an astonishing cratering."

High school kids who graduate with flying colors in District of Columbia schools often find that college kicks their butt, the Washington Post's Emma Brown reported in a front-pager today headlined "College-bound D.C. grads pack hopes and fears." "Past valedictorians of low-performing District high schools say their own transitions to college were eye-opening and at times ego-shattering, filled with revelations that -- despite taking their public schools' most difficult classes and acing them -- they were not equipped to excel at the nation's top colleges," Brown lamented.

Yet nowhere in her 45-paragraph story did the Post education reporter -- and former math teacher -- find anyone to blame D.C. public schools teachers and administrators for the failure to properly prepare their students for the academic rigors of college. To the extent that sub-par teaching was fingered for blame, it was explained away by that usual liberal bogeyman: standardized testing (emphasis mine):

On June 7, liberal Democratic House member John Dingell became the longest-serving member of Congress in history and NPR was prepared to celebrate—four days straight.

On June 5, NPR’s Talk of the Nation host Neal Conan and “Political Junkie” Ken Rudin discussed the milestone. Then, on All Things Considered May 6, longtime host Robert Siegel conducted a gushing interview with Dingell himself. In the six-minute interview, Siegel couldn’t bring himself to ask a single tough question—not even about whether the 86-year-old Dingell was too old or too out of touch after being in Washington for so long.

As NewsBusters reported Sunday, CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley commented in a Deadline Hollywood interview that Fox News only has 200,000 to 300,000 viewers.

Fox’s Megyn Kelly marvelously responded on Monday’s America Live, “We beat you in all the debates and on election night, Scott” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Saturday's Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC, substitute anchor Ari Melber hosted a panel of liberals fretting over Republican efforts to restrict abortion, with one guest even theorizing that Republicans are motivated by a racist desire to prevent white women from having abortions as a way of "reproducing whiteness, white supremacy, white privilege."

Melber seemed quite accepting of University of Pennsylvania Assistant Professor Salamisha Tillet's preposterous idea of pro-lifers being motivated by racism as he responded:

 ABC on Saturday fawned over the growing "bromance" between Bill Clinton and Chris Christie, hyping the relationship as like "Clooney and Pitt" and, oddly, "Han Solo and Chewbacca." Good Morning America reporter Reena Ninan touted the New Jersey Governor's appearance last week at the Clinton Global Initiative, enthusing, "There was Clooney and Pitt. Han Solo and Chewbacca." (Ninan didn't explain who is Chewbacca in this example.)

ABC clearly seemed pleased at Christie's relationship with the Democratic politician. A graphic touted, "Clinton & Christie's 'Bromance." Ninan repeatedly gushed, "It's a bromance...But a political bromance?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

The hosts on Monday's NBC Today were all in agreement that New City Mayor Michael Bloomberg forcing all residents to sort out rotten food scraps from their garbage for composting – and to hold on to the refuse for days – was a "great idea" that would be "good for the environment." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Co-host Matt Lauer briefly explained the program: "[Bloomberg] wants you to take your food scraps, put them in a container about the size of a picnic basket in your home, hold them for a few days and then later put them in some larger...containers out on the sidewalk....This is going to be part of a voluntary program at first, which will then become a mandatory program." He added that "they've tried it with a few pilot programs here in New York and the participation was very high."

On Monday's CBS This Morning, Sharyl Attkisson slammed the unnamed hacker who broke into her computers : "It's a very serious and disturbing matter. I'm outraged that anyone would do such a thing." The correspondent revealed back in May 2013 an "unauthorized, external, unknown party" accessed both her personal and work computers on "multiple occasions in late 2012."

Attkisson detailed the "odd behavior of both my work and my personal computers", including how the machines "began turning themselves on, and then, back off again during the night." [audio available here; video below the jump]

Amidst the rising tide of scandals plaguing the Obama administration, good ol’ Ed Schultz is eager to turn the conversation away from the controversies and towards divisive social issues. On Saturday’s The Ed Show, the MSNBC host declared the Republican “war on women” was “alive and well,”  blasting new abortion restrictions passed by the Wisconsin state legislature.

Schultz kicked off his segment with a video of Wisconsin Senate President Mike Ellis (R) chiding Democratic legislators for interrupting the roll call on a bill that would require women to obtain an ultrasound before undergoing an abortion. The bombastic host followed up:

As NewsBusters reported last week, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin called out vulgarian comedian Bill Maher for referring to her Down Syndrome son Trig as "retarded."

On ABC's The View Monday, co-host Barbara Walters astonishingly defended Maher saying, "I don't think he intended it to be mean-spirited" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Abby Bergman has an ax to grind. An LGBT activist “all her life,” according to her bio, the high school junior is also the daughter of a lesbian couple, and as a result … thinks we should chuck Father’s Day out the window. 

Bergman just wrote a Father’s Day piece (read, an anti-Father’s Day piece) for the Huffington Post called “Celebrating Father’s Day With Two Moms,” in which she whined that the traditional holiday was not quite inclusive enough. Although nothing stopped her from honoring “all the typical ‘father things’ that my moms do for me every day,” Bergman still managed to gripe. 

Over the weekend Eleanor Clift preemptively accused Tea Party Republicans of using racist language in an effort to undermine passage of the farm bill.

Appearing on The McLaughlin Group the longtime editor for Newsweek and Daily Beast contributor, during the "Predictions" portion of the show predicted that "Tea Party Republicans" would resort to "racial comments about food stamps" in order to stop the farm bill. (video after the jump)

It’s official: the Hollywood elite has zero moral authority in attacking sexual abuse of minors that occurred decades ago in the Catholic Church. This weekend, the voters of the Daytime Emmy awards granted three Emmys to Clash, including the trophy for Outstanding Performer In a Children’s Series to Kevin Clash, recently accused of serial sexual pursuit of teenaged boys.

AP reported it, and recycled the claim: “Clash's lawyer has said that related lawsuits filed against the entertainer are without merit.” They quoted no one attacking the Emmy voters or Clash for their lack of morality.

In a report on Monday's NBC Today about new leaks from National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell took a jab at former Vice President Dick Cheney: "Cheney, who helped institute warrantless evesdropping, no court orders required, a policy Congress later rejected in favor of the current surveillance programs." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

The implication from Mitchell seemed to be that the NSA surveillance program under the Bush administration was wrong but that the program under President Obama is fine. She failed to mention Obama's dramatic shift on the issue, having been a harsh critic of such methods under President Bush.

Saturday's CBS Evening News ballyhooed the "enormous strain on resources" that the budget sequester has apparently put on extinguishing a massive wildfire in Colorado. Carter Evans played up how, in addition to fighting the flames, "federal firefighters are facing another challenge: a loss of $50 million, mandated by the budget sequester. That forced the Forest Service to cut 500 firefighters and 50 engines, just when they're needed most."

The CBS evening newscast was actually late to the game, as the network's Big Three competitors also spotlighted the same figures earlier in June.

Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington and a group of other CEOs and former world leaders have formed a group whose goal is to end capitalism as we know it. The nonprofit, known as “The B Team,” was created to help promote a “better version of capitalism, one that prioritizes people and planet over profit.” This ignores the fact that capitalism is, by definition, motivated by profit.

The team, led by Branson and German businessman Jochen Zeitz, calls for drastic changes in how the economy works. These include “new rules and models for the future of business – not incremental ‘change as usual.’”

On Friday's All In show, MSNBC host Chris Hayes compared conservatives to clowns as he praised Republican Governor Jan Brewer for breaking ranks with conservatives and pushing for the implementation of ObamaCare in Arizona.

Reminiscent of the time he recently called various Republicans "jackasses" and used some version of the word "jackass" 11 times in one segment, Hayes on Friday used some form of the word "clown" 10 times in just over four minutes.

After teasing the show, the MSNBC host continued:

CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer on Saturday’s Evening News compared the Iranian presidential candidates to members of the Tea Party.

In her first official re-appearance on Fox News Monday, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin told Fox & Friends viewers that Palmer “put the BS in CBS" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

ABC on Monday allowed a scant 22 seconds to the latest revelation in the scandal engulfing the Internal Revenue Service. NBC and CBS have, thus far, ignored the newest detail. The Associated Press on Sunday night reported that an IRS "supervisor in Washington says she was personally involved in scrutinizing some of the earliest applications from tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status."

Josh Elliott on Monday's Good Morning America explained, "That testimony contradicts IRS claims that agents in the Cincinnati field office were solely responsible for targeting those groups." Yet, a brief mention was all the morning show host could allow. In contrast, GMA devoted two minutes and 15 seconds to the relationship stars between Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. ABC also didn't note that the IRS employee in question, Holly Paz, donated $4000 to Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.