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According to an influential entertainment magazine, Piers Morgan's ratings are in a death spiral and the reason might be his obsession with attacking Second Amendment rights of Americans. Variety writer Rick Kissell related the devastating news: "Tuesday’s telecast, which included coverage of the uprisings in Kiev and an interview with Rudy Giuliani, drew the show’s second smallest audience to date in the key news demo of adults 25-54 (50,000)."

He added, "'Piers Morgan Live' has fallen below the 300,000-viewer mark on seven other occasions in February. While the Olympics could be blamed for some of that, ""Piers Morgan' is drawing just a fraction of the audience attracted by competing shows on CNN and MSNBC." The British Morgan has railed about the "absurdity of the 2nd Amendment" and lectured Americans: "I'd make it illegal for anyone under 25 to buy a gun of any kind."

In an interview with Carl Cannon of Real Clear Politics, Daily Beast columnist and Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers said of working at the network: "It's been good for me because I – before that I lived in a real liberal bubble, you know? And all my friends were liberals and I grew up in a really liberal family and, you know, had a lot of ideas about conservatives, and you know, then I got to Fox and I just was like, 'Oh, they're not all evil and stupid.'" [VIew video after the jump]

Powers touted the friendly work environment at FNC: "People are really nice at Fox....wonderful people, really different view of the world than I have, but a very well thought out view. Yeah, no, they've been really great to me. Really nice."

Washington Post reporter Zachary Goldfarb caused spit takes in Washington on Friday morning. At the top left of the paper, the headline is "Obama budget to rebuff austerity." Or, as Goldfarb described the new White House budget document, "Obama will call for an an end to the era of austerity that has dogged his presidency..."

Is there nobody at the Post who can properly understand that the largest deficits in American history have occurred in the past five years? This was quickly mocked on Twitter:

What's missing from this list of people Mika Brzezinski blasted on today's Morning Joe for "making a lot of money at the Olympics" while Vladimir Putin's suppression of democracy in the Ukraine unfolds: "the people performing there, the people competing there, the people sponsoring there"?

Did somebody say NBC, Mika's own parent network? Give that guy a gold medal!  To whom does Mika think "the people sponsoring there" are paying their millions to promote their products?  Has Mika not noticed that regular programming on MSNBC itself has been pre-empted by the Putin Olympics? View the video after the jump.

The New York Times defined it as newsworthy that Rolling Stone's hard-left fancifier-fulminator Matt Taibbi is taking a new job with Pierre Omidyar's First Look Media. The headline was bland: "Start-Up Site Hires Critic of Wall St." The Times had no ideological label except "fierce critic of Wall Street." That's probably about the label Karl Marx would get if he wrote today.

The account was short enough to somehow exclude Taibbi's infamous 2005 article on "52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope." The Times account waited until the end to quote typically rabid or possibly drug-fueled Taibbi passages, puffing it as "vivid writing and colorful language" in a "now-famous metaphor" (which a quick Nexis search demonstrates The New York Times has now quoted 24 times):

One way the MSNBC cable channel can tell it's in trouble is when liberal comedian Bill Maher -- host of the Friday night HBO program Real Time who almost got his own show on the "Lean Forward" network -- posts a tweet accusing you of “turning into Fox News” and stating that the channel has “stopped leaning forward” since “Bridgegate has become your Benghazi.”

“I'm no good at being noble,” the self-proclaimed “passionate flaming liberal” continued in his rant entitled “MSNBC-YA,” but “it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little lanes of traffic don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”

If there was any doubt that MSNBC is a mouthpiece for liberal activism, Chris Hayes should have erased it on Wednesday’s edition of his program All In. Hayes was discussing MSNBC’s favorite current topic – the Chris Christie “Bridgegate” saga – with Dan Cantor, national director of the ultra-liberal Working Families Party. [Video below. MP3 audio here.]

Near the end of the discussion, Cantor optimistically declared his belief that Christie will be defeated in the end, thanks in part to Cantor’s own organization:

Attacks against football might be okay for some, but not for CNBC host Joe Kernen.

When a Dutch Olympic coach blamed American losses in speed skating on football, Kernen responded by passionately attacking speed skating. The Dutch coach, Jillert Anema claimed that football essentially wastes American athletic talent “in a sport that sucks.”

Good Morning America's Bianna Golodrygra on Thursday promoted the anti-Catholic film Philomena as a "touching," "true story." The ABC journalist spun the movie as largely uncontroversial and a "clear winner with audiences everywhere." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Golodryga downplayed the film's harsh anti-Catholic plot points and soft-peddled the movie's fictional elements, parroting, "Philomena is based on a true story about an Irish woman played by Judi Dench who travels to the U.S. to track down the son she was forced to give up for adoption when she was a teenager." In fact, the New York Times reported on November 29, 2013, "...Much of the movie is a fictionalized version of events. Ms. [Philomena] Lee, for instance, never went to the United States to look for her son...a central part of the film."

Find the thought of marriage’s “incredibly intense contract” with its big commitment “horrifying?” Think monogamy might be too hard and result in a “sexless marriage” that leads to divorce? The answer is simple: marry more than one person! Or, don’t marry them. Or sort of marry them … just make sure there are more than two of you in the relationship.

Or so “polyamorous lawyer” Diana Adams told The Atlantic.

Kudos to the Daily Beast for reporting this story. Don't hold your breath for the network news outlets to pick up on it and doggedly pursue it.

In an exclusive published at the website today, Josh Rogin and Noah Shachtman explain how there's credible evidence that regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad may have used chemical weapons in January 2014, something that U.S. intelligence officials are denying but which eyewitnesses on the ground insist occurred (excerpt follows; emphasis mine):

Despite the disturbing news on Wednesday that the Federal Communications Commission had developed a controversial plan to investigate television and radio newsrooms across the country, the broadcast networks of NBC, ABC, and CBS completely ignored the potential threat to press freedom.

In a February 10 Op/Ed for the Wall Street Journal, current FCC commissioner Ajit Pai warned: "Last May the FCC proposed an initiative to thrust the federal government into newsrooms across the country. With its 'Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs,' or CIN, the agency plans to send researchers to grill reporters, editors and station owners about how they decide which stories to run."

MRC founder and president Brent Bozell appeared on “The Kelly File” on Wednesday night to discuss the media’s distaste for conservative media digging into Hillary Clinton’s history. Fox host Megyn Kelly discussed her earlier interview with Kathleen Willey, who has alleged she was sexually harassed by President Clinton in the Oval Office.

Willey told Kelly that Mrs. Clinton ran a “war on women,” the Clinton accusers, and Kelly asked Bozell why the media would eagerly dig into ancient Republican history, but skip over anything challenging to the Clintons (video, transcript below):

Left-wing activist turned CNN host Van Jones ran to John Kerry's defense on Wednesday's Crossfire, after co-host Newt Gingrich slammed Kerry as "delusional" for recently hyping climate change as "the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction." Jones retorted, "It's not delusional to focus on climate disruption. It's delusional not to."

Moments earlier, the former Obama green jobs czar himself made a doom-and-gloom prediction about the hypothetical effects of what he labeled "climate disruption:" [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]

 Clearly, Chris Matthews doesn't understand irony. The MSNBC host, whose network colleagues have lobbied for someone who defecate down Sarah Palin's throat and called Laura Ingraham a "slut," on Wednesday night lectured, "It's been said more than once that you are known by the company you keep." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Yet, Matthews wasn't talking about his coworkers or when he compared conservatives to the Taliban and the Nazis. Instead, he attacked Texas Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott for offensive comments by supporter Ted Nugent. This led the host to sneer: "The haters are out there tonight down in Texas."

Does Zachary Roth ever get tired of hyperventilating over new voting laws being passed across the country? He must not because yet again the MSNBC reporter freaked out over the Republican-controlled legislature “restricts the right to vote.” Just in the last year, Roth has penned more than 50 articles on the subject of voting and how the GOP wants to make it harder for Democrats and minorities to vote.  

The February 20 article began with Roth groaning that “Ohio lawmakers passed two restrictive Republican voting billsWednesday night, raising the prospect that casting a ballot this fall could be much more difficult, especially for minority voters.”

It’s funny how quickly liberals are willing to apologize when one of their own is upset with them. On Wednesday’s Nightly News NBC’s Brian Williams said he was sorry to Arsenio Hall for leaving him out of their overview of the late-night talk show scene. Since journalists are usually loathe to admit their mistakes, the on-air apology is a rare event. So Williams threw in a few more apologies to TBS talk show host Pete Holmes, the state of New Hampshire and the city of Philadelphia.

For his part, Hall accepted Williams’ apology during his monologue on Wednesday night’s show. [video after the jump]

After Vice President Joe Biden admitted on Wednesday that the goal of getting 7 million people signed up for ObamaCare by March 31 would not happen, only Thursday's CBS This Morning made any mention of it, and then only giving the news a mere 29 seconds. Neither NBC nor ABC bothered to cover the acknowledgment of failure. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

This Morning co-host Charlie Rose reported: "This morning the Obama administration is lowering expectations for the Affordable Care Act. In Minneapolis, Vice President Joe Biden acknowledged Wednesday the goal of signing up 7 million Americans will likely fall short....Biden blames the troubled rollout of the health care website." The headline on screen read: "Short of Goal; Biden: Health Care Sign-Ups May Not Meet Target."

Is The Washington Post a rag for liberal Democrats? It’s certainly striving for that reputation today. On the front page (above the fold) is this story, trying to ruin another GOP presidential hopeful like Chris Christie: “Gov. Walker, eyeing 2016, faces fallout from probes: Release of ex-aide’s e-mails could stall rise of national Republican.”

Meanwhile, on the front page of the Style section is a picture of ex-Republican Charlie Crist hugging Barack Obama on a card that says “Happy Hug-iversary.” The headline over the aticle is “Charlie Crist: Embraceable Blue.” Newly arrived Post reporter Ben Terris reports Crist loves a good hug:

Via Twitchy we learn that Mike Dickinson, hoping to challenge House Majority Whip Eric Cantor in central Virginia, is running against Fox News, even asking for Federal Communications Commission regulation. "Fox News does nothing but tell lies and mistruths. They have unqualified political analysts. We need FCC to monitor and regulate them," he tweeted.

"Fox News is basically a opinion channel. It's there (sic) view of events. It's not news. They lie and distort everything to fit their opinion," he added. He also tweeted Sean Hannity was "just as qualified" a political analyst as comedian Kevin Hart and even a house cat:

The national press devoted a great deal of attention to gun registration in Connecticut at the end of 2013. The Associated Press's Susan Haigh had a December 29 story which was picked up by, among many others, PBS, CBS's New York City affiliate, the Huffington Post, and the UK Guardian. Time.com was also on the story.

That attention makes the press's virtual inattention outside of the Nutmeg State itself to what has since been learned all the more difficult to justify. It turns out that there are now three types of so-called "assault weapon" owners in Connecticut: those who registered by the deadline, those whose registrations came in after the deadline, and those who defied the state's registration demand. As J.D. Tuccille at Reason.com reported on Tuesday, the second group is on track to having their guns confiscated, and the number of people in the third group dwarfs those in the first two — a situation which has greatly upset the political establishment, particularly the editorial board at the state's largest newspaper (HT Instapundit; bolds are mine):

Wednesday’s Daily Show mocked conservatives by painting Russia as their “conservative paradise” of bigotry, sexism, and economic inequality.

Correspondent Jason Jones quipped that “it seems the red scare has become the ultimate red state” and told unhappy U.S. conservatives like “this antiquated (bleep)” Rush Limbaugh to pack their bags and move there. Jones tarred all conservatives with controversial soundbites from a few. [See video after jump.]

According to a USA Today item carried at ABC News, "Sixty percent of adults can't drink milk." In July 2012, the New York Times ran an item entitled, "Got Milk? You Don't Need It." But the last time I checked, everyone uses electricity to some extent.

I'm bringing up these points because, as a friend showed me earlier today, the establishment press has run stories galore in the past several weeks about increases in the price of milk, but, as I noted a couple of days ago, has paid virtually no attention to coming increases in wholesale electricity costs of up to 80% which are due solely to Environmental Protection Agency regulations requiring the use of unproven and not commercially available "carbon capture" technology.

CNN's Carol Costello might as well have read from a Think Progress cheat sheet when she battled conservative economist Stephen Moore over wages and economics on Wednesday. Moore, for his part, gave her a lesson in economics.

Starting with the recent CBO estimate that President Obama's minimum wage proposal would cost a half million jobs, Costello argued that it was just an estimate and that the net job loss could be zero. "So many people would say I'm willing to take that bet," she offered. That was only the first in a string of Costello's liberal economic claims. [Video below the break. Audio here.]