Blogs

In May, Politico's reporting inside Democratic circles led them to the strange conclusion that the one thing that could sink Hillary's hopes of winning the White House was the press corps.  A Clinton insider announced: “She wants to be president; she doesn’t want to run for president...The worst part of running for president for her, clearly, is dealing with the press.”

In July, Politico interviewed former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson, who made some sense of this bizarre-sounding notion. The media has for many years defended and protected and glamorized the Clintons. But Abramson said Hillary expects the press to be "100 percent in her corner," especially if  you're female:

Democratic activist/adviser Donna Brazile, an ABC and CNN contributor, is one of those liberals who believes that somehow the level of vitriol against Barack Obama is historically high, as if they didn’t live through every “Smirking Chimp” slam and Hitler reference they unloaded on George W. Bush.

In a Washington Post Magazine profile for Sunday, Brazile was asked “Has Barack Obama’s presidency made it easier or harder for a black person to become president?” She suggested we haven’t become “post-racial,” which suggests the answer is not easier:

“Their entire economic philosophy — cut taxes for the rich and it trickles down — is a zombie lie.” (Video below)
                           
Bill Maher is a funny guy, so say his fans. If money is a measure, he’s very good at being funny. How good? Over here at Celebrity Net Worth it says ole Bill is so funny that over the years he has amassed a fortune of $23 million.

The Daily Kos has come a long way since the days when  they merely rejoiced in being easily bribed at their YearlyKos conventions (now renamed Netroots Nation) by presidential aspirants such as Mark Warner who plied the Kossacks with free sushi and expensive liquor at the Stratosphere in Las Vegas in 2006. Yes, they have moved up in the world to the point where they perceive themselves as king, or rather queen, makers. Not only have they basically endorsed the presidential candidacy of Elizabeth Warren, they have even provided her with a campaign song, Run Liz Run.

Oddly enough, even though this campaign song takes note of Elizabeth Warren as a woman, there is no mention of her well known Cherokee heritage. Have they not noticed the prominent cheekbones beneath Liz's sky blue eyes? Not to worry, there is a parody Elizabeth Warren song which features that aspect of her background as we shall see but for now let us watch "Run Liz Run" right after the jump:

Everyone is exactly who he or she says on the internet – at least according to one Washington Post writer. That conclusion is her rationale to say Christians are awful people.

Sally Quinn, Washington Post columnist and OnFaith founder, claimed that, “When it Comes to Hateful Internet Speech, Christians Are the Worst.” In her July 17 article, Quinn examined a white-supremacist site and comments on her articles to conclude that Christian “haters” “need a place to unleash their dark sides.”

How extreme is MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry? Extreme enough that she recognizes no right to speak to a pregnant woman seeking an abortion. That “choice” to abort only has merit if no one disturbs it by counseling against it.

In a column for The Nation, Harris-Perry sulked about the Supreme Court ruling striking down “buffer zones” in Massachusetts. “This decision has, in the end, unleashed something far more insidious than the danger of a few extremists having greater access to kill or maim. The Supreme Court has decided—unanimously—that the First Amendment protects the right of every single American to approach and intimately 'counsel' any pregnant woman,” she complained.

For those who predict the coming collapse of Western civilization, there’s always MTV for proof. At this year's Television Critics Association summer tour in Hollywood, MTV put on a panel discussion for the press with the cast and creators of a forthcoming series called "Happyland." The female star of the show, actress Bianca Santos, announced the new MTV motto: “Incest is hot, and we’re going to have fun!”

Lisa de Moraes at the Deadline Hollywood website reported the pilot episode of this “soapy teen comedy" -- remember that: this is a show for teenagers -- this show "exploring the underbelly of a popular theme park” includes a clip of Santos making out with the amusement park’s “new hottie,” only to discover... he’s her brother. 

Jeff Shesol, a presidential speechwriter during Bill Clinton’s second term as well as a book and comic-strip author, posted a piece Friday on The New Yorker’s website about “how Republicans have learned to stop worrying and love the lawsuit” – or, less charitably, about conservatives setting aside their traditional opposition to judicial activism whenever an activist decision would benefit them.

Shesol argued that on matters such as Obamacare and gun control, “the right is having it both ways when it comes to the courts…[C]onservatives are doing exactly what they say the left has long done: rushing to litigate political questions, elevating all manner of disputes to the level of high constitutional principle, and asking judges to settle (or revisit) policy arguments that ought to be resolved by legislators or voters.”

National Public Radio’s Diane Rehm Show devoted a unanimous hour on Monday to the transgender “struggle for civil rights.” The guests were three transgender advocates and Time magazine writer Katy Steinmetz, author of Time’s magazine's cover story on “The Transgender Tipping Point.”

Rehm asked Steinmetz hopefully about the alleged new frontier of civil rights: "Do you believe society is at that tipping point of acceptance?"

There were two pieces of significant economy-related news today. The first was that the Conference Board's index of leading economic indicators increased for the fifth straight month, this time by 0.3 percent, while May's increase was revised up to 0.7 percent. The second was that the University of Michigan's preliminary June reading on consumer confidence came in at 81.3, a decline from May. Both results trailed expectations.

Predictably, the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger put a smiley face on the news, believing it shows that "that economic growth should accelerate in the second half of this year," while Bloomberg News's Nina Glinski was more sanguine, interpreting the confidence report as an indication that "Americans’ outlook for the economy dimmed." Excerpts from both efforts follow the jump.

The envelope please for most inane apologia in defense of Hamas this week ...

Even worse, this particular inanity comes from Thom Hartmann, a top-rated talker on the barren moonscape known as liberal radio. In response to a caller who took him to task for blaming Israel for the latest flare-up, Hartmann downplayed the peril posed by Hamas firing hundreds of rockets at Israeli civilians. (Audio after the jump)

On Friday’s Now With Alex Wagner, the editor of the far-left magazine The Nation, Katrina vanden Heuvel, declared to viewers that they keep in mind that the President of Ukraine has waged war “against his own people in southeastern Ukraine” and even though Russian President Vladimir Putin “is an authoritarian leader,” demonizing him “is not a policy” that the United States should continue.

Vanden Heuvel’s ridiculous comments came during a discussion with Wagner and Politico Magazine editor Susan Glasser about Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down over eastern Ukraine Thursday, apparently by Russian-backed separatists in the region. [MP3 audio here; Video below]

On Thursday, Reuters's Carey Gillam underlined that the "embattled" Catholic bishop of Kansas City, Missouri is under "scrutiny," as she covered a former church employee's lawsuit against his diocese. The litigant, Colleen Simon, asserts that "she was wrongfully fired from her salaried position as a pastoral associate after her marriage to another woman was mentioned in a local newspaper."

Gilliam spotlighted how Simon filed her suit less than a year after an arbitrator ordered Bishop Robert Finn and his diocese to pay $1.1 million to the victims of a priest who sexually abused children:

In a bigoted screed against Christians, Alternet’s Valerie Tarico wrote a piece appearing at Salon.com that accused evangelical Christians of being evildoers who – in their spare time – kill and abuse gay people, subjugate women, destroy the Earth, oppose rights for children, and promote holy war. Yes, this is no exaggeration. It appears that this is a new low, if that was even possible for frequent Hardball guest Joan Walsh’s website.

The condescension directed toward evangelical Christians is palpable throughout the piece, and it borders on abject hatred, concluding with a passive-aggressive line that suggests Tarico has fantasies of the slaughter of conservative Christians.

Texas ranchers must deal with gang members, drug dealers and violent criminals in their daily battle with illegal immigrants. Yet, journalists for the networks are largely uninterested in their plight. The Daily Signal on Friday talked to these men and women and found out just what goes on in south Texas. 

Talking to reporter Josh Siegel, Linda Vickers, the owner of a ranch in Encino, Texas, explained, "We have [illegal] traffic almost every day...From women in distress to gang members." Pointing, she added, "In fact, one MS-13 was right up in that tree." Benny Martinez, the chief deputy sheriff in Brooks County, Texas, described the impact of illegal immigration: "You get your extortion cases that occur here in town. You get your human smuggling cases. You get your assault cases." 

“This is no longer a Christian nation. In fact, it never has been,” says the Democrat senator in the Christian indie film “Persecuted,” opening in theaters July 18. It attempts to address the question of what the U.S. would look like if religious pluralism would have its way forced in by the federal government.

Sen. Harrison (played by Bruce Davidson) was explaining to televangelist John Luther (James Remar) as to why a religious equality bill should be passed. The movie is quite timely, fresh on the heels of the Hobby Lobby ruling.

Talking to MSNBC's Jose Diaz-Balart on Friday, Los Angeles Times reporter Sonia Nazario demanded that tens of thousands of unaccompanied illegal immigrant children from Central America be allowed to stay in the U.S. and condemned anyone opposed to the idea: "Because if you put this decision of sending these children back in the hands of the Border Patrol, many of these children who really should be protected by our government will instead be hurtled back to these countries where they will die. And we will have blood on our hands." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

The Obama administration is probably wondering why so many people of all political stripes don't believe that they take foreign policy seriously, up to and including charges that the president and his minions are doing the equivalent of fiddling as some parts of the world burn, and others threaten to.

I don't see why would anyone think that (in case it's not obvious, that's sarcasm). After all, wasn't Bush 43 press secretary Ari Fleischer linking to a friend's column on men's suits after the Bali bombings in 2002? And didn't the London bombings in 2005 lead the otherwise hapless Scott McClellan to wax eloquent on the importance of tie-shirt coordination? The answer to both of those questions is, "Of course not." But yesterday, on a day when Israel invaded Gaza, pro-Russian forces shot down a passenger airliner with almost 300 aboard, and diseases this country hasn't seen in decades continued to be carried over the U.S. Mexican border by "Unaccompanied Alien Children" (that DHS's term), State Department spokesman Jen Psaki tweeted on the dreadfully important topic of how you can be "informed" and fashionable (HT The Blaze):

The liberal media is hemorrhaging foreign correspondents from Israel and the Gaza Strip. Only one day after NBC suddenly pulled anti-Israel Ayman Mohyeldin from Gaza citing security concerns, CNN was forced to relocate journalist Diana Magnay from Israel. Both correspondents struggled to keep their reporting and social media presence neutral in tone.

Magnay reported during The Situation Room from a hill in Israel where citizens were “cheering”while watching the “astonishing” and “awful” launch of missiles into the Gaza. The CNN correspondent, normally based in Berlin, followed the segment with a tweet calling the celebrating Israelis “scum.”

Worrying that "the Democratic contest looks like it will be a foggy, repetitive march toward Hillary Clinton" and that there needs to be a primary challenger from Hillary Clinton's left to "energize the Democratic Party’s liberal base," CBS political director John Dickerson pounded out a July 17 piece at Slate.com urging the Bay State's senior senator,  "Run, Elizabeth, Run!" "Stop thinking and start running," urges a caption under a photograph of a pensive-looking Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) 

Sure, Warren most likely wouldn't win, but "she would till the ground, putting grit and the smell of earth in the contest" Dickerson insisted. Attempting to mask his partisan rooting interest as purely a political junkie's thought exercise at how to make the 2016 contest more robust and exciting, Dickerson compared Warren to the role Newt Gingrich played in the 2008 primary contest and later argued that conservatives should cheer Warren entering the race because she would help "expose" the socialist bent of the donkey party or "bruise Clinton" sufficiently to give the GOP a stronger chance at retaking the Oval Office (emphasis mine):

On Thursday night’s episode of his PBS show, Charlie Rose began by showering guest and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with praises from the likes of Henry Kissinger, the late Maya Angelous and, naturally, Charlie Rose himself! From reading a glowing quote from Henry Kissinger to reading a Maya Angelou poem all about her to Rose announcing “I consider Hillary Clinton a friend,” it was a slobbering start to a softball interview.

After summarizing the premise of her book about her time as Secretary of State, Rose gushed that “few people have spent the past 20 years as she has” with all the positions of power she’s held. It was then that read the following quote from former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger: “[W]hen I call Mrs. Clinton Hillary, I do that not so much to indicate familiarity, but to use a name that the whole world uses. It shows to what extend she has succeeded in her people-to-people work.” [MP3 audio here; Video below]

Joe Biden's appeal on Thursday to the left at the liberal Netroots Nation conference went unmentioned by the networks. The fact that the Vice President got heckled by the far-left was also ignored. While talking to the assembled progressives, Biden was interrupted by chants of "Stop deporting our families! Stop deporting our families!" [See video below.]

Biden applauded the outburst and immediately responded, "I respect your view and I share your view." Speaking of illegal immigrants, he lectured, "We should clap for those young people...Can you imagine the pain, the anxiety of coming home every day, wondering if your mother or father will still be there?" 

You can always count on MSNBC to bring on a radical, seemingly pro-Hamas guest in order to get ‘both sides’ of the argument in Israel's struggle for survival against terrorism. On a July 17 special late night edition of All In with Chris Hayes, guest host Ari Melber discussed the news of Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza with a panel of guests.

Melber led off the segment by asking Noura Erakat – described as a human rights attorney by MSNBC – whether the invasion was a “proportionate and precise operation?” Naturally, Erakat went unhinged: [MP3 audio here; video below]

It was the tweet that went viral around the world and all over the web. The one notable exception where the tweet remains unmentioned is at the Boston Globe. So what's so strange about that? It's because the author of the tweet is Boston Globe reporter, Matt Viser.

Perhaps it is the subject matter that makes the Boston Globe reluctant to refer to the tweet although it is already widely known on the Web. The UK Daily Mail also featured it. So will the Boston Globe eventually follow suit? The matter is open to question because Viser's tweet was a devastating observation about President Obama's bizarre  reaction to the crash of Malaysian flight MH17 yesterday in Ukraine. Here is the Boston Globe reporter's tweet that has yet to be reported in the Boston Globe:

While NBC, ABC, and CBS have provided wall-to-wall coverage since midday Thursday on Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 being shot down over Ukraine and Israel sending ground forces into Gaza, none of the broadcast networks have made a single mention of President Obama being criticized for attending political fundraisers that night.

Of the three network morning shows on Friday, only CBS This Morning even noted that Obama had just "returned to Washington late last night after a political trip to New York." Though it was never explained the trip was to raise campaign funds for the Democratic Party. NBC's Today didn't bother to mention the fundraisers, but did find time to promote Al Roker's upcoming interview with First Lady Michelle Obama. ABC's Good Morning America didn't even mention Obama's name in its coverage of the crises.