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MSNBC's Chris Matthews's ratings lag  far behind those of his competition, Fox News' Glenn Beck, on a regular basis. So is he perhaps trying to become the anti-Glenn Beck to bolster his stature in the cable news world?

On MSNBC's June 9 "Andrea Mitchell Reports," Matthews commented on the Gadsden flag, as if it represented an attitude that viewed the federal government as a occupying force, comparable to pre-Revolutionary War America.

"You know that Gadsden flag, the ‘Don't Tread on Me Flag' with a rattlesnake is so important," Matthews said. "They believe, a lot of people in the right - that the federal government has replaced the British as the occupying force in North America and they have to be ready to fight it. It's serious business."

Jon Stewart Tuesday evening absolutely tore apart Barack Obama's pathetic response to the Gulf Coast oil spill.

Early in the almost ten minute segment of "The Daily Show," the host chided the President's comments to NBC's Matt Lauer Monday, "We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers so I know whose ass to kick."

Stewart called Obama's strategy "AssQuest 2010 - The Search for Kickable Ass!"

After showing how the President referred to the situation in the Gulf as "complicated," the "Comedy Central" star then demonstrated to viewers how this is the same excuse Obama has given to solving all the problems facing the nation including the financial crisis and healthcare.

This led Stewart to wonder if the President's favorite movie must be "It's Complicated" with Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin.

In the end, "The Daily Show" host marvelously concluded, "I'm glad that you are looking for an ass to kick, but right now I gotta tell you, the ass has been kicking you" (video follows with commentary, vulgarity warning):

In the middle of a typical Full House rerun on Teen Nick this morning, the network ran a 90-second promo for their website Get Schooled.com promoting Barack Obama, and how students at Kalamazoo Central High School were overjoyed and amazed to meet him. Students hugged and yelled and held their hands out like they'd never touch anything again after meeting Obama. [embedded Vimeo video at right via Get Schooled]

Greg Pollowitz at NRO's Media Blog reported there was an overlooked, inconvenient fact in the hoopla over Kalamazoo Central students meeting the president. The Secret Service required each student’s citizenship status:

KALAMAZOO — The White House appears to be laying the groundwork for President Barack Obama to shake the hand of each senior at Kalamazoo Central High School’s commencement ceremony next month.

Seniors are being asked to provide their birthdates, Social Security numbers and citizen status to the Secret Service so background checks could be performed. Such a check is required for anyone who gets within an arm’s length of the president, students were told at their senior breakfast Friday.

The more Chris Matthews is on live television within a 24-hour period, the likelihood of him saying something completely strange increases dramatically as each moment passes.

On MSNBC's June 8 special coverage of electoral primaries around the country, Matthews, the host of MSNBC's "Hardball," expressed his views on the Arkansas Democratic primary runoff, which incumbent Sen. Blanche Lincoln narrowly defeated Bill Halter. (h/t @francesmartel)

"The fact that this might be a close race tonight tells you that neither of the candidates has a mandate coming out of this," Matthews said. "The idea of a runoff is to get a mandate."

As debate has been raging over Israel and the Middle East it is important that we understand how Israel is treated in the region. Here is a video of an Egyptian woman being given a platform on Arab television to threaten that Israeli women should "leave the land" or be "raped." (Content warning):

Make sure you visit this post at the Eyeblast blog for more details on and discussion of the video.

There are a lot of people angry at BP for causing huge damage to the Gulf of Mexico. As a way to vent some of this emotion, some are volunteering their help to clean up where the oil has washed ashore. Others are petitioning lawmakers to clamp down on oil companies to ensure this doesn't happen again. However, there's one option that has proved to be pointless according to Penn Jillette, half of the famed Vegas duo Penn & Teller. 

On the June 8 broadcast of the Fox Business Network's "Imus in the Morning," Jillette said the first thing that amazed him about the entire oil spill catastrophe was the notion of a Facebook group geared toward boycotting BP.

"Well, you know, I don't know there's many different takes to take on it," Jillette said. "I mean, it's just a horrible disaster and a catastrophe. What amazes me about it is on Facebook, they just, they put this thing up, you know, ‘Boycott BP.'"

CNN anchor Dr. Sanjay Gupta refreshingly made an implicitly pro-life argument during a report about how toxic chemicals possibly affect the unborn children: "Here in the womb, enveloped in darkness and warmth, a baby's life begins in earnest. It is a sacred space: pristine, insulated, more than nine months of safe refuge from the world outside" [audio available here].

Dr. Gupta made that statement as he gave a voice-over for the first segment of his "Toxic Childhood" special, which first aired on Thursday evening at 8 pm Eastern. CGI of a baby in the womb played as he described the "sacred space." The anchor continued on this note in his first question to Dr. Frederica Perera of Columbia University: "We imagine a baby sort of nice and safe and tucked away in the womb, impervious to all the assaults that occur on the body. You say, not so fast?" So Gupta twice referred to the unborn human as a "baby."

Maybe President Barack Obama watched a little too much of the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday night. The language seems to have rubbed off.

Paul Bedard at U.S. News and World Report caught an interesting exchange on CNBC this morning about Obama's use of "ass" in an interview with NBC's Matt Lauer. Obama asserted to Lauer that he wanted to know "whose ass to kick" over the oil spill in the Gulf.

Squawk Box co-host Becky Quick criticized President Obama for using "the A word" on the Today show, saying he set a bad example for kids.

"If you're the president of the United States and you go on the Today show, which is a morning show, where you're going to have a lot of kids who are sitting around watching this, I think you choose your words a little more carefully," Quick said.

"I think using the a-word on the Today show when you're talking to Matt Lauer, yeah, that disturbs me," Quick said.

Quick said that it's "silly" to use inappropriate language to prove that you're mad.

(h/t Paul Bedard)

The roundtable panel for today's Morning Joe took a stab at President Obama's frustration with the media for being critical of his BP oil spill response. The segment began with a clip of President Obama's testy, self-defensive comment to NBC's Matt Lauer, wherein the commander-in-chief  blustered that he was determined to learn "whose ass to kick" for the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Time magazine political analyst Mark Halperin found the President's anger at the media "ironic" because, "no one in the modern era has ever gotten into the Oval office with the press as glowing as Barack Obama did. For him, this is a new experience." [WMV video available here; MP3 audio available here]

Host Joe Scarborough seemed to share Halperin's sentiments and argued that the President needed to "grow a layer of skin" because: "If you're a Republican politician and a member of the press doesn't come up and like slap you in the face when you come to Washington, you're grateful. You're like a beaten dog. You'll take whatever crumbs they throw you. This guy gets adulation for years, years, and he hates the press. I just don't get it."

What's really staggering is that while some in the mainstream media are starting to realize how much the press have gone easy on Obama, they're announcing these revelations with a sense of detachment from the problem, as though it’s merely an observation, not an indictment.

The following exchange was aired during the June 8 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:

When it comes to heart-wrenching images, forget about those oil-plunged pelicans. What appears to really move Norah O'Donnell is the plight of . . . Pres. Obama's White House staffers.

Check out the very end of the video clip from today's Morning Joe and see if it doesn't seem that O'Donnell gets a bit emotional as she describes Obama aides waking up in the middle of the night with nightmares of gushing oil.

What is going on within the White House Correspondents' Association?

While some can argue they allowed embattled former Hearst Newspapers' columnist Helen Thomas to hold a coveted position in the White House briefing room for far too long after she made some remarks to be considered anti-Semitic, there's some other bizarre stories surfacing. Former Bush administration Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, now a Fox News contributor, detailed an account of what he called a "homeless" reporter credentialed by the WHCA while he was at the White House.

Rove appeared on Fox News Channel's June 7 "America Live" and explained what was going on within this division of the fourth estate. He explained it's very tough for the White House to restrict who has access to the White House briefing room.

CNN anchor Don Lemon repeatedly defended rabidly anti-Israel columnist Helen Thomas as he interviewed Ari Fleischer late in the 7 pm Eastern hour of Sunday's Newsroom. After playing Thomas's remarks, Lemon lauded her in his first question to Fleischer: "Helen Thomas has broken down many barriers for women....She has a lifelong achievement...in journalism. Should that count for anything?" [audio clips available here]

The former press secretary strongly condemned Thomas's comments and proposed that "if somebody said that all blacks need to leave America and go home to Africa, they would have already lost their jobs," while stating that two of them "always ideologically disagreed, but I liked her." Lemon followed through on this point: "Yeah, that was my next point. It's- I know that people disagree ideologically- but you can still be friends or still be co-workers. Have you reached out to her at all? Have you tried to talk to her about why she said this?"

Like tar balls on a Pensacola beach, doubts about Pres. Obama's leadership are beginning to accumulate even among his most avid supporters appearing in the MSM.  Today's Morning Joe provided two prime examples of the phenomenon in the persons of Jeffrey Sachs and Donny Deutsch.

Both men are self-described Obama supporters.  Yet each expressed disappointment at the lack of leadership the president has demonstrated on the oil spill and other issues.

Columbia U. professor Sachs went first, sounding like a serious candidate for a Zoloft transfusion. Sachs was reacting to Joe Scarborough's suggestion that PBO seize the moment by addressing a joint session of Congress and issuing a post-Sputnik like summons for America to rise to the current challenge by leading the world in clean-energy solutions.

Obviously, blaming former President George W. Bush is en vogue - for everything from the BP oil spill to the current economic malaise. But some things that are going wrong in the world - it just seems to be a bit of a stretch to pin on a former administration.

But that didn't stop CNN's Fareed Zakaria, also the editor of Newsweek International. On his June 6 show "Fareed Zakaria GPS," Zakaria pointed out the pivotal role Turkey played in last week's deadly Gaza flotilla raid.

"Turkey was also playing a new and potentially dangerous game here," Zakaria said. "Despite being physically and historically connected to Europe, Turkey is increasingly playing a role that distances itself from those roots. Once a strong U.S. ally, a founding member of NATO, Turkey now often looks more like a troublemaker than a friend."

This is probably what a lot of people suspected, but couldn't tie it all of it together until documents and memos from President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan were made available to the public - that she is beyond a shadow of a doubt liberal.

Still, the White House has insisted Kagan's judicial philosophy doesn't line up ideologically - that she is neither liberal nor conservative. But according to documents unearthed by CBS Chief Legal Correspondent Jan Crawford, Kagan holds some very liberal views.

"These documents have her squarely within mainstream liberal thought," Crawford said on the June 6 broadcast of CBS's "Face the Nation." "She's worried about the conservative Supreme Court undoing rulings that would give a woman a right to an abortion. She's worried about gun rights saying she's not sympathetic to an individual's right to own a handgun. She's concerned about conservative rulings scaling back rights of criminals. That's basic mainstream liberal thought."

How's this for outside-the-box thinking - use nuclear explosives to stop the BP oil spill that is ravaging the Gulf Coast?

According to some of the panelist on Fox News Channel's "Forbes on Fox," using nuclear materials would be a more expeditious way to solve this calamity.

"That's right, nuke it." "Forbes on Fox" host David Asman said on the show's June 5 broadcast. "Some scientists do advocate this. The Soviets apparently succeeded in doing it. Here is the video they say actually shows it. And now some at ‘Forbes' agree, nuke it.

Rich Karlgaard, publisher of Forbes magazine, was one of the strongest proponents of using nukes for fear that the relief well option could be thwarted by a hurricane.

We all know former Vice President Al Gore has a sycophantic media supporting him on his pet cause of global warming. But this might be a little over the top, or it could very well explain a lot.

In December 2007, when Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize, The Washington Post's Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan argued the former vice president had won the Nobel Prize for "sexy." Well, apparently this is an inside-the-beltway notion that has existed for years.

On HBO's June 4 broadcast of "Real Time with Bill Maher," film producer, director, and screenwriter Judd Apatow harkened back to a 2000 cover of Rolling Stone magazine that revealed something about the former vice president during the Bush/Gore election cycle.

Chuck Todd “hated” to say it but just had to get it out anyway–would the BP oil spill, arguably the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history, be a “missed opportunity” for Congress to capitalize on “disaster” to enact energy legislation should it fail to do anything in its wake?

Discussing what the reaction of Congress and the Obama administration should be to the spill during an interview with Tom Daschle on MSNBC's June 4 “Daily Rundown,” Todd asked:

So if energy legislation isn’t taken up and dealt with, this would basically be–I hate to put it this way–a wasted disaster?

This probably didn't make the cut for Chris Matthews' upcoming special, "Rise of the New Right," just for comparison purposes when it comes to angry conservatives versus their counterparts on the left. However, this could qualify for hateful speech.

Left-wing bomb-thrower and syndicated radio host Mike Malloy, made some angry remarks on his June 3 program about stalwart conservative Minnesota congresswoman, Michele Bachmann. Bachmann has been critical of the Obama administration's response to the Gulf Coast/BP oil spill and thus angered Malloy, who labeled Fox News host Glenn Beck as Bachmann's "pimp."

"Glennnnn, Glennnnnn, Glenn Beck, one of, one of your streetwalkers has wandered way off the reservation," Malloy said. "Glenn! Glenn! Michele Bachmann! Oh never mind. Glenn is the hypocrite who criticized the journalists for invading the privacy of Sarah Palin's kid and then two days later, going on a 20-minute screed mocking 11-year old, Malia Obama."

White House press corps dean Helen Thomas -- on the day that the White House hosted a Jewish Heritage Celebration, no less -- said that Jews who live in Israel should "get the hell out of Palestine" and go "home."

When asked where home was for Israeli Jews, Thomas offered "Poland, Germany... and America and everywhere else" from which the founding generation of the State of Israel originally hailed.

Breitbart.tv has the YouTube video, which was released by RabbiLive.com (h/t Gateway Pundit). At right you can view our Eyeblast version by clicking the play button in the embed.

It's been centuries decades since anyone believed Helen Thomas was anywhere near an objective journalist, but this makes it clear that she's at best tactless and unreasonable and at worst an anti-Semite.

Question to mull over in the comments section: Should Thomas lose her coveted seat in the White House press briefing room over this?

"If you don't think this is a screwy system, I don't know what is!"

"Don't you think you're jumping the gun a little bit? I mean, the show's not even on the air."

That's how MSNBC's Contessa Brewer opened her June 3 interview with Rabbi Daniel Lapin, who appeared via satellite to discuss his work with the newly-formed Citizens Against Religious Bigotry (CARB) to get advertisers on Viacom's Comedy Central to publicly pledge to not support or underwrite a show currently in pre-production entitled "JC" for Jesus Christ. For full disclosure, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell is a founding member of CARB.

"Just playing devil's advocate here, because I am the daughter of a Baptist preacher, don't you think Jesus Christ is tough enough to withstand it?" Brewer prodded Lapin. After all, "he's a big guy," Brewer argued. [MP3 audio available for download here; WMV video for download here]

Given the irreverent and downright blasphemous treatment Jesus Christ and God have gotten at the hands of "South Park" and Sarah Silverman, Brewer later asked Lapin, in all seriousness, "What if this turns out to be more like a Sunday School lesson than the worst imaginings of you and Bill Donohue of the Catholic League and on and on?"

Really, Contessa? Here's the reported premise of the show:

In a PBS interview June 2, Vice President Joseph Biden predicted 700,000 to 1.4 million jobs would be created by the end of 2010. But at most, that would still be more than 5.2 million jobs shy of matching President Obama's claims about economic stimulus.

Biden forecast job creation "between 100,000 and 200,000 jobs on average all the way through this year" in an interview with Charlie Rose. He also predicted "trouble in paradise" for the GOP.

Left-wing website The Huffington Post reported the prediction calling it "fairly safe" by "recent trends." Sam Stein wrote that, "Biden would not, however, mark a date when he thought the unemployment rate would dip to, say, six percent."

Stein didn't remind readers that Obama said the stimulus package would create more than 4 million jobs by the end of 2010. Once you take out temporary jobs and the 100,000 minimum needed every month to keep up with population growth, the economy would need to create 932,000 new permanent jobs each and every month through the end of 2010.

Larry King interviewed pop singing sensation Lady Gaga on June 1, and she appeared conflicted over the presence of children in wombs. Near the beginning of the interview came this exchange...

King: At what age growing up, Gaga, did you know that you wanted to be a performer?

Gaga: In the womb, Larry, in my mother's warm womb.

King: [Laughing] At your birth.

Gaga: Yes, at my birth. I guess that you could say it's been my destiny to be a performer....

Getting technical, because that's what we pro-lifers do, Gaga did not originally say her personality, talents, and drive magically appeared "at birth," as King translated. She said they were present prenatally. See exchange beginning at 2:34 on this clip (WARNING: PG-13, visually)...

British Petroleum's (BP) reputation has been marred by the April oil rig explosion and subsequent oil spill which is still gushing more than 40 days later. But according to The Washington Post, the reputation of some left-wing environmental groups has also been polluted by the incident.

"[T]he Nature Conservancy lists BP as one of its business partners. The Conservancy also has given BP a seat on its International Leadership Council and has accepted nearly $10 million in cash and land contributions from BP and affiliated corporations over the years," Joe Stephens wrote for the Post May 24.

It's not just Nature Conservancy either, the Post found $2 million in donations to Conservation International and relationships between BP and other lefty activist groups Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Sierra Club and Audubon.

"The crude emanating from BP's well threatens to befoul a number of alliances between energy conglomerates and environmental nonprofits. At least one group, Conservation International, acknowledges that it is reassessing its ties to the oil company, with an eye toward protecting its reputation," the Post said.

This was front page news at The Post on May 24, but received only silence from other mainstream media outlets including the three broadcast networks.

At a pro-Gaza protest in Los Angeles on Memorial Day a lone counter-protester showed up to voice his support for Israel. While doing nothing more than walking around with an Israeli flag, the counter-protester was chased and the police had to protect him from the angry crowd.

Make sure you visit this post at the Eyeblast Blog to get more details on what happened and to discuss why things like this only happen at far left protests.

On the Wednesday edition of “Morning Joe,” host Joe Scarborough attacked Republican political strategist Karl Rove for his critique of the Obama administration’s delayed response to the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Scarborough was irate at the “hypocrisy” of the statement because during his time in New Orleans in the middle of Katrina, he recalled, “a lot of people keeping their mouths shut because they didn't want to criticize President Bush.” [MP3 audio available here; WMV video for download here]

This outburst was in response to Karl Rove’s statement on Fox News that, “The president and his people are in charge of this under the Oil Spill Liability Act and they don’t have a plan.” Scarborough then hastily asserted, “Just keep your mouth shut. I'm not saying don't criticize the president, but if you were involved in Katrina, keep your mouth shut.”

Of course, during a post-Katrina interview with “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams, Scarborough felt no compulsion to keep his mouth shut in deference to the president. At the time, Scarborough asked if Williams found it an "ironic choice" to report “from a major American city where young children died of dehydration out on sidewalks, and now you've got the President of the United States delivering a speech to the nation from Jackson Square, an area largely untouched by Katrina's devastation.”

It was bound to happen and no one can really blame them for doing so, but someone eventually had to determine who the political winners and losers are for the tragic circumstances surrounding the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Looking forward to the upcoming election cycle, MSNBC "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough determined the time was right to take a stab at it, although reluctantly on his June 2 broadcast.

"[W]e will stay with BP for one second but talk about presidential politics and I know this will be offensive to some people but it's just a reality that there is somebody in the White House, somebody in the Democratic Party, somebody in the Republican Party that's trying to figure out the political impact of this environmental tragedy. And we were talking with Chuck Todd last hour about how it ramps up when the oil starts washing on Florida shores, Chris. That makes this a much bigger political event in terms of presidential politics, like it or not."

If you think government has all the answers, you'll certainly approve of this call.

Former Clinton Secretary of Labor and CNBC contributor Robert Reich has determined it's time for President Barack Obama to seize the reigns of control from BP (NYSE:BP) and put the North American operations of the company into a "temporary receivership." He told host Michelle Caruso-Cabrera on CNBC's June 1 broadcast of "Closing Bell" that the government was the only entity remaining capable of determining if the oil giant was properly utilizing its resources to contain a spill that has been going on since mid-April.

"Well, Michelle, it is temporary," Reich said. "And the government merely takes over the North America operations, the subsidiary, in order to make sure the public is getting the right information, in order to make sure that risks and benefits are being weighed properly - still using the expertise and intelligence of BP. I think, in fact in many ways BP would want some relief and might even appreciate that direct kind of ownership."