Congress

A government shutdown over federal funding for Syrian refugees and Planned Parenthood is unlikely, albeit slightly, Congressman John Yarmuth assured Ed Schultz. But if this occurs, Yarmuth added, Republicans will get blamed for it -- regardless of whether they are actually responsible. And Yarmuth apparently doesn't have a problem with this bizarre, cynical scenario, nor does Schultz.  

In report that didn’t make the cut for Thursday’s CBS This Morning amidst the San Bernardino shooting coverage, the CBS Morning News aired congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes’s latest attempt to push gun control and lament how Congress is “reluctant to pass new control laws” with friendly soundbites from Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer (Calif.) and Hillary Clinton.

In addition to his hours-long Twitter tirade on Wednesday attacking God-fearing people for offering their “thoughts and prayers” in reaction to the San Bernardino, Think Progress contributing editor Igor Volsky capped off his day on the 11:00 p.m. Eastern edition of MSNBC’s All In where host Chris Hayes gave him the floor to pontificate about how “all we hear from these people is thoughts and…

Since he’s been off of network TV for over a decade, disgraced former CBS News anchor Dan Rather took to Facebook and Twitter on Wednesday to call for the pass of gun control legislation to combat the claim that the U.S. is being “terrorized daily by gun violence” akin to how the U.S. “spend[s] trillions to defend ourselves” from “foreign terrorists.”

During NBC’s live breaking news coverage of the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California on Wednesday, correspondent Ron Allen reported from the White House on President Obama’s push for gun control: “We well know that the President is very concerned about this issue of gun violence in the United States....And we have heard from him and his staff that they are still trying to find ways that…

On all three broadcast network Sunday talk shows, hosts pressed some of their GOP guests by forwarding a quote from Planned Parenthood complaining that "hateful rhetoric" from abortion opponents had contributed to the shooting attack on Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountain in Colorado. NBC's Chuck Todd on Meet the Press notably managed to utter the words "hateful rhetoric" three times and "heated…

If frontrunner Donald Trump or currently surging Ted Cruz gets the 2016 Republican presidential nod, it may have a strange sort of bipartisan effect, according to Tomasky, who in a Wednesday column asserted that GOP bigwigs “despise” both Cruz and Trump to the extent that they’d “actually prefer” presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to win the general election. “No one’s ever going to…

Closing out the Wednesday edition of Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell remarked how the presidential candidacy of Republican Senator Ted Cruz (Tex) would have been sunk and declared “a non-starter” under so-called normal circumstances due to so many of Cruz’s Senate colleagues having a disdain for him.

On Tuesday's New Day on CNN, as co-host Chris Cuomo debated Republican Rep. Steve King on whether Syrian refugees should be allowed into the U.S., the CNN host absurdly suggested that barring refugees might "help ISIS" because it would be "playing into ISIS's hands" by "showing that you are against these people who are desperate." As he closed the interview for breaking news, he also got in a…

New York Daily News covers on November 18 ("NRA'S SICK JIHAD" — noted at the time by NB's Kristine Marsh) and today ("NOWHERE TO HIDE, JIHADI WAYNE") have accused the NRA of placing the right to purchase guns ahead of public safety from terrorist attacks. The paper's bogus claim is based on the NRA's opposition to legislation prohibiting anyone on the government's "terror watch list" from…

On Sunday's This Week, host George Stephanopoulos repeatedly brought up the debate over whether to bar guns from people on the federal terror watch list or the no-fly list without delving into any of the arguments against doing so. The ABC host brought up the issue with both guests Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson, and raised the issue again during the Roundtable segment, but never noted either…

On Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher, host Maher closed the last show of the season mocking Dr. Ben Carson and other "Jesus freaks" as he used a quote from Dr. Carson about "God's fingers" pushing him to the presidency, with the HBO host charging that God has been to blame for "every war in human history," including the Paris terrorist attacks. Before giving his anti-religion commentary,…

On Friday's CNN Newsroom, Carol Costello badgered Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader over his vote in favor of additional scrutiny for Syrian refugees applying to enter the U.S. Costello spotlighted how "some on Twitter have not been kind — calling you a traitor to Oregon and...xenophobic," and how "some say the intent of this bill is to really create so many checks that it will be impossible for any…

Friday's CBS This Morning hyped that "thousands on the government's terrorist watch list...bought firearms in the last decade...and all of the sales were legal." Nancy Cordes played up that a bill to "close that loophole" that has been introduced for eight straight years has "gone nowhere" due to opposition from the NRA and congressional Republicans. Cordes later hinted that House Speaker Paul…