Conservatives & Republicans

West Virginia became the nation's 26th state with a "right-to-work" law a bit over a week ago. At the same time, it also repealed "prevailing wage" requirements for public construction projects. The idea that the formerly Democrat-dominated Mountain State would pass either item was unthinkable as little as a decade ago. That was before the Obama administration began its war on coal-powereed…

On Friday's CNN Newsroom, Jeffrey Toobin somehow thought it was necessary to point out that Justice Antonin Scalia's 120 Supreme Court clerks — many of whom were waiting for his casket to arrive at the Court — consisted of "an overwhelmingly white, male group." Toobin made this statement as the camera zeroed in on eight individuals who all appeared to be white. However, moments later, a different…

Talk about setting someone up to fail . . . Heading into a contest, politicians traditionally like to lower expectations. But Joe Scarborough has raised expectations for Marco Rubio almost to the roof. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough repeatedly cited talk that if Marco Rubio doesn't finish second in the South Carolina primary, "he has to get out of the race."   Chuckling through Joe's…

A famous T-shirt of the early 1990s featured Bart Simpson’s message that he was an underachiever “and proud of it, man!” Such shirts would be fitting garb for the many Republicans who squander their intellects for ideological reasons, implied NYU public-policy professor Mark Kleiman in a Wednesday Washington Monthly blog post. “I doubt that Republican office-holders or voters have, on average,…

Liberal anchor Carol Costello shamelessly touted two ads from Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on Wednesday's CNN Newsroom. Costello turned to a guest who works for a "group that creates television and radio ads," but failed to mention that his firm mainly deals with Democratic candidates. She prompted him to describe why Clinton's "ad is so effective." Later, Costello heralded the ad from the…

On Thursday, both NBC’s Today and ABC’s Good Morning America censored any mention of the controversy swirling around President Obama’s decision to skip the funeral of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia scheduled for Saturday. To its credit, CBS This Morning offered a full report on widely criticized move.

Some analysts have pointed out that it’d be risky for Republicans to preemptively block anyone President Obama nominates to succeed Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, but that approach wouldn’t necessarily end when Obama leaves office. Washington Monthly blogger Martin Longman believes that if in 2017 a Democrat becomes president but GOPers retain sufficient power in the Senate, they’ll just…

On today's on Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough flatly stated that people that know him, as in his family, know whom he's voting for, and "it's not Donald Trump!" That's newsworthy because Scarborough has been accused by many, as here, here and here, of being in the tank for Trump. Clashing with Time's Joe Klein, Scarborough said that, while not supporting Trump, he and Mika Brzezinski have simply…

Former longtime Tonight Show host Jay Leno returned to the deliver part of the monologue on Wednesday’s show for current host Jimmy Fallon (as the show was held in Los Angeles for the week) and Leno used the opportunity to pan Republicans but also the Clintons for their countless scandals, Bernie Sanders over his age, and Donald Trump for his disdain of Megyn Kelly.

At the onset of the 2016 coverage on Wednesday’s CBS Evening News, anchor Scott Pelley mentioned how Donald Trump discussed torturing terrorists at one appearance and then joked that perhaps Trump and GOP rival Ted Cruz “might like to try” waterboarding each other due to the heightened tensions between them. Before tossing to correspondent Major Garrett in South Carolina, Pelley first noted that…

MSNBC's Chris Hayes is usually right less often than a stopped clock, i.e., fewer than two times a day. But he might get lucky if by some miracle he's right about something else today because of the matter discussed in this post. After the Obama administration announced that President Barack Obama will not attend Saturday's funeral for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a staunch Catholic,…

Moments after South Carolina Republican Governor Nikki Haley endorsed Senator Marco Rubio on Wednesday in the South Carolina Republican presidential primary, the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley and NBC Nightly News saw almost zero interest in this massive endorsement to the tune of only a combined 32 seconds. In contrast, ABC’s World News Tonight reserved two minutes for the big breaking story…

CNN's Athena Jones spotlighted the latest pro-gun control headline on the New York Daily News's front page during Wednesday's New Day. Jones, who was following Jeb Bush's campaign, noted that the former Florida governor was "getting some attention for a tweeted photo of a handgun engraved with his name. The caption: 'America.' The New York Daily News having some fun with that picture, with the…

In a desperate attempt on Wednesday’s NBC Today to hype supposed divisions in the Republican Party over opposition to President Obama nominating a successor to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, correspondent Andrea Mitchell enthusiastically proclaimed: “Even as a handful of Republican senators are now breaking with their leaders and saying the Obama nominee should at least get a fair hearing…