Conservatives & Republicans

There’s going to be a Top Gun sequel, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous is coming back, and Bloom County has already returned. Still, suggests Esquire's Pierce, when it comes to things that have the 1980s written all over them, these days Donald Trump is the king of the mountain. In a Tuesday post, Pierce contended that Trump “was one of the purest products of the Age of Reagan, which was…

Interviewing former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean on Thursday’s NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer wondered if Hillary Clinton’s e-mail scandal would have a lasting impact on the 2016 campaign: “You don't have to be a Republican operative to find trouble in the headlines surrounding Hillary Clinton. Any time you put the words ‘Hillary Clinton, e-mail, top secret, and FBI’ in the same…

Did Rush Limbaugh force Fox News, in the wake of the Donald Trump/Megyn Kelly dust-up, to back down and welcome Trump back on its network?  That's what New York Times reporter Nick Confessore suggested on today's Morning Joe. Asked by Mika Brzezinski who was the most powerful person in the media today, Confessore responded: "I think Fox or Rush Limbaugh [whose last name Confessore pronounced "…

On the August 10 edition of National Public Radio (NPR) Boston affiliate WBUR's Here & Now program, host Robin Young made reference to pro-life Republicans as "anti-choice." The reference, which violates NPR's own style manual, came in the midst of a discussion with Princeton University professor Julian Zelizer about Republican presidential candidates' plans to roll back various policy…

My, the news about Barvetta Singletary's domestic violence arrest involving gunfire has been kept mighty quiet. Press reports have typically opened by describing Ms. Singletary as "a White House staffer." Several paragraphs later, readers learn that she is — or perhaps "was," as she has for now "has been placed on temporary unpaid leave and is banned from White House grounds" — the "special…

On MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports on Tuesday, The Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty saw a big advantage for Hillary Clinton in the midst of the Republican primary campaign: “But the fact is this complete chaos on the Republican side is presenting a lot of opportunities for Hillary Clinton, not only to, again, paint them as extremists, but also to actually put some policy points on the board, which…

Two wire service dispatches covering the government's June Wholesale Sales and Inventories release either glossed over or completely ignored what others are saying about the report's impact on near-term economic growth. The final sentence of an unbylined Reuters report vaguely referred to future impact by indicating that current inventory balances, which are bloated by historical standards, "…

On MSNBC’s The Rundown on Tuesday, fill-in host Frances Rivera touted Hillary Clinton slamming Florida Senator Marco Rubio for having “offensive and troubling” views on abortion and asked The Washington Post’s Anne Gearan: “So when you hear Hillary Clinton talk about that...how is this new war on women narrative, if that's what it's going to be called, play into Hillary Clinton's hands?”

When you think of tough crowds, Philadelphia sports fans or the audience for Amateur Night at the Apollo may come to mind. The Washington Monthly's D.R. Tucker thought of the “right-wing Republicans” he expects will heckle Pope Francis when the pontiff speaks before a joint session of Congress late next month. “Joe Wilson’s…infamous 2009 'You lie!' outburst will be considered a term of…

In the liberal universe, there's no correlation between hard work or ingenuity and financial success.  As President Obama recently put it, the rich are simply "society's lottery winners."   Sounding a similar theme, Al Sharpton today declared it "astounding" that Rand Paul believes that income inequality is due to "some people working harder."  Astounding, indeed!  What's wrong with Rand?  How…

Appearing on MSNBC’s The Rundown with Jose Diaz-Balart on Monday, political reporter Alex Seitz-Wald speculated on whether Hillary Clinton would comment on Donald Trump during an upcoming speech in New Hampshire: “...it might be hard for her to resist, right? Donald Trump was the biggest news of the weekend....And he’s been most useful to her as a cudgel against the rest of the GOP field.”

Joe Scarborough began with a telling admission: that if he were running the Republican party, he wouldn't let MSNBC host a GOP debate.   But the Morning Joe host went on to make an interesting point today: that if an MSM network had hit Donald Trump with the same sort of gotcha questions that Fox News did during this past Thursday night's debate, the reaction from conservatives would be "…

For close to a hundred and fifty years, the elephant has represented the Republican party, but The American Prospect’s Meyerson suggests that these days, a more fitting choice for the GOP’s symbol would be an extended middle finger. In his analysis of Thursday’s prime-time presidential debate, Meyerson, who also writes a weekly column for The Washington Post, identified several of the candidates…