Conservatives & Republicans

In addition to his usual tired historical revisionism, the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger, in his report on May's budget deficit of $82 billion, failed to mention that the nation is once again operating at the legal limit of its authorized debt. Additionally, he mailed in his final five paragraphs, virtually copying what he wrote on May 12 in covering April's surplus. The nation's debt…

CNN's Brianna Keilar badgered Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson on Thursday's Wolf program over his recent comment on LGBT issues: "I didn't remember any times when there were signs up that says...gay people have to drink at this fountain. I was a little irritated." Keilar repeatedly asked Carson: "Do you think that gay Americans are discriminated against?" When the candidate…

Once again, NBC Nightly News offered the lone segment on the 2016 presidential campaign during its Wednesday program by choosing to hit expected Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush for some recently announced changes in his staff that interim anchor Lester Holt ruled has “overshadowed” his trip to Europe this week. Leading into senior White House correspondent Chris Jansing’s report from…

When it comes to the word “freedom,” liberals and conservatives long have told each other, in effect, “I do not think it means what you think it means.” Take Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, who in a Tuesday Washington Post column urged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to endorse a “far more expansive” concept of freedom than the right’s “constrained notion” that’…

CNN president Jeff Zucker targeted his network's competitors, MSNBC and Fox News, during a Wednesday interview with The Hollywood Reporter. Zucker returned fire in response to a 2014 claim by Fox News Channel CEO Roger Ailes that CNN is "out of the news business." The network executive retorted, "It's absurd on its face. The fact is, we're doing more news than we've ever done. We're doing more…

On Wednesday, NBC’s Today seized on two New York Times hit pieces against Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio, as national correspondent Peter Alexander proclaimed: “He is one of the Republicans' fastest rising stars, just 44, the youngest presidential candidate in the field. But this morning, new scrutiny is focused on Florida Senator Marco Rubio's financial struggles and spending…

The hosts of Bloomberg’s With All Due Respect dove into the latest New York Times piece about 2016 Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio on Tuesday and came away with the conclusion that the story concerning Rubio’s personal finances is both “dangerous” and “totally legitimate.” Halperin declared “The New York Times has shoved Marco Rubio down deep into the barrel” and gushed to John…

How do you become a “conservative folk hero”? It helps a great deal if you believe, and your fellow right-wingers believe, that liberals are picking on you, contended The Daily Beast’s Ana Marie Cox in a Saturday column. Cox defined conservative folk heroes as celebrities or demi-celebrities “whose fame is not dependent on a celebrity-generating skill (acting, singing) but on a set of beliefs.”…

Andrea Mitchell led off her Tuesday MSNBC show by introducing a presidential speech defending ObamaCare: “President Obama is now about to give his speech on his health care law. A law that faces an uncertain future as we await a landmark Supreme Court decision....The Court could strip 6.4 million people of health insurance subsidies.” Mitchell: “A possibility that might create big problems for…

The editorial page editors at the New York Times posted a Tuesday item on their blog that shamelessly played up how the main villain from the Harry Potter book series, Voldemort, has a "higher rating than six Republicans, including Jeb Bush." The Washington Post's WonkBlog "compared polling data on the presidential hopefuls with Google Consumer Survey results on the fictional characters."

Apples and oranges: or shall we say, Harleys and Abrams. On this evening's Ed Show on MSNBC, guest John Nichols of the far-left Nation mag and guest host Michael Eric Dyson lamely tried to analogize Scott Walker riding a Harley to the infamous episode of Michael Dukakis in a tank. The difference?  Walker is a for-real biker and Harley owner.  Dukakis did serve two years in the Army, but there's…

Even by the standards of Democratic presidential nominees, Barack Obama did exceptionally well among black voters, winning 95 percent in 2008 and 93 percent in 2012. The Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky thinks that Hillary Clinton, assuming she’s nominated, will come close to those numbers in 2016, partly on her merits and partly because black people understand that today’s Republican party doesn’t…

As part of the Fox News Sunday political panel, New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg attempted to defend her paper’s hit piece on Marco Rubio but instead seemed to confirm the backlash against the Times: “When you run for president, every aspect of your life, and even your spouse's life, is open to public scrutiny....So this is kind of the game, right? This is what happens, this is why…

On Sunday's MediaBuzz on Fox News, former CNN correspondent Lola Ogunnaike slammed the reaction of many conservatives to the sexual abuse scandal surrounding the Duggar family. Host Howard Kurtz wondered if "some conservative commentators going easy on the family, because it's somebody who is seen as on their side." Ogunnaike replied, "Absolutely. I think that if this family was a group of…