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SNL's Violent Opening Skit: Impossible to Imagine If Parties Switched
One of the first rules of genuine comedy is that to be funny, a joke or skit needs to have some basis in truth.
On that primary measurement, the cold open on "Saturday Night Live" last night failed miserably on so many fronts, it's hard to know where to begin. Its most offensive aspect is its portrayal of a Democrat inflicting violence on three Republicans to the audience's pleausre. It is…
Chicago Trib Excuses Emanuel's Ignorance on Origins of Airports' Names
In Chicago, incumbent Mayor and longtime Democrat fixture Rahm Emanuel floated the idea of renaming one of its airports after President Obama. After all, according to Emanuel, both of Chicago's major airports, O'Hare and Midway, are "named after battleships." No they're not, as will be seen after the jump.
The Chicago Tribune's Bill Ruthhart failed to recognize Emanuel's startling gaffe until…
Lefty Writer: Is Francis Catholic? Yes (Unlike Some Recent Popes)
In a Sunday blog post on the New York Review of Books site, historian Wills, who’s written extensively about both the United States and Catholicism, rebuked conservative Catholics who’ve “suggested that [Pope Francis] is not truly Catholic,” asserting that such critics of the pope “are right to be in a panic. They are not used to having a pope who is a Christian. They call Francis a radical…
Online Magazine Hypes 'Yogaphobic' Catholic Priests
Andrea R. Jain bemoaned how a "growing number of individuals and institutions oppose yoga, and actively encourage fear of it" in a Thursday item on Quartz, an online magazine from the parent company of The Atlantic. Despite passing mentions of opposition from evangelical Christians, such as Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler, the Indiana University-Perdue University Indianapolis professor…
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CBS Touts 'Growing Backlash' Against Indiana's Religious Freedom Law
Friday's CBS Evening News played up the "growing backlash" by social liberals against a new law in Indiana that protest the religious liberties of business owners. Correspondent Adriana Diaz spotlighted how "the protests have grown from Indiana's state house to a torrent on social media." She also played clips or read excerpts from statements of four opponents of the law, while only featuring two…
Reviewer Objects That Play Doesn't Portray Scalia As ‘Bigoted Bully'
Mark Joseph Stern argues that a crucial shortcoming of John Strand’s play The Originalist is its out-of-date portrayal of Scalia as “a principled conservative, a brilliant and complex man who resists partisan classification.” Nowadays, however, Scalia’s “ideology…looks less conservative than Republican…Twenty years ago Scalia was the unpredictable justice, the renegade who thought both flag…
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NBC's Mitchell & Todd Realize Nuke Deal Would 'Make Iran Stronger'
Despite having savaged Republicans two weeks earlier for voicing opposition to an Iran nuclear deal in an open letter to the totalitarian regime, on Friday, NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell and Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd suddenly realized such a deal would be a bad idea.
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Shock: CBS Covers Own Poll on Declining Support for Hillary Clinton
After the network morning and evening newscasts ignored a Reuters poll showing tumbling support for Hillary Clinton last week, the CBS Evening News bucked the trend and covered the results of its own poll that also found dwindling support for Clinton in light of recent scandals. While the program spent only 32 seconds on the results of the poll, anchor Scott Pelley was still able to highlight…
NYT Page 1 Label Overdose: 'Hard-Right...Right-Wing...Conservatives'
Political reporter Trip Gabriel's front-page report from the Iowa hustings in Thursday's New York Times was, even by the paper's standards, an amazingly dense thicket of ideologically loaded labeling, with the word "conservative" or "hard-line" or "right wing" cropping up in seemingly every sentence: "Conservatives Are Looking to Unite Behind an Alternative to Bush." In all, the word "…
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NBC's Guthrie to Romney: Bergdahl Swap if You Were President?
In an exclusive interview with Mitt Romney on Thursday's NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie wondered if the 2012 presidential contender would have traded five Taliban terrorists for Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl if commander-in-chief: "It was controversial. The President presumably knew the circumstance of Bowe Bergdahl's leaving his post. He said, though, leave no soldier on the battlefield. If…
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Earnest: Yemeni Govt.'s Stability Not Measure of U.S. Policy Success
Employing a variant of the old surgeon's joke — "The operation was a success, but the patient died" — White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, on friendly ground on MSNBC this morning, essentially told viewers that the administration still considers Yemen a success, even as its government is on the fast track to being forced into indefinite exile.
Earnest told the "Morning Joe" show's Mika…
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Fallon: Romney Netflix Documentary Could Have Changed 2012 Race
While interviewing former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Wednesday's NBC Tonight Show, host Jimmy Fallon argued that if the Netflix documentary Mitt about the GOP candidate had been released before the 2012 election, voters may have made a different choice: "Because gosh, it was fantastic. And I was telling you, if you could have had that out, you know, while you were running, I…
New Republic Writer: Cruz's Goal Is ‘White Voter Shock and Awe'
Brian Beutler of The New Republic thinks no one who’s as far to the right as Ted Cruz is can be elected president, and, to support that opinion, he enlisted (or perhaps drafted) a conservative hero, albeit one who died in 1998. In a Monday article, Beutler asserted that “if Barry Goldwater were still alive, he’d be a guest on cable news somewhere warning Republicans that Ted Cruz is too…
