Conservatives & Republicans

British historian Niall Ferguson brought a breath of fresh air to the set of MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Thursday, effortlessly cutting through the show’s typical left-wing spin. Co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were engaged in their new favorite pastime – slamming Ted Cruz and other GOP “extremists” – when Ferguson jumped in and suggested that President Obama may also be culpable in…

On Wednesday's The Last Word on MSNBC, host Lawrence O'Donnell opened the show by calling Republicans "frighteningly ignorant" and "childish" because of the battle over the debt ceiling issue. Taking off on the terms 'Holocaust deniers" and the more recently dubbed "global warming deniers," the words "Default Deniers" appeared on screen behind the MSNBC host as he began the show:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) slammed the "false narrative" of the media that Republicans are to blame for the shutdown. Her broadside came on Thursday's New Day. She insisted, "remember that the mainstream media really has given a false narrative. Over and over and over again, the mainstream media has blamed the Republicans for this, and yet the only party that has put offer after offer…

Wrapping up a report on the government shutdown for Thursday's NBC Today, White House correspondent Peter Alexander eagerly promoted negative political fallout for Republicans: "Both parties are taking a hit in their approval ratings as a result these days. But the damage to the Republican brand appears to be proving to be much worse. A new Gallup poll...shows only 28% of Americans say they have…

Andrew Couts at Digital Trends is apparently the one who has broken the story (link is in original) that "The exact cost to build Healthcare.gov, according to U.S. government records, appears to have been $634,320,919, which we paid to a company you probably never heard of: CGI Federal." Without getting into minutiae, some of that amount may not be directly related to HealthCare.gov, but…

On Tuesday's Crossfire (HT commenter Gary Hall), liberal Democratic guest Bill Burton tried to impress the show's hostesses and guest David Limbaugh when he said of President Obama: "More people have jobs than they did when he took office." Wow. That's about the most unimpressive statement I've heard in years, and it would be beyond pathetic but for the performance of one state. Let's look at…

Appearing on the Tuesday, October 8, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC political analyst Joy Reid asserted that Republicans are "taking hostages" and have "shot a hostage" as they "went ahead and shut the government down." She began her over the top metaphor:

The Daily Beast is ramping up the attacks on conservatives who don’t believe a catastrophe would result if the United States reaches its debt limit. On Monday, the Beast churned out a story ripping debt-ceiling “denialists,” and on Tuesday, another article slammed debt-ceiling “truthers.” Patricia Murphy’s Monday article, titled “The GOP’s Top 10 Debt Ceiling Denialists,” was a sort of…

On Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer wrung his hands over Congress, particularly Republicans, not yet reaching a budget deal to end the government shutdown: "...the Tea Party seems very much dug in here. Both sides seem dug in." Chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd responded by removing the criticism of "both sides": "You're right, the Tea Party side of this is dug in." [Watch the…

On Monday's All In show, MSNBC host Chris Hayes devoted a segment to blaming a "fatal flaw" and "quirks" in the U.S. Constitution for making it possible for government shutdowns to happen, as he suggested that parliamentary governments are preferable because they make it more difficult for divided government to exist.

On Friday's Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, Dan Rather poured cold water on Wendy Davis' chances of winning the Texas gubernatorial race, but maintained a glimmer of hope: "I'm not predicting she'll win. If you have to bet the trailer money, you bet she loses. But overnight's a long time in politics – a week is forever – and we're talking about an election that doesn't happen [until] a year from…

[***UPDATED*** 17:30 ET: More analysis and full transcript added] Appearing on Andrea Mitchell's MSNBC 1 p.m. ET hour show on Tuesday, Wisconsin Congressman Sean Duffy slammed the press for not doing its job in pointing out the hypocrisy of ObamaCare being delayed for certain groups but not for all Americans: "...the media won't even ask the question about, 'Why are you [the Obama administration…

Poor Carl Bernstein: he's suffering a bad bout of MSM nostalgia. He longs for the good old media days when the news was dominated by the likes of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the then three broadcast networks. They could slam Republicans with impunity, without any conservative media counterweight. In covering the shutdown, today's media culture, kvetches Carl, is just too darn…

Evidence of testiness on the Democratic side of the 17% government shutdown continues to accumulate. Today, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney had a tense exchange with ABC's Jonathan Karl, who was apparently so taken aback by Carney's answer to another reporter that he interjected himself into the dialog — to correct Carney about what House Speaker John Boehner said earlier today about his…