Culture/Society

Anger, sadness, and disgust have been nearly universal responses to Wednesday night’s apparent act of racist terrorism in Charleston, S.C., but Jeb Lund doesn’t think such reactions make sense coming from conservatives. In a Friday screed, Lund argued that the Charleston shootings shouldn’t have surprised anyone, given that “American movement conservatism has already made these kinds of killings…

This Father’s Day, Dove's marketing has come under the influence of the PC Police. It’s unfortunate, as their Men+Care ad is sweet and heartwarming – and gay. On the plus side, it delivers wonderfully positive messages about men that are rarely told on TV. Dads have an important role, showing emotion is good, and fatherhood begins from conception. In the words of the ad itself, “Real strength…

In a Thursday item on NBC News's web site, Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Andrew Rafferty asserted that "just like the issue of gay marriage, the Pope and the Catholic Church have gone from being wedge issues that benefitted the GOP in 2004 to ones that now favor Democrats." The three journalists cited Associated Press's reporting on Pope Francis's new encyclical on the environment, and concluded…

The broadcast news shows have hyped climate change in Pope Francis’s new encyclical – but did they hint at his arguments on abortion and gender identity? Short answer: No. The Vatican released the pope’s media-hyped encyclical, Laudato Si’, on June 18. Out of the three broadcast networks, only NBC and ABC commented on the “climate change” publication from the “popular pope.” They also emphasized…

On Wednesday's CBS Evening News, Jan Crawford hyped the latest "dust-up between the musician and the politician," and underlined that "rare is the Republican candidate who isn't told to stop the music – even if...they paid licensing fees." She asked a GOP strategist, "Why is it it's always Republicans who are getting slammed by the musicians for using their songs?"

On Tuesday's New Day, CNN's Michaela Pereira criticized former NAACP leader Rachel Dolezal for her false narrative about her race: "To a lot of people, it's as though she's just appropriating a lifestyle, a culture, a racial identity. And the fact is, she's told a lot of lies about other things."

Jeffrey Tayler of The Atlantic treated religious belief as a mental illness in a Sunday column for the far-left website Salon, which targeted Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia for "imposing your obscurantist dogma on impressionable young minds" – specifically, "the bizarre Catholic cult." Tayler made no secret of his anti-Catholic bigotry when he slammed the supposed "pedophile pulpiteers of…

Marlow Stern at the Daily Beast, who reviewed Jurassic World on June 10, must be absolutely furious. The Steven Spielberg-produced movie just had "the highest-grossing opening weekend of all time." Not bad for a film Stern panned as "A Big, Dumb, Sexist Mess." — with heavy emphasis on the "sexist" part.

In a Friday column, the Washington Post's Dana Milbank again misquoted a conservative, where he attacked pro-lifers for not being "on the right side of logic" for opposing abortion, but not supporting "contraceptives [which] would seriously reduce abortions." Milbank cited Americans United for Life's Charmaine Yoest, who supposedly stated, "'I haven't seen anything' to convince her that more…

The Republican-controlled Wisconsin legislature may soon weaken protections for tenured professors in the state’s university system. Talking Points Memo editor and publisher Marshall believes that Gov. Scott Walker’s enthusiastic support for tenure reform is “driven in part by right-wing ideology and in part by the palpable animus Walker himself holds to people who managed to get an education.”…

Friday's Morning Edition on NPR spotlighted the author of children's books who asserted that the push for the legalization of same-sex "marriage" is "the same struggle" as the fight against bans on interracial marriage during the 1960s. Karen Grigsby Bates marked the anniversary of the 1967 Loving v. Virginia case, which struck down anti-miscegenation laws in the United States, by featuring…

While all three broadcast networks hailed Bruce Jenner for choosing to switch genders and become Caitlyn Jenner just one week ago – devoting 48 minutes to the story in three days – on Friday, those same networks were aghast that Spokane, Washington NAACP leader Rachel Dolezal had chosen to identify herself as black despite being white.

New York Times culture reporter Dave Itzkoff weighs in on comedian Jerry Seinfeld calling the younger generation too politically correct for comedy with an odd, condescending criticism: "Perhaps some of Mr. Quinn’s working-class bona fides will rub off on Mr. Seinfeld, whose recent remarks on political correctness have seen his man-of-the-people status called into question."

For most people, humor and comedy are meant to provoke smiles and laughter. According to Salon writer Scott Eric Kaufman, however, conservatives aren’t like most people, since “their version of comedy isn’t intended to be funny, it’s just meant to be mean.” It enables them, he alleged in a Wednesday article, to conceal their “awful thoughts” in supposed jokes. Kaufman claimed that right-wingers…