Iran

On Monday, all three network morning shows eagerly touted the Obama administration’s long-delayed effort to reach a deal with Iran over its nuclear program. On NBC’s Today, news anchor Natalie Morales announced: “Negotiators from six world powers are finally making some encouraging progress with Iran on a deal over its nuclear program.”

It would be nice if the establishment press, including the folks at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, had spent a bit less time this past week preparing for and celebrating the Supreme Court's sadly as-expected Obamacare and same-sex "marriage" rulings, and a bit more on giving readers, listeners and viewers genuine updates on the horrid state of U.S. "negotiations" with Iran…

Working title for John Kerry's memoirs: The Art of the Disastrous Deal . . . On today's Morning Joe, former CIA Director Michael Hayden said he was "stunned" to hear Kerry recently say that the Iranians' work toward weaponizing a nuclear device is not as important as some are suggesting and that they don't have to come clean before an agreement.  Hayden later said that the US must walk away from…

In an interview with National Security Advisor Susan Rice aired on Friday’s NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie challenged the White House effort to reach a nuclear deal with Iran: “Anyone watching this closely, they all say basically the same thing – that the optics are that the administration wants this deal too much.”

ABC, CBS, and NBC's morning and evening newscasts were too busy giving 48 minutes of coverage to Bruce Jenner's Vanity Fair photo spread to give one second of coverage to the four Americans currently being held hostage by the oppressive regime in Iran. NBC mentioned two of them – Amir Hekmati and Robert Levinson – back on the April 24, 2015 edition of NBC Nightly News. However, ABC and CBS haven'…

Appearing on the Monday edition of The O’Reilly Factor, Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer and host Bill O’Reilly tore into President Obama for stating that the U.S. is now “the most respected country on Earth” thanks to his administration with Krauthammer openly wondering “what planet he's living on.” Following a soundbite of Obama speaking earlier on Monday at the White House, O’Reilly…

On Monday’s CBS Evening News, fill-in anchor Charlie Rose and foreign correspondent Elizabeth Palmer bemoaned the impact of international sanctions on the Iranian economy with Palmer also fretting that Secretary of State John Kerry’s leg injury could hurt the “dynamic” of nuclear talks between the U.S., its allies, and Iran on a proposed deal. Prior to Palmer’s report from Tehran, Rose noted that…

In a Thursday interview recorded for Megyn Kelly's Fox News show that evening, Charles Krauthammer provided stunning evidence rarely mentioned even on Fox — and almost never in the establishment press — relating to how unserious the administration's and the Pentagon's "strategy" has been in containing, let alone defeating, ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Krauthammer began discussing the inadequacy of…

Today’s conservative legislators may not be as dumb as a box of rocks or so dumb it takes them an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes (HT: Rodney Dangerfield) but Daily Kos writer Hunter is willing to claim that they’re “the dumbest we've ever had. You have to credit the tea party Republicans for that one—they know what they want, and by golly if it can ooze its way into a suit and tie they'll…

Web and news searches at Google, as well as a search at the Associated Press's national site, indicate that there is very little interest in the establishment press in getting the reactions of current and former U.S. soldiers who defeated enemy forces in Ramadi during last decade's Iraq War to the loss of that city to Islamic State forces. Sadly, that's not surprising. As usual, Fox News is…

During a segment about Twitter, NBC’s Late Night host Seth Meyers on Thursday night praised Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s reaction to series of tweets from Republican Senator Tom Cotton (Ark.) as “well-done” and admitting that he was “very impressed” with Zarif’s use of “reverse criticism.” 

On Saturday, Newsweek reported that the largest donor to the Clinton Foundation “may be in breach of US sanctions” on Iran due to his business dealings with the authoritarian regime in his capacity as the billionaire head of a Ukrainian pipe-making business. Since the article went public, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC have yet to even acknowledge this new development. Wednesday’s The Kelly…

While Chris Matthews's April 21 interview with President Obama was not brimming with obsequious fawning nor visible leg tingles, he nonetheless squandered an opportunity that a more assertive journalist might have taken to scrutinize President Obama, particularly on his handling of the Iranian nuclear negotiations. 

Salon editor-at-large Joan Walsh is not worried in the least about Iran's arming/equipping of anti-Israel, anti-American Houthi rebels in Yemen, nor in the Islamic Republic obtaining Russian-made surface-to-air missiles which could take down American or Israeli jets seeking to bomb nuclear facilities. "This is a nuclear deal, it's not an everything deal," Walsh huffed in reaction to mild…