Political Groups

Did you know that the "The Gun Lobby Rewrote the Second Amendment"? No, really. Even though not a single word contained in that amendment has changed in over 220 years, you should believe it because former Obama administration official Cass Sunstein said so at Bloomberg View on Wednesday.

For weeks now, Joe Scarborough has been expressing befuddlement over Ben Carson's appeal.  It boiled over on today's Morning Joe, as Scarborough went on an extended anti-Carson rant. Scarborough unleashed after clips were played from town halls in Iowa and New Hampshire in which Republican voters expressed strong support for the notion of Carson as a qualified president. Calling Carson…

Over at the Associated Press, Andrew Taylor, contrary to the wire service's usual practice, referenced a pre-official Congressional Budget Office report to tout the federal government's "improved" budget deficit. The CBO estimates that the deficit, which won't become official until the Treasury Department releases its final Monthly Treasury Statement of the fiscal year in the next week or two,…

Items found at the Associated Press, the New York Times and the Washington Post, in reporting that President Obama plans to visit Roseburg, Oregon later this week, have all failed to report that community leaders have said that his visit is not welcome. The 4:10 p.m. PT (7:10 PM ET) entry at a running timeline at AP announced that "Barack Obama will travel to Oregon this week to visit privately…

Poor Gary Legum at Salon.com. How dare supporters of the right to keep and bear arms as clearly defined in the Constitution's Second Amendment push back against the gun control movement's cynical exploitation of Thursday's Roseburg, Oregon massacre? Legum is outraged that "The right tells us (again) to ignore the elephant in the room." He must mean the fact that the area in question at Umpqua…

Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro presides over a country which is falling apart thanks to the socialist policies of his government and that of his predecessor Hugo Chavez. The Economist describes the period since Chavez took over in 1998 as that of "authoritarian misrule" characterized by "by shortages of everything from poultry to pharmaceuticals, by inflation approaching 200% and by rampant…

Chris Matthews on Thursday, filling in for Andrea Mitchell on Andrea Mitchell Reports, interviewed Congressman Jason Chaffetz. Rather than discussing the current investigation, which the Congressman leads, into Planned Parenthood's finances, Matthews grilled Chaffetz on his opinion of the stillborn footage included in a Center for Medical Progress video. He also lectured Chaffetz to watch more…

Apparently, the establishment press is waiting for its marching orders on how to handle what an Investor's Business Daily editorial has already called a "scandal." This one's a joint effort involving Hillary Clinton, Sidney Blumenthal, a recently deceased former CIA operative named Tyler Drumheller who worked with Blumenthal — and CBS News. As Mark Hemingway at the Weekly Standard reported…

In three previous posts yesterday and today, I have noted obvious distortions and untruths in Cecile Richards' testimony this week before a House committee. I didn't mean to save the best (really the worst) for a fourth post, but I came across an jaw-dropping item at LifeNews.com this afternoon. It covers an assertion Richards made during the House hearing that is either one of the biggest lies…

Tuesday afternoon, Alan Fram laughably headlined his coverage of Planned Parenthood head Cecile Richards' appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at the Associated Press as follows: "FACING CONGRESS, PLANNED PARENTHOOD CHIEF REBUTS VIDEOS." She did no such thing. Most notably, Fram quoted Richards making the following statement to the committee: "The outrageous…

In Congressional testimony on Monday and Tuesday, Planned Parenthood head Cecile Richards twisted or failed to tell the truth in several instances. As shown last night, one of them related to how many of its facilities are involved in the provision of fetal tissue for compensation. Her claim that it's "less than 1 percent" is only plausible if the organization has recently terminated such…

In Congressional testimony Monday and Tuesday, Planned Parenthood head Cecile Richards twisted the truth in several instances. One of them had to to with how many of its facilities are involved in the provision of fetal tissue for compensation. She may be technically telling the truth about how many are involved at this moment, but it's clear that far more have been — at least until recently.

The Washington Post's Fact Checker blog, after years of usually sincerely prepared though not always accurate posts, appears to have descended to the level of hackery typically found at Politifact. One recent example demonstrating that the effort has turned into a weapon dishonestly employed against Republicans and conservatives comes from Michelle Ye Hee Lee, who on Friday called 2016…

Good ol' Mike Barnicle dutifully carried Dem water this morning, maintaining a straight face while calling Hillary Clinton a "strong" candidate.  But also on the Morning Joe set was Nicolle Wallace, who reported that "Democrats think she's terrible. I hope [Biden] doesn't run, because he's better than her." For good measure, Mark Halperin opined that Biden might want to wait until February, on…