Maher: ObamaCare ‘So Much More of a Significant Achievement than Lan

Citing the 45th anniversary last week of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon, Bill Maher on Friday night sneered: “I always hear that the moon landing was the last great thing that America did. I think the last great thing America did was giving health care to 30 million people.” That prompted a roar of applause from the Los Angeles audience for Maher’s July 25 Real Time show on HBO, and after…
Brent Baker
July 26th, 2014 2:58 PM

Wasserman Schultz Says Nevada Governor Didn't Implement an Obamacare E

It seems that Democratic National Committee chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz has herself programmed to automatically criticize any Republican governor in the U.S. for refusing to implement a state Obamacare exchange. Wasserman Schultz made that contention on Tuesday about Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval. She did so on Nevada's "Ralston Reports," a TV program hosted by Jon Ralston, whose…
Tom Blumer
July 26th, 2014 11:58 AM

NY Times Puts GOP's 'Hard Right' North Carolina Woes on Front Page

Still worried about North Carolina's swing to the right, the New York Times is scouring for evidence that the state's conservative rollback of taxes and regulations is backfiring on Republicans. The political infighting made the front page of Saturday's Times, which typically buries state political news on the back pages: "Move to Center Divides G.O.P. in N. Carolina." Reporter Richard…
Clay Waters
July 26th, 2014 11:43 AM

Prosecutions of Gun Violence Plummet Under Obama; Networks Yawn

Although the network newscasts aggressively promoted gun control in the wake of the Newtown shooting, ABC, NBC and CBS have ignored a new report by the Washington Times showing prosecutions for gun violence have plummeted under Barack Obama. Times writer Kelly Riddell on Thursday explained, "While President Obama decries gun violence and presses for more laws to restrict ownership, his Justice…
Scott Whitlock
July 26th, 2014 10:35 AM

Weekend Open Thread: BuzzFeed Fires Editor for Plagiarism

The hot website BuzzFeed fired politics editor Benny Johnson, saying it found "40 instances of sentences or phrases copied word for word from other sites." BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith announced Friday night that Johnson was dismissed after they had confirmed many instances of plagiarism. Smith must regret telling Gawker that Johnson was “one of the web’s deeply original writers." The…
NB Staff
July 26th, 2014 8:28 AM

Daily Kos Contrasts Old-School GOP With New ‘Bats**t Crazy’ Versio

Liberals like to opine that righty Republicans of the fairly recent past, such as Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley Jr., or even Ronald Reagan, were nowhere near as wild-eyed as the Tea Party crowd. In a Tuesday Daily Kos post by the mononymous Hunter, it was Bob Dole (granted, no one’s idea of a movement conservative) who represented the party’s rational “old guard” against the “clearly…
Tom Johnson
July 26th, 2014 7:45 AM

‘The Fracking King’ Demonizes Oil Drilling In New Fiction Book

The beauty of weaving an anti-fracking agenda into a work of fiction is that drilling for natural gas can be demonized without a burden of proof. It is fiction after all. And it’s precisely what James Browning did with his novel, “The Fracking King.” The July 1 release was not classified as young adult literature, but read like it. The hardcover ranked 37,351 in books on Amazon Best Sellers…
Julia A. Seymour
July 26th, 2014 6:48 AM

ABC Family Tackled the 'Taboo' Late-Term Abortion With Saddened Lesbia

“ABC Family” is a network that isn’t for the safe, “family-friendly” shows. On the contrary, they love edgy shows like any other network. They created “The Fosters” to show a positive image of a lesbian couple – one black, one white – and now the lesbians have had an abortion – but only to save the life of the mother. Margaret Lyons of New York magazine’s Vulture blog was impressed in a post…
Tim Graham
July 25th, 2014 11:03 PM

'Dear White People' Trailer Calls Fox News Racist

The latest trailer for the satire Dear White People offers what we've come to expect given the hype surrounding the film--uncomfortable racial observations and a few well-earned laughs. The snippet also features a character slamming Fox News and, by extension, its viewers as racist. Is the full-length trailer, released Tuesday, carrying on the Left's assault against the sole cable channel…
Christian Toto
July 25th, 2014 10:38 PM

Zing! Limbaugh Aptly Compares Obama to MSNBC's Ronan Farrow

Five years and running into the Obama presidency and Rush Limbaugh may have just come up with the best analogy for it. On his radio show Wednesday, Limbaugh cited an awkward parallel between our gallant leader and Ronan Farrow, the lighter-than-air MSNBC midday anchor of indeterminate paternity. (Audio after the jump)
Jack Coleman
July 25th, 2014 7:16 PM

Leftist Blog: GOP Effort to Undermine Obamacare Stems From a Leninist

What do Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, and Vladimir Lenin have in common? If you answered that they’re all Republican strategists, you’re sort of right, suggested Seth D. Michaels in a Thursday article at Talking Points Memo. Michaels claimed that GOPers are using a Leninist approach to subvert an increased government role in the health-care system. (Oh, the irony.) Specifically, they’ve taken “…
Tom Johnson
July 25th, 2014 6:56 PM

MSNBC Explores 'Kinder, Gentler GOP' on 'Ronan Farrow Daily

According to MSNBC, Republicans are always making things worse. On the July 25 edition of Ronan Farrow Daily, the cable host began a segment entitled “Kinder, Gentler GOP?” after playing a clip of Rand Paul at the National Urban League annual conference speaking of the “poverty problem.” Farrow asked his guests a stream of leading questions insinuating that Republicans are “catering to a…
Laura Flint
July 25th, 2014 5:40 PM

GMA, Today Yawn at Christian Escaping Sudan, Death Sentence for Her Ch

On Friday, both ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today ignored the news that Meriam Ibrahaim, a Sudanese woman who was sentenced to death in Sudan for converting from Islam to Christianity and marrying a Christian man, fled Sudan with an Italian diplomat on an Italian jet to Rome Thursday and received a blessing from Pope Francis in a private meeting at the Vatican. Meanwhile, CBS This…
Curtis Houck
July 25th, 2014 5:10 PM

Colbert Explains Connection Between Liberals and Vampires: 'They Scre

While Stephen Colbert usually regulates his humor to bashing Republicans, on the July 24 edition of The Colbert Report the Comedy Central comedian actually made a joke both his liberal and conservative audience could enjoy. As Colbert’s faux conservative personality expressed his outrage over the “transparent Hollywood attack on Republicans” in HBO’s latest episode of the explicit vampire…
Laura Flint
July 25th, 2014 4:35 PM