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"[F]or America's sake, I hope that Al Jazeera penetrates the US media market. Unless Americans see the images and narratives that shape how others see us, the US will not be able to overcome its reputation as the world's half-blind bully." So stated Naomi Wolf's "I Want My Al Jazeera" published at the Huffington Post Tuesday evening (image courtesy Mike Licht):

Today's Morning Joe offered an interesting contrast of MSM takes on Donald Trump.  Politico honcho John Harris proffered the conventional Beltway wisdom, writing off Trump as a "silly season" candidate who adds only entertainment and amusement value to the race.    Meanwhile, Mark Halperin was surprisingly respectful of The Donald.  Halperin opined that beyond the birther issue, Trump was…

On the April 7 All Things Considered, NPR's David Folkenflik reported on Fox News anchor Bret Baier, and announced his own research showed Baier's "all-star" panel on Special Report was very tilted to the conservative side. But none of that apparently pleased NPR fans. On Monday night, anchors read from the listener mail, and they were furious Fox was even considered on All Things Considered…

 On Tuesday’s Joy Behar Show on HLN, host Behar claimed that "poor white people, poor black people are the ones who are oppressed by the right wing in this country," during a discussion of a poll finding that 42 percent of Americans believe the American Civil War was fought over states rights instead of slavery. Panel member and comedian Baratunde Thurston had just cited the Mississippi state…

 According to the Haaretz article, "Netanyahu Cancels Bieber Date Over Refusal to Meet Kids Affected by Gaza Rockets," Barak Ravid recounts reports that Canadian singer Justin Bieber declined to meet children who narrowly escaped being hit by rocket fire as they exited an Israeli school bus shortly before it was hit several weeks ago. A 16-year-old boy was seriously injured in the attack. The…

“Critics say it’s about time” for President Barack Obama to offer his plan to reduce the deficit, CBS’s Chip Reid acknowledged Tuesday night before he proceeded to rationalize Obama’s disengagement, validated by CBS’s in-house political analyst. Reid asserted: “Political analysts say the President had good reason to wait. He wanted the Republicans to go first and they did last week when…

Bill Maher Tuesday made a statement on MSNBC that would be truly embarrassing for the so-called news network if any of its executives cared at all about being an impartial disseminator of information. At the end of an almost thirteen minute interview with Rachel Maddow, the comedian said of Republicans, "I hate them as much as you do" (video follows with commentary):

The ominous threat of a government shutdown dominated the news last week. The media weren’t wrong to cover it as a dramatic debate, but all of the hype and horror looked a little bizarre by the weekend – like wide-eyed, screaming hurricane warnings on the Weather Channel followed by a sunny calm. When the deal was struck, the TV pundits quickly moved on to how there were sharper, harsher…

The late left-wing historian Howard Zinn was one of America's best-known public intellectuals. His 1980 opus A People's History of the United States is widely used as a high-school and college textbook, and he had plenty of fans in the entertainment world, among them Matt Damon and Ben Affleck (A People's History got a shout-out in Good Will Hunting) as well as Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam…

Joy Behar on Monday's "The View" crowed about Barack Obama being "a very intelligent guy" because he went to Harvard Law School and Columbia University. Without skipping a beat, Elisabeth Hasselbeck marvelously asked, "Then doesn't that make President Bush very smart as well then? Yeah?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

There's an old saw that every time a senator looks in the mirror, he sees a president.  Could the same be true of MSNBC hosts?   Twice tonight on his TV show, Cenk Uygur fantasized himself as president.  The muy macho MSNBCer naturally imagined he'd be much tougher with Republicans than President Obama. View video after the jump.

On Monday night's "Piers Morgan," the CNN host professed his admiration for President Obama – but like any good liberal, sounded his disappointment that the Guantanamo Bay detention camp is still open. He tried to get his guests to share similar sentiments. "I am quite an Obama fan, but I was quite disappointed that he did the big U-turn on Guantanamo, actually," Morgan admitted.…

In a business that is supposed to treat record achievements, dubious or otherwise, as news, it's more than a little curious to note that the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger, along with Reuters and AFP, all "somehow" forgot to tell readers that March's reported federal outlays, as seen in the Monthly Treasury Statement released today, came in at an all-time record of $339.047 billion, and…

A freelance blogger on Tuesday filed a class action lawsuit against Arianna Huffington for $105 million. The suit alleges that the Huffington Post's legion of unpaid bloggers are entitled to one third of the revenue from the site's sale to AOL in February. Jonathan Tasini, who filed the lawsuit, compared Huffington to a "robber baron" in a blog post on Tuesday, and called her site a "blogger…