On her 12 p.m. ET hour show on MSNBC Monday, host Andrea Mitchell accused former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden of being sexist simply for criticizing Senator Dianne Feinstein's slanted Intelligence Committee report condemning the interrogation of terror suspects under the Bush administration. [ Listen to the audio ] Mitchell played a clip of Hayden questioning the credibility of the report on Fox News Sunday, where he cited Washington Post columnist David Ignatius : "He said that Senator Feinstein wanted a report so scathing that it would 'ensure that an un-American brutal program of detention and interrogation would never... continue reading
On Monday morning, NBC, ABC, and CBS all found an excuse to cover Obama's selfie with Red Sox player David Ortiz one more time, expressing their collective fear that the White House may ban selfies with the commander-in-chief. On NBC's Today , co-host Savannah Guthrie fretted: "Has David Ortiz ruined the presidential selfie for the rest of us?" [ Listen to the audio ] After the networks initially promoted the photo-op as a "good day in Washington" last week, they were chagrined when word came that Ortiz may have staged the supposedly spontaneous moment in order to promote cell phone... continue reading
“New York Times” columnist Thomas Friedman took a nasty swipe at conservatives over the subject of climate change on Sunday April 6. Friedman appeared alongside Heidi Cullen of Climate Central on Sunday’s CBS This Morning and proceeded to mock conservatives who question human-caused climate change. Speaking to host Bob Schieffer, Friedman claimed that 97 percent of scientists believe in climate change and “conservatives are saying I’m going go to with the 3%. That’s not conservative, that’s Trotskyite radical.” Friedman’s obnoxious comments came after Schieffer wondered, “In our politics now, everything breaks on these ideological lines. It just breaks. Is there... continue reading
Last week, the Supreme Court eliminated limits on how much money individuals can donate to all campaigns in any two-year election cycle and NBC’s David Gregory lamented how “American democracy is for sale.” Appearing on Meet the Press on Sunday April 6, Gregory asked Shaun McCutcheon, the plaintiff in McCutcheon v. FEC: “How do you have candidates in the future now going to the wealthiest donors in the country and saying I want an unlimited amount of money? How does that is not at some-point lead to corruption?” Gregory continued to worry about the repercussions of the ruling, and hit... continue reading
Jim Edwards, the deputy editor of the Business Insider website, and Slate.com's tech reporter Will Oremus slammed former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich on the Friday edition of BBC World Service's World Have Your Say program. Edwards likened Eich's $1,000 donation in support of California's Proposition 8 to someone who " donated some money to the KKK ." The editor also repeatedly accused the tech executive of " donating money that strip people of their civil rights ." The Business Insider editor later compared the former CEO's support of traditional marriage to supporting the " the civil right to own slaves... continue reading
On Thursday's Hardball , host Chris Matthews and guest Joan Walsh disparaged conservatives who disputed the administration's ObamaCare enrollment numbers "birthers" and "truthers." "What can you say about these guys besides they are health care enrollment truthers right now," Matthews insisted. "It's a new firm of birtherism. It's a new way to say it's not legitimate, he [Obama] doesn't belong there," said Walsh. The on screen heading: “OBAMACARE TRUTHERS.” [Audio here .] Of course, many of the conservatives Matthews was referring to had a legitimate claim that the White House's 7 million enrollment figure wasn't accurate. Blue Cross Blue Shield... continue reading
As of April 3, 2014, it's been 140 days since the once-vaunted Nightline covered ObamaCare or any of the problems associated with it. Instead, the ABC News program has mostly avoided hard news, focusing on tabloid-heavy topics such as a city in Brazil that has become known as the "model factory." [MP3 audio here .] On Monday, the open enrollment for ObamaCare ended, the website had more problems and the administration announced seven million sign-ups. Rather then discuss this or question how many of those previously had health care and lost it, Nightline skipped these stories. It was way back... continue reading
On Friday's CBS This Morning , co-host Norah O'Donnell touted Hillary Clinton attending the Women in the World summit alongside International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde: "One of the highlights, their reaction when moderator Thomas Friedman of the New York Times suggested that Lagarde would one day lead the European Union and Clinton could become President of the United States." [ Listen to the audio ] After playing the clip of Friedman fawning over them amid a cheering audience, O'Donnell declared: "It was interesting to see that reaction about women ruling the world , the two of them together." Fellow... continue reading
On Thursday, BuzzFeed reported that NBC, ABC, and CBS turned down a White House request for primetime coverage of a presidential address on Tuesday to spike the football on ObamaCare reaching the seven million enrollment mark. Instead, the President was forced to settle for an afternoon pep rally in the Rose Garden which only ABC and NBC covered live. These were the same networks that fretted over Republicans not agreeing to let Obama give a primetime campaign speech to Congress at the same time as a Republican presidential primary debate in 2011. On the September 1, 2011 edition of ABC's... continue reading
[UPDATE: After the MRC's reporting on this, ABC News has apologized and pledged not to use the footage again.] According to Good Morning America' s Linzie Janis , a CEO who made a donation in opposition to gay marriage is the same as the hateful members of Westboro Baptist Church. On Friday, Janis reported on Brendan Eich, the former head of the tech company Mozilla. Eich was ousted after liberal groups found out that in 2008 he made a $1000 donation to support Proposition 8 in California. As Janis spoke about the six-year-old donation, video footage of Westboro Baptist protesters... continue reading