Highlighting "major problems" with the website of ObamaCare's federal exchange, CNN's Wolf Blitzer said the administration should have accepted the Republican proposal and delayed implementation of the health care law for a year. "Yeah. If they had three years to get this ready, if they weren't fully ready, they should accept the advice that a lot of Republicans are giving them, delay it another year, get it ready, and make sure it works," Blitzer said on Wednesday. [Video below. Audio here .] Blitzer's candid observation followed Brian Todd's report on "a lot of problems" with the website. Todd quoted a... continue reading
Chris Matthews, who has publicly insisted that he doesn't like "cheap shots," on Tuesday trashed conservatives in the House as "troglodytes" from the movie Planet of the Apes . According to the Hardball anchor, Republicans opposing the President in the government shutdown believe that "if the country goes down, the economy goes down, the world comes apart, 'hey, we get an extra inch of flesh off this guy [Obama].'" After guest David Corn, editor of the liberal Mother Jones magazine, sneered that these GOP members want to "blog things up" and "plunge the detonator," Matthews snarled, " Is this troglodyte... continue reading
On Wednesday's NBC Today , co-host Matt Lauer wrung his hands over Congress, particularly Republicans, not yet reaching a budget deal to end the government shutdown: "...the Tea Party seems very much dug in here. Both sides seem dug in." Chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd responded by removing the criticism of "both sides": "You're right, the Tea Party side of this is dug in." Despite them being so "dug in," Todd hoped for "good news" of Republican surrender: "House Republicans, they seem to be dropping the health care thing. The question is whether the Tea Party folks will be... continue reading
CNN aired an exclusive interview with a Fast and Furious whistleblower on Monday morning, but NBC, CBS, and ABC all ignored the story that day and failed to interview the whistleblower, ATF agent John Dodson. The government is blocking publication of Dodson's new book, his insider account of the failed gun sting Operation Fast and Furious. In addition, CNN dropped its own interview after it aired during the 8 a.m. ET hour of New Day . The network aired no clips of the interview for the rest of Monday into Tuesday morning after it brought Dodson on to "set the... continue reading
On Monday's All In show, MSNBC host Chris Hayes devoted a segment to blaming a "fatal flaw" and "quirks" in the U.S. Constitution for making it possible for government shutdowns to happen, as he suggested that parliamentary governments are preferable because they make it more difficult for divided government to exist. He went on to worry that an "extreme[ly] ideologically coherent" modern Republican party could cause a "domestic Cuban Missile Crisis" to happen. Hayes began: We are right now, as I speak to you, as you listen to my voice, headed towards a full-blown constitutional crisis. That's the growing consensus... continue reading
One way to know if a journalist is asking a softball question is when the President of the United States compliments the reporter after he or she asks it. That happened twice on Tuesday as Barack Obama talked to reporters about the government shutdown. The President called on Sam Stein of the liberal Huffington Post website. Stein dutifully wondered, "With Speaker Boehner so far unwilling to hold a vote on a clean CR, what assurances can you give to those affected by a shutdown who are concerned about an even longer impasse?" He added, "And how worried are you personally... continue reading
Appearing as a guest on the Monday, October 7, All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC to promote the film, 12 Years a Slave, screenwriter John Ridley seemed to blame America for taking slavery and making it even worse than it previously had been by introducing "concepts of racial inferiority," and went on to assert that Americans have "all been indoctrinated in these thoughts" and need to "understand that history" in order to "get past some of the notions we have." Host Chris Hayes posed the question: "What did you come out of this project knowing about slavery or knowing... continue reading
Appearing on Andrea Mitchell's MSNBC 1 p.m. ET hour show on Tuesday, Wisconsin Congressman Sean Duffy slammed the press for not doing its job in pointing out the hypocrisy of ObamaCare being delayed for certain groups but not for all Americans: "...the media won't even ask the question about, 'Why are you [the Obama administration] treating families different than big businesses?'...That's how pathetic, I think, news reporting has become, when we won't ask tough questions to the administration." [ Listen to the audio ] That response was prompted by Mitchell ranting that Republican calls for a one-year delay of the... continue reading
CNN scored an exclusive interview with a "Fast and Furious" whistleblower on Tuesday morning, and New Day co-host Chris Cuomo was intent on letting his guest tell his story that the Obama administration did not want him to tell. The guest, ATF agent John Dodson, wrote a book on the operation "Fast and Furious" but the government is blocking its publication. Cuomo's first question to Dodson prodded him to tell his story: " What do you want people to know about the operation? What it was supposed to be and how it went wrong? What's your message? " Dodson ripped... continue reading
CNN's legal analyst Jeff Toobin thinks Justice Antonin Scalia is stuck in the 1950s on social issues but Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is up to date with today's citizens. The entire Court is a "deeply political institution," Toobin admitted, yet his descriptions for the conservative Scalia and the liberal Ginsburg differed significantly. Scalia is "a 1950s social conservative," he insisted on Tuesday's AC360 Later , while Ginsburg "is a woman who is very much in tune with the modern world." [Video below. Audio here .] "[A]nybody who thinks that the Supreme Court is anything except a deeply political institution got... continue reading