During an appearance on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos , New Yorker magazine editor David Remnick complained that an intractable Congress has made it impossible for immigration reform to become law. Speaking on Sunday, August 3, Remnick whined that President Obama is “pretty stifled” on immigration reform and lamented that “history is going to show that this presidency has been stifled at every angle.” Moderator George Stephanopoulos seemed to express similar sentiments to Remnick as he bemoaned how on immigration reform “as you look at the range of legislation over the last two, four years, no hope that anything... continue reading
Released on Friday morning, the latest jobs report from the Labor Department touted a net growth of 209,000 jobs in July. On Friday evening, the report was promoted on all three of the major broadcast networks, ranging from news briefs by ABC and NBC to a full report from CBS. While there was plenty of praise and even an ounce of positive news, the networks mostly failed to note that the economy still has a long way to go. Over on the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley , substitute anchor James Brown provided a neutral outlook that while “[e]mployers... continue reading
On Friday night, the major broadcast networks all covered the latest developments in the conflict between the Israelis and Hamas as a three-day cease-fire collapsed after an Israeli solider was captured during an ambush while the two sides fought in an underground tunnel. In their coverage, the networks used some harsh language in describing the Israeli offensive to seek out those responsible and two networks touted Palestinians praising the capture. Anchor Diane Sawyer said on ABC World News described Israel’s actions after “one of their soldiers was apparently captured by Hamas” as “[a] pounding response.” In a report from ABC... continue reading
Serving on Friday as the substitute host for Now with Alex Wagner , Vox founder and Editor-In-Chief Ezra Klein had a science reporter from Vox.com on to discuss the current outbreak of the Ebola virus in Africa and the arrival of two Americans who were working there to an Atlanta-area hospital. The segment was very informative, but it left out one key detail: Klein failed to disclose his own ties to Vox and the obvious conflict of interest that presents. Not only that, but Klein never even mentioned once his full-time job during the entire show. At the conclusion of... continue reading
Appearing on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports on Friday, NBC chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd made a celebratory declaration: "Look, Democrats, for the first time probably in 18 months, you see them walking with confidence. This White House seems confident again ....the Republicans in a 48-hour period gave Democrats something to run on. And you see a pep in the Democratic Party step that we haven't seen since the 2012 election." [ Listen to the audio ] So what was the GOP contribution to the supposed comeback? Todd referred to House Republicans suing the President over abuses of power and... continue reading
Talking to Megyn Kelly on Thursday's NBC Late Night , host Seth Meyers touted how the Fox News anchor had recently "sort of grilled" former Vice President Dick Cheney and "called him to task for...the things he was wrong about with Iraq." Meyers worried: "...was that terrifying? Is it terrifying to call out Dick Cheney?" [ Listen to the audio ] Kelly dismissed the notion: "Not at all, no....You know, that is what I do for a living." She went on to recall: "...[Dick Cheney], Liz Cheney, and Lynne Cheney went on a Politico round table afterwards and Mike Allen... continue reading
Former Bill Clinton operative turned Good Morning America host George Stephanopoulos on Friday spun for his ex-boss in the wake of newly released audio about Osama bin Laden. In the recording from September 10, 2001, Bill Clinton justified not ordering the killing of the terrorist mastermind: "I could have killed him, but I would have had to destroy a little town called Kandahar in Afghanistan and killed 300 innocent women and children and then I would have been no better than him." [MP3 audio here .] Talking to Brian Ross, Stephanopoulos touted that the administration "could never be sure bin... continue reading
Appearing on CBS's Late Show with David Letterman on Wednesday, former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney asserted that he had been a completely objective reporter for Time magazine before becoming a spin doctor for the Obama administration: "Right after the election in 2008, I was the Washington bureau chief for Time . And I was an old-fashioned journalist, not an advocate, didn't take sides in my job. But I was extremely excited personally about the Obama-Biden victory." [ Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump ] In 1993, the "old-fashioned" Carney described then-First Lady Hillary... continue reading
Carol Costello badgered Congressman Matt Salmon on Thursday's 9 AM EDT hour of CNN Newsroom over Congress choosing to go into recess instead of dealing with issues like illegal immigration: " Congress is again the butt of jokes on late-night TV. Rome burns and lawmakers go on vacation ....Why don't you guys just stay in Washington and deal with problems like immigration?" Costello later hounded the Arizona Republican for the House of Representatives' vote to sue President Obama, and wondered, " Why didn't Republicans vote to impeach the President then? " She also rattled off a list of GOP politicians... continue reading
Late Thursday morning, Mediaite’s Eddie Scarry came across a particularly disparaging tweet that CNN anchor Bill Weir sent to his over 49,500 followers Wednesday evening regarding a post on the Fox Nation Web site about Al Gore and global warming: “ Climate Doesn’t Cooperate With Al Gore’s Group’s Visit to Denver EPA Hearings .” In commenting about the Fox Nation post, he referred to Fox as "you willfully ignorant fucksticks." More from Scarry: On Thursday, the Twitter account for Fox Nation, a blog run by Fox News, tweeted a link to a post headlined “Climate Doesn’t Cooperate with Al Gore’s... continue reading