Communism

As George Orwell said, "some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them." Many stupid ideas originate with academics on college campuses. If they remained there and didn't infect the rest of society, they might be a source of entertainment, much in the way a circus is. Let's look at a few stupid ideas peddled by intellectuals.

On Tuesday’s Morning Joe, prominent New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof came on the show to promote his latest piece based on his recent trip to North Korea. The resultant segment’s melding of Kristof’s sentiments reflecting NYT’s pro-communist “Red Century” series combined with Joe Scarborough and his fellow panelists’ tendency to paint Trump as a dictator added up to produce the perfect…

On Wednesday, I criticized Helen Gao at the New York Times for praising the "emancipation of women" in China under communist tyrant Mao Ze Dong. I also noted that in 2005, Times columnist Nicholas Kristof had engaged in similar "Mao was not all that bad" argumentation while reviewing a book conclusively showing that the death toll under Mao was over 70 million.

On Friday’s Morning Joe, Willie Geist hosted a panel to discuss the latest news on the Russian hacking narrative regarding Facebook ads that were purportedly used by Russian intelligence to stoke "racial tensions" during the 2016 presidential election. The panel’s primary reaction, with only one dissenting voice, was to call for increased government "regulation" and financial “penalties in the…

In its roughly 30th installment of "Red Century," a weekly series of op-eds dedicated to the notion that 20th century communism wasn't all that bad, the New York Times performed a bit of perhaps inadvertent recycling. On Monday, Helen Gao, in an item the Times appears to have had the good sense to keep out of its print edition, argued, with "crucial caveats" (but not enough of them) that "the…

"The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher plain." -- Sen. George McGovern (D-SD) Filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick have performed a vital public service in making their documentary "The Vietnam War" for PBS. Given the division that war caused in America, it is a pretty fair chronicling of the way things…

An alliance of far-leftists and Never-Trumpers has formed a group called the "Committee to Investigate Russia." In a video posted on Monday, octogenarian actor Morgan Freeman contended that the United States is "at war" with Russia. On Thursday, Fox News's Tucker Carlson interviewed actor and director Rob Reiner, a member of that group's advisory board. Despite Reiner's outwardly cool demeanor,…

On Friday’s Morning Joe, the show’s panel reacted to the latest developments in the heated standoff between North Korea and the United States with exasperation, fear, and loathing, but not just at Kim Jong-un. In fact, Trump was the target of the greater wrath and consternation of the panel because he once again said mean things about North Korea’s ‘Dear Leader’ and his devil’s den of a country.

Not surprisingly, Lyin’ Brian Williams prevailed during the Media Research Center’s 30th Anniversary Gala featuring the 2017 DisHonors Awards as the winner of the Dan Rather Memorial Award for the Stupidest Analysis thanks to a bonkers quote about life in communist Cuba. The Federalist’s Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway served as the category’s presenter while House Freedom Caucus Chairman and…

A boisterous crowd of nearly 900 conservatives and guests packed the National Building Museum on Thursday night for the Media Research Center’s 30th Anniversary Gala featuring the 2017 DisHonors Awards. After the audience selected the most outrageous quote in three categories, the crowd singled out Every Single Person We Don’t Like in the Liberal Media for the ultimate “DisHonor” of being the MRC…

On Wednesday’s Morning Joe, the guests and hosts actually had a moderately balanced (particularly by MSNBC standards) discussion running for much of the broadcast with respect to evaluating Trump’s address to the United Nations General Assembly yesterday.  However, in a segment with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski facilitated her unleashing…

On Monday's Morning Joe, MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski made a remarkable comeback performance after being away both Thursday and Friday of last week. Somehow, in her obsessive ranting centered around Trump’s retweet of a random Twitter user’s joke and another tweet that called Kim Jong Un “Rocket Man,” Brzezinski managed to fit in enough nonsense to fill at least three days of normal MSNBC content…

On Friday's Morning Joe, Katty Kay, English anchor for BBC World News America, came to the baffling conclusion that Vietnam is “a temple of capitalism and commitment to all of the things that Americans hold dear,” and documentary filmmaker Ken Burns seemed to agree.

Appearing as a guest on Monday's Tavis Smiley show on PBS, liberal actor Martin Sheen claimed that the United States is to blame for causing so many immigrants to leave Central American countries and travel to the U.S. as he complained about past interventions in some of those countries. The liberal actor concluded that "we're looking at what we have wrought."