Communism

Just a hunch, but I'm guessing that George Orwell would get a huge kick out of Orwellian interpretation of his work. Such a travesty occurred on MSNBC's "The Cycle" this past Tuesday when one of its hosts, Krystal Ball -- yes, that's actually her name and, no, apparently she's not a stripper -- weighed in on what Orwell's novella "Animal Farm" actually means. (Video after the jump)

Guess who's all of a sudden standing up for law and order? Why, it's radical environmentalists, who despite their general disdain for lawful behavior have felt compelled to speak out in support of the Bureau of Land Management's attempts to round up Cliven Bundy's cattle and ultimately force the Nevada rancher to abandon his family's century-old business. Martin Griffith at the Associated…

On April 1 for its April 2 print edition, the New York Times allowed Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro to hold forth in an op-ed about how wondrously the country has been ruled since 1998, mostly by the late Bolivarian thug Hugo Chavez and during the past year by himself. Maduro's piece made the Times's print edition. The Times posted letters objecting to Maduro's characterizations of his…

Pushed back from the headlines, massive protests against the repressive Nicolas Maduro regime in Venezuela continue. So do the killings by the "colectivos." If this group of thugs enforcing Maduoro's Chavista socialist nightmare were instead right-wing paramilitary types, they would long since have been christened "death squads" and garnered international attention. A story about the…

Brickbats to Phillip Rawls and his layers of editors at the Associated Press. Vietnam war hero and former Alabama Senator Jeremiah Denton died on Friday. He was an incredibly courageous and inspiring man who after his return from 7-1/2 years as a POW in North Vietnam became deeply troubled at where this nation was (and still is) headed. Unsurprisingly, he became a strong pro-life and family…

First Lady Michelle Obama is wrapping up her tour of China today and even though the American press was shut out from her trip, the First Lady has received glowing coverage of her taxpayer-funded visit. Despite the already over-the-top praise, NBC’s “Today” had a unique take on the trip. Appearing on Sunday, March 23, CNBC’s Eunice Yoon commented that both Mrs. Obama and the wife of the…

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman went on PBS’s Charlie Rose show Monday night and defended President Obama’s soft foreign policy approach to the crisis in Ukraine. [Video below. MP3 audio here.] Of that approach, which so far has consisted of sanctions against 11 Russian and Ukrainian officials, Friedman said:

Rust never sleeps, Neil Young warned in an album of the same title back in 1979. And so it is with revisionism from the left, especially when it comes their failed utopia of yore, the Soviet Union. For nearly 20 years after the unforgettable night in 1989 when a long-divided Berlin was finally reunited, American leftists bit their tongues about the Soviet Union, embarrassed by its abrupt…

(Update: a video initially included in this post was blocked immediately by the International Olympic Committee on "copyright grounds." An audio clip has been added.) Gee, where would anyone ever get the impression that high-profile liberals working in American media have a deathless soft spot for Soviet Russia? True, one does come away with that impression in only a specific, narrow…

It’s hard to imagine, but for many years, conservatives and Republicans were rather common in Hollywood. Exploring that history is worth doing not just because it is informative but also because it illustrates that there is no good reason that people on the Right could not have a bigger presence in that industry today. Arizona State University professor Donald Critchlow has done an important…

It's hard to know what's more ridiculously entertaining when choosing between Jesse A. Myerson's "Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For," the illogical screed in Rolling Stone which would lead to the enslavement of those about whom he claims to be concerned, or Myerson's tweets as the opprobrium has poured in. Since Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters has handled Myerson's…

Nicholas D. Kristof (I've tended to call him "Nick" through the years) has made and implemented a momentous, course of civilization-altering decision effective 1/1/2014 (HT Twitchy): "If you look closely at my Times byline ... I’ve knocked out my middle initial for the new year." Why oh why would Nick want to do that? "I think in the Internet age, the middle initial conveys a formality that…

The fascination with and excuse-making for long-gone communist dictators responsible for the murders of millions during their reigns is a long-standing phenomenon. Both CNBC and the New York Times continued that hoary tradition last week. Each headlined reports on the 120th anniversary of the birth of Mao Zedong (whose name was written as Mao Tse-Tung until about two decades ago) with "…

Of the three major broadcast networks’ Saturday morning shows, CBS This Morning: Saturday gave the most background information on Colorado high school shooter Karl Pierson. To their credit, CBS reported on one particular Facebook post that gives us a window into Pierson’s ideological leanings. Correspondent Barry Petersen mentioned it at the top of the second hour of the show: [Video below.…