Communism

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.…

Earlier this week, NBC Sports announced that "Moscow-based TV journalist Vladimir Posner (also frequently spelled "Pozner") will be a correspondent for NBC Olympics’ late-night show with Bob Costas during the Sochi Games." To call Posner's background "problematic" is like saying that Bob Filner, former Democratic Mayor of San Diego, has a bit of a problem with how he treats members of the…

On the Friday, December 6, All In with Chris Hayes show on MSNBC, during a discussion of Nelson Mandela's support for violent resistance, the Daily Beast's Michael Moynihan admitted that the former South African leader had a "moral failing" because he "associated with" dictators who "did the same things to their people" as "was done to him." Referring to an article by Moynihan on the subject…

On Friday's PoliticsNation, MSNBC's Karen Finney accused Republicans of practicing their own form of "apartheid" by "separating people and dividing people" as she and host Al Sharpton discussed comments some right-leaning public figures have made in the aftermath of Nelson Mandela's passing. Referring to former Senator Rick Santorum comparing Mandela fighting against the oppresssion of…

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated 50 years ago by a Communist sympathizer, yet Friday’s Morning Joe on MSNBC ran a package that emphasized right-wing hate in Dallas while failing to mention Lee Harvey Oswald or his ideological leanings. The package, narrated by Brian Shactman, focused on the “unspoken speech” that President Kennedy was planning to give on the day he was shot.…

Enough years have passed since the demise of the Soviet Union that the politics of one of its closest allies is forgotten when convenient. Among those with selective memory is actor, filmmaker and outspoken liberal political activist John Cusack. When not appearing on either side of a camera, Cusack is a prolific tweeter as anyone following his Twitter feed is aware.

At the White House on Thursday, President Obama let his radical leftist slip show when he accepted a 67 year-old letter from from Ho Chi Minh to U.S. President Harry Truman given to him by Vietnam's current president Truong Tan Sang and spoke of the letter's contents: "... we discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and…