Tea Parties

To the surprise of no one, MSNBC ran to find the nearest token Republicans it could after shocking news that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) dropped out of Speaker of the House race and once such person was MSNBC political analyst and former 2008 McCain campaign adviser Steve Schmidt, who railed against the GOP for “hunting heretics” and not “converts.”

Mere moments into House Speaker John Boehner’s press conference on Friday discussing his resignation on October 30, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC were quick to chastise conservative House members on Boehner’s “far right flank” that compose the “no compromise crowd” and “some grassroots conservatives who happened to be elected members of the House.”

During Monday’s The Kelly File on the Fox News Channel (FNC), host Megyn Kelly and The Five co-host Dana Perino excoriated the liberal media for committing a double standard in their portrayal of the tea party, which they called racist, compared to the Black Lives Matter movement. Kelly noted the media reluctance to characterize the latter even after protesters chanted that police officers are “…

Miami Herald sportwriter and columnist Greg Cote, whose career has entered or is about to enter its third decade, seems to have incorporated a sideline into his work: glib, ignorant political commentary. One such example surfaced at the end of his August 25 Random Evidence blog post. Apparently, Cote believes that anyone who has ever received any kind of government benefit or has made use of a…

On Thursday, Curtis Houck at NewsBusters noted how the Big Three networks and the two leading Spanish-language networks ignored the latest developments in the now 813 day-old IRS targeting scandal. As usual, only Fox News covered a congressional hearing on, in Fox's words, "the lack of accountability following the IRS targeting of tea party and other groups" as well as a federal judge's threat "…

Earlier today, Geoffrey Dickens at NewsBusters noted how the Big Three morning network news shows on NBC, ABC, and CBS failed to cover President Barack Obama's denial that the Internal Revenue Service ever went after Tea Party and other conservative groups in his appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Specifically Obama said that "it turned out no ... the truth of the matter is there was…

On Thursday night, the major broadcast networks ignored a new development in the IRS scandal that the agency erased 422 backup tapes and in turn destroyed 24,000 e-mails of embattled former official Lois Lerner. With ABC, CBS, and NBC on the sidelines, the Fox News Channel’s Special Report offered a full report on Thursday’s House Oversight Committee hearing concerning the multi-year scandal.…

According to MSNBC pundit Michelle Bernard -- best known at NewsBusters perhaps because of her insistence that there is a "war on black boys" in America -- savaged newly-announced GOP presidential aspirant Dr. Ben Carson tonight by alleging his success is all owed to "affirmative action." She also suggested that he's a disgrace to his enslaved ancestors and to the black community in Baltimore,…

Sunday's New York Times editorial page came once again to the defense of the Internal Revenue Service against the depredations of congressional conservatives, even suggesting the IRS's targeting of Tea Party groups amounted to nothing: "...payback demanded by House Republicans to penalize the I.R.S. for daring to scrutinize Tea Party operations that tried to claim exemptions under the tax code…

On Tuesday’s NBC Nightly News, NBC News national correspondent Peter Alexander reported on the current makeup of the Republican presidential field in 2016 on the heels of news that the Republican nominee in 2012, Mitt Romney, has begun reassembling his campaign staff to make a third bid for the White House. In the course of mentioning former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as one of those…

On Tuesday night, each of the major broadcast networks devoted time to covering the swearing in of the 114th Congress and the race for House Speaker that saw John Boehner retain his post, but not without 25 conservatives voting in dissent against the incumbent Republican. Overall, the networks lamented how the group presented “a thorny obstacle to Boehner's leadership” and, in turn, will force…

Longtime journalist Tim Russert, who among many other things hosted NBC's Meet the Press for over 17 years, passed away suddenly in June 2008. His son Luke now works for NBC, and among other things is a Meet the Press panelist. Based on some of his more recent output, Luke is perhaps better described not a journalist, but as the network's desginated childish, mean-spirited namecaller. After…

Reporters Carl Hulse and Robert Pear teamed up in the New York Times to lament the decline of cooperation in Congress -- a hypocritical stretch in particular for Hulse, whose reporting invariably has a partisan Democratic tone. The slant was clear in this survey of wisdom from four retiring congressmen, two Democrats and two Republicans. While dubious talk of compromise emanated from the mouths…

As I noted almost two weeks ago, hundreds of protesters in Manhattan repeatedly shouted "What do we want? Dead Cops! When do we want it? Now!" during that city's version of the so-called "Justice For All" marches which took place in several locations around the nation on December 13. The New York Times failed to report the protesters' rants in its original coverage of the marches. The fact that…