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Speaker Pelosi named finalist for Time magazine 'Person of the Year' By Jordan Fabian - 12/14/09 05:21 PM ET House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is among the seven finalists chosen for Time magazine's annual "Person of the Year," according to media reports on Monday. Other finalists in the realm of politics include last year's winner President Barack Obama, Afghanistan commanding Gen. Stanley McChrystal and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. "Look, she's the first woman Speaker of the House. She's the strongest Speaker of the House in decades," Time managing editor Richard Stengel said of Pelosi on NBC's "Today" show. "She...

Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz presented quite a paradox in a Charlie Gibson profile Monday. The retiring ABC World News anchor said that "it’s time to move on" since objectivity is "less of a marketable commodity." But Kurtz also underlined how Gibson dared to keep airing live coverage of Ted Kennedy’s funeral until they were able to broadcast the reading of Ted Kennedy’s letter to Pope Benedict. These passages came late in the article: Gibson worries whether broadcast networks will be able to support sizable editorial staffs in an era of declining audiences, when cable news channels are louder...

"As long as people believe in absurdities, they will continue to commit atrocities." —Voltaire "Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true." —Demosthenes A long, long, long time ago, many people believed the Earth was flat, but for more than the last 2,000 years few educated people have subscribed to this delusion. The story (included in some textbooks used in American schools) that Christopher Columbus' 1492 voyage was the first proof that the Earth is round and not flat is deceitful historical revisionism, nothing more. For (literally) thousands of years, people...

A predictable update to yesterday’s Change. Every time I post a poll that’s bad news for conservatives, some denialist will show up in the comments to insist that (a) all polls are bunk and/or (b) this particular pollster is particularly bunk-ish. You and I call that person a troll. Obama calls him his press secretary. No video, but I like to imagine that he punctuated this with the fingers-in-the-ears “la la la la” routine while reporters shouted follow-ups. The punchline? Gallup’s numbers, at 47/46, were actually better than the numbers The One’s been pulling at Rasmussen and CNN lately.

Democrats are debating the tactic of labeling Republicans the “party of no.” Senior strategists in the party argue the label at best has outlived its usefulness, and at worst will do nothing to win new Democratic votes in the 2010 elections. “The Democrats are making an enormous mistake when they say the Republicans are the party of no,” said Paul Begala, the veteran Democratic strategist who worked in President Bill Clinton’s White House. Democrats began describing the GOP as the party of no after every House Republican voted against the $787 billion economic stimulus bill in February. The label has...

Executives at National Public Radio recently asked the network’s top political correspondent, Mara Liasson, to reconsider her regular appearances on Fox News because of what they perceived as the network’s political bias, two sources familiar with the effort said. According to a source, Liasson was summoned in early October by NPR’s executive editor for news, Dick Meyer, and the network’s supervising senior Washington editor, Ron Elving. The NPR executives said they had concerns that Fox’s programming had grown more partisan, and they asked Liasson to spend 30 days watching the network. At a follow-up meeting last month, Liasson reported that...

Having urged the president to honor his commitment to the Afghan war, we Republicans must honor our commitment to support him as he fights it. Given the public unenthusiasm for the conflict, there will be political temptations to “go rogue” on the president, if not now, then in the summer of 2010. That will be our test, for us to pass as the president has passed his. I know many Republicans and conservatives will say: “Hey – the Democrats did not give President Bush support when he most needed it.” Correct. They didn’t. And the country suffered for it. The...

Yglesias opines: "I know some liberals who are excited about the prospect of a joke candidate like Sarah Palin or Dick Cheney getting the GOP nomination in 2012. Not me. The basic fact of the matter is that power tends to alternate between the two political parties. Ultimately, the nation’s interests require both parties to nominate the best people possible. So I hope the Republicans find someone who’s very smart and compelling and does an excellent job of identifying and explaining the flaws in Barack Obama’s approach. Cheney couldn’t possibly win a presidential election...unless somehow he could, in which case...

"Members of the Health Access protest group stage a crime scene-like 'body pile-up' as part of their campaign against what they say is the poor state of US Healthcare in Los Angeles"

Senator Inhofe: Well, on this thing, it is pretty serious. And since, you know, Barabara Boxer is the Chairman and I’m the Ranking Member on Environment and Public Works, if nothing happens in the next seven days when we go back into session a week from today that would change this situation, I will call for an investigation. ‘Cause this thing is serious, you think about the literally millions of dollars that have been thrown away on some of this stuff that they came out with. Melanie Morgan: So what will you be calling for an investigation of? Senator Inhofe:...

Psalms 109:8, Anti-Obama Web Cry: 'Let His Days Be Few; and Let Another Take His Office' A nice sentiment? Maybe not. The psalm reads, "Let his days be few; and let another take his office." Presidential criticism through witty slogans is nothing new. Bumper stickers, t-shirts and hats with "1/20/09" commemorated President Bush's last day in office. But the verse immediately following the psalm referenced is a bit more ominous: "Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow." The slogan comes at a time of heightened concern about antigovernment anger. Earlier this year, the president's senior adviser, David...

Texas' gay marriage ban may have banned all marriages AUSTIN — Texans: Are you really married? Maybe not. Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Houston lawyer and Democratic candidate for attorney general, says that a 22-word clause in a 2005 constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages erroneously endangers the legal status of all marriages in the state. The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that "marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman." But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares: "This state...

"But as I realized back in my Wasilla mayor days, life is too short to hold a grudge." By the time the reader reaches that pronouncement on page 321 of "Going Rogue," Sarah Palin has nursed enough grudges to last a lifetime. She describes the McCain campaign's chief strategist Steve Schmidt's "rotund physique" and his penchant for smoking to "keep his cognitive connections humming along." She claims that her Troopergate nemesis Hollis French earned the nickname "Gunny" after he listed himself as a Marine Corps private when he "merely attended a weeks-long military course during college." Media strategist Nicolle Wallace...

Uninsured patients with traumatic injuries, such as car crashes, falls and gunshot wounds, were almost twice as likely to die in the hospital as similarly injured patients with health insurance, according to a troubling new study. The findings by Harvard University researchers surprised doctors and health experts who have believed emergency room care was equitable. "This is another drop in a sea of evidence that the uninsured fare much worse in their health in the United States," said senior author Dr. Atul Gawande, a Harvard surgeon and medical journalist. The study, appearing in the November issue of Archives of Surgery,...

After a week of blame throwing centered around the Fort Hood shooting, including a round of highly placed stories leaked by anonymous government sources, the shooters motivations are still cloudy. Was he motivated by radical jihadist hatred of America, mental illness, alienation, fear of deployment, or all of the above? As details emerge, President Barack Obama has called for a review of all intelligence surrounding Hasan and whether agencies shared information and acted correctly. The review, headed by John Brenan, assistant to the president for homeland security, is due Nov. 30th. Meanwhile the critics on the right are using the...

ABC’s Good Morning America finally picked up on the deep bow President Obama performed for the Emperor of Japan over the weekend. Co-host Diane Sawyer ran through how other U.S. Presidents have greeted either Emperor Akhito or his father, the late Emperor Hirohito over the years — some bowing, some not. Sawyer claimed that Americans are “not trained to greet royalty” and “it’s just too confusing.” Actually, the government employs lots of experts on culture and protocol to make sure that our presidents are fully “trained” on what to do when they represent our government overseas — which is not...

Barack Obama left his 2.6 million fans on Twitter, the social networking website, bemused, disappointed and mildly irritated by admitting on Monday that he had never used the service himself. "Let me say that I have never used Twitter," he told students in Shanghai. "I noticed that young people are very busy with these electronics. My thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone." During his election campaign, Mr Obama portrayed himself as "connected" to the people through Twitter and his ever-present blackberry phone. Some of his more understanding fans asked if it was any real surprise...

Freepers!...we're losing the image war. Photographs of the wounded at Fort Hood do not circulate among the major media. The wounded in Vietnam were commonly depicted in a way which maximized the public disgust with the war effort but the victims of jihadists are not shown in such an emotional way. The blood of civil rights demonstrators and marchers were commonly shown in the '60s and the image of the murdered and mutilated Emmett Till is a common icon to this day. But there is a lack of circulation of 9-11 pics (outside conservative media), mall shootings, Jihad victims, and...

The new focus of the investigation is a manipulated suicide for the insurance money.

Had CNN spliced footage of a sparsely-attended Capitol Hill rally to discredit the reports of large numbers of attendees to the 9/12 rally in September, conservatives would have rightly howled about media bias. What will conservatives say about Fox News splicing footage of the 9/12 rally into coverage of Michele Bachmann’s otherwise well-attended rally last week? Jon Stewart gives Fox News a well-deserved poke in the eye for fudging the footage, as well as exposing rather clearly its source:

It’s an Obama infomercial! No, a Lesbian Night on the Fox channel? Wait, it’s a soft porn comedy hour on a major American television network. Actually, it's none of the above. It’s the premiere of the Wanda Sykes Show, a new one-hour program competing in the late night lineup. But at this juncture, it’s hard to tell what the show really is. The much buzzed “late-night show by the first gay black woman” with warnings of adult language and content conjures up an array of possibilities. Sadly, none of them really go anywhere in this perplexing presentation masquerading as hip....

While no one yet knows what ignited Major Nidal Malik Hasan's murderous rage Thursday afternoon, Nov. 5, at Fort Hood, the kindling was hiding in plain sight. The Army had ordered Hasan, wrestling with the conflicting demands of being a soldier, a psychiatrist and a Muslim, to the post with the highest toll of Army suicides. Fort Hood is one of the Army's most stressed posts because of its units' revolving-door deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. Finally, the Army made clear that Hasan couldn't escape his own pending deployment to Afghanistan, where he'd have to salve the mental wounds of...

Remember the case of the Census worker who was found hanging from a tree with the word ‘fed' scrawled across his chest? You remember - he died at the hands of right-wing commentators and anti-government tea partiers. He was killed because of an overwhelming case of right-wing paranoia. He was murdered by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachmann, and Fox News. Keep this quiet though... While the death of Bill Sparkman was a media sensation for pushing anti-conservative sentiments just a couple of months ago, it is receiving little to no coverage currently. Why? Because, as investigators have recently speculated,...

At least one Democratic political strategist has gotten a blunt warning from the White House to never appear on Fox News Channel, an outlet that presidential aides have depicted as not so much a news-gathering operation as a political opponent bent on damaging the Obama administration. Political consultants are a staple of cable television talk shows, analyzing current events based on their own experiences working on campaigns or in government. One Democratic strategist said that shortly after an appearance on Fox he got a phone call from a White House official telling him not to be a guest on the...

Democrats have some thinking to do after Tuesday's elections, but Republicans don't have time to think. They're too busy trying to survive the party's internal purge and avoid being shipped off to political Siberia. Will loyal members inform on others for harboring suspiciously moderate views? Will anyone judged guilty have to wear a sign saying "Republican In Name Only" as penance? Will there be re-education camps? Will deviationists face the Enhanced Interrogation Technique of being forced to listen to the wit and wisdom of Glenn Beck, at ear-splitting volume, for days on end? Or worse: When Sarah Palin's memoir, "Going...

Does the National Journal's Hotline inhabit the same universe as the rest of us? Republicans went two-for-three in last night's big races. But in declaring Winners and Losers among non-candidates involved with the campaigns, the only Losers Hotline saw were . . . Republicans and conservatives, with nary a Dem in sight! Chris Matthews was only too happy to seize on the Hotline hitlist during his Sideshow segment on this evening's Hardball. Here were Hotline's three Losers: * Sarah Palin: for jumping into Hoffman's losing cause, whereas McDonell and Christie didn't invite her in and won. * Pete Sessions: the...

I opened ABCNews.com the day after the Democrats and Obama got destroyed in the election and what do you know. This is what is in the right hand column (YOU CAN'T MISS IT) A Look Back The 2008 Election: The 2008 Election PHOTO President-elect Barack Obama waves to supporters during his election night party at Grant Park in Chicago, Tuesday night, Nov. 4, 2008. ELECTION MAP REPLAY: How Obama Won the White House Obama Promises New Dawn of Leadership '08 Election Is One for the Record Books EXITS: Economy Allows Obama to Remake Map WATCH: Obama's Road to the White...

Be prepared to see more of Levi Johnston than you ever wanted to see. The 19-year-old who fathered a baby born out of wedlock to Sarah Palin's teenage daughter Bristol is about to pose nude for Playgirl magazine. Also, with Palin's book "Going Rogue" set for release this month, some publications may follow Vanity Fair's example in October by granting the high school dropout a byline. In that piece, Johnston claimed that Palin did not nurture her children - or cook or clean - while husband Todd tinkered in the garage or slept on a black recliner in the living...

WASHINGTON – For Republicans, an election win of any size Tuesday would be a blessing. But victories in Virginia, New Jersey or elsewhere won't erase enormous obstacles the party faces heading into a 2010 midterm election year when control of Congress and statehouses from coast to coast will be up for grabs. It's been a tough few years for the GOP. The party lost control of Congress in 2006 and then lost the White House in 2008 with three traditional Republican states — Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia — abandoning the party.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., stumping here Monday for the Democratic candidate in a special House race that has attracted national attention, tried to capitalize on infighting among Republicans over the race by calling on moderate members of the party to "join us in teaching a lesson to those absolutists." "They may not have any room for moderate views in the Republican Party upstate anymore, but let me assure you: We have room," said Mr. Biden, said at a pre-Election Day rally for Democrat Bill Owens.

In an October 28, 2009 House Judiciary Committee hearing, Congressman Steve King questions NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on comments he made regarding Rush Limbaugh. Notice how Goodell never answers the question

Pathetic. The DNC is urging supporters to attack private citizen Sarah Palin on Facebook. From the DNC website: If Sarah Palin wants to spread lies on Facebook, we’ll call her out in the very same place. Click the share button below to share our note — and make it clear that people who lie about reform will be held accountable, no matter where they spread their misinformation. The DNC is furious at Sarah Palin for suggesting that their nationalized health care plan would increase costs, drive up the deficit, squeeze out private insurers, and ration care.

Here is video of a Morning Joe Panel today discussing Sen. Joe Lieberman's statement that he will not support a Health Care Bill with a "Public Option." They said Lieberman has signaled he will simply not support what the Democrats are trying to do, and they tried to say it is because he is too closely tied to the Insurance Industry. The whole panel was made of liberals - Mika Brzeznski, Mike Barnacle, and Lawrence O'Donnell - and you can tell they are really put out with Lieberman! . . . (VIDEO)

I was just reading one of my daughters "history" books called, "Call to Freedom". (credit is given to "CNNfyi.com" so I knew this was going to spell trouble.) In a chapter called "The Great Society", the book brags about LBJ's accomplishments in poverty. Here's a quote..."Partly because of Johnson's Great Society, poverty in the US decreased. Overall unemployment levels stayed low and the percentage of Americans living below the poverty level dropped to about 12% by 1969. Americans' income levels rose more during the 1960's than they had during the prosperous years of the 1950's". There are chapters devoted to...

Great news...ridiculous analysis. There have been a lot of bad days recently for what’s come to be known as the mainstream media — or MSM — but Monday was one of the worst. New circulation figures showed that big city papers had lost as much as a quarter of their circulation in the past six months. And new TV ratings showed that CNN, the cable network that prides itself on news coverage down the middle, finished dead last in prime time against more partisan rivals like Fox News and MSNBC. Are the two connected? Yes, but not at all in...

Gaffney: "You have got a sanctimony factor here that is extraordinary." I managed to watch two MSNBC programs last night attempting to defend Barack Obama from Dick Cheney's incisive criticism over "dithering" in Afghanistan before my blood pressure hit 300. On the Right, they featured former Congressman Tom Tancredo and foreign policy expert Frank Gaffney, respectfully. Their opponents on the Left were: The Ed Show: Joan Walsh of Salon.Hardball with Chris Matthews: Ron Reagan.Really? Ron Reagan&'s expertise is in ballet, ungrateful nepotism, and smug sanctimony. Gaffney, the clearest mind in foreign policy for 30 years, was ever-unflappable and took...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is defending his decision to endorse a liberal Republican candidate in the special election for New York's 23rd Congressional District even though she is a Margaret Sanger Award winner and supporter of same-sex "marriage." New York Republican congressional candidate DeDe Scozzafava not only has the backing of Planned Parenthood and The Daily Kos, but her campaign has also received financial endorsements from the Republican National Committee and Republican leaders such as House Minority Leader John Boehner, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Gingrich recently said Scozzafava's election could be the...

ORLANDO, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - A proposed state guideline for dealing with an influenza pandemic is causing quite a stir. The Florida Department of Health is proposing that health care providers, notably hospitals, pull the plug on the most critically-ill patients in order to treat "healthier" patients.

The White House must be so proud. Following their lead, the state-run media is now boldly bashing FOX News, too. The former news magazine known as Newsweek is now calling FOX News “un-American.”

<p>TEL AVIV – President Obama's presidential campaign focused on "making" the news media cover certain issues while rarely communicating anything to the press unless it was "controlled," White House Communications Director Anita Dunn disclosed to the Dominican government at a videotaped conference.</p>

HAMMOND, La. (AP) - A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long. Neither Bardwell nor the couple immediately returned phone calls from The Associated Press. But Bardwell told the Daily Star of Hammond that he was not a racist.

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell today demanded that CNN and MSNBC prove that radio talk show king Rush Limbaugh uttered a racist quote they have attributed to him as fact after Limbaugh publicly denied having ever said, “Slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back. I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark” on his nationally syndicated airwaves. "CNN and MSNBC must immediately and publicly source when Limbaugh uttered this phrase. He has unequivocally denied it. Now it is up to the same news media that reported...

Months of Republican attacks on President Barack Obama’s health-care proposals appear to have hurt the party, according to a Quinnipiac University poll. The survey found 64 percent of voters disapproving of the way Republicans in Congress are doing their jobs, with 25 percent approving. Also, 53 percent had an unfavorable opinion of the party in general, while 25 percent rated it favorably. The performance of Democratic lawmakers was disapproved of by 56 percent, with 33 expressing approval. For the party in general, 46 percent expressed disapproval, 38 percent approval. Asked who they trusted to do a better job on the...

If you didn't already have reason enough to avoid Keith Olbermann's left-wing screeching on Countdown, here's another one: Tonight (Wednesday), for the first time, he will devote his entire MSNBC hour, sans relief for commercials, to a “Special Comment” -- the kind of high-handed pontificating, laced with mean-spirited and cheap insults toward conservatives, so far confined to the last 8 to 11 minutes of the 8 PM EDT/5 PM PDT program re-run at 10 PM EDT/7 PM PDT. “Special Comment Hour” topic: “Health Care Reform: The Fight Against Death.”

According to ABC correspondent Claire Shipman, the botched Olympic bid by Barack Obama is actually a "good" thing for the President. Writing an online column for True/Slant, Shipman bizarrely spun, "It would have been great had he come home a winner. Great for all of us. But maybe not so much for him. Why? Because then he would have then [sic] really irked his critics."

At a time of tension between their organizations, White House senior adviser David Axelrod met with Fox News chairman and chief executive officer Roger Ailes two weeks ago The two met privately in Manhattan during the president’s visit to the United Nations. The two discussed news coverage and the relationship between the organizations. Ailes is the founder of Fox News. A key part of Axelrod’s portfolio is the president’s image and broad message White House officials have expressed pique with what they consider heavy coverage of Obama critics by opinion shows on the news channel.

Band asks Fox News talking head to retract endorsement. British prog rockers Muse have made no secret of their desire to conquer America with their bombastic fifth album, The Resistance. From their over-the-top VMA performance to multiple magazine covers and countless interviews, the band has put the full-court press on to woo U.S. fans. But that doesn't mean they're willing to accept all comers. Take, for example, frequently weepy, left-wing-conspiracy-touting Fox News talking head Glenn Beck. It seems the man who earlier this year referred to President Obama as a "racist" is a huge Muse fan. Beck tweeted his love...

Over the last week, Big Hollywood and Big Government have been extensively covering the August 10 conference call between the National Endowment for the Arts and a group of artists – a call on which the artists were encouraged to support President Obama’s agenda, with the tacit promise that they would be handsomely rewarded with government grants. The NEA representative on the call was then-Communications Director of the NEA Yosi Sergant. Now we have new evidence that the White House itself has been using its sway to recruit artists – not just to support President Obama’s “volunteerism” initiatives, but to...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Activists gathered outside a downtown strip club Monday to denounce as racist a banner depicting President Obama as the Joker from Batman. "Not only is it an attack on the president, but also on all men and people of African descent," King Salim Khalfani, president of the Virginia NAACP, said of what he called "the abomination that's on the wall" outside Club Velvet. The banner, unfurled within the past few days, depicts Obama as Heath Ledger's grotesque Joker character from "The Dark Knight." The president is shown with smeared red lipstick, a white face and darkened...

Newcomers to political activism may be surprised to learn that this summer was not the first time the Left had used lies and distortions to smear its opponents as racist. As David Horowitz pointed out Monday, this is the Left's defining modus operandi and has been for a generation: as he writes, "the left’s chief political contribution to American politics is witch-hunts." Another chief contribution would be the myths that undergird those witch-hunts. On the health-care front, we've seen MSNBC talker Ed Schultz lie to transform protest signs into death threats (even though the correct wording was on the...