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WASHINGTON -- Sen. Bob Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, lives along so many fault lines of American politics that he is especially sensitive to Trump tremors, which he fears could become an earthquake by November. “I’m concerned,” he said. “Beating Donald Trump won’t be as easy as it might look.” Casey is a pro-life, pro-gun Roman Catholic in a state that Democratic consultant James Carville once described as “Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Alabama in between.” He is also an old-school Democrat and a new-school one: He's pro-union and wary of global trade; he defends Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare and same-sex...

Thursday on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” while discussing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s presidential forum, the editorial director of The Huffington Post Howard Fineman said Trump is appealing to the “dark heart of fear” and “trafficking in hate.”

A sneering group of MSNBC hosts and analysts on Thursday berated Sean Hannity for his "mindless" anti-government attitude, mocking him as "pathetic." The Fox News host gave an interview to Playboy magazine in which he dismissed much of the federal government as "dysfunctional." Ex-Newsweek editor Howard Fineman, who has bragged about "steering clear of partisanship," slammed Hannity for having a "deliberate lack of self-awareness [that] is just stunning." Speaking of the federal government, Fineman continued, "One of the reasons why the system is so dysfunctional is because of the mindlessly accusatory nature of what he...what they [conservatives] do." The journalist,...

Fox Business’s Don Imus had a delicious trifecta Thursday trashing three perilously liberal journalists in less than 90 seconds. After telling Jonathan Alter to “shove” his request to come on the program and hawk his new book, Imus called Howard Fineman a “sniveling little weasel” and Jon Meacham a “phony b*st*rd” (video follows with transcript and commentary): DON IMUS: "I’m in a horrible mood because of a couple of reasons. And I don’t like it when people tell me what a great friend they are of mine, because I know it’s nonsense. And here’s, you don’t need to tell me...

Oh, my! Perhaps that explains this indecipherable frantic tweet that Mr. Fineman posted earlier.#Obama in dm register tre— Howard Fineman (@howardfineman) October 28, 2012 Heh. Cat got your tweet, toots? Twitter users can’t resist some jabs over that one.@howardfineman your tweets are really hard to decode.— Dave Devitt (@sydcon) October 28, 2012 @howardfineman Is that you Senator Grassley?— Gus (@Gus_802) October 28, 2012 Looking at @howardfineman's recent TL, I'm convinced he's drunk or dictates his columns at HP.— Slim Pickens (@Mattie96) October 28, 2012 HuffPo editor and MSNBC analyst Fineman continues. Basically, that Des Moines Register endorsement of Romney?...

This started out as a comment but morphed into a post. Thirdpower points out Elliot Fineman of National Gun Victims Action Council (NCVAC)’s apparent descent into lunacy. I don’t think he “descended” at all. I think he started out there and hasn’t stopped digging. I think that Elliot is the reason NGVAC started and he’s the reason that NGVAC has suddenly stopped being newsworthy. Fineman thought he was the Honey Badger, but in reality he was the crazy aunt in the anti-gun attic. No one on his side had the balls to go out on the offensive against the “gun...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I made mention of something at the end of yesterday's program. You may not have heard it. Howard Fineman. He's always been at Newsweek, for as long as I've been doing this, Howard Fineman's been at Newsweek, but he's not a Newsweek anymore. He's now over at the Huffing and Puffington Post. And he occasionally still has his guest shot over there at MSNBC. Now, Howard Fineman once came in and did a week-long tag-along with me as he was writing a cover story on me for Newsweek in the mid-nineties. And then on Thursday of that...

Former Newsweek editor Howard Fineman appeared on Monday's Hardball to smear the Republican Party as "xenophobic" and "nativist." Fineman lamented that Mitt Romney doesn't have the courage to take on the base, a group he mocked as being "afraid of the world." Fineman is now the editorial director for the liberal Huffington Post, an outlet in sync with his own left-wing views. Matthews and the journalist discussed Huma Abedin, an aide to Hillary Clinton who Congresswoman Michele Bachmann connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. Asked why Romney won't take on people like Bachmann, Fineman assailed that the presumptive GOP nominee has...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: This is Howard Fineman last night on PMSNBC's The Last Word. Fineman now left Newsweek, as you know, and he's over at the Huffing and Puffington Post and they're having a discussion about Newt's debate performance last night. This was Howard Fineman's review. FINEMAN: Newt Gingrich, with this crowd and with these people here who want a fighter -- who like cockfighting, who like the hardscrabble, who like the confrontational approach -- that's what Newt Gingrich gives them. It may be shortsighted of them going down the road, but these people here in this state want to...

Media Bias: What do you call someone who advises the White House on how to get its latest stimulus spending idea through Congress? These days, you'd probably call him a mainstream journalist. On Tuesday, MSNBC's liberal talk-show host Chris Matthews was pitching his idea about how President Obama could sell his new stimulus plan, arguing that the White House should offer specific examples of jobs created in congressional districts and "force" Republicans "to say yes or no to creating jobs in their own districts." Howard Fineman, who serves as the Huffington Post's senior political editor, liked the idea so much...

Is that a groan I hear from Olbermann?

Chris Matthews and Howard Fineman on Friday had a mutual Obamagasm while cameras rolled on MSNBC's "Hardball." As the adorable couple chatted about the Koran burning scandal, and of course blamed the entire controversy on Republicans such as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Oh.), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, the Newsweek columnist unashamedly started the love-fest. "Well, sitting there in the press conference today with President Obama, you could almost hear sort of the classical music in the background," cooed Fineman. "It was a stately thing, and a mature discussion." "I get you," echoed...

On Tuesday morning's Laura Ingraham radio show, Newsweek reporter Howard Fineman pleaded "no contest" in Latin to the conservative host's lecture that Newsweek was too busy celebrifying Barack and Michelle Obama to weigh whether Obama would succeed as president. (Audio here.) He insisted the magazine was "mesmerized" by a "brilliantly run campaign," as if it wasn't also about their liberal wishes and dreams: INGRAHAM: How is it though with all these smart people at Newsweek – I went around the block with Evan Thomas about this as well. How did you all think that a guy who basically went from...

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do The press finally falls out of love with Obama. By Howard Fineman | NEWSWEEK Published Mar 12, 2010 From the magazine issue dated Mar 22, 2010 Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, was 50 minutes late for his briefing, apparently a record for tardiness, but few reporters in the White House press room bothered to feign outrage; they didn't seem all that eager to ask him questions anyway. When his boss flew to Missouri to give another of his "high octane" (The New York Times), "impassioned" (The Washington Post) health-care speeches, no cable...

The Iceman Cometh He's Cool, Calm, And Out To Get Obama. by Howard Fineman Published Feb 12, 2010 The blizzard had paralyzed Washington. So it was an apt day for a chat (by phone) with Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who is working successfully—yet with surprisingly little personal notoriety—to bury the Barack Obama presidency in an unplowed cul-de-sac called the U.S. Senate. As the GOP leader there, McConnell strands Democrats in snowdrifts of parliamentary procedure and nasty talking points. "We are not just reflexively looking for areas where there will be no progress," he assured me. Having spent many...

My conclusion: this guy is a heat-seeking missile aimed straight at Barack Obama

Here is video of Howard Fineman telling Keith Olbermann that President Obama "dominated the room" in his State of the Union Address last night. In fact, the gushing Fineman said that "if Presidential Leadership were only about giving speeches, the jackhammers would already be at work on Mount Rushmore." He really said that! This for a speech that was way too long, arrogant in tone, and incredibly disjointed. His attack on the U.S. Supreme Court with them sitting right in front of him was classless, and shows the kind of "hit and run" arrogance he has that leads him to...

A Year In, How Obama Can Turn Things Around Cut your losses, confess your sins, create jobs, and be a populist By Howard Fineman msnbc.com WASHINGTON - Life is about choices, and so is a presidency. When the history of Barack Obama’s is written, the scribes will look at his decision to focus on health care and to let Congress write the bill. The verdict will likely be harsh. He used up his political capital — and may not even get any legislation, now that Republican Scott Brown, who campaigned against it, swept to victory in the Senate race in...

Roger Ailes Is The Real Head Of The GOP Howard Fineman Newsweek Published Jan 15, 2010 I've been trying to answer this question: does the Republican Party have a "leader"? Surely it's not Michael Steele, the loose-lipped chairman of the RNC. Not Mitch McConnell, the funereal Kentuckian who heads the Senate's rejectionist GOP minority. Not Sen. John McCain; he's too busy watching his own right flank back home in Arizona. And certainly not the Bushes, elder and younger, hunkered down in Texas. As for the 2012 wannabes, none gets more than a fifth of the GOP vote in the early...

Last fall, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel remarked, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before." That quote has become part of a rallying cry for conservatives, that those currently in power are trying to create the perception of a crisis to force things through the legislative process that couldn't be done otherwise. That has been dismissed by those on the left as fear-mongering and the party in power is acting in good faith based on what their constituents want. But on...