[VIDEO] DEEP STATE: Unnamed Sources Try to Undermine Trump Foreign Policy
Posted: February 3, 2017 Filed under: Foreign Policy, Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank, White House | Tags: Deep State, Donald Trump, Howard Kurtz, leaks, media, State Department, video Leave a comment
[VIDEO] Howard Kurtz: Media ‘War’ Overshadows Trump’s Early Moves
Posted: January 25, 2017 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Donald Trump, Fo News, Howard Kurtz, journalism, Kelly Anne Conway, media, news, Oval Office, video Leave a comment
[VIDEO] The Kelly File: Republican Debaters Unite Against Common Enemy: Moderators
Posted: October 29, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Carly Fiorina, CNBC, Donald Trump, Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox News Channel, Howard Kurtz, media, Megyn Kelly, Menstruation, news, Oregon, Republican Party presidential primaries, video Leave a comment
Chris Stirewalt and Howard Kurtz break down the CNBC GOP debate on ‘The Kelly File’Watch Chris Stirewalt, Howard Kurtz, and Megyn Kelly talk about Elections, Presidential Primaries, and Republicans on Mediabuzz and The Kelly File.
One-Third of Americans – and 51 Percent of Democrats – Favor Hate Speech Laws
Posted: January 8, 2015 Filed under: Censorship, Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank, U.S. News | Tags: Charles Krauthammer, Democratic Party (United States), Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox News Channel, Henry M. Jackson, Howard Kurtz, Hubert Humphrey, Joe Lieberman, Republican Party (United States), The Weekly Standard 2 CommentsNick Gillespie writes: Today we are Charlie Hebdo. But what about tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow?
I think most observers would agree that over the past 20 years or so, we’ve been witnessing a paradox when it comes to free speech. On the one hand, it’s easier than ever before to express oneself, especially in a public way (thank you, internet).
[Read the full text at Reason.com]
On the other hand there is a huge attack on all sorts of speech that can in any way, shape, or form be deemed offensive. From trigger warnings to microaggressions and everything in between, all speech is suspect these days.
In popular culture, there are outliers such as South Park, Family Guy, and Tosh.O, where the envelope of taste and propriety is not so much pushed as shredded completely. Just in terms of comedy, does anyone think Inside Amy Schumer or Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s “Beloved Aunt” episode would have seen the light of day when Janet Reno, the Clinton administration, and all of Congress was voting overwhelmingly for the Communications Decency Act?
That terrible law would have regulated the emergent web like a broadcast network in the name of protecting kids from sexual material. It only was gutted after the Supreme Court struck it down in 1997. Christ, back in the 1990s, Bill Bennett and Joe Lieberman were giving our “Silver Sewer Awards” to Rupert Murdoch and the Fox Network for airing Married…With Childrenand The Simpsons, and The Weekly Standard was making “The Case for Censorship“!
Which makes it more important not simply to show solidarity with the dead and wounded in France but to rehearse the arguments for unfettered trade in ideas and speech. A good place to start is the reissue of Jonathan Rauch’s more-important-than-ever book Kindly Inquisitors. Originally released in 1994, the Cato Institute republished as 20th anniversary edition and Reason.com published a new foreword by Rauch.
And yet for all our expressive freedom, there’s a huge pushback against speaking freely, especially on college campuses and in many news platforms. Chris Rock doesn’t play colleges anymore because audiences are buzzkills:
I stopped playing colleges, and the reason is because they’re way too conservative…. Not in their political views — not like they’re voting Republican — but in their social views and their willingness not to offend anybody. Kids raised on a culture of “We’re not going to keep score in the game because we don’t want anybody to lose.” Or just ignoring race to a fault. You can’t say “the black kid over there.” No, it’s “the guy with the red shoes.” You can’t even be offensive on your way to being inoffensive.
You.GovAs unimpeachable a progressive satirist as Stephen Colbert was targeted with a #CancelColbert campaign while mocking Redskins owner Dan Snyder’s devotion to his team’s nickname and mascot image. Lefty comic and actor Patton Oswalt no longer reads Salon because
…they write articles “Did The Onion Go Too Far?” or “ Is Patton Oswalt Supporting Rape? ” They already know the answer, but they know by feigning ignorance they can create all this debate about it. It upsets me because I used to really, and still do sometimes, love the articles Salon writes. They used to have Heather Havrilesky and Glenn Greenwald, and now they have become Fox News with all this look-y look-y shit. It hurts progressives. It’s very personal but the fact is that that they want comedians to think twice, three times, four times about any kind of comedy.
A YouGov poll taken just last fall found that equal amounts of Americans support and oppose “hate speech laws,” defined as laws that would “make it a crime for people to make comments that advocate genocide or hatred against an identifiable group based on such things as their race, gender, religion, ethnic origin, or sexual orientation.”
[Order Jonathan Rauch‘s more-important-than-ever book “Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought“, Expanded Edition]
Thirty-six percent said sure and 38 percent said no way. That’s disturbing enough on its own, but here’s something even more unsettling: Fully 51 percent of self-identified Democrats supported hate-speech laws.
That’s not good. Read the rest of this entry »
Kurtz: Media Blackout Shields ObamaCare Architect Who Bet on Public Stupidity
Posted: November 17, 2014 Filed under: Censorship, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News, White House | Tags: CNN, Howard Dean, Howard Kurtz, Jonathan Gruber (economist), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mika Brzezinski, Morning Joe, MSNBC, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Paul Krugman, Ronan Farrow, The New York Times, The Washington Post, United States 1 CommentHoward Kurtz: I’ve been trying to figure out why the mainstream media has all but decided to ignore one of ObamaCare’s chief architects saying the administration played on the public’s stupidity in passing the law.
After all, the press usually loves when hidden video surfaces, as it did this week with MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, and we get unvarnished comments showing what someone really and truly believes.
And yet there hasn’t been a mention on the network evening newscasts. CNN’s Jake Tapper, to his credit, played the clip twice, asked two senators about it and wrote an online column on the subject, but that was about it for the network. Nothing in the Washington Post but for a couple of online items.
(Update: The Washington Post finally got around to covering the controversy today, three days after it broke.) Not a word in the New York Times, which in 2012 ran a puffy profile of Gruber (“It is his research that convinced the Obama administration that health care reform could not work without requiring everyone to buy insurance”).

image – businessweek.com
This is utterly inexplicable, except as a matter of bias. No matter what you think of ObamaCare, on what planet is this not news? Maybe on that comet where the spaceship just landed.
I tried to think of the possible excuses. Too busy covering other stories? Hey, nobody in America has Ebola anymore! The only real competition is a big winter storm and Eminem disgustingly dropping F-bombs at HBO’s Veterans Day concert.
Was Gruber’s point about health care taxes and mandates too complicated? Then explain it. Besides, it isn’t that this argument never came up before; it’s that Gruber fesses up to the attempt at deception. Read the rest of this entry »
Carol Costello Apology Countdown Clock
Posted: October 27, 2014 Filed under: Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Brian Stelter, Bristol Palin, Carol Costello, CNN, Costello, ESPN, Howard Kurtz, Stephen Smith, Washington Post 1 CommentTICK TOCK CNN media reporter: Costello deserves all the criticism she’s getting TICK TOCK TICK TOCK
Hot Air‘s Ed Morrissey writes:
And CNN deserves some too, although their media reporter Brian Stelter didn’t go quite that far yesterday. Give Stelter credit for covering the controversy at all, though; he’s not an ombudsman or Carol Costello’s editor, after all, but just CNN’s media-beat analyst. Stelter provides a fair, if limited, look at Costello’s giggly adolescent delight at hearing Bristol Palin recount an assault in an audio clip, but doesn’t get around to discussing CNN’s responsibility for the segment or Costello’s refusal to apologize on air:
Stelter’s predecessor went a little further. Howard Kurtz, now at Fox, said his former employer should make Costello apologize on air:
That brawl in Alaska involving Sarah Palin’s family has gotten a lot of media attention. And when police audio was released, CNN anchor Carol Costello played it. And, boy, did she think it was a hoot. …
How on earth is that funny? Would Carol Costello have said enjoy if, let’s say, Chelsea Clinton was getting roughed up? Now Sarah Palin is…(more)
At Mediaite, Joe Concha thinks an on-air apology may come today. CNN is out of options, Concha writes, and the controversy won’t go away:
In the past 72 hours alone, the Washington Post’s respected media writer, Erik Wemple–who has described Costello as “outstanding” in the recent past–has called on her to apologize on CNN air. Fox’s media analyst–Howard Kurtz–stated on Sunday’s Media Buzz the following: “Carol is a good journalist, but to make fun of the woman (Bristol Palin) in this episode no matter who started that brawl is horribly insensitive.” Kurtz added a need for Costello to apologize on-air as well.…(more)
If you’ve forgotten Costello’s take on Stephen Smith, it took place in late July, after Smith actually did apologize on air for suggesting that Janay Rice played a role in the incident of domestic violence that put the NFL under the microscope this season. Read the rest of this entry »